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RE: Shanghai Soup Dumpling Wars //小笼包之战
This is some scholarly Dumpling research @abroadlife! The food gentry is a huge problem in NYC (Manhattan) as well. I've seen many of my favorite hole in the wall establishments get muscled out just in the past few years. It's scary. But there's also this food-truck renaissance happening now where young chefs are taking their high-level craft to trucks (is mobility the new brick and mortar?) I'm curious to see how it all plays out!
Thanks for sharing this.
During my last trip to NYC, I was fascinated to see how vast the gap was between gentrified food and the local traditions they came from. Jianbing is a Chinese-style savory crepe, ubiquitous in Beijing and can be found all over China as a quick breakfast or late-night snack. In the Chinese immigrant communities of Flushing, Jianbing is about $3.50 USD, and then in Manhattan food trucks/Brookyn's Smorgasburg, you can find gourmet versions for $10+. In Shanghai stalls, they're usually around $1USD or 6RMB.
This is not to say that they're all the same product, and gentrified foods have their own markets. The question is, are they developed to respect and celebrate the cultures they come from, or are they exploiting the veneer of "cultural authenticity" for personal profit? There has been healthy debate on the topic in the case of Rick Bayless and his award-winning Mexican restaurants. Or check out the non-Korean American guy making craft soju in Brookyln after studying in Korea. Is this phenomenon any different than a Chinese guy who opens up a cheese shop in Beijing?
My take on this is that American society does not do a sufficient job of celebrating and promoting the food cultures immigrants. We should be questioning why there are not more cultural ambassadors who are from those cultures; is it their inability to see/promote the value of their own cultural assets, or is it that we only trust and give awards to ambassadors who have the right connections? I don't think there's a definitive answer either way, but at the least we can empower more members of immigrant communities to preserve and promote their heritage.