Comment by always_good | Hacker News Reader

Comment by always_good | Hacker News Reader

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    > native Mexicans would hardly recognize
    > what we in the US call Mexican.

That's just second hand synthetic snobbery.

Even more amusing is the person down-thread who echoed some wives tale about Mexican workers refusing to eat the food in the Mexican restaurant they work at in the States. Come the fuck on.

The only people I've ever heard say these things are Americans, especially pochos trying to claw back some cultural credentials because they don't speak Spanish.

No different from any other time someone thinks loudly disliking something makes them more tasteful and authentic. Like an HNer shitting on Javascript.

I'm sure the Mexican food in Finland is fucking terrible. But let's not pretend that Mexican cuisine is some impenetrable wonder of the world, nor that Mexicans as a whole won't devour Mexican approximations with the same fervor they drink Coca Cola and queue up at Subway in their Sunday clothes.

In my younger years I worked as a prep cook at a couple fine dining restaurants in San Diego, and except for the executive chef I was the only other white guy there. We spoke Spanish in the kitchen and since I loved Mexican food and culture, I really tried to absorb as much as possible and learn recipes. As a prep cook, I would do the employee meals and the other cooks would loudly exclaim 'Tacitos de Tijuana' once I started getting it right, with perfectly made tacos just like you would find in northern Mexico. I was so proud.

But you know what they really loved? McDonald's kept running a promotion where you could get ten hamburgers or cheeseburgers for something like $2 or $5, and they would constantly make quick runs to the local drive-through at meal time, then burst in the kitchen entrance shouting and waving the McDonalds bag around. All work would stop and I would be called to bring my extra prep container of guacamole so a spoonful of that could be added to each burger and everyone would wolf them down. We're talking like ten Mexican dudes and myself, and 40-60 little hamburgers disappearing in a couple minutes. The executive chef was so disappointed and he'd just shake his head and go sit in his office.

I still prefer tacos to hamburgers though.

> That's just second hand synthetic snobbery.

Not really. Try ordering a "burrito" or a "breakfast taco" in Mexico. And, you will note, I was careful not to claim that either one was more "authentic".

Foods evolve as they move and are adopted. This is doubly true of "ethnic" foods. The original article is a beautiful example of this with the grandmother starting with Siberian pelmeni, adding pork to a dish while in a nominally "Muslim" area and preparing it in Chinese bamboo steamers.

Melting pot, indeed.

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