Creating Cultural Progress with Cuisine

“Chinatown” and “Little Italy” are two examples of ethnic enclaves- homogenized neighborhoods of a certain ethnic group adjacent to a more heterogeneous region. Ethnic enclaves in the United States play a vital role in preserving and nurturing cultures, serving as centers of community, identity, and resilience. However, a larger portion of the population in these multiethnic countries

do not live near ethnic enclaves and face little to no exposure to new cultures, which slow down the progress of cultural celebration. Therefore, there is a need for new methods to have a more seamless acceptance and assimilation of new cultures and there's a merit to what the culinary scene can offer. Such a problem suggests the question: To what extent do ventures in the culinary industry support cultural acceptance in multiethnic countries? Overall, there is merit in the promotion of culinary ventures through openings of traditional restaurants and an emergence of culinary trends in popular culture in order to create a more accepting space for cultures in Western Societies.

The culinary industry, historically, has been able to address many social and environmental issues that the general public may not be aware of. In California,

restaurant Chez Panisse by Alice Waters started a movement in farm-to-table ingredients and imploring sustainable techniques such as conserving water and composting wasted food. The impact this one restaurant had was monumental in the US, starting environmentally-friendly organizations across the world that promote these same techniques. By looking at how just one restaurant can change culinary practices for the better, even environmentally, this serves as evidence that the culinary industry is a catalyst for change.

Change in the world has been previously brought upon through protests, policy changes, and other political means. However, as developed countries grow more into their hospitality and tourism industries, these services become larger vehicles for social change.  The Food, Culture & Society journal conducted historical research on 20th century black society in America providing notes about their culinary breakthroughs. They noted that even decades ago, culinary exploration and the spread of culinary techniques of black Americans saw,

“...black cooks, chefs, and food preparers engage food as a means of producing knowledge and contesting structural racism,” (Navarro, 2022, p. 7).

If in the 20th century, black Americans could produce even the smallest change through their cuisine, there is obvious merit in seeing what the culinary industry and culinary tourism can do on a global scale for all cultures.

Cuisines in countries like the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom do not reflect their “native” cuisine but rather the multiethnic blend of the cultures and ethnicities brought through a long period of history filled with colonization, and immigration. These countries have overall a better attitude and progressive

acceptance of immigrants. Tex-Mex cuisine was created after a large influx of immigrants from Mexico migrated to the United States and has become one of the staples of America, resulting in popular fast food chains such as Taco Bell. The history of Tex-Mex runs deep with the origins of the cuisine being modified by a Mexican family that was ostracized in Texas. Another culinary group that contributed was The Chili Queens who, studied by History Professor Vidal at Texas A&M, 

“...created Chili con Carne to help combine the, often spicy, taste of Mexican dishes, like menudo or mole, with beef and bland Anglo cuisine,” (Vidal, 2021, p. 3).

The Chili Queens later began selling their creations to locals and Texas residents as a show of good intentions. While this small act of combining family traditional spices with American cuisines may seem insignificant, it changed the course of history for Mexican-Americans and even our country that now heavily showcases and promotes Mexican heritage, arguably more than any other ethnicity. Progress has begun for other ethnicities with similar methods but the effects of the Tex-Mex cuisine is the earliest and most effective example of how culinary ventures can promote cultural acceptance.

In developed countries, the use of social media and televised media usage has become a large part of national pop culture. In Britain, the British Broadcasting Company was created in 1922. Currently the BBC produces many cooking shows that teaches viewers culinary techniques and recipes. Solier, journalist at the Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, identified the first BBC cooking show was created with the purpose of informing the public of how to make the best of scarce rations during a period of war (Solier, 2005, p. 7). This started a chain reaction of Network programs using cooking shows to educate the general public. Provided by the Journal of Popular Film & Television, the first cultural breakthrough shown through cooking shows was with,

“… new British programmes such as The Naked Chef, Nigella Bites and Ainsley’s Gourmet Express…” that drew on cultural differences within modern British society (Phillips, 2016, p. 21).

These shows featured local traditional chefs as well as real showings of hole-in-the-wall cultural restaurants in ethnic enclaves. Critics and cultural journalists have attributed a great deal of cultural acceptance through exploratory cooking shows that effectively introduce new cultures through something that is familiar to everyone: food and cooking. Popular restaurateur, Delia Smith, was a public figure in Australia, another multiethnic country, that would fuse exotic ingredients with traditional English cooking methods (Phillips, 2016, p. 23). Through the combination of new ingredients with old dishes, Delia Smith paved the way for the concept of “fusion” cuisine that have opened up doors for typically Vietnamese or Japanese cuisines. Both of these forms of culinary pop culture in Britain and Australia allowed for a safe cultural space that the general public could be slowly exposed to that increases cultural appreciation.

Fused cultures in the culinary industry allow for the general public to be more accepting of other cultures. However, the act of fusing cultures together, even through food, can result in a dissipation of traditional values. As provided by the author with a PhD in history written in the Journal of Tourism & Hospitality Management, globalization has resulted in promotion of a “commercial taste” whenever it comes to what the public will accept in restaurants or products (Shahrin, 2022, p. 13).  Due to international socio-economic integration, lines have been blurred between whether it is better to promote cultural homogenization or create efforts for the most traditional of cultures to stay thriving in multiethnic countries. 

Although the act of promoting cultural fusion techniques and restaurants could lead to some loss of traditional values of new cultures, it is also fiscally beneficial to broaden cultures into assimilating into local cuisines. From an economic standpoint in terms of the hospitality and tourism industry, in a service economy, customers enjoy new ventures that get them out of their comfort zone but not to where it's off putting. In Florida’s Walt Disney World, Art Smith, renowned restaurateur, created Homecomin', a southern-global fusion restaurant that relies on the concept of placemaking to attract a customer base. In the Southern Quarterly, a journal focusing on Florida businesses, the restaurant has achieved higher profit margins than both traditional American food restaurants at Disney World, and the solely traditional foods, primarily Mexican ones at Epcot. The restaurant attributes its high demand and large customer base to keeping the locality of the Florida region but also introducing novel ingredients (Nooe, 2018, p. 17). Due to its unique nature, many attendees at the largest theme park in the world have been positively exposed to a culture through things that are familiar to them, especially for those coming from the southern regions in the US. Through using commercialization and market globalization as a vehicle for showcasing cultures, culinary ventures can aid in exposing customers worldwide to new cultures.

Information and awareness is spread the fastest in developed countries by means of the internet and the media. In order to further encourage cultural acceptance, a promotion and increase in digital food culture, such as blogs, will be most beneficial. Discerned by Professor of Culture, K. Seddon, in analyzing the trends of the group of “Bento Blogs” made by Japanese mothers in the United States, the likelihood of maintaining a stable audience in these was found,

“...that informational or ‘specialist’ blogs, such as those devoted to politics or food, tend to have a more stable presence in the blogosphere,” (Seddon, 2011, p. 12). 

An effective way to inspire people of different ethnicities to join the global culinary blogosphere is to invite them to write on pre-existing food blogs and websites about their own culture. For example, the company and journal, Milk Street, focuses on educating the average cook how to prepare traditional cultural dishes or those that are fused with more familiar cuisine that also allows for cultural history and awareness to be shared.

While ethnic enclaves can serve as a safe space for people of different ethnicities, in order to create a national community, promoting cultural acceptance rather than cultural isolation is needed. The culinary industry has withstood all challenges thrown its way, always thriving again and again through an economic downturn. By combining the strong forces of the culinary industry with the important mission of cultural acceptance, promoting culinary ventures with fusion cuisines will prove as a strong method to create a safe cultural environment in multiethnic countries.

Works Cited:

Aziz, S., Zafar, S., & Khan, M. A. (2023). Understanding the Behavioral Intentions to Consume Ethnic Food in the Country of Origin After Experiencing Local Ethnic Cuisines. Tourism & Hospitality Management, 29(4), 561–581. https://doi.org/10.20867/thm.29.4.7

Navarro, M. C. (2022). Blackness and food resilience: black culinary epistemologies, the slow food movement and racial justice. Food, Culture & Society, 25(2), 201–217. https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2021.1884453

Nooe, F. E. (2018). Southern Food in an “Imagineered” World: Constructing Locality in the Hyperreality of Walt Disney World’s Disney Springs. Southern Quarterly, 56(1), 96–117.

Philips, D. (2016). “Cooking Doesn’t Get Much Tougher than This”: MasterChef and Competitive Cooking. Journal of Popular Film & Television, 44(3), 169–178. https://doi.org/10.1080/01956051.2015.1119099

Prayag, G., Le, T. H., Pourfakhimi, S., & Nadim, Z. (2022). Antecedents and consequences of perceived food authenticity: a cognitive appraisal perspective. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 31(8), 937–961. https://doi.org/10.1080/19368623.2022.2100857

Seddon, K. (2011). Bento blogs: Japanese women’s expression in digital food culture. Women & Performance, 21(3), 301–319. https://doi.org/10.1080/0740770X.2011.624798

Shahrin, N., & Hussin, H. (2023). Negotiating Food Heritage Authenticity in Consumer Culture. Tourism & Hospitality Management, 29(2), 183–193. https://doi.org/10.20867/thm.29.2.3

Solier, I. (2005). TV Dinners: Culinary Television, Education and Distinction. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 19(4), 465–481. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304310500322727

Vidal, D. (2021).San Antonio’s Tex-Mex Food Culture: The Chili Queens and the Beginning of the Traditional Cuisine. Touchstone, 40, 33–42.