If the country of South Korea has a national dish it is kimchi. While the fermented veggie dish has an unforgettable taste it also has an undeniable odor, especially to western noses. Now Korean scientists are looking for ways to make kimchi smell less pungent and purists are furious. Indeed, Huffington Post is so riled at the effort that it has made kimchi into a new category of social justice activism by insisting that evil westerners are “smell-shaming” immigrants for their various types
of exotic food. For HuffPo, Carla Herreria histrionically insists, “It’s another reminder that traditional Asian foods are viewed as a source of shame that immigrants must hide or adapt to be accepted.” She goes on to bemoan how immigrants are forced to eat their beloved native dishes in secret for fear of being made fun of. And at one point she even wrings hands over the “cultural appropriation” that occurs when westerners warm up to those very foreign foods. READ MORE
