I'd like to preface my remarks with an observation: my favorite pizza joint in the city is owned and operated by a Chinese guy from Hong Kong; he is also the pizza-maker. Another Chinese chap is the cook at my favorite Mexican restaurant, which he co-owns with his Mexican wife.
As far as any sane person is concerned, it's okay to profit from cooking and selling the food of a "culture" other than your own...if you want to, and if you happen to have the good fortune to live in a free society that would welcome your entrepreneurship.
Some food for thought: how can the same people who worship "diversity" also condemn the idea that diverse peoples can enjoy eating and profiting from diverse cuisines?
Some of the best Cuban restaurants in Miami's "Little Havana" district are--or at least used to be, I haven't been there in ages--owned by Chinese (or Sino-Cubans, at any rate). They are truly multicultural enterprises.
ReplyDeleteTrue personal story: Back around 1976, shortly after my now-wife and I became engaged, we traveled to Miami with my father to visit my paternal grandfather and step-grandmother and given them the news. We arrived in the Little Havana area around lunchtime, so my dad took us to a Cuban-Chinese restaurant there. The waiter came to our table to take our order, which he did in Spanish, starting with my dad, as befitted the eldest at the table. He then turned to my then-fiancée and did the same, until, seeing her confused look, he smoothly transitioned to English. Finally, he went over to the kitchen's service window and placed our order in Cantonese!
Afterwards, I had to take some time to explain to her the history of the Chinese in Cuba, a notion that she found difficulty to reconcile with her preconceptions of Cuba. (I also told her about the Japanese colony in my Cuban hometown, who made very good ice cream in tropical flavors and set up a judo _dojo_ there, but it took her a while to accept that I wasn't pulling her leg with that story.)
Cuban-Chinese--now, that's "fusion"!
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