2629 Foodways vs. cuisine

Sigh. There is no American cuisine. Donna Gabaccia has one of the more interesting essays in "Companion to American Immigration" (2006), writing about the diversity of American food (p.443-470). I thought food exchanges were for dieters--but it turns out it is what immigrants do as they trade spaghetti, yams, spices, and pork for what they are used to. I think she is a bit conflicted, however. Next to one of the librarian writers I occasionally read [Hi Walt!], she has more parenthetical qualifiers than corn kernels on a cob at a 4th of July picnic. She has written extensively on this topic, so perhaps one of her other works (which she cites) allows her more leeway.

I've only read about 5 of these essays, skipping to the topics that most interest me, but it's noticeable that if your family did get here before 1850, you are part of the problem. I suspect this is the trend in any textbook prepared by today's scholars. And even if they came during the "mass immigration" of the late 19th and early 20th, if they went from poverty to being fabulously successful, college educated who launched businesses or became CEOs, you are also part of the problem. Mainly because the very subtle undercurrent in this title is that nothing good can come of being a mainstream, native born American.

And pity me and mine! Descriptions for us, our food tastes, our habits that may be rooted in Britain or northern Europe, are noted as 1) culinary nationalism, 2) "Glory, God and Gold," 3) "aping the life of the gentry," 4) "moral rectitude," 5) "established patrinomies" 6) Protestant, 7) mass-produced, 8) white bread, and "religious hostility to alcohol."

Remember the 19th century saloon we learned about in American history class that took the food out of the mouths of children and gave rise to the Hull Houses of the cities? Not to worry. It's all been cleaned up. Now it is just delightful ethnic diversity of foodways. "For the Irish, drinking their own darker brews and whiskies in the equivalent of old world public housesmay have provided a sense of communalism as much as a shared meal of potatoes, porridge, or cabbage."

Well, isn't that a classy spin for falling-down-drunk laborers whose pay never made it home!