In honour of my good amigo Zach-o, I will talk about a topic that we discussed in my last night in Belgium. Zach believes that culture has way less of an impact on people than most think. With the arrival of European colonization and the later spread of capitalism and globalization, we have all acquired a sort of monoculture, making most people, kinda similar. Or at least more similar than one might think. !
He gave a few examples of this and the truth is, I vehemently disagree with a lot of his points about this monoculture. However, after further thought, I think this idea of trying to find this one culture most humanity has, is quite fun! Its different than the old question "what is human nature?" and instead asks "in our context in our 21st century, what is a learned and propagated set of ideas, rituals, traditions and actions that we now share in our hyperconnected world?". Fascinating! today is Zach's birthday, so I thought that, in his honour, it would be cool to start Uzbenjaminstan with this entry discussing our human monoculture! Funnily enough, I feel like I might make it way more hippie than he would, so chances are that he will disagree with some of the points I make, but that's the beauty of passionate pointless discussion about the intricacies of life.
This is the beginning of one kind of entries I will call Monocultures. These are some reflections on this idea, all throughout Uzbenjaminstan, where I focus both on things that are intrinsically part of the human experience (bold claim? hell yeah), and things that are everywhere because of the aforementioned spread of capitalism and globalization. Today we start with something Zach likes a lot. Food!
About food Do you guys know the most emblematic food of Central Asia (according to... vibes)? Plov! A delicious mix of rice, meat and sweet and sour carrots. Across different countries in the region, they debate about its origins and who cooks it better... Does this sound familiar? There are lots of dishes across the world where people debate their origins and who does it better, such as with Jolof rice, pisco, empanadas and borscht. However, deep in their hearts, everyone knows the answer to these debates. The best plov/empanada/Jolof is the one your mum makes.
These quarrels are dumb but real and as trivial as they sound, they are absorbed into the everyday speech without you even noticing. For instance, I know that pisco was originally made in Peru, but in Chile we perfected it! I also know that pisco is a very alcohol heavy drink, and I don't drink alcohol. I have never compared Peruvian Pisco with Chilean Pisco. However, I have this opinion in my mind.
I am not saying all Chileans have this conception, but I do think it excemplifies one relevant thing when talking about a monoculture of human experience. Human's modern invention of nations and nationalism has shaped our cultures into believing certain matters are "traditional! and unique. It has shaped us into thinking that because we all grew up in Chile or Uzbekistan, we have great differences that separates us from our neighbouring countries and the world. Yet we all share this culture of 1)believing and enforcing national identities. 2) Believing our food is better than our neighbours', though lot of times it is the same thing.
We see this further with the next national dish of Uzbekistan, Samsa! A delicious sort of bread that has meat and onions inside of it. I am a big fan of bread since it came out, so the idea of a spinoff sounded cool. However, as soon as I tasted it, I looked at my dad. It tastes just like an empanada. Turns out that humans have perhaps independently, perhaps because of inspiration, invented this sort of spinoff of bread everywhere. Because it's fucking good and practical. Samsa/empanadas/samosas, and like a billion more that I don't want to look for in google. It is an intuitive food to have in our societies, yet we all believe that intuition was firstly born in our countries.
Have you heard french fries are actually not french? They are also not Belgian. They are Chilean. There were indigenous people in Chile that came up with the idea of frying potatoes ages before the Belgians. But ofc, this fight and that answer are dumb for a lot of reasons. French fries are not Chilean. The modern version that we know and love was not exported from indigenous people into the world (that'd be cool tho). But also in general, I am sure there was another place in I don't know, mexico, that did something similar (aztecs were sick as fuck). And maybe some early homo sapiens with no registered culture also left some animal fat in a very hot place and dropped potatoes there... and then ate it? and like maybe he died actually cause it wasn't fully cooked and it was hella poisonous.
I think I lost the plot there but my point still stands! Our food can have so much richness due to our cultural understandings and collective histories, and it can mean so much for all of us. However, we all kind of agree that our closed baked bread with something inside taste fucking good. And as much as you try new breads that are similar, you come back to the one that is familiar to you. Or not.
I want to finish this rant with two small stories. It was Christmas Eve, and I was told that I definitely needed to try this polish soup. The best one out of all of them. Now, I already had eaten borsch and it was delicious, so I struggled to even imagine the type of taste that would bless my mouth. I tried it and... it was just chicken soup. Like the one you eat when you are sick.
And last but not least. Let us not forget an example of this with the man that inspired this entire subsection of the trip! Because Zach is unique. I have traveled to a lot of countries in my lifetime. I have met people from different nationalities, religions and beliefs. Yet there is one thing I had never seen before meeting Zach. I have never seen a man eat a bread like he does. Happy birthday man, hope this year is even better than the last two years and that you keep having lots of interesting and meaningful discussions.