> Yet we talk about 'authentic' cuisine we usually use it in context way before 'America'.
I can pretty much guarantee that's not true of discussion of authentic cuisine of the Mexican or Tex-Mex varieties, since “Mexico” and “Texas” are both post-Millenial identities, and both identities of the Americas. Sure, it might apply to some views of authenticity of European, Asian, or African cuisines (and if by “America” you actually mean the “European colonization of America”, which some parts of your comment suggest, it might apply to similar views of authenticity of Native American, including Inuit, Aztec, Inca, etc. cuisine.
But, even where it might apply, I don't think that is what people usually mean by authenticity; they mostly mean before changes made to support mass commercial distribution or production, and without adaptation to ingredients they are locally cheaper or more popular in places outside of the place where the cuisine originates. (In America, that concern might often be phrased as “before Americanization”, but that's not “before any impacts of the discovery of America”.)
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'.
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.)
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 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.
I'm reading The Elephant in the Brain. Its shocking how much we do as humans that we delude ourselves into believing.
Not that germans don't eat plenty of potatoes and sausage, but "bangers and mash" is a British thing.
"Authentic" viking bread would have been made with hand-milled oat and rye, with some wheat; to date you can see much more oat and rye harvest in most parts of Scandinavia; but just as you point out, potatoes are today also seen as an essential part of an "authentic" Norwegian diet and is a part of most dishes considered traditionally Norwegian.
Even more amusing to me is that while porridge is authentic in that respect, the most common modern types are not: rice porridge is certainly quite modern, yet it's pretty much considered as authentically Norwegian as you can get to have rice porridge served with butter, sugar and cinnamon, with both sugar and cinnamon being "modern" introductions.
And it was first a few years ago I learned that most of the Christmas cookie traditions we have are less than a century old, with ironic ones like "fattigmann" (literally "poor man") being introduced in the 1930's in a cook book where the recipe including more eggs than the average 1930's family consumed in a year, and so not actually spreading until much later.
Christmas traditions in particular, now that I have a kid of my own, has driven how that "authentic" and "tradition" usually really for the most part stays consistent only a generation or two. What my son is growing up with certainly has some parts in common with the Christmas celebrations of my childhood, but it has already morphed drastically, both in terms of traditions and even the food we insist is very authentic.
Tomatoes and potatoes, and the vanilla bean, were cultivated in Europe, by Europeans.
Chilies were cultivated in the Americas (over 6000 years ago), and then traded to European explorers who took them back home and grew them there, too.
The cocoa bean was cultivated in the Americas, by the Olmec; and then traded to European explorers who tried to grow it, failed, and ended up invading the area to farm it.
Of these, the first is European cuisine, through-and-through. The second is aboriginal Mesoamerican cuisine. And the third is what you might call “American” cuisine, insofar as—like most of the historical cuisines in America itself—it was a cuisine invented by farmers from Europe (and the slaves they brought from everywhere else) learning to live in the Americas.
Example: Dutch speculaas cookies [1].
"Speculaas dough does not rise much. Dutch and Belgian versions are baked with light brown (sometimes beet) sugar and baking powder. German Spekulatius uses baker's ammonia as leavening agent. Indian, Indonesian, and Mediterranean spices used in speculaas are cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cardamom and white pepper; these were common in the 1600-1700s due to the Dutch East Indies spice trade. Family recipes may also include other small amounts of spices like anise, etc." [emphasis mine]
I don't know what's been more important for which cuisine, but not mentioning say VOC's imports and only WIC (which was smaller and came a good ~20 years later) is inaccurate. The WIC was more into slave trade, especially after conquering of Angola and Brasil from the Portuguese.
An amusing side note: I read about an analysis showing that Stradivarius used a red pigment from America in some of his violins. I doubt it had an effect on the tone, but it's just interesting to see what kind of trade was occurring.
Lots of bread.
Seriously loads of the stuff, along with other grains and grain products (oats, barley, porridge, beer).
We also ate other root vegetables native to Eurasia such as carrots, parsnips, swedes and turnips; and plenty of beans and legumes.
Obviously there was no going back once we figured out how to roast a potato though.
It isn't wrong to describe Europeans discovering America as long as you aren't claiming they were the first to discover it.
Things like tomato sauce and pasta in italian cuisine wasn't until almost 1800. Yet we talk about 'authentic' cuisine we usually use it in context way before 'America'. Yet most cuisine we eat didn't come into existence until AFTER America.
Another example is chilis in thai cuisine. Capsicum didn't make it over the ocean until america was discovered. So all the spicy peppers in so many dishes from Thai to Vietnamese food didn't exist in their cooking until it was brought over and eventually incorporated.
Potatoes is another one. Originated in Peru. Russian potato vodka? Irish Potatoes? Germans bangers and mash?
Nope, nada until America was discovered.
Chocolate, Vanilla. Staples of desserts of european cooking...except not until America was discovered.
These above ingredients alone are associated with so many traditional recipes but they didn't exist until recently. It really shows how quickly food and traditions change and the idea of 'authenticity' is over blown.