Zareen’s Aloo Samosa burger with jalapeños and cheddar, Curry Up Now’s Naughty Naan and Sexy Fries, and the existence of Curry Pizza itself: all signifiers of a burgeoning culinary trend that mashes Indian and American cuisine together for the modern day. Uninterested in being “authentically” South Asian (whatever that means), these restaurants and dishes are embracing the in-between space of fusion food, which allows them the freedom to carry over flavors from the homeland and marry them with forms from the host land.

How did South Asian American fusion cuisine get started? And what even is fusion cuisine? The answer is more complicated than it appears: centuries of colonial contact have made it seem like fusion cuisine is a new invention of the globalized age, but in fact, fusion food has been around forever. And more complicated still, colonial knowledge bases have marginalized ethnic or indigenous food throughout history even when colonial cuisines mix with ethnic cuisines. Food is an important signifier of culture everywhere, so what does fusion food say about our current culture?

The Phenomenon of Fusion Food

Generally speaking, a dish that can be described as fusion contains elements of two or more different cuisines. When you think of Curry Pizza, for example, the elements most often in operation are traditional pizza dough and toppings, but with curry sauce or gravy instead of tomato sauce. Or the Aloo Samosa burger, which has all the traditional fixings but, instead of a patty, a flattened samosa. Like that, fusion food’s great victory is that it puts flavors in conversation with one another to create something unique.

And it’s totally delicious. The novelty of fusion food makes it a distinctly successful culinary endeavor that caters to an increasingly globalized world interested in pushing the perceived boundaries between cultures. But let’s take a step back here and define our terms so that we might be able to take a more nuanced look at the phenomenon. The examples of fusion food I’ve given are specifically South Asian American – there’s maybe nothing more American than burgers, and likewise for South Asia and samosas. But like I’ve said, fusion cuisine has been around forever. Think vada pav, think vindaloo. That’s fusion food, too. According to blogger Shweyta Mudgal, ‘vindaloo’ is derived from the Portuguese words for wine (vinho) and garlic (ahlo). Vada pav is similar – pav is a ubiquitous Portuguese bread which marries Maharashtrian vada in this dish.

These are mainstays of South Asian cuisine that, in actual fact, are fusion foods based in colonial contact with the Portuguese. And I don’t mean to suggest that because of the colonial roots of this food, it is in some way inauthentic to South Asia. Quite the contrary – it’s fascinating to witness how permeable cuisines and cultures are. None are as insular as they seem, and in the many ways that colonialism was a project between South Asians and Europeans rather than a totalized subjugation upon a hapless people, so too was the productive creation of food that transcends boundaries.

A Discussion of Authenticity in the Diaspora

With that being said, there are many arguments against the development of fusion cuisine, and not all are based in anti-colonialism. A chief worry of many cultural purists, especially when theorizing diaspora cuisine, is fusion food’s authenticity. Food, especially in diasporic cultures, rarely signifies just the act of eating. Food is a repository of values, of desire, of love, and of family. Think of how it feels to eat ‘home food.’ It’s an unparalleled feeling, especially in displaced, diasporic cultures. Consuming food is a praxis of cultural connection, even over large distances.

And this is more than a vague layperson theory; it’s been studied in many academic papers over the past twenty years. One of the leading scholars in diasporic food studies is Anita Mannur, who calls this specific feeling culinary nostalgia. Mannur argues that culinary nostalgia has manifold effects quite apart from engendering wistfulness for the homeland. It has the unintended effect of turning food into a monolithic, unchanging institution that is inextricably linked to national identity, though homeland inhabitants likely experience nationalism and food separately. It’s also a powerful choice to experience collective memory through food, through consumption. Mannur argues that homeland food becomes a signifier of the “ethnic integrity” of diasporic individuals. If the diaspora can accurately replicate and consume homeland food, they haven’t lost a fundamental quality of homeland life. They continue to eat their food the way it was meant to be eaten. Their physical displacement from the homeland doesn’t render them inauthentic.

What to Make of the Coloniality of Fusion Food

This all might sound like an extreme analysis of food, but there’s really no overemphasizing its importance in diasporic cultures. This is why fusion cuisine can be construed as a political choice, especially when it is interconnected with colonialism. Many scholars like Gazel Manuel have problematized colonial attitudes towards ethnic and indigenous cuisine; when they first began to mix, European food was thought to “elevate” indigenous food (never the other way around). European food also reduces indigenous food to mere ingredients or supplements. Think even of the Aloo Samosa burger or of Curry Pizza – by extricating the samosa and the curry from their traditional forms, fusion food is engaged in the process of cleaning up ethnic cuisine. It makes it more palatable and visually pleasing to a nonnative audience. Think of how curry is traditionally served; think of how colonialism has always pushed forward the idea that colonial spaces are clean and pure while colonized spaces are dirty, in need of fixing. Rhetorically speaking, fusion food began as a way to rectify ethnic and indigenous uncleanliness – and make money off of it. In other words, it offers up a farce of authenticity, invisibilizing ethnic ingredients and processes but highlighting and marketing their exotic nature.

None of this is to say that eating fusion food connotes buying into colonial institutions. It’s still delicious and novel and interesting in ways that deserve to be recognized. In a possibly counterintuitive way, the movement of fusion cuisine has helped South Asian food grow fancier – it’s not just greasy street food that people think of anymore, but high-class designer dishes like the kind served in new restaurants like ROOH, Ettan, and Rasa. It’s beautiful to see the evolution of the food we love, but it never hurts to be conscious of where that evolution comes from, and who made it happen.

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