ISSUE 05
No More Parties in LA
To write about a restaurant, you need to know the context of the neighborhood in that moment, you need to know its history, what it means for that place to be moving in there. Is it a part of the community, is it against the community? And I think often when you write a story about food, you find that you’re writing about the city as well.
KENNY
There is no place to start besides the fact that there are no best restaurants in LA. And the whole concept of that is a construct to sell papers, to sell clicks—however you want to call it.
But it’s interesting to think about the connection between the rise in food as weight in culture and the more and more artificial ways we write about food that tracks that rise. Because I think so much of food and what’s interesting about food is through a lens of culture and ritual. And what we hit up against in American culture is that we don’t have a shared food history.
We have it in slices within immigrant cultures and in nostalgia for “American” classics but there isn’t necessarily a shared memory of growing up eating, you know, kimbap or tamales or whatever it is. Our references for food can be so individual because people came from all over and ate all sorts of ways in however the traditions they carried developed in their own homes.
So the ways we talk about food on a mass level with each other are these really quantifiable, dumbed down boxes we force things into because we don’t have a shared language or set experience of food in this country.
KAT
For sure.
KENNY
And I think the fact that food exists in so many pockets of individual communities is part of what makes Los Angeles such an interesting city. But I’ve been trying to think about the connection between why something that we all value now culturally—why there’s such a programmed way that we tend to write about it as a culture that only appreciates something sometimes as indescribable as food can be presented to us in lists and numbers.
KAT
Yeah. Yeah, there’s a lot there definitely. I think number one—I mean I have to acknowledge that I have a lot of experience doing guides and lists and definitely many of the things that have my byline on it have “best of” and [insert neighborhood here], [insert cuisine here].
So I don’t judge. And I definitely know why publications would, you know, want to drive this forward. Like that’s easy for people to understand. It’s easy for people to understand: These are the best Thai restaurants in Los Angeles.
And I think that we’ve built this sort of idea of food and dining—as you said, it is connected to culture. And I think it is sort of like the places that we eat, and the places that we post that we eat, and the places that we know, and the places where we’re like, oh, we know the chicken is really good here, or we know this is the real thing you’re supposed to order—that knowledge informs our identity and gives us a sort of like, you know, a little edge.
KENNY
Totally.
KAT
And I think there’s that part on the reader side. On the publishing side, I think unfortunately food writing and media in general is just kind of in a rough place where huge publications are either shuttering completely or slashing a ton of employees. So I think people are scared. Managers are scared—like they want to make sure they can keep their people employed.
And like the only benchmark that it seems right now that people care about in upper management is to get as many clicks as possible. You need to get clicks, you need to get eyes—that’s the only sort of barometer of success. And if you don’t hit that, then what are you doing here essentially.
KENNY
Right.
KAT
So it’s like, you have to have these huge tentpole things in order to get those clicks. And over the last five years, I feel like almost all the publications are almost doing all the same things.
KENNY
Yeah.
KAT
And then it gets into a whole thing of—well if you have a “best of” list, then it’s like, oh this publication wrote this place is the best so we should put it on just because it looks stupid if we don’t put it on.
And there’s a real homogenization of what’s being written and how it’s being written about. And I don’t blame the publications for doing that because, again, they need to make money and protect their workers. But at the same time, I think it is a disservice to both the reader and to the restaurants.
KENNY
I think what you were just saying about the kind of game around building these “best” lists has nothing to do with the restaurants themselves. It has to do with building a business around writing about restaurants.
That part of it is, yes, seeing who everyone else is putting on those lists, but also just the idea of having to produce those lists every year means that, for the most part, it’s gonna look different year to year in order to sell your current list as more relevant than last year’s list. And what that means is you have to shuffle restaurants on and off of these lists.
KAT
Yeah.
KENNY
And it creates a shorter lifespan for restaurants.
KAT
For sure.
KENNY
And I think as someone who makes your living off of the survival of these restaurants and this industry, it’s such a huge blind spot to push these ideas around food that are really harmful to restaurants and their sustainability in order to maintain a model of writing about these restaurants that feels very detached from the reality. Do you know what I mean?
KAT
No, exactly. I think what really struck me with your first question is, yeah, we’ve talked about this idea of: There are no best restaurants in LA.
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
I think this idea that—like, what is best? What is the best restaurant?
KENNY
Yeah.
KAT
Like sometimes you can group it by year, or you can put it in a category. Like Best French Restaurants or Best Restaurants of 2023. But what is best, really? And it’s so not transparent what those parameters are.
Like is it the food tastes the best? Because that is completely subjective. I mean, you know, you can tell when something is using good ingredients and sort of good cooking methods, and when there’s thought behind a dish and when there is not—you can tell the difference.
But in terms of best tasting—some people will say a super spicy curry from a Thai restaurant is the best. I can’t say that cause I can’t eat spicy food, you know what I mean?
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
And I think when you write about food, you are trying to take a step back as an impartial person and as a critic. But inherently, those little likes and dislikes are gonna feed into your experience of the food—which is ultimately coming back from your childhood and what you ate.
Like my parents would take us to get, like, a McDouble every Saturday after swim practice and then we’d go to the library. So I just have very fond memories of that taste.
KENNY
Of course, yeah.
KAT
So even today, even though I can be like, is this the best burger in LA? A quarter pounder with cheese? Uh, I guess I wouldn’t put it on a list. But actually maybe just because you’re not “supposed” to—
Where was I going with that? Oh, that “best” is so subjective. And I think it honestly does a disservice to the restaurants because there’s this really toxic cycle of chasing “new.” There’s this almost fetishization of new, discovery, and onto the next thing. Of, oh I found this place first.
And what happens to those restaurants when that little wave ends? And they get used to a certain income or status. Can they keep it going? Do people check back in on them?
Like you have to be the best in a gigantic city in order to be written about with, like, care and respect? I don’t think that’s true.
KENNY
Yes to all that. And I think especially because food has become popular and people want to engage in it, their entry point into it is all of these lists. Some people only eat off of these “best” lists. That’s a real cropping of the frame, you know? And narrows the way people interact with food in their cities.
KAT
For sure. I read a really good piece in Vulture recently—it was about Rotten Tomatoes, actually. And how they were saying like Martin Scorcese was saying that it does a disservice to the viewer where this decides whether or not you decide to go see a movie.
And we feel this pressure to have all of this information before coming to a decision to go to a restaurant or go to a movie before we even see it. And what it’s based on are the opinions and sort of information of people who, quite simply, are not professionally qualified to be giving those opinions.
Like with Rotten Tomatoes, I think the problem is that critics who are edited many times and are upheld to a certain standard of ethical practices at newspapers and publications are weighted the exact same as bloggers. Not to say that their voices shouldn’t be heard and that they’re not important. I think there are things that are wrong with huge publications as well.
But I think that with food specifically, what sort of frustrates me is that, like, I think the role of a critic and a role of a food writer is to sort of dedicate their professional life to exploring the city. As a critic, you should be eating at as many restaurants as possible, I think. Like as a critic, it’s totally a numbers game.
In order to say what is the best, like, pizza, you need to know what used to be the best pizza, you need to know what the fifth best pizza is, you need to know what the best pizza in that neighborhood is, you need to know what the second best one is—it’s all about calibrating.
So when you have people who are creating content who are not dedicating that kind of time and also are not in structures where they’re being edited or checked for any sort of ethical practices—
KENNY
Uh huh.
KAT
Because that’s the other thing with people who are creating content—even people who work at publications! Like we really aren’t naming names but, you know, restaurants get covered on social media and online or in print because the person who is writing it is getting free food. Or the person who is writing it maybe even is getting paid by the restaurant.
So you’re taking advice on where to eat from someone who got bribed, essentially, to write positively about the place. Because if you’re getting free food, it’s an implicit contract that you need to write favorably about the place. Because if not, you’ve, like, disrespected them. And if I was giving free food to someone, I would expect them to not rip into me.
KENNY
Yeah.
KAT
So I think people who are reading food media and anyone who is a diner—who is all of us—needs to be questioning sort of where your opinions about the food in your city are being formed and how they are being formed.
KENNY
Totally. Yeah. I think, one, the Rotten Tomatoes comparison—my issue isn’t so much the established critic versus the blogger. It’s more so that it’s not measuring how good a movie it is—it’s the percentage of whether a critic thought it was either green or red. But that isn’t a measure of quality, it’s a measure of how many people thought it was at least okay and that’s a different thing.
KAT
Totally.
KENNY
But I think to the point of “best of” and knowing the levels of “best”—I think from a restaurant critic point of view, you probably do need to know that. But I also kind of feel like, can’t we find ways to write about food that just takes the word “best” out of the equation entirely?
KAT
Of course, yes. I’ve also had a really hard time connecting with a lot of current food media—not just criticism, just in general honestly. I do think that, ultimately, food criticism is something that I’m still interested in.
But the way that it exists now—I think it’s a shame because one of my favorite people to read, Soleil Ho, used to be the restaurant critic at the San Francisco Chronicle and now has moved to cultural criticism. They really just nailed what I think current restaurant criticism should look like.
Like Soleil was able to, of course, describe the food in a really descriptive, beautiful, visceral way that is interesting to the reader. And also what I so admired about Soleil’s work is that they would always add in really crucial, really essentially sociopolitical context.
Like I remember one of their first ones was this French or Vietnamese restaurant. I think it was a Vietnamese restaurant that was, like, very much lauding the French colonization in its food. And Soleil sort of called that out and asked like, “Why are we celebrating terrorism?” essentially. I was just like, wow, I didn’t know that restaurant criticism could look like that.
KENNY
Yeah.
KAT
I didn’t know that we could bring that in. And after reading, I am feeling smarter. I feel informed for knowing that and also they wrote about it in a way that was, like, crackling and really exciting to read.
KENNY
Yeah.
KAT
I think in the latest edition—that you are in—of the Best American Food Writing of 2023, the intro written by Mark Bittman had sort of outlined and explained this dichotomy of food writing that’s existed for decades and put into words a concept that I just hadn’t been able to, like, parse through so succinctly.
Basically he said that, at some point, two factions of food writing occurred. There’s one faction—which is what we’ve been talking about this entire time—that is very focused on the experience of eating, of how good it feels to eat, of how luxurious it is. We’re basically celebrating excess, we’re celebrating abundance, and sort of like how hedonistic food can be.
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
And I need to have the best. I need to eat caviar for whatever reason. As a bump —for whatever reason!
KENNY
As a marker of wealth.
KAT
Yeah, exactly. A marker of wealth, to feel cool. I think it’s become a cultural signifier for a lot of people to be like, did you get the right order? Like, oh you got that? You’re not actually supposed to get that.
KENNY
Right, right.
KAT
And you read that sort of writing to not be challenged as a reader. You’re not asking questions of, like, where did that food come from?
And the other faction is, like, food reporting. And food reporting is very serious. Food reporting is like talking about infrastructure, agriculture, the things that are wrong with society and the ways we get food, issues that were exacerbated in 2020 when restaurants and grocery stores shut down and we were like, what the hell are we gonna do now?
KENNY
This is like the Civil Eats lane.
KAT
I was gonna say Civil Eats, exactly. I love Civil Eats. I think they do an amazing job. But I also think that with food reporting, since they’re talking about very intense subjects and they’re challenging the reader essentially, and sort of asking them to take responsibility and also just to educate themselves—I think that that tends to make the content feel like there’s not a lot of room for fun in that area.
KENNY
Uh huh.
KAT
Maybe it is inherently a mismatch because it is so serious. But me personally as a writer and as a reader—like I both want to learn and educate myself and, you know, shed light on people and foodways that are typically ignored while also incorporating the things that we love about it because we do love food. Food is pleasure.
So I think there’s just really been no way to combine the two for so long. And I think that’s why I feel so disconnected from a lot of the food writing today.
KENNY
I don’t think food always, always has to be so deep and speak to all of these things, but I think so often food speaks to a time and a place and a culture around how it came to be.
KAT
Yeah, definitely. I think your fried rice essay is a good entry point into what we’re talking about. Number one, it is a fantastically written essay. It’s a great essay. And I think it is talking directly to sort of food not existing in a vacuum. I thought the passage about fried rice being a way to not be wasteful and as a means to an end for people to just, you know, be able to have food and use up the scraps that has turned into a beloved dish throughout the country—
It really reminds me of sort of the food culture in Hawai’i. It’s very mixed. It’s like, oh yeah, all of these different people from different countries came to Hawai’i and brought their own foodways when they came to work on various plantations—pineapple and sugar and building on the already existing, extremely rich, extremely sustainable native Hawaiian cultures and foodways and natural resources. The Spam came from a military presence during World War II. They needed rations and, like, easily transportable and nonperishable foods for soldiers.
I think when people miss that sort of history, it really shows in writing. Cause it’s just like, well, you’re not doing a good job as a writer if you’re not well-informed on how the food came to be. I don’t even think you necessarily need to be from that culture or like have had to grow up in Hawai’i in order to understand that concept. It just takes a bit of research and a way of thinking about food that I don’t think all food writers do.
KENNY
Totally. I think that’s what Whetstone was great at: focusing on food origins. And thinking of Clarissa Wei’s podcast that you worked on—
KAT
Yeah, Climate Cuisine. I’m very proud of that podcast. I think Clarissa did a great job. She has a really unique point of view.
KENNY
I haven’t bought her book but I want to. And I need to finish listening to that podcast.
KAT
She has a really unique point of view especially in terms of the importance of growing the crops that are native to the land—which has just been bulldozed all over the world.
KENNY
Yeah, I respect what she’s doing and I follow her work.
KAT
Yeah, a lot of Whetstone’s work, I think, is really centered around this idea of like, where is food coming from? I feel like that’s how I even really started thinking about food from a sociopolitical point of view.
These things don’t exist in vacuums. And I think maybe when Jonathan Gold was still a critic—maybe he was the one who said this? But like the role of a food writer is not just to write about food. It’s to write about the city that you live in.
Like inherently, to write about a restaurant, you need to know the context of the neighborhood, you need to know the context of the neighborhood in that moment, its history, what it means for that place to be moving in there. Is it a part of the community, is it against the community? Not that these are the only options, but these are the things that you need to be thinking about. And I think often when you write a story about food, you find that you’re writing about the city as well.
KENNY
Completely. And I think Jonathan Gold did have a big impact on that lens in Los Angeles specifically as a city because, you know, if you champion ethnic food, you can’t write about it without the context of where that ethnic group falls within that city and the history of how they came—
KAT
Yeah, especially for readers who aren’t familiar probably.
KENNY
Yeah, exactly—context. But “people don’t read.” These publications tell themselves that and they tell all of the writers that write for them that. And will push you into stories that have already been told or are in the same model of stories that have already been told because they’re under the fear of people not reading things that we don’t already have the data points on ahead of time. So you end up with a media landscape where everything is pretty okay and nobody takes risks anymore outside of what the data tells you is working from the ideas that already exist.
Everyone talks about AI, you know, and the fear of technology homogenizing everything, but I think we are actively making all the choices that make that future we fear our present we are sleepwalking through.
Like if that’s gonna happen anyway and we’re entering a more automated future, let’s overload the system with as many different ideas now as possible rather than fall in line to produce the one option we think the numbers point to. And create things that move outside of those canned responses because that feels more in my control as a writer. Otherwise, which are the robots?
KAT
For sure. Yeah. I think this extends far beyond food too. I think to be a good artist you need to have something to say. And I’m not trying to sit here and be like, me writing like a little list or whatever is me being an artist.
But I think if you are creating something for consumption outside of yourself, it should be with a point of view. The example that comes to mind, honestly: A Star Is Born—the latest one.
KENNY
😂
KAT
I think there’s a moment where, I think, Bradley Cooper is yelling at his brother. Cause his brother’s kind of jealous that—let me just go through the whole synopsis of A Star Is Born real quick.
KENNY
No, I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it. He pees himself.
KAT
He’s yelling at his brother. His brother is obviously lashing out because he’s a bit jealous of Jackson Maine—that’s his name.
KENNY
I can’t even remember his brother in the movie.
KAT
He’s older. I forget—he is like a famous actor though.
KENNY
Oh. Yeah? Mustache?
KAT
Yeah, exactly. Like silver hair. He was also trying to be like a musician but he just didn’t go the distance. But his younger brother did. And I think the younger brother—honestly, cut all of this if I’m getting the plot line wrong.
KENNY
😆
KAT
But Jackson Maine—Bradley Cooper—is telling his brother in a moment of anger just, you know, you can’t be an artist if you don’t have anything to say. You can be amazing at playing the guitar, you can be amazing at writing a turn of phrase, but like if you don’t have something that you actually believe in and want to push out and that is unique also, then you’re not gonna connect with people because what is there to connect with?
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
And so to go back to food writing and I think especially with criticism—I see this in movie reviews all the time where they kind of just explain the movie. And I’m like, yeah? I watched it. I know that. I think it’s the same with restaurants where it’s like, you go to the restaurant and you’re like, “Yeah, I ate a piece of bread. It was buttery.” Like I could have written that.
Like I think the food critic’s role is to be, you know, taking the holistic experience and being like, this is what I think, this is what story I think this restaurant means to this city and this cuisine in this moment.
KENNY
Yeah. I think that’s what always feels missing from certain people.
KAT
Certain people! Honestly, many people. And when we talked earlier about, like, the glamorization of dining and food and that it is a luxurious experience, I think what we don’t see when you hear, Oh my god, check out this new Highland Park cafe. Like, look at the croissants—
KENNY
That’s a good impression of the TikTok voice, by the way.
KAT
Thank you so much! I’ve been working on it.
But I think as a food writer specifically, the thing that was really just pushing up against any sort of way I wanted to live my life is just the dirty secrets of food writing that nobody talks about.
The two that really come to mind are food waste—there’s extreme food waste in food writing. Like, yes, you’re getting that beautiful spread that you see on Instagram, but it’s like—sometimes if you’re getting a professional photographer, number one, the writer’s not there. You gave them a shot list, you gave the restaurant a shot list. The restaurant might be giving you the food for free because you’re giving them publicity by writing about them.
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
And that food obviously can’t be served to other people. Sometimes they don’t even let the photographer have it. Sometimes it just gets thrown away. And that’s just at the photo shoot.
When you’re writing multiple guides a week, or doing reviews on a regular basis, and you’re doing two to three visits to each restaurant, and that’s every single day, and you’re eating at a restaurant at least once a day—more on the weekends—like there’s no way you can eat all of that food even if you’re bringing someone with you.
So I know for me personally, a lot of the times you’re not gonna be like, I’m leaving it here cause that looks horrible. That’s the other thing—the people who tend to go into food writing love food, love to eat. And so they don’t want to waste food.
But inherently, in order to eat more, you have to get rid of the other food. So there were weeks that I would stand in front of my fridge and just throw out so much food. And I know there are other people who are better about not being wasteful—like giving it to people that they know, or giving it to people who they don’t know. But there’s not, like, a sort of industry standard around these things. And there’s not really a way to talk about it, honestly.
KENNY
Yeah.
KAT
Which sort of feeds into the other problem that I find with food writing that I don’t feel like is aligned with the way I want to live my life is just sort of the disordered ways that we eat as food writers. Definitely a lot of critics who worked for way longer than me have written about how they had straight-up eating disorders from doing this kind of work because you are eating excessively all of the time.
Number one, restaurant food is delicious. And it’s delicious because they’re pumping it with stuff to make it delicious that is not necessarily healthy. Like it’s gonna be a little more salty, it’s gonna have a little bit more bada bing.
KENNY
Uh huh.
KAT
Because, you know, they want you to like it. And I am liking it. But like that’s not necessarily what you’re supposed to be putting into your body literally exclusively.
And with guides especially, the other thing with massive “best of” guides—you were with me one time when I was doing a “best of” KBBQ list and, honestly, I’m a procrastinator so I had to squeeze in and do a lot in a little amount of time. I was going to like six to eight KBBQ places in five days.
KENNY
Yeah.
KAT
And if you want to do it in a way that is, like, responsible, you need to order a lot so you can actually have an opinion and make sure that you’re doing your due diligence. Cause I’m not gonna order, like, banchan and say what I think of the Korean barbecue. I have to get multiple cuts of meat, and I have to try all of it, sit down for the whole meal, eat so much red meat—I honestly think it took me like two months for my body to recover from eating so much red meat in such a short amount of time.
And that’s just the reality. Like if you have to do a “best of” pizza guide, you have to eat and you have to order like at least two pizzas from every restaurant. And eat at least a slice. And then who knows what happens to the rest of it. But also it’s like, that’s your main meal for the whole week—you’re not supposed to eat that much pizza in a week.
KENNY
Right.
KAT
So for a lot of us—none of us talk about it, but each person deals with it in different ways. It’s not like, if you’re a food writer, you have an eating disorder. But if you’re a food writer and a food critic, you are disordered-ly eating.
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
And I would get comments all the time from people, unsolicited, whenever I would tell them I’m a food writer. Automatically, people are like, “Oh my gosh but how do you not gain weight?” I’m like, well actually I have a really complicated relationship with my body and what I put into it and how I look and how I feel about myself—but you don’t want to hear that. You want to hear that I have a glamorous, fun job. So I’m gonna tell you that.
KENNY
Yeah, no one talks about that.
KAT
No one talks about it. It would take away from that glamour and that luxury that they’re trying to sell us.
KENNY
Completely.
KAT
And I think it’s really telling—I think obviously all men have complicated relationships with their body and we don’t really hold space for that at all. But I think we’re more okay hearing from a large man who loves to eat rather than—well, look at all of the women food writers that you know of, especially if they’re public-facing or are not anonymous. They’re skinny.
And we want to feed into that fantasy that, like, we can gorge ourselves and that this lifestyle, this crazy lifestyle of eating out all the time, is attainable. Or is, like, good. And I just think it’s like—I don’t know, it’s tricky. It’s never talked about because it’s not fun. I mean, I don’t always want to spill my guts about, you know, how I feel about my body.
KENNY
Yeah, of course. But I think you have to talk about what’s not being talked about in what isn’t working to get to a place where it is working better.
KAT
I think a lot of food writers feel hesitant. I know I felt hesitant to ever talk about things that were dissatisfying to me with people who were not in the industry because, you know, it’s a pretty fun job. Like, it’s a fun job to write about food. It is a privilege in many ways. It’s a job that people think that they want. So you seem a bit like a brat for complaining about it, but I want us to speak openly about how all of us are sort of really struggling with weight or just having no control over what we’re putting into our bodies—at all.
KENNY
Yeah.
KAT
And like if we shattered how the system works now and that illusion that it is only glamorous, that we are only having fun, that it is the best job in the world—if that were to go away in any way then we would have to look at the ways that food writing and the way content is being pumped out. And it would have to slow.
KENNY
And it’s this thing where popular food writing has to stay at a surface level because there’s an inherent contradiction in the way that food writers and food reviewers are forced to write about food and that connection to food waste.
KAT
Exactly. And I think, honestly, having this time away from doing the kind of writing I was doing for so long, I’ve just found joy in cooking. I had no time to cook because I had all these leftovers in the fridge. I’m relearning what I like to eat and what it feels like to eat food that’s not just restaurant food all the time.
KENNY
Has cooking more changed anything in your perspective in how you approach restaurant food now?
KAT
It definitely has. And, you know, everything I eat now I only eat because I want to eat it. I think, honestly, a blessing has been falling back in love with food.
And I think something that you touched on in your writing, especially in your fried rice essay, is just sort of like how cooking foods that are familiar to our heritage can really connect us to something primal that we can’t even name.
I think the ways that I’m returning to food are in just simple things. Like this is not gonna impress anybody, but I’m making miso soup, and I’m making different types of rice that are not just white, and like the other day—not to brag—but I made honestly a kind of fire smashed cucumber salad.
KENNY
Wow…
KAT
But I also am the type of person who goes fast, whose mind goes really quickly. Mostly because of my internet addiction, but also because of the way the world works. And so any moments I can find where I can slow down and focus on something that is not screen—like I am really grateful that even just the small ways that I can return to food, especially ones that are from my culture, have felt really special.
KENNY
Yeah. I think cooking can be so sort of meditative—at least when it’s not your job. I think that’s why I never went down a professional cooking path even though I liked to cook since I was a kid. You can just enjoy some things, you know?
KAT
Mm hmm.
KENNY
And I think cooking is this sort of practice of making something from nothing in a day-to-day that I think ties to something primal like you said. Like it’s good for you in mind and body the way endorphins after exercise are. It kind of chips away at our helplessness in modern life.
I think maybe cause my parents are from Hong Kong and it’s a very food-centered culture, my parents, the aunties and uncles that I grew up with all loved food and so many of my memories of childhood and all of our family parties and Chinese New Year parties were always revolving around, you know, a potluck of food. I still think of this baked Portuguese chicken curry that one of the aunties would always make as like one of the most satisfying meals.
You know, we didn’t really—I didn’t travel much at all as a kid.
KAT
Mm hmm.
KENNY
But we would go out to eat on weekends. And that was like our—
KAT
Was it always Chinese food?
KENNY
No. I mean, we had like a standing Sunday dinner with my grandparents every week. And that was at the same Cantonese restaurant called China Village in the Bay where I grew up. But my family would go out to eat all kinds of food.
KAT
What were some of the top ones?
KENNY
Everything. Thai, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, Italian, Mexican—
KAT
Indian?
KENNY
Indian. My dad didn’t love Indian, but my mom did. Malaysian wherever there was some cause my mom’s dad was Malaysian Chinese.
KAT
Oh really? I actually didn’t know that.
KENNY
But it was really everything. And my parents have sharp palates. Not expensive taste. But like the food better be good or you’d never hear the end of it. I got a text from my mom recently about their favorite KBBQ restaurant: “The usual meat marinator must be off. Galbi was not tasty. We are all so disappointed.”
KAT
Oh hell yeah.
KENNY
It’s how we sort of traveled. It gave me, you know, a palate for eating everything.
KAT
For sure. Or just wanting to be adventurous.
KENNY
Totally. And my parents would always judge childhood friends who were picky eaters.
KAT
I’d judge them too! Why are you, as a 24-year-old man, eating chicken nuggets every single night?
KENNY
😂
KAT
Like that’s insane.
KENNY
Food is just the throughline of what I think about what I think about my family.
KAT
Yeah! And that’s—I’m sorry if you don’t want to be talking about your essay so much. I just really admired it.
KENNY
Thank you.
KAT
The part that you talked about your grandfather and like the idea of food in the body and our experience of it and how memory is so much more than just like actual things that have happened. But associations—
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
I thought you did it in such a subtle way that was not, like, heavy-handed. It was sort of non-judgmental, just saying what happened—of how you had never cooked fried rice for your grandfather but he was just like, “Oh I love that fried rice you make.”
And what he’s saying is not that he remembers a time that you made that for him. It’s just the feeling of you being there and sharing food with you.
KENNY
Right, right. Yeah. And I think just the mix of memories when you’re that old.
KAT
Fully. And that’s why I think, like, can there be any true criticism of food, any true best? Because it’s all wrapped up in this hazy thing that we can’t even put our finger on because every time you think of a memory it shifts, you know?
It’s like—I love this bánh mì that we’re eating from My Dung because I like baguettes, I like bánh mì, I like this specific place. But like, in a critic’s mind, I have to remove those parts—but I can’t ever, not really. So ultimately, it’s subjective.
KENNY
Yeah. And I think, yes, if you pick apart the ingredients and, you know, “quality,” is Bánh Mì Mỹ Tho a better “quality” bánh mì? Yes, probably. But did I enjoy this just as much? Yes.
KAT
Mm hmm.
KENNY
Because it’s different and it has other qualities to it. And it’s charming. And the baguette is super buttery in a way that reminds me of childhood sandwiches and you can be just as happy with that meal than the technical “best” and I think that’s all in food too.
KAT
And to go back to the culture and the history of it, it’s a shop in Chinatown. And in LA proper, there aren’t many Vietnamese and bánh mì shops. Of course when you go to SGV or Westminster, there’s like, a wealth. But like in LA proper there aren’t many. So it’s like almost the calibration of this spot goes up because of the scarcity of bánh mì places in the area.
KENNY
Right. And the history of Vietnamese in Chinatown.
KAT
Yeah, like why would they end up in those communities?
KENNY
Yeah. And all of that is on the table of what we gather around food when we eat it with other people.
KAT
Yeah. I think there’s something special and unique to food where you are, like, literally nourishing your body together. Like if we think of food as becoming like the substance that makes up our bodies, by sharing a meal, our bodies are bonded in a way that’s like cellular.
KENNY
Yeah. I think that’s still my dynamic with my parents. Even though we’ve talked about getting outside of that narrow story of like, my parents didn’t say they loved me or whatever but they—
KAT
Oh my god, cut up fruit outside the door?
KENNY
Yeah, exactly. And so I try to be conscious of not pushing that but there is an element of truth to what food does to fill in the gaps of what—
KAT
Yeah, can’t be said.
KENNY
—isn’t always communicated, yeah. And especially in Asian communities. Or maybe not.
KAT
I think in Asian communities that is something that does happen. It’s always like, did you eat enough? And stuff like that. And not like, how are you?
KENNY
Exactly. And as a pivot, we’ve been talking about serious aspects of food. But also life is hard and humor is important. And I think—
KAT
And also life is absurd!
KENNY
Yeah, completely. And I really love and admire the way that you center not just humor but the kind of absurd takes on food that pokes fun at the self-seriousness in the way that food can be written about.
KAT
Yeah. Yeah.
KENNY
But is still making critical points and getting to critical perspectives in the way that you use humor to do it. It’s been something I’m trying to remind myself that you can still think about things deeply without kind of filtering out your own playfulness.
And I think that the skillset in knowing your voice and being able to translate the way that you move through the world on the page is a very fine balance that is so clear in your writing that doesn’t have to do with any publication you have written for. And it’s a point of view in food writing that I think is distinct. It’s a Kat Hong thing. And I guess my question is: don’t you agree?
KAT
Leading question, your honor! Um, number one, thank you. That really means a lot to me. I think that, yeah, what really makes me feel uninspired or what I don’t like reading is very self-serious food writing especially.
I think obviously when we’re talking about, like, food reporting and like, you know, the injustices committed against farmworkers and how they don’t have rights—maybe that’s not the time to make like a Dev Patel joke reference.
KENNY
😁
KAT
But for me personally, I don’t like reading things that are just extremely self-serious. Because the way that I see the world and operate through the world at large and especially at restaurants and through food is like—it’s silly, it’s fun, it’s not life or death all the time. You know what I mean?
KENNY
Yeah.
KAT
I think there are really serious issues like we just talked about—like about food waste, about how we are feeding our bodies, and like making sure that the people who are producing our food behind the scenes are getting paid enough, and like where our food is coming from. I think all of those are super serious and should be talked about. But I’m lying if I’m like eating dinner and I’m just purely stone-faced being like, mm, yes, yes, and a whiff of cilantro, I think.
KENNY
Right.
KAT
Like I think that a lot of the things that you see at restaurants are funny. And they’re just really absurd and silly. And like, look at The Menu—the movie. There’s comedy there even though it’s really dramatic. Cause it’s like, this is not normal! This is not—this is weird.
KENNY
😂
KAT
And I also like reading things that have humor in it. Like if the idea is that food can be a communal place in order to talk about something, I think humor can be a way in for people to confront ideas or thoughts that might be less palatable if they were more either scolding, finger-pointing, or just really serious.
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
Like I know if I’m reading something about like, um, say, Courage Bagels. I wrote a review of Courage Bagels when it came out.
KENNY
I read it.
KAT
And there’s just a lot of serious stuff aside from the fact that the bagels are really fucking good.
KENNY
And they are.
KAT
They’re good! I hate to say it.
KENNY
It’s a very good bagel.
KAT
The little dill on top? Say less.
KENNY
I love just the plain tomato one. I forget what it’s called, but—sesame bagel, scallion dill cream cheese. Just tomato. Olive oil.
KAT
The olive oil.
KENNY
It’s a perfect bagel.
KAT
But there was also like a lot of stuff around gentrification of Virgil Village. It’s the same street where Jessica Koslow of Sqirl had like nine years earlier called it "this shitty corner on Virgil and Marathon," which is psychotic and—
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
I can’t believe—if you still support Sqirl, like you really need to look at your life. Also, mold. Just look up “mold.”
KENNY
Or “jam.”
KAT
Yeah, or “jam.” Or “scandal.” Or “steals recipes”—
KENNY
🙃
KAT
But yeah, so I think when I was approaching that piece, I was like, there’s a lot of stuff to weigh. As a critic, I think the food’s good. As someone who is thinking about and reading about the ways that people who are not from the neighborhood are coming and filling up the entire street, parking in places they’re not supposed to be parking, sitting in places that they’re not supposed to, throwing trash on people’s literal lawns—like to not add that in would be doing the piece a disservice. Because you’re not, as a reporter or as a writer, painting a full picture.
KENNY
Yeah.
KAT
And like my intent was never to, like, scold people or be like, “You’re bad, do better.” I don’t think that motivates me personally when people are like, “You’re an idiot”—which people have said to me, especially on Twitter. Like that doesn’t motivate me to change.
And I think there’s an idea that, like, if you cover a serious topic in a not serious way then you’re not giving it the full gravity, you’re not giving the amount of attention and, like, weight that it deserves.
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
But for me, I think it helps the person be comfortable with these more complicated ideas by having humor in there. But I think it’s a spectrum because I also struggle with writing from a vulnerable place. And being vulnerable, quite honestly—especially in my writing.
I admire that, again, the fried rice essay—it’s like you were able to go to such a real place and put into words and, like, work through really complicated issues in a way that I don’t think that I’m at at all. So it’s just like—to me, I think humor and vulnerability are connected in some way.
KENNY
I think so too. And thank you. I think it’s trying to find a middle ground that I’m working towards, too. I think it’s just finding your truest voice on the page.
KAT
For sure. I think the role of a writer in general, but I think specifically in nonfiction writing—you need to be able to bring some sort of style or personality to the page. Because if not, then I’m not engaged.
KENNY
Yeah. And obviously, you know, skill and style are important. But I think beyond that baseline, you need something that makes someone follow what you have to say.
KAT
Yeah. You can’t teach having a perspective, truly.
KENNY
No. And I feel like besides cooking, having worked in a restaurant—if you make a living writing about restaurants and writing about food, it gives you deeper insight into what you’re writing about.
KAT
And I think that the third dirty secret that we don’t talk about in food writing is: who is doing the food writing?
Like I don’t know if people realize that, number one, it’s not a high-paid gig. Like if you’re very lucky, you’ll get your meals comped from the company that you work for—not the restaurants. Your job is to write about food, so it goes on a company card. But for the most part, to start out, the pay is really low.
KENNY
Right.
KAT
And so I think food writing specifically attracts a very privileged class. And I think that the people who end up doing food writing—since it’s so hard to break into, since you don’t make money towards the beginning—
KENNY
Yeah.
KAT
Or ever. Like you need to supplement that with either another job or being independently wealthy and it tends to be the latter. And when you are independently wealthy, that means you’ve never had to take like a service job at a restaurant—either back or front.
KENNY
Right, right.
KAT
And so I think it really shows a lack of just understanding and care of like what it actually means to be in a restaurant. And you’ve never been working class and it really shows from, like, what you think is important.
I remember in 2020, what was so frustrating to me was that like, across the nation, there were so many people writing long, long, long thinkpieces about like, should we go back to restaurants? Should we blah, blah, blah. Is it safe for the workers—muh, muh, muh.
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
And I was like, okay, why is no one asking the people who are actually working in the restaurants if they feel safe and what their experience is? It’s because you guys don’t even think of them as people who deserve a voice and that your voice is more important for some reason.
KENNY
Right. Yeah. And something that I wanted to ask you about related to this is the Black-owned food list that you created.
KAT
Oh yeah.
KENNY
What prompted you to make that list? And did it change any of what you thought of your own role as a food writer at the time working within a larger institution of food media?
KAT
Yes. Okay, what prompted me? It’s crazy cause we’ve never talked about this.
KENNY
Yeah.
KAT
I definitely had seen lists similar—I don’t think of Black-owned restaurants in Los Angeles, but like, you know, Black-owned Etsy shops to support or something. It wasn’t my original idea.
I think it was like Friday night. I was so done with this other spreadsheet that I had to do for work. And honestly I had been trying to do a similar thing when restaurants first started closing—and some were open for takeout, some were not open for takeout, some people were doing like their provisions shops and everything, if you can remember that. I hate to even think about this time but—
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
And the original iteration was being like, okay, let’s make a list of the restaurants that are telling us if they’re like open, if they’re closed, like what their vibe is just in a spreadsheet format because I think that’s very accessible to people. And that got shut down at the place that I worked at at the time. They were like, “We don’t really do that kind of thing.”
And since that had already been shut down at the place that I worked, I did it individually and I spent the weekend compiling it. And so that’s context for when I did the spreadsheet for LA’s Black-Owned restaurants in 2020.
And I think the idea behind it is just like—I think during the Black Lives Matter movement, especially with restaurants being closed or restaurants really struggling because it was like, they still have to pay their rent even though they were closed. Landlord’s not giving them a break, like all these sorts of things. Like every single day, we were waking up to like five of our favorite restaurants closing.
KENNY
Yeah.
KAT
To me, at the time, within the sphere of capitalism—like I think so many people were trying to support in monetary ways. And I think restaurants did want support in monetary ways, honestly, from the feedback that I’ve gotten. And I never pretended like this was the only activism anyone should ever do. Like this was just a small thing for restaurants specifically.
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
But I created it because I wanted people to sort of, you know, have an opportunity to put their money where their mouth was. And also highlight this wonderful…community of Black-owned restaurants in Los Angeles that are just really good.
I wanted people to have access to concrete information—like the restaurant’s address, phone number, etc.—and hoped that that could lead to people discovering a new restaurant that they hadn’t known before.
KENNY
Yeah. That all makes sense. And did publishing it yourself and the way it went viral—did that change how you thought of what your role is as a food writer at the time or has it since?
KAT
It was an independent thing that I did—posted on my own Instagram, posted on my own Twitter just as a person. And after this kind of blew up, when other places started to pick it up, I think it opened my eyes to sort of see that like in that moment, a diversity of content needed to be created.
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
But it also changed my mindset and the kind of content I was doing. I felt really empowered in that moment. I was like, oh, platforms could give me an opportunity to do work that I actually really care about. I didn’t know that I could do that at the place that I was working at at the time.
Like I just think about the work that I did that summer and like that year. The one that I did afterwards was interviewing restaurant workers about, like, if they felt safe coming back to working in the restaurants—what that experience was like for them through anonymous interviews.
KENNY
I don’t think I read that. They were anonymous?
KAT
A few owners weren’t but like a few people who were actually working in the front and back wanted to stay anonymous, obviously.
And, you know, I think even now like it brought me to a place where I know that something that’s important to me is to lend the platform or any sort of voice that I have to people and places in institutions that for whatever reason don’t have that platform and voice.
KENNY
Yeah. I think what that list crystallizes is what food and supporting restaurants can be a much larger picture of—thinking about the purpose of lists and compiling that kind of information.
KAT
Yeah because on the spreadsheet itself, I’m not offering any sort of, like, criticism or any sort of personal opinion about the restaurant’s quality. It’s like, if you qualify to be on this list, you’re on the list. I am certainly not the person to sort of say if someone should be on it or not on it. Because there is no criteria other than them being a Black-owned restaurant.
KENNY
Yeah, yeah. I think it sort of feels like the inverse of list culture. You know what I mean?
KAT
Exactly.
KENNY
Of like the “best of” lists.
KAT
Yes. No curation.
KENNY
It’s not about these are the best places you can go.
KAT
Yeah, and I think there is a bit of adventure that comes with it too that I think that we’re missing with “best of” lists where, you know, you have a list of like 300 places—and it’s up to you to decide where you want to go.
KENNY
Yeah.
KAT
I think what’s lacking right now in discovery for diners is like there’s just no risk. There’s no, like, discovery for themselves.
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
For me, what I get out of restaurants is like, I walk by and I’m like, oh I didn’t know that was open. And I want to check it out. But like since “best” has become so fetishized, you feel like if you’re not at the best place, it’s a waste.
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
And so I think with the spreadsheet, it was like, you know, choose a place—you’re discovering a new place. And maybe that place will get folded into your routine. And I think that’s a more natural and sustainable way to discover and experience restaurants that don’t rely on “best of” lists.
KENNY
Yeah, I think there’s something in the way that allows the diner to be part of the conversation—to not just be receiving information from whoever.
KAT
And you’re not told what to think. Because nowhere on that list does it say “best.”
KENNY
Right.
KAT
And I think that’s how we started this conversation and we’ve talked about it in the past: there are no best restaurants in Los Angeles. There are just restaurants in Los Angeles that are worth your time and money.
KENNY
Right. It reminds me of like the pitting of “legacy” restaurants against the restaurants opening now, especially in communities like Chinatown, and it’s like—
KAT
Yeah. Even with the group that was formed with like Asian American restaurant owners and chefs and business owners, it was sort of like that group of more young people was being opposed, positioned against people who were older and had been in the community for longer.
KENNY
Yeah.
KAT
And I think what was always sort of a disconnect for everybody was just like, these people are not our enemy, you know? Why are we fighting each other? We shouldn’t be fighting each other. And if anything, it’s like, we could offer each other so much comfort and support if we just, like, didn’t divide ourselves.
KENNY
Yeah. I think, you know, zeroing in and only focusing on one end can create a lopsided approach towards supporting what’s happening now and building things now so we’re not always stuck only looking back and saving what’s left. It’s all on the same timeline. You have to find the bridge.
KAT
For sure. And I think Chinatown specifically is so interesting because the legacy businesses that we’re talking about were sort of formed around the same time that current Chinatown was formed—the oldest ones being, I don’t know, 1930s, 1940s. Still, legacy restaurants probably go to the ‘80s and ‘90s as well.
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
And at that time, Chinese food in America was still being skewed towards this idea of like General Tso’s chicken, orange chicken, sweet and sticky shrimp—what is it even? What shrimp is it?
KENNY
Slippery shrimp or something?
KAT
Yeah, slippery shrimp. Like Mongolian Beef. Like very, you know, what we have come to think of as very Westernized Chinese food.
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
And I think what’s interesting is that like at the heart of this conversation is who deserves a space there, right? Like if we’re talking about authenticity, it just like explodes the whole idea of “authenticity.”
Because if you’re saying that the legacy businesses are the only model of authenticity, then you’re saying the only model for authenticity for Chinese food in America and California and Los Angeles is this sort of, like, Westernized, skewed version that restaurants needed to do in order to make money.
When a lot of restaurants that are opening up today—I think specifically of like Pearl River Deli—Johnny is going even further back to even more ancient and traditional types of cooking from China specifically. And not skewing himself, or skewing his food towards like a Western palate.
KENNY
Yeah.
KAT
Does that make it more authentic? I don’t know. “Authentic” means nothing ultimately.
KENNY
Yeah. And I think that perspective of what is authentic often comes from wealthy people who have traveled the world and have an idea of a dish they ate ten years ago when they visited that country.
KAT
Totally.
KENNY
That they then hold as an image of what they think ten years later, 20 years later, is The Authentic Version.
KAT
And I also think people in the community, too. Like I think immigrants can be sort of like, this is the authentic way to do it but, like, that was just in your family. Like how are you to speak to an entire village or country? Or like continent? Like that’s crazy. Especially if you’re in a new place—like California—the conditions are just different. Everything is completely different.
KENNY
The ingredients are different.
KAT
Yeah, what you have access to is completely different. The air is different, the water is different. So it’s like, you’re not gonna be able to recreate a memory.
KENNY
Yeah and I think anyone who grows up in immigrant families or any kind of cultural upbringing understands that sometimes those “authentic” dishes come out of cans. They come out of what was available to your family.
KAT
Yeah.
KENNY
And if you play off of that memory as you grow into being a chef or cooking food professionally, that doesn’t make it inauthentic.
KAT
Mm hmm.
KENNY
That like just because it wasn’t, like you were saying, the very specific ingredients that were available in a very specific place at a point in time—that you can’t stray from that and be told that your food is inauthentic. Food is much more than a list of specific ingredients.
KAT
And why deny yourself the bounties of California and Los Angeles? When you have access to incredible produce and seafood and that kind of stuff, like why use canned foods when those were just substitutes for what you wanted to use anyway just to cling to this ancient idea of like what you think is the right way to do it?
KENNY
Yeah, and I think going back to what we talked about, if you look at food as a reflection of a time and through a kind of anthropological, archaeological lens, it is something that is always changing depending on your circumstances of where and when you are. It’s like language—it evolves over time with people.
KAT
Yeah.
KENNY
And I think because of immigration policies, we’re a generation of Americans who largely grew up as a second generation to those waves of immigrants. And I think that’s just a natural progression of culture as it folds over and is why authenticity so often doesn’t mean anything in the present of a place based on migration.
KAT
Yeah. I think I feel specifically pretty unconnected from authenticity just because I’m actually not even second generation—I’m like fourth generation or so. As are a lot of Asian Americans in Hawai’i.
KENNY
Yeah.
KAT
And since the culture and food has been so mixed for so long, no one really fetishizes authenticity. Because like what is considered modern Hawaiian cuisine today is just a mix of all these cultures coming together in the first place. It was just like—people were making the best of exploitative circumstances. So it’s like, who’s to say what’s authentic?
KENNY
I think just in general, food has become this shortcut for so many people to kind of achieve authenticity. You know?
KAT
For sure.
KENNY
Food has become this sort of authenticity as cosplay.
KAT
Yeah. Well I think because it is such a familiar phrase that I think the general public has positive connotations with. Like when you say something is authentic, like this is the authentic way my grandma made it or something like that—I think it’s a really easy way to legitimize yourself even though there’s nothing there.
KENNY
Yeah. To me it’s the same sort of, like, focus group populism in quiet luxury, you know? Of spending a lot of money to look like you didn’t.
KAT
Mm hmm.
KENNY
You know, so you don’t appear out of touch to where we’re at as a culture.
KAT
Yeah.
KENNY
I think we are in a time right now where there are a lot of people using the word community as a parachute to their own wealth.
KAT
Your word is “community” that you hate when people just use flippantly. I hate when people say “sustainability” and like there’s nothing to back it up.
KENNY
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
KAT
They’ll just be like, “This is a sustainable milk.” I’m like, how? How is it a sustainable milk?? You didn’t say anything, you just slapped a fucking word on it. Like that’s so annoying—you can’t just co-opt these words that actually mean a lot and like use it for fucking marketing.
KENNY
Yeah. And that leads me to the “Shoppy Shop” article, which I think you sent me?
KAT
I think I did. But I think you said someone else sent it to you too.
KENNY
You sent it to me and my friend Sean sent it to me too. But I read it after you sent it to me.
KAT
Sorry, Sean!
KENNY
But it’s really interesting in thinking about social media and the ways that it’s being used to create a mask for this idea of community by marketing products under a kind of nebulous feeling of being “local” to the internet.
KAT
Mm hmm.
KENNY
One of the quotes from it that I wrote down that speaks to kind of the whole story, I think, is: “We’re a small business because our business is small. We would love to be a bigger business.”
KAT
Yeah, mm hmm. Well because what’s missing about Diaspora Co. and like what the article is highlighting is that the founder identifies and also markets herself as a small business—and number one, I think she has a good mission. Like I’ve definitely worked on projects that she’s been a part of and I think she’s brilliant and I respect her business.
But at the same time, I do think it’s a little hypocritical to market yourself towards consumers as a small business. Because when you say “small business,” it inherently means like we need support. Like you are empowering our community.
But in reality, as the article in Grub Street has said, most of the funding for the company comes from, like, venture capitalism.
KENNY
Yeah.
KAT
Or venture capitalists. Venture…capital.
KENNY
Mm hmm. The aesthetics of marketing shift in social and political times. But I think real community requires a different set of goals.
There’s this interesting Mo Amer and Ramy Youssef interview that my friend Miranda did with them and they were talking about—I think it was Ramy who said, “Usually the industry might say that there should only be one Arab show around one person. And very early on, we were like, no, we have so many different stories to tell. And what would it look like if we did it together?”
Ramy is one of my favorite shows. I think both of them are very interesting people with interesting stories to tell. But I think the point was that, you know, usually people want to be the figurehead moving something forward. But that’s all ego.
And I think what they were actually saying is much more interesting. To try to find other people who want to push in parallel towards what’s next and find ways to support each other’s work across whatever platforms your work is scattered.
And like what would it be like if we were all doing our own thing but being in conversation with each other as we’re doing it?
KAT
Yeah.
KENNY
And thinking about these people like Anthony Bourdain and Jonathan Gold or—not as many people talk about her—Ruth Reichl.
KAT
Love her.
KENNY
But the thing about these sort of iconic food writers is that I think we’re in a time that’s beyond the sole figure that leads the conversation, you know?
KAT
Totally.
KENNY
So many people want to be the next Jonathan Gold, the next Anthony Bourdain. But what do you feel like is missing from their absence? And what do you want to see us move towards that isn’t just filling the space of what Jonathan Gold and Anthony Bourdain did?
KAT
That’s a really good question. I think we started the conversation being like, the ways that popular food media is right now is all skewed towards luxury. Sort of overconsumption. And while food is really pleasurable—
The thing that is so not there right now with food media is a connection to the source. I feel like we are so disconnected from where our food comes from. I don’t know where the bread from the bánh mì I just ate was from, or how it was made, who made it, where it came from, or what the ingredients are. I don’t know where these jalapeños came from that I’m not gonna eat cause they’re too spicy for me.
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
Like something that stood out to me—I watched this short film the other day called Easter Snap. It’s by a director named RaMell Ross. It just shows really unflinchingly and without judgment sort of these five people in Alabama bringing a pig who was just recently killed and prepping it for dinner.
KENNY
Mm.
KAT
And not from a factory farm—I think they just found it in the wild. And the way that the camera followed the movement just sort of documented the process from an omniscient point of view, like, okay, now we’re gonna shave all the hair off the pig—which I didn’t even think of as something you probably had to do. And then hanging it up, making sure all the blood can come out. Not in a grotesque way, and not like judging these people for doing it.
But I did feel a little squirmish. And then I had to question like, why am I feeling squirmish when I eat so much pork? We had grilled pork today.
KENNY
Mm hmm.
KAT
And like I think it’s that disconnect between the realities and the cruelties of where our food comes from. Not only on an animal level but also on a farming and agricultural level.
Like the only way that we can enjoy food the way that we do today in this, like, luxury, opulence, overconsumption mode is if we don’t ask ourselves or hold ourselves accountable to how it actually ended up where it is.
Like we go to the grocery store, we’re like, yeah of course I should have every single fruit like in the world. Number one, they’re not in season. And these bananas are not grown on the continent but like I should have access to them. I think what needs to change is not expecting that we should have everything all the time.
And then two, with food and dining in restaurants, if you want your food to be “sustainable,” if you want your food to come from a place where they are paying the people who are making it a livable wage—you are going to need to pay more for that food.
KENNY
That’s it.
KAT
I think we’re just really seeing, like, the cracks. I think 2020 really exposed the cracks in our food system. I think people are, like, open to learning about the harsh realities of where our food comes from. People are interested. People want to connect back to more natural ways of eating and are willing to make sacrifices even in like what they eat. I feel like when I was younger, limiting meat was like something you would scoff at. And now it’s something that like a lot of people think is a good thing to do just for either your body or the environment.
KENNY
And what does being more aware of the ways that we eat do for us as a culture? What is the opportunity that you have as food writer to speak to right now?
KAT
I think it’s important to know where your food comes from because the price of what you eat and what you’re putting into your body, which essentially becomes your body, is not just what you’re paying for in dollars. Like I think it’s important for us to know what the actual price was in, like, life of animals or like the work that went into someone picking the carrots out of the ground. How much is that person paid? Are you okay with how much that person is paid? If not, you shouldn’t buy those carrots.
Like if you’re consuming, you’re gonna have to pay more for it. And I think we need to break this thing of not wanting to pay more for food. And also learn about where our food comes from. I think that’s like the most essential duty to what we can do right now. And as a writer, that’s really what I’m thinking about a lot lately. Does that make sense?