The burritos from the recently-launched Portland-based food truck Kook’s look delicious. But did you realize that they are actually a cultural crime against the people of Mexico?
In a story that could be a Portlandia sketch, the two owners of Kook’s Burritos faced backlash from social justice warriors accusing them of “culturally appropriating” Latin cultures with their tortilla recipe.
On May 16, the Portland-based news site Willamette Week ran a story about Kali Wilgus and Liz Connelly, two young women who were inspired to start their business after a trip to Mexico. In the story, Connelly said the two developed their tortilla recipe on their trip, saying, “I picked the brains of every tortilla lady there in the worst broken Spanish ever, and they showed me a little of what they did.”
The two entrepreneurs also described observing how the locals rolled out their tortillas by hand.
Apparently for some snowflakes, this was not a genuine exchange between cultures, but a heartless theft of intellectual property. The website Mic ran a story titled “These white cooks bragged about stealing recipes from Mexico to start a Portland business.”
Another local outlet actually described the women’s actions as “predatory,” and insisted that the Mexican cooks who they observed “clearly didn’t want to give them” their recipes and methods.
Reviewers on Yelp were even more merciless.
“How would you people feel if I went and spied on your family or business recipes and took it somewhere else for my own financial benefit? This is stealing…” writes reviewer Olivia L. of Northeast Portland.
Raheela K. of Los Angeles writes, “These women stole these recipes from hardworking [sic] women in Mexico.”
There is now even a Google Doc floating around with a list of alternatives to “white-owned appropriative restaurants in Portland.” Someone please alert Portland’s white-owned Taco Bell franchises.
If you’re in the Portland area and interested in picking up some delicious cultural appropriation, you are out of luck. Kook’s Burritos closed shortly after their interview appeared last week.