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PaperclipPerfector  15d ago (text post)   2894 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for March 14, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I'd assume most of ethnic food restaurants catering for general US public would be somewhat inauthentic in some way. Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Indian, Vietnamese, whatever it is - they would make some adjustments because otherwise Americans would just not go there. It's not that people's tastes never evolve, it's just it takes a long time to get used to something genuinely new, and the restaurant may not survive that long without customers. This is not true where there are a lot of relatively recent immigrants which have "old country" tastes, then the restaurant can rely on them and slowly expand their clientele to others but if that's not the case then they'd have to do something "inauthentic". I am personally fine with that - as long as it tastes good for me, I don't care it tastes differently thousands of miles away from here.

There’s reasonably authentic Mexican food catering to a white clientele in areas with a strong Hispanic presence.

There can be. I live in an affluent white area with a strong Hispanic presence, and all the Mexican food around here is terrible, which I've verified with lots of real live Mexicans. It's a mystery.

Have the white men there discovered lengua yet? It’s not so much a woman thing, but when the men get into the magnificent mystery meats of Mexico there tend to become authentic taquerias catering towards whites.

I'd settle for authentic taquerias catering to Mexicans! But no, to get lengua I have to go deeper into immigrant territory.

That's my point - if you have a strong presence of the people with non-"standard American" tastes, then you can sustain authentic cuisine. If you're just in a random place without large fresh immigrant population, you probably won't find a lot of authentic.

For sure, and a good pattern for how that can happen, but excuse me, I asked for your favorite inauthentic dish that has been mangled by cultural transfer. Like, worst of the worst, you're-doing-this-so-wrong type thing.

I told a friend from western USA that I put romaine lettuce on my tacos, and he reflexively said an incredulous utterance and immediately went to get his Mexican wife's opinion on it.

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