'What is this white nonsense?': So-called Queen of Congee accused of cultural appropriation of Chinese food
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A company is facing accusations of cultural appropriation after it claimed to have improved and modernized congee, an Asian rice porridge, and its owner, who is white, called herself "the Queen of Congee."
For centuries, the dish has been a staple in many Asian cultures and has as many names as it does variations across countries, but congee most commonly refers to the Chinese version. Often eaten at breakfast, the dish is made by boiling rice in a large amount of water for a long period of time.
But now Oregon-based The Breakfast Cure finds itself in hot water of its own. The company has apologized after facing social media backlash and accusations of whitewashing congee, exoticizing Asian food and ignoring the dish's Asian roots.
"She's stealing our culture but does not honor it," said Chinese-American writer Frankie Huang.
While other companies have sold variations of congee, much of the controversy hinges on how the owner of the company, Karen Taylor, claimed to have improved the food.
"I've spent a lot of time modernizing it for the Western palette — making a congee that you can eat and find delicious and doesn't seem foreign, but delivers all of the medicinal healing properties of this ancient recipe," Taylor said in a post on the product's website entitled "How I discovered the miracle of congee and improved it" that has since been deleted.
In a video interview that has been taken off the site but remains on YouTube, Taylor refers to congee as "this sort of weird thing."
Anita Mannur, a professor in English and Asian American studies at Miami University, said Taylor's words send a false message that Asian food is improved when it is adapted to whiteness.
"What is this white nonsense?" Mannur said. "Why do you think our foods always need improvements?"
When someone says they're improving the food of another culture, Mannur said they're suggesting that the original food is lesser. She added that saying an Asian dish must be modernized suggests "Asians are lagging behind the rest of white America, and so apparently it falls on some white woman to save Asian food from Asian people."
She also said referring to congee as "weird" furthers the exotification of Asian food.
"When you call foods weird, you're accessing a whole history of racist stereotypes that what is white American is normal and normative and everything else is weird or foreign," she said. "It contributes to how the people behind that food are seen as weird or foreign."
Taylor called herself the "Queen of Congee" and refers to her product as a "gourmet, foodie" version of the dish in a previous version of the company's website. In a video removed from the website, she calls the centuries-old dish "the new frontier." Taylor also wrote an article called "Our Congee Calling," in which she calls it her "personal mission to hear 'congee' uttered as a common household word" and writes that acupuncturists "are the ones who can bring congee...to the people around us."
Mannur said Taylor wrongly positioned herself as a congee pioneer, ignoring its centuries-long history.
Huang pointed out that the Breakfast Cure website did not originally include comments on the onslaught anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic.
"It's profiting off of us without standing up for us," she said.
Following the backlash, the Breakfast Cure updated its website with new language and a new mission statement that acknowledges that "Recently, we fell short of supporting and honoring the Asian American community, and for that, we are deeply sorry."
The company announced on Instagram that it would donate 1% of all sales or 10% of profit, whichever is larger, to Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
Taylor told TODAY that she was surprised by the backlash because she was "embraced by the Chinese medicine community" when she first released the product.
Mannur said this statement and others made her apology seem less sincere.
"Saying that is like saying your best friend is Black as a counter to people calling you out for racism," Mannur said.
In the interview with TODAY, Taylor said she hopes for "some kind of productive dialogue" but has not been able to have such conversations yet because many responses she received were "offensive."
Huang said the apology doesn't identify anything specific that Taylor felt she did wrong.
"That's not a real apology," Huang said. "There's no self reflection. It invalidates our anger toward what she did by demanding that people treat her the way she wants to be treated when she did not treat us the way we want to be treated."
The Breakfast Cure has not responded to requests for comment.
The controversy surrounding the Breakfast Cure is far from unfamiliar.
Earlier this year, a Dallas company faced backlash for its "modern makeover" of the classic Chinese game Mahjong. In December 2020, Philli Armitage-Mattin, a white chef, was criticized for using the phrase "Dirty Food Refined" to refer to her takes on Asian dishes. In 2019, the restaurant Lucky Lee's closed after being accused of feeding racist stereotypes about Chinese food in its marketing language.
"I hope we stop seeing this happen again and again," Mannur said. "At what point will we recognize that Asian Americans aren't just a cultural resource on which to profit?"
Huang said she is sick of seeing controversies repeat themselves and people learn nothing in response.
"They don't suffer any consequences because their target consumers are not angry Asian people anyway. There's not enough consequences, and that's why it keeps happening," she said, adding that white allies should call for accountability and express their outrage by boycotting companies that disrespect Asian culture.
Huang said respectful appreciation of Asian culture requires people to acknowledge the roots of the culture and elevate Asian people doing the work the person admires.
"I want people to stop taking ownership of other people's culture," she said. "Just have a little more humility and don't be so quick to crown yourself a master or an expert in something that you did not grow up consuming."
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It might surprise some people, but in general, I do not share the disapproval that many on the left and in ethnic communities do about so called "appropriation" which usually refers to when whites adapt cultural aspects of minority groups. This would be the so called Elvis Presley appropriation of black music at the beginning of rock and roll and something like the topic of this article with someone white westernizing or Americanizing an Asian dish. My opinion of it is basically "so what"?
Prepared food is made from grains and vegetables and these things belong to everyone that can grow or obtain them, and cannot really be partitioned off and kept for one ethnic tradition to the exclusion of others. I would think that over centuries the food of regional areas and ethnic groups have crisscrossed the entire world many times over. Where did mashed potatoes begin? I dont even know or care. But I suppose at one point someone culturally appropriated the idea.
The same with music, and I have long objected to the idea that Elvis, or even the milk toast Pat Boone , "stole" black music. First of all the charge is made in relation to the song "Hound Dog" which I guess was first recorded by a black singer named Big Mama Thornton. And then a few later Elvis supposedly "stole" this black song and had commercial success with it when Big Mama Thornton did not due to racist tastes in the 1950's.
The problem with this conclusion is that "Hound Dog" is not a black song. It was written by two white guys named Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, a song writing duo that wrote many hits during the 50's and early 60's. Elvis didnt steal the song from Big Mama Thornton, he gave it his own interpretation. The listening public did like Elvis better , and some of it may have been because he was white and she wasnt, but the song is not a "black song" any more than Ol Man River or Summertime were white songs because they were written by a white man named Jerome Kern. Music transcends ethnic boundaries by its very nature. There are only so many notes in the musical scale and everyone uses the same ones whether they realize it or not. Today we have so called K Pop groups of Korean singers who are very popular singing pop music. Korean culture has no native affinity for pop music but nonetheless it would not be accurate to say that the K Pop groups stole the style from Americans or the British. They just perform what they like to sing.
Not a big fan of criticizing based on "cultural appropriation.
People see, taste, smell, or hear something they like they want to make it their own. It's been happening since the dawn of mankind and every race and nationality has done it millions of times. Sometimes they copy it exactly other times they alter it to their own tastes. Think of all the things we have in common across the world, foods, tools, technology, music and musical instruments, everything we own or do in common. These things started somewhere and spread, sometimes they are the same everywhere other times they vary slightly but it just seems like human nature to adopt a good thing and make it your own even if you add your own twist. This example of complaining about a Chinese rice dish being changed for our tastes is especially stupid because most of the Chinese food we eat in America that's cooked by Chinese People has been changed to appeal to American tastes, Chinese food in America isn't Chinese.
Been living in China for 15 years and am yet to find a restaurant that serves King Pau Chicken, or even chicken fried rice.
By the way, I'm not at all particular about congee, but I make most of my own breakfasts, and I've CULTURALLY APPROPRIATED American breakfasts of eggs, toast, orange juice and coffee - made banana-blueberry pancakes this morning but made them a little bit Chinese by also putting gojo berries in them.
I never tried it but I doubt I'd like it because they said it's overcooked, I hate mushy rice. I dislike overcooked rice, pasta, and vegetables, it changes the flavor for the worst and the mushy texture doesn't appeal to me. My mother used to cook broccoli till it was mushy so I always thought I hated broccoli till I was about 20 then I ate some cooked right and realized I love it.
Honestly? Meh...
I believe most of these stories are really the result of a handful of loud people who want others to acknowledge their social justice bona rides or something. Most people don’t have this absurd take.
People all over the world have “improved” on other people’s food ever since cuisine was invented. Nothing is being appropriated. Chinese culture - or any other culture going through this kind of thing - will be just fine.
I don't think those outraged by "cultural appropriation" have thought this through very much. Do they understand what they've culturally appropriated?