18h ago

"Cultural Tradition"

Does anyone else find it ridiculous when people claim that a particular non-native plant is part of the "traditional diet" or "traditional medicine" of a particular culture? For example, I've heard many times that sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is the main staple in the "traditional" Okinawan diet, or that aloo gobhi (potato and cauliflower curry) is part of "traditional" Indian cuisine. If "traditional" is arbitrarily defined as going back only to the start of the use of the plant rather than the start of the culture, it seems to lose its significance. "Our culture has used this plant ever since our culture began to use this plant" does not convey anything meaningful. If people like to eat/use a non-native plant, fine, no problem at all, but to claim that it's a cultural tradition seems disingenuous.

The way that I see it (as a plant nerd), the only case in which this would make sense is if the founders of a particular culture brought the non-native plant with them when they first permanently settled the place. Does this resonate with anyone?

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Why do you think that tradition that is 50 years old is less siginificant then one that is 100 years old?
- It just seems arbitrary. What about 5 years old? Most cultures on the planet could then claim that smartphones are traditional tools of their culture, even though they were designed somewhere else, manufactured somewhere else, installed with software developed somewhere else... In the context of plants, this seems almost to disregard the historical importance of native species. If a non-native plant was introduced to a culture only 50 or 100 years ago, but the culture has been around for 1000+ years, then the ancestors of those same people, who would by all accounts be considered part of the same culture, would not even recognise it. Which generation gets to decide what constitutes a cultural tradition vs a modern practice?
  
  Everything that is passed between generations is traditional, there is nothing arbitrary about it, that's how traditions work. Whole europe has traditional dishes with tomatoes or potatoes. 1000+ years anceators probably have a lot more differences than some traditions, most languages drifted enough to be not even comprehensible.
  
  Sure, by the dictionary definition, that is tradition. I don't deny that the non-native plants can be passed from one generation to the next just like anything else. The lack of distinction between native and non-native plants in the context of "tradition" just seems a bit misleading.

9 comments