“White People” Food?

A July 2017 article from Buzzfeed.com, the hallmark of all popular wisdom of our time, was entitled, “15 Things You’ll Understand If You’ve Ever Eaten At A White Friend’s House.”[i] In the article, a series of snarky memes and illustrative pictures were meant to communicate the idea that “white people” don’t know anything about “spicing up” their food. In other words, food made in the houses of Caucasians is bland. This is an extremely common stereotype, probably best exemplified in recent memory by the “thanksgivingwithwhitefamilies” hashtag that was trending all throughout last year’s Thanksgiving season. There’s no doubt that the 2017 Thanksgiving season will see similar viral phenomena castigating perceived Caucasian culinary fare.

So called “white people food” can be difficult to categorize. If you do a quick Google search you will come up with any number of articles that define it either as low income, highly processed cuisine[ii] or as pricey, “urban rooftop garden” hipster fare[iii]. For the purposes of our discussion, we will go with the former and more common definition, stressing the idea of “blandness.” The assumption is that “white people” boil the flavor out of their food, don’t use or at least don’t know how to use spices and rely primarily on store bought, overly processed items without variation (for example, putting ketchup and mayonnaise on everything). This would be, at least in an American context, juxtaposed to African-American, Hispanic and other immigrant culinary fare that is brimming with delicious spice and flavor.  There are two fundamental flaws in this generalization. First, that the cultures and peoples who now embody what is defined as “white people” are not, at least at their roots, characterized by bland food. Second, that the generalization of “white people food” actually has nothing to do with ethno-cultural background, but instead is concerned with the suburban way of life.