'Inauthentic' cuisine worse than the Holocaust, say Oberlin College students

[Arctish]

I don't know what "showing a fucking hide" means but if those imaginary people were telling you the truth and your mother's dishes were actually a disgusting parody of the ones she was trying to masquerade them as, are you saying that they should lie to you because the truth is unbearable to your ears?

They can say whatever they like, but one thing they have no right to do is prevent me or other people enjoying the food by getting it banned by force.

Who is trying to get the food you like banned by force?

People are trying to get accurate descriptions of the food they're being sold. There is nothing wrong with that.

 

[zorq]

I don't know what "showing a fucking hide" means but if those imaginary people were telling you the truth and your mother's dishes were actually a disgusting parody of the ones she was trying to masquerade them as, are you saying that they should lie to you because the truth is unbearable to your ears?

They can say whatever they like, but one thing they have no right to do is prevent me or other people enjoying the food by getting it banned by force.

So what did you mean when you said they were showing a fucking hide? Would you say they have the right to complain that the food they were served was not what they were promised? Did I miss the part of the article where students pulled out weapons and threatened to murder the cafeteria staff unless they started to serve authentic international cuisine? Where is the "force" in this article that you are complaining about?

 

[EricK]

Authentic Vietnamese food needs French bread, else it's cultural appropriation. Heaven forbid you use bread from the wrong colonial power. And General Tso's Chicken is a dish so venerable, that not even Wikipedia can decide whether it is was invented in 1972 or 1973, and which American restaurant it what invented in - no wonder the recipe is practically sacred and mustn't be changed.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

I am not seeing the problem here.

If I am promised sushi and then I get a sushi-like dish, I would complain.

Just like I complain when I order a steak medium and they bring out a burnt piece of charcoal.

Who here wants to eat what they did not order?

 

[Arctish]

I once ordered meat loaf and got 2 hamburger patties in gravy. I complained. But I guess that makes me a special snowflake or something.

 

[Metaphor]

Not exactly. The students can demand that the vendor give accurate descriptions of the food being served, and the vendor will probably meet that demand. There's already an indication of that in the original Oberlin College article.

That isn't what the students are demanding. They're demanding the food be 'authentic'. They have no right to make that demand of anyone, because they have no moral claim on it.

Not ludicrous. There are laws about calling your product by a misleading name and it doesn't matter if the misleading name is well known or obscure.

To be misleading you would have to mislead people. What evidence is there that people are being misled? One person does not a public make.

Take muktuk for example. It doesn't matter if hardly anyone knows what that name means. If I own a food cart and say I'm serving muktuk, the stuff I'm dishing up better contain whale blubber. If it doesn't then I've engaged in false advertising.

If nobody is misled, what have you falsely advertised?

Students paying for a food plan at college can't just take their business elsewhere. They have their meals in the cafeteria, and they have to make their choices based on what the vendor says it is offering. Insisting that the descriptions of the food items match the actual food items isn't unreasonable.

That isn't what they're complaining about. They did not say 'we were misled about what we thought we were getting'. They are complaining that the food doesn't match some 'authentic' version they have in their head.

If Bon Appétit doesn't offer an actual banh mi sandwich, then it shouldn't pretend what it offers is banh mi. It should stick to the truth and call it a Vietnamese style pork sandwich.

Yes, imagine the millions of people who would have falsely bought a banh mi sandwich, when had they been informed it was a Vietnamese style pork sandwich, they'd have taken their business elsewhere.

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Don't play stupid. We readers of the forum have limited resources and don't need bs threads like this one. We could be participating in other threads, which I will now go do.

Bye.

 

[Metaphor]

But really, when no Vietnamese restaurant in Vietnam serves coleslaw in any form. I think it's fair to say that coleslaw is an inauthentic ingredient in any dish labeled "Vietnamese." Just how far are you willing to argue this point? Words have meanings and I know that you would love to reinterpret any word's meaning to help justify your outrage at those darn youths who won't keep off your grass... but get a dictionary and figure it out.

It wouldn't matter if no Vietnamese person had ever heard or conceived of coleslaw in their life. The idea that people are being misled by the labelling, and would reject the food were it labelled closer to what some people think is 'authentic' is bizarre.

I don't know what "showing a fucking hide" means but if those imaginary people were telling you the truth and your mother's dishes were actually a disgusting parody of the ones she was trying to masquerade them as, are you saying that they should lie to you because the truth is unbearable to your ears?

Not at all; they would just have no right to try to change the dish being served nor do they have any right insisting I call it something else.

 

[Metaphor]

I am not seeing the problem here.

If I am promised sushi and then I get a sushi-like dish, I would complain.

Just like I complain when I order a steak medium and they bring out a burnt piece of charcoal.

Who here wants to eat what they did not order?

So, all the people in Australia who order millions of sushi rolls a year with not a raw fish in sight, are all insanely deluded about what it is they want?

The idea that anyone has been misled by the labelling is a red herring. Nobody has been misled. They are complaining about 'inauthenticity'.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

That isn't what the students are demanding. They're demanding the food be 'authentic'. They have no right to make that demand of anyone, because they have no moral claim on it.

Not ludicrous. There are laws about calling your product by a misleading name and it doesn't matter if the misleading name is well known or obscure.

To be misleading you would have to mislead people. What evidence is there that people are being misled? One person does not a public make.

Take muktuk for example. It doesn't matter if hardly anyone knows what that name means. If I own a food cart and say I'm serving muktuk, the stuff I'm dishing up better contain whale blubber. If it doesn't then I've engaged in false advertising.

If nobody is misled, what have you falsely advertised?

Students paying for a food plan at college can't just take their business elsewhere. They have their meals in the cafeteria, and they have to make their choices based on what the vendor says it is offering. Insisting that the descriptions of the food items match the actual food items isn't unreasonable.

That isn't what they're complaining about. They did not say 'we were misled about what we thought we were getting'. They are complaining that the food doesn't match some 'authentic' version they have in their head.

If Bon Appétit doesn't offer an actual banh mi sandwich, then it shouldn't pretend what it offers is banh mi. It should stick to the truth and call it a Vietnamese style pork sandwich.

Yes, imagine the millions of people who would have falsely bought a banh mi sandwich, when had they been informed it was a Vietnamese style pork sandwich, they'd have taken their business elsewhere.

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Don't play stupid. We readers of the forum have limited resources and don't need bs threads like this one. We could be participating in other threads, which I will now go do.

Bye.

Is the authentic version in their heads the authentic version? the version you would get in the country of origin?

 

[Metaphor]

They can say whatever they like, but one thing they have no right to do is prevent me or other people enjoying the food by getting it banned by force.

So what did you mean when you said they were showing a fucking hide? Would you say they have the right to complain that the food they were served was not what they were promised? Did I miss the part of the article where students pulled out weapons and threatened to murder the cafeteria staff unless they started to serve authentic international cuisine? Where is the "force" in this article that you are complaining about?

The college is going to have 'meetings' with the offended students.

Now, either they'll change the dishes to be 'authentic', or they'll agree to call the dishes something else. Either outcome is the result of the perpetually offended loons imposing their demands on the public. If they change the dishes to be 'authentic', then they are saying the market is wrong to have chosen 'inauthentic' dishes. If they force a name change, they're making a claim they own the concept of a certain kind of food and any deviation that they do not approve makes it 'false advertising'.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

So what did you mean when you said they were showing a fucking hide? Would you say they have the right to complain that the food they were served was not what they were promised? Did I miss the part of the article where students pulled out weapons and threatened to murder the cafeteria staff unless they started to serve authentic international cuisine? Where is the "force" in this article that you are complaining about?

The college is going to have 'meetings' with the offended students.

Now, either they'll change the dishes to be 'authentic', or they'll agree to call the dishes something else. Either outcome is the result of the perpetually offended loons imposing their demands on the public. If they change the dishes to be 'authentic', then they are saying the market is wrong to have chosen 'inauthentic' dishes. If they force a name change, they're making a claim they own the concept of a certain kind of food and any deviation that they do not approve makes it 'false advertising'.

Is the authentic version in their heads the authentic version? the version you would get in the country of origin?

 

[Metaphor]

The college is going to have 'meetings' with the offended students.

Now, either they'll change the dishes to be 'authentic', or they'll agree to call the dishes something else. Either outcome is the result of the perpetually offended loons imposing their demands on the public. If they change the dishes to be 'authentic', then they are saying the market is wrong to have chosen 'inauthentic' dishes. If they force a name change, they're making a claim they own the concept of a certain kind of food and any deviation that they do not approve makes it 'false advertising'.

Is the authentic version in their heads the authentic version? the version you would get in the country of origin?

I don't know and it doesn't matter.

The point is: are the general public going to be misled about what is being offered?

In Australia, sushi is almost never the 'authentic' raw fish kind. Purists would no doubt turn up their nose at it. But that does not mean marketing breaded fried chicken wrapped in rice and seaweed is not sushi. It is sushi and calling it sushi misleads nobody.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Is the authentic version in their heads the authentic version? the version you would get in the country of origin?

I don't know and it doesn't matter.

Actually it does. The same way you can't advertise that your restaurant is serving beef stew and then give your customers horse meat.

The point is: are the general public going to be misled about what is being offered?

If they are being told that something is authentic and it isn't, then yes, the public is being misled. If I sell diamonds and promise them to be authentic diamonds but upon appraisal it is discovered that I sold cut glass, that is known a fraud in these United States. Maybe that is not the case legally down under. I don't know.

In Australia, sushi is almost never the 'authentic' raw fish kind. Purists would no doubt turn up their nose at it. But that does not mean marketing breaded fried chicken wrapped in rice and seaweed is not sushi.

At Oberlin, is what they advertised what they sold? if they said theirs was raw fish and then sold breaded fried chicken, that is a problem.

It is sushi and calling it sushi misleads nobody.

Not if it is promised to be something else.

OH and BTW

Complaints like these do not go against the market, but are part of the market. It is called customer feed back and is a big part of insuring customer satisfaction.

 

[Jayjay]

I'm no foodie, but according to Wikipedia Banh Minh is a "Vietnamese term for all kids of bread". Isn't it cultural appropiation to hijack this term to mean specific kind of sandwich with particular fillings?

 

[JonA]

I'm no foodie, but according to Wikipedia Banh Minh is a "Vietnamese term for all kids of bread". Isn't it cultural appropiation to hijack this term to mean specific kind of sandwich with particular fillings?

It's just more Multiculturalism stereotyping. No doubt if you asked a hundred Vietnamese to describe this dish, you would get a hundred different answers.

Case in point: a couple weeks ago the cafeteria at work was offering 'tater-tot hotdish'. I didn't order any, but I looked at it and I honestly would have had no idea what they were trying to sell were it not written on the sign.

I guess now I probably should have gotten all butt hurt and bitched out the motherfuckers for stealing my culture to make a buck.

Then again I'm not twelve...

 

[Jaecp]

Is the authentic version in their heads the authentic version? the version you would get in the country of origin?

I don't know and it doesn't matter.

The point is: are the general public going to be misled about what is being offered?

In Australia, sushi is almost never the 'authentic' raw fish kind. Purists would no doubt turn up their nose at it. But that does not mean marketing breaded fried chicken wrapped in rice and seaweed is not sushi. It is sushi and calling it sushi misleads nobody.

Breaded and fried? Yeesh. That's about as far from sushi as I can imagine. That isn't about "purists" being annoyed. This is simply not sushi. A purist might be annoyed that the kind of rice used isn't proper (maybe it lacks the right kind of vinegar, or it's imitation wasabi or something), but this is not what you're describing. You're describing something that has almost no connection to the dish itself being advertised as the dish outside of sharing some base ingredients. It'd be like if I advertised pizza, but what you got what a pepperoni, tomato and mozzarella sandwich. Tasty, to be sure, but could you fault an Italian student saying it's not pizza?

The big question for you is why does the school, or Australia in general, need to call this fried chicken dish sushi when it isn't?

Oh, and as a point, whether these people are "perpetually offended loons" is completely irrelevant. Do their claims have merit. That is the problem. That you felt the need to Godwin yourself in the OP (and, well, LIE in the title) is a strong indicator that you've got nothing

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I'm no foodie, but according to Wikipedia Banh Minh is a "Vietnamese term for all kids of bread". Isn't it cultural appropiation to hijack this term to mean specific kind of sandwich with particular fillings?

Hmm? Read the next paragraph on that there wiki article

edit:

Oh, and as it turns out the school was also making traditional Indian dish, tandoori, with beef. Something that is kind of a no no when the food tradition it comes from venerates cows which, as an atheist I don't care about, but it shows that the school just doesn't give a shit about doing things halfway close to correct when you're making Indian dishes with fucking beef in it.

 

[dismal]

Sounds like they need to drop all these foreign cultural appropriations and get back to good old fashioned American school lunch culture.

Square cardboard pizza and a scoop of applesauce.

Sloppy joes on Wednesdays.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Beef in a Hindu dish is pretty damn insensitive.
Calling fried chicken sushi is ridiculous but not offensive.
I make vegan chili with three, count um, three different kinds of beans. This might offend some and may even get me beat up, but it's still chili because I say so.

 

[thebeave]

Sounds like they need to drop all these foreign cultural appropriations and get back to good old fashioned American school lunch culture.

Square cardboard pizza and a scoop of applesauce.

Sloppy joes on Wednesdays.

No, can't do Sloppy Joes. It is demeaning and attributes harmful poor hygiene stereotypes to guys named Joe (and females who identify as a male named Joe). I was thinking maybe you could call them "Neatness-Challenged Joes", but I think even that is not going far enough.

 

[laughing dog]

Speaking of false advertising, this thread advertised some hyperbole about a Holocaust message.

This thread is appropriating the notion of real issues.

If you're saying these students whinging about inauthenticity don't have a real gripe, I agree.

I think his point was that the club of people who don't have a real gripe is bigger than you imagine.