I hear all this uproar all the time about people who use cultural appropriation, yet sometimes I just don’t see what the problem is. I get that it has been done for malicious intent before and I’m not defending that or suggesting I agree with doing it for such purposes, but is, for example, a chef cooking a certain dish that originates from a land that is not his own, or other examples, really worth the same uproar?
Reading into the articles linked and doing a bit of refreshing about it (I vaguely remember there being issues about Jamie Oliver’s jollof rice) the issues arise from him doing a “spin” on it, and still calling it jollof rice.
It doesn’t seem to me that the issues were over him appropriating the dish but rather calling something that isn’t jollof rice or paella or any other dish that Oliver has massacred, and then calling it the original. It presents a world to his audience that doesn’t exist and minimises the culture and cuisine that he’s interpreting.
I kind of get it from both sides, he’s trying to sell books and TV shows and there’s only so much food in the world and I think he’s pretty much done a recipe for nigh on everything already. But when I’ve wanted to replicate a dish I’ve eaten, because I’m a food nerd (and worked for 15 years in professional kitchens) it’s about studying a cuisine and wanting to celebrate it as authentically as possible.
To actually answer your question, no I don’t believe it’s always malicious or even intentional.
I agree, but at the same time, his critics at the time did call it ‘cultural appropriation’ regardless of the intent, unless they just did that annoying thing where they completely misuse a term?