One of the reasons I’ve been sharing my recipes is because one of the “antidotes” to cultural appropriation is “find you own culture.” **
Well, this is mine. The two formative cooks for me (my grandmother and my dad) never shied away from canned vegetables, margarine, and starches. They knew how to stretch a meal, on less money than Shoryl and I spend on groceries for two. My grandmother came of age in the Depression, and my dad, well, my dad had kids at home for 40 years.
When you start moralizing about food – about good and bad, healthy or junk, dirty or clean, or whatever dichotomy you choose, you’re devaluing my family’s – my culture’s – ability to feed ourselves quickly and cheaply.
It took friends here and elsewhere to remind me that White people have their own cultures (many!), and that is hidden when we accept White as default. (I know many White people for whom my recipes seem unusual.)
Anyway. So that’s one reason I post these. To celebrate what I’ve been taught. To acknowledge where I came from. To share.
**A ridiculous oversimplification, but the full discussion is beyond me just now.
Inappropriate Metaphor 