A storm in a cooking pot
Though to be honest I haven’t given this much thought, I never imagined that one day I’d be feeling sympathy for Jamie Oliver who – as with many so-called TV chefs – for me has a pronounced simultaneous ability to irritate and inform (if that’s you how you regard it).
For those who don’t read the newspapers, over the weekend Saint Jamie got himself into hot water for allegedly ‘culturally appropriating’ a West Indian – or is it Jamaican? – dish by launching his own brand of ‘punchy jerk rice’.
Close behind have come a series of other supposed culinary experts who have jumped on the bandwagon by queuing up in the media to lambast Oliver for his crassness and insensitivity/opportunism.
I was on my way to a food shop yesterday when Rustie Lee (remember her?) came on Radio Five Live to wade in with her criticism and a lecture about what should actually go into a jerk dish.
Subsequently one or two others have taken to the media to defend Oliver, e.g. Conservative MP Neil O’Brien who tweeted in reply to Dawn Butler ‘If Jamie Oliver isn’t allowed to make Jerk chicken because it’s cultural ‘appropriation’ she’s going to go mad when she finds out about “Jamie’s Italy” …’
[I’m not going to detail any more of the anti-Oliver interventions here or indeed the other banter going back and forth on Twitter and other social media].
Suffice it here to add that overnight Jamie Oliver has now defended himself by pointing out that he only used the term ‘punchy jerk rice’ in order to indicate where he had gained his inspiration from for his dish.
My point is only that all of this is just a storm in a teacup – or even a symptom of what we in the journalism trade call the ‘silly [summer] season” when everyone – including hacks – are on holiday and there’s not much happening to fill the news pages.
If one was being super-cynical about it – who knows? – it might even be that the PR people for the Jamie Oliver organisation might have deliberately cooked the row up as a little ruse to gain some publicity for Oliver’s new product. The old adage “There’s no such thing as and publicity – just make sure they spell your name and that of the product correctly!” somehow, illogically of course, springs to mind.
Be that as it may.
My purpose today is to throw a metaphorical brick at an easy target, the world of political-correctness.
Cultural appropriation? It’s been happening ever since Adam and Even left the Garden of Eden and began making apple pie.
I vividly recall the week-long stay of a prominent Indian businessman at my family home when I was a girl of about thirteen or fourteen. He was in the UK on business and made an impression upon me not only for his affable character but also for two other things.
Firstly, commenting at our dinner table that he personally regretted the Sub-Continent’s independence from Britain – “At least when the Brits administered us the trains used to run on time!”
Secondly, when he went for a meal with my father at a well-known Indian restaurant in the Queensway area of London, he fell into a conversation and then an argument with successively a waiter, the restaurant manager and finally the chef over the specific ingredients of a dish he had ordered: the incident eventually escalated to the point where he strode into the kitchen of the establishment and made the dish himself in order to ‘demonstrate their failings’.[I should add here that – this distance in time further on – I cannot now recall which team ‘won the argument’ but suspect that quite possibly it ended honours-even].
What is relevant to the current Oliver story is that when staying as our guest said gentleman told us that authentic Indian food was often very different to what we ate and had become used to in the UK.
Never mind the colonial nature of the history of the respective nations, over time clearly those Brits who went out to and spent time on the Sub-Continent – whether as administrators, district commissioners, army officers or diplomats – grew fond of aspects of the local culture and indeed cuisine.
Separately, when inhabitants of the Sub-Continent began emigrating to the UK they also brought with them their culture and cuisine.
However – with certain dishes – they soon found that the indigenous population were not over-fond of some flavours etc. So what did they do? They did the obvious and changed the ingredients, consistency and taste of them in order to better suit the local palate.
I’m no expert on Indian food but hearsay has taught me that some of the most popular – some might suggest staple – Indian dishes as served in the UK are as different as chalk from cheese from said dishes as originally developed and still eaten on the Sub-Continent.
In fact, for some of the billion-plus who currently live ‘over there’, the UK versions of several supposed classics are (or would be) regarded as tasteless ‘gloop’ – and not only entirely unworthy of their description but unrecognisable as their counterpart dishes as enjoyed on the Sub-Continent.
Thus the millions of Brits of all ethnicities and backgrounds who ‘love a curry’ from time to time (whatever exact item on the menu they choose) may or may not know that what they are scoffing down – with or without the proverbial Cobra beer – is less than wholly ‘authentic’.
Does any of this really matter? I mean, seriously … does it?!?!
Here’s a link to a piece by Tomé Morrisy-Swan that may be of interest to Rust readers, as appears upon the website today of the – DAILY TELEGRAPH
