Recently the New York restaurant scene went into a tizzy when the famous (or infamous) Guide Michelin rated New York restaurants for the first time. (See NY Times article.) Michelin, a bastion of French snobbery on a subject about which the French are the most snobby, snubbed a huge number of high quality NY restaurants. Only 8 restaurants managed 2 or 3 stars, and about 30 more got 1 star. What really raised hackles, though, was the almost complete lack of any ethnic cuisine on Guide Michelin's lists. Surprise, surprise: was almost entirely French and Italian. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that the French are elitist ethnocentrists about their food and culture – didn't you know that they invented both?

But my wife made an interesting observation this morning while we were talking about the riots that have now spread to immigrant communities throughout France. The New York Times attributed the cause of unrest to France's longstanding immigration policies, which attempt to mask ethnic identities in the name of a unified French identity. This, for example, is the motivation for the ban on wearing Muslim head-coverings in public schools. Now, finally, immigrants who have been treated as second-class citizens are upset. And while I don't condone rioting, I can't say that I'm surprised it's happening.

While it might seem a bit callous to draw a comparison between the Michelin Guide and ethnic rioting, I think they stem from similar ills, and we shouldn't be above noting that serious social issues and other elements of culture such as food and language share many of the same values. In this case those values are arrogance, haughty ethnocentrism, and bold indifference.

If my time at the French Culinary Institute taught me anything, it's that it is too much, to ask the French to recognize other cuisines as equal. French cooking, right down to the basic methods, is based on a total disregard for everything but the decadence and purity of flavor. But you would think that French policies might have learned from the huge number of ongoing, worldwide ethnic conflicts that result from base inequalities. Hurricane Katrina showed us that those same inequalities are still powerful in the US, sometimes under the surface, sometimes breaking out.

After reading through, I feel I need a small word of qualification. I hate overgeneralization, and it's not fair to vilify the French as a whole for their country's culinary history or politics.