culture kitchen

i came across this American start up, culture kitchen, based in SF. Great idea, but horrible way of describing it with some really weird, paternalistic (or matriarchal...) discourses going on. I just can't work out whether "my" cuisine is "ethnic" or not...

anyway, i wrote them and thought I'd share. an abridged version (slightly harsher than what i actually sent) is below.

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hey guys

i just stumbled across your site (recommended on the pinterest weekly email).

First, what a brilliant idea. It makes perfect sense to learn to cook specific dished from people used to cooking those dishes. If i was based in SF, i'd totally sign up for some of your courses. As it is, I’m just going to try making your flan recipe. I really wish you the best of luck.

You’ve clearly got a lot of bright people working on your site and have really thought about your business model. but... someone has to say it your site looks like no one has taken a step back and read it with fresh eyes. the way you've described some of the stuff, "immigrant women", "ethnic" in fact general use of the words "immigrant" and “ethnic” is just weird. Aren’t American people ethnic too? Isn’t any food an ethnic cuisine? Is it divisive to single people from different backgrounds as “immigrants”?

Some of it looks like a joke and not a real site at all. I know that race politics is very different in the US from how it is in the UK, but looking at it with English eyes some of the site looks almost like a parody:

“Know an immigrant woman who cooks her ethnic cuisine better than anyone else you know?”

“With a background in jewelery, metalsmithing and geography, Jennifer is not a typical designer. Born of two immigrant parents, Jennifer has been exposed to many cultures and traditions, and so much of culture and tradition is about the sharing of food.”

“ethnic recipe”

“We are so fortunate to have such diverse chefs with distinct personalities and cultures.”

I’m really not trying to be mean, I just wonder whether because the idea is such a lovely one, and it is really positive and… well…. good, that none of your friends have dared to say “hold on guys… don’t you think some of this is a bit ... err... offensive?”.

Kind regards

Tom

kibera- battlefield for the west's conscience

i stumbled on this blog post the other day (i say stumble, my colleague Jamal sent it to me). it chimed with conversations we had had about Kibera after visiting, so i replied... copied below

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My first visit to subsaharan africa involved a visit to Kibera. Kibera seemed bizarre. while obviously there are real people living there, and it is really obviously disadvantaged, teeming, insanitary etc. on some level it also felt like a slum theme park. you almost couldn't turn without seeing a group of American missionaries or an sustainability project being run by a well meaning NGO.

we were always in one of the "less bad" bits apparently, although these ranged from gated developments abutted by shanties to "proper" slums with roads constituted of 2m. deep of rubbish with sewers trickling down ravines gouged from the mess. The people we met would talk about the nastier parts of kibera, as though destitution was a goal to be strived

for, or as though Kibera is designated to make an impact; what i was being shown should be enough to shock, but if not dark whisperings of nastier corners should do the trick.

I felt that i hadn't really seen a slum. I felt that Kibera has become (and i say this without meaning to dismiss the plights of people who live there- it is a grim place, and the facts of the post election violence a few years ago are incontrovertible) the front line in the west's battle with it's own conscience, where we conspicuously play out our good works on the feckless African poor, where paternalism rebrands itself as inclusion and sustainable development and colonialism exports not diamonds or rubber but smug moral justification like papal indulgences.

For Kibera to play this role, there must be a common accepted discourse around the horror and the scale of the slum. NGOs, missionaries, journalists working in the slum or returning from a visit there need to be able to allude to "the biggest" "the oldest" "the most violent" "the poorest" "the slumiest" to make sense of their work to others, to reinforce the importance and value of what they do and to win the war for their own consciences.