# What do you consider "ethnic" food? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 6, 2010, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249 "2010-10-06T13:40:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ruby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/13edae/32.png) [@Ruby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruby)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/21 "2010-10-07T04:24:11Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > For me, ethnic food is any food identified with a country, region, or any other kind of ethnic group, especially when it’s prepared outside its home region. So, for example, soul food is ethnic food, and Italian food anywhere outside Italy is ethnic food. This is me to a tee. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/22 "2010-10-07T05:33:18Z")
To me “ethnic food” has a vague connotation of “immigrant food”, particularly (but not exclusively) the foods of poorer immigrant groups. Any cuisine where you can imagine that a large number of the restaurants are staffed or owned by people from the homeland, and where there’s a good chance that there’s an old woman in the kitchen who doesn’t speak a word of English and spends her day making dumplings or kneading dough? That’s “ethnic”. Even if there’s just a picture of that old woman over the cash register, it’s still kinda “ethnic”. By that reckoning, I included African, East and West Asian, Caribbean, Indian and Latin American. Mediterranean was on the fence: a good number of Greek places would fit; I don’t know about Spanish; and Italian…well, there’s nothing ethnic about Olive Garden or Pizza Hut, but I think enough independent places would qualify (if only barely) that I included it. British, German, and French - no. But even there, there could be exceptions: a restaurant in Vermont run by rural Quebecois immigrants which served traditional fare (even if nicely presented) would feel ethnic to me. ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/23 "2010-10-07T11:32:42Z")
To me, ethnic food is essentially any food made by people with darker skin color than mine. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/24 "2010-10-07T16:48:22Z")
I voted All, but on second thoughts as a Brit I don’t consider British or American ethnic. ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/25 "2010-10-07T21:37:01Z")
> [@MTCicero](#): > > To me, ethnic food is essentially any food made by people with darker skin color than mine. You wouldn’t consider [Lutefisk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutefisk)an ethnic food? 🙂 To me, ethnic food is something I can’t cook right at home. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/26 "2010-10-07T21:52:02Z")
I’m guessing \*\*MTCicero \*\*is making the point that “ethnic” is often code for “not white”. I voted “all”, out of literal-mindedness, since we are all of some ethnic group. But yeah, if somebody said to me “do you like ethnic food” I would assume that they meant the cuisine of a non-western or non-first-world country. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/27 "2010-10-07T22:39:36Z")
To me Italian, Chinese, and Mexican are common enough in America that they no longer count as ethnic. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/28 "2010-10-07T23:08:39Z")
I don’t know, I feel like everything is ethnic food. I’m a white American, my mom is of Irish descent and my dad is Jewish, but what is probably more pertinent is that both of them were born and raised in urban California, as was I. (They grew up in LA, I grew up in the Bay Area.) I’m much more familiar with certain varieties of Asian cuisines than I am with, say, various Central European styles of cooking. I’ve been to German and Hungarian restaurants and been totally baffled by the menu, whereas I’m comfortable with ordering Thai or Japanese food. Those are much more ordinary to me than plenty of “white people food”. It occurs to me that I’m reading “ethnic” as “exotic”. Maybe I’m doing it wrong. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/29 "2010-10-07T23:14:26Z")
It’s a stupid term like world music, ethnic food is just food, world music is just music, \*especially \*in this day and age. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/30 "2010-10-08T01:11:48Z")
Ethnic food is anything that makes you smell after you eat it. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/31 "2010-10-08T01:20:23Z")
Some food I would be more apt to call regional rather than ethnic. At least in America where a wide variety of ethnicities may have eaten a diet of what is most available. ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/32 "2010-10-08T02:14:59Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > It’s a stupid term like world music, ethnic food is just food, world music is just music, \*especially \*in this day and age. Particularly as I was looking to cast a fairly broad net, and to include worthwhile cuisines that I might be unfamiliar with, it seems to have been a fairly useful term, albeit imperfect. I do apologize if any offense was given, as it certainly wasn’t intended. World music is an interesting parallel. I enjoy some of that sort of stuff, particularly as it works in various fusions with rock, metal, and punk–but sometimes in purer forms as well. I tend to think of it as ‘folk’ music, though I can hardly use that term in casual conversation, since it’s already associated with a different (and curiously, to my ears, non-folky) genre. In some ways ethnic food is the same–the traditional fare of a particular cultural or national group. There’s a lot of room for elaboration on that theme, and of course it’s not a perfect fit either–my imperfect understanding is that most average Chinese or Japanese, for example, traditionally ate an awful lot of rice and not much else. The Chinese food we think of, aside from being heavily Americanized by now, was food for special occasions or the wealthy. Still, it’s an interesting analogy. But, again, I couldn’t have called it ‘folk food’ because no one would’ve had any idea what I was on about. ---
**Author:** ![Pai325](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/33 "2010-10-08T02:34:16Z")
If it’s not a bowl of Cheerio’s, it’s ethnic. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/34 "2010-10-08T03:36:13Z")
It’s a witless distinction ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/35 "2010-10-08T03:57:36Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > It’s a stupid term like world music, ethnic food is just food, world music is just music, \*especially \*in this day and age. World music’s a different hat, though, in that it also refers to music that draws on everything, and comes from nowhere (and by nowhere, I mean Los Angeles, lol). I think of the faux Latin, faux African choral music mixed in with a pan flute and strings on the commercial for every airlines from the 90s. But I suppose in a world with mango salsa and “Hawaiian” pizza, even ethnic food can be a misnomer of the same magnitude! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/36 "2010-10-08T04:30:38Z")
> [@Apollyon](#): > > > [@MTCicero](#): > > > > To me, ethnic food is essentially any food made by people with darker skin color than mine. > > You wouldn’t consider [Lutefisk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutefisk)an ethnic food? 🙂 > > To me, ethnic food is something I can’t cook right at home. Well, bang goes my theory then. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/37 "2010-10-08T04:38:17Z")
There’s no option for Southeast Asian. Cuisines like Thai, Vietnamese and Indonesian, for example, should not be grouped in with East Asian. I don’t see a South Asian option either. It’s not just India in South Asia. When it comes right down to it, isn’t _all_ food someone’s ethnic food? That’s how I voted. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/38 "2010-10-08T12:59:44Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > There’s no option for Southeast Asian. Cuisines like Thai, Vietnamese and Indonesian, for example, should not be grouped in with East Asian. > > I don’t see a South Asian option either. It’s not just India in South Asia. I was trying to be as general as possible. I didn’t want to have to list every country in the world. And frankly, even though you and I may know the subtle (or not so subtle) differences between Asian cuisines, most people lump it all together. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/39 "2010-10-08T13:14:15Z")
Stuffed cabbage. With a type of dumpling that I can never pronounce right, and which seems to have a name that no one outside of my maternal grandmother’s family has ever heard of, despite them being basically just boiled bread dough. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249/40 "2010-10-08T13:42:06Z")
> [@Apollyon](#): > > > [@MTCicero](#): > > > > To me, ethnic food is essentially any food made by people with darker skin color than mine. > > You wouldn’t consider [Lutefisk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutefisk)an ethnic food? 🙂 > > To me, ethnic food is something I can’t cook right at home. No. I would consider Lutefisk this creepy dish that I’d never even heard of until I got to Minnesota, whose appeal I fail to see. Also, just for bonus points, the originators of this dish do not have darker skin than mine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-consider-ethnic-food/556249.md?page=3)