I too miss Gourmet and I think that Ruth Reichl was a terrific editor. I think that Zimmern tries to put the food experiences he has into a context that his target audience can learn from, but unfortunately his target audience seems to be . . . less worldly or open to other experiences than one might hope.

I hadn't read that Gourmet article. It made me laugh, since I've seen some of that myself. I had a friend who majored in culinary anthropology, which at the time I thought of as a complete waste, but after many miles and stays in many places I admit it's something I find fascinating.

There are some foods I refuse to try though. One of them is something made by members of my family who are duck farmers. One of their biggest sellers is fertilized duck eggs, which are a fairly typical snack in SE Asia. However, in the process of creating and sorting these fertilized eggs, they run into different issues, which are sorted out. For example, there is a special name for fertilized eggs where the fetus has died. That gets sorted into a bin and prepared another way. There is also a category of eggs that have begun to rot and various stages of rotten eggs are used for different things. One of them is a giant (3 ft diameter traditionally) torta, or spanish style omelette. I understand how the food arose, but absolutely refuse to eat it. The smell makes my eyes burn.

That said, I agree with your views on cultural affinity. I think when people hold prejudices against others, some people criticizing them are quick to leap to racism without considering the cultural aspect.