Self-censorship

[crispy47]

Here's material that's not going to make it into the story I'm writing this week for Newspaper T (isn't this technique of lettering everything a totally a great way to keep people from figuring out that I'm writing about them?). The story is about a Turkish restaurant in Taipei that unabashedly retrofits its food to comply with Taiwanese tastes. It's really really good, though, and it doesn't taste that "Taiwanese." At least, while you can definitely see the Taiwanese influence, it doesn't feel like pandering-it feels like someone ate some Turkish food and thought, This would be really good if you cooked it like the beef from beef noodle soup.

So my article is supposed to be about that restaurant, but I thought I'd talk a little bit about the institution of knockoff food as it related to the larger trend of knockoffs. Here are two sections that were probably a bit much:

Confession time: Back in college, I wore my “Junsports” backpack everywhere. There was nothing I loved more than regaling anyone who would listen with the story of how I got - bargained for it - it at a night market in Taipei. “Oh, totally,” I would say, “they’ve got tons of cheap knockoffs over there.”

Then I would go to Panda Express and order General Tsao’s chicken with crappy steamed rice.

One’s relationship with a Gucci handbag continues long after the act of consumption. The same could be said of food, but if that relationship constitutes a status symbol for you then you are most likely a six-year-old boy, in which case, put down this newspaper and go watch a cartoon or something.