06.30.07
In Search of American Food
It is so difficult to find American food in America. I don`t mean fast food, I mean something different. In Greece you eat Greek food, in France French food, in Italy Italian food, but in America, in any city town in any street, it is easier to find Indian and Chinese restaurants than the cafes with American food.
Why foreign food is so popular in America? In any American city you can go to Thai, Turkish, Japanese, Russian, Swedish, Spanish, Italian restaurants, but where are the American ones? It is not only in restaurants that foreign dishes are replacing American food. In every supermarket, sales of pizza and poppadoms are booming. Why has this happened? What is wrong with the cooks of the USA that they prefer cooking pasta to potatoes? Why do the Americans choose to eat lasagne instead of their national dishes? Why do they now like cooking in wine and olive oil? There are many questions and no definite answers. Perhaps it is a good thing. After all, we live in the 21 century and we can get ingredients from over the world in just a few hours. Some people say that traditional American dishes have always been disgusting and tasteless. Is it so? Wasn`t the American food always boiled to death? Was it swimming in fat? The answer to all these questions is a resounding “No”.
What influences the American food. A lot of food has always been imported to the USA from abroad. Foreign trade also influenced American cooking. American kitchens like the language the Americans speak absorbed ingredients from all over the world: chickens, rabbits, apples and tea. All of these and more were successfully incorporated into American dishes. A lot of people from different countries settled down in America and brought their cooking traditions with them. Surely, food is as much a part of our culture as our landscape and our literature. The Americans have always been sure in their right for the best life, that`s why they are still searching the world for sophisticated and new dishes which will give hope of a better life.