Photo: Ben & Jerry’s Boston Twitter
You may have heard that Ben & Jerry’s recently put out a Jeremy Lin ice cream with Fortune Cookie bits at its Harvard Square store. However they soon replaced the fortune cookie with waffle cone, partly because a few people were offended and because the cookie got soggy.
Personally, I don’t think fortune cookies should be taken as offense. It’s actually something to be proud of. One of the great contributions American Asians have brought to this side of the world is the food culture –food that has become American. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.
My parents are Chinese immigrants who owned American Chinese restaurants …and so did many of my aunts, uncles and cousins who moved here. They all served fortune cookies at the end of the meal. Does that make them racist?
Now if you had a Yao Ming ice cream with fortune cookies, that would be racist, since they don’t really have fortune cookies in China. I think his would be Red Bean flavor.
I’m assuming Jeremy Lin wouldn’t take offense to having Fortune Cookies in his ice cream. If you didn’t know, Lin’s old Xanga screen-name was “ChinkBalla88“. Although offensive or not, people should know better when they make a ESPN headline.
I think if you’re going to have a celebrity-inspired food, you should make some kind of connection. Or else you’ll end up like Shake Shack with their Jeremy Lin-Mint Shake (Chocolate Chip Mint Cookie) which is basically slapping his name on a random thing to make money. Now that’s offensive.
Ben & Jerry’s Taste the Lin-Sanity (Vanilla Frozen Yogurt with Lychee Honey swirls and Fortune Cookie Bits) makes sense. I even thought Fortune Cookie would be a good ingredient when I talked about the Shake Shack shake. And why is that the Fortune Cookie is racist and not the Lychee? Fortune Cookie is the one that’s Asian American. That’s what Jeremy Lin is.
Anyway, that’s my thoughts, being that I’m likely the leading politically incorrect ABC food blogger in the world –Me So Hungry. I’ve come a long way though. You should read my earliest posts when I wrote in broken Engrish.
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