Food For Thought: Authentically Yours

Musings on what "authentic" really means

This morning I made kimchi.  Well, I didn’t really – I mixed up some vegetables to ferment with a spicy sauce.  I didn’t use fermented salted shrimp or sweet rice powder and I used gochujang instead of gochugaru.  The best I can say is that it’s Korean-inspired, but there’s no way it’s authentic - I mean, I put rhubarb in it.

Most serious foodies consider “authenticity” as a criteria when seeking out culinary experiences.  And why not?  Of course we’d like to have the real pad thai, the real ramen, the real escabeche or pulao.  No one wants a pseudo-vindaloo, particularly a westernized one.

But authenticity is a complicated concept deeply tied to history: trade, immigration, famine, and the rise and fall of empires are only some of the factors that have shaped the world’s cuisines. The history of the world is represented on nearly every plate on the planet and makes the notion of authenticity rather hard to unravel.

Trade and colonial expansion have been changing the way people eat for thousands of years. Spices like cinnamon and cassia first appeared in the Middle East nearly 4000 years ago and in the hands of Arab traders found their way as far as Europe and Africa. European colonial expansion was driven in no small part by the desire and demand for spices. The colonization of the Americas introduced countless new ingredients to European cuisine and those ingredients found their way around in short order.

When we picture “authentic” Irish food it is hard not to think of potatoes, yet potatoes originated in the Andean mountains of South American and only became a staple crop in the 17th century. Fish and chips is an iconic English meal, but it has it’s origins in Shabbat meals prepared by Spanish and Portuguese Jewish immigrants. It might be hard to imagine Italian cuisine without tomatoes, but it took hundreds of years for them to catch on as they were regarded with suspicion for being a member of the nightshade family. Chiles might be an integral part of Thai food, but they likely arrived via Portuguese traders in the 15th century, with their origins in Bolivia.

And it isn’t just food that moved around the world - people did too.

Whether they came as immigrants or slaves, the people arriving in North America brought with them their food traditions and ingredients, including those that had their origins in the Americas to begin with. The growth of cities and the migrations of masses grouped diverse peoples together and new cuisines evolved in these melting pots of cultures.

The evolution of Canadian Chinese cuisine is one such story. Cantonese immigrants were employed as labourers during the construction of Canadian Pacific Railway. The ones who stayed after the completion of the railway (and who survived the dangerous conditions) faced restricted employment but often found work as cooks in both restaurants and in wealthy homes. They adapted their cooking to local tastes and the ingredients available. The “Chinese buffet” is an adaptation of a smörgåsbord, encouraged by the Scandinavian loggers and labourers who patronized those early restaurants.

The more stories you read the harder it becomes to define authenticity. You can’t simply put a pin on a timeline and say that at X point and in X place a dish was or was not “authentic”. Cuisine, like culture as a whole, isn’t a static thing; it is always on the move.

If I’m making a dumpling should I be true to a specific recipe that requires me to seek out a hard-to-source bit of offal, or do I use whatever scraps I have around? Which approach is more authentic?

As as cook and a student of history I think the answers are not to be found in the recipes as much as in the stories of a dish or ingredient’s origin. You may not find an egg roll in China but that doesn’t mean it isn’t authentic. An egg roll is authentic to its own story: the story of the Chinese immigrant experience in North America.

So rather than chase a platonic ideal of a dish or cuisine that may not exist, take inspiration from the stories behind what you eat. Find the foods and dishes that are unique to a particular place and find out how they got there. Look for the dishes that chefs are most proud to serve and learn why. If you can leave the recipe aside and let the spirit of a dish be your guide you’ll find yourself with something that is authentically yours.

PS: My eagle-eyed subscribers brought to my attention that I made mistake last Friday in my Magical Muffins newsletter - I forgot the sugar! I’ve corrected it in the web version (which you can read here), but if you’ve been wondering the correct amount of is 4 ounces/113 grams/half a cup. Good catch my friends! Thank you!