Ranking cuisines, ranking cultures | The Indian Express

FOOD Amine 27 Dec , 2022 0

There are two ways to respond to the recent “best food” rankings released by Taste Atlas, a global food catalog and review website. The first is emotional. Depending on where your country is located, many Indian social media users may react with pride or anger. considered a recognition of the rich culinary traditions of On the other hand, users in several countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia are upset that their cuisine is ranked very low or below “inferior cuisine” ( “I know it’s wrong to put a ‘fish and chips’ dish in the top 30”). posted by one user).

Another way to deal with such a list is to recognize what it is and laugh it off. Featured decoy based on user reviews, not created by a jury of experts. Its faults are easy to find. Why can’t the top 3 spots go to European countries, and why doesn’t one Caribbean or African country (which serves some of the most exciting cuisines in the world) make the top 20? Is it? What is evident here is a certain “global hierarchy of flavors,” as described by food researcher Krishnendu Ray.

Beyond the rank itself, this list and another ranking the world’s best cuisine offer something richer if you look beyond the obvious. However, this temporary status pales in comparison to the interesting story of this preparation, which is based on Indian curry and developed in Japan under British influence during the Meiji period. So many stories are told about the history of two different countries and their cultures. Simply put, it would be foolish to think that the value of food and cooking can be expressed in mere rankings.