The Omnivore's 100: In Which I Am a Killjoy

Bear with me, this one evolved as it was written, and everything I've been thinking scatteredly for months seems to have made it out.

I take issue with this list the way I take issue with most food writing in general: in its pronouncement that "the list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food – but a good omnivore should really try it all," it glides over the fact that "omnivore" apparently means someone who eats at all price points as much as someone who eats at all food pyramid points.

For example, number 84: "Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant."

Food writing, in general, tends to be pretty glib about the socioeconomic impossibility of pleasures such as the above for 99% of the world's population. In taking up Pleasure as the banner of foodie-ism, we are able to overlook everything from cultural theft to local poverty as unfortunate, but ultimately not our problem.

Leave it to the people who write food politics blogs or race blogs or humanitarian blogs, the thought goes, so we can get back to the business of analyzing whether something tastes good. Let hedonistic enjoyment prevail, all else is irrelevant. The world is our banquet.

But I am bothered by taste that exists in a vacuum, sucked from its context. I am not saying we shouldn't eat, and eat everything, it's just that should we not also recognize the privileges of being so entitled? Food is an excellent entry point to examination of ourselves and the world around us, but an element of self-critique has been missing from the current trend.

What is the current trend? The current trend is that frat boy down the hall who went to India and came back with Buddhism and rope sandals. We go out of our way to eat (and write) the most exciting things sourced from both Third World backyards and our own, and we congratulate ourselves on being open-minded.

I hate that kid down the hall, and I find myself turning into him.

But once in a while, something like The Omnivore's 100 comes along, and I end up checking myself even though I was only intending to check off numbers. I find myself looking at the "whole insects" entry and wondering about the people who eat them because they are the cheapest protein available or the only protein available, as my Dad once did. I look at something like "sweetbreads" and wonder when it became so hip, and why only European cuisines can seem to make offal hip. I see McDonald's on there and recognize its place on the list as an ironic cultural marker, not the way of life for people living in urban deserts.

I look at "pho," "aloo gobi," and "chicken tikka masala," and wonder when did other peoples' histories of immigration and adaptation - people who face oppression in America even as their foods are celebrated - become something for me to check off a list and pat myself on the back over.

As foodies and as writers, I think we've done a good job of giving serious thought to important issues like animal rights and America's broken agricultural systems. What I don't see is the same incorporation of critical analysis toward people.

When Yelpers or Chowhounders complain about the lack of great Mexican food in NYC, I want to ask whether they've thought about why that is. Are the people qualified to make great Mexican food priced out by the high overhead costs of opening a restaurant here? What about the great "secret" taco shops hidden in the back of unassuming grocery stores? Can we look at their locations not as a charming quirk - or worse, a badge of authenticity - but as the manifestation of people trying to do business with very few resources?

Foodies often take food a little too seriously. I want foodies to take food even more seriously, but in a different way. Our prevailing attitude toward ethnic food and ethnic communities cannot be like Columbus discovering America. How many times have you heard someone say, "I found the best Indian/Vietnamese/Thai place the other day, I was the only white person there," or, "The only GREAT Chinese restaurants are in Flushing"? If we think something exists solely for our foodie creds, our little pilgrimages, it's inevitable that we develop a hurtfully cavalier attitude toward other people's cultures.

You see, for people of color, food is more than just food. It is often the only representation our histories and cultures have in America; it is our face. So with feelings of pride at seeing our cuisines be accepted come feelings of protectiveness as well. It is hard to abide casual users and casual judgments of our food when our food is known as our identity, whether we like it or not. You may not feel like Chinese tonight, but we can never escape questions like, "so is it true y'all eat dog?" Thus, it is even harder to see casual users enjoy our foods with no strings attached, when we ourselves have been ostracized many a time for our curries and kimchis, which were "weird" and "disgusting" long before wealthy white foodies made them cool.

I guess I am uncomfortable with food writing and going about it as a woman of color. There are plenty of people of color who write food blogs, but I can't help but feel the conversation is still very white. I'd like to hear thoughts on this. Does anyone else have opinions about these things?