Comment by kalcode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kalcode | Hacker News Reader

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As someone from Texas I can definitely say from first hand the attitude I experience from people snubbing 'authenticity' in other cuisine is the same I hear towards 'Tex-Mex'.

I have gone to many local restaurants where local ingredients are used and not mass-produced and seen the same attitude from friends, colleague or acquaintances in my life.

I also extensively worked in the kitchen, in fact it was my first career, and i can say the attitude was prevlevant there too.

I've worked with plenty of people from mexico itself that had less of that attitude since they could actually see the influence of different dishes and spices in both foods.

So I can pretty much guarantee from actual experience this attitude stems from the same attitude that other people have that leads them to say things like 'italy doesn't have pepperoni pizza' or 'french wine will always be better than nappa' etc. It stems from the same place.

I will concede there are probably people like you describe, but the issue the article describes and the issue I am talking about is seen quite a bit against 'tex-mex'.

> french wine will always be better than nappa

I would posit that mostly, what these people mean is that “French wine will always be more French than Napa.” And they have an aesthetic preference for the terroir of French wine.

To put that another way: a lot of culinary aesthetics—and aesthetics generally—is just a rationalization of nostalgia. People want food that tastes like food they remember enjoying (even if that memory has more to do with their mood at the time, or the ambiance, or any other thing that can colour a memory), rather than particularly caring about food being good in the same way as food they remember enjoying. People would prefer a food that recaptures their youth, to a food that’s an optimized, culinarily “better” version of that food, every time. (Unless they’re chefs, or professional food critics.)

> As someone from Texas I can definitely say from first hand the attitude I experience from people snubbing 'authenticity' in other cuisine is the same I hear towards 'Tex-Mex'.

I never said that people in general have a different attitude about authenticity toward Tex-Mex food than most other food, I said that it is impossible for the source of that attitude to be a desire to get to what the cuisine was like before the discovery of America.

> I said that it is impossible for the source of that attitude to be a desire to get to what the cuisine was like before the discovery of America.

I didn't gather that from your reply. I apologise for misunderstanding.

I agree with that point. But I also don't think people are 'wanting' what it was like before in either attitude.

I think it something else, maybe a way to seem more 'culture' or a way to seperate themselves from common 'americans'? I mean i don't really know where it stems from.

Example is we have quite a few people that complains how all these 'chemicals' and stuff in our food is killing us and how they only buy organic and they won't eat this or that cause of the 'processing' and then they light a cigarette and crack open a can of PBR.

A lot of times we identify with something on a different level then is logical, I believe the same is happening with a lot of these people and 'authenticity'. I could be wrong though, but I believe we are all susceptible to this kind of behavior.

> A lot of times we identify with something on a different level then is logical, I believe the same is happening with a lot of these people and 'authenticity'.

I'm reading The Elephant in the Brain. Its shocking how much we do as humans that we delude ourselves into believing.

There is substantial evidence suggesting highly processed foods are bad for your health. Sure, people might have other vices but I don't see the harm in realizing that the products that make food cheap and shelf stable may not be the most compatible with a healthful diet.

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