I lived and worked in Europe 15 years then settled down in Washington state. I've had a good look around the major cities of the Continent and the UK, lots of the smaller ones and quite a few in the USA. So I have some experience with cities and the culture and opportunities therein.

My experiences tell me this: the only thing that exceeds Seattle's provinciality is the air of superiority it affects to hide it.

And the condescending twat who wrote this article is a perfect example of that attitude.

How to live multi-culturally... Maybe give the native food a shot rather than calling it a "salt lick" because it isn't what you're used to.

One of the travel food experts said something I found transformative. He admitted he didn't enjoy most foreign foods the first time he ate them. He'd go in and the textures would be weird, the flavors wouldn't match his expectations, sometimes he would gag, etc. But, being adventurous he wouldn't let that stop him. He'd go back again with a new set of expectations and over a couple visits come to appreciate what they had to offer.

I'm fairly finicky, but this gave me a roadmap for how to approach unusual foods. Try them. I don't have to like them. But, just that exposure might open me up to something I will enjoy down the line.

So, Charles, maybe give IHOP another go.

that's some fancy trolling there, chuck.

A wonderful piece written with verve and subtle humor. Thank you, Charles.

**only in the U.S. does the food in small towns seem to be invariably terrible. Having only just returned from Russia I can verify that, as in Europe and Asia (haven't been to Africa or S. America), there are great meals to be had in podunk towns--made from fresh local produce and served up with attitude by pensioners. Here and only here do the chains truly dominate.

"salt lick"! hilarious.

Charles, I've really loved your writing the past couple of months, you're on a tear.

Screw these anonymous hicks. What's YOUR name, MiOfInfo20000?

"A wonderful piece written with verve and subtle humor. Thank you, Charles."

Really? Have you not read his stuff before? Mudede always thinks he's the smartest guy in the room (don't contradict him, please).

Singularly insulting and patronizing.

Thing is Chaz, in many of those small rural towns you deign to turn your nose up at, people eat big, hearty meals because they actually NEED those calories to get them through the hours of manual labor in which they engage on a daily basis. Unlike your sophisticated urbanite self, who apparently, are incapable of doing anything more strenuous than condescendingly rolling your eyes or clucking your tongue in disapproval at the proles. Because, that's what good Marxists do, right?

"The French pretty much eat the same way as Americans."

I guess that's why it's call the INTERNATIONAL house of Pancakes. Lécher un de sel s'il vous plaît.

But, who would want to live in a city with whale-choking plastic bags ?
http://www.thestranger.com/binary/735e/1…

@1, I think you mean self-righteous. Rather than minding their own business, they like to tell everyone else how they should think. Case in point, the five bicyclists in front of me on Dexter who decided not to stop for pedestrians in cross walks. I'm sure they'd be the first to complain when some driver ignores a rule of the road and almost hits them.

"I'm here to lower a rope down into the dark cultural hole you're in and pull you up to the light of big-city life."

You ... you would do that for me?

Good Morning Charles,
Whoa! That's one of the more condescending pieces I've ever read of yours. Hmm?

"A person who has enjoyed a truly supreme bowl of pho is not likely to vote for a Republican or believe in that Tea Party nonsense. You are what you eat. So if you are a student from a small town, the first thing you must do is raise the IQ of your salt-dumbed tongue."

There's no accounting for taste. I was recently at the Evergreen State Fair and I consumed some delicious um...fare! Fresh and from what I deduced, locally grown, prepared or made. It was splendid.

I did notice people from all races & cultures there. Granted, the vast majority of people were white. Still, I saw and experienced some variety. I think you should cut small town/rural America slack. There are some jewels out there.

Look, I understand your prejudice. Unequivocally, the city has more diversity and opportunity to offer. But, rural America does produce more than just food and rural folk/attitudes. It too, is "connected" and can offer excellence, enlightenment and variety just as the city can offer arrogance, monotony and malaise. One is not necessarily better than the other. Detroit, MI isn't better than Monroe, WA.

Sure, you've been to rural Montana and maybe elsewhere in America. But, I believe you need to "taste" more.

Lol, yeah Seattle is so cosmopolitan because we have Thai restaurants. Next you'll tell me about this exotic Mexican place called Azteca.

There's a restaurant in my neighborhood that I hate. The once I ate there I was rocked back to every meal I have swallowed over the years at America's greasy spoons, unhealthy and fatty without the virtue of tasting good, bacon and eggs and toast always done the same way no matter how you instruct the kitchen to change it. You can save your breath. I'm not sure they know what "poached" means. Utter reliance on cheap ketchup and jam to force the food past your tongue. It is VERY popular amongst the old white people in the neighborhood.

It is the sort of restaurant for people who mistake satiation for satisfaction, who think that inputting the calories to continue existing is equivalent to a meal well done. It is a place to bring your out of town relatives when they are confused, eyes darting like hunted rabbits, about why my town has so many Chinese restaurants and yet so few Chinese buffets.

Point is: Charles is absolutely right about rural food.

What built those multicultural cities and the business they thrive on? Socialism, or capitalism?

It is a cornerstone of Marxist thinking that rural workers are uncultured rubes who should be ignored and insulted, right?

Oh, and I've eaten in rural joints in almost every state west of the Mississippi, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, on and on. Not just "breakfast" places, but the only restaurant in tiny towns with only four buildings. That garbage is more consistent than a national chain.

The only place to get good rural food is private potlucks where there are 14 salads and none of them have lettuce.

Wait. So chain diner food in rural America= too salty. Pho and East African food= not too salty. Is this a correct reading? If so, am perplexed.

Also, no eateries within 200 yards of a freeway off ramp are good.

@25 I quote for you: "The only place to get good rural food is private potlucks where there are 14 salads and none of them have lettuce."

And also you stated that rural restaurants are garbage. So I'm pretty sure you called me full of shit for agreeing with you.

@21 "...unhealthy and fatty without the virtue of tasting good, bacon and eggs and toast always done the same way...Utter reliance on cheap ketchup and jam..."

John Hess (NYT journalist/food critic) and his wife Karen (culinary historian/) wrote a great book titled "The Taste of America" which describes how it all happened. “How shall we tell our fellow Americans that our palates have been ravaged, that our food is awful, and that our most respected authorities [they really take Julia Child and James Beard to task] on cookery are poseurs?”

Wow, nothing like a Marxist taking a shit on the rural poor, is there?

Agreed @5 and @9--

Also makes me want to try an Eastern African restaurant. Going to be in Seattle Central Dist. on Tuesday; any recommendations?

Depends on the small town. Hit up Hood River or Langley on Whidbey Island and you'll find lots of (expensive) great food.

On the other hand, there's my hometown in Cowlitz County where the finest dining choices are an Applebees or a Sizzler Steakhouse. Nice places have tried to make it but they fail because the food pounds per dollar ratio is waaaay to low for that community. There's a perineal favorite there, known as Stuffy's, that makes a very popular cinnamon roll that is literally larger than a dinner plate. So big in fact the the center is just raw dough because it is too big to bake in the oven. Their parking lot is always packed.

Lets kick middle Americans in the nuts for being too stupid to leave there hometowns and move to the big city where they can drown in student loan debts and make chump change busing tables, but hey at least they are "cultured" and will vote the way I want them too because they get the great blessing to try spiced lentils and fish ball soup.

Hate to break it to you fools, people that live in the heartland even 150 miles east have great, fulfilled lives and don't need our pretentious attitudes telling them how to live there lives just as much as we don't need them telling us how to live. We look east with disgust when we should be looking in the mirror. Do we really have it better? Sometimes I wonder when I visit my family in Wenatchee and see weekend gatherings full of families (Mexican Americans and Americans together- gasp!) living life the right way. Sure they dont get pho on the reg but they are happy, have clean air, have nature and each other. What do we have? Slog and Charles berating us on a daily basis for not taking the bus and living like sardines in the greatness that is city living. Fuck That.

@27 Thank you! I'm very interested to read it.

I am actually FROM Kansas, where I enjoyed East African and Thai foods, big bowls of Pho, and Middle Eastern meat market. There was even a Jewish deli with Kosher delights! I also don't generalize, judge, or find it necessary to use racial slurs.

Before you go on a self righteous rant (much the same as a Tea Party bigot), just remember where Mars Hill church came from...

This...is the most pretentious thing I have ever read on Slog. Charles deserves a medal.

Isn't it true though that you rarely see "culturals" going "multi"?

I mean, does the Thai family that works in its restaurant go to Mexican places? Or does the mother of an recently immigrated Punjabi family whip up plates of French nouvelle cuisine?

Seriously -- the multicultural food court is only a place for high minded folk. "Mono-Cultural" folk know that diets evolved over thousands of years to make sure they provide complete nutrition.

@31:

Ah, Stuffy's (or were you referring to Stuffy's II?). My niece worked there a few years back. Only ate there once - always more a fan of The Pancake House myself.

Look how the average hick/rube/hillbilly votes . . . .

Could not but help notice the rising frequency of Dixie accents around this region: I HOPE they aren't Klanazigeddonists . . . o.O

Are racists Whites from Whites-only towns moving to cities like Bellingham, Olympia, and Renton? (If so, then are they attempting to use the services that many of their kin castigate about on Election Day?).

"So imagine if a stranger came up to your grandpa and said the very same thing, said his baseball cap was so cool and asked to try it. Just imagine that."

I was with you until here. While generally I think people should mind their own business, if someone came up to me and was thrilled by how cool my hat was (regardless of how boring it is to me), I would be pretty happy, especially if it was someone who had never seen a hat like it before. Now, asking to wear any stranger's hat is weird regardless of this situation.

I think this judgment of yours comes from a myopic lens because anyone asking a stranger to try their hat on is weird, regardless of how cool they think the hat is. The first part of that though, genuine interest and awe at something beautiful someone has never experienced before is hardly rude. So, combine the ethnic-hat-awe and the asking to try it on, is literally as strange as someone asking to try on any-old-not-culturally-different-hat.

In fact, hats in many other cultures have specific meanings and such associated with them, and they don't present themselves to an untrained eye; so politely attempting to learn more about a cultural aspect such as a hat design one doesn't understand, to me seems like one of the great consequences of a big city. Again, obviously asking to try on someone's hat is weird. . . not just a hat belonging to someone of a different ethnic/cultural identity.

And again, there is obviously a difference between "genuine interest" and "drunken inquiry."

#41

See, people like Charles Mudude walk around South Seattle like they're searching for the Belgian Waffle House at the World's Fair. It's all a giant smorgasbord buffet to them, as they decide where to spend their tokens and what ride to jump on.

Meanwhile, Culturals are trying to eek out a living, keep costs low by eating at home and mostly stay within their own culture and language because they is where they find their strength.

Charles, on Netflix, season 2 of "Mind of a Chef" is about southern food, so much of it with African origins. It would seem there's some good food being made in some small towns in the South. You should visit and write about it.

I'm stumped; what is this wild South American hat I'm likely to encounter?

I am from a small town and Charles is right, most of the restaurant food is crap. The shit people call Chinese food for example. Reminds me the King of the Hill episode where they ate chicken fried sushi.

@13:

Where did I specifically make reference to farm workers? What you assert is probably true on large "agribusiness" farms, but there are still plenty of small, family-run concerns out there in Rural 'Murka, not to mention dairies, ranches, small manufacturers, mechanics, loggers, mill workers, construction, and other sundry sorts of "blue collar jobs", all of which involve a significant amount of manual labor.

Beth @30, Meskel is the best of the bunch, but Cherry Street from 23rd to MLK Blvd is the East African restaurant strip in the CD.

http://www.meskelrestaurant.com/

@46:

http://rlv.zcache.com/i_love_south_ameri…

Behold, the unwaveringly nice, open-minded liberal - in contrast to the mean, closed-minded, small town working class trash that eat salty fried chicken w/ gravy.

So Charles doesn't like the food that the vast majority of Americans do like, yet somehow he isn't the one with the problem. He prefers food drowning in chili powder to cover up the fact the ingredients are what was left after the monsoon/drought. (How is a pound of curry different than a tablespoon of salt?) Of course those salads don't have lettuce - where is it going to come from and how would it not rot before serving?

According to Charles, if people aren't spending 6 hours a day gushing about how wonderful their meals are, they must be uncultured boobs. Maybe they have better things to do with their day; despite current trends, not everyone is a "foodie".

@50 Oh my that is exotic! Can I try it on? C'mon man... just let me try it on, I'm not gonna steal it. How do I look? Wait, I have to go show my friends. HEY DUDES CHECK OUT MY NEW HAT!

Remember, this is the "journalist" that couldn't tell the difference between the Washington Post and the Washington Times.

Mudede seems to write for the rubes who just fell off the turnip truck and start laughing at country yokels before they comb the alfalfa leaves out of their hair.

Hard to believe someone actually collects a paycheck for writing garbage like this. What a butt nugget.

Damn how I love Mudede.

BS; if we decentralized the corporate state groups would become more segregated and self-sufficient [like chinatown] and the resulting cultural flavor would be far superior to the encroaching mono-goo of globalism that the centrist, establishment surrenders to. So yeah kids, those tea party types may be racist assholes but sometimes you just gotta hold your nose and take your medicine. The cowardly simpletons at the stranger are smart enough to know i'm right about the benefits of the libertarian monkey wrench but they're afraid to pipe up. Job security.

Please tell me that The Very Best of Charles Mudede has a publisher lined up.

Food snobbery is an integral part of the "world class city" paradigm.

Is this authors writings meant as a farce? He doesn't seriously think that seattle is some sort of multi-cultural authority does he? He clearly has this inane idea that he's simply better than people from rural towns because he has eaten east African food... well let's clear some of his wild misconceptions up shall we. I'm a Republican voting tea party supporter from a small town in east Texas that this twat not only has never been to but in all likely hood hasn't heard of, so I suppose I'm the small town hick he's probably aimed this poorly written diatribe at. So if I understand correctly eating bacon and eggs with grits and toast is somehow culinarily lower than diving into a bowl of pho? Food made with passion and skill is good regardless of what region of the world it comes from. Eating eggs at Dennys and comparing them to sushi from shiros isn't exactly a fair comparison. I feel no more trepidation in eating barbecue from Kansas than I do eating curry and Dahl from India, nor do most people from small towns, it's simply a matter of eating what's available. There's not a lot of Ethiopian restaurants in Iowa because there's not a lot of call for Ethiopian foods, nor people from Ethiopia. Don't imagine people from rural Thailand enjoy much ethnic cuisine either... perhaps if Mr mudede would step down off his culinary high horse for a bit he would realize that different isn't better, that good food is good food and bad is equally bad. But what do I know I'm just a poor dumb chef in one of the nicest restaurants in the city of seattle, not a writer for such an illustrious publication as the stranger

@22 Marxists threw the rural poor under the bus decades ago. They feel that they can no longer champion the working class if those uncultured swine have never even read Marcuse or *gasp* even Althusser!

That's why they're all about taking in sheltered upper-middle class college kids now. Long live the hipster proletariat!

Furthermore, just how much of a joyless ideologue to you have to be in order to politicise BREAKFAST for fuck's sake?

"In this issue, Charles Mudede discusses the relationship between breakfast sausage and dialectical materialism."

Fuck off, mudede, you pompous twatwaffle. Besides, you did not even bother to mention the cuisine of the PNW First People- seafood. Therefore, you must hate them. Asshole.

I hear the cuisine in Liberia and Sierra Leone is great Charles, you should go there and try it.

Charles Mudede, it's as though you channelled the spirit of Bill O'Reilly and then flipped the ideological script.

Like you, I'm a transplant to this town -- born and raised mostly in rural Alaska, though I'd been exposed to urban culture as well. For many years was a white Jewish kid living in towns that were primarily Russian Orthodox converted Yupiq or Tlingit -- first nations, if you will. Seattle is a wonderful city full of amazing people. However, it is not nearly the bright beacon of multi-cultural diversity and egalitarianism you claim it to be: the neighborhoods are fairly segregated and the city as a whole is overwhelmingly white.

Rural towns are not all created equal; Some are well-kept and utopianesque; some truly are bleak. Resources boom and dwindle, and jobs with them. Some places exist next to scenic vistas and have a couple of places with excellent cuisine and local crafts. Other towns are built up on the rolling hills of the interior and have fantastic fresh crops/meat, as well as locally made wine and some beautiful community rituals to accompany the bounty of local sustenance. If your primary experience is skimming the restaurants just off the freeway, then you are likely only to find national chains who sell the lowest accepted denominator at the highest profit margin possible.

You know what else small towns don't have? Overcrowded classrooms. Rampant pollution. Gridlock. 100 people applying for every job opening. People look each other in the eye and smile when they walk down the street, instead of retreating to their safety bubbles and avoiding interaction at all costs in between destinations, as is generally the case in Seattle.

In the town of 25,000 that I went to high school in, we had a Democratic Party presence that was nearly as prominent as the Republican Party, and the arts were supported by the community. In my english and history classes, we had socratic debates on a wide variety of issues and used source materials from history to support our arguments and frame our questions. The support I received there is probably the reason I went on to study music in college and now live in Seattle -- where, yes, I was exposed to new cultures and new flavors. It wasn't the xenophobic nightmare you described in your article though. The people I encountered were excited that I wanted to learn new things and enthusiastically shared with me.

I have a feeling this response won't change your way of thinking much, even if you happen to read it, but rather than making that assumption for you, I'll just leave it here...

I guess if someone travels through rural America and makes no effort to go deeper into any town than the chain restaurants that exist everywhere including the allegedly cosmopolitan Seattle, then that traveler will not be disappointed to find the dull, American sameness he fully expects to encounter.

I went to college in a small town, Bloomington, Indiana. The town itself was no more than 50,000 people at the time. We had a Tibetan restaurant, and Ethiopian restaurant, a few regionally distinct Chinese restaurants, a Middle-Eastern market that roasted its own delicious coffee before coffee was "a thing."

What if some of the ethnic foods suggested in this article have their roots in the rural, "middle of nowhere", unsophisticated areas of the countries they represent? How does THAT figure into the equation?

It's true. There are some true cetaceans out there in the hinterlands, and it's getting worse all the time. Including among my own extended family. The restaurant food is basically not food at all and the homecooking is barely better. By all appearances, it's making them crazy too. If they weren't glued to their Lay-Z-Boys, they'd be fucking dangerous. The few still somewhat ambulatory are best given a wide berth.

"A person who has enjoyed a truly supreme bowl of pho is not likely to vote for a Republican or believe in that Tea Party nonsense."

Have you ever been to Garden Grove, California, Mr. Mudede?

Part of Orange County. Among the highest concentration of Vietnamese-Americans living in the U.S., 2nd in both pure numbers and percentage of population. Lots of pho places. And like most of the OC, pretty Republican.

I think cosmopolitanism is a virtue and multiculturalism something to embrace, but let's not make a Grand Unified Theory out of this. And assuming someone will vote the way you do because they eat the way you do is just silly.

http://www.bpsos.org/mainsite/images/Del….

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/dec/07/…

http://www.ailf.org/awards/benefit2005/v…

Like a lot of people, I've got a Mudede parody waiting in the wings--involving nothing less than "Joe le Taxi", Henri Lefebvre, and "Lolita"--but you people need to lighten up. This piece is supposed to be funny.

"Exit polls during the 2004 presidential election show that 72% of Vietnamese American voters in the 8 eastern states polled voted for Republican incumbent George W. Bush compared to only 28% who voted for the Democratic challenger John Kerry.[20] In a poll conducted prior to the 2008 presidential election, two-thirds of Vietnamese Americans who made up their mind stated they would vote for the Republican candidate John McCain"

And these are people who know their pho, I would assume.

"Exit polls during the 2004 presidential election show that 72% of Vietnamese American voters in the 8 eastern states polled voted for Republican incumbent George W. Bush compared to only 28% who voted for the Democratic challenger John Kerry.[20] In a poll conducted prior to the 2008 presidential election, two-thirds of Vietnamese Americans who made up their mind stated they would vote for the Republican candidate John McCain"

And these are people who know their pho, I would assume.

There's a tiny, charming town on the border between California and Nevada. Normally I don't like small towns, but this one had a kind of magic. There was a tiny library, and a little bookstore too, and one single cafe. The place only really was the one main street, so it was easy to tell. And this little cafe, in the middle of nowhere, with no competition, had food so sublime I nearly tear up thinking about it now (and how unlikely it is I'll ever find this place again). Just basic American food, but the bread and jam for the toast was better than I could have ever made, and it just went up from there.

The worst part of living in demi-rural Scotland is not knowing when or if I'll get to eat injera again.

I was about as rural as it gets before I moved to Seattle after high school. One of Kurt Cobains hometowns of Aberdeen was "the city" up til that point. Notice how cultural icons also spring up from these places- regardless of how they feel about looking back. Some are just duller than others regardless of where they touch down from. If you want to talk food politics and culture in rural america, your argument for cultural depth could have been more inspired rather than anecdotal. If anything I was disappointed by how much culture Seattleites took for granted, which is the essence of your commentary as far as this bumpkin is concerned. The best facepalm inspiration comes from those who assume some culturally superior role. Indeed, the key to Seattle is finding yourself content to pass things in silence- rather than take a genuine interest or interact with others with different customs or manner of dress. That's what makes Seattle so suffocating, and pretentious. Many people have deplorable taste, and lack common sense in the presence of strangers, but none of us are acultural.

Thank you SOOOOO much, Charles! Ever since they stopped making Portlandia, I despaired of ever finding such good arrogant SWPL comedy! You're not quite as funny as Carrie and Fred, but you're definitely worth the read. Thank you!

This is pretty disappointing, satirical or not. Way to continue with the generalization that Seattle folk are pretentious as they come.