Culinary Tourism

When first reading Culinary Tourism by Lucy M. Long, I was at first a little baffled by her use of the Other as a means of describing and understanding foodways.  I have only ever previously understood the Other in contexts of anthropological study and other cultures.  I guess I have always looked at food as being a cultural experience, but I have never looked at it as part of the Other, which is silly because food literally connects with everything.  I would like to focus on Long's quote on page 35: "These shifts occur on a personal level as well, reflecting an individual's history, personality, experiences, and circumstances.  Food, like any cultural product, is multivocal and polysemic, and new meanings can be recognized in new contexts" (Long 35). 

Food as a means for experiencing cultural is an interesting concept for me, and brings up a few questions.  How can one truly experience and fully understand a culture simply by visiting a restaurant?  Is it not cultural appropriation, and not to mention entitled, of someone to go to an "authentic" Korean restaurant and expect to "have a cultural experience?"  What even is authentic?  Long does address this, however, stating that "the restaurants expecting a non-Korean clientele tended to use the more stereotypical Asian decor, such as beaded curtains, dragon motifs, and red napkins, with a familiar large dining room seating arrangement" (38).  I agree with Long that this is not authentic, but as she goes on to discuss how food that was once seen as somewhat 'unpalatable' to people of the U.S. have now been adopted into mainstream culture, like pizza.  What happens if we do the same to Korean restaurants (which, I could argue, has already happened)?  We are losing where these foods are coming from, what culture they are representing, and the stereotypes that U.S. Americans already have are further being perpetuated by stereotypical Asian decor.  What does this say about our expectations of Other cultures?  Long argues that "food is a powerful medium through which to enter another culture" (45), but how can we do that when we expect and want to experience only what we know about the other culture, such as the stereotypical Asian decor?  Why are there not more actual authentic Korean restaurants (I understand the need for English menus, but that's about it)?  I think the answer to this question comes from the fact that we as U.S. Americans feel entitled to take certain things from other cultures and make it work for us.  We do not understand where these foods are coming from, what they mean to a culture.  We only understand our own experiences of them.

I think that Long is getting to this point.  Her last sentence is "As destination and vehicle for tourism, food expends our understanding of both food and tourism" (46).  Notice how she does not say it expands our understanding of culture.  If she did, I don't know how I would have reacted.  However, I think she does have a point in that food is an integrative part of how we experience a culture, and how we understand it (not that this will result in a clear and non-stereotypical understanding of it).