I guess I'm far more interested in the converse. My grandmother keeps a more or less kosher house, cooking according to some pretty narrow rules. Over the years has only assimilated a few other ethnic cuisines into her palate.
The divide that I have noticed most strongly is that she seems to have split society into barbaric, rice-eating cultures, and the noble wheat/potato eaters. I'm pretty sure she doesn't even know how rice is cooked. She would never say it like this, but her aversion to cuisine does happen to correlate with groups that she will make casually racist comments about. The most prominent example being the Japanese, with Mexico being a close second.
I've been wondering for a while how closely correlated racism and food-racism are. Are picky eaters more likely to be xenophobes? Certainly I cannot imagine myself ever saying anything negative about Thailand or Ethiopia, but I don't feel anything like that empathy for China, or people who consume ketchup.
The divide that I have noticed most strongly is that she seems to have split society into barbaric, rice-eating cultures, and the noble wheat/potato eaters. I'm pretty sure she doesn't even know how rice is cooked. She would never say it like this, but her aversion to cuisine does happen to correlate with groups that she will make casually racist comments about. The most prominent example being the Japanese, with Mexico being a close second.
I've been wondering for a while how closely correlated racism and food-racism are. Are picky eaters more likely to be xenophobes? Certainly I cannot imagine myself ever saying anything negative about Thailand or Ethiopia, but I don't feel anything like that empathy for China, or people who consume ketchup.