I'm reminded of the sketch "going for an English" from Goodness Gracious Me where they take the piss out of drunk English people going to Indian restaurants - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-uEx_hEXAM it's pretty funny.
As a "white person", I find this movement to be quite interesting. I've often thought about how I don't actually really feel "American cuisine" is a thing, even though there are definitely things that are American in origin.
Likewise, when they said "white people food", I didn't know what to think it would be. Obviously not food from countries where white people are the minority, but what would it be?
I feel like it probably started out as the plain food that I often eat, but at some point "white people food" was transformed into this idealized, healthy, waste-free food that is mentioned in the article.
I don't like the implication that non-"white people food" is the opposite of that, but I'm not upset about the name or casual racism of calling it that otherwise.
> I've often thought about how I don't actually really feel "American cuisine" is a thing, even though there are definitely things that are American in origin.
I suspect that's in part because a lot of American cuisine is regional
Like:
* BBQ + fixings
* Tex-mex (definitely a fusion cuisine, but also distinct from Mexican)
* Cajun
* Not sure how to describe "generic southern food", but stuff like ham hock, collard greens, candied yams, corn bread, etc.
* Philly cheese steak
* Various US-local pizzas like Chicago deep-dish
There's probably a lot more regional food traditions in the US; I'm just not as familiar with them.
There is a Pennsylvania Dutch tradition. My wife, who was born into it, says that it is based on sugar, vinegar, and bacon fat. That seems a little dismissive. The tradition includes such items as Lebanon bologna, scrapple, smoked sausages, corn pie (summer), oyster pie (winter), and shoo-fly pie.
I've often thought about how I don't actually really feel "American cuisine" is a thing, even though there are definitely things that are American in origin.
I had the same problem, and then I asked and moved out of the country. If it helps you at all, from an American that moved to Norway:
Tex-mex, pizza, and BBQ (Texas bbq for some things, Sweet Baby Ray's sauce in the grocery store) are what seems to be the most popular in Norway.
And then you have diners. A friend in the philippines once said American food was Ruby Tuesdays. There isn't one of those locally, but there is a Friday's. It claims to serve American stuff. These would probably be the best comparisons alongside stuff above. There was one "American Diner" here that served things like a more traditional American breakfast, things like chicken fried steak, and the like. (They've closed recently). And I've been to one more "traditional" diner with a lot of Americana decor from the 50's and served fairly typical diner fare (think Steak and shake or something similar in their most basic form).
If grocery stores are targeting me, I most commonly wind up with things like box Macaroni and cheese (which I pay way to much for) and American peanut butter brands, usually the only choice for creamy peanut butter. The local peanut butter tends to be chunky, but tend to be unsweetened.
Despite the presence of whole tex-mex and pizza aisles in grocery stores, at least the food for local dishes is still a staple and well-stocked in every grocery store. I think, for example, 2/3s of the pre-made options are varieties of Norwegian dishes.
This stuff to me, at least, is more exotic than what's popular (I am also an American in Norway), in part of its cultural significance whereas pizza, Chinese food, etc. have lost a bit of its unique charge of exoticism precisely because it has been completely commoditized (and I also grew up in NYC where those two examples feel ubiquitous and that impulse has reached Europe in a big way.)
It sounds culturally insensitive at best, but this feels awkwardly racist due to the literal translation. I don't think this phenomenon would get as much press coverage if it was about 'black' or 'yellow' people food.
It's very Han, they are just like that, relax and enjoy, the whole sensibilities western thing never flew behind the language barriers and outside of the western studied upper crust.
He means culture war-style political issues. I am not Chinese but it’s my understanding that they are way less fussed about being “politically correct” as an American would understand it. Calling someone “a Black” or “an Asian” in American English sounds rude but in other cultures it doesn’t.
Make no mistake, Asians are unabashedly racist, so you may be onto something. Anyone who lived in East Asia would confirm this. So many “no foreigners allowed” and “Japanese only” places.
However, given the context (and equivalence to “healthy food”) it’s hardly racism as you mean it.
I have a friend with a Japanese wife he met in California (he's French), they got married in Japan and lived there for a couple years, and their decision to finally come to France was because the racism became aggressive when they were together in public.
A white guy alone was fine, a white guy holding hand with a beautiful (subjective, but honestly she could be a model) japanese girl? Even his coworkers were disrespectful, which I find baffling.
There are various attempts to explain why people are getting into this, but they all seem like rationalisations to me. A lot of people just like things that are new and different. That's all. And fair play to them.
Also:
>" It’s not about the pleasure of eating the texture of the food. It’s just like: ‘this is good fibre and lots of nutrients and I’m going to eat it,’ and I think that is actually a very American way of thinking about eating,”
It isn't but I think it can be. In my rural part of the southeast I see more and more people making better food choices (myself included). Maybe the person interviewed is taking the long view of that trend.
I dunno - some of it seems quite healthy in fact: "A typical lunch box for Vancouver resident and “white people food” fan Shawn Liang consists of a boiled egg, fresh broccoli, a slice of ham, cheese and a piece of whole-grain bread."
China is about as diabetic as the United States, with a 10.6% incidence rate vs 10.7% incidence rate. China’s scale however means that it has over 100 million diabetics compared to America’s 30 million or so.
I remember one time I was reading patents about almond milk manufacturing. One thing that struck me was the habit of the patent authors to use "bland" as an unapologetically positive descriptor of the taste they were going for. The patent noted that simple milled almond had a strong "marzipan" flavor that was bad for consumer acceptance, but with an appropriate sequence of roasting and boiling, plus of course dilution and cutting with vegetable gums, the almond milk could be made acceptably bland. Few people will admit that it sells to them, but I'm betting an awful lot of hipsters bought the milk described in the patent.
But it also seems that a major part of the trend is just identifying foods that pack well. No matter how good you are at making fried rice, it just isn't as appetizing when it's been sitting cold in a box for six or eighteen hours. Cold cuts are called that for a reason. The cracker is designed from scratch to be made in an industrial oven and packed into sealed plastic bags.
Meanwhile, I'm apparently violating the stereotype (or am I?) by making oatmeal in the office microwave. The trick is to heat it to just boiling and then run the oven on defrost for seven minutes so it doesn't bubble over.
I think the concept we're looking for here is not actually "bland" but somewhere between inoffensive and without surprise. If something is being sold as a creamer for coffee, for example, most people want the product to turn out like the coffee they're used to. No surprises.
I think it explains the success of fast food franchises. A burger from McDonald's may not be particularly inspiring, but it'll be pretty much exactly what you expect, time after time.
This was surprisingly wholesome. My first thought on any non-white people eating what I would see as typical "white person food" was: damn thats rough what a bad idea welcome to diabetes land. The depiction of "white people food" described in the article is not something most americans eat (healthy?!? waste free?!) but does seem reasonable
I found the “cost savings” angle a bit hard to believe.
I don’t think I’ve ever spent less on food than in my university days when I had a rice cooker in my dorm room, and my diet featured heavily on white rice and veggies cooked in there, and seasoned with Chinese seasonings.
No one would mistake what I was eating back then for fine Chinese cuisine, but I’ll bet it was a lot cheaper than the “white people food” this group of Chinese Canadians is enjoying.
Yeah I couldn't buy the cost savings part but definitely buy the less labor intensive and time consuming part. Like this part seems key, way they put it Chinese culture was very unfamiliar with very low effort meals you eat to get through the day.
> The concept is not new, but there has been a wave of Chinese-language discussion about “white people food” around the world since a video of a woman eating a bag of lettuce and slices of ham on a train in Switzerland sparked wonder. The video went viral on the Chinese-language social media platform Red Book last month.
> The initial response to such meals was bewilderment.
> “I have tried baby carrots dipped in hummus. They made me feel worse than death,” wrote one person on Red Book.
> But the mood has shifted to praise for low-effort meals.
Perhaps "American school lunch" would be a more broadly acceptable name. That first picture is just missing a milk carton and it would be spot on for the depressing meals we serve to public schools.
On a different tack, notice how they talk about how easy and cheap it is to prepare this sort of food. Americans and Canadians are getting poorer each month, so cheap food is a necessity. I do love the indomitable human spirit that rebrands cutbacks as hip and fashionable. RVs, van dwelling, tiny houses, now white people food, it's all a way to spruce up a very real poverty squeeze. But it's hopeful and vibrant. It sucks that people are getting poorer, but it gives me hope to see when we overcome.
White uncapitalized. Stating Western cuisine as devoid of nutrients, texture and taste. Racist. Shocking that the author would be surprised immigrants moving to another land adopt the culture of the land they move to?
How many 4th generation Canadian-Irish regularly eat scones or rabbit stew?
What really gets me is not jokes or stereotypes, it is the blatant double standard.
I have been discussing this trend with some “friends” and they made it abundantly clear that they do not care about white people’s feelings. It’s not about whether or not a specific joke is offensive - because really, stuff like these “white people food” trends are ultimately pretty harmless - but there is this overall sense that white culture deserves to be criticized and other cultures are untouchable. Stereotypes about other cultures are racist and ignorant, but jokes stereotyping white people are funny and actively encouraged. Almost all of these people are white Democrats (in case that matters).
I am absolutely convinced that one day one of these “jokes” will really offend me and the response from my “friends” will be to double down. This has been bothering me so much I am seriously considering whether I want to be associated with these people anymore.
I can empathize. The Left and the West's adversaries have done a fantastic job of making White people masochistic. White liberals are notoriously unfunny and uncreative when it comes to humour.
Hell, much of my old network has split because of this very issue. I now hang around like-minded people of all cultures because for the rest of the world humour is humour and sometimes it's naughty.
To counter this one must remove the notion of being "anti-racist" and "colourblind" and get back to the relatively carefree attitude of 1990s comedy. If someone gets offended they aren't invited back to the adult dinner table.
> Mr. Liang, who immigrated from Beijing six years ago, said cooking Chinese food can be time-consuming, labour-intensive and pricey.
Sure, but the opposite can also be true:
Chinese food can be fast, healthy, effortless and inexpensive, at the same time.
You just don't also get ready-made + home-delivered without sacrificing some of the others.
I think the problem is comparing your food options in China.
Living in China you have easy access to healthy, well-made, inexpensive, ready-made, home-delivered in record time, due to low costs of ingredients and labor cooking and delivering. Living in most places outside of China, the same ingredients and the cost of means you have to pay more, or cook yourself.
If you cook yourself and go with only the vegetables that are also cheap outside of China, and you stick to dishes that can be made fast and don't generate a lot of kitchen mess, then the only difference between "white people food" (macro-oriented and poorly cooked but otherwise healthy) is cooking technique.
Getting a gradually better technique, I can't imagine eating less Chinese food.
41 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 93.9 ms ] threadLikewise, when they said "white people food", I didn't know what to think it would be. Obviously not food from countries where white people are the minority, but what would it be?
I feel like it probably started out as the plain food that I often eat, but at some point "white people food" was transformed into this idealized, healthy, waste-free food that is mentioned in the article.
I don't like the implication that non-"white people food" is the opposite of that, but I'm not upset about the name or casual racism of calling it that otherwise.
I suspect that's in part because a lot of American cuisine is regional
Like:
* BBQ + fixings
* Tex-mex (definitely a fusion cuisine, but also distinct from Mexican)
* Cajun
* Not sure how to describe "generic southern food", but stuff like ham hock, collard greens, candied yams, corn bread, etc.
* Philly cheese steak
* Various US-local pizzas like Chicago deep-dish
There's probably a lot more regional food traditions in the US; I'm just not as familiar with them.
There's a lot of overlap, sure, but I think they're distinct classifications.
I had the same problem, and then I asked and moved out of the country. If it helps you at all, from an American that moved to Norway:
Tex-mex, pizza, and BBQ (Texas bbq for some things, Sweet Baby Ray's sauce in the grocery store) are what seems to be the most popular in Norway.
And then you have diners. A friend in the philippines once said American food was Ruby Tuesdays. There isn't one of those locally, but there is a Friday's. It claims to serve American stuff. These would probably be the best comparisons alongside stuff above. There was one "American Diner" here that served things like a more traditional American breakfast, things like chicken fried steak, and the like. (They've closed recently). And I've been to one more "traditional" diner with a lot of Americana decor from the 50's and served fairly typical diner fare (think Steak and shake or something similar in their most basic form).
If grocery stores are targeting me, I most commonly wind up with things like box Macaroni and cheese (which I pay way to much for) and American peanut butter brands, usually the only choice for creamy peanut butter. The local peanut butter tends to be chunky, but tend to be unsweetened.
This stuff to me, at least, is more exotic than what's popular (I am also an American in Norway), in part of its cultural significance whereas pizza, Chinese food, etc. have lost a bit of its unique charge of exoticism precisely because it has been completely commoditized (and I also grew up in NYC where those two examples feel ubiquitous and that impulse has reached Europe in a big way.)
However, given the context (and equivalence to “healthy food”) it’s hardly racism as you mean it.
A white guy alone was fine, a white guy holding hand with a beautiful (subjective, but honestly she could be a model) japanese girl? Even his coworkers were disrespectful, which I find baffling.
Also:
>" It’s not about the pleasure of eating the texture of the food. It’s just like: ‘this is good fibre and lots of nutrients and I’m going to eat it,’ and I think that is actually a very American way of thinking about eating,”
No, it isn't.
It isn't but I think it can be. In my rural part of the southeast I see more and more people making better food choices (myself included). Maybe the person interviewed is taking the long view of that trend.
Like in The Time Machine when the Eloi run into the caves when the air raid sirens go off.
Handy map:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/...
Statista:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/281082/countries-with-hi...
World bank:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.DIAB.ZS?most_rec...
Interestingly enough, Pakistan is the most diabetic country by per capita by far.
But it also seems that a major part of the trend is just identifying foods that pack well. No matter how good you are at making fried rice, it just isn't as appetizing when it's been sitting cold in a box for six or eighteen hours. Cold cuts are called that for a reason. The cracker is designed from scratch to be made in an industrial oven and packed into sealed plastic bags.
Meanwhile, I'm apparently violating the stereotype (or am I?) by making oatmeal in the office microwave. The trick is to heat it to just boiling and then run the oven on defrost for seven minutes so it doesn't bubble over.
I think it explains the success of fast food franchises. A burger from McDonald's may not be particularly inspiring, but it'll be pretty much exactly what you expect, time after time.
As for making microwave oatmeal, a bigger bowl will help.
I don’t think I’ve ever spent less on food than in my university days when I had a rice cooker in my dorm room, and my diet featured heavily on white rice and veggies cooked in there, and seasoned with Chinese seasonings.
No one would mistake what I was eating back then for fine Chinese cuisine, but I’ll bet it was a lot cheaper than the “white people food” this group of Chinese Canadians is enjoying.
> The concept is not new, but there has been a wave of Chinese-language discussion about “white people food” around the world since a video of a woman eating a bag of lettuce and slices of ham on a train in Switzerland sparked wonder. The video went viral on the Chinese-language social media platform Red Book last month.
> The initial response to such meals was bewilderment.
> “I have tried baby carrots dipped in hummus. They made me feel worse than death,” wrote one person on Red Book.
> But the mood has shifted to praise for low-effort meals.
On a different tack, notice how they talk about how easy and cheap it is to prepare this sort of food. Americans and Canadians are getting poorer each month, so cheap food is a necessity. I do love the indomitable human spirit that rebrands cutbacks as hip and fashionable. RVs, van dwelling, tiny houses, now white people food, it's all a way to spruce up a very real poverty squeeze. But it's hopeful and vibrant. It sucks that people are getting poorer, but it gives me hope to see when we overcome.
How many 4th generation Canadian-Irish regularly eat scones or rabbit stew?
I have been discussing this trend with some “friends” and they made it abundantly clear that they do not care about white people’s feelings. It’s not about whether or not a specific joke is offensive - because really, stuff like these “white people food” trends are ultimately pretty harmless - but there is this overall sense that white culture deserves to be criticized and other cultures are untouchable. Stereotypes about other cultures are racist and ignorant, but jokes stereotyping white people are funny and actively encouraged. Almost all of these people are white Democrats (in case that matters).
I am absolutely convinced that one day one of these “jokes” will really offend me and the response from my “friends” will be to double down. This has been bothering me so much I am seriously considering whether I want to be associated with these people anymore.
Hell, much of my old network has split because of this very issue. I now hang around like-minded people of all cultures because for the rest of the world humour is humour and sometimes it's naughty.
To counter this one must remove the notion of being "anti-racist" and "colourblind" and get back to the relatively carefree attitude of 1990s comedy. If someone gets offended they aren't invited back to the adult dinner table.
Sure, but the opposite can also be true:
Chinese food can be fast, healthy, effortless and inexpensive, at the same time.
You just don't also get ready-made + home-delivered without sacrificing some of the others.
I think the problem is comparing your food options in China.
Living in China you have easy access to healthy, well-made, inexpensive, ready-made, home-delivered in record time, due to low costs of ingredients and labor cooking and delivering. Living in most places outside of China, the same ingredients and the cost of means you have to pay more, or cook yourself.
If you cook yourself and go with only the vegetables that are also cheap outside of China, and you stick to dishes that can be made fast and don't generate a lot of kitchen mess, then the only difference between "white people food" (macro-oriented and poorly cooked but otherwise healthy) is cooking technique.
Getting a gradually better technique, I can't imagine eating less Chinese food.