海角大神

When Oberlin College's dining hall tried to add Asian cuisine to its menu, many students viewed the results not just uninspired, but culturally appropriative.聽

鈥淗ow could they just throw out something completely different ?鈥� asked first-year student聽Diep Nguyen to Oberlin's student newspaper, regarding a pulled-pork-and-coleslaw-on-ciabatta affair that was attempting to pass itself off as a Vietnamese聽b谩nh m矛 蝉补苍诲飞颈肠丑.听

According to The Oberlin Review, Ms. Nguyen is far from alone in her complaints about the college's food service vendor, Bon App茅tit Management Company,聽which has shown "a history of blurring the line between culinary diversity and cultural appropriation by modifying the recipes without respect for certain Asian countries鈥� cuisines."

Perhaps most egregiously, during the Hindu festival of Diwali, the dining hall , a dish containing a meat that many Hindus avoid for religious reasons.

But Asian students aren't the only ones complaining. Earlier this month members of聽Oberlin鈥檚 Black student union at the college's Afrikan Heritage House聽to protest what they saw as Bon App茅tit's failure to offer more traditional dishes, including fried chicken and food less loaded with cream.

鈥淏lack American food doesn鈥檛 have much cream in it,鈥� noted one student protester.聽

Gripes about college food are probably as old as academia itself. But the protests at Oberlin, by linking the menu offerings to a larger debate聽about white cultural dominance at American colleges, add a new dimension to a perennial grievance.

鈥淲e appreciate the feedback we have received from Oberlin students,鈥� writes Bonnie Powell, director of communications for Bon App茅tit Management Company in an email to 海角大神. 鈥淥ur chefs are working hard to offer culturally sensitive menus that will appeal to the Oberlin community.鈥�

Michele Gross, director of dining services at Oberlin released a statement: 鈥淚n our efforts to provide a vibrant menu we recently fell short in the execution of several dishes in a manner that was culturally insensitive.聽We are committed to making sure these missteps don't happen in the future. We have met with students to discuss their concerns and hope to continue this dialogue.鈥�

Still, when you're trying to feed 3,000 people, there's only so much that you can do.

鈥淪chool cafeterias aren't built for finesse, however, and apart from eliminating religious faux pas like tandoori beef on a Hindu holiday, they're not likely to become models of culinary refinement or diplomacy, writes聽, cultural acquisition expert and academic director of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham University in New York, in an email. 聽

What's more, especially when it comes to food, it's not always clear who is appropriating whom.

Take Bon App茅tit聽attempt at General Tso's chicken, which, according to The Oberlin Review was not deep fried and served with a garlic-ginger soy sauce, but steamed with a聽with a sauce that聽Prudence Hiu-Ying, a sophomore from China,聽described as 鈥渟o weird that I didn鈥檛 even try.鈥�

Ms. Hiu-Ying's聽chicken may indeed have tasted awful, but was it really appropriating Chinese culture? As NPR points out,聽General Tso's chicken is was actually聽聽by a Hunanese chef who wanted to cater to the American palate.

The issue here, says聽New York restaurateur Jehangir Mehta, is not so much about appropriation as it is about chefs exercising better judgment in the ways they try and prepare cultural dishes while trying to please all the people all the time.

鈥淪o long as the interpretation tastes good, I feel it's nice to borrow thoughts. If one is 'stealing' an idea and not executing it well it can be unnerving,鈥� Mehta says.

Ms. Scafidi聽writes, 鈥淪haring recipes with friends is as American as Grandma's apple pie, so it's a natural extension of our culture of culinary copying to attempt the national dishes of newer neighbors as well."

鈥淢ass-produced cafeteria food simply isn't the ideal version of anyone's cuisine,鈥� Scafidi adds. 鈥淧izza day in grade school may be popular, but those cheesy rectangles can't rival an artisanal pie straight out of a wood-burning oven imported brick by brick from Naples. Colleges that try to make a diverse range of students feel welcome in the dining hall may be well-intentioned, but in the end are doomed to fall short of Mom's home cooking.鈥� 聽

On Twitter Fredrik de Boer, a lecturer at Purdue University on writing assessment, applied linguistics, and higher education policy, urged Oberlin students to pick more suitable targets for their protests.

鈥淚 think that there are many worthwhile actions undertaken by student activists every day, including by students at Oberlin, but that by expending political energy to complaining about bad cafeteria food, these students have made a bad strategic mistake, and have participated in their own marginalization,鈥� Mr. de Boer writes in an email interview. 鈥淚n politics, strategy matters, framing matters, and these students have to learn to be far more careful about where they spend their political capital if they want to create enduring change.鈥�

Scafidi concludes, 鈥淕enerations upon generations have complained about cafeteria food. Current students who reframe this perennial culinary discontent in the language of cultural appropriation risk being dismissed as the flavor of the month 鈥� and potentially losing an otherwise sympathetic audience.鈥�