That’s Not Their Culture!!

This blog post could equally be called “That’s not my culture” and it will contain reflections on both. But culture is an interesting thing, partly because it is simple, complex, hard to define, and easy to spot all at once. It is also really, really hard to see one’s own culture. There’s a great book called Watching the English which is written by an English anthropologist, which is one of the interesting things about it, usually in anthropology one studies cultures other than one’s own.

This post is also going to link into a few other themes I’ve either explicitly written about or have obliquely hinted at. But, you all know how interconnected everything is, so this won’t be surprising.

The national dish here in Nepal is dal bhat. This is rice (bhat) and curry and a lentil soup (dal). The dal here is quite different from the dal I’ve had in India and Sri Lanka which are both much thicker. Anyway, it’s really lovely. And it’s not quite as uniform as it might sound as the curry changes, and there are salad and pickle items as well that can vary. Now, just because it is the national dish and is eaten by a lot of people a lot of the time doesn’t mean there is a law that says only dal bhat is allowed. People here also eat chow mein and momos as well as other things. Momos are dumplings that are fried or steamed and which probably originated in Tibet – I fell in love with them in Tibet and that love has not faded.

So, if you come to Nepal and you want to eat like a local then you’ll eat dal bhat and drink milk tea – it’s the culture. However, there are coffee shops that do cappuccinos and iced mochas etc in the cities here in Nepal. There are also bubble tea shops. There are cafes that do lots of Indian food (aloo paratha, puri, etc). And Chinese food (chow mein, chilli chicken with rice, etc). And pizza places. And fried chicken shops. Do the locals eat all this other food? yep, of course they do. Hetauda isn’t a tourist city, every food place there has to be able to survive without tourist dollars. Do the locals eat as much pizza as dal bhat, nope. Does this mean pizza isn’t Nepali culture – well, yes and no.

UK high streets don’t just have greasy spoons cafs and chip shops and English pubs. UK food culture is just as likely to include Thai, Indian, Italian, Turkish as fish and chips or afternoon tea. Is taramasalata part of UK culture – well, yes and no.

When one lives at home in one’s own culture, one does not have to think about what food choices are culturally authentic – one just eats whatever one fancies, some things more often than others. But when one travels, one is more likely to think in these terms. And there are several types of traveller: there is the traveller who goes to Mexico and gets fed up with Mexican food on day 2 and spends their whole trip complaining that the Italian restaurants are rubbish; there is the barefoot backpacker who is fluent in Hindi and only eats dal bhat from the local places with no signs and no menus; there is the adventurous tourist who goes to all the tourist places and eats dal bhat (which has been massively westernised and costs 4 times the price). Then of course, there are the vast majority, the ones in the middle who sometimes eat the local food and sometimes eat the comfort food from their home. Those who travel for longer and live on project or with host families and who spend a lot of time eating local food are more likely to go for the blow-out binge on chicken burgers and milkshakes when they get the chance, and why not.

So what’s the right choice? Well, all of it, of course. It might be a little sad to imagine a world in which the high street of every single city in every single country was the same mix of: fried chicken; Indian curry house; tea shop; Swedish bakery; English pub; Mexian tacqueria; bubble tea; Korean BBQ; Thai; Italian pizzeria; Chinese; French bistro; Vietnamese; etc. But, it would also be tragic if Nepalis weren’t allowed to enjoy pizza, fried chicken, bubble tea, iced lattes, etc because that’s not their culture and if Brits weren’t allowed to eat tiramisu.

In many cases, the non-local food also has the awesome twist of being localised in some way. The Aussies completely ruin pizza by putting egg on it (actually, ruin isn’t my opinion, I like an egg on pizza, others strongly disagree). KFC in India has masala curried rice. There’s a café in Chitwan that does an incredible Nutella parotha!!!

My culture (whatever that is) allows me to break all the rules, and allows me to be as diverse as I want to be. It allows me to steal things from other cultures and either keep them exactly the same or adapt them. And every other culture should be equally allowed to do the same.

Everyone should have the opportunity to try momos (they really are amazing) and to try bubble tea. Everyone should be proud of their national dishes and protect them (is it ok to put potato on pizza?) and everyone should be able to fuse, mix, match, adapt in any way they want (sliced banana on grilled cheese, with salad cream on top – don’t let the fact that to my knowledge it is only me, my sister, my mum, my aunt, and my cousin who do this – it really is awesome).

So don’t worry about whether that restaurant is culturally authentic or not, just enjoy the food. And yep, going to the tiny hole in a wall with no signs and no menus really might be the best food you’ll ever have. So embrace their culture (whatever that means) and your own culture (whatever that means).

Talking about food is easy. Sure, people get really passionate about it (just tell a group of Brits that brown sauce just tastes like ketchup and you may well start a riot; or ask whether pineapple belongs on pizza and then stand well back), but it’s all good, harmless fun. So here are some other non-food things to get you thinking about cultural authenticity (just going to drop these grenades here and run away).

• The traditional houses have thatch roofs.
• The culture here is to cook on an open wood fire in the living room / kitchen.
• This part of the city is famous for its massively overcrowded and ancient wooden buildings.
• This village is so quaint and so remote, the only way here is by donkey (think pregnant woman in a complicated labour).
• In this part of the country it is traditional to use oxen to plough the fields.
• The culture here is for deep fried food.

Embrace your culture. Embrace other cultures. Embrace fusions of cultures. Embrace tradition. Embrace progress and development and equal opportunities for all. And trust me, embrace banana on grilled cheese!!!!