Taiwanese Lu Rou Fan (Pork Over Rice) and the issue with authenticity
I grew up eating Lu Rou Fan. While everyone in my family gravitated towards Taiwan's famous beef noodle soup, I always preferred Lu Rou Fan more. There's a weightier punch to the spices used in the dish and a huge depth of flavour to the way it's prepared. Here's a rather authentic recipe if you want to try it out--it's actually incredibly easy to make--but I usually go for the more simplified versions.
I don't care about authenticity. Period. And it's not just because most authentic traditional foods are lies made to prop up a cultural identity in shambles. I dislike this gatekeeping focus that's been taking over cooking media. I can't get cubanelles, so if I make chilli, are you going to attack me for 'disrespecting' your culture? My friends can't afford authentic parmesan cheese and they don't cook enough Italian to justify buying it, are you going to deny them their weekly pasta? I once had someone ask me if I was really Taiwanese, because I didn't fry my shallots beforehand.
You know what? I never cook with shallots. Onions are just cheaper. And I don't care.
From the article:
Panettone is a case in point. Before the 20th century, panettone was a thin, hard flatbread filled with a handful of raisins. It was only eaten by the poor and had no links to Christmas. Panettone as we know it today is an industrial invention. In the 1920s, Angelo Motta of the Motta food brand introduced a new dough recipe and started the “tradition” of a dome-shaped panettone. Then in the 1970s, faced with growing competition from supermarkets, independent bakeries began making dome-shaped panettone themselves. As Grandi writes in his book, “After a bizarre backwards journey, panettone finally came to be what it had never previously been: an artisanal product.”
It bothers me when people make up these rules about how you have to be authentic, and how you can't ever deviate because these old 'masters' had perfected it.
Today, Italian food is as much a leitmotif for rightwing politicians as beautiful young women and football were in the Berlusconi era. As part of her election campaign in 2022, prime minister Giorgia Meloni posted a TikTok video in which an old lady taught her how to seal tortellini parcels by hand. This month, Meloni’s minister of agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida, suggested establishing a task force to monitor quality standards in Italian restaurants around the world. He fears that chefs may get recipes wrong, or use ingredients that aren’t Italian. (Officially listed “traditional food products” now number a staggering 4,820.)
Please remember that you're cooking for yourself. In the end, you have to eat it. You have to make the choices: whether it be looking at your bank account or wondering if you have any mental energy to cook at all, or just reminding yourself that no, you do not need to make an extra 20 minute trip to an asian grocery store to grab those dried mushrooms when you can in fact just use cheaper button mushrooms and it's fine! Most people can't tell the difference.
Why not experiment? Why not have fun? Yes, it's okay to use soy sauce and dashi in western dishes! Don't forget your leftovers: your spring onions have gone floppy in the fridge. Your cheese is about to get mouldy. I think your fish sauce, worcestershire, and maple syrup are past its expiration date, and did you know you're meant to keep them in the fridge instead of outside? Sugar doesn't go bad, but maple syrup has a higher moisture content and can actually grow mould.
You're meant to use dried tangerine peel with this, but I didn't. I just zested all my flatmate's oranges and threw them all in and it was incredible. There's such a sweet brightness to the zest and the citrus flavour even permeates the meat after being braised in the oven for 2 and a half hours. If I cared about authenticity at all, I wouldn't even make this.
Oh yeah, the secret is also adding in a dollop of natural peanut butter. I also add marmite to my meat stews. My friend puts kimchi in his bolognese and the acid cuts the fat very well.
Nobody serves Lu Rou Fan with cauliflower. But I did! With a nice dash of cayenne pepper too! This was fantastic.