{"source_url": "https://www.theguardian.com", "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/01/no-such-thing-authentic-cuisine-vietnamese-food-politics", "title": "There is no such thing as 'authentic' food. Ignore the purists | Mai Tran", "top_image": "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a611927f4503a36281f16100af8b007d643ead81/0_29_4806_2883/master/4806.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctb3BpbmlvbnMucG5n&enable=upscale&s=5b74c54bcaf648030b14fe5e8d9fe69c", "meta_img": "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a611927f4503a36281f16100af8b007d643ead81/0_29_4806_2883/master/4806.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctb3BpbmlvbnMucG5n&enable=upscale&s=5b74c54bcaf648030b14fe5e8d9fe69c", "images": ["https://phar.gu-web.net/count/pvg.gif", "https://phar.gu-web.net/count/pv.gif", "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a611927f4503a36281f16100af8b007d643ead81/0_29_4806_2883/master/4806.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctb3BpbmlvbnMucG5n&enable=upscale&s=5b74c54bcaf648030b14fe5e8d9fe69c", "https://sb.scorecardresearch.com/p?c1=2&c2=6035250&cv=2.0&cj=1&comscorekw=Culture%2CFood%2CFood+%26+drink+industry%2CNew+York%2CVietnam", "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a611927f4503a36281f16100af8b007d643ead81/171_98_4489_3426/master/4489.jpg?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=e140e34b80467a7991aad513d9f758a2"], "movies": [], "text": "With food politics, it is tempting to want to categorize dishes as your own, especially as a second- or third-generation Asian American. Growing up in southern California, 20 minutes from Orange county\u2019s famous Little Saigon district, I was raised on ph\u1edf restaurants with linoleum floors, Formica tables and servers who openly chided my weak accent. You can\u2019t get more Vietnamese than that, and I took pride in it.\n\nLater, as a college student in New York, I started work at a ph\u1edf restaurant in Greenwich Village. I applied to the job, where I still work today, in part because I wanted to be a starving artist without actually starving, but also because I thought it would connect me to a Vietnamese community that was otherwise difficult to find in New York, where there is only a small Vietnamese population.\n\nOn my first day of work, I clocked in to discover that almost all the workers were Chinese or Latinx. There was not much of an ethnic connection, but I stayed anyway and was trained by the two owners, a pair of half-Vietnamese, half-Chinese men who had gentrified the menu for the Greenwich locals and college students. Fish sauce was generously renamed \u201cVietnamese chili,\u201d and pig\u2019s feet became \u201cspicy pork knuckles\u201d.\n\nThe owners were meticulous about decor, and invested in photogenic placemats, a stoop covered in florals and palm leaves, and a bar framed with painted army helmets and a neon \u201cnoodle\u201d sign. \u201cIntroduce yourself to customers and check up on your tables,\u201d they told me. \u201cThis isn\u2019t Chinatown.\u201d\n\nI\u2019ve served thousands of people since my first day, and have read every Yelp and Google review. Because of our English menu and appeal to customers who eat with their eyes, our lowest ratings often describe us as \u201ctrendy,\u201d \u201cwhite-washed\u201d and \u201cinauthentic\u201d. Vietnamese customers, especially out-of-towners from areas with large populations of Vietnamese, such as San Jose or Houston, delight in asking if our owners are Chinese (we are trained to say no), ordering in Vietnamese to Cantonese servers, and remarking loudly, \u201cOnly two basil leaves?\u201d \u201cThe beef is already cooked?\u201d \u201cWe should open our own Vietnamese restaurant.\u201d\n\nOur head cook is half-Vietnamese, and we often tell customers about how he grew up in Saigon as the first line of defense when people say we aren\u2019t Vietnamese enough. As the only full Vietnamese, I\u2019ll be sent to Vietnamese customers to drop a few xin ch\u00e0os and c\u00e1m \u01a1n anhs, even though we shouldn\u2019t have anything to prove. French, Italian and other European restaurants are rarely held to the same standards of authenticity, so why do minority cultures, and particularly Asians, cling to traditional food so tightly?\n\nThe 20th century saw a wave of Asian immigrants who opened restaurants as a means of survival, a ready money source even if you couldn\u2019t speak English. In recent years, Asian Americans have been entering the restaurant business or innovating their parents\u2019 stores because of culinary ambitions, or to uphold a family history, rather than because it is their only option. Like their parents or grandparents, they are businesspeople; although passionate about their culture\u2019s heritage, they are less interested in one singular way to cook. Yet their biggest critics are often other Asian Americans, who want food they can have authority over, claim as their own and use to bolster their identity credibility \u2013 even though authenticity is difficult to pin down and impossible to quantify.\n\nIt\u2019s fine and admirable to open a restaurant with altruistic goals for its impact on community and culture. But many restaurants are still mainly a means to feed one\u2019s family and the employees on payroll. Yes, our restaurant caters to American tastes and is designed around American ideas of Vietnam, but we\u2019re also the most frequented ph\u1edf joint in the area, and we\u2019re helping introduce more people to Vietnamese food as well as pay our bills.\n\nWhen 10lb-bowls of ph\u1edf and ph\u1edf burritos went viral, I was a bit pained to see a Vietnamese staple turned into what I deemed a business gimmick, and mixed with a different cuisine at that. But recipes aren\u2019t stagnant, and neither is culture. Vestiges of French colonization are abundant in Vietnamese food, from Caf\u00e9 du Monde coffee to b\u00e0nh m\u00ec baguettes, but these are now considered inherently Vietnamese, even as we distance ourselves from an imperialist past.\n\nI\u2019m no less Vietnamese because I\u2019ll enjoy an \u201cinauthentic\u201d vegan ph\u1edf, or a b\u00e0nh m\u00ec made by a Senegalese cook. There is no such thing as authentic food. Eat what you want, and enjoy it. There are more important hills to die on.", "keywords": [], "meta_keywords": ["Culture", "Food", "Food & drink industry", "New York", "Vietnam"], "tags": [], "authors": ["Mai Tran"], "publish_date": "Wed Jan  1 00:00:00 2020", "summary": "", "article_html": "", "meta_description": "Working at a Vietnamese restaurant, I\u2019ve noticed that our fiercest critics are other Vietnamese Americans. But food can, and should, change", "meta_lang": "en", "meta_favicon": "https://assets.guim.co.uk/images/favicons/fee5e2d638d1c35f6d501fa397e53329/152x152.png", "meta_data": {"description": "Working at a Vietnamese restaurant, I\u2019ve noticed that our fiercest critics are other Vietnamese Americans. But food can, and should, change", "format-detection": "telephone=no", "HandheldFriendly": "True", "viewport": "width=device-width,minimum-scale=1,initial-scale=1", "apple-mobile-web-app-title": "Guardian", "application-name": "The Guardian", "msapplication-TileColor": "#052962", "theme-color": "#052962", "msapplication-TileImage": "https://assets.guim.co.uk/images/favicons/023dafadbf5ef53e0865e4baaaa32b3b/windows_tile_144_b.png", "thumbnail": "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a611927f4503a36281f16100af8b007d643ead81/0_29_4806_2883/master/4806.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=488b955b85540aaab2c901b62dd7ee77", "keywords": "Culture,Food,Food & drink industry,New York,Vietnam", "news_keywords": "Culture,Food,Food & drink industry,New York,Vietnam", "og": {"url": "http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/01/no-such-thing-authentic-cuisine-vietnamese-food-politics", "image": "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a611927f4503a36281f16100af8b007d643ead81/0_29_4806_2883/master/4806.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctb3BpbmlvbnMucG5n&enable=upscale&s=5b74c54bcaf648030b14fe5e8d9fe69c", "description": "Working at a Vietnamese restaurant, I\u2019ve noticed that our fiercest critics are other Vietnamese Americans. But food can, and should, change", "type": "article", "title": "There is no such thing as 'authentic' food. Ignore the purists | Mai Tran", "site_name": "the Guardian"}, "article": {"author": "Mai Tran", "publisher": "https://www.facebook.com/theguardian", "section": "Opinion", "published_time": "2020-01-01T11:15:02.000Z", "tag": "Culture,Food,Food & drink industry,New York,Vietnam", "modified_time": "2020-01-01T11:28:04.000Z"}, "al": {"ios": {"url": "gnmguardian://commentisfree/2020/jan/01/no-such-thing-authentic-cuisine-vietnamese-food-politics?contenttype=Article&source=applinks", "app_store_id": 409128287, "app_name": "The Guardian"}}, "fb": {"app_id": 180444840287, "pages": 516977308337360}, "twitter": {"app": {"id": {"iphone": 409128287, "ipad": 409128287, "googleplay": "com.guardian"}, "name": {"googleplay": "The Guardian", "ipad": "The Guardian", "iphone": "The Guardian"}, "url": {"ipad": "gnmguardian://commentisfree/2020/jan/01/no-such-thing-authentic-cuisine-vietnamese-food-politics?contenttype=Article&source=twitter", "googleplay": "guardian://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/01/no-such-thing-authentic-cuisine-vietnamese-food-politics", "iphone": "gnmguardian://commentisfree/2020/jan/01/no-such-thing-authentic-cuisine-vietnamese-food-politics?contenttype=Article&source=twitter"}}, "image": "https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a611927f4503a36281f16100af8b007d643ead81/0_29_4806_2883/master/4806.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctb3BpbmlvbnMucG5n&s=1546ef068e814cc3a767692eef8cbb82", "site": "@guardian", "card": "summary_large_image", "dnt": "on"}}, "canonical_link": "https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/01/no-such-thing-authentic-cuisine-vietnamese-food-politics"}