wizardofid
Honorary Master
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2007
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Bunny chow is unique because it evolved so hard you can’t even trace it back to the Indian dishes it started from without a map and a microscope. It became its own thing unique method, unique identity, unique context. Meanwhile, America’s version of “evolution” is basically adding ketchup to something and calling it a revolution. It’s not innovation, it’s menu vandalism.
And fried chicken, it became culturally important in the American South. No one’s arguing that. But that still doesn’t magically transplant its origins to U.S. soil. It’s like taking someone else’s homework, decorating the margins, and insisting you wrote it from scratch. Heartwarming? Sure. Historically accurate? Absolutely not.
Of course the Alps don’t have the same food as the Mediterranean coast. Congratulations, you’ve discovered geography. That doesn’t change the fact that France has centuries-old, codified culinary fundamentals tying the entire cuisine together. Same techniques, same mother sauces, same structural principles, same classical training. A chef from Brittany and one from Marseille can walk into the same kitchen and instantly speak the same culinary language. Because there is one.
Same with Italy wildly different regions, wildly different ingredients, but a shared foundational logic to how Italians approach food ingredients first, simplicity, technique-forward dishes, and regional identity woven into a national culinary culture that everyone actually recognizes as Italian.
America? No. Just no. You don’t get to throw Louisiana on the table like a trump card when it’s literally the one region in the entire country that developed something genuinely distinct. The rest is a chaotic collage of “my great-grandparents brought this from [insert country], and we never really changed it except to make it sweeter.” That’s not a national cuisine that’s a culinary group project where no one agreed on the assignment.
French cuisine has fundamentals. Italian cuisine has fundamentals. American cuisine has vibes and marketing. Let’s not pretend those are remotely the same thing.
America doesn’t have a shared culinary backbone the way other cuisines do. The French have mirepoix. Italians have soffritto. Cajun cooking has the holy trinity. These aren’t just regional quirks mirepoix and soffritto show up everywhere in their respective cuisines, north to south, coast to coast. Cajun’s trinity is at least internally consistent within Cajun food.
America? It’s a patchwork of “whatever the region feels like,” no unified base that ties the whole cuisine together.
And Bunny Chow? Durban curry? Yes, they’re uniquely South African because you can’t get that curry in India. It’s masala-heavy, hotter, built on different chilies and different ratios. It evolved here, with local preferences and local ingredients, shaped by the diaspora, not copied straight from the source. That’s what makes it uniquely ours. It uses the same fundamentals as Indian cuisine but that is where it ends. Durban curry matches ZERO Indian curries. Literally, it is tomato heavy, instead of using cream or yogurt, coconut, using potatoes in a curry which is a hallmark of a durban curry is unheard of in indian dishes you will have a hard time finding curries with potatoes in it.
Durban curry started in the Indian diaspora communities in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), South Africa, but over time it spread throughout the country and even internationally. Its appeal and adoption went beyond its original region, becoming part of a wider culinary identity.
Cajun cuisine, on the other hand, is much more geographically and culturally rooted in Louisiana. While it’s popular outside of Louisiana, it hasn’t expanded its “regional ownership” in the same way; it remains closely tied to its origin, its ingredients, and local traditions.
Tell me you know nothing about food without telling me you know nothing about food.
