Is culinary colonialism a thing?

Have you ever looked at the food on your plate and wondered where it all came from?  Not just the shops or the farms, but the very origin of it and the stories it can tell.

Take chicken tikka masala, for example. Is it British or Indian? Should apple pie still hold its place in Americana given that apples, pastry or the spices used are not native to the United States? That delicious banh mi, the Vietnamese sandwich, exists in part because of the French. For some, these are examples of culinary colonialism. Others believe accessing new markets with your products isn’t imperialistic, it’s capitalism. But who gets to capitalise?

On this episode of The Stream we unpack the concept of culinary colonialism and ask our panel who owns the rights on ‘taste’. 

On this episode of The Stream, we speak with: 

Hyojin Park & Joi Lee, @hyojinandtonic; @joixlee
Journalists, Al Jazeera English & Hosts, Fork the System
aljazeera.com/programmes/fork-the-system

Mokgadi Itsweng, @lotshahomefoods
Chef & Food Entrepreneur
instagram.com

Daniel Stone, @DanEnRoute
Author, The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats
danielstonebooks.com 

Read more: 
America’s first ‘food spy’ traveled the world hunting for exotic crops – Smithsonian Magazine 
In India, the British hyped potatoes to justify colonialism – Atlas Obscura 

What do you think? Record a video comment or leave your thoughts in the comments below.