"Authentic": what does that mean, anyway?

[C. sapidus]

eipi10: I understand where you are coming from, and largely agree. If a restaurant has taken the trouble to find authentic ingredients, it gives an indication that they care about the food. Non-authentic often means watered-down or emasculated food, designed not to offend. On the other hand, a restaurant may adapt a traditional recipe to use fresh local ingredients. This would be non-authentic, but not necessarily worse.

Whether non-authentic food bothers me depends on the situation. If I want to learn how a dish is “supposed” to taste, I may be disappointed if the dish has been adapted. If I expect a dish to taste a certain way, I might be disappointed by a change or I might be delighted. If my goal is to eat food that pleases the senses, I don’t necessarily want a talented chef to be constrained by tradition.

Pontormo: your Alan Lomax analogy is excellent. During the folk revival of the 1960s, acoustic blues musicians in their dotage were honored in Greenwich Village clubs, while electric blues musicians in their prime were scorned as non-authentic. In reality, electric and acoustic musicians were both authentic expressions of a long musical tradition. Music and cooking adapt to incorporate (or reject) new ingredients and new technologies.

[Milagai]

Recently, I had a meal in a traditional Japanese izakaya restaurant. The yakisoba came with portabello mushrooms in it. I'm fairly certain that Japanese don't really use portabello mushrooms in their cuisine. This says to me one of two things; they either don't know or don't care about the regional cuisines they are trying to produce. Other examples I've come across are beef dishes in Indian restaurants and cheese on Italian seafood dishes.

Now, I'm known to put foie gras and duck into my potstickers every now and then, but I'm not running a Chinese restaurant.

Any other interesting examples?

Does this bug anyone else as much as it bugs me?

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who said beef is not authentic to indian cooking?

there are large non-hindu indian communities who

"authentically" eat beef. so areas with large non-hindu

populations (e.g. kerala, goa) have distinctive beefy regional

cuisines. so why should not indian restaurants have beef?

some of "outsiders" perceptions of authenticity appear to

be based on lack of information.

that bugs *me*

second point: what's "authentic" anyway? culinary traditions,

like any traditions, are dynamic and evolve with history.

nowadays who can imagine italian cuisine without tomatoes

or indian cooking without chillies? all revolutionary imports

a mere few centuries ago.

milagai

[hsimay]

In many of the traditional japanese restaurants (yakitori, izakaya joints etc) they do use portabello mushrooms or non typical produce which is popular nowdays. Foie gras yaki and portabello teriyaki etc.

Call it an globalisation in cuisines where produce once not available locally is largely abundant and the ever inventive chefs create new dishes out of them and owning that produce.

In Australia, where is a large immigrant population, they are blessed with the many varieties of produce once non-native, such as green vegetable, Bok Choy, japanese kumara (sweet potato) etc. All these now make up we were call Australian Cuisine. Who would have thought a chinese vegetable, Bok Choy has become a local aussie vegetable.

In Hong Kong and many other chinese restaurants there is a growing trend incorporating non-native produce and creating dishes that they can call their own. Deep fried foie gras dishes, zucchni flower or eggplant fries. Totally foreign in their ingredients but putting their signature in the ingredient. Only in HongKong do chefs deep fry foie gras!

I'm crazy about indian food, and like many other cultures, they have a huge variety of different sub-cuisine. The Parsi have beef dishes, and other non-hindus have them, there is the non-hindus moguls who have great beef seek kebabs. India is such a big country, you can't just categorise indian food under one roof. There is the portugese influenced Goan dishes or Kerala (who uses coconut instead of milk in their curries , well known for their seafood dishes). Chenai for its vegetarian dishes.

I'm chinese, and there is a huge difference between the difference chinese sub-cultures. Example, I can't take pekingese (salty/vinegar inspired) or szechuan (pungent spicy pepper) because I grew up with a southern chinese palate which consist of fresh ingredients without the heavy spices/sauces, bland with flavors coming mainly from the use of its fresh ingredients, much like Osaka cuisine.

I can't take American Chinese food in general, they are adulterated and definately not "authentic".

Recently, I had a meal in a traditional Japanese izakaya restaurant. The yakisoba came with portabello mushrooms in it. I'm fairly certain that Japanese don't really use portabello mushrooms in their cuisine. This says to me one of two things; they either don't know or don't care about the regional cuisines they are trying to produce. Other examples I've come across are beef dishes in Indian restaurants and cheese on Italian seafood dishes.

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[Milagai]

I'm chinese, and there is a huge difference between the difference chinese sub-cultures. Example, I can't take pekingese (salty/vinegar inspired) or szechuan (pungent spicy pepper) because I grew up with a southern chinese palate which consist of fresh ingredients without the heavy spices/sauces, bland with flavors coming mainly from the use of its fresh ingredients, much like Osaka cuisine.

I can't take American Chinese food in general, they are adulterated and definately not "authentic".

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[annecros]

What the heck does "authentic" mean, anyway?

In what contexts? "Authentic" Mexican or Chinese only has meaning, for example, if you treat those vast cuisines as monoliths -- which isn't a very authentic way to treat them.

Who wants "authenticity"? What does that desire mean?

Anyone want to start us off with a pleasantly assertive definition?

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a quick down-and-dirty definition might include the synonyms bona fide, genuine, real, true, undoubted, unquestionable ....

used in the context in which I did in the food trends thread? Authentic Italian cuisine as opposed to American-Italian cuisine ... that was all I meant, chrisamirault ...

nothing either fancy nor convoluted ...

Mario and Lidia versus Chef Boyardee ...

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Hmm. And I suppose you will concede that there is an authentic Italian American Cusinine that does not encompass Chef Boyardee?

[Anna N]

Italians are up in arms as tomatoes are added.  It ain’t carbonara anymore. 

Here.

[gfweb]

It wasn't as though NYT claimed it was the proper way to make carbonara. It was a variation.

 

Like a turkey reuben. Not a reuben, but a variation.  I admit, turkey reubens make my blood boil; so I sympathize with the carbonara militants, but really...

[jimb0]

i can't be bothered to care, frankly. one of the chefs they quote suggests it's the equivalent to putting salami in a cappuccino. uh, no. they also complain that anything but pine nuts in a pesto is basically a crime. no, sorry, it's a delicious variation.

 

there is something to be said for acknowledging tradition, but if the nyt took a hardline stance, it would take it out of reach of a number of americans. it would require a pretty good drive to find guanciale even now, where i grew up, for example. i think bacon and parmesan are fine. 

 

“This isn’t remotely close to being a carbonara. Stop this madness,” i mean. lol. it's pretty close. i think making a dish with ingredients that hit all the same notes as the original is a completely valid interpretation. 

 

52 minutes ago, gfweb said:

It wasn't as though NYT claimed it was the proper way to make carbonara. It was a variation.

 

Like a turkey reuben. Not a reuben, but a variation.  I admit, turkey reubens make my blood boil; so I sympathize with the carbonara militants, but really...

 

i think a turkey reuben would be ok imo if the turkey were equivalently cured. just using sliced deli meat isn't quite the same (but neither would i really get upset). outside of sheer arrogance, for me to get annoyed at food things requires pretty much outright duplicity.

[blue_dolphin]

I passed over the recipe when I first saw it in the NYT but all the wailing has piqued my interest. 

I used to frequent a restaurant in LA that served a pasta carbonara con fungi.  An abomination perhaps but a darned tasty one!

Maybe I'll try the tomato recipe. 

 

[weinoo]

9 minutes ago, jimb0 said:

i think bacon and parmesan are fine. 

 

“This isn’t remotely close to being a carbonara. Stop this madness,” i mean. lol. it's pretty close. i think making a dish with ingredients that hit all the same notes as the original is a completely valid interpretation. 

 

Bacon is not equal to guanciale.  At least use pancetta. Which to my taste is closer, but still not the same.

 

And sheep's milk cheese is not equal to parmesan, but that sub is not as egregious.

[jimb0]

2 minutes ago, weinoo said:

 

Bacon is not equal to guanciale.  At least use pancetta. Which to my taste is closer, but still not the same.

 

And sheep's milk cheese is not equal to parmesan, but that sub is not as egregious.

 

the audience for nyt cooking is not the audience for egullet, for example, and it's the latter type that is up in arms.

 

most of america would be fine with the substitution. and to be honest, the three meats are much more alike than they are different. it's not about doing an exact replica, it's about making something that hits similar flavour notes. using something like bacon and parmesan makes it much more likely that a lot of home cooks would find it easy to source the ingredients and cook this dish. and once you get comfortable making a dish like this a few times, maybe you'll reach out and try and source some more "traditional" variants. getting upset at making it easier for rando cooks in small towns to cook good food is just culinary gatekeeping.

[weinoo]

Actually, I think these are the perfect times to seek out the less than easily available ingredients.

 

What you're implying is that Franklin Barbecue's brisket could be substituted for my grandmother's at Passover. Probably not.

[Tropicalsenior]

51 minutes ago, jimb0 said:

It was a variation.

There are some classics that when you change the ingredients they completely become something else. I'm afraid I'm a little bit of a purist on this. The hair on the back of my neck goes up when I see recipes or menu items labeled Chicken Caesar, Fettuccine Alfredo with Mushrooms, Salmon Carpaccio. The classic was made one way and one way only and if you change the ingredients, it is no longer that dish.

Adding just one word to the title of the recipe would have made a big difference. They could have called it "Carbonara Inspired Tomato Pasta" and I would have been completely fine with it.

Jimbo was right when he said that a lot of home cooks don't have an opportunity to resource the proper ingredients, but it is kind of sad to think that this is what a whole lot of people will think real carbonara tastes like.

Edited February 25, 2021 by Tropicalsenior
Grammar (log)

[jimb0]

21 minutes ago, weinoo said:

Actually, I think these are the perfect times to seek out the less than easily available ingredients.

 

What you're implying is that Franklin Barbecue's brisket could be substituted for my grandmother's at Passover. Probably not.

 

i feel like you're deliberately misunderstanding me in order to maintain your outrage. i've never had either but if your grandmother smokes her brisket (i assume this is what franklin's does) and does an interpretation of a southern barbecue sauce, then sure. but i assume she doesn't and you're just being pithy.  

 

we're talking about evoking similar flavour profiles here, not taking a completely different tack on cooking and seasoning.

 

again, i think many of you are a little blind when it comes to what's easy and appropriate for a lot of cooks to find. first, in a pandemic? no, people shouldn't be going out of their way to find rando things that aren't available near them. secondly, if i were to go back home right now, i don't have the first clue where i would find guanciale, for instance. 

 

7 minutes ago, Tropicalsenior said:

There are some classics that when you change the ingredients they become completely something else. I'm afraid I'm a little bit of a purist on this. I'm afraid that the hair on the back of my neck goes up when I see a recipes or a menu items labeled Chicken Caesar, Fettuccine Alfredo with Mushrooms, Salmon Carpaccio. The classic was made one way and one way only and if you change the ingredients it is no longer that dish.

Adding just one word to the title of the recipe would have made a big difference. They could have called it "Carbonara Inspired Tomato Pasta" and I would have been completely fine with it.

Jimbo was right when he said that a lot of home cooks don't have an opportunity to resource the proper ingredients, but it is kind of sad to think that this is what a whole lot of people will think real carbonara tastes like this.

 

but the variation is implied in the name of the recipe. they didn't call it "Traditional Italian Carbonara", they called it a tomato carbonara. i don't find this sad at all. i love the idea of opening up food to people who aren't stuffy traditionalists. this is going to taste way, way closer to a traditional carbonara than what most people have probably had access to, which is a frozen or pre-prepared meal from the grocery store. i bet noone in half my family tree has ever had an italian chef prepare carbonara. most of them probably don't even have a concept of what the dish is. 

 

this is a completely reasonable interpretation.

 

a lot of food variation comes about via localization and that's completely and totally fine. the current and popular incarnation of carbonara is a 20th century invention; next we'll be complaining about the loss of the ancient tradition of ciabatta.

[Tropicalsenior]

26 minutes ago, weinoo said:

Actually, I think these are the perfect times to seek out the less than easily available ingredients.

For those of us that have the means and opportunity, that may be true but in my case just as an example, it becomes even more difficult. I live in Costa Rica and just the other day I was checking something on Amazon and the product cost $17 but it would be $34 shipping. Because I've been in isolation, going to Chinatown or too many of the small specialty shops that carried import items has been out of the question and many of the small specialty shops have closed permanently. During the height of the pandemic they were not considered essential businesses and they just couldn't survive.

Some things are classic and call for special ingredients and until I can get them I just won't make them.

[Eatmywords]

Ahh, the recipe authenticity argument rears it's ugly.  Tweak a couple ingreds and it's no longer that dish.  Who's to say what and how many chgs make it no longer worthy to ref the name?  Having 'Smoky Tomato' before Carbonara', I think gets her a pass in that it clearly implies this is not a traditional version.  The problem is that we have this globally recognized set of recipe names that cooks feel they have to reference for acceptance esp for the masses who just started cooking around this time last year.   

 

Ling Carbonatamato?

[Anna N]

I have never had “real” carbonara.  Don’t think I’ve ever tasted fake carbonara either. But I am pretty certain during the massive immigrant influx into New York City at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, Italians adapted. Just as they adapted and adopted tomatoes in the 15th or 16th century. Try to imagine Italian cuisine without tomatoes. So I think there’s a little posturing going on here. But if it serves as a catalyst for a polite but vigourous discussion then I am all for it.

[chromedome]

This whole line of debate has recently reached (to my mind) its reductio ad absurdam:

 

https://www.adweek.com/creativity/mcdonalds-poses-existential-question-big-mac-bacon-still-big-mac-175654/

 

 

[Tropicalsenior]

9 minutes ago, jimb0 said:

45 minutes ago, weinoo said:

Actually, I think these are the perfect times to seek out the less than easily available ingredients.

 

What you're implying is that Franklin Barbecue's brisket could be substituted for my grandmother's at Passover. Probably not.

Expand  

 

i feel like you're deliberately misunderstanding me in order to maintain your outrage. 

I'm not outraged I'm just a little sad. There are a few Classics it I do feel strongly about. The ones that I mentioned.

I think that you will find that most of the outrage has come from the Italian Community. There are some national dishes that they do feel very strongly about. The Italian government has even gone so far as to publish and official recipe for bolognese.

Regional favorites fall into a completely different category. Take for instance goulash. Every region, every family, and even members within a family all make it differently. I probably made it a few hundred times and I have probably never made it the same way twice. That's how it should be. Food evolves with the times and the availability of ingredients.

I suppose that the one thing that irritates me about this topic and keeps me ranting is the bloggers that will take a wonderful classic, change it completely, and call it by it its original title just to have something different to put on their site.

Classics became Classics because of their unique flavors and originality. If you want to change it fine, just call it something else.

[jimb0]

6 minutes ago, chromedome said:

This whole line of debate has recently reached (to my mind) its reductio ad absurdam:

 

https://www.adweek.com/creativity/mcdonalds-poses-existential-question-big-mac-bacon-still-big-mac-175654/

 

 

 

(*intentionally takes your post seriously*) imo a big mac is mostly a big mac because it has (essentially) thousand island dressing on it. i dunno if a bacon changes that equation but i'll happily say it's almost certainly delicious. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

[gfweb]

Is Vanilla Coke still coke?

[Paul Bacino]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯   _ never seen that one      ,,,,,   

 

[Eatmywords]

17 minutes ago, Tropicalsenior said:

I'm not outraged I'm just a little sad. There are a few Classics it I do feel strongly about. The ones that I mentioned.

I think that you will find that most of the outrage has come from the Italian Community. There are some national dishes that they do feel very strongly about. The Italian government has even gone so far as to publish and official recipe for bolognese.

Regional favorites fall into a completely different category. Take for instance goulash. Every region, every family, and even members within a family all make it differently. I probably made it a few hundred times and I have probably never made it the same way twice. That's how it should be. Food evolves with the times and the availability of ingredients.

I suppose that the one thing that irritates me about this topic and keeps me ranting is the bloggers that will take a wonderful classic, change it completely, and call it by it its original title just to have something different to put on their site.

Classics became Classics because of their unique flavors and originality. If you want to change it fine, just call it something else.

But you see the naming challenge?  How do you keep it short w some instant recognition?  - 'Spag w bacon, tomato, eggs and parm' doesn't do it.   

[chromedome]

16 minutes ago, jimb0 said:

 

(*intentionally takes your post seriously*) imo a big mac is mostly a big mac because it has (essentially) thousand island dressing on it. i dunno if a bacon changes that equation but i'll happily say it's almost certainly delicious. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

I have no opinion to offer on the subject, because McDonald's burgers (alone among the major chains) have always caused me a couple of days of, uh...gastrointestinal distress. I'll grant you that I haven't had one since the "pink slime" scandal broke.

[jimb0]

1 minute ago, chromedome said:

I have no opinion to offer on the subject, because McDonald's burgers (alone among the major chains) have always caused me a couple of days of, uh...gastrointestinal distress. I'll grant you that I haven't had one since the "pink slime" scandal broke.

 

weird since there's nothing that's that strange about them. i wonder honestly if it's something else in the sandwich than the meat that you have an intolerance to.

 

give me all the pink slime, though. mcnuggets are the freaking bomb. i can easily go for a run and then eat a 40-pack with some hot mustard. mmmmmm.