It all began with a mole, as these things often do. There I was, in the midst of crafting the perfect humblebrag for my Instagram post at a Mexican restaurant, when I overheard our server explaining my enchilada order to another customer.
“The enchiladas,” he announced, “are made with an authentic Mexican mole.”
“Just let it go,” I told myself, channeling inner peace. But the word hung in the air, a culinary question mark. What exactly made that mole “authentically Mexican”?
I started to dissect the concept. Mole, I knew, came from the Nahuatl word for “sauce”—a promising start. Yet, the origin story of mole as we know it points to Spanish nuns in Puebla, colonial figures using non-native ingredients to impress an archbishop. Does a dish born of European influence in Mexico, even when enjoyed in California, qualify as truly authentic?
Perhaps authenticity lies in the preparation? The restaurant owners are Mexican, which surely counts for something. But what if the chef stirring the mole was born in America, of Salvadoran heritage? Do the ingredients need a Mexican passport? And the restaurant itself – does the Andalusian-esque tilework or the possibly non-Oaxacan chairs detract from its authenticity?
Then, a deeper question: was I, in my Irish-American, lapsed Catholic, Bostonian essence, somehow contaminating the mole’s authenticity simply by consuming it while pondering its origins? And, the most fundamental question of all: was this so-called Authentic Food even delicious?
Jason Hoffman/Thrillist
The term “authentic” in American food culture is undeniably loaded. A certain type of food enthusiast, the self-proclaimed foodie, embarks on culinary expeditions to ethnic neighborhoods, hunting for “authentic” dining experiences, flavors untouched by mainstream influence. Cultures clash over culinary ownership, each staking claim to the “authentic” version of a dish. Chefs strive to deliver “authentic” tastes, meticulously sourcing ingredients and crafting environments to transport diners. The ability to create or partake in an “authentic” meal has become a status symbol in the American food scene, a declaration of seriousness for both cook and consumer.
But here’s the culinary truth bomb: authenticity, as we commonly understand it, is largely a myth. It’s a marketing construct, expertly designed to fuel food snobbery (“You haven’t lived until you’ve had authentic pad thai!”) and allow chefs to shield themselves behind tradition, deflecting criticism of uninspired or even mediocre cooking. “How dare you question this dish?” authenticity proclaims. “It’s been made this way for centuries!” As if longevity equates to quality, ignoring the fact that cholera, too, has ancient roots.
This isn’t a novel take. Brilliant minds in food writing have tackled this before. Todd Kliman’s Lucky Peach essay eloquently “Debunked the Myth of Authenticity.” John DeVore’s humorous deconstruction of Taco Bell is legendary. Hua Hsu’s insightful piece in The New Yorker celebrates “the joy of inauthentic cooking.”
Yet, here I am, adding my voice to the chorus, hoping to finally bury this culinary fallacy. My stance hasn’t always been so firm. Years immersed in food writing have eroded any semblance of detached, academic analysis, replaced by a growing frustration. “Authentic” has become a shield and a weapon, a tool for gatekeeping and culinary one-upmanship. Like the most fervent foodie fundamentalists, “authenticity” is exclusionary, not welcoming. I’ve tasted this, and you haven’t, it declares. I have the right to cook this, and you don’t. End of conversation.
My aim is straightforward, though perhaps overly ambitious: to banish “authentic” from our American food vocabulary. Not just because it’s become a meaningless cliché, joining the ranks of “gourmet” and “premium,” but because it undermines what should be the true pursuit of every food lover: exceptional, innovative food that continuously elevates the culinary landscape.
To understand the grip of this pretentious notion, I’ve consulted chefs from diverse backgrounds – Africa, Europe, Haiti, even Pittsburgh – alongside food writers, academics, and my own mother. Rest assured, all opinions were rigorously vetted for authenticity (except Mom’s, which were, frankly, a bit rambling and unhelpful). But the rest? Pure, unadulterated, real.
Jason Hoffman/Thrillist
The 1980s: A Decade of Culinary Simplification
Looking back, the ’80s were a time of many excesses, but perhaps none so peculiar as the obsession with culinary authenticity in America.
“Thirty years ago,” explains Marcus Samuelsson, the Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised chef behind Harlem’s Red Rooster, “chefs weren’t truly exploring the nuances of diverse cuisines for diners.” Apart from a few pioneers – Osho in Hollywood, the first sushi bar aiming beyond a Japanese clientele, and Shun Lee in NYC, an upscale Chinese restaurant – mainstream American diners primarily encountered French, Italian, and perhaps some Mediterranean fare. Other cuisines were often simplified, Americanized into Chinese-American or Tex-Mex, offering a superficial understanding of their true character. (Ironically, two of New York’s trendiest ’80s restaurants were regional American parodies: Texarkana, a “Cajun-Louisiana” establishment as described by the Times, and Arizona 206, a “Southwestern” spot serving dishes like barbecued foie gras with cactus-pear salad.)
This began to shift in the late ’80s and ’90s, with the emergence of what Samuelsson terms “gatekeeper” restaurants. Think Charles Phan’s Slanted Door in San Francisco, Wild Ginger in Seattle, José Andrés’ Jaleo in DC, Wolfgang Puck’s Chinois in LA, and Rick Bayless’ Frontera Grill and Topolobampo in Chicago. “These early innovators,” Samuelsson notes, “sparked a culinary conversation that was missing in the mainstream.”
Suddenly, interest surged, and people wanted to delve deeper into these cuisines. Influential cookbooks appeared, illuminating lesser-known culinary traditions – Paula Wolfert on Morocco and the Eastern Mediterranean, Diana Kennedy on Mexico, Madhur Jaffrey on India, and so on. Restaurant critics like Jonathan Gold, Robert Sietsema, and Ruth Reichl championed small, authentic eateries.
This coincided with the rise of the Food Network and, crucially, the internet. Online chat rooms and forums like Chowhound connected food enthusiasts, enabling them to share culinary discoveries. Affordable air travel made exploring regional cuisines in their homelands easier than ever. “If you were truly passionate,” says Vitaly Paley of Paley’s Place in Portland, “you didn’t just visit the Southeast Asian neighborhood in your city. You traveled to Southeast Asia.”
The culinary landscape has only become richer since. Want to master Nordic pickling or Burmese mohinga? YouTube tutorials and Reddit threads offer a wealth of information. You can even hire local cooks online for personalized lessons. The sheer volume of culinary knowledge accessible to the average person is astounding.
The Rise of the Food Expert (and the Inevitable Snob)
However, this democratization of food knowledge has, unfortunately, bred a certain type of culinary insufferability. Just as readily available crime footage has created an army of armchair detectives, open access to culinary information has empowered a populace to become self-proclaimed food experts. These individuals embark on quests for the most “authentic” and obscure dishes, displaying them as trophies on social media, or lurking in online forums, ready to pounce on any perceived culinary misstep.
What began as a positive trend has devolved into battles over culinary authority. At Oberlin College, students criticized the dining hall for “cultural appropriation” and “cultural insensitivity,” citing poorly executed ethnic dishes. Hillary Dixler’s essay, “How Gullah Cuisine Has Transformed Charleston Dining,” ignited controversy in South Carolina, partly for highlighting Charleston’s culinary debt to enslaved West Africans, but also because the author was perceived as an outsider from the North. The backlash escalated when a white writer/farmer told Michael Twitty, a Gullah descendant and primary source, to “go back to where he came from,” asserting that “Charleston knows its past, we don’t need help understanding it.”
This incident encapsulates a core issue in the “authentic food” debate: the tendency to immediately judge the speaker rather than the argument. It’s a tactic of dismissal, a deflection from substantive discussion.
It’s also a classic hipster move, a superiority play used by insecure food fans engaged in a constant culinary pissing contest. “When I moved to [insert city] in [insert year], there wasn’t [insert obscure food trend]” is a common refrain. In the authenticity context, this morphs into “My family has lived in [insert location] since [insert historical date],” attempting to shut down any dissenting voices based on lineage, as if ancestry automatically grants culinary authority.
Jason Hoffman/Thrillist
Foodie Culture and the Obsession with Origin
Foodie culture, it turns out, mirrors other forms of fandom. There’s an emphasis on origins, a drive for discovery, and a desire to claim ownership, all often used to assert dominance. But there’s something deeper at play, rooted in the American experience and perhaps prevalent in other Western democracies with their own brands of “foodie assholes.”
American culinary traditions, like Americans themselves, are a complex, often messy mix of influences. We are a nation of culinary mongrels. Purity and rigid definitions are largely absent. Unlike Europe’s appellation systems like France’s AOC or Italy’s DOC, which strictly regulate regional products, the US lacks such broad protections, except for a few cases like Vidalia onions, bourbon whiskey, and “100% Florida orange juice.”
As food writer Larry Olmsted, author of Real Food/Fake Food, points out, “We have virtually no truly original cuisine in the United States. Everything is an adaptation of something else.” (Acknowledging the rich food history of Native Americans, which warrants its own separate discussion).
Consider iconic “American” foods: Texas barbecue evolved from German immigrant techniques for preserving meat. The hamburger, depending on the origin story, is a German-Russian-Mongolian hybrid with multiple American birthplaces. Hot dogs are another German import. Even apple pie, that symbol of Americana, was brought over by Dutch, English, and Swedish settlers who had to transport apple trees across the ocean.
Perhaps this mixed heritage fuels our fascination with foreign cuisines perceived as having clearer, more “authentic” lineages, untainted by America’s melting pot. It’s a form of culinary nostalgia, a yearning for a perceived purity, similar to the music snob who refuses to listen to anything recorded after Dark Side of the Moon.
Beyond Authenticity: Embracing Culinary Evolution
With the possible exception of barbecue, “authentic” in America is primarily used to describe ethnic restaurants (often implying non-white, non-European), serving as a signal to a predominantly white audience that the food is palatable and “safe” for their tastes. As Nigerian chef and writer Tunde Wey observes, “No Nigerian in America walks into a Nigerian restaurant and asks if it’s authentic. They eat the food and know immediately.”
This isn’t inherently negative. Encouraging people to explore diverse cuisines is positive, as long as it’s done respectfully. However, chefs and restaurant owners should recognize that labeling food as “authentic” is both condescending and misleading.
In conversations with Wey, the core issue with “authentic” became clear: it ignores evolution. Wey shared a story about Haitian Vodou traditions in Haiti versus the US. Haitian immigrants brought their traditions to America, but while Vodou in Haiti continued to evolve, the practices in the US remained static, frozen in time. The same applies to food. “When you remove something from its culture, you limit its potential to evolve,” Wey argues. “Authenticity suggests a fixed point, but culture is dynamic. A chef in America cooking food from another place isn’t serving authentic food; the best they can hope for is ‘traditional.'”
He illustrates this point with a personal anecdote: “I called my mom to ask about ingredients, and she mentioned adding peas to her jollof rice. I protested, ‘Mom, we don’t put peas in jollof rice!’ She replied, ‘Tunde, I cooked this in Nigeria last night and served it to Nigerians. I think I know what I can put in my jollof rice.'” Wey concludes, “Authenticity cannot be standardized.”
Pittsburgh chef Sonja Finn, a pioneer whose modern pizza restaurant Dinette helped ignite national food media attention on Pittsburgh, echoes this sentiment. She dismisses the obsession with authenticity, arguing that it boils down to two key factors: “Quality of taste and texture are the only truly objective measures of food. Everything else – authenticity, innovation, sustainability, value – are personal preferences.”
The choice to pursue “authenticity” – to delve into Hungarian heritage, cook like ancestors, and source obscure ingredients – is a personal artistic decision. Narrative and history can enrich a meal, but ultimately, the food must be delicious. When authenticity overshadows taste, the system is flawed. We end up with a landscape of underwhelming culinary relics, and I’m left with a mediocre mole.
As for that mole, I contemplated its historical weight, its layers of appropriation, its very meaning. Then, I did something radical: I ate it, enjoyed it, and moved on.
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Kevin Alexander is Thrillist’s national writer-at-large, and collects authentic Jordan 1s, which he now calls “traditional” Jordan 1s. Follow him to Hungarian markets @KAlexander03.
