People who think food can’t be authentic unless it’s made in the place it originated

One of my genuine pet peeves is people who insist that a food cannot possibly be authentic unless it was physically made in the geographical location where it originated.

I can understand geography mattering when geography actually changes the food.

If a dish depends on some extremely local ingredient that is only available fresh in a particular region, or if shipping, freezing, storage, climate, water, fermentation conditions, etc. materially change the ingredient, then sure. Something made with freshly harvested seafood from the Chesapeake Bay may not be exactly the same after that seafood has been frozen, shipped 2,000 miles, thawed, and cooked somewhere else.

That makes sense because you can actually point to something about the food that changed.

What I don't understand is the idea that the geographical location itself magically determines authenticity.

If someone learns a traditional recipe in Mexico, moves to Nevada, buys the same ingredients, uses the same techniques, follows the same recipe, and makes the same dish, what exactly happened when they crossed the border that made the recipe stop being authentic?

Did the recipe expire at customs?

Did the spices detect a change in latitude?

Did the cooking technique lose its cultural identity somewhere around Arizona?

Food traditions travel because people travel. Recipes travel. Techniques travel. Ingredients travel. Entire cuisines have spread around the world because human beings have been migrating, trading, marrying, opening restaurants, teaching their children, and carrying their food traditions with them for thousands of years.

And obviously, "authentic" doesn't mean every restaurant claiming to serve a particular cuisine is automatically authentic. Recipes can be altered. Ingredients can be substituted. Techniques can be changed. Dishes can be adapted for another market until they're barely recognizable.

Those are actual things you can discuss.

But if your entire argument is basically, "It wasn't cooked inside this particular patch of Earth, therefore it cannot be authentic," then I need somebody to explain what physical transformation supposedly occurs when the ingredients cross that invisible man-made line on a map.

Because unless geography actually changes an ingredient or the process, the stove doesn't know what state, province, or country it's sitting in.