Today I read an essay on the internet (American Thinker) that presented a critique of an article on the Guardian that Apple Pie is basically a racist legacy of Europeans, who brought apples to the Cental North America and “forced it’ on the indigenous people. The continuation of calling apple pie as American merely oppresses everyone except North European descentants of early settlers. I don’t know if this focus on food is only a feature of the United States or not but between concerns that people are oppressing others by giving them the opportunity to eat an ethnic food or on the other hand forbidding them to eat something else and by doing so they would be guilty of “cultural appropriation” I am overwhelmed by anxiety.
I really enjoy eating a piece or pie, whether it is a fruit pie, like apple, cherry, or especially black berry or whether it is a savory pie like a chicken pot pie, a Cornish pasty (my wife’s ethnicity), or an Amish peanut butter pie. I like them especially if the crust is well made; the best are still made with lard. However, I’m not sure if I might be “cancelled” for eating anything but a Schwäbischer Zwiebsearching German ethnic pie. As I looked at the recipe it seems to be a yeast bread crust with basically sort of quiche – – sounds good, as all ethnic foods seem to be. (ref: https://www.daringgourmet.com/zwiebelkuchen-german-onion-pie/) These Europeans didn’t seem worried about incorporting their neighbors recipes at all. I’m quite happy with my German Swiss ethnicity and like sauerkraut, but I like kimchee too.
So now, here in modern woke America we are told that apple pie is basically racist and it is hard to me to understand the number of “Mexican” restaurants around although some are worried about “them” taking over the country. Either the “Mexicans” must eat more than any other ethnic group or there are a lot of us “others” scarfing down their food without permission by the Washington D.C. beltway folks. The other curious thing is that there are so many Americanized Chinese, Thai and (too few) Korean restaurants. I just hope the food police are going to have to live with the world they seem to want to create. Where will it stop? Will I, as a native Ohion be forbidden to eat creamy grits even though both my sons decided to live in the south? When my one son fixes grits for breakfast must I politely decline and breakfast only on tea? Actually I make better grits than he does. If you like I’ll tell you how.
This country is just going to Hades, but that (I think) is a Greco-Roman place so we shouldn’t consider it. For me, the German, I will be assigned a “hall”, perhaps like that referred to in “Thanatopsis” or, less desirable, to be either confined to my grave under the earth (I like more space) or to wander about the land above, ok.
At any rate I hope to be able to eat, whether consumed in a wonderful local restaurant or made in our own kitchen, some great food originally from Mexico, China, Thailand, Korea, Italy, France, England, Germany, Russia, and maybe once in a while Greece and the Middle East. I don’t like African food for some reason, my bad.
