I think about that anytime someone says something like "American food is so unoriginal, everything good there is stolen from immigrants" ... well sure, we're all ancestrally from somewhere else, and we brought lots of food traditions with us ... why do people say that like it's an insult? But really the same goes for the whole world on a long enough time scale. Heck, Italy wasn't even a thing when the Medicis were enjoying their imported tomatoes.
most dishes in europe would be plain boring without the columbian exchange. except for bread and fish/meat, you have very little staple foods left. Mainly beets and variants of it.
Potatoes are another great example. Being the staple food for most people since atleast the 1700's.
That's an interesting comparison - I've never thought of cultural appropriation along the lines of FOSS licenses before (I guess because the rules for borrowing from other cultures are unwritten). I wonder what compliance should look like in this case - is it enough for the borrower to treat the borrowed dish with care and make an earnest attempt to create something that respects the culture of origin (E.g., don't make steak tikka masala)? Should there be a note on the menu "this dish is inspired by the traditional food X, from culture Y"?
I think it'd be easy to take goodpoint's brief post to the point of absurdity, but I'm trying to give it a more productive reading.
The Culinary Cultural Appropriation Police are not going to come after anyone for not explaining spaghetti or tacos to an American audience. Everyone knows what those are even if they don't know every bit of the history of those items.
But if you're going to introduce a lesser-known dish, it'd be better to provide some context. When a white chef puts his twist on Ghanaian groundnut soup on the menu, that's ok - but don't just call it "Tim's Tasty Nut Soup" without referring to what it was inspired by. Give credit to the culture that invented the thing (and no, I don't think your menu needs to dive into the fact that it contains tomatoes which aren't native to Ghana, etc).
