Foodie Culture and Diversity
Barriers in foodie culture continues to exclude people.
Eden Hagos, writes as Black Foodie.
When Eden Hagos went out for her birthday last year, she chose a restaurant where she thought she was going to have a good time. Instead, she left feeling embarrassed, hurt and angry.
The staff at the restaurant made it clear that she and her friends, who were also black females, were not welcome. The feelings of unacceptance, based on the colour of her skin, extended to other spheres and conversations surrounding food, diversity and food culture.
A few months later she decided to make a name for herself because of that experience. She is now known as Black Foodie and her blog, which is based in Toronto, spotlights African, Caribbean and Southern U.S. cuisines and food cultures. She took it upon herself to create a space to look at food and lifestyle though a black lens.
Foodies are people who not only like to enjoy food but also love to constantly educate themselves on the qualities, histories and conditions of food. Foodies enjoy exploring diverse and ethno-racial cuisines however; foodie culture has had a long history of exclusion.
“Food hierarchies in the past were much more linear than they are today, with French food being the standard against which other cuisines were defined,” she says.
Merin Oleshcuk discusses her research article ‘Foodies of Color: Authenticity and Exoticism in Omnivorous Food Culture’
Foodie culture has since departed from this system. Today it involves more than simply prizing French food. Oleshuck says it involves exploring foods from a variety of classed and ethno-racial backgrounds.
Gerry Duraisamy is the foodie and brain behind the famous Instagram page “Feed Me Toronto,” and over the course of two and a half years, he has developed a following of 11,800. He features restaurants and diverse savoury foods from Toronto but Duraisamy rarely, if ever, promotes or reviews famous commercial restaurants. Instead he searches for those “hole-in-the-wall” restaurants.
He moved from Sri Lanka to Canada at the age of two and grew up in a traditional Sri Lankan home. His upbringing played a role in the start of Feed Me Toronto.
“I was very sheltered. I think the first time I went to a restaurant was Jack Astor’s and I was 18 or 19,” he says. “It wasn’t smart to go out and spend $20 on a meal. My parents thought that was absurd.”
His page started off as a pricing tool that helped people find good meals at reasonable prices.
Although foodies culture is less exclusive than gourmet food used to be, privilege still plays a major role and still remains exclusive. Oleschuk says that having the economic ability to navigate in both highbrow and lowbrow restaurants is still more privileged and is largely participated by upper middle classes.
Oleschuk says it also remains exclusive because even though the valorization of diverse cuisines allows people of colour greater access to foodie culture and prestige within it, it is often times problematic because they tend to rely on ethno-racial inequalities such as stereotypes and cultural appropriation.
“Is foodie culture an elite food culture, and is it exclusive? Is it exclusive to upper class people? Is it exclusive to white people? In some ways, the answer is always yes and no,” she says.
Certainly not all foodies are white people, especially in Toronto. But during Oleschuk’s study, the vision of what many considered a foodie to be was white. It made them feel like the odd man out.
Once Hagos stepped into the foodie world, it was clear there was lack of representation.
“Most times when I go into conferences or anything with other key and important people in the food world, I am the only black person,” she said. “We’re not represented in all of these spheres. And so often times the issues that affect us aren’t written about.”
Duraisamy’s grew up eating tradtional Sri Lankan dishes, but now that he lives on his own, he appreciates his food more now than ever before.
“Sri Lankan food is always home. The food I’ll never get sick of,” he says. “When I go back home, the spicy food kind of kills me now, but staple dishes like rice and curry, kothu roti, puttu… these are dishes I still need. When I feel homesick, it’s because I haven’t had Sri Lankan food.”
Food can have strong emotional ties like feelings of home for people of all ethnicities. When food is shared amongst outsiders, an experience and culture is also being shared. This sentiment however is often overlooked in the reviews written about ethnic foods. Hagos she noticed these issues in food literature when she stepped into the foodie world.
“I remember reading a piece about Ethiopian food where the writer was saying ‘why haven’t they modernized their food? Like everyone else has come up with kimchi fries and all these things, but they’ve fallen behind and they haven’t modernized their food,’ and my thoughts after reading this was ‘damn, why do we have to change it? Why does creating a burger a step up?’
There are barriers with regards to how much a foodie can explore, and in a city like Toronto, with a palate that is wide and diverse, sometimes exploring can lead to difficulty.
When trying new foods and reviewing different cultural cuisines, Oleschuk says it involves educating oneself about the wider political history of that group and to be able to contextualise that food within a group of people. Without consciousness, ethno-racial inequalities will continue to create barriers in food culture.
