I didn’t think that last week’s newsletter on Thanksgiving meals would be all that controversial, but clearly quite a few of you did! “Your columns are bad enough as they are,” one reader wrote in an email. “Don't make them even worse by getting into politics.” (That was the nicest one.)
While “food is political” can feel like a cliche to people who are neck-deep in the food writing world, the reaction was a necessary reminder that, for many, it’s really a strange idea.
The most visible example comes from a speech given by Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton last Wednesday, who spent ten minutes decrying how the “revisionist charlatans of the radical left” have ruined Thanksgiving and denied the Pilgrims their due. Instead of putting on parades and celebrations honoring the Pilgrims, he remarked, those supposed charlatans published stories about how those settlers and the people who came in their wake brought war, plague and mass starvation to the Native Americans they met. (Notably, he didn’t mention honoring the Wampanoag people who graciously fed the starving settlers.) “Just today for instance the New York Times called the (Pilgrims’) story a myth and a caricature. In the ‘Food’ section, no less. Maybe the politically correct editors of the debunked 1619 Project are now responsible for pumpkin-pie recipes at the Times as well.”
Cotton was referring to reporter Brett Anderson's story about how our collective acknowledgment of indigenous histories, including the truth about what the Pilgrims meant for the people they met, might reach a tipping point with the growth of Native American visibility in American culture at large. In quoting Native American scholars like Dr. Hiʻilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart and Wampanoag historian Linda Coombs for his story on the Thanksgiving myth, Anderson was providing context — the truth. In his remarks, Sen. Cotton was echoing a familiar refrain: that it’s absurd, and even offensive, to take the bitter pill of knowledge with one’s pumpkin pie.
Likewise, when I wrote in last week’s newsletter that Republican senators, like Sen. Cotton, were largely responsible for the fact that independent restaurants and Americans in general will likely be left to wallow in financial suffering until January at the earliest, I was telling the truth. The House of Representatives passed the bipartisan HEROES Act, which includes grants for restaurants and further direct payments to American households, 27 weeks ago; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has called the bipartisan bill “unserious” and the Senate remains at a stalemate. Congress will go on its holiday recess tomorrow. The toll of human suffering will likely continue unabated because of their inaction.
On the day Sen. Cotton made his remarks about the Pilgrims, our country surpassed 250,000 deaths by COVID-19 and multiple restaurateurs wrote to me to say that their federal loans have run out.
I’m not sure if telling the truth really does represent “getting into politics,” as the reader above asserts. But maybe our politicians have spent so much effort denying the truth that actual, unfiltered truth has the feel of a foreign tongue.
On the podcast
East Bay podcaster and author Roman Mars, known for his show, 99% Invisible, called us up to talk about the new ways in which we interface with restaurants. We dig into the design of restaurant parklets and how delivery apps and contactless delivery are terrible from a labor perspective. Mars also reveals the name of his favorite taqueria in the East Bay—where he generally opts for the fries.
What I’m eating
The Thai drinking snacks at Isaan Intu-on, a pop-up in Hayes Valley, are some of the best Thai food I’ve had in the Bay Area. In particular, I really enjoyed the crispy shrimp toast, made with a mousse of shrimp and pork fat slathered on fluffy Japanese milk bread and fried. The pop-up’s bento box option gives you just one piece, which is torture. Grab a whole order so you can have several bites!
I also tried Z Zoul Cafe for the first time this week. The Sudanese restaurant’s most popular dish, the braised lamb shank with rice and vegetables, has a Flintstonian air to it, with its thick bone still attached. But the luscious and tender meat falls right off the bone just like a shroud off a shoulder.
Recommended reading
• For food writers and critics, the continued stalling of pandemic aid for restaurants and other food businesses feels a bit crazymaking. We’ve been saying the same things over and over again since the beginning; but we’ll keep saying them until something actually happens, even if it’s futile. Here’s Eater’s Meghan McCarron on why restaurants must get a bailout, and Jeremy Repanich at the Robb Report on how the government decided to let independent restaurants die.
• Some horrific news out of Iowa, via the Iowa Capital Dispatch: “A wrongful death lawsuit tied to COVID-19 infections in a Waterloo pork processing plant alleges that during the initial stages of the pandemic, Tyson Foods ordered employees to report for work while supervisors privately wagered money on the number of workers who would be sickened by the deadly virus.” At least five plant employees have died after contracting the virus, which supervisors dismissed as “a glorified flu.”
• And as a palate cleanser, check out this very on-point Onion story about Governor Gavin Newsom’s highly publicized visit to the French Laundry — and how he should have gone to Atelier Crenn instead.
• Also great to read is Justin Phillips’ story on how Nigerian eateries Eko Kitchen and Jollof Kitchen have been using food to start conversations about Nigeria’s #EndSARS movement. It’s part of a broader effort among the Nigerian diaspora to speak out against police brutality in their home country.
Bite Curious is a weekly newsletter from The Chronicle’s restaurant critic, Soleil Ho, delivered to inboxes on Monday mornings. Follow along on Twitter: @Hooleil
"bitter" - Google News
November 22, 2020 at 07:00PM
https://ift.tt/35T9G8N
Denial about politics in food won't make bitter realities less true - San Francisco Chronicle
"bitter" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3bZFysT
https://ift.tt/2KSpWvj
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Denial about politics in food won't make bitter realities less true - San Francisco Chronicle"
Post a Comment