I'm obviously not talking about what could rightly be described as refugees. I'm talking about people who moved away from areas that more or less worked, just not for them for some reason.
I moved around a fair bit as a military wife. Every single move caused dietary changes, in spite of dietary restrictions and being a creature of habit.
There are always things that I'm happy to eat, but they are more convenient, cheaper, whatever in one place than another. I learned to like pineapple the first time I lived in Washington state. You can get it fresh year round at reasonable prices. Growing up in Georgia, I mostly knew pineapple as canned pineapple and couldn't fathom why anyone ate this stuff. But fresh pineapple is entirely different.
Even if you are trying to faithfully recreate dishes from back home, they will tend to morph a bit because conditions are different and you just can't find the exact same ingredients or recreate the exact same processes, etc.
So some things morph naturally, without a plan.
I have also found that with travel, I was able to discover foods that work for me that are similar to favorite foods and more accurately determine why, exactly, I like those foods. This may not happen if you don't travel because X works, X is available consistently, you have no particular reason to think too deeply about "but exactly why do I like X?"
Still, to move and adapt to new settings arguably requires the first wave to be "the best and brightest." If you aren't that bright, you better up your game if you want to survive. I don't doubt that happens at times.
I'm not talking about refugees per se either, simply the median immigrant. Who, in the United States at least, was neither a refugee nor solitary, but someone who moved from the home of their co-ethnics to an enclave of the same.
I've done a fair amount of migration of my own, over the years. Your observations concerning it are familiar. This:
> Even if you are trying to faithfully recreate dishes from back home, they will tend to morph a bit because conditions are different and you just can't find the exact same ingredients or recreate the exact same processes, etc.
Is a solid description of the mechanism (one at least) behind the Pizza Effect.
I'm not trying to win an argument. I don't think either of these explanations needs to trump the other.
I homeschooled my twice exceptional sons and did some pro bono professional work for an education organization as support for that effort. This helped me get to a gifted conference where I was a low level presenter.
So I've thought quite a lot about people that don't readily fit in, what makes them not fit in and how people successfully cope. That background helps inform my opinion that some folks recognize that it's an uphill battle they really don't want to fight and that going elsewhere is the better option.
People who are somewhat socially savvy show up in new environments and often know how to package themselves to their advantage. If you are strange to people in your home town, you're the weirdo everyone picks on. If you go somewhere new, you may be able to package yourself as "exotic" and interesting rather than the weirdo no one wants to listen to.
It's fine if the entire internet thinks I'm silly and clueless and uninformed and can't support my argument. I'm not making an argument. I'm just talking and trying to explain my point of view, why I have it, where it comes from and why I think it's worth contemplating.
I realize that not how most people engage. Most people on the internet are arguing a thing, expect there to be two and only two points of view and insist one of those needs to win and the other needs to lose. I see life in a much more Technicolor, vibrant fashion and I don't even desire to reduce it down to shades of grey. There's so much more to life than that and I like the complexity of it.
Have a great evening, or whatever time it is where your body resides on planet Earth. I'm gonna play some games and deal with my life.
> If you go somewhere new, you may be able to package yourself as "exotic"
That's one of my favourite things about working/living away from home - you can present your personal quirks as national quirks, and people accept them without batting an eyelid
No one in the Deep South ever saw me as sounding or behaving "Southern." My father was career military and originally from Indiana. My mother is a German immigrant. I never really fit in anywhere while growing up.
When I hit Utah, people began identifying me as Southern. My Southern accent is more apparent to the ear of people west of the Rockies than anywhere else and they are happy to talk about me as having "Southern charm and manners."
It's easier to say nice things about a person if you chalk it up to their culture. There's less danger of it going weird and problematic places than if you attribute it to them as an individual.
It doesn't put pressure on them to be perfect and always live up to your high expectations of them. They get to still be a person with good days and bad who can't always get it right while being given credit for generally being more of something than is typical for most people around these parts.
On a lighter note, I've always hated pineapple, even fresh, until a friend put salt on one. Salted pineapple is super. I don't know how common this is around the world, she grew up in Vietnam.
I moved around a fair bit as a military wife. Every single move caused dietary changes, in spite of dietary restrictions and being a creature of habit.
There are always things that I'm happy to eat, but they are more convenient, cheaper, whatever in one place than another. I learned to like pineapple the first time I lived in Washington state. You can get it fresh year round at reasonable prices. Growing up in Georgia, I mostly knew pineapple as canned pineapple and couldn't fathom why anyone ate this stuff. But fresh pineapple is entirely different.
Even if you are trying to faithfully recreate dishes from back home, they will tend to morph a bit because conditions are different and you just can't find the exact same ingredients or recreate the exact same processes, etc.
So some things morph naturally, without a plan.
I have also found that with travel, I was able to discover foods that work for me that are similar to favorite foods and more accurately determine why, exactly, I like those foods. This may not happen if you don't travel because X works, X is available consistently, you have no particular reason to think too deeply about "but exactly why do I like X?"
Still, to move and adapt to new settings arguably requires the first wave to be "the best and brightest." If you aren't that bright, you better up your game if you want to survive. I don't doubt that happens at times.