The Role of Algorithms in Food Culture

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And today we're talking about One of the most recognizable shapes Items of food What's to say about it Ovolular Ovular, yes, round bouncy No, I would not disgray. Depending on what stage we're talking about What state it's in? What state it's in? Okay, we're talking about eggs. Are you an egg woman? I really do need to disclose that I'm not an egg lover. Okay. I'm not an egg hater. If an egg tastes too much like an egg and some people who are listening to this are going to know immediately what I'm talking about, It's done. Like I'm not into it. I understand that perspective. I don't share it, but I understand it So we got an email from a listener named Scott Have you been following the you slash as in user heavy tech eighty six pickle saga on R slash pickling This dude's pickled eggs and sausage recipe has taken off and lots of folks are making it and posting be a rabbit hole to investigate Peace Let's start with Heavy tech eighty six. as near as I can tell by creeping on his Reddit posts, his Reddit history His username may give you a hint of this Heavy tech, right So he works in some level of like industrial work. So I know he talks about concrete slurry in some of his posts, makes something called cowboy candy with his hot peppers from his garden whichich is, I believe pickled peppers All right So this is what heavy tech eighty six is into. just, you know, regular chill stuff. about his life until you get to about a month ago from when we were taping this And it's not actually that interesting like it's not when you see this post that went viral It's not like, oh my God, of course this went viral. So let me just, I'm going to copy the post that went viral. send it to you Okay. Yeah. I'm sorry. I just opened it and I have to say That's not when I think of virality, I wouldn't have thought of this. but no Right? Doesn't Yeah. So If you want me to describe it. Yeah. it's like one of those really tall mason jars. There's a bunch of eggs in some sort of liquid. I'm presuming vinegar or some kind of brine a bunch of like Orangey carrot things and like a few peppers. But there's sausage in there too Oh, I see the sausage now. I thought those were h slices of sausage. So we're talking about We're talking about pickled sausage and eggs whichich again, that's like doubly bold. That's a lot of animal protein inside of something that's not going to be cold necessarily. What's crazy is when you look I'm just like look in the pickling subreddit for a minute. I know. Everybody is making it, dude. And they're still making it. Like this still started talking about this weeks ago and people are still making it. This is basically this is now a sausage and pickled eggs subreddit. It's a takeover. subreddit, right? It's not a hostile takeover, but it is a takeover Everyone is making heavy tex eggs. Some of these jars actually look beautiful. I know, I was just looking at one that I was like, okay, Instagram, right? Beautiful. It's kind of art of its own thing It really is. and now of course like the memes are popping up Dad why is my sister's nameam Rose because your mother loves roses. thanks to dad, no problem heavy te. I don't know. it's just kind of fun and interesting how this one random dude's Yeah tech eighty six, his pickled eggs recipe blew up. and now has like changed the face of the pickling subreddit and everybody seems to be having a good good old grand old time with it. Yeah. And what's interesting to me as well is like, For some people, it's all they can think about. I mean, our editor, Meg Kramer, when we were talking about this story said she hasn't been able to stop thinking about these pickled eggs since we first got that listener email. She hasn't even seen the nice pictures of their. She she just saw like the original picture and she couldn't stop thinking about it. I can't say that that has been my experience, but I think that there's something really I don't know, so much of the internet is so heavy and the algorithm often like really favors content that elic it's either like strong anger or like mostly strong anger. And so it's kind of cool to see this subredit be taken over by an idea for something delicious that everybody is I'm assuming delicious that everybody's enjoying and everybody's having fun with it. I don't know, I think that's kind of great. It's nice Asas u Heavy tech responded or like come to rule their new kingdom, like Where is heavy tech in this Heavy tech's around, Heavy techs poking around, but heavy techs not Like I think it went viral enough and heavy tech is like a working human who benevolent ruler And. Yeah, he made his pickled eggs. he's doing his thing. No big deal. Yeah. I did reach out to him. I have now heard back. And if I do, I will report back. But that's my story about pickled eggs. But you got a story about pickled eggs of some kind, right I have a story about eggs in liquid. Does that qualify as pickling or brazing Find out after the birth. Yeah, why not, why not Sudy Play Come together on a Windows eleven PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the unreal college deal, everything you need to study and play with select Windows eleven PC's. elligible students get a year of Microsoft three hundred sixty five premium, and a year of Xbox GamePass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller Learn more at windows. com slash student offffer. Lawupplies last ends june thirtieth, turns at aka. mS slash collllege PC Do you hear that Sounds like breakfast is ready because Quakers coming in hot with morning nutrition one hundred percent whole grain oats and a good source of fiber to fuel the rhythm of your morning and kickstart your day. And that sounds absolutely delicious. Fuel to start whatever's next. Quaker, official sponsor of FIFA World Cup twenty six I'm Dean Russell, co creator of WBUR's new family friendly podcast, The Midnight Rebellion This story transports you to a future shaped by climate change The water is high, seaweed is everywhere, and the city is ruled by salty robots The good news, you choose what happens. The decisions you make can turn the tide. All episodes are out now. this summer, find your next great adventure at wbar. org slash midnight or wherever you get your podcasts All right, we're back and we're ready to dive into to some more Excellent content. Nice Okay, I promise that's my only egg related punt for the rest of this episode. Oh boy. sitting hon as you can. I know. That's true. It's more just like a failure in creativity. That's all I've got. Excellent is all I've got. so That's just because you're a shell of your former self Oh That's good. That was fast too.mrou I'm proud of you for that one. Well, so you're you're to scramble a little bit, you know what I mean Yeah I to be able to tell this story without laughing.ry. All right. I don't want to make you cack Oh my God. All right, that is your last one. Okay, so Your exgg story came from Reddit Mine comes from TikTok and I have been seeing these particular eggs on TikTok for years. They are boiled eggs, they're marinated in soy sauce and then there's some other ingredients in that little Marinade. you got green onions, sesame seeds other onions. and then once you marinate them in that little mixture When you eat them over rice, they look really jammy and ret scrummedumptious. Nice. So people have referred to these eggs by different names on TikTok in the years that I've been seeing this. Jammy eggs, soy marinated eggs, and that sort of naming thing is kind of at the crux of the story, which we'll get to that in a minute. But they've actually got a specific name. They're called Mayak eggs Korean marinated eggs. They're sometimes referred to as Korean drug eggs because they're so addictive. And you know the origin of this dish is suspected to be from China, but many other Asian countries have their own version of marinated eggs. Japan has a soy marinated egg that is used in ramen and Taiwan and Vietnam also have own version. So this is something that has been around on the internet for a while, but also like just in general culture for like hundreds of years Bad The reason I wanted to talk about these eggs is that even though they've been showing up on my for you page for years, I noticed a pickup in just like the volume of videos about these Mayac eggs late last year and they started with videos from an influencer and content creator named Courney C Okay, these are some of the marinated eggs. These are like the Korean Maya cs, I need to figure out U How to pronounce that? I have some Japanese mayo Oh my gosh, this is exactly what I mean And some French fried onions. This was just so darn delicious. Courtney is chomping on these eggs in the morning before for her breakfast. She films a lot of videos of her just like she takes a bite out of the top of the egg, puts a little bit of crunchy onions and then sort of dives in. And people, they love these videos from Courtney and they start making their own version of the Mayac eggs Only there's one problem They're calling the eggs Courtney Cooks eggs We're making Courtney cooks, soy marinated eggs. Now what's me to tryack Courtney's soy eggs? Or what are you eating I'm beating marinated eggs. Soy sauce, marinated eggs a little dollop of mayo and crispy onions. Where Wh's this from? Oh man. I mean, is that it's not it's probably not Courtney's fault necessarily I'm not saying she's completely innocent either but Yeah, and we're going to get into some opinions because I think it's kind of it is a little bit of a murky picture. But there was a lot of Asian American creators who were really unhappy about this because here they are seeing this egg. and yeah, like it's been called different things online before, like jammy eggs, soy marinated eggs what's happening right now is that This recipe from their heritage is being attributed to a white creen like Courtney, this is her invention, this is her creation. Here's one creator who goes by the username at Kayla Wang Ton. She's responding to a video of a white woman who posted a video making the eggs with the text Qote so chronically online, I'm putting my hard boiled eggs in a soy sauce bath And then the caption of that video says in Courtney, We Trust What do you mean, you're chronically online? so now you're making soy marinated eggs as it's like soy sauce And eggs are such a crazy combination to them And then they're not even giving credit to like Asian people. They're giving credit to Courtney Cook, which I love Courtney Cook. Like I always watch your videos, but just calling it Uh Sould with the caption saying, than you for sharing your delicious food with us God And then here's one more clip I want to play from a TikTok video by someone who goes by the username at Princess Pauli The problem with I have accord to Kirk also is that She kind of in comments and videos says that her food combinations are weird, and that's what she says over and over Yet your most popular videos are all the ones of you eating Asian food you want to keep saying things are weird There's another layer here too that, you know, many Asian Americans who grew up in this country, grew up having their food made fun of. Absolutely. Oh, that smells or that stinks. I'm well versed in what that experience is like So to sort of see that food now being celebrated is great and is one thing, but I think that there's also a level of like pain and frustration, seeing that food now that it's being celebrated, attributed to someone who isn't part of that community. I mean, it's just it was not going over very well Tk. There are some creators who who felt differently that that, you know, this is This is just kind of how food recipes are online. People appreciate food from other cuisines and they share videos of them making that recipe from that cuisine. This is one more person from TikTok. Their username is at Beefy Boy. Oh, that's me guys That'. Except this creator identified themself as a Korean who was raised It's not me. Never mind. it's not me. No, it's not you. sorry about that Why else are we in America? I'm talking to everybody. Do we need to learn the deep history behind every single thing we eat No, we'll drive ourselves crazy researching everything before we eat it. But let's have respect for one another Let's have respect for one another. Why can't we do that? I have plenty of thoughts about this, but I wanted to give you a chance if there's something that you're thinking about herear in all this It's this tricky thing where it's like you want people to be able to explore the world and to do that in a way that like they can feel safe doing that U And at the same time, you want people to educate themselves about the world that they're in. and in some ways, like that's the first step of the process I love cooking I cook a lot of Asian food. I cook a lot of Mexican food U dumplings,, you know, like I do all of those things and I think over time, I've tried to be conscious of like where I'm learning about that stuff I'm learning from. And in the beginning, I wasn't learning from You know, I wasn't actually learning from the source if that makes sense. I was learning from Yeah these other places where where I experienced it as a, you know, whatever, as a, you know you live in Connecticut or whatever. you know what I mean? Like You're going start from a place of ignorance when you're exploring a culture that isn't yours But hopefully Part of your process is like leaning more into that and acknowledging and understanding the culture better because I think that's better for all of us achieving understanding amongst each other Yeah, and there's so many like interesting parts of this. I will say like I did reach out to Courtney Cook for comment and I did hear back. And her team said that Courtney really believes it's important to give credit, avoid presenting these dishes as her own creations and to approach them with respect. Her team also acknowledged that food naturally moves between communities, particularly online, and that Courtney's intention is always to celebrate, amplify, and not take ownership of the cultures behind the food. So there's that's her response Here's what I think and here's what I've sort of picked up from how people have responded. Like I think that Courney Cook is likely coming from that place of you were talking about, right? Like she enjoys this food, she appreciates this food, she wants to share this food And to a certain degree, like all of us, right? when we're trying recipes from other cultures, there is going to be a like, well, I don't know how to do this but I'm going to try it. And we all sort of adapt and cook recipes from other places all the time But I think what makes this distinct and the issue at hand is Who gets to benefit when something from another culture becomes popular You know, who gets the props for making something delicious? Who gets those potential cooking book deals or the followers, right? Like That is kind of to me where the line gets a little blurry around like who is profiting and who Wh gets to kind of reap the reward of genuinely wonderful, delicious dish from a community of people There's another dish that Courtney Cook sort of came under fire for talking about. It's called Korean Army based stew. She presented as army based stew. Some creators felt like she was erasing the history of that dish because you know erased the Korean war history that was part of the creation of that Korean Amy base stew. And so now when she posts videos about that particular dish, and I've seen in the comments of multiple of those videos, she has the same comment, you know saying, My goal is appreciation, not ownership. This dish has a very difficult history. You should seek out Korean cooks for authentic recipes and read the history of this dish to better understand its origins and significance. So she's like putting that comment under tons of videos about that same dish. And this is a question that I think about when I was researching this episode, which is I think part of the problem here is the algorithm I think the algorithm is pushing videos that get lots of views. And I think the algorithm in general it doesn't usually favor context. So like even if Courtney Cook maybe left a comment of attribution on one of her other videos, maybe you get a video where she didn't. It it raises a lot of questions for me about How does the issue of Credit work on platform where the algorithm is going to continue to push videos from big creators Yeah, it's really man, it's tough. It's it's one of those things. It's tough to tell It's tough for me to tell if this is like an internet thing or a thing that's always existed that's just getting sort of amplified, right? Yeah I think it's both. Yeah, I think it's both maybe. The creators that I feel like I've really come to follow closely and I follow a lot of creators on YouTube who make food? likeike that is specifically how I use YouTube the most is like repairs and food good at being like er either I'm like following like souped up recipes who's like a Chinese woman who's making Chinese food, right or it's like somebody who's saying I went and studied this and have and now I'm showing it to you. opposed to being like, I like these eggs. They're kind of tasty this way I don't I'm not sure what they're called. I think they're called this but I'm not sure And I like it this way. Like that's to me there's like a difference in a level of like research that you're doing before you're going into the world with the thing. Right Wh like a level of responsibility. Yeah, which seems important for that kind of, you know, creation Yeah. And I will say like what you were talking about with is this an internet issue or is this a like societal issue. I think obviously it to me, at least they feel like intertwined because The question of like appppropriation versus appreciation is age old. We're always thinking about it and we should always be interrogating that And the same patterns that play out in society, I think are going to play out online and the algorithm is just going to accelerate them That's how I see it. That sounds not excellent Yeah I was like, you thought we were just gonna to be talking about eggs It's an episode about Tough Cultural issation. Yeah Cultural appropriations always lurking around the world You know, I just hope that people continue to like learn about other parts of the world and that they're like safe to do that and also that they do it with respect with an interest in like learning. Stay curious, stay hungry. I think that's the takeaway for this episode Coiani Sna, thank you very much for down this egg rabbit hole with me And thanks for letting me explore. Oh That just came to me Listeners, if you have a recipe that you love from another culture that you would like to send us, we would love to read it. If you have a folk recipe that you discovered in the pickling subredreddit that you would like to send us, please do. And also like if you have like an egg pun