Thread by @reappropriate

I dunno who the eff this is, but fuck you — that’s traditional hot pot which 1) is part of my cultural heritage, and 2) can be made vegan if one so desires.

Calling it leftover dishwater is the height of ignorance and cultural arrogance.

https://twitter.com/jonaweinhofen/status/1078512183393148928

Incidentally, hot pot and other forms of slow-cooked stews historically emerge as a mainstay of cooking among impoverished peoples who combine whatever’s lying around to stretch ingredients while making a flavorful and hearty broth.

Chinese hot pot is traditionally described as having its origins among poor Chinese farmers who developed hot pot as a way to feed families during cold winters. European pottage has a similar history. Picking on these stews as “gross-looking” feels a lot like class privilege.

For me, hot pot was one of the few dishes that brought my whole family together. It was my family’s version of Christmas ham.

Hot pot taught me the basics of cooking — I learned how to balance flavors, how to tell when meats were done just by looking at them, and about how to time my cooking so my veggies weren’t mush. I learned this all as a kid armed with just my hot pot soup ladle.

But hot pot was also how I learned about how to collaborate with others. Hot pot is a communal dish: all of us working together to make a good broth. I learned generosity — giving others the good cuts of meats or veggies I fished out of the broth.

Love in my family was often expressed that way: finding a good piece of food and giving it to someone else at the table. Elders were given the best cuts, but my parents would also use their chopsticks to drop extra shrimps or whatever on my plate. That was love.

I know it seems kind of ridiculous to get all worked up over hot pot, but I have really fond memories of this dish; to see it lampooned by an ignorant rando makes me so heated.

Some folks have pointed out that this particular picture has some hot pot faux pas. I agree. Like I was used to a clearer broth, whereas this seems like it might be miso(?) base. And what’s that veggie doing in there when there’s still uncooked beef? Nevertheless, it’s not gross.

Also, don’t get me started on militant veganism, which is hugely steeped in classism, narcissism, and race privilege.

Here’s the thing about militant veganism: it demands we all eat by the standards set by a small group of people with racial and class privilege.

Hot pot, BY DEFINITION, is about anything goes: it is a communal dish that emerges as a reflection of the tastes of those eating it.

In other words, hot pot is a dish that reflects the differing tastes of everybody. That’s why there are so many regional varieties of hot pot: there’s really no wrong way to do it.

(Except maybe don’t add the veggies too soon, cuz then you get mush.)

Militant veganism simply ignores structural inequities that make healthy veganism difficult for anyone but the wealthy. It also totally ignores and even derides the many cultural culinary traditions that uses meat as staple ingredients.

I have no issue with veganism as a personal choice, as one way towards making a more sustainable future for the planet. But I have a huge problem with militant vegans who apply it as a catch-all solution by selectively ignoring or erasing diversity of backgrounds.

And seriously, scolding people living on food stamps and/or in food deserts where fresh produce is over an hour’s drive away that they should be eating more locally-sourced quinoa and beets is a slap in the face.

But I digress. Hot pot is awesome (although the hot pot in that pic is maybe not-the-awesomest).

Hot pot is the framework through which I learned about love, respect, and generosity. It is the holiday meal my family raised me on.

Hot pot is not gross dishwater, and screw that random guy for speaking out of ignorance on it.

Several folks are saying they think hot pot looks disgusting.

Telling an entire group that one of their traditional foods is “gross” and “backwards” is using culturally imperialistic logic to invalidate those traditions while labeling those people gross & backwards, too.

If your veganism leads you to pass judgement on other people as utterly invalid for celebrating their ancestral histories and practicing their own culinary traditions, you have graduated from vegan to asshole.

Let me also offer one last thing: that using food to change our relationship with the planet does not have to look only like militant veganism; it can also look like developing a healthy respect for our ingredients and where it comes from, thereby aspiring to better sourcing.

Let me unpack that: I grew up in a solidly middle-class family one generation away from the violence of war and abject poverty. My parents grew up poor and hungry; to voluntarily restrict one’s food was to not survive.

They grew up having to eat whatever was available; my dad, in particular, grew up very poor and with little to eat. The idea of voluntarily not eating meat when sometimes a single rabbit was the only food available to feed a family of 12 was/is laughable and insulting.

As a result, I grew up with a healthy respect for not only not being picky and respecting all types of ingredients, but also understanding where my food came from.

I saw pork cut from a whole roasted pig. I studied the whole chickens and ducks in the windows of the chinese butchers. I watched fish be pulled from tanks before they made their way to my dinner plate.

This taught me to have a healthy respect for meat. I learned early on to understand that my meat came from an animal and that it would keep me alive for another day.

As an adult, I have translated this into a desire to understand the sourcing for my ingredients and to support locally-raised and sustainable farm practices, especially since I now have the privilege to do that.

For me, my relationship with food is about finding harmony with the planet — eating meat as my ancestors did but also appreciating where that meat came from and seeking out ways to make my meals more sustainable through respecting every part of the journey to my table.

That doesn’t have to be your relationship with food and sustainability. By all means, if veganism is your expression of that, go for it.

Just don’t police my way of using food to work towards a more sustainable future.

By the way, if you haven’t already read @originalspin’s thread, it is good. Read here:

https://twitter.com/originalspin/status/1079028664111693824?s=21