Who gets to tell you how you should eat Pho?
CBC Radio | Posted: September 19, 2016 3:10 PM | Last Updated: September 19, 2016
Gourmet food website Bon Appetit cooked up some controversy earlier this month with this "public service announcement": This Is How You Should Be Eating Pho."
The video featured a white chef telling viewers how they should and absolutely should not be eating the Vietnamese noodle soup.
The backlash was swift. Bon Appetit took the video down after receiving responses from Asian Americans who felt their lived experiences were being ignored and misrepresented.
Dakota Kim, the food editor at New York's Paste magazine, has been wanting to write about cultural appropriation and food for a while.
For Kim, the video lacks nuance — it doesn't address the food shame that many immigrants struggle with.
"When your culture is so hard fought for and your pride is so hard won, it's a little difficult to see it being commodified in these easy ways," she tells guest host Candy Palmater.