Warsaw, May 12 - Listen, I know some influential folks are up in arms about one group taking elements of another group's cultural heritage and either commodifying them or integrating them into their own, and I get the outrage, but y'all can calm down with any accusations that Jews stole Eastern European cuisine from us Eastern Europeans. Really. We're fine with Jews eating kugel, p'tcha, and gefilte fish. If they want them, it's theirs. Eww.
It's fine, people. We Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, et cetera are perfectly okay with everyone considering those, uh, delicacies "Jewish" instead of associating the, er, foodstuffs with the wider cultural and geographic milieu that helped spawn those dishes. Call us back when the Jews have appropriated something worthwhile, but until then, we're good. Thank you anyway.
Yeah, very few of us are angry that Jews have "stolen" calf trotters - you know, p'tcha. Jellied calf hoof. So appetizing.
I imagine Norwegians feel the same about lutefisk.
Or take gefilte fish. All of it - we don't want any, baked OR boiled. Loaf OR patty. Especially that weird jelly it comes with. We'll leave it to the scholars of culinary to trace the evolution of that... invention... and its sweet-vs.-savory permutations depending on which area it came from: where sugar beets were cultivated vs. where they weren't. That's actually interesting, and an exact parallel to the sweet-vs.-savory-or-spicy kugel dichotomy. What it isn't is a useful case of "cultural appropriation." Because we, the host culture, don't care. Because that stuff is just awful. The Jews can keep it. They try to take kielbasa and I'll be all over that "appropriation" bandwagon, but as it stands, that's just not necessary. Please reserve your outrage for things we Eastern Europeans genuinely find offensive, such as the Jews themselves. But I digress.
Face it: you wanted to find another reason to fault Jews for something. And we Russians, Poles, Hungarians, Lithuanians - Latvians especially, though, I must say - have no problem with that! We're all about that, and have been for a thousand years! But going along with this specific accusation would end up with our having to make a big show of appreciating horseradish. So please think about the ramifications of this bit of activism. Hard pass.
We're still up for a pogrom or two if you can gin up some good pretexts, though. You're doing a fine job on that front. Keep up the good work!
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