From Diana Kennedy to Alison Roman: When White Women of Privilege Borrow from Ethnic Cuisines

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The new doc Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy examines its 97-year-old subjects rise to become a respected expert on traditional Mexican cooking, and why she has earned her status.

Cassie da Costa

For Kennedy, popularity was never the plan. After her first book became successful, Im sure she could have stayed in the U.S. and either opened a restaurantif thats something she wanted to door [developed] a celebrity chef persona, Carroll told me. But that definitely didnt seem to be as important to her as getting back to Mexico and just being there.

After her husband died in the late 60s, Kennedy built an ecological home in a remote area of Michoacn where she sustainably grows her own food on the land and in a greenhouse in harmony with the environment. She also barrels to local markets in a white Nissan truckstill, in her nineties, on a fiercely independent search for the best of homegrown Mexican cooking.

And in all technicality, I agree with that. But I think that there is a complexity to the way Diana approached Mexico and approached Mexican cuisine in a way that was deeply reverent and very respectful. She was not looking to exploit Mexican cuisine to make a profit. Her lifes work has been to never misrepresent what she concluded in sort of an academic way was authentic or traditional Mexican cuisineswhich to her have a very objective structure and objective origin points.

Kennedy locates authentic Mexican food in the home-cooking traditions of indigenous and working-class populations in city outskirts and rural areas of Mexico, which is key to her understanding of authenticity. Notably, while some of the films few talking heads are white Mexicans (Carroll was conscious of wanting to limit the talking-head portions of the film and instead focus on Kennedy) Kennedys teachers were indigenous and mixed working-class Mexicans. And where white anthropologists are criticized for parachuting into communities for a few weeks or months in order to score a degree, Kennedy has made it a goal to dedicate her lifes work to the communities that have given so much to her, through educating the young on sustainable growing practices, supporting local schools and restaurants, and making sure the best recipes never get lost.

In the U.S., where cooks and chefs of all backgrounds are often tempted into a culture of commercialism, including sparkly branding, conspiratorial social media personalities, quick and easy recipes, and corporate deals, Kennedy offers an anti-careerist take on food-centered life. But its important to look at Kennedys own trajectory through a lens that acknowledges the realities of colonialism and systemic racism. With a recent controversy surrounding the very popular cook Alison Roman, who saw her New York Times column suspended after she made what many saw as an insensitive and implicitly racist quip about Marie Kondo and Chrissy Teigens merchandising deals, more people are thinking about the question of privilege as it relates to integrity, and the continued colonialism of the cuisine world skews our understanding of what it means to sell out.

Whether youre Roman or Tiegen, the mechanisms of early-life success in the U.S. require some version of corporatism. Roman may not capitalize off merch, but she has cultivated a relatively lucrative sans-serif Bon Appetit-cool image for herself, not to mention a New York Times salary and byline, while seemingly whipping together recipes that borrow sometimes major and sometimes minor aspects from ethnic cuisines. Whiteness has afforded both Roman and Kennedy better access to stability without signing contracts with Target, but Kennedys trajectory is altogether of a different order, which is to say that Roman might have had more room to criticize corporatism in the food world if she were actually forging a path of refusal.

Diana Kennedy in Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy

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Of course, theres the question of who has the freedom to leave their families behind and spend their life traveling Mexico and documenting its traditional cuisines to then publish in books for English-speaking audiences. Its an important question that the food world has to deal with as it begins to pay more attention to systemic forms of oppression that often determine access within the industry. Throughout the documentary, Kennedy seems aware of how unusual her life is for a woman yet typically limitless for a white person of means. She just doesnt express guilt about iteven in her 90s (she was 91 when the documentary began filming and is 97 now), Kennedy is more interested in the work of traveling, researching, and cooking than of fashioning herself for public consumption. In fact, she really doesnt care what people think about her in a way that isnt simply unapologetic posturing, but is embedded in her personality.

Dianas just a really fascinating person, in good and bad ways, Carroll told me. She can be very not nice and I experienced that many times and it really frustrated me at certain points and confused me. But it also deepened my fascination with her, because she isnt like other people in that wayshe doesnt mind being rude. In one compelling yet uncomfortable scene, Kennedy opens her home kitchen to a group of adult learners, including both novices and restaurant owners who want to learn the methods shes researched. One woman, a home cook, gets the rice wrong and Diana doesnt hold back her contempt for the dish. But while shes quite rude, she isnt cruelshe affords a kind of intensity and attention to people that is fairly rare in a society where platitudes, superficiality, and a careful allegiance to supporting everybody reigns supreme. In [U.S.] culture, we do mind being rude, Carroll pointed out. We go out of our way and well do anything that we can to make sure that we dont come off as rude. And maybe thats just an American thing. Its certainly a public-facing thing. When you gain measure of any level of celebrity, one of the goals is not to piss anybody off. Diana clearly doesnt have a problem pissing people off.

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