Dubious Gastronomy2013
The Cultural Politics of Eating Asian in the USA
by Robert Ji
California roll, Chinese take-out, American-made kimchi, dogmeat, monosodium glutamate, SPAM--all are examples of what Robert Ji-Song Ku calls dubious foods. Strongly associated with Asian and Asian American gastronomy, they are commonly understood as ersatz, depraved, or simply bad. In Dubious Gastronomy, Ku contends that these foods share a spiritual fellowship with Asians in the United States in that the Asian presence, be it culinary or corporeal, is often considered watered-down, counterfeit, or debased manifestations of the real thing. The American expression of Asianness is defined as doubly inauthentic--as insufficiently Asian and unreliably American when measured against a largely ideological if not entirely political standard of authentic Asia and America.^
By exploring the...