All of these foods were created by people from these countries who immigrated to the US
Also, gatekeeping food is annoying
this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2026
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I don't think I have actually ever seen any actual indigenous individual of a culture get mad at someone for cooking food from their own culture.
But I don't know if that's because the people who would've been mad about it got genocided and no longer exist, or if it's because people actually just don't care.
The people I HAVE witnessed getting angry about that sort of thing ... were white. I suppose they're trying to be 'culturally sensitive' but isn't that just kinda ... patronizing and infantilizing? low-key "talking over" them? As if to imply they need a white savior swooping down to the rescue >.< it just makes me uncomfortable.
White people just can't stand to be uninvolved. They don't call it brown knighting now, do they?
Yes! I hate the "this is not authentic" argument so much because it is so dumb. Stuff changes, taste changes and if people enjoy it, who gives a shit for authenticity points? This is so incredibly dumb it really makes me angry.
Furthermore, "X isn't as authentic as it is in X country" is lowkey bigoted towards immigrants. A lot of the times, the dishes being talked about are ones made by immigrants who are trying to cook dishes they are familiar with but using ingredients and equipment available to them in their new home. Whenever I hear about "authenticity" arguments, it's always acting like this food was being made by white Americans trying to krib and distort another culture's food to suit their palate, instead of immigrants authentically expressing their culture with what's available in their new context.
I for one can't think of anything more authentic than someone applying their cultural knowledge in creative and unique ways to survive and make a life in an environment unfamiliar to them.
Being something of a burrito connoisseur, I can certainly tell you what a bad burrito tastes like. It tastes like McDonald's greasy fucking cutting boards.
Okay? I don't know how you read my comment as a defense of McDonald's.
You weren't, I'm not angry, just emphatic. There is absolutely such a thing as food so bad it's an insult to its origins. And McDonald's has the worst burritos on Earth.
The "this is not authentic" exist because the food is sold as "authentic".
Last panel gets it wrong, though.
Rest of the world totally thinks that there is such a thing as original American food:
High-caloric, hyper-processed junk containing no significant nutritional value but much too much fat, fructose sirup and carcinogenic substances.
That, and watery beer.
behold the quintessential American food: The twinkie
I’m an american who lives in colombia and i can confirm this. The american section of my local supermarket is just boxed mac and cheese, cheese sauces, doritos, red bull, ketchup, and cake mix (the cakes here are way less sugary than US ones).
So... they don't have the specific kind of mozzarella you need to properly make pizza? That sucks. I love homemade pizza. It's hard work, but it's really rewarding. Kinda makes me miss when I worked at a good pizzeria. Not the junk ones like Little Caesar's, I'm talking about making the sauce from scratch with tomatoes from the garden. Shit's awesome. Hell, if I could, I'd make the mozzarella from scratch too.
I live near an italian store so i’m not lacking for any cheeses.
There's no such thing as American food
Then explain this
I'm calling the cops
Given the ingredients, they're already there.
Putting bacon on donuts, it's like feeding a burger to a cow
American food is like the borg, we just assimilate other food cultures into our own but adapt them to fit with everything else.
SmorgasBorg...
Adapt them to fit a certain criteria of saturated fats and corn syrup.
a taco is basically anything in a tortilla
https://www.tastinghistory.com/episodes/tacos
But not every thing in a tortilla is a taco.
I don't care about what you eat. You could put pineapple on a pizza, or make a spam sushi roll for what I care.
But I do care about names. Because I expect things to be what they are called:
If I order a carbonara, I don't expect to find mushrooms, cream and onion on it. Same if I order a gazpacho made with the wrong ingredients, or if I order a certain kind of ramen...
It's fine if we do fusion cuisine, I love to experiment! But don't tell me a bun filled with lattuce and raw onions is a cheeseburger because it's not; call it a lattuce and onion sandwich dammit!
"If you added cream, this would be quite like a British carbonara..."
"And if my mother had wheels she'd be a bicycle."
A burger is American.
Ah yes, hamburgers from Hamburg, Pennsylvania.
Hamburg steak is not a Hamburger. Putting it between buns was made here by German immigrants. So yes, it is American.
No one else on Earth will claim ranch noodles.