Especially in food.
Authenticity is one of those words people throw around like it’s a moral badge you earn by never deviating from the script. In food, it becomes even louder. Everyone wants the “authentic” biryani, the “authentic” tacos, the “authentic” Neapolitan pizza—as if cuisine is a museum exhibit behind a glass wall you aren’t supposed to breathe on.
But the truth is simpler and far more uncomfortable:
Authenticity is a feeling, not a recipe.
Thus, it’s a moving target—like the fifty different stories about the origins and creation of butter chicken.
Cuisine has never been static. Every dish we now defend as “authentic” was, at some point, a provocation. Tomatoes weren’t native to Italy. Chillies didn’t grow in India until traders dropped them off. The Lucknow biryani I chased was a Persian blueprint reinterpreted by local hands, ingredients and temperament.
Even the pizza legends I’ve studied over the past few months—Lucali, L’Industrie, Best Pizza—aren’t cooking Naples. They’re cooking themselves. Their block, their upbringing, their palate, their rebellion.
Authenticity tries to hold food hostage to the past. But great cuisine is built by people who respect the past enough to study it, then disrespect it enough to move beyond it.
The actual question isn’t “Is this authentic?”
Does this feel honest? Does it taste good? Does it carry intention?
I’ve eaten dishes cooked by people who followed every rule, and the food still landed flat. And I’ve had food made by someone who broke every rule but cooked with clarity, conviction and curiosity—and that was the dish that stayed with me.
“Authentic cuisine” is often just cuisine that hasn’t been challenged yet.
The real work is in evolution. In interpretation. In filtering a tradition through your own hands and allowing your lived experience to shape flavour, not mimic it.
That’s why I think authenticity is overrated.
Not because tradition doesn’t matter. It does. It grounds you and gives you a language to build on. Understanding where you come from gives your food a definition that makes sense, rather than turning fusion into a mess of ideas thrown together.
Food shouldn’t be about recreating the past.
It should be about honouring it by cooking in the present.