"There's actually been a reaction against this sort of thing recently- it started with TV chefs- most notably Jamie Oliver and his school dinners campaign- against junk food in general with junky meat products particularly singled out."
It's much the same here, especially with the locavore movement getting some traction. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it: you really can make something tasty out of just about anything, but some things take more work than others.
I suspect the whole eating offal thing hinges on being either 1) really recent arrivals, or 2) having become used to severe austerity. The joke goes that, when presented with something that Grandma used to make, teens will whine about wanting American food like pizza or tacos. :)
(And I have to cop to it: I'm a first-generation US citizen on my Dad's side, and used to gripe about eating the pickled herring in mustard-cream-beet sauce that was traditionally made by my Finnish grandmother at Christmastime. Mind you, I'd love to have some right now... taste buds do grow up, I guess...)
"I suppose, seeing as America as a whole drew together lots of older cultures to make an amalgamated new one, then the thousands and thousands of years of trial and error that lead to such oddities as sushi and brawn had already been done, either elsewhere or by the tribesmen, so proper 'Americans' didn't need to experiment in the same way, but rather to tweak the things they ate already."
I think that's part of it... but I think part of it also was the pressure on recent immigrants to assimilate. It's a lot less today than it was during the early 20th century - and that wasn't always outside pressure, either. I know of lots of people a generation or two older than me whose parents absolutely refused to teach them their native language, on the theory that they'd grow up as "Proper Americans." And the food would go with it..
But then there's always the search for novelty, so the more accessible foods got incorporated into the dominant culture. American-style Chinese food is now it's own sort of thing, for example...
I once read a fabulous quotation - it was actually about the English language, but it applies to American food as well:
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." - James D. Nicoll
"I mean, I know there are a lot of Italian-decended people in the US, but where grits come from is not a very Italian area, is it?- and it's older than that anyway."
Grits and polenta really are just boiled cornmeal. The cooking style itself is pretty much one of those things that EVERYBODY did as just a good way to prep starch to eat. Grits were originally a Native American thing; Italians, like everybody in Europe, had grain-mush dishes, but didn't have cornmeal polenta until corn came over from the Americas. It's funny, I hang out with a Medieval reenacting society from time to time, and, at first, it's really hard to imagine Italian food without tomatoes. :)
I make polenta a lot... cornmeal is easy to keep in the pantry, and can be pretty versatile, depending on what you add to it.
Oh! And I did think of another truly American food atrocity: I think we were the ones to start putting pineapple on pizza. :P
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Date: 2008-10-07 03:25 pm (UTC)"It's okay, my fault for being tetchy."
No worries! :)
"There's actually been a reaction against this sort of thing recently- it started with TV chefs- most notably Jamie Oliver and his school dinners campaign- against junk food in general with junky meat products particularly singled out."
It's much the same here, especially with the locavore movement getting some traction. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it: you really can make something tasty out of just about anything, but some things take more work than others.
I suspect the whole eating offal thing hinges on being either 1) really recent arrivals, or 2) having become used to severe austerity.
The joke goes that, when presented with something that Grandma used to make, teens will whine about wanting American food like pizza or
tacos. :)
(And I have to cop to it: I'm a first-generation US citizen on my Dad's side, and used to gripe about eating the pickled herring in mustard-cream-beet sauce that was traditionally made by my Finnish grandmother at Christmastime. Mind you, I'd love to have some right now... taste buds do grow up, I guess...)
"I suppose, seeing as America as a whole drew together lots of older cultures to make an amalgamated new one, then the thousands and thousands of years of trial and error that lead to such oddities as sushi and brawn had already been done, either elsewhere or by the tribesmen, so proper 'Americans' didn't need to experiment in the same way, but rather to tweak the things they ate already."
I think that's part of it... but I think part of it also was the pressure on recent immigrants to assimilate. It's a lot less today than it was during the early 20th century - and that wasn't always outside pressure, either. I know of lots of people a generation or two older than me whose parents absolutely refused to teach them their native language, on the theory that they'd grow up as "Proper Americans." And the food would go with it..
But then there's always the search for novelty, so the more accessible foods got incorporated into the dominant culture. American-style Chinese food is now it's own sort of thing, for example...
I once read a fabulous quotation - it was actually about the English language, but it applies to American food as well:
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
- James D. Nicoll
"I mean, I know there are a lot of Italian-decended people in the US, but where grits come from is not a very Italian area, is it?- and it's older than that anyway."
Grits and polenta really are just boiled cornmeal. The cooking style itself is pretty much one of those things that EVERYBODY did as just a good way to prep starch to eat. Grits were originally a Native American thing; Italians, like everybody in Europe, had grain-mush dishes, but didn't have cornmeal polenta until corn came over from the Americas. It's funny, I hang out with a Medieval reenacting society from time to time, and, at first, it's really hard to imagine Italian food without tomatoes. :)
I make polenta a lot... cornmeal is easy to keep in the pantry, and can be pretty versatile, depending on what you add to it.
Oh! And I did think of another truly American food atrocity: I think we were the ones to start putting pineapple on pizza. :P
Have you ever seen The Gallery of Regrettable Food? It's a pretty good skewering of mid-20th-century cuisine in the US. :)