From the land of the perpetually offended.
Dunham has a weakness for fast food…who knew?
From NY Post: Actress Lena Dunham is standing — and eating — in solidarity with whiny students from her ultra-liberal alma mater, who protested this year that Oberlin College was “insensitive” for serving “culturally appropriated” food in its dining halls.
The “Girls” star — who graduated from the exclusive liberal arts school in 2008 — said students are indeed justified in picking a food fight, Food & Wine magazine reported.
“There are now big conversations at Oberlin, where I went to college, about cultural appropriation and whether the dining hall sushi and banh mi disrespect certain cuisines. The press reported it as, ‘How crazy are Oberlin kids?’ But to me, it was actually, ‘Right on,’” Dunham told the magazine.
Gastronomically correct students at the Ohio college protested in November that phony dining hall versions of the ethnic cuisine are a slap in the face to people from those countries.
“The undercooked rice and lack of fresh fish is disrespectful,” Tomoyo Joshi, a junior from Japan, wrote in the school paper, The Review. “When you’re cooking a country’s dish for other people, including ones who have never tried the original dish before, you’re also representing the meaning of the dish as well as its culture. So if people not from that heritage take food, modify it and serve it as ‘authentic,’ it is appropriative.”
Diep Nguyen, a student from Vietnam, complained, “It was ridiculous … How could they just throw out something completely different and label it as another country’s traditional food?” Oberlin students followed up with a campus protest.
But most food served in America is “appropriated” — including everything from pizza to sausages, the Washington Post pointed out in December.
In the Food & Wine interview, Dunham also admits to having a weak spot for one classic American cuisine — fast food.“My parents didn’t let us eat fast food when I was young, but on long road trips I could get chicken nuggets. So I associate them with rebellion,” she said, adding she ate them on a recent vacation. “They were more disgusting than I remembered.”
DCG