What even is food authenticity? Why we guard carbonara, and flatten chicken rice

Food authenticity in cuisine is largely a modern construct rather than an ancient, unbroken tradition, as exemplified by carbonara—a dish that didn't exist before the 1940s and remained fluid with varying ingredients until the late 1990s when its "rigid dogma" solidified. The article argues that we apply authenticity standards inconsistently across cuisines, fiercely policing Italian dishes while celebrating aestheticized versions of Asian food, despite rarely protecting genuine historical lineage. Rather than meaningfully engaging with a dish's actual cultural context and evolution, we often fetishize recent consensus as if it were sacred culinary law.