Al Pastor = Shawarma. Credit: Kishor on Unsplash

Food Has Never Respected Borders

12 Minute read

01 Jun 2026

Kathleen Willcox

Writer

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Chefs, historians, and restaurateurs examine where cultural exchange ends, appropriation begins, and why food has always evolved through migration, influence, and adaptation.

Modern conversations around cultural appropriation have complicated the way chefs cook across traditions. Questions about who “gets” to make certain foods, and what separates respectful homage from profitable erasure, now follow restaurants almost as closely as reviews or MICHELIN stars.

But food itself has never respected borders. Some of the world’s most beloved dishes exist because of migration, trade, colonization, adaptation, and cultural exchange. Tempura traces its roots to Portuguese missionaries and traders arriving in Japan in the 16th century, while Vietnam’s bánh mì emerged from the collision of French colonial baguettes and Vietnamese ingredients and flavors. The Silk Road and global spice trade transformed cuisines across continents for centuries, introducing ingredients, techniques, and flavors that became foundational to national identities. The question today may no longer be whether cultures should influence each other through food, but how to do so with curiosity, rigor, and respect.

“Knowing and citing your sources is essential,” says Auyon Mukharji, a musician, writer, culinary historian, and co-author of Heartland Masala alongside his mother, chef and teacher Jyoti Mukharji. “If you’re borrowing a ceremonial or traditional artifact, piece of clothing, hairstyle, or food, and you don’t honor the source, that’s when it becomes culturally disrespectful.”

At the same time, Mukharji believes conversations around cultural exchange in food have become increasingly simplified online. “There is a temptation to flatten a complex situation into one sentence, like, ‘There’s a white guy cooking and selling Indian food and that’s a problem,’” he says, referencing some of the criticism directed at Keith Sarasin of Aatma Curry House. “I raised my eyebrows at first at the idea, but then I learned how much time he spent traveling in India, learning at the feet of mentors there, studying and learning. We need to stop making snap judgments without considering the broader context.”

Sarasin, Mukharji argues, is careful to credit the traditions, techniques, and ingredients that shape his cooking. That kind of rigor, study, and acknowledgment may not resolve every conversation around cultural exchange in food, but for many chefs and diners, it represents an important distinction between respectful adaptation and careless appropriation.

Food Has Never Been Pure

Long before social media debates over authenticity and appropriation, cuisines were already evolving through migration, trade, and colonization. Ingredients, techniques, and dishes moved across borders for centuries, eventually becoming embedded within national and regional food traditions. One stark example is chile peppers, native to Central and South America, which spread through these trade routes into India, China, Thailand, and Korea, where they eventually became central to many regional cuisines.

“Examples of one culture borrowing from another and creating something better because of it abound,” Mukharji says. “Butter chicken and tea in India are products of British colonialism. Now, they’re an intrinsic part of our culture.”

Al pastor evolved from Lebanese immigrants bringing shawarma-style spit cooking to Mexico in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, where pork, achiote, and pineapple transformed it into something distinctly Mexican. American barbecue itself reflects Indigenous Caribbean smoking techniques, European livestock traditions, and African seasoning and cooking influences. Many of the dishes now treated as emblematic national foods are, in reality, layered products of migration and exchange.

Food histories are often far messier and more interconnected than contemporary conversations around authenticity suggest. Many dishes now treated as untouchable cultural institutions are, in reality, records of centuries of movement, adaptation, and reinvention.

Don’t Call It Fusion

Chefs working across culinary traditions increasingly want to rethink the way dishes influenced by multiple cultures are framed and discussed.

Chef Rishi Kumar, who helms Chicago’s Indian-Mexican restaurant Mirra, which holds a MICHELIN Bib Gourmand distinction, takes issue with the term “fusion cuisine.”

“Fusion is a lazy term,” Kumar says. “It doesn’t describe what’s happening, and it often feels disrespectful. I think of it more as a crossroads, where two cultures meet and see eye to eye.”

Kumar, who was raised in Singapore among Malay, Chinese, Indian, and Western cultural influences, points to the long shadow of colonialism and the history of cultural extraction as reasons why “fusion” cuisine still carries baggage for many diners and chefs.

At Mirra, Kumar approaches Indian and Mexican cooking as parallel traditions rather than opposing ones.

“To me, the lamb barbacoa biryani, with basmati rice, saffron, mint and a roti seal epitomizes this,” Kumar says. “Mexico truly meets India in this dish, with adobo and lime leaves used to marinate the lamb, the reduced tomato-masala yogurt, the poblanos, the sealing of roti dough and sprinkling of sesame seeds.”

When the roti seal is broken tableside and steam pours out, the presentation echoes the opening of a traditional barbacoa pit in Mexico.

Other chefs see food as an entry point into understanding another culture more deeply.

Chef Luis Mercado of Comma Hospitality, whose restaurants draw from Japanese cuisine while incorporating Mexican, French, and Nordic ingredients and techniques, believes food is often the most accessible way for diners to connect with another country’s identity and traditions.

“Food is a universal language, and a gateway to understanding each other,” Mercado says. “Fusion is a word that has been used poorly throughout the years. You have to be immersed and have a deep understanding of the culture and cuisine that you want to ‘fuse.’ The term is vague. I prefer to talk about what ‘inspires’ various dishes because it feels more genuine.”

Honor Your Sources

For chefs working outside their own culinary traditions, respect requires more than aesthetic inspiration. Kumar argues that cooking another culture’s food responsibly demands study, context, and a willingness to understand the people and histories behind the dishes themselves.

“If you’re going to be cooking, for example, Chinese food, make the trip to the place and explore the country,” Kumar advises. “Have conversations with people who are immersed in it and understand it. Study it, read books. And clearly pay homage to it if you’re going to sell that food.”

Top Chef alum Travis Masar was raised in a Polish family in southern Colorado, but has spent years traveling through Taiwan and studying Taiwanese cuisine. At Pig and Tiger, he and co-owner Darren Chang, whose family roots are Taiwanese, draw heavily from Taiwanese flavors and techniques while still allowing room for reinterpretation.

One example is their black-peppered New York strip steak, inspired by dishes the pair encountered in Taiwan’s night markets.

“We maintain the integrity of the flavors and traditions this dish carries while adapting it to be our own, with our own modern interpretation,” Masar says. “To me, culinary authenticity is your grandma's and great grandma's recipes that have been passed down through generations. Authenticity is defined by what's authentic to you, and it's important to understand that every grandma does it differently. It's about understanding the history of their culture and heritage, not just their food or the ingredients they use.”

Follow the Flavor

Cross-cultural cooking only works if the food itself resonates. Ideally, a dish should do more than taste good. It should spark curiosity about the people, techniques, and histories behind it.

Frank Bonanno, chef and proprietor of Denver’s Bonanno Concepts, believes some of the strongest dishes emerge from recognizing parallels between cuisines rather than forcing unlikely combinations together.

“I am an Italian American from New Jersey, so I am steeped in all things Italian,” he says. “But it’s impossible to ignore the similarities between Chinese, Japanese, and Italian cuisines. They all have some form of noodles, dumplings, and ravioli. Dumplings and ravioli have a lot in common.”

At Romyo, Bonanno explores those overlaps through dishes that pull from both Italian and Japanese techniques and flavors.

“Our Cacio e Pepe Ramen and Burrata and Kale dumplings at Dumplin’ show what we’re trying to do,” Bonanno says. “For both, we use both classic Italian and Japanese ingredients and techniques. Both cuisines evolved almost simultaneously with sophisticated cuisines focused on noodles, umami-rich flavors, and braising in the 1800s, although Japan was ahead. The techniques, the complexity, the focus on a few quality ingredients, it’s very similar.”

While Bonanno believes the food should ultimately stand on its own, he also sees acknowledgment and curiosity as essential parts of cooking across traditions.

“The more I learn about a cuisine, the more I’m curious about the place’s history and culture, and I think it’s the same for everyone,” he says. “When it is really good, food opens doors.”

Melissa Cookston, a seven-time world barbecue champion and owner of Memphis BBQ Company in Horn Lake, Mississippi, says her cooking has always been shaped by techniques and flavors encountered through travel. For Cookston, inspiration and adaptation are inseparable from the evolution of barbecue itself.

“Whenever I travel, I’m struck by what I see different cultures do with fire and their unique indigenous ingredients, and I’m always inspired to bring elements back,” Cookston says. “When I recreate my own version, I’m very aware that I need to pay homage to the recipe, but because I am not from the place, I can’t recreate it exactly. I try to be really clear when a recipe or dish that I create is inspired by another country’s classic recipe.”

Cookston points to her version of anticuchos as one example of that approach. Traditionally, the Peruvian street food consists of skewered beef heart marinated with ingredients like ají panca, vinegar, garlic, and cumin before being grilled over high heat.

“I don’t do beef hearts because the flavor and texture don’t appeal to me,” she says. “And I don’t want to mess up their national dish. So, I use different cuts of beef, but the same general high heat, marinating and spice techniques. People try it and they become more curious about Peru. Food is definitely a way to intrigue people and open their minds to a new place.”

Food has always evolved through movement: of people, ingredients, techniques, and ideas. The challenge for modern chefs is not whether to cook across cultures, but how to do so thoughtfully, with enough humility to acknowledge the histories and communities behind the dishes they reinterpret.

“I think if we all lead with curiosity and love when showing up and cooking, selling, or eating another culture’s food, that’s an essential first step,” says Mukharji. “If we acknowledge our sources and give credit as creators, and as eaters, if we look more deeply into what’s actually happening before passing judgment, we’ll all be in a better place.”