(CNN) — On July 8, Malaysian comedian Nigel Ng uploaded to YouTube a video titled "DISGUSTED by this Egg Fried Rice Video," under his comedic persona "Uncle Roger."
In the video, Ng slammed BBC Food presenter Hersha Patel's unconventional way of cooking Chinese-style egg-fried rice, which included draining the rice through a strainer after boiling.
"What she doing? Oh my god. You're killing me, woman. Drain the -- she's draining rice with colander! How can you drain rice with colander? This is not pasta!" he exclaimed.
Shortly afterward, he groaned, "You're ruining the rice," as Patel used tap water to wash it of starch.
What Ng intended to be a comedic video sparked a firestorm of dismay and disbelief as it ricocheted around the internet, gaining more than 7 million views on YouTube and nearly 40 million on Twitter.
Many viewers, including Asian-American celebrities such as writer Jenny Yang, derided Patel's methods for departing from how Chinese egg-fried rice is traditionally made. Patel hadn't washed the rice before boiling it. She had added too much water. She should have used day-old rice. The scrambled egg was overcooked instead of runny.
Ng, who is based in London, tried to defuse the situation by filming a short clip with Patel announcing they are planning a collaboration. "While this guy's blown up like nobody's business, I've been trolled," Patel said in the video, claiming she had been simply presenting the BBC's recipe and that "I know how to cook rice."
The BBC has not publicly commented on Ng's or Patel's remarks.
Rice is a staple ingredient in Asia, and has been adopted by cuisines globally since it was first domesticated in China more than 9,400 years ago, according to Chinese researchers. There are countless ways to prepare rice -- you can steam it, fry it, simmer it slowly in broth like Italian risotto or scorch it to develop a crispy crust like Iranian tahdig.
But the issue at hand goes beyond a difference in opinion on the varying methods of cooking rice.
The controversy over the BBC Food clip, and the reaction it provoked within certain Asian communities, speaks to a broader, long-standing debate about the intersection of food, ethnicity and culture -- the fundamental question of who is allowed to cook what food.
Appropriating and whitewashing food
Countless White chefs in recent years have been accused of cultural appropriation by creating food from other ethnic groups using methods and phrases that are deemed "unauthentic," disrespectful, and sometimes outright racist.
Last year, for instance, an Asian food critic accused celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay of tokenism, after he launched a restaurant described in promotional material as "an authentic Asian eating house."
The restaurant didn't differentiate between wildly different and unique types of Asian cuisines, lumping them all together as generically Asian. And at the time of the opening, it did not appear to have any Asian chefs.
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