What Should We Say To A White Woman Selling Congee?
How about: "Hey, cool you thought of a business idea and got it to make money! Keep up the good work!"

Wait...a white woman selling congee?!!

So?

People of Asian extraction do not "own" Asian cooking, any more than I, as an Ashkenazi Jew, own matzo balls or gefilte fish.

If some Asian lady in America wants to change gefilte fish in some way to make it more palatable to the average American (and advertise it that way), well have at it.

It's not my business or anybody's business to stop her.

But now people who (I would guess) replace doing generous acts (grubby, sweaty, tiring, and time-consuming) with screeching as part of a mob on social media are going after a woman who made congee, a kind of porridge.

Kimmy Yam writes at NBC News:

Breakfast Cure, an Oregon-based company run by a white woman, Karen Taylor, has apologized after being accused by Asian Americans of culturally appropriating congee, a traditional Asian rice porridge.

The company, which sells pre-packaged meals it had referred to as congee, issued the apology in a statement on its website this week after it was criticized by many across social media for exoticizing the comfort food and trying to reframe the already-popular dish. It had previously claimed to have altered congee to fit "your modern palate" and "improve" a dish that's been beloved by Asian cultures for centuries.

"Recently, we fell short of supporting and honoring the Asian American community and for that, we are deeply sorry," the statement said. "We take full responsibility for any language on our website or in our marketing and have taken immediate steps to remedy that and educate ourselves, revising our mission to not just creating delicious breakfast meals, but becoming a better ally for the AAPI community."

"Exoticizing." Oh, hurl.

I'm from the Midwest, and Taco Bell was exotic when I was growing up.

Taco Bell, I guarantee you, is also exotic in places congee is a staple.

I know that "exoticizing" is part of "woke"-ie-ism's list of sins, and I'm not buying it.

Asian Americans had taken issue with several aspects of the company, including how the staff did not appear to include employees of Asian descent and how Taylor, an acupuncturist and self-proclaimed "Queen of Congee," had written a now-edited post titled, "How I discovered the miracle of congee and improved it."

Congee remains a staple for Asians, with different versions cooked by nearly every country across the continent. The word congee itself has Tamil roots. It's largely regarded as a comfort food, and in the Chinese tradition, it's often served at dim sum with flavors like thousand-year-old-egg and pork, or duck. Taylor's version includes flavors like apple cinnamon and uses ingredients like oat groat.

In its statement, Breakfast Cure, founded in 2017, referred to its meal packs as "Oregon porridge," rather than congee as it had previously been calling them. It also said that its products, which include ingredients and flavors that bear little resemblance to the original dish, was "inspired" by traditional rice congee, "an incredible, healing dish with references dating back to 1,000 BC."

It's very hard to stand up to a mob when you're afraid for your business and basically standing alone. So I understand why she and others apologize, but it's really wrong that this is demanded of them, and I hope more people will tell the mob to fuck off.

Nadia Kim, a professor of sociology, Asian and Asian American Studies at Loyola Marymount University, told NBC Asian America that the statement felt insufficient given Breakfast Cure's "bastardization" and "whitewashing" of congee, and the way it has profited off such behavior

...Congee has long been a dish for commoners that is often eaten in times of need because it requires only a few ingredients. By contrast, Breakfast Cure's slow-cook meal packs cost $14.95 per pack. Kim said that Taylor's profiting off of congee, particularly as a white woman, erases the humble nature of the dish.

"She's essentially making a large amount of money, or could potentially make a large amount of money, based on taking common people's Asian food," Kim said. "She is claiming that congee is not good on its own, and she as a white woman has found a way to make congee much, much better, meaning that it serves a white people's palate."

Nadia should work on understanding America, capitalism, and entrepreneurial creativity instead of pushing this fundamentalist secular religion that claims certain foods as off-limits for profit by certain races.

Of course, it's vastly easier to be a destroyer than to build a business of value.