New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren's claim that she created an innovative new food she calls "Cheesies" has outraged culturally sensitive foodies, one of whom claims she has engaged in a gross display of "cultural appropriation."
Rudoren recently showed off her culinary chops in a New York Times "video notebook" that instructs viewers on how to make the Cheesies at home.
The Cheesie is a broken taco shell with cheese dropped over it. The Cheesies—known in some corners of the world as "nachos"—are then placed in the oven until the cheese is melted to the chef’s satisfaction.
"My name is Jodi Rudoren and tonight we’re having taco night, so I’m making Cheesies," Rudoren tells the camera. "Cheesies are, I think, a Rudoren invention. You just take taco shells, melt cheese on them in the oven, and they’re mmmm, mmmm, mmmm, delicious!"
The video is spliced with close up shots of hands dropping cheese onto broken taco shells.
"I like making them. You know why?" Rudoren asks as her husband, Gary, eagerly pulls cooked Cheesies from a tray. "Because my husband and my daughter and my son like eating them."
"What do I think about Cheesies?" asks Gary Rudoren, a self-described-called "Cheesies enthusiast." "They’re delicioso."
However, not everyone is comfortable with Rudoren’s culinary creation.
One anonymous foodie told the Washington Free Beacon that he is uncomfortable with Rudoren taking credit for the Cheesies, which he called a clear example of "soft cultural appropriation."
"When westerners appropriate the cultural products of indigenous peoples, they marginalize and other their voices, including their narratives," said the foodie, who requested anonymity in order to more openly discuss Rudoren’s actions.
"As an indigenous American of Ashkenazi-Sephardic heritage, I feel that Rudoren is negating my personhood with her imperialistic Cheesies discourse," the foodie confided.
"We are offended by this faux-creation of taco shells and cheese, melted in an oven manufactured by exploited labor in the capitalist system, and we feel that Rudoren is negating our collective personhood," said the source.
This is not the first time Rudoren has trampled on cultural sensitivities.
On the eve of beginning her job with the NYT, Rudoren came under fire from anti-terrorist activists for engaging in discourse with notorious anti-Israel activists.