Culinary Imperialism and Catfish

I am currently working in extending what is known as culinary

imperialism into the world history currucula. The subject runs the

gammut from changes in the colonizer and colonized diets to how

dinning is employed to increase social distance between the rulers and

the ruled or exhalt the hegemon's staus to attacks on McDonalds in the

East. I can send a bibliography to any interested parties.

I will attempt to sponsor a panel on the subject at the next World

History Association annual meeting, which is in Long Beach, California

around June 22, 2006. If any would like to join in this project,

please send me an abstract.

However, I am also interested in hearing from any on the list of

events, dairies, travellers accounts or literary references that draw

attention to this aspect of the culture of imperialism, i.e the

exclusion of subalterns from colonial banquets, the pejorative

descriptions of indigenous diet or eating habits etc. from sources as

varied as a dinner scene in The Lover to racially tinged aspects of

the fight over Vietnamese shrimp exports. My personal favorite is

Salt of the Jungle, but its a struggle fitting it into this academic

paradigm! The universal often is.

Marc

Marc,

Were there racially tinged aspects of the fight over Vietnamese shrimp

exports? Not that I'd too surprised. But wasn't one of the

interesting aspects of the shrimp trade battle that Vietnamese

Americans are fairly substantially involved in the US shrimp industry?

Markus

I'm afraid that's "used to be substantially involved in the former US shrimp

industry" at this point. In a description of the economic damage caused by

Katrina, today's Washington Post notes as an afterthought that "It may also

be hard to get gulf shrimp [in the future], but because 90 percent of the

shrimp Americans eat is imported, supplies should be plentiful." There's

some painful irony for any of us who have been involved in the US-VN shrimp

trade disputes.

Andrew

Markus asked regarding "racially tinged aspects of the fight over

Vietnamese shrimp exports." The catfish dispute of 2002-2003 seemed to me

racially tinged, or at least xenophobic in tone. Trent Lott pushed

Congress to declare that only American-born catfish could be called

catfish. And the Catfish Farmers of America ran advertisements warning of

a "slippery catfish wannabe," saying such fish were "probably not even

sporting real whiskers" and "float around in Third World rivers nibbling on

who knows what." (NY Times 7/22/03).

The magazine Agri Marketing even gave a "Best of Show" award to the Catfish

Institute's "Raised in the U.S.A" marketing campaign, which built support

for the American farm-raised catfish industry after it was supposedly

"invaded" by a "foreign fish fraud."

Erica

It's probably useful to keep in mind that the average person's thinking

regarding trade and economics is almost always vulnerable to the charge

of xenophobia. "Outsourced jobs", "energy self-sufficiency", and even

"support of local producers" are all extremely popular concepts steeped

in concepts of nationalism and identity that don't really stand up to

rigorous analysis. At least not economic analysis. As such, the

catfish battle certainly saw interest groups grabbing on to standard

populist tools.

In the end, surely none of us really wanna think too much about what

any of the bottom feeding fish species are nibbling on, whether in the

US or elsewhere! And yet, who could deny their deliciousness, whether

blackened cajun style or caramelized in a clay pot.

Markus

The catfish wars are indeed a sad story, beginning with the labeling

requirements and tariffs, and the story has only gotten worse over the

years.

Support for the charge of xenophobia comes from none other than Senator John

McCain:

"I believe a far more accurate assessment is provided in the Far Eastern

Economic Review, in its feature article on this issue: For a bunch of

profit-starved fisherfolk, the U.S. catfish lobby had deep enough pockets to

wage a highly xenophobic advertising campaign against their Vietnamese

competitors." (Posted on McCain's senate.gov Web site, dated Dec 18, 2001)

This summer, Mississippi State University issued a report comparing domestic

catfish and Vietnamese imports, concluding that "both fish were about the

same in terms of quality and safety indicators." If that wasn't enough, the

majority of their taste-testers preferred the imports 3 to 1. After the

predictable return volley from the Catfish Farmers of America and the

Catfish Institute (both based in Mississippi), MSU hastily labeled their

study "preliminary."

It's interesting to compare the standards of evidence used in the catfish

debate. The U.S. catfish groups simply questioned the methodology of the

MSU study, but provided no counter-evidence demonstrating safety concerns

with the catfish. On the other hand, a great deal of legislation has been

passed based on nothing but rumor and innuendo, as summed up by one Alabama

catfish advocate: "They raise these fish in big cages out in the Mekong

River...There have been a number of safety issues connected with that."

Certainly an interesting lesson for Vietnam in democratic politics and

free-market economics.

:: Mike High

Alexandria, VA

PS. Senator McCain's statement goes into great detail about the dumping

accusations and the labeling scheme, and includes some choice quotes:

"Proponents of this ban used the insidious technique of granting ownership

of the term "catfish" to only North American catfish growers as if

southern agribusinesses have exclusive rights to the name of a fish that is

farmed around the world, from Brazil to Thailand."

"These fish were indeed catfish until Congress, with little review and no

debate, determined them not to be."

"...after preaching for years to the Vietnamese about the need to get

government out of the business of micro managing the economy, we have sadly

implicated ourselves in the very sin our trade policy claims to reject."

PS2. Oddly, the US catfish industry's best case against the imports is based

not on the disease-bearing catfish, but the FDA's recent discovery of

"unapproved drug residue" (antibiotics) in the catfish from several

Vietnamese companies. As I understand it, we ban the agricultural use of

these antibiotics for fear that germs will build up a resistance to

them--certainly a valid health concern, but not an immediate personal threat

on the order of salmonella.

While the FDA simply issued an "alert," the states of Alabama, Mississippi,

and Louisiana enthusiastically "detained" all imported catfish in August.

The standard of evidence is again quite slight, as expressed by Alabama

Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks: "One test ought to be enough to show

they are still using chemicals being banned." (Aside from the assumption

that everyone in the Vietnamese catfish business does things in the same

way, it's not clear from his statement if even that one test had been

performed on the "basa"catfish that have been "detained.") In contrast,

Louisiana had tested and released 39 tons of seafood (out of 415 tons that

had been impounded) as of August 26th. I imagine Hurricane Katrina has

pretty much submerged this issue for a good while to come.