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Ghulam Bombaywala sells bagels in Houston. Demetrios dishes up pizza in Connecticut. The Wangs serve tacos in Los Angeles. How ethnicity has influenced American eating habits--and thus, the make-up and direction of the American cultural mainstream--is the story told in We Are What We Eat. It is a complex tale of ethnic mingling and borrowing, of entrepreneurship and connoisseurship, of food as a social and political symbol and weapon--and a thoroughly entertaining history of our culinary tradition of multiculturalism. The story of successive generations of Americans experimenting with their new neighbors' foods highlights the marketplace as an important arena for defining and expressing ethnic identities and relationships. We Are What We Eat follows the fortunes of dozens of enterprising immigrant cooks and grocers, street hawkers and restaurateurs who have cultivated and changed the tastes of native-born Americans from the seventeenth century to the present. It also tells of the mass corporate production of foods like spaghetti, bagels, corn chips, and salsa, obliterating their ethnic identities. The book draws a surprisingly peaceful picture of American ethnic relations, in which "Americanized" foods like Spaghetti-Os happily coexist with painstakingly pure ethnic dishes and creative hybrids. Donna Gabaccia invites us to consider: If we are what we eat, who are we? Americans' multi-ethnic eating is a constant reminder of how widespread, and mutually enjoyable, ethnic interaction has sometimes been in the United States. Amid our wrangling over immigration and tribal differences, it reveals that on a basic level, in the way we sustain life and seek pleasure, we are all multicultural.
E-Book Content
We Are What We Eat
We Are What We Eat Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans Donna R. Gabaccia
Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England
Copyright © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Illustrations by Susan Keller Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gabaccia, Donna R., 1949– We are what we eat : ethnic food and the making of Americans / Donna R. Gabaccia. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-674-94860-2 (cloth) ISBN 0-674-00190-7 (pbk) 1. Food habits—United States. 2. Ethnic food industry—United States. 3. Ethnic attitudes—United States. 4. United States— Social life and customs. I. Title. GT2853.U5G33 1998 394.1′2′0973—dc21 97-52712
Mangiando, ricordo: Dedicated to Tamino, my German-speaking, Italo-Polish-American child, who eats Ethiopian and cooks Cuban and who grew up with this book
The Mexican Sangwitch Is it a tortilla with peanut butter and jelly, or jalapeños piled on Wonder Bread? Is it a coney made with tortillas, or a Kaiser roll smothered with salchiches y salsa mayonesa? Is it chorizo con huevo on whole wheat, or refried beans on white bread? Is it the patron saint of botanas, or a Mexican who can only speak English? Is it the same as an American Taco? Is it a Mexican playing tic-tac-toe? Is it carne asada on rye, or guacamole on toast? Do you really want to know why? Is it me inside of you, or you wrapped around me? Is it a güera dancing with two Mexicans, or two gringos putting the make on my sister? Is it a super sandwich, with the official ingredients labeled: hecho en mexico! Is it a plain sandwich made by authentic Mexican hands? Is it true Juan de la Raza invented it? Is it a moot question? Are you a lawyer or a poet? Does the judge really care? Detroit 7/1990 Trinidad Sánchez, Jr., “Why Am I So Brown?” from the book of the same title, copyright 1991. Reprinted by permission of MARCH Abrazo Press, Chicago, Illinois.
Contents Introduction: What Do We Eat?
1
1 Colonial Creoles
10
2 Immigrati