Why do so many Americans think Argentine cuisine is always “beef and Malbec?”
In a column for Vice Munchies, Bettina Makalintal beseeches American cookbook publishers to promote more regional, and less national, understandings of global cuisine. Too often, she writes, publishers will flatten the diverse cultures of sprawling countries—not just Argentina, but also the Philippines and Indonesia, for example—which means Americans don’t appreciate their nuances. “There’s nothing wrong with the idea of national cuisine, but it just makes life more interesting to see that a nation is a kind of construct based on a more complicated reality of different regions and traditions,” adds cookbook author Fuschia Dunlop, who is known for promoting Sichuan cuisine.
