The Off Topic Topic

[Sheilbh]

Also there definitely are potatoes in Chinese cuisine, but it's different than the Western use. Potato flour is commonly used in thickening sauces in Chinese dishes (you'll find it in every Asian supermarket), like cornflour here.

But more broadly I think here it's a starch, there I think it's basically treated like a veg. Often see it sliced in slivers and stir fried, Ive definitely had it cooked with tomatoes too. But it's one of many veg dishes you might have on a table/in a meal rather than the starchy base layer.

[HVC]

If you want to try something new, try tapioca starch. Chinese thing too. Gives sauses a smoother texture.

[garbon]

Rice. It's a starch and can be used for anything potatoes can.

*edit* and keeps better then potatoes can.

Yet: India.

Maybe India as a whole isn't as good for cultivating rice?

Rice BTW is superior to potato. I am not saying I prefer rice over potato with EVERY food, but for most, yes.

[Josquius]

Rice AND potato is the best. Why choose. .
The little bits of potato and carrot really make a Japanese curry.

[HVC]

Japanese curry is the worst curry. Fight me.

[Tamas]

Rice AND potato is the best. Why choose. .
The little bits of potato and carrot really make a Japanese curry.

Japanese curry with potato? This must be like dividing with zero for the cultural appropriation crowd.

[Admiral Yi]

Japanese curry is the worst curry. Fight me.

Korean curry is pretty miserable.

[crazy canuck]

A random thought.
Why don't they have potatoes in Chinese/east Asian cuisine?

A quick Google throws up lots of "ha gotcha!" stuff about how China is actually the world's biggest potato producer, obscure dishes that do contain potato and so on.
But general Chinese food that you see in the west just never has any potato in it. In Japan i can't remember ever running into a Japanese potato dish bar curry.

It's weird because basically everywhere else: the west, Africa, India, obviously Latin America... OK not the middle east either.
They did take off.

Pretty simple explanation actually. The food you think of as Chinese food is not actually Chinese food.

[Jacob]

I can't speak for all of Chinese cuisines, but my father-in-law cooks some Sichuan dishes with potatoes (including mashed potatoes). Fried egg and tomato on rice (or noodles) is a classic home-cooking staple as well.

Tomatoes and potatoes are nowhere as omnipresent as they are in Western cuisines, but they're definitely there.

[Barrister]

Rice AND potato is the best. Why choose. .
The little bits of potato and carrot really make a Japanese curry.

Japanese curry with potato? This must be like dividing with zero for the cultural appropriation crowd.

Japanese curry is the most amazing cultural appropriation dish evah.  An Indian dish, brought to Japan by British sailors (which is how it seems so much more like a stew), then made uniquely japanese.

Is any curry really that bad?  Isn't like pizza and sex - even when it's bad, it's good?  I made Japanese Curry a couple of times when we had our japanese student - It was one of only a handful of japanese dishes I tried.  I made the curry is just made from big blocks of pre-made curry base, so it's not going to be as fragrant as cooking with a dozen different spices from scratch, but it's still fairly decent.

[Jacob]

So when it comes to cultural appropriation and food I've kind of come out on the other side.

There's nothing wrong with adapting foreign dishes as your own, and adjusting them to local tastes. That said, I tend not to be into dishes my own culture just started to appropriate, as they tend to just be blander less interesting versions of the original. That, however, is a aesthetic judgement, not a moral one.

[Jacob]

Japanese curry is great

[Josquius]

If 'cultural appropriation' of food wasn't allowed then basically China and the middle east would be the only places with anything worth eating.

[Barrister]

So when it comes to cultural appropriation and food I've kind of come out on the other side.

There's nothing wrong with adapting foreign dishes as your own, and adjusting them to local tastes. That said, I tend not to be into dishes my own culture just started to appropriate, as they tend to just be blander less interesting versions of the original. That, however, is a aesthetic judgement, not a moral one.

But what's the difference between "cultural appropriation" and "adapting to the local and available ingredients".

I like cooking.    I like making dishes from other cultures.  I even don't mind hitting up "foreign" food markets trying to find the specific ingredients I need.  But sometimes even after hitting up the H-Mart, or the Italian Centre, you have to make do with what you can find.

[Sheilbh]

Japanese curry is the most amazing cultural appropriation dish evah.  An Indian dish, brought to Japan by British sailors (which is how it seems so much more like a stew), then made uniquely japanese.

Yeah and I love it. I think it's really tasty but it's off doing its own thing which I think is great. I get the S&B curry powder to make the roux.

So when it comes to cultural appropriation and food I've kind of come out on the other side.

There's nothing wrong with adapting foreign dishes as your own, and adjusting them to local tastes. That said, I tend not to be into dishes my own culture just started to appropriate, as they tend to just be blander less interesting versions of the original. That, however, is a aesthetic judgement, not a moral one.

Yeah - I basically entirely ignore any conversation about appropriation in the context of food - largely because it tends to be just a short leap from "authenticity" which I find the most arid cul-de-sac of how to look at (or for) food imaginable.