The other day, I helped my mom make Hyderbadi chicken biryani for dinner. Throughout an afternoon of labor-intensive cooking, we roasted chicken marinated in chili powder, yogurt, lime juice and countless whole spices. We sautéed onions in ghee, layered rice and meat, and warmed it to perfection. When I later sat down to eat with my family, I was filled with an excitement that can only come from sharing good food. And then, in the middle of dinner, my dad uttered a phrase that would send me reeling. “Rishi,” he said, “could you pass the plate?”
Suddenly, my eyes filled with tears. My breathing became shallow. I heard aggressively chirpy music. My surroundings dissipated. The table, the biryani, my family - all gone. Pass the plate. Pass the PLATE. As the world disappeared, I suddenly saw a face appear. Was it God? Was it a spirit? Was it a visual aberration? No. It was Brenda Song. As I looked at her in awe, she said to me: “Remember….no matter where we live, food can always bring us together. We just have to pass the plate.”
In an instant, it all came back to me. Of course! This was the iconic line Song used to end every episode of Disney Channel’s Pass the Plate, a short-segment show that would appear during commercial breaks. Every episode consisted of Song introducing a specific kind of food (such as tomatoes, rice, bananas, etc.), and then Disney Channel stars from around the globe would share how their country commonly prepares a dish using said ingredient. In the grand scheme of Disney Channel’s history, the show might seem like a minor footnote, but I’ll be damned if some of y’all didn’t have the exact same reaction I had when you were reminded of this show.
When I reminisce on Pass the Plate, I have fond memories of stars from Disney Channel India making fluffy idlis while stars from Disney Channel Italy ate decadent rice salad. I remember learning about the bento box, poisson en papillote, and congee, and trying to figure out where I could try these dishes. Like every piece of Disney Channel programming, Pass the Plate was charming, breezy, and electrifyingly corny. I was entertained as hell!
Disney Channel greenlit Pass the Plate in 2007 as part of their global effort to encourage children to eat healthier (god bless Veggie Propaganda). Disney Channel president Rich Ross teamed up with culinary educator David Glickman, Healthy Kids Initiative director Kelly Pena, and content creator Jill Hotchkiss to bring this series to life. The show would run for several years with different hosts, but its seasons with Brenda Song remain the most beloved. This is not a fact. This is my opinion. If you disagree, write your own retrospective. We need more commentary on this.
It doesn't take much to see the show as the potential beginning of Generation Z and millennials’ obsession with food media. Would we have so gamely followed Guy Fieri to Flavortown if we hadn’t first followed Brenda? Would we care about the folks in Bon Appetit’s Test Kitchen if we hadn’t already visited kitchens around the world as tweens? Would we be as addicted to Instagram food porn accounts if Disney hadn't first shown us the way?
Pass the Plate may have been short in duration, but that does not mean its flaws went unnoticed. Was this show the beginning of non-white chefs having to simplify their food for white America? On the show, international hosts were tasked with explaining one dish to an American audience and forced to rely on facile comparisons to recognizable western foods. Idlis were described as Indian rice patties, while frikkadels became South African meatballs. Different cultural delicacies were regularly identified in relation to “American” offerings, instead of being given their own standalone identities.
This unfortunate practice persists in the increasingly popular world of food media. Bon Appetit editors recently received backlash for describing Kadhi as “turmeric yogurt soup,” while other media outlets have gotten flack for explaining Dosas as “savory crepes.” When shows and publications simplify and compare culinary dishes, many start to wonder who they are creating content for. While one might forgive Pass the Plate for using this technique to educate young children, they still fell prey to the generalizing trap.
With every episode focusing on a single type of food, Pass the Plate prided itself on its ability to explore cuisines around the world; and yet, how accurate are we truly being when we present a single dish and single person to represent a country? Are you telling me the only Italian dish to use rice is rice salad? That mango lassi is the only mango dish in India? You see a benign showcase of one cultural dish, while I see the flattening of an entire culture. Add in the fact that every country’s segment was accompanied with the most offensively stereotypical music (a slow accordion for France, chimes and reeds for China) and you begin to wonder how much research was actually put into this whole operation!
The more you consider Pass the Plate, the more you realize that it was never about the food, the culture, or even Brenda Song. The show was a corporate solution to a national mandate: make children healthier. And like most public corporate solutions, it obscured its calculated machinations through diverse branding, shrewd slogans, and aggressively charming communication. Its aims may have been noble, but its publicized mission was never its actual goal. Before you accuse me of ruining an iconic childhood artifact, I implore you to hear my words! If Pass the Plate must live on, it must live on in its full thorny complexity.
As I recovered from my emotional moment at dinner that fateful night, I ran to YouTube in search of clips from the show. I clicked my cursor and began my binge. The show was everything I remembered it to be. I smiled nervously as I watched international Disney Channel stars gamely try to mimic authentic American tween energy while still performing their cultures for the world. I laughed as Song delivered corny jokes with her standard effervescence. And I salivated at the sight of every meal.
Is Pass the Plate the reason I made that biryani? Probably not, but if this article was supposed to do anything it was to remind you that this show was a THING. It existed! It happened! And like most things from our childhood, it was both charming and messy. So let Brenda Song lead you on a delicious trip around the world, especially since we are living in a time when travel seems like the last thing possible. Let yourself feel all that you can possibly feel over the course of 3 minutes while keeping in mind that things you idealized from your childhood may not be as innocent as they seem. And then go eat the meal of your dreams with people you love. Life is truly better when we pass the plate!