The Hummus Incident

What is the real purpose/function of so called "foreign" restaurants in our county?

Are we really showing diversity, or just another instance of cultural appropriation?

In Greek restaurants all around Fairfield county and as far as I'm aware, the entire northeast, several dips, like tzatziki, hummus, and tapenade are served Grecian bread and pita, in a classic Grecian meal. I always thought that when visiting these restaurants I was eating the same food that the residents of Greece were serving at their dinner tables. However, can we really be sure we are eating a genuine foreign cuisine? What if these foreign restaurants have been conditioned to include food on their menus that is actually very far from their traditional cuisine, only to accommodate the tastes of Americans? One of these accommodations that I observe constantly is Chinese food being served at most Japanese restaurants and vice versa. From what I’ve heard from my friends and relatives, this is because most Americans can't tell the difference between the two. Some accommodations are more subtle, like what I’ve decided to call “The Hummus Incident.” It happened last week when my family was in Greece, visiting a local restaurant. My father is a lover of hummus, and since he is a proud Jew his penchant for this middle eastern delicacy never surprised us. What surprised us, however, was that hummus (while served regularly at Greek restaurants in the US) was actually a nonexistent food in real Greece. The waiter looked offended when my father asked casually for hummus.

Hummus?

 He took a second to recognize what my father was talking about, and then he said; "no, we don't have any hummus. This is not the middle east. You are in Greece. Here, the closest thing we have is pureed chickpeas."

His sneer was obvious. My father balked, and I felt chagrined on his behalf, mentally face palming for his cultural “faux-pas.”

My father settled for the chickpea paste. As expected, it did not compare. It was shocking to me that my father could be so accidentally ignorant. He is generally a very respectful and open-minded man, especially when it comes to other cultures. I had obviously known that hummus was a middle-eastern thing, and middle-eastern only. (Although I admit that is only because I watched this one short film that mentioned it in Hebrew school) But then I came to realize that it was understandable my father had made this mistake. He had been conditioned by living in Fairfield County to believe that there were certain cultural traditions that in actuality, never existed and were probably forced upon the foreign restaurants. This revelation brings up some very interesting and nearly unanswerable questions. Can we pick and choose what parts of foreign cultures to embrace? Are we really embracing them if we do so? If not, how can we truly embrace a culture without “Americanizing” it? Just some questions to think on...