If you’ve ever found yourself scrolling on the culinary side of the internet, you’ll know that people love sharing recipes, especially those that are meaningful to their culture or have become a staple for their family. However, there’s been a growing trend of these generational recipes being claimed, renamed and repackaged as shiny ‘new’ creations for younger and more mainstream audiences. What might seem like an innocent adaptation of a culture’s cuisine can actually contribute to the erasure of a dish’s cultural history and erode its place in our current zeitgeist.
Take congee for example. Congee is a simple porridge made by simmering rice in water and adding leftover soups, sauces, meats or vegetables. While today it serves as a quick and easy comfort meal, congee holds great historical significance; in the past, the dish was eaten by people when they needed to stretch limited rice supplies during periods of drought, famine or economic hardship in East Asia.
Despite this deep cultural background, TikTok chefs have rebranded this meal as ‘brothy rice,’ promoting it as a glamorous ‘health food’ with promises of clearing skin in a matter of days and increasing one’s lifespan by a decade. While the dish itself remains relatively the same, the narrative around it has definitely changed, and that shift matters.
As Harvard International Review explains, “As foods travel, they often lose the cultural context that gives them meaning, becoming commodities rather than connections to heritage.”
Many variations of this rice dish exist across different cultures, from Korean juk to Vietnamese cháo, but what all of these have in common is that none of them are marketed as a new dish that these countries have ‘discovered.’ The problem with so many influencers (and with American social media in general) is that people like to pretend they’ve discovered something for the first time when the recipe has actually existed for decades, whether for fame, notoriety or simply the desire to receive as many clicks/draw in as much viewership as possible.
The same pattern rears its head with ‘soy sauce eggs,’ a trend that’s taken off online despite simply being an adaptation of ‘tea eggs’ or more simply ‘marinated eggs’ that are commonly eaten in East and South Asian countries. These foods are now frequently featured in ‘weird food’ taste tests, wherein influencers will try an array of cultural foods they label ‘weird’ purely because they’re exotic or not used to their flavors. While it’s normal to find certain foods and flavors ‘weird,’ especially those that may be unfamiliar, calling another culture’s cuisine ‘weird’ or ‘strange’ in the face of millions of viewers can reinforce harmful stereotypes, especially when said viewers may be encountering that cuisine for the first time.
Some might argue that this renaming of cultural foods is actually beneficial, as it helps expose new generations to different cultures’ cuisines. While this might be true to a certain extent, there’s no denying the fact that renaming and repackaging foods with historical and cultural significance ultimately serves as a detriment to the culture and people the dish originated from. Exposure without credit is not appreciation but appropriation.
As The University of British Columbia notes, “Food serves not only as a means of nourishment but also as a way for individuals to engage with and better understand various cultures and communities.” When that connection is erased, so is the opportunity for genuine cultural understanding.
Ultimately, sharing food and recipes online can be a powerful way to engage with different cultures and celebrate diversity, but it’s important to do so with respect for one another. Giving credit, using appropriate names and acknowledging the history behind a dish are simple steps that can make a significant difference.
