What If We’re Preserving the Wrong Food Traditions?

Not every food tradition deserves to survive.

It is an uncomfortable thing to say, particularly when we come from cultures where food and memory are deeply intertwined.

We are taught to respect what came before us.

• To learn the recipes our mothers inherited from their mothers.

• To remember the way our grandparents cooked.

• To protect the dishes that tell us where we come from.

And I believe there is enormous value in that but somewhere along the way, we started treating tradition itself as sacred and highly untouchable.

And I’m not sure that it should be because when we say we want to “preserve tradition,” what exactly are we preserving?

• The dish?

• The ingredients?

• The technique?

• The ritual?

• The reason behind the technique?

• Or simply the fact that someone before us did it that way?

Those are not necessarily the same thing.

Tradition Has a History

Every food tradition came from somewhere.

There was a reason someone cooked something a particular way, used a particular ingredient, prepared food at a particular time, or developed a particular technique.

• Sometimes the reason was cultural.

• Sometimes it was geographical.

• Sometimes it was religious.

• Sometimes it was economic.

• And sometimes, it was simply because that was what was available.

Consider what happens when ingredients travel.

A cook leaves home and discovers that the ingredient they used for a particular dish isn't available in their new environment.

So they adapt.

• Something is substituted.

• A technique changes.

• The cooking time changes.

• Perhaps the dish takes on a slightly different character.

Is that person abandoning their tradition? Or are they doing what cooks have always done?

Adapt.

Food has never been as static as we sometimes pretend it is.

The cuisines we now describe as traditional were themselves shaped by movement, exchange, circumstance and necessity.

So why do we sometimes expect the next generation to reproduce them exactly as they were?

Not Everything Old Is Valuable Because It Is Old

This is where I think our conversations around food become complicated.

We can acknowledge that a tradition carries meaning without assuming that every part of it must remain unchanged.

• A practice can be culturally significant and still deserve examination.

• A technique can have historical importance and still no longer be the most appropriate technique for a particular ingredient.

• A cooking practice can have made perfect sense within a particular household, economy or environment and become impractical when those circumstances change.

And sometimes, there are traditions that were never particularly good ideas in the first place.

We don't have to romanticise everything simply because it came from our grandparents.

Our grandparents were not infallible and neither are we.

The point isn't to disrespect them; it is to remember that inheritance is not the same thing as instruction.

We inherit things, then we decide what to do with them.

So What Should We Preserve?

Perhaps this is the more useful question.

Not: “How do we preserve our food traditions?”

But: “What is actually worth preserving?”

• Maybe it is the technique.

• Maybe it is the flavour profile.

• Maybe it is the communal ritual around the food.

• Maybe it is the knowledge of an ingredient.

• Maybe it is the story.

• Maybe it is the relationship between the food and the people who created it.

• And perhaps sometimes, it is none of those things.

Sometimes what we should preserve is simply the understanding of why something existed, rather than the obligation to continue doing it exactly as it was done.

That distinction matters.

Because when we preserve food culture by freezing it in time, we risk turning something living into an exhibit and our culture was never meant to be an exhibit.

There Is Also a Question of Who Gets to Change It

Of course, this is where things become even more complicated because not everyone has the same relationship to tradition.

The person who grew up with a dish may experience a change to it very differently from someone encountering it for the first time.

• For one person, changing the recipe might feel like innovation.

• For another, it might feel like losing something.

• For another, it might simply be dinner.

There is no universal answer and perhaps that is exactly why conversations about authenticity, tradition and adaptation become so heated.

Food is rarely just food;

• It can be memory.

• It can be identity.

• It can be belonging.

• It can be history.

• It can also be business.

And once food enters restaurants, media, tourism and commercial spaces, decisions about what gets preserved and what gets changed become even more complicated.

What we choose to keep can shape what future generations believe our food culture actually was.

That is a responsibility worth taking seriously but having that responsibility does not necessarily mean refusing to change.

It might mean changing consciously.

Maybe Respect Looks Different Than We Think

I sometimes wonder whether our definition of respecting tradition is too narrow.

Perhaps respecting a tradition does not always mean reproducing it perfectly.

• Perhaps it means understanding it deeply enough to know when it should remain intact, when it can evolve, and when it has served its purpose.

• Perhaps the greatest disrespect is not changing a tradition; perhaps it is repeating it without ever understanding it.

Because if we only teach people what to do, we give them a recipe.

If we teach them why, we give them knowledge and knowledge gives the next person something we should all be willing to allow: the freedom to make a different decision.

Food culture has always moved.

• It has crossed borders.

• It has responded to new ingredients.

• It has adapted to new environments.

• It has absorbed new influences while carrying old memories.

• It has changed because people change.

So perhaps the goal isn't to preserve everything. Perhaps the goal is to become better at discerning what deserves to be carried forward and what can finally be put down.

Which brings me back to this key question: What food tradition are we preserving because it is meaningful and what are we preserving simply because nobody has thought to question it?

I don't think there is one answer and perhaps there shouldn't be.

However, I believe this is one of the conversations we need to have around the table.