Stuff White People Eat

Ta-Nehisi Coates stereotyping of white people as cucumber eaters has been bouncing around for a few days when Brad Delong reminded me of something.

Matthew Yglesias:

Matthew Yglesias: The Cucumber Factor: Ta-Nehisi Coates is getting ready to foreswear the smear against white people that we eat cucumber. And yet just yesterday here in Finland where the white people are twice as white as back home (Nordic ancestry + subarctic winter = pale), I was in fact served a sandwich of cucumbers and cheese on a croissant.

And here in Vienna while seated next to Dani Rodrik I was just served not a cucumber sandwich but an egg salad sandwich on white bread with the crusts removed.

When I caught an intra-China flight, I got a meal of a ham sandwich on white bread, crusts removed, with mayo.  It really felt like they were aiming for American or European cuisine but went so far over the top that they produced something entirely new.

 

When I went to an event with Jennifer 8 Lee on her book the Fortune Cookie chronicles, I mentioned this particular story.  She said that she loved those sandwiches, although while they weren’t horrible I don’t really see the appeal.  I then suggested that it would be only fair if they were called “General Washington’s Sandwich” or something like that.

Picture of a similar sandwich by ulterior epicure used under a creative commons license.