The Great 21st Century Spice War
Mamma Mia, That's a Spicy Meat-a-Ball!
I’m a young, hip guy; I see all the latest viral TikToks two weeks after the fact in my Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts. Now normally, these are very… um… simple videos made for the masses to watch for hours and hours as they waste away and have their data harvested by a hostile foreign government, but this one in particular stood out to me as it has seemingly flipped cooking discourse on its head.
So apparently there’s this cooking page on TikTok called @zoebarrie run by, you guessed it, Zoe Barrie, and from looking at her page, she seems to be a talented chef. This internet controversy (a polite way of saying fake problem for bored middle classers) began when she posted a video replying to comments on her previous videos telling her to “season her chicken.” A pretty innocuous short, she goes on to calmly explain how seasoning is more than just powders found in a spice cabinet, and how fresh ingredients like garlic and pepper can be used to season and flavor dishes. She also gives a tip, saying that if something tastes off in your food, it’s probably a lack of salt, as salt draws out the flavor in foods. She concludes by saying that hopefully, the “seasoning police” will leave her alone now.
This seems like a harmless video explaining how not all seasoning has to come in the form of powder in a jar. People cook differently. Who could possibly take offense to that? That was a rhetorical question, you and I both know that bloviating buffoons on the internet will be offended by anything and everything. And since this is America, naturally people on both sides really tried to make this a race thing, calling the phrase “seasoning police” a racist dog whistle. Of course, dog whistles are only heard by dogs, so I’ll leave you to ruminate on that in relation to the people who apparently knew this was a racist dog whistle.
These tweets weren’t the only responses. No, others took to TikTok to make response videos where they also make fools of themselves by trying to cry racism over this. Ms. Barrie, for her part, hasn’t made any follow up videos on the topic and has moved on with her life like a functioning human adult (something these perpetually online man-children cannot seem to fathom doing).
Now let’s get to the bread and butter of this whole situation. Yes, it is a common stereotype surrounding white people that they only eat plain, unseasoned, bland food like butter on toast or Kraft singles or whatever. For some reason, people have it in their minds that “seasoning” means spicy. It does not. It’s true that there are people who don’t like spicy food, but that doesn’t mean they don't like or use seasoning. There’s this weird gatekeeping that only African-Americans know about spicy food and only they can handle it, just completely disregarding spicy Indian curries, Asian spicy noodles, and one of the spiciest foods known to man and the whitest of honkytonk meals: Southern hot wings.
Authentic “white people foods” like those from France or Italy are plenty seasoned. Hell, even British “food” is seasoned and uses spices. The idea of white people food being un-spiced and unseasoned comes from Cold War nuclear fears and invention of the TV dinner. The type of food one would keep in their prepper basement is made not to taste amazing, but to keep one alive. No one is saying canned beans and dehydrated mashed potatoes are the pinnacle of culinary delicacies, but they are the most helpful when you just need something to survive. Similarly, TV dinners are mass produced, cheap and frozen, and I challenge you to find someone who says their Salisbury steak is haute cuisine. It’s simply a convenience thing, and even after the Soviet’s Evil Empire collapsing, these easy meals have become a staple of the American diet.
Furthermore, bland foods can taste good sometimes. Not everything has to be overloading the Scoville scale when you eat it. I’m a macaroni and cheese connoisseur, and I find that the worst ones are often the ones people find the need to cake in powdered spices or mixed with way too many additives. Occasionally, a piece of toast in the morning or a Fenway frank with ketchup at a Sox game will just hit the spot. Sometimes, a slab of properly grilled beef is way better than over-spicing it with ten different meat rubs.
But of course, I’m just some tasteless, pale-skinned mayo monkey, what do I know about cooking? Apparently more than the brainlets on Twitter who find the need to attack Ms. Barrie and every other white person’s cooking, disregarding the fact that they too have some, shall I say, questionable food preparation practices. I almost feel bad for the poor bastards who chimed in on Twitter saying “white people don’t season their food” only to be met with hundreds of videos of black people washing their uncooked chickens… with bleach and dish soap.
Fun fact: the CDC actually recommends not washing your chicken with anything, even water, before cooking it. But the point I’m trying to make here is this. Do all black people wash their chicken with dish soap and bleach? No. In fact, many of the disgusted reactions to the above videos online come from other black people. Do all white people only eat unsalted crackers and tomato paste for every meal? No. Many white people love to season their foods (See Col. Sanders’ famous 11 herbs and spices). Do spices and seasonings only come in jars? No. Fresh ingredients, bastes, and juices can add as much or more flavor to a food than anything off a spice rack.
The ultimate question I pose to you is this: why on God’s green Earth would anyone care how someone else makes their food? Eat what you like, you have that luxury of choice here in America. Instead of tearing each other down and using extreme examples from both sides, why don’t we just open our minds and expand our palettes by trying the vast and diverse array of foods we have to eat in this world from countless talented chefs of all races? Whether you like your food with nothing on it, caked in powdered seasonings or anything in between, enjoy your meals, and be grateful that you have food on your plate. Bon Appetit!