Lilian Min writes for The Toast about the tangled politics of ugly food:
I grew up in a household that was comfortable with farts, burps, intense smells, and food that facilitated all of the above. My dad would eat raw garlic and chase my sister and me around the kitchen, and then the whole family would sit down for dinner rich in not just garlic, but also ginger, hoisin sauce, black vinegar, sesame oil, and a thousand other strong scents and flavors. By virtue of my grandmother’s cooking style, and later my mother’s cooking style, the food I grew up with was spiced, sauced, and sublime. Most of it was also, in hindsight, very ugly.
