Portland Burrito Spot Shutters After Cultural Appropriation Outcry

[Noogai131]

They were doing fine until in a cheap bid for authenticity, they claimed that they peeked into the windows of Mexican restaurants to figure out what they were doing after those restaurants refused to share their recipes/techniques/secrets, and then tried to claim the supposedly stolen knowledge as their own. The whole focus on cultural appropriation is nothing more than an attempt to stir people into a frenzy, when the reality is that they marketed themselves as slimy business people and got bit on the ass when people decided that was something they didn't like.

Gordon Ramsay does the same shit, goes across the world and watches how people make the food the way they do it, and sometimes incorporates it into his own restaurants. Is that slimy business?

Seems to me like they just went to mexico, examined how they did things down their, and brought back those techniques to the states, even going so far as to say EXACTLY how they got it. That doesn't seems slimy at all to me, it seems like an attempt to make GENUINE mexican food, not generic garbage.

[Saucexorzski]

They used to be good back when I lived in the UK. Over the past years I'm not sure what happened but the taste in the US just isn't the same .

I had one here through that was named wandering something and it was delicious.

the best cider i had was on tap at a bar, it had a name that as an american i could only point to it and say "that".

[Noogai131]

It wasn't directed at you specifically. The comment just made me think of it.

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Something tells me Gordon Ramsay isn't trying to sneak peeks in windows after people refuse to share their secrets, but yeah, feel free to overlook the critical element of that entire post because OH GOD HOW DARE ANYONE SUGGEST ANYONE DID ANYTHING WRONG.

It all comes down to intent. I don't think you or I could prove intent either way towards greed or genuine enthusiasm, but I would err with caution towards them just being curious.

The fact that you attempted to deflect from the original points of criticism in the article, which was that the reason they were forced to shut down was over accusations of Cultural appropriation, and not corporate greed and shady business tactics. Your personal misgivings do not change the actual facts of the situation, as much as you would like them to.

[Noogai131]

Yeah, "the facts," which in this case are nothing more than a convenient juxtaposition of a couple pieces of information that invite you to draw a particular conclusion, despite a complete absence of any official statement on the reason for closure or anything even remotely useful. After all, if they were really so popular prior to this, a few complaints online shouldn't stop them from being able to run a profitable business, unless people simply chose to stop doing business with them, which is nothing for anyone to complain about.

But yeah, totally, I'm just making things up and trying to change the facts.

You can add sarcasm and slather your post with haughty self-righteousness all you want, but that doesn't change anything. The events happened, and they happened most likely for the reasons stated within the article. University students are becoming increasingly more indignant and fueled by outrage culture. It's happened to several restaurants that have attempted to open up at my local university, and we're a fairly small university in terms of both physical size and amount of enrolled students.

If it's anything like what happened here, a few complaints online turns into an open boycott by certain radical subsections of the student community, which in turn escalates as they harass and bully anybody they catch supporting the chain, whether it be support through patronage or an attempt to clear up misinformation spread by the boycotters.

Being ostracized and ridiculed socially for visiting a food chain has a huge impact in university, especially if the people attempting to run a boycott have a high place on the social ladder.

But continue to think that people cannot have an impact on the people around them. You certainly don't.

Edit:

Googled into the company as much as I could, considering they're BARELY even considered a company, and all I could find from semi-repupatable sources was this: http://www.wweek.com/uncategorized/2...-cesar-chavez/

Turns out they didn't even steal a god damned recipe. They went to Mexico, talked with authentic cooks there, did research, and the slimiest thing you could nail them on was peeking through a window to see how they rolled dough, not even how they did everything.

In fact, until further evidence comes to light, it appears that one of the ladies that works the stand actually figured out her OWN technique for making the damned tortillas.

"On the drive back up to Oregon, we were still completely drooling over how good [the tortillas] were, and we decided we had to have something similar in Portland," Connelly says. "The day after we returned, I hit the Mexican market and bought ingredients and started testing it out. Every day I started making tortillas before and after work, trying to figure out the process, timing, refrigeration and how all of that works."

I'm more than happy to concede shitty business tactics if more information comes out, but until then my experience tells me that an organized boycott was actually successful, for once.

[Derah]

This is really stupid. Way to ruin someone's business out of a pathological need to feel outraged at something.

Bet you 50 bucks that if the two women were NOT white, nobody would give two shits about it. And if they were white men, they'd likely receive death threats.

I'm a venezuelan. Proud to be one too (Despite the shitty state my country is in right now). Proud of my heritage and culture. Said culture comes with an incredibly rich wealth of recipes that are as varied as they are tasty. From the arepas, to hallacas, to majarete, to pan de jamon, to empanadas, tequeños, pastelitos, patacones, pabellones, lomo negro, and countless more.

If an american white dude starts a restaurant somewhere in america, doing venezuelan recipes, that he learned out of watching me do mine, why should I get pissed off about it? Should only venezuelan people cook venezuelan meals? Is it stealing my culture when non-venezuelans make arepas?

I think the other article linked in there (here) is even MORE stupid. Apparently, serving a chicken in the wrong sauce is now grounds for outrage, and accusations of cultural disrespect.

Goes to show that people in america live lives so comfortable, so nice, and so pampered, that they simply need to find shit to bitch about, because they have nothing legitimate to complain about.

[callipygoustp]

Goes to show that people in america live lives so comfortable, so nice, and so pampered, that they simply need to find shit to bitch about, because they have nothing legitimate to complain about.

To the point, right there.

[lonely zergling]

Damn the "social justice" leftists shouldnt ever visit a streetfood festival in germany, their heads would explode. All kinds of food from around the world and 99% of workers / owners of the foodtrucks are "white" germans.

I once visited such a event. There was a foodtruck that sold "Authentic Mexican Food" with no mexican worker anywhere to see. Glad we dont (yet) have this cultural appropriaton crap here but I'm sure soon the left here will appropriate this outrage culture .

[Usagi Senshi]

So a bunch of self-righteous little shits whinging ruined another good thing for someone, eh?

Hopefully these little fucks learn the hard way on whats it like to lose something over stupid bullshit.

[Ghaleon]

Ugh can we just put all these idiots on an island and wall it off?

I'm not entirely opposed to nuking it after.

[toxicrusader]

Dunno about the burrito, but most things we see today are fruit of mixed cultures, take the nachos for a example. A mexican american invented it and now evebody calls it mexican food, when in fact, it isn't. Same thing for sushi and such. Most recipes we love to eat have nothing to do with real japanese cuisine.

Cultural appropriation is, in most cases, a dumb expression in the globalized world we live in.

As stated before, there are real discrimination and real racism out there worth fighting against and some prefer to whine about this bullshit over the real problems.

And all they do is to atract mockery and push people away from the good fight. Cause if political polarization increases and more people then to fall for cheap populist speeches as we see today worldwide, that's what we need, of course.

[Laerrus]

Man, fuck those lame ass motherfuckers.

Tell those ladies them to come here to Texas and set up their food truck. Food trucks are big business out here especially if they make really good Mexican or Tex-Mex food.

There's one in my area that does a Korean-Mexican fusion, that food is fucking amazing.

[Dr Assbandit]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strongbow_(cider)

"In 2014, the original Strongbow dry cider was discontinued in the USA by Heineken and replaced with two new sweeter variants."

That explains so much...

[draynay]

Wait, there's such a thing as a non-mexican cook? Round these parts if you want to work in a chinese restaurant you need to know spanish.

[Noogai131]

Man, fuck those lame ass motherfuckers.

Tell those ladies them to come here to Texas and set up their food truck. Food trucks are big business out here especially if they make really good Mexican or Tex-Mex food.

There's one in my area that does a Korean-Mexican fusion, that food is fucking amazing.

Korean-Mexican is fine, I've often found it's suspiciously only people who are white that get targeted by the "CULTURAL APPROPRIATION REE" crowd, eve if said white person is ACTUALLY ethnically african american/latino.

[draynay]

My favorite restaurant is korean-mexican fusion, shit is great.

[Puupi]

My favorite restaurant is korean-mexican fusion, shit is great.

Is that like Korean food which tastes like Mexican food, or Mexican food that tastes like Korean food.

The former is probably awesome, the latter I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

[Noogai131]

Is that like Korean food which tastes like Mexican food, or Mexican food that tastes like Korean food.

The former is probably awesome, the latter I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

I'd hazard a guess at a mix between the two. You'd have some korean dishes using mexican spices instead of korean ones, giving it that subtle mexican kick in favor of the very in your face korean spice, and then you'd have some Mexican dishes made using korean techniques, which sadly i'm woefully uneducated in, I only know about spices.

[draynay]

Is that like Korean food which tastes like Mexican food, or Mexican food that tastes like Korean food.

The former is probably awesome, the latter I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

Where it is on the scale between them depends on what dish you get

I like mexican dishes with korean-style meat

rice, beans, bulgogi, its paradise

[Puupi]

Where it is on the scale between them depends on what dish you get

I like mexican dishes with korean-style meat

rice, beans, bulgogi, its paradise

If someone dumps kimchi in a tortilla, I'll pass.

[Ryme]

Wow, more insane hypocrisy from racist idiots, never seen that before.

Seriously though, they should have rode this free wave of publicity to the big bucks, wasted opportunity.