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Comment by youeseh | Hacker News Reader

If I'm an Indian in California craving Indian food "just like home", am I desperately trying to sound cultured?

Maybe I was cultured to begin with! :D

There is a point when food attributed to a culture but not invented by it gains authenticity - when the culture that it is attributed to adopts it. A few examples:

- Tikka Masala (British)

- Burrito (California)

- Siracha Sauce (California)

- Pepperoni (New York?). But, we're still waiting on Italians on this one.

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The popular Mission style burrito was invented in 20th century California, but people have been rolling meat or beans or veggies into tortillas for a very long time. And they were called "burritos", in Mexico, as early as 1895.

Quoting the Diccionario de Mexicanismos, which says "burrito" is a term from Guanajuato state:

Tortilla arrollada, con carne u otra cosa dentro, que en Yucatán llaman cozito, y en Cuernavaca y en Méjico, taco

(rolled tortilla, with meat or something else inside; in Yucatán called "cozito", and in Cuernavaca and Méjico "taco")

https://books.google.com/books?id=u2xQAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA98

Yes, but if you go to another part of India you'll also be served a differently prepared dish, it will never be exactly "just like home". It's not just in India, every cuisine has regional variations, say in Italia there's a big difference in specialties between say Campania and Veneto. So how come that is OK, but emigrants have to make the food just like your mom makes or it's called fake?

The problem is that there is no real definition since all food comes from some place at some time. Even ingredients that are used in many Indian dishes today like Chili peppers and tomatoes are from the new world, so could not have been considered "authentic" at some time int he past. Basically "authentic" when it comes to food feels more like a kind of nostalgia.

Saying you want "authentic" vs "just like home" are very different to me. One implies value judgement, the other does not.

In my experience, the best way to make any food "just like home" is to make it yourself.

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