Ugly Delicious

Monello

Smarter than the average bear
PREMO Member
I enjoy watching international food shows. A lot of times, it focuses on food that the normal people eat. They don't spend a lot of time on the $90 a plate places that nobody is interested in going to.

Ugly Delicious is hosted by an American born Korean guy. He went to high school at Georgetown Prep. A first generation American living the dream. In his early 40s, he's been very successful in a very difficult and competitive industry. He owns a bunch of restaurants that I imagine he has other people run because on his show he is literally all over the world filming segments. India, Turkey, Lebanon, Japan, you name it, he's been there.

And he interviews local food people. They talk about their food with a focus on how they develop the recipes. Often times the recipes are from family foods that were eaten growing up. Some of the people are still cooking in the place they grew up. Others have migrated somewhere else but keep cooking foods from their native land.

1 of the annoying, for me anyway, topics that come up often when speaking with these people is how their foods often get usurped. They they start in on Americans this and Americans that. Often white people are the culprits for ruining or bastardizing something near and dear to their heart. Often the host is the one that offers the question that leads to a bigoted response.

Here's some of the show's dialogue I was able to find online.

In the episode ‘Fried Chicken‘, while eating hot chicken with Nick Bishop Jr. and Sean Brock at Bishop’s restaurant Hattie B’s, Chang says, “You guys are white guys selling something that was based on something that was not of your culture.”

Both Bishop and Brock are white proprietors of ‘Black culture’ and both of their restaurants specifically cater to white and upper middle class communities.

Bishop replies, “We’re going to do it right and we’re going to be respectful of it. And I don’t think that the way that people may have 20 years ago, 100 years ago, 200 years ago, so I have to live for today and to try to be a good person.”

This is the sort of talk that goes on in each episode. Instead of just enjoying the food, the host is always on the search of something more sinister lying in the shadows. It's food. Eat it. Or don't eat it. But stop trying to find a racial aspect in every facet of life.

Or is this possibly some sort of deep held belief of the host, being a visible foreigner in a nation where the majority of the people don't look like him? The thing is his parents chose to come here. From all visible signs, they have created a nice life for themselves in the northern Virginia suburbs, They have a mcmansion home and were able to send their kids to a pricey private school. So clearly they were able to achieve the American dream, even though they don't look like the majority of Americans.

America. Love it, or leave it.

Here's a link to an article that looks at the shows racial slant. http://reappropriate.co/2018/05/digging-into-the-racial-politics-of-ugly-delicious/
 

Grumpy

Well-Known Member
It aint easy being green.
kermit.jpeg
 

Monello

Smarter than the average bear
PREMO Member
Looks like this show has it's own reddit section. I don't go into reddit often, so I'm not very familiar with it.

 

Sneakers

Just sneakin' around....
Never heard of it, never saw it, but I'm guessing the "ugly" part is the show's hosts and guests?
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
David Chang is a pretentious little twit. "See me being way cooler than you?" As Monello said, everything he eats has to have some racial or cultural misappropriation - he can't just eat something and go, "Wow, this is really good"; he has to drone on about how the food was stolen from some marginalized culture or cause harm to POC or blah blah blah.

Meanwhile he's this classic elitist privileged liberal. :lol:
 

Kyle

Beloved Misanthrope
PREMO Member
They’re all jealous twits.

America has the best food because it came here by everyone. Italians, Germans, French, Mexicans, Asians,… Whether it’s meatloaf, pasta, some sort of cutlet or schnitzel, that’s just what chicken fried steak is. Redneck schnitzel. Some sort of roast or stew.

we take all the best from everywhere and enjoy it.

Now all you jealous foreign ####s out there complaining about it, we’ve seen what you do to a hamburger. #### off!
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
They’re all jealous twits.

America has the best food because it came here by everyone. Italians, Germans, French, Mexicans, Asians,… Whether it’s meatloaf, pasta, some sort of cutlet or schnitzel, that’s just what chicken fried steak is. Redneck schnitzel. Some sort of roast or stew.

we take all the best from everywhere and enjoy it.

Now all you jealous foreign ####s out there complaining about it, we’ve seen what you do to a hamburger. #### off!
Exactly. Americans eat like the world and I will pit our culinary endeavors against any other country.
 
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