sechan19 | Privilege and Food.

From the label of a bottle of Jalfrezi Simmer Sauce:

There are certain phrases most Americans don't usually hear around the dinner table. No one says, for instance, "Could you pass the Fenugreek." And rarely does one hear, "This is delicious, Mom, but it needs just a touch more Turmeric." That's why we love Jalfrezi. Roughly translated, it means "stir-fry." And the aforementioned spices help give it an exotic medium-hot kick. Oh, one more thing about those spices: In our simmer sauces, they're all organically grown and painstakingly selected, just as you'd expect from any Seeds of Change product. Which is important, because you never know when your spouse is going to say, "Honey, could you pass the cardamon shaker?"

[sigh]

Where do I begin?

There's so much wrong with this that I, honestly, almost despair of parsing it all out. We'll skip over the general assumption that women, rather than men, would be most likely to use this product, and just jump straight into the trappings of white, middle-class privilege that this label is steeped in.

I mean, there's almost no question that this product is meant for a white, middle-class consumer. The positioning of spices as "exotic" and out of the ordinary for the American citizen precludes the possibility of either a) non-white Americans using it, or b) non-whites even being American. Granted, they make a token nod toward a sense of diversity with their clarification of "most" Americans. However, I think that it falls as flatly as their half-hearted nod to male participation in the cooking process through the use of the word "spouse." Further, I suspect that these paltry nods exist merely to avoid the appearance of ridiculously pretentious privilege, and I think that they fail.

Because this label, and this product, is all about pretensions. Pretensions to an understanding and acceptance of diversity that doesn't really exist among many white Americans. The copy almost seems to scream, "Pat yourself on the back, middle-class white American! You're eating 'exotic'! Don't you feel cosmopolitan and savvy! You're totally diverse and tolerant! Yay for you!"

Blech.

And the really sad thing? That this is how multi-culturalism has to be sold. That we are still so entrapped by our colonialist foundations that we can't just appreciate various culinary products for themselves without feeling the need to congratulate ourselves on our broad-mindedness. That, actually, this label is representative of a sad truth about the current state of American race/ethnicity relations.

I weep for the future.