4 ms·

My favorite is when people say they like "asian cuisine" or "asian food". China alone has several distinct cuisines. Why do we act like this is a monolithic con

• kubb 7mo ago
  It's similar to how people say "Europe does this or that". Basically the part of their thoughts dedicated to that part of the world is so small that all they can afford is a tiny box, and everything has to go in there, reality be damned.
  • Muromec 7mo ago
    Europe at the very least has one parliament that sometimes passes laws that apply to almost the whole continent
    • pocksuppet 7mo ago
      Not really, it's not sovereign. The EU can pass laws that each European country chooses to implement. If they don't implement enough EU laws, they can get kicked out, which means more pieces of paper are written and some European countries might choose to afford them less privileges.
      • jimnotgym 7mo ago
        > The EU can pass laws that each European country... Each EU member state, the UK, Switzerland and Russia don't really get involved
        • pocksuppet 7mo ago
          Those countries may also ratify EU laws if they wish. I think the UK has something similar to GDPR and Switzerland also picks and chooses which laws it thinks make sense.
          • jimnotgym 7mo ago
            No, they don't. The UK was a member of the EU when GDPR was passed, and chose to adopt it as law. When it left the EU it didn't repeal it. They may both decide to copy, or imitate laws similar to the ones the the EU has, but they can't 'ratify' them.
      • zajio1am 7mo ago
        No. EU laws are of two kinds: directives and regulations. Directives work roughly as you describe, while regulations have direct effect like regular laws.
    • jimnotgym 7mo ago
      Europe does not have a parliament. The EU does, but it is not even sovereign over the EU countries.
• 0x457 7mo ago
  Because there was a lot of cultural cross-contamination between these countries, there is a huge overlap in ingredients due to climate similarities and trade between neighboring countries. I group European & American food into their respective groups as well. > Asia rolls out 4-day weeks, WFH to solve fuel cris... Makes no sense, same with "I'm in a mood for asian food"
  • pzo 7mo ago
    > Makes no sense, same with "I'm in a mood for asian food" Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese, Indian food / cuisine even thought different is more probably closer to each other same like e.g. Polish and Spanish is closer to each other than to most other asian cuisine.
    • 0x457 7mo ago
      Asian countries developed with more overlap in basic ingredients, cooking techniques, and historical influence networks than Europe did. Historically there were 3 influence zones in Asia. There is a lot of pickling, fermenting, salting, drying. In Asia of these techniques were more or less unified. Fish sauces from different countries are Pepsi vs Coca-Cola level of difference. > Polish and Spanish is closer to each other than to most other asian cuisine. I'd say Polish has a lot of similarities with Asian cuisine. Sure, both have stews and sausages, but flavor profiles are very different: acidic vs sour. I won't be able to tell difference between gyoza & wonton if they shaped the same, but surely I can tell difference between ravioli & uszka. Uszka is IMO closer to any dumpling from Asia than to anything European.
      • graemep 7mo ago
        I disagree with that. There is nothing in South Asian cuisine similar to sashimi or to soy heavy stir fries. Very few east Asian dishes use the spices most popular in South Asia. Spaghetti is far more similar to noodles than it is to any South Asia equivalent I can think of. Yes, a filled pasta is a very different thing from dumpling, but a lot of European cuisines have dumplings.
• jstummbillig 7mo ago
  Because that is how it's presented to "us". If the cuisine that we could access where we live was more diverse, we would think differently about the entire set (which is not happening for another set of entirely good reasons, but alas.)
  • StilesCrisis 7mo ago
    I don't know about that. Japanese food and Thai food have very little in common besides rice. Possibly there is some overlap in curry but not much.
    • jstummbillig 7mo ago
      Sure. And most people I knew are able to differentiate between "sushi" and "Thai curry".
    • account42 7mo ago
      You're forgetting soy sauce.
• foobarian 7mo ago
  Wait until you hear someone talk about "begging the question"
• evilduck 7mo ago
  Globally, everyone does this. When someone outside of America thinks of American food, do you think they will think of Cajun gumbo, TexMex, Clam Chowder, or something you'd find on the menu at McDonalds?
  • cucumber3732842 7mo ago
    >When someone outside of America thinks of American food, do you think they will think of Cajun gumbo, TexMex, Clam Chowder, or something you'd find on the menu at McDonalds? Statistically this random non-american is some sort of Asian. Therefore the answer is finger lickin good.
    • rootsudo 7mo ago
      Ah, a fan of Korean fried chicken, I see.
  • nradov 7mo ago
    I thought that McDonald's was considered Scottish cuisine?
  • graemep 7mo ago
    All of the above. I like the first three.
• fullstop 7mo ago
  A lot of the places by me have both a Chinese menu and a Japanese menu. Some even have a Thai menu. So when you're going out for Asian food, it really is that. No sense in being pedantic here.
  • mghackerlady 7mo ago
    I went to a combo thai-chinese place once... Now I want sesame chicken...
  • wat10000 7mo ago
    And I doubt the contents of any of those menus are particularly close to what you'd find in the countries they claim to be from. It's really more like "Asian-inspired."
    • fullstop 7mo ago
      I often wondered about that. We hosted an exchange student for a few weeks, and he was from Nanjing. Before he left the country, we took him to a Chinese restaurant and warned him that it was likely going to be more like American-Chinese. He went through the menu and pointed out the dishes which were authentic and those which were not. I was surprised at how many were actually authentic -- it was about half of the menu. Maybe we were at a more authentic Chinese restaurant, as the menu was in both English and Chinese. He was a great kid, and I really enjoyed the experience. He loved peanut butter and jelly, had to spit out ranch dressing, and did not care at all for pumpkin pie.
      • jghn 7mo ago
        There's also the question of authentic/traditional to which part of china, in particular in cases where dishes with the same name aren't made the same. But beyond that, just because there's a dish on the menu one recognizes from their homeland doesn't mean it's prepared the same.
        • fullstop 7mo ago
• hrimfaxi 7mo ago
  Isn't there a concept of regional cuisine like "Mediterranean cuisine"?
  • jimnotgym 7mo ago
    Mediterranean cuisine = contains olive
  • fullstop 7mo ago
    I was watching some travel show on PBS, which I can't recall the name of. They were going through Egypt and met up with a guy from the area who walked them through getting the local food. So much of what they had looked the same as the food that you could find in Greece, but they were fiercely adamant that it was both different and better. Anyway, it's Mediterranean food in my mind. :-)
• ajkjk 7mo ago
  It's a category that makes sense to people and communicates something clearly..?
• dheera 7mo ago
  When Asians use the term, we usually use it to loosely mean "my home cuisine and other cuisines that share similar characteristics" When my wife or I say "I feel like eating something Asian today" it usually means spicy-Chinese adjacent, i.e. served hot, vegetables fully cooked, heavy on flavor, paired with either rice or freshly made noodles. Korean qualifies, Sichuan food qualifies, Thai food qualifies, Indian food maybe sort of borderline qualifies on some days but only if we haven't eaten it recently. We don't usually mean Japanese food when we say that. That's just our mutual understanding of what we call "Asian food". Yeah, I guess we unapologetically kicked Japan out of culinary Asia :) It doesn't matter. The system works for us. We don't dislike Japanese food, but we'll say "Japanese food" when we feel like having Japanese food. Another Asian family from a different part of Asia probably uses the term to refer to a different subset of Asian cuisines. Like just about everything else in Asia, it's a fluid term that means different things to different people. I've only ever seen people in the west be pendantic about terms like this. I also think of it as a very western ideology to want to have a term have a singular global definition.
  • graemep 7mo ago
    We rarely say "Asian food" - we would be more specific.
• boplicity 7mo ago
  The term "Western" is often used in an equally broad sense, referring to Europe/North American culture.
  • hunter2_ 7mo ago
    That's always been a weird one for me. If I might quote Gemini's summary since it seems accurate enough: > Geographical/Historical: The Bosporus Strait in Turkey is historically considered the dividing line between Europe (West) and Asia (East). > Prime Meridian: The 0° longitude line running through Greenwich, England, is used to technically separate the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. > Cultural/Political: Cultural definitions are often more relevant, placing countries like Australia, New Zealand, and North America in the "West" due to historical ties, despite their geographic location. I suppose you're leaning into the "Bosporus Strait" option more than the "Prime Meridian" option, given that the former would put most of Europe in the West while the latter would put most of it in the East.
• graemep 7mo ago
  Asian can also have different meanings in different places. If you say someone is Asian in Britain it means South Asian, whereas in the US it seems to mean East Asian.
• dzhiurgis 7mo ago
  Because some places didn’t get immigration or even access to imported products. Being small town in Lithuania I didn’t even tried pizza until late 90s, chinese 2000s and indian probaly 2010s. There’s still like less than 5 Indian restaurants in country and probably none korean, etc. Also things like asian fusion can evolve independently.
• tosapple 7mo ago
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• whaleofatw2022 7mo ago
  I feel shame because I once thought a restaurant's sign said "Asian Place" when it actually said "A Siam Place"
• FpUser 7mo ago
  >" Why do we act like this is a monolithic concept?" Under "we" you mean white / the westerners? Because the majority of us do not give a flying fuck about other parts of the world. Not important enough. One can easily see how our media reacts to tragedies on one one side comparatively to the other. As for food. I live in Toronto and can clearly distinguish between quite a few different "Asian" cuisines.
• ux266478 7mo ago
  In vulgar American English, "Asia" mostly just refers to the wider Confuciosphere + some parts of Central Asia (though rarely thought about.) Most Americans will look at you funny if you call Pakistan or Jordan Asian, because that's not how we use the word. > China alone has several distinct cuisines. Why do we act like this is a monolithic concept? When someone is talking about "Chinese food", they almost certainly are talking about the cuisine established by Chinese immigrants in their country, not food as it exists within China. This isn't unique to China. More American vulgarism fun facts, "Chinese" wasn't pan-Chinese until somewhat recently. It pretty much exclusively meant Cantonese outside of very specific contexts, like geopolitics. This changed slowly starting in the 1970s, but emphasis on slowly and it still persists in interesting ways today.
• nkrisc 7mo ago
  Because much of the Asian food the average American will come across isn’t necessarily identifiable to a specific region or country in Asia, or is a blend of various Asian cuisines. Or they are broadly referring to the various cuisines of Asia as a singular group, because unless you’re very familiar with those cuisines, they may see broadly similar.