The sheer hypocrisy of the food culture wars

Alison Roman, a celebrity chef and Instagrammer, has come under attack from woke warriors because of her dish ‘#thestew’. Her crime? The recipe uses spiced chickpeas, coconut, and turmeric – and Roman does not call it a curry.

Once again, we are witnessing the sorry sight of people, organisations and institutions crumbling in the face of those determined to bring ‘white’ culture to its knees. Food publishing companies are reviewing their recipes to check for cultural sensitivities. Last week, Bon Appétit magazine admitted that it was guilty of ‘decontextualizing recipes from non-white cultures’, while the editor-in-chief of ‘BBC Good Food’ and Olive magazine, told the Times that she is making linguistic changes to some of the 13,000 recipes in their archive.

This row has been simmering for some time. The piranhas had already smelt the blood of British chefs like Jamie Oliver, Rick Stein and Gordon Ramsay. Their crime has been to go around the world, picking up ideas about food and translating them into dishes for customers back home.