A taste of neocolonialism
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Today, Britain has a plethora of Indian restaurants, a result of its increasing popularity and presence in the British culture since the 1950s. At first glance, British people seem to appreciate this cuisine so much that, according to historian Buettner, the majority of customers at these establishments are white. Some even consider some dishes as traditional in Britain. However, this form of "appreciation", celebrated through food, has its pitfalls. On closer look, it feels less like cultural celebration and more like a surface-level acceptance with underlying issues. For instance, while British patrons seem to enjoy Indian food, they still often criticize it, finding fault with the authenticity of the menu, the variety of options, or even dismissing these restaurants as “second-class establishments” (Buettner, 157). This contradiction feels a lot like neocolonialism: appreciating another culture’s in this case, through food on one hand, while demeaning or trying to reshape it on the other. They’re quick to critique and even suggest ways to "improve" these Indian restaurants to make them more appealing, essentially attempting to appropriate and restructure them to fit a British standard, not unlike practices from the colonial era. There isn’t a genuine respect for something that wasn’t born from British roots, nor an effort to appreciate Indian food for what it is without imposing changes.
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I completely agree with your critique of the superficiality of cultural "appreciation" in this context. I find that this point connects to Mannur's discussion of the "stench of otherness" in her chapter 4, "Intimate Eating" (Mannur, 104). She explains how the white upper-middle class is inclined to be repulsed by the mexican-korean fusion food truck, citing their sanitary concerns as the reason while, in reality, their repulsion is rooted in an aversion and stigma surrounding working class people of colour. Owners of restaurants and food trucks serving "ethnic" foods have to take extra precaution to accommodate white fear and stigma, perhaps compromising the way they would have liked to serve their food. Food is such an intimate vehicle through which to share and connect with one's culture, and so many immigrant people of colour experience a feeling of shame and othering when it comes to sharing their food in a Western context, tainting their relationship to their culture on some level.