tradition is peer pressure from dead people
Silly. If it’s tasty it’s tasty
It depends on the context.
If I’m celebrating a holiday or cultural event, it is good to skew closer to tradition as the food is part of the tradition.
Outside of that, tradition was just optimizing to the cooking techniques of the time. I like Adam Ragusea’s analysis when discussing spaghetti and meatballs. The context of the recipe 60 years ago was that it was a high scale recipe for a large extended family, a context they doesn’t fit most uses today.
Not to mention that spaghetti and meatballs itself is a fusion dish invented in America; it’s not traditional Italian cuisine.
Who has this need?
Most places I’ve been, people want to eat their usual food they’ve eaten for generations.
None of my business to tell em they’re wrong.
I mean, if I’m experiencing a culture for the first time, I’d like the food to be as authentic as possible.
No. The best meals are a fusion of eastern and western cultures.
Is a Bunnings snag traditional or is it a knockoff of a hotdog?
There’s a place for both. I’m French and I don’t like it when you take traditional dishes or items, butcher them and still call them the original name. However it’s totally fine if you want to update the recipe, make it a fusion with something else, or whatever else you fancy, but just give it a different/updated name.
Food doesn’t need to be traditional
Food needs to be traditional as much as it needs to be modern.
It’s great we are still pushing culinary boundaries, but sometimes you just need a comfort food.
Traditional dishes remind us of where we’ve come from, either literally reminding us of our homeland if we’ve moved, or reminding us of our ancestors, or figuratively by making us think of our childhoods or of grandma’s famous holiday sides.
It’s the reason we eat green beans casserole on Thanksgiving, but never any other day of the year, or why we still crave a PBJ or Hot Pocket.
It doesn’t. Recipes / traditions come from people migrating around and trying things with the plants and animals available in different areas.
Traditions should be remembered and respected. Locking them down and not allowing them to change though is bizarre and not how humans work.
I was just listening to a podcast on the history of tacos al pastor. Turns out, Lebanese immigrants brought shawarma to Mexico. Pork was more widely available and chilis are freaking awesome. Boom, tacos al pastor.
What’s traditional? Like some decades or 100 years ago? Or before the Spanish brought the potato to Europe? Or paleolithic diet? I don’t quite get what “traditional” means in the context of something always changing and evolving like food. And plants like potatos, tomatos, paprika, coffee, … and spices spreading over the world. And a constant flux of change and everything being connected and incluencing each other for centuries or thousands of years already.
Or does traditional mean not as much additives, sugar and convenience food? Because I think we can answer that by looking at the statistics. People need less sugar and more fibers for example than we currently consume (on average).
Or before the Spanish brought the potato to Europe?
Prior to the Columbian exchange, the Old World had never seen the tomato, the potato, corn, or chocolate, to name a few notables. The New World had never seen rice, wheat, beef, pork, or chicken.
It was a very different world for both from a culinary standpoint, that’s for sure.
I suppose where I live they mostly ate food made from grain. Like bread or barley gritz or other tasteless stuff. And then some available vegetables, berries, some animal produce, probably not a cow unless they were rich, more like eggs and occasionally a chicken.
I think the Roman empire also spread quite some culture and food across Europe. But I can’t imagine living before the Columbian exchange. That brought us most stuff we eat as if today. Yeah and colonialism in general, that made some goods available for people in Europe.
Eat what you like.
That’s the neat part, I don’t.
It is extremely harmful per se. Tradition is not an ethical or healthy reason to eat something. However, there is a strong correlation between certain traditional diets and human health. But not because they are traditional and that should not be used to justify or promote their practice. Such arguments are also used to rationalize absolutely needless cruelty, violence, and atrocity that even harms the practitioner.
