The terrifying and tragic story of Bill Sparkman - I'm afraid this is going to turn very quickly into Appalachia-hate. Clay County is in one of the poorest regions of the country - Kentucky Coal territory - and as a longtime colony of business interests based out of other parts of the country, there's a great deal of paranoia and resentment among members of these communities. Having irresponsible idiots like Michelle Bachmann ginning up conspiracies about the census and ACORN doesn't help matters one bit.
A few of my own thoughts on this one: that looks foul to me. Not because I have an aversion to Asian sweets - I love Chinese pastries and gao as much as the next guy, but because of serious textural issues. I've got a strong distaste - and I recognize this is an issue of cultural programming - for gelatinous textures. I draw the line somewhere between panna cotta (divine) and Jell-O (disgusting). Flan, which is the closest thing we have in western culture to this concoction, is probably my single least favorite food in the world. Add to that the inclusion of Azuki bean - an unfamiliar ingredient to many that bears an unfortunate resemblance to rabbit pellets - and I totally understand why the first thing this brought to mind for some people was poop. They had no cultural/culinary context with which to regard this.
I don't disagree that there's a large dose of racism - or at least willful misunderstanding - in how westerners regard non-western food. As noted on Racialicious, shows like Fear Factor and Survivor treat traditional non-western foods like balut and fafaru as stunts. I hope to devote a future post to what I've noticed are distinct approaches to non-western cuisine on the shows Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations and Bizarre Food with Andrew Zimmern and relate it to the problematic new Travel Channel program Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre World. I think Bourdain's understated regard for non-western culinary traditions is a much healthier approach - Zimmern's simultaneous goo-gaws of 'How strange this is!' and 'You have to respect these traditions!' seem disingenuous by comparison. But that's for another post.
I'm liking this album by The xx a lot, so here's one of their music videos, directed by Anthony Dickenson:
Links of the Day (9/24/09)
The terrifying and tragic story of Bill Sparkman - I'm afraid this is going to turn very quickly into Appalachia-hate. Clay County is in one of the poorest regions of the country - Kentucky Coal territory - and as a longtime colony of business interests based out of other parts of the country, there's a great deal of paranoia and resentment among members of these communities. Having irresponsible idiots like Michelle Bachmann ginning up conspiracies about the census and ACORN doesn't help matters one bit.
Bad Behavior from Walmart
This 'Searching for Whitopia' sounds like my kind of book...
Over at Racialicious, Racially charged reactions to Non-Western Food
A few of my own thoughts on this one: that looks foul to me. Not because I have an aversion to Asian sweets - I love Chinese pastries and gao as much as the next guy, but because of serious textural issues. I've got a strong distaste - and I recognize this is an issue of cultural programming - for gelatinous textures. I draw the line somewhere between panna cotta (divine) and Jell-O (disgusting). Flan, which is the closest thing we have in western culture to this concoction, is probably my single least favorite food in the world. Add to that the inclusion of Azuki bean - an unfamiliar ingredient to many that bears an unfortunate resemblance to rabbit pellets - and I totally understand why the first thing this brought to mind for some people was poop. They had no cultural/culinary context with which to regard this.
I don't disagree that there's a large dose of racism - or at least willful misunderstanding - in how westerners regard non-western food. As noted on Racialicious, shows like Fear Factor and Survivor treat traditional non-western foods like balut and fafaru as stunts. I hope to devote a future post to what I've noticed are distinct approaches to non-western cuisine on the shows Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations and Bizarre Food with Andrew Zimmern and relate it to the problematic new Travel Channel program Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre World. I think Bourdain's understated regard for non-western culinary traditions is a much healthier approach - Zimmern's simultaneous goo-gaws of 'How strange this is!' and 'You have to respect these traditions!' seem disingenuous by comparison. But that's for another post.
I'm liking this album by The xx a lot, so here's one of their music videos, directed by Anthony Dickenson: