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Thai. Chinese. Korean BBQ. Mexican tacos. Japanese sushi. Indian curry. Traveling the streets of any major American city is an adventure in culinary globalism. There are more Chinese restaurants than McDonald’s and 1 in 10 restaurants serve Mexican food.
Culinary globalization has robbed American food of its character and the proliferation of fast food and the disintegration of the American family has made cooking into a luxury. And there’s little American left in our food except for its raw ingredients, and even that often harvested by migrant labor in an agricultural system aimed at global exports.
Americans have never been food nationalists and maybe that’s part of the problem. Other countries and cultures zealously advocate for their own cuisines. Thailand’s ‘culinary diplomacy’ planted Thai restaurants around the world, training chefs, subsidizing new eateries as part of a plan to spread its culture abroad and create demand for its food exports. The French resent and litigate when anyone drinks champagne that doesn’t come from the Champagne region. Americans however tend not to care. Worse still we have come to despise our own culture and cuisine.
This may seem trivial, but the British started out despising English cuisine and ended up importing not only the cuisines of the world, but the people who run the takeaways, like the kebab joints where a generation of English girls in former manufacturing towns were sexually assaulted and prostituted. Despising elements of our own culture can start out as a running joke, but end in national humiliation and destruction.
Americans have trouble appreciating our own cuisine because it has all too often come to mean the hybridized immigrant pre-fast foods that vendors evolved on the streets of American cities, like hamburgers, frankfurters, pizza and ice cream cones, and then spread around the world. This American food globalism was denounced by the Europeans, but proved irresistible and became the fast food of the entire planet.
Fast food has no national character except an obsession with convenience and speed over content. And so by 1888 the Boston Globe could observe that, “eating is a matter of business with Americans. They do it as they perform all other kinds of work – on the rush.” The new national character was speed at all costs and it became the international perception of America. But the industrialization of food robbed it of character. Cuisines crumbled under the pressures of mass production. It was easier to add sweeteners, sauces and fats to fake flavor than to take the time to produce dishes with actual taste.
The MAHA or Make America Healthy Again movement questions the healthfulness of fast food, but the larger question may be not whether fast food is healthy for our bodies, but whether it’s healthy for our souls. Fast food and later microwavable TV dinners marked the disintegration of the kitchen and dining room as the center of family life.
One of the conveniences of fast food was that it did not require family or a home.
Before fast food was the dream of McDonald’s and Burger King, it was the dream of the Soviet Union which in its early days planned homes without kitchens to make everyone eat in mass cafeterias. This particular experiment in culinary collectivism sought to eliminate the private space of the family kitchen and place it under state control.
And long before that, slaves in ancient Egypt were fed a diet of thick almost solid beer and crude bread to keep them going. Meals were seen as the province of the wealthy while ancient fast food was for the poor. Adopting fast food impoverished us and put our personal lives and mealtimes at the service of corporations.
American cuisine before the arrival of urban street food took advantage of the rich variety of agriculture and wildlife to be found in colonial America. The early settlers struggled with growing imported grains, but soon found access to a rich variety of foods, native grains, along with animals and birds that they could hunt without worrying about being accused of poaching by some nobleman, and soon the American farmer was enjoying a life that his European peasant counterpart could not even begin to imagine.
American regionalism produced local cuisines from New England to New Orleans that reflected these developing cultures. From pineapple to turtle soup, more exotic foods took on larger meanings and became metaphors for everything from hospitality to artifice. But the pineapple, as a symbol of giving the best to one’s guest, is nearly forgotten except when seen decorating the carvings of older homes and dishes.
Urbanization, industrialization and immigration displaced traditional American foods. The migration to cities was the first disruptive blow to the American family. Large populations of young single men working long hours needed easy eating. And a population of immigrants provided cheap labor by breaking down their native cuisines into something to serve to that itinerant working class mostly male population.
This was followed by the era of orientalism when American culture looked to Asia and the Middle East for models. American elites broadened their former interests in Europe by traveling to exotic third world locations, importing their philosophies, cultures, religions and also cuisines. American elites had looked to Europe as being wiser and deeper than their own culture, now similarly looked down on their own country as backwards and provincial, and looked for inspiration to some of the most backward places in the world.
American cuisine was captured at the top and the bottom, by the elites (and the middle class which copied the habits of their perceived betters), and by the working class. And vital national and regional cuisines were replaced by foreign and fast foods.
Many of these foods are not just unhealthy for individuals, they’re socially and culturally unhealthy for the country. Making American food great again can’t just be about following the constantly changing trends of what is considered “healthy”, but about reviving a national cuisine within the larger context of a national culture.
American cuisines were rooted in the richness of the land, but agribusiness, often owned by foreign money, has appropriated the land to grow export crops. Americans are currently paying record prices for eggs to protect that export business. Mass agribusiness eroded local cuisines and replaced the need for variety with foreign foods.
As Thailand shows us, exporting cuisines is also exporting agriculture, but America now exports raw agricultural materials and imports foreign cuisines. Importing cuisines also imports cultures and immigrants. The globalization of American food is also the globalization of America. The state of our food cannot be separated from the state of our state.
The connection between character and cooking even led Thomas Jefferson to say of the English that, “I suspect it is in their kitchens & not in their churches that their reformation must be worked.” These days, American food is almost in as much of a need of reform as its English counterparts. Making American food great again requires beginning with not just what we eat, but why we eat it and what it says about us.
I keep running into stories about how much beer they drank in olden days, when I read history. I wonder how intoxicated they were?
Intoxicated enough to write stories, that’s for sure.
There was a time when kids could go into a Bar and buy a Pitcher of Beer for their Father at Home
I used to do that! Sort of. I would go to the corner store and buy six packs for my Dad. The Eastern European owners were sensible and knew I wasn’t up to no good. They knew 7 year olds didn’t have money unless their parents gave it to them and weren’t going to go in an alley and booze it up. Milwaukee Wisconsin.
It’s called the GROWLER which started in Baltimore. The neighborhood pub was just that, in THE neighborhood.
“Beer ain’t drinking.” –Ancient Wisdom
I just made some meat loaf and mashed potatoes last night. We’re not all dead.
Why should we allow some idiots to force us to All Go Vegan over the totally false Threat of Climate Change/Global Warming and I was at a McDonnald’s today has Cheese Burgers watched a program showing the Rescuse of a Injured Golden Eagle also saw a lot of Gulls around the Place. And why should we allow those idiots from PETA to try and force their Vegan junk on us
A vegan diet is not a proper human diet. Most Vegans quit after a few years when their health deteriorates over time. There are a number of vitamins that are essential to good health that you just cannot get from a plant based diet. Even Gandhi tried to be a vegan but had to eventually give it up to save his health.
Vitamin B12, A, K2, D3 are just some of the vitamins that you cannot get from a plant based diet. And serious to severe digestive problems is common to a vegan diet. A vegan diet also, over time, destroys the gut microbiome. The human gut microbiome constitutes 80% of the human immune system. The oral microbiome is also a significant portion of the human immune system.
Yes, those microbes up or butts make us healthy, which is weird when you think a about it. They keep talking about them on Newsmax and Real America’s Voice.
And now we have “The Salem News Channel” and “The First.”
Every time I happen to open my Samsung menu, there’s new stuff on there. There are at least nine Western channels. Twelve if you count “Lassie,” “Little House on the Prairie” and “Walker: Texas Ranger.”
Speaking of microbes up our butts, those spices in the photo above help digestion.
Most of what so-called “vegans” eat is just ultra processed food full of chemical additives included for color, texture and flavor. If you compare ingredients labels for, say, breakfast oats or potato chips between those brands marketed in the USA and their equivalents sold in Britain it is shocking how many lines of almost incomprehensible chemical gibberish you find in the U.S. version of the supposedly same products. The Israeli junk food Bamba consists just of corn grits, peanut butter, salt and some sodium benzoate. Just compare that with the chemical litany you find on a can of Pringles! BTW there is almost no evidence of peanut butter allergies among the Israeli population where almost everyone is exposed to Bamba.
Given the dictionary definition of food, ultra processed food is not food. Worse still, human physiology does not recognize as food and that’s one of the reasons why ultra processed foods causes so much inflammation in the human body.
But people eat it anyway and just attributed their health problems to everything else but the crappy non-food they keep eating. Up to 85% of everything sold in a grocery market is ultra processed food (non-food) food.
A simple test? Pick up a box of whatever and read the list of ingredients. Unless you’ve had a few courses in chemistry, you won’t have the faintest idea of what those chemical are.
And by the way, sugar is known by now over 100 names. Many of them are synthetic sweeteners which the human doesn’t recognize and reacts with an inflammatory response to remind you that “hey, I don’t want this sh*t! Stop eating it or..” And then human body reacts with an autoimmune response. That’s when your own immune system starts attacking your own body.
Could I please have a burger and fires, topped with some catsup?
Typo alert fries, not fires
Please don’t take away my Big Mac
Really? You do know that french fries have some 21 difficult chemicals in them and fried in seed oils the leads to the formation of acrylamides in the human body that are quite inflammatory and the leading cause of metabolic disorders. And catsup? loaded with chemicals and sugar. The is absolutely no nutritional need for a human to ever consume sugar.
You are what you eat is an absolute truism but sadly, most people don’t realize this simple fact or ignore it altogether until later in life when their fat, sickly and suffering from a range of metabolic diseases and a variety of cancers of with diabetes are the least of them. And the worst and most insidious? Type-3 diabetes, also know as Alzheimer’s disease.
But enjoy your burgers and fries while you can.
I love burgers and fries so much, I’d roll in their grease if I could. Not everybody who eats that stuff are unhealthy. Some of us are indestructible.
Sure! You say that now. The consequences just haven’t caught up with you yet. They will. Count on it.
There’s no such thing as an indestructible person. If that were not true then where are the people who are immortal? But you’re free to think it up until the truth punches you in the face and death schedules an appointment with you.
Oops, I forgot to add the 21 chemicals after I cut up the potatoes. Seed oil terrorists are tools of big lard.
What a bizarre article.
I’ll eat whatever I want to eat, that’s why I’m an American. I don’t need a food Nazi to tell me what I need to eat to be truly American. American freedom means the freedom to eat whatever you want to eat.
It’s religious theocracies that command it’s vassals to eat halal and kosher.
Go get something to eat Mr. Greenfield, you sound cranky and grouchy.
Ah, yes again from the strident, obsequious devotee of Ayn Rand. You sound so very miserable in your self devised echo chamber. I am sure each morning when you attest to your virtues in the mirror you simply cannot see the very zealot you are screaming at everyone else.
You are miserably self righteous and like a trained, reflexive attack dog biting at others is all you seem to do.
If you actually wanted to share your objectivism with others, and how you have benefitted from this philosophy, you might consider trying something other than your I-am-better-than-everyone-else jackhammer.
So now anyone that supports free markets and free individual choices is just an “Obsequious Ayn Rand devotee”??
He didn’t try to portray himself as better than everyone else as you say. He was just saying that people should be left alone. He want’s to be left alone to make his own choices regarding food. Just a freedom loving American as far as I’m concerned.
I feel the same way about autos. If someone wants to buy an import, that is none of the gov’s business, and it certainly should be none of Trumps business.
In protest , I’m never buying an American car again!
Thank you. Some commenters, rather than demonstrate maturity and intelligence, instead engage in name-calling and non sequiturs.
One commenter clearly doesn’t recognize it was the Nazis attacking the Jews, not the other way around.
He wants to be left alone and yet he continues to regularly malign others whose values are based upon their faith.
Actually, you sound like the cranky one.
Just had to go after the Jews, didn’t you. My guess is you never understood the necessity of keeping Kosher when wandering the dessert with almost no way to keep food clean.
What’s that in the distance? Looks like one of those theocracies coming for you.
And BTW, you are an American because you eat what you want? Really. You couldn’t find your inner American with two hands and a flashlight, Jew Hater.
I came to the conclusion years ago that some people live to hate. Without it they would die.
Were they wandering in the dessert or desert? If the dessert, was it Kosher cheese cake?
The SAD (Standard American Diet) is the worst diet in the world. Americans spends far more money on health care than any other country in the world yet we are the sickest people in the world.
Moreover, most of the so-called “foods’ that Americans consume are even food by the dictionary definition of food.
Every country around the world that adopted the SAD diet experienced an explosive growth in obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
I was kind of thinking the Same. I’m not too happy having Kennedy in whatever health department starting to coerce us into eating healthier. Corporations just cater to consumer wants and needs.
How long do you think before Kennedy starts proposing extra sales taxes on foods he and MAHA deem ‘bad’?
We don’t need government to coerce us into being healthy. That’s each individuals decision.
The hypocrisy is stunning. I Kennedy was appointed by a Dem administration and tried to tell us what to eat, all conservatives would be screaming ‘bloody murder’! But since he is Trumps pick, conservative pundits like Sean Hannity try spin it into something that is a proper role of government!
Good for you. Eat whatever you want!
Unfortunately, when it comes to food, most people will choose sickness and death over good health and life. Proof? On any corner in America, there are several fast food franchises who’s products are known to kill. And people line up to by that poison not caring if it kills them.
Ghrelin is the hormone that our gut microbiome secretes that stimulates appetite. 99. 9% of all fast foods are loaded with ghrelin. Scientists in the food processing industry learned how to synthesize ghrelin in the 1960s.
Why do you suppose you can’t eat just 1 potato chip? 1 french fry? 1 cookie? Answer: ghrelin. And ghrelin works hand in hand with dopamine: the pleasure hormone. 1 potato chip? No. A bag of potato chips. 1 cookie? No. How about 6 or a dozen cookies? 1 french fry? Oh hell no!! Who eats just 1 french fry?
People should eat whatever they want.
Nothing in this article called for regulating food.
Agreed. On that issue I lean libertarian. I strongly believe that people have the right to kill themselves by whatever means they deem appropriate (e.g., via a horrible diet) as long as it doesn’t inconvenience anyone or cost the tax payers a dime.
In short, what another person shovels down their throat is none of my business!
I made American Chop Suey last night. But to make it a little less Chinese and a little more Italian I added some ricotta.
Please, don’t threaten my Chinese cuisine.
Meat and potatoes leaves me constipated.
If Trump needs to dress down the CCP using cuisine, he can always serve General Tsao’s Chicken at a state dinner. ~
😉
Only need add green side vegetable. A natural compliment to meat and potatoes.
When I first came back to America, I was constipated for months. Those microbes made my Indo friends sick and put my ex-wife in the hospital twice but they have my thanks. I never had any problem shitting there. In fact, for the first week I practically lived on toilets.
I can imagine that a certain part of you anatomy must have been sore and “tender” and quite inflamed. Constipation for months? Ouch!! My friend, I feel your pain!! Ai-yi-yi!! I can only imagine that there were days when the misery made you think that perhaps death might not be so bad after all!
Months? It hurts just to think about it!!
Stay away from the barbecued polyps. ~
No one is forcing anyone to eat anything. Don’t like Thai? Don’t buy it. Think there’s an unserved market demand for some food? Start your own business and earn a profit serving others.. The overwhelming majority of restaurants end up failing. Learn some basic economics.
There’s room for aesthetic and culturalism criticism of food without making people feel threatened.
That’s it. I’m convinced. The beans for my coffee are grown outside the U.S. I’m giving up drinking coffee. How dare those international explorers from three hundred + years ago bring back spices from other countries…
Don’t be so hasty. Coffee is loaded with polyphenols which are quite healthy and good for you. Just don’t buy the cheap grocery market coffee when are full of contaminants (e.g., ground up stems, leaves and other unpleasant things you don’t want to know about.)
Intentional sarcasm–> “But polyphenols are chemicals.”
Sarcasm off. I’m still waiting for credible evidence that organic is better.
I think this article is literal but also a metaphor for a lack of national pride and love for ourselves here in America. The idea of family recipes that are handed down and family gathered around a dinner table is the idea of….family. Its is the opposite of deep state totalitarianism and the idealization of every other culture until we have none of our own.
Taking this literally, for the foodies out there, what is American food? I visited the midwest and everything seemed to be pork. Cheeses are American? Beef? Corn? Don’t forget the apples! Pumpkins! Pies included. This is not my expertise but I think it would make a lovely exploration for a cookbook writer.
Thank you. That;’s exactly my point.
Fast food doesn’t have to be a problem, provided that it is kept simple. A slice of brown bread, a piece of cheese to toast on it, and an apple or a stick of celery is not a bad meal, nutritionally – spread the bread with some Marmite to make good the lack of iron from the protein being cheese, not meat, and you’ve ticked most boxes, especially if you have a pure orange juice as your drink. The problems arise when all that’s available is main meal equivalents, because a main meal rather than a snack is quite difficult to provide quickly without compromising the quality of either ingredients or preparation.
On the contrary, well studied scientific evidence proves conclusively otherwise. But this is not the forum to go into the details of why. Suffice it to say, there is nothing “healthy” about fast foods.
Proof? In the last 30+ years, America has experienced an explosion in metabolic diseases
and an obesity epidemic. Ever wondered why?
I love garden fresh fruits and vegetables, and thoroughly enjoy the Mediterranean and anti inflammatory diets. I feel better physically when I avoid fast food.
My grandmother’s family dinners were sort of Early American in quality. Fresh vegetables from her well planted garden, fruit pies, game foods such as pheasant and turkey, and fresh fruit pies.
My goodness, I’m starting to get hungry! 😉
Modern farming can produce a 6 pound chicken in 6 weeks. It’s a manufacturing system…airplane, TV, car, whatever. The most popular topic of meetings at the chicken farm corporate headquarters will undoubtedly be how to make a 7 pound chicken in 5 weeks.