Cultural Appropriation & Mexican Food (Pt. 2: Food, Race, and Power)

In Part II of this three-part series, I venture out of the high-end chef bubble, and into some very real, and very heated debates about the cultural appropriation of Mexican food. Is Enrique Olvera right that food belongs to everyone, or is that just a free pass for powerful chefs to exploit the culinary traditions of minority groups? What responsibilities do foreign chefs like Rick Bayless have to the indigenous communities that they took their recipes from? And then there’s the really hard question for Mexico, and all countries with tortured histories of colonization: Does the appropriation of indigenous food unify people from very different backgrounds? Or is it exploitative—a way for elites to cherry-pick parts of indigenous culture for their own use—while leaving systemic inequalities intact? This episode is ostensibly about food, but it’s also about so much more. 

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