Each December for the past several years, a collection of food writing is published in book form, culled from essays that appeared in the preceding months online and in print.
Edited by Holly Hughes, Best Food Writing 2017 explores large topics. Essayist Greg Rosalsky wonders about “the difference between a $240 sushi roll and a $6.95 sushi roll” and what this says about haves and have-nots, hedonism and the shameless consumption of the 1 percent. Some of it is dumb: Who has the right to cook or write about someone else’s cuisine? Laura Shunk asks. Really? Only Koreans can review kimchi or open a Korean restaurant?
The answer might come down to how some reviewers carelessly praise prominent restaurants while ignoring smaller eateries off the usual path. As Luke Tsai points out in his essay, “Cooking Other People’s Food,” many purveyors of ethnic food “are actually chefs without family ties to those particular cultures.” The real question, he wonders, is why many of the most acclaimed restaurateurs tend to be middle-class whites.
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