In his piece “Food and Diaspora,” Sidney Mintz mentions that “When food objects, processes–even ideas–spread from one society to another, the receiving society is likely to modify, often to misunderstand, and usually to redefine what it has received. When using a new vegetable, fruit, or spice the borrowing society is also likely to ‘indigenize’ it.” In other words, there is cultural appropriation: the adoption or use of the elements of one culture by members of another culture.

While Glady’s, a Caribbean eatery located in Brooklyn and founded by two Caucasian men, may seem to be inauthentic and a culturally appropriated replica of soul food, I believe that the restaurant does indeed serve authentic food. Allow me to explain: Yes, this restaurant, which cooks and serves Jamaican food, was founded by white people in the United States. This in and of itself may seem like grounds for inauthenticity. However, the owners traveled to and around Jamaica, meeting different people making different recipes. They ran into a man making and selling jerk chicken in a shack on the beach, and they spent a week with him to learn the recipe. In an attempt to, in their words, “replicate the authenticity of the food,” they even imported wood to the U.S. so that they could have a beautiful wood-fired grill with which to make the food.

Although Glady’s is owned and operated by white men in a non-Caribbean nation, the founders did the best they possibly could to create authentic Jamaican food without modifying or taking all the credit while doing so. In an interview, one of them admitted that he went around the country learning about its culture and food; he did not take the credit for the recipe(s). Furthermore, the owners had good intentions behind all of this: as Crown Heights, Brooklyn is a Caribbean neighborhood, they wanted to open a community-oriented place where people who wanted to enjoy soul food, but were unable to travel all the way to the Caribbean, could do so right in their own neighborhood. Could they have given more credit to the man in the shack on the beach? Yes, I think so. Could they have been more authentic in their food production, such as by bringing someone from the Caribbean to their restaurant’s kitchen? Again, yes. But given their objectives and resources, the owners made the most out of their situation, and for that, I would say their restaurant serves authentic food.

Ultimately, I would define “authentic” food as that being created by someone who has had enough exposure to the inner workings of the original culture.