Stop Apologizing for "Inauthentic" Food
I'm so tired of recipe bloggers apologizing for their creativity.
I stumbled across this colcannon soup recipe yesterday, and right there in the description, the author felt compelled to write: "I'm pretty sure this isn't a traditional soup in Ireland, so I make no claims for authenticity here."
Like... why are we doing this to ourselves?
This whole authenticity obsession in food culture has gotten completely out of hand. We've created this weird environment where home cooks feel guilty for taking a traditional Irish mashed potato dish and turning it into soup. As if somewhere in County Cork, an elderly grandmother is weeping into her tea because someone dared to add broth to her colcannon.
The Problem with Food Purity Tests
Look, I get it. Cultural appropriation is real, and respect for food traditions matters. But there's a massive difference between understanding the history behind a dish and treating recipes like sacred texts that can never be modified.
My own family's "traditional" dumplings? My grandmother learned them from a neighbor who learned them from someone else who probably bastardized them from whatever they could remember from three provinces over. Food has always traveled, evolved, and adapted. That's literally how we got... well, every dish that exists.
The colcannon soup that sparked this rant? It's actually brilliant. Take the core components of traditional Irish colcannon - potatoes, kale, cream, and aromatics - and reimagine them in soup form. The flavors make perfect sense together. The technique is sound. The result is probably delicious.
But instead of celebrating that creativity, we're stuck in this apologetic mindset.
Why This Recipe Actually Works
Let's talk about why transforming colcannon into soup isn't culinary heresy - it's culinary intelligence.
Traditional colcannon is essentially creamy mashed potatoes loaded with kale and butter. The flavor profile relies on:
- Starchy potatoes providing richness and body
- Kale adding mineral earthiness and slight bitterness
- Dairy (usually butter and cream) for fat and luxury
- Aromatics like garlic and sometimes leeks for depth
Now look at what makes a great potato soup:
- Starchy potatoes for thickness and comfort
- Vegetables for complexity and nutrition
- Dairy for richness
- Aromatics for flavor foundation
The flavor logic is identical. The only difference is texture and serving method.
This recipe takes those traditional colcannon ingredients and optimizes them for soup preparation. The leeks get sautéed to develop sweetness. The potatoes get partially blended to create that perfect thick-but-not-gluey consistency that makes potato soups so satisfying. The kale gets wilted in at the end to maintain some texture and color.
And then - here's where it gets interesting - they add cheddar cheese. Sharp white cheddar that amplifies the Irish connection while making the soup even more indulgent.
Is this traditional? No. Is it respectful to the source material? Absolutely. Is it probably better than 90% of the boring potato soups out there? I'd bet money on it.
The Innovation Sweet Spot
There's this sweet spot in cooking where you understand traditional techniques and flavors well enough to play with them intelligently. This colcannon soup sits right in that zone.
The author clearly gets what makes colcannon work. They're not just throwing random Irish ingredients into a pot and calling it fusion. They've thought through how each component functions in the original dish and how to translate those functions into soup format.
The bay leaves? Classic move for building depth in long-simmered dishes. The immersion blending technique? Smart way to get creamy texture without losing all the potato chunks. Adding the kale at the end? Preserves color and prevents it from getting completely mushy.
These aren't random choices. This is someone who understands both the source material and soup-making principles.
What Home Cooks Can Learn
This whole authenticity anxiety thing is holding us back in the kitchen. I see it constantly - people afraid to substitute ingredients they don't have, worried about "doing it wrong," apologizing for adaptations that are actually improvements.
Here's what I wish more home cooks understood:
Recipes are frameworks, not laws. That colcannon soup? Use it as inspiration. Don't have kale? Try cabbage or spinach or whatever greens you've got wilting in your cridge. Lactose intolerant? Figure out a dairy-free version. Hate leeks? Use onions.
Understanding flavor principles matters more than following instructions. If you get why certain ingredients work together, you can adapt recipes to your taste, dietary needs, and what's actually available in your area.
Most "traditional" dishes have been evolving for centuries anyway. The potatoes in Irish colcannon? Those didn't exist in Ireland until the 16th century. Should we consider pre-potato Irish cooking more "authentic"? The whole concept gets absurd pretty quickly.
The Real Question
Instead of asking "Is this authentic?" maybe we should be asking "Is this delicious?" and "Does this show respect for the ingredients and techniques that inspired it?"
This colcannon soup passes both tests. It takes the best parts of a beloved traditional dish and reimagines them in a format that's probably easier to make and serve for most home cooks. The suggested variations - adding bacon, using cabbage instead of kale, incorporating other vegetables - show the kind of flexible thinking that makes cooking fun instead of stressful.
You know what's actually disrespectful to food traditions? Never cooking them at all because you're too intimidated by authenticity police to try.
Cook Fearlessly
I'm not saying tradition doesn't matter. Understanding where dishes come from, why certain techniques developed, and what ingredients were originally used - that's all valuable knowledge that makes you a better cook.
But that knowledge should liberate you, not paralyze you.
So here's my challenge: find a traditional recipe that intrigues you, understand what makes it work, then figure out how to adapt it for your life. Maybe that's turning a classic braise into a soup like this colcannon example. Maybe it's making dumplings with whatever flour you can actually buy at your local store. Maybe it's adapting your grandmother's casserole recipe for your Instant Pot.
Stop apologizing for making food your own. The grandmothers and great-grandmothers who developed these "traditional" recipes? They were adapting and improvising constantly, working with what they had, making things work for their families and their circumstances.
They'd probably be thrilled to see their techniques living on in new forms, feeding new generations, bringing comfort to people they'd never meet.
That's not cultural appropriation. That's how food culture actually works.
Now go make that soup. And when someone asks if it's "authentic," tell them it's something better: it's yours.
