The Curious Act of Love

A friend gave me a sample of Hatch green chile. I had no idea what it was or how to use it. Sure, I could just taste it and figure out how I’d like it, but that’s not how my brain works. There has to be a story behind it: people who care deeply about it and the traditions that shaped it. How do they typically use it? What kind of dish would best express its personality? It’s not about me; it’s about understanding the other.

Think of sansho, the Japanese spice often sprinkled on yakitori or grilled eel. Imagine some random American guy gets a sample and decides to sprinkle it on ice cream. He likes it, so it becomes his thing: sansho ice cream. But he shows no interest in the context that gave birth to it. It might taste great. It’s a free country; he can use it however he wants. But something about it feels sad and disrespectful. I had to think about why.

It reminded me of objectification. We usually think of that in sexual terms, like a woman seen only as a sex object, but it happens in other contexts too. Say someone hires you as a programmer but shows no interest in who you are as a person. That’s also objectification.

Maybe it’s clearer to look at it from the other side: subjectification. In the mind-body split, the mind is the subject, and the body the object, but computer programming is part of the mind. So, perhaps the real distinction is about context. To objectify is to strip away context, ignore history, culture, and meaning, and use something solely for your own ends. To subjectify is to place it within context. A man who objectifies a woman isn’t curious about the world she inhabits; it is only about him. If she consents, it’s not immoral, but it can still feel dehumanizing. This is why people get frustrated about “cultural appropriation”; it’s not about morality but love.

I feel the same way about food. No ingredient exists in a vacuum. Every dish or ingredient has a cultural and historical context. Ignoring it is like treating an employee as nothing more than a tool. Is it unethical? No. But it makes me sad to see it.