Honest, Personal Cooking Trumps Authenticity at the CIA Worlds of Flavor

Authenticity can be a trap. Ingredients, techniques, and people migrate across borders and evolve over time. Cooks—at home and in professional kitchens—have quirks, preferences, and personality they express through food. So to insist that there's one true way to make a dish signals some combination of hubris and ignorance. That’s why I was glad when somebody called it out at this year’s Worlds of Flavor at the Culinary...