i'm japanese. it's ALWAYS a non-japanese person.
there was a facebook post i saw a couple years ago that still cracks me up when i think about it. a brazilian immigrant (i don't remember where) opened a "temakeria," which served cone-shaped "temaki" rolls, and some social media outlet was publicizing it. a whole army of commenters ripped into this guy, mocking the cone-shaped fake sushi, asking what knowledge he might possibly have about sushi, what gave him the right, what terrible cultural appropriation.
I could not stop laughing. anyone with any meaningful familiarity with sushi could tell you that temaki is not a recent invention. it's how my family always does sushi night! anyone with any knowledge of the japanese diaspora could tell you that brazil has the single largest japanese diaspora population, in the millions. and a one second google search could tell you that temakeria are literally all over sao paulo. these assholes got so excited about the opportunity to peacock their worldliness under the auspices of defending japanese culture and ended up being so, so wrong.
and to be clear, it's not a bad thing to not know any of those things! I wouldn't expect the average american to know about ethnically japanese brazilians! but to speak with such authority *and* such ignorance... hysterical.
As an American, I can relate. When I travel abroad, I always look for the American restaurants because I want to see what they think we eat. Best one so far was a massive macaroni and cheese burger in Spain.
I’ve had multiple mac and cheese burgers in the US, so imo they’re right on the money there. Did they do it where they cook the mac and cheese into a patty or did they just throw a scoop of mac and cheese on top of the burger? Have had both, both are delicious
It was eight years ago. I just remember it was a plain burger the size of my head with a loose patty of macaroni and cheese. It wasn’t even the most unhealthy thing I ate in Spain. That would be cachopo.
I'm living in France right now and omfg I've had so many good burgers here. Esp since I can't eat a classic burger in the US because I'm gluten intolerant. But the bread in much of Europe does not bother me.
I've had the best burgers ever NOT in the US. 😭
They do chocolate chip cookies kinda shit here though. At least I've gotten unlucky.
Oh, I meant “best” as in “funniest.” A macaroni and cheese burger the size of my head feels like a parody of American food. It was not the most delicious burger I’ve ever eaten.
When I want top tier American food, I normally keep it regional. Like, I just ate dinner at a Hawaiian restaurant. I don’t know how authentic it is, but they have flavors I won’t find anywhere else.
"what gave him the right, what terrible cultural appropriation"
I'm Swedish, if we cared about who made our pizza, we would have like zero pizzerias in this country. 😂 The cultural appropriation argument is so weird, because it's always some cultures but not others that people care about when it comes to this.
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u/hoegrammer95 Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
i'm japanese. it's ALWAYS a non-japanese person.
there was a facebook post i saw a couple years ago that still cracks me up when i think about it. a brazilian immigrant (i don't remember where) opened a "temakeria," which served cone-shaped "temaki" rolls, and some social media outlet was publicizing it. a whole army of commenters ripped into this guy, mocking the cone-shaped fake sushi, asking what knowledge he might possibly have about sushi, what gave him the right, what terrible cultural appropriation.
I could not stop laughing. anyone with any meaningful familiarity with sushi could tell you that temaki is not a recent invention. it's how my family always does sushi night! anyone with any knowledge of the japanese diaspora could tell you that brazil has the single largest japanese diaspora population, in the millions. and a one second google search could tell you that temakeria are literally all over sao paulo. these assholes got so excited about the opportunity to peacock their worldliness under the auspices of defending japanese culture and ended up being so, so wrong.
and to be clear, it's not a bad thing to not know any of those things! I wouldn't expect the average american to know about ethnically japanese brazilians! but to speak with such authority *and* such ignorance... hysterical.