National Dish

A national dish is a dish, food or a drink that is considered to represent a particular country, nation or region.

A dish can become a national dish for a variety of reasons. It can be the national dish because it is a staple daily food for the majority of the population. It can also be the national dish because it represents the regions and ethnicities of the whole country. In addition, it can be the national dish because it incorporates locally produced ingredients. National dishes are part of a nation's identity and self-image. During the age of European empire-building, nations consciously developed a national cuisine as a matter of distinction from their rivals.

In Latin America, such dishes are both officially and unofficially designated as "plato nacional". Ironically, in many cases they transcend national borders. Both Peru and Ecuador claim ceviche as their national dish. Colombian ajiaco and the sancocho of the Dominican Republic, Colombia, and Panama, all of which are stews of meats, plaintains, and root vegetables are the plato nacional of them all. Zilka Janer, lecturer on Latin American culture at Hofstra University observes that this sharing of the same plato nacional by different countries calls into question the idea that every country has a unique national dish that is special to that country, and indicates, rather, that cuisine is something that does not respect national and geopolitical borders.

Janer also observes that it is "impossible" to choose a single national dish, even unofficially, for countries such as Mexico, because of their broad diversity of ethnic populations and cultures. The cuisine of such countries simply cannot be represented by one, single, national dish. Furthermore, the fact that national dishes are so interwoven with a nation's sense of identity, strong emotions and conflicts can arise over what a country's national dish actually is.

The identification of Latin American national dishes is stronger, Janer notes, amongst expatriate communities in North America. In Latin American countries, the plato nacional is usually part of the cuisine of rural and peasant communities, and not part of the everyday cuisine of city dwellers at all. But in expatriate communities, they are strongly reclaimed in order to retain the communities' senses of national identity, and ties to one's homeland, and proudly served in homes and restaurants. This is a reaction on the parts of those communities that is attempting to resist social pressures that push to homogenize such ethnically and culturally diverse communities into single all-encompassing group identities such as Latinos or Hispanic Americans.

For the culturally and ethnically diverse nation such as Indonesia, the national dishes are not just staple, popular or ubiquitous dishes such as nasi goreng or gado-gado. It may also be considered as the dishes that transcend cultural and ethnics differences, yet still retain common Indonesian cuisine traits. It has to be able to cross boundaries of diverse Indonesian culture and ethnic groups. As a result, it is impossible to nominate a single national dish of Indonesia. sate (satay) and soto are good examples of Indonesian national dishes, since there is no singular satay or soto recipes. Both dishes have myriad variations and recipes and are adopted regionally across Indonesia. However, culinary influence is not a concept that respects national boundaries, since satay is also popular in neighboring Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand.