Food Culture Uniformity
I love Buffalo wings just as much as the next person. They are, in reality, simple by design but intentional in maximisation of flavour. A true Buffalo wing amounts to 3 parts: chicken wings - both flats and drumettes - vinegar based cayenne pepper hot sauce, and a healthy dose of butter. Outstanding. It can be found in many restaurants as a standard starter, with patrons possibly even expectant of it, especially in the extent and availability of American cuisine and restaurants today.
But the virality behind the Buffalo wing is now ubiquitous amongst many foods. The onset of social media and eventual creation of TikTok has made the world much smaller than what it once was, in that many foods previously unknown or “undiscovered” can be broadcast to the world at the touch of a (figurative) button. Whole cultures of food once inaccessible and/or documented are live all day every day in our pockets.
However, this has led to trends emerging where due to the algorithmic promotion of something as a consequence of popularity leads to ever greater popularity. Cook after chef after critic after… on and on, the wheel of replication goes in recreating “their” version of the same, pushing the viewer to an inevitable feeling of FOMO (fear of missing out) in that they need to try this or that or be left behind by the crowd. Whether through the replication of review, recipe, cookery, what have you, foods go through commodification. No longer are the dishes beacons of culture, a language of their own describing history and change through which they were created in their place of origin.
In order to compete purveyors of foods must consider the inclusion of much the sameness in their menus, possibly to their annoyance, since everyone is raving about something at any given point in time. No longer are restaurants allowed to let the food do the talking solely, culturally, but rather they must adopt endless imports, commodified and made by every other restaurant around the block. The consumer also demand or feel they need(?) consistency through the endless onset of chain restaurants - particularly in places such as the UK and Ireland - again offering iterations or variations on the same, never speaking to history, tradition or quality in many cases. Restaurants are setup as stages on which the plates are served in the theatre of social media. Do not misunderstand me, I have done exactly that and helped in some cases the commodification of these foods. I hope to not do so in future.
The moral of the story is, I believe we should do more to understand and speak to a dish’s history, culture, origin, or language. That is not limited to, say, for example, Bolognese sauce originating in Bologna, Italy and being related to French ragout, but also if I am sitting down and eating a bowl of pasta Bolognese, who is behind it and how did they get here. That and we should dare to try something new, something different instead of succumbing to the continuous bombardment of virality and increasingly definitionless universality of certain dishes. That applies to both cook and patron.
