Dim Sum, the Stew, Squirl, and Shibumi

Who Gets to Make Authentic Asian Food? Let's Discuss.

I started this during AAPI Heritage Month, but identity never quits, so I’m continuing the conversation into June. Cue the air quotes—we’re talking authenticity and food.

One of the biggest things I’m looking forward to is going to Asian food with friends.

Dim sum carted around ornate halls. Steaming hot pots of boiling broth with an array of meat, mushroom, and noodle to dip in till they’re cooked to your liking. Smoky Korean barbecues with deafening fans where you take thin pink marbled meats and watch them sizzle on a shared grill. Sushi bars where the sushi chef places a perfectly designed sashimi into your palm. Indonesian restaurants where I can be in charge of ordering, and get people to try curried jackfruit or grilled whole fish with chopped red and green chilis. Indian buffets refilled by the minute with a rainbow’s worth of veg curries. 

A meal from Bungkus Bali, by two Indonesian sisters who have a weekly pick up for Indonesian food in LA

Asian food is everywhere. Whether because of the history of immigration like Chinese, the rise in cross-cultural business like sushi, a post-war refugee diaspora like pho, or even government-led diplomacy like Thai food, Asian food has skyrocketed in accessibility and popularity. It’s the fastest growing fast food in the US, powered not by chains but by mom and pop shops and take-out joints. Celebrity chefs like David Chang and Eddie Huang have expanded beyond food and into popular culture.

Yet many Asian Americans—and others from “ethnic” cultures in the US—have faced food shame. Children get teased for food that’s unfamiliar because it smells weird, looks weird, tastes weird, or has ingredients or combinations that are off-putting to American culture. I’ve even experienced pretty cosmopolitan adults mocking or wrinkling their nose at unfamiliar foodways.

So it’s no wonder that food has become a strong source of identity and pride among Asian Americans. As Ligaya Mishan writes in her ode to the rise of Asian American cuisine says:

These chefs’ cooking, born of shame, rebellion and reconciliation, is not some wistful ode to an imperfectly remembered or never-known, idealized country. It’s a mixture of nostalgia and resilience.

As Asian food has grown in popularity in the US, there’s been an explosion of creativity as well. Filipino chefs mining the food of their childhood to the tune of a Michelin star, and Korean chefs creating entire meals out of the traditional banchan pre-dinner snack. Also non-Asian chefs playing with new-to-them ingredients and trying to replicate dishes or create new concoctions. In all of this, there’s a growing debate around the word authenticity as it relates to Asian food. 

Pho Realness

(Sorry, I do love a good pho pun—my favorite might be 9021Pho in Beverly Hills.)

In the US, the concept of food and authenticity is fraught. The white chef of Shibumi, classically trained in Japan, recently disparaged Los Angeles’ Japanese restaurants for not serving a particular seasonal food, claiming his way was more authentic. Chefs like Danny Bowien and Dale Talde question the word authenticity as it relates to their food styles, while white chefs like Andy Ricker of PokPok and Ivan Orkin of Ivan Ramen vie for “authentic” flavors.

For AAPI Heritage month at my agency, I interviewed Vanessa Pham of OmSom, whose “proud, loud” pantry staples reflect the flavors of Southeast and East Asia. She says:

Authenticity—we never use that word describe our products; we believe that it’s basically a burden given to BIPOC chefs. Nobody’s like, oh this French food isn’t authentic; people are excited about the adaptation of the cuisine in a culinary sense. But when it comes to BIPOC cuisines, a chef has a lot more trouble doing that because people say this is not authentic. It’s restrictive for their creativity and ability to innovate.

The challenge with authenticity in general is that nothing is authentic. All things shift and change. And that’s a good thing; but who gets the credit for it—in recognition and in cash—matters. 

Money Money Money

Debates over meaning seem esoteric, but can have real world implications.

Frequently the people who get fame for a foodway are white. Alison Roman got famous for “the stew,” what many South Asians saw as a take on a traditional dish. As Roxana Hadidi put it in Pajiba:

Roman made herself a curry and refused to acknowledge that she had made a curry, and this is colonialism as cuisine.

If you recall JamGate, Squirl chef Jessica Koslow was also accused of claiming the recipes of people of color as her own, including Filipina chef Ria Dolly Barbosa, currently of Petite Peso. Andrew Zimmern, Gordon Ramsay, and others have come under fire for claiming “authenticity” at Asian food restaurants they’ve opened, and a few years ago Lucky Lee was opened by a non-Chinese couple who claimed, “There are very few American-Chinese places as mindful about the quality of ingredients as we are.” (They closed less than a year later.)

At the same time, “ethnic” food communities are trapped by expectations of low frills and low cost. The complaints about a pho bowl that costs more than $10 are rife among Asian Americans, but that perspective can be limiting to creativity, and also to income growth for immigrant chefs. The idea of toiling to keep a hole in the wall going isn’t appealing to a younger generation. 

And this isn’t just the Asian community either. I too would like to continue to pay $1.50 for street tacos, but I also recognize the art form of a taquero making the exact same taco to perfection 6-7 days a week, and I want to be part of providing a living wage for their family. Correlating cost to authenticity and bemoaning the rising prices of non-white food is a trap. 

So what do we say besides “authentic?” Or whatever its opposite is, to connote exploration and innovation?I don’t know, but here’s some thoughts.

I like the idea of classic, traditional, or homestyle, which have more connotations of what exactly we mean by authenticity, and to provide more context about what we mean by “authentic.”

But I’m pretty unsatisfied with the opposites. Any ideas? Food recommendations? Thoughts?