Food magazines ‘hijacking dishes’
THREE major food publications have bowed to social media pressure after being accused of hijacking ethnic dishes.
Bon Appetit, a magazine and website owned by Vogue publisher Condé Nast, and UK publications BBC Good Food and Olive have all been criticised for taking credit for recipes originally from foreign cuisines.
Christine Hayes, editor-in-chief of BBC Good Food and Olive, has now launched a review of its 13,000 recipes and removed dishes with names such as ‘Asian salad’.
And Bon Appetit has launched a similar review after one of its writers, Alison Roman, was criticised for her recipe for a spiced chickpea, coconut and turmeric concoction which critics pointed out was a watered-down Indian or Caribbean curry, though its ethnic roots were not made clear.
Ms Roman was lambasted on social media, where users described her as the ‘Christopher Columbus of food influencing’ – a reference to America’s discoverer and his mistreatment of indigenous people.
Another, commenting on a recipe for cabbage with preserved lemon and sesame posted on Instagram, wrote: ‘When appropriating a food item that is staple to some North African/Asian cooking, it would be cool for you to point that out.’
Bosses at Bon Appetit, and its sister website Epicurious, said that recipes that ‘shoehorn in a trendy ingredient with no explanation’ or fail to credit their cultural inspiration, will now be updated.
And recipes will include notes to address ‘past appropriation and tokenisation’.
But MiMi Aye, author of Mandalay: Recipes And Tales From A Burmese Kitchen, cast doubt on the move. ‘All you are going to do is enrage people,’ she told The Times. ‘They will think it’s another “political correctness gone mad” thing.’
Joseph Hernandez, research director at Bon Appetit, accepted that the magazine was guilty of ‘decontextualising recipes from non-white cultures and for knighting “experts” without considering if that person should, in fact, claim mastery of a cuisine that isn’t theirs’.
Meanwhile, Ms Hayes told The Times: ‘Recognising and apologising for mistakes, seeking to put things right, outlining a clear plan of action and asking for audience input is a step in the right direction.’
Last month, Bon Appetit’s editorin-chief Adam Rapoport was forced to resign after a so-called ‘brown face’ photo of him at a Halloween party in 2003 surfaced on social media.
It was also claimed that non-white staff members were paid less than white members for appearing in front of the camera.
It is not the first time the cooking industry has faced accusations of racial stereotyping.
In 2018, BBC Masterchef hosts Gregg Wallace and John Torode were criticised for telling a Malaysian-born contestant how to cook a chicken rendang, a dish created in the contestant’s home country.