> exchanges of ingredients in the Columbian exchange (tomatoes in Italy, potatoes in Russia, chilis in India and Korea, etc.)

For more on this see the book 1493:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1493:_Uncovering_the_New_World...

Many folks are probably familiar with what happened in Europe post-1492, but there's a whole bunch of stuff on the Pacific side of the Americas as well.

Also, motorized blades and grinders were revolutionary for the categories of recipes they unlocked

> or example you had early Scottish shortbread primarily using rice flour because it was cheaper at that time.

What era of history are we talking about here? Would it have been transported as flour, or ground locally?

i think there’s another component to this that most food sucked. your daily food was probably bad because it had few seasonings. it was likely starch (rice/bread), and stew. you don’t need a recipe for soup, it’s boil water and throw in whatever vegetables you have on hand. maybe meat if you had it

Pad Thai was an invention to unite the country and forge an identity in the face of Chinese influence. After WWII it was popularized because it was cheap and thus able to feed a post war population.

There’s a lot to be said for shared culture and customs. I am a second-generation American, and I love the familiarity and uniqueness of my family. I think people get really wrapped up in this idea of food as a proxy for culture, which makes sense, because food is really important! But shared culture really shows its value in the hard parts of life: for example when someone dies, there is a shared script, a defined way of making space for grief, a shared way of remembering the dead, etc.

Anyway, obviously cultural identity isn’t inherent: you know what you grew up with. And it can easily turn toxic when we move from appreciating our own culture to putting down others’. But my life would be a lot poorer without it.

I think identity and authenticity are separable and distinct. I agree there is nothing to identity. But there is something to authenticity. Food, art, etc., are intentional creations and there is value in getting an authentic experience that’s the product of application and refinement of a particular set of principles. That doesn’t mean that other things can’t be delicious, of course. But experiencing something “the way it’s supposed to be” has a non-zero value.

Attaching that to your identity is bullshit, though. Neapolitan pizza makers might have some set of principles and practices and you might have an authentic neapolitan pizza that reflects those principles. But that doesn’t give Italians in Naples any authority to gatekeep pizza or even neapolitan-style pizza.

> But the ridiculousness of saying New York style pizza is not pizza or that you have to make things the "right way" needs to go.

Suppose people say it; why shouldn't they be entitled to their opinion? How does it harm anyone? People who like New York style pizza are equally free to just disagree, and keep making it.

Pizza is one of those things that is multi-polar, with different canons. New York pizza is not Neapolitan pizza for sure. Neither of those are the al taglio from Rome, i.e. even in the original country there's regionalism.

Note you did have to say New York style and not Chicago deep pan tomato pie..

waves from New Zealand Hi, you stole that.

(actually I am a brisbaneite so this is fake but you know what I mean)

Of course that situation may be reversed for people with a Chinese grandma instead of an Italian grandma.

I don't know how relevant it is, but my wife and I like to eat out at places where the dish/cuisine is something that we simply cannot make at home. If it is too similar, my wife will sigh "we could have just made this at home".

Like "prosecco" retrospectively applying for DOP because they can under EU rules, and so fuck over the Australian Prosecco GRAPE GROWERS because thats what it is folks: a varietal.

Like "feta" which is a style of cheese across the balkans, if you look in Melbourne Qeen Vic markets you can find Greek, Turkish, Albanian, Bulgarian, Danish Feta, fighting it out when the lights are off... But no, now it's DOC/PDO and so we're going to have to change its name.

DOP/GI is a scam unless it's policed. People try to retconn things into it (prosecco)

Champagne, I can get behind. I don't mind Aus bubbles being sold as -style because they're bloody good.

> Food authenticity should only mean DOP or geographic identity (GI) regulation.

It shouldn't even mean this much, frankly, as those things are merely protectionist trade policies meant to artificially drive up the price of certain goods without regard for quality. People on the Internet give too much deference to politicized trade regulations.

You are silly. In the US, if you choose to do so, you can get the same ingredient or higher quality ingredient or food stuff that you can get anywhere else in the world, barring a few banned items like the various European maggot cheeses.

In your understanding, what is the point of the original phrase?

The point of a word is to convey meaning with a short string of sounds. The meaning of a word referring to a dish would normally describe the taste of the dish and what it's made of in general terms, because as you've pointed out, recipes are subject to individual variation. To say that a restaurant should not serve a dish called "carbonara" made with French cheese to me sounds similar to saying that an Italian carpenter should not sell a mahogany table and call it "tavolo in legno", because they don't grow mahogany in Italy. Who cares where the ingredients come from if the dish tastes good?

But pasta alla gricia only gets you back to the 1920s; I think the one Roman pasta that goes back centuries (and is in the same clade as carbonara) is cacio e pepe.

Ironically Italians criticize Americans for non-authentic "Alfredo sauce" but that has its origins in Rome in roughly the same early 20th century time period.