I don't trust ethnic food recipes not made by their respective groups

Basically, I only trust ethnic food recipes that were created by the cultural group in question. For example, I don't trust Chinese food recipes made by anyone: It has to be either a Chinese person or at least someone who has either assimilated into or who has had 1st hand experience in Chinese culture. I'd probably trust a Chinese recipe from say someone like Francine Smith from American Dad (she's not Chinese but she was raised by Chinese parents), but not a Chinese American whose family completely assimilated into American culture and lost all ties to Chinese culture. Similarly, I wouldn't trust a recipe for Arabic food unless it was done by someone raised in or closely studied Arabic culture. The list goes on. The reason why is because if I want to have a certain cultural culinary experience, I feel that if it comes from people from other cultures, they often put their own cultural spin on it or modify it to suit their respective culture's palates, thus nullifying its authenticity. For example, I remember Gordon Ramsay trying to make pad thai and the Thai chef said it wasn't really pad thai.

So in the end, I usually only trust recipes written by people from the corresponding cultural group. I don't mean to say that the ones written by other cultural groups have no merit (I mean I love a lot of Western recipes from Chinese restaurants, and I often love to eat Chinese noodles from a Western pasta place), but I usually only leave the recipe writing to the pros when wanting a more authentic experience.

Is this normal?

Voting Results
38% Normal
Based on 16 votes (6 yes)
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Comments ( 10 )
  • dirtybirdy

    I don't take my food that seriously.

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  • donteatstuffoffthesidewalk

    well too fuckin bad bout the fact that just bout every restaurant has mexicans runnin the kitchen nowadays then

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    • Cuntsiclestick

      Odd thing is this is sort of true in the town I live in. It's mostly Hispanic people running these different restaurants. lol

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      • shuggy-chan

        all i know are those Mexican "italians" can cook nom nom nom

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        • Cuntsiclestick

          Damn straight. I don't care what ethnicity makes the food as long as it tastes good.
          :)

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  • seekelp

    I once had rice made by an Eskimo. It tasted like rice.

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  • RoseIsabella

    Just go buy a cook book already!

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  • Aries

    I don't see what their back round has to do with cooking the food ? Anyone can learn recipe's of any culture .

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    • Anyone can learn, of course, but very often if you're from a different culture and you reconstruct a recipe from scratch, I would think more often than not you don't have the cultural culinary intuitions that the cultural group has.

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      • regisphilbin

        or even someone who's not a chef can sometimes make better dishes of their home culture just by interacting with their culture (for example, someone who's not a very good cook can make excellent food just like his/her mother used to make), and stuff like often gets passed down thru generations. on the other hand, chefs from outside cultures have to learn how to make a particular dish native to that culture, and even their culinary expertise sometimes isn't enough to make them as tasty and authentic as food prepared by people who grew up in that culture.

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