Teh One Who Knocks
02-27-2017, 01:06 PM
By Ian Miles Cheong - Heat Street
http://i.imgur.com/wfXQE2fh.jpg
A Portland-based professional food photographer has declared Instagram food photography to be “racist”. People who post pictures of the meals they eat on the popular image-sharing service may be oppressing people of marginalized cultures, says Celeste Noche.
Speaking on The Racist Sandwich, a podcast that examines food through the intersectional feminist lens of race, gender, and class, Noche identified a problematic pattern of food photography on both Instagram and professional spreads in magazines and websites.
http://i.imgur.com/g4ffglE.jpg
She says that it is necessary for food photographers—amateur or otherwise—to educate themselves with the culture of any given dish, or they may end up oppressing those cultures with stereotypical misrepresentations.
Noche says that white people tend to “exotify and overcompensate” their food presentation by using utensils that aren’t commonly associated with ethnic dishes as decoration. She cited an instance where a recipe for Filipino short ribs was presented alongside chopsticks—Filipinos prefer to eat their rice-heavy dishes with forks and spoons.
The food photographer also pointed out an instance where Bon Appetit magazine was forced to apologize to hypersensitive people for calling pho a “food trend” in North America. The backlash was prompted by a Vietnamese-American who complained—arguing that calling the Vietnamese noodle dish “fashionable” and likening it to Japanese ramen was disrespectful of Vietnamese history.
Reflecting on Noche’s complaints, Quartz’s Chase Purdy writes: “Eating Thai food might be an afternoon dalliance for one person, but for another it’s a direct link to their cultural heritage—which is all the more reason to be curious and thoughtful about the food we eat.”
http://i.imgur.com/VdOQ3mN.jpg
No, you don’t. Unless you’re presenting a plate of Peking duck set next to a portrait of Chairman Mao, you’re in the clear.
As someone who lives in Southeast Asia, I can attest to the fact that no one is going to take offense to what utensils you use to eat. No one will bat an eye if you eat a Filipino dish with a pair of chopsticks or consume a spicy Chinese dish with a fork and spoon and eat it on a plate instead of in a bowl. Sharing a photo of your food on social media will even put a smile on the chef’s face. After all, it’s free advertising.
It might seem less “authentic” to present a Chinese dish with metal cutlery in a pictorial, but calls to retain the authenticity of a culture is precisely the “exotification” most modern Asians care very little for.
http://i.imgur.com/wfXQE2fh.jpg
A Portland-based professional food photographer has declared Instagram food photography to be “racist”. People who post pictures of the meals they eat on the popular image-sharing service may be oppressing people of marginalized cultures, says Celeste Noche.
Speaking on The Racist Sandwich, a podcast that examines food through the intersectional feminist lens of race, gender, and class, Noche identified a problematic pattern of food photography on both Instagram and professional spreads in magazines and websites.
http://i.imgur.com/g4ffglE.jpg
She says that it is necessary for food photographers—amateur or otherwise—to educate themselves with the culture of any given dish, or they may end up oppressing those cultures with stereotypical misrepresentations.
Noche says that white people tend to “exotify and overcompensate” their food presentation by using utensils that aren’t commonly associated with ethnic dishes as decoration. She cited an instance where a recipe for Filipino short ribs was presented alongside chopsticks—Filipinos prefer to eat their rice-heavy dishes with forks and spoons.
The food photographer also pointed out an instance where Bon Appetit magazine was forced to apologize to hypersensitive people for calling pho a “food trend” in North America. The backlash was prompted by a Vietnamese-American who complained—arguing that calling the Vietnamese noodle dish “fashionable” and likening it to Japanese ramen was disrespectful of Vietnamese history.
Reflecting on Noche’s complaints, Quartz’s Chase Purdy writes: “Eating Thai food might be an afternoon dalliance for one person, but for another it’s a direct link to their cultural heritage—which is all the more reason to be curious and thoughtful about the food we eat.”
http://i.imgur.com/VdOQ3mN.jpg
No, you don’t. Unless you’re presenting a plate of Peking duck set next to a portrait of Chairman Mao, you’re in the clear.
As someone who lives in Southeast Asia, I can attest to the fact that no one is going to take offense to what utensils you use to eat. No one will bat an eye if you eat a Filipino dish with a pair of chopsticks or consume a spicy Chinese dish with a fork and spoon and eat it on a plate instead of in a bowl. Sharing a photo of your food on social media will even put a smile on the chef’s face. After all, it’s free advertising.
It might seem less “authentic” to present a Chinese dish with metal cutlery in a pictorial, but calls to retain the authenticity of a culture is precisely the “exotification” most modern Asians care very little for.