Text 6 American Food

The popular view outside the U.S. that Americans survive on cheeseburgers, Cokes, and French fries is as accurate as the American popular view that the British live on tea and fish ’n’ chips, the Germans only on beer, bratwurst, and sauerkraut, and the French on red wine and garlic.

Besides being a cliché, this view also comes from the fact that much of what is advertised abroad as “American food” is a pretty flat, tasteless imitation. American beef, for example, comes from specially grain-fed cattle, not from cows that are raised mainly for milk production. As a result, American beef is more tender and tastes better than what is usually offered as an “American steak” in Europe. When sold abroad, the simple baked potato that comes hot and whole in foil often lacks the most important element, the famous Idaho potato. This has a different texture and skin that comes from the climate and soil in Idaho. Or, there’s even that old picnic standby, corn-on-the-cob. There’s absolutely no comparison with corn that has been canned, kept in water, or frozen stiff and shipped for weeks over thousands of miles.

Even something as basic as barbecue sauces show differences from many of the types found on supermarket shelves overseas. A fine barbecue sauce from the Southside of Chicago has its own fire and soul. The Texans have a competition each year for the hottest barbecue sauce (the recipes are kept secret). And the Hispanic communities in the Southwest know that theirs is the best. Then there are those California wines which are doing quite well in international tasting competitions. Like fine wines everywhere, the best ones never leave home. The oldest bourbons and smoothest “sippin’ whiskeys” are also not things you would offer to just anyone.

America has two strong advantages when it comes to food. The first is that as the leading America has two strong advantages when it comes to food/ the first is that as the leading agricultural nation, she has always been well supplied with fresh meats, fruits, and vegetables in great variety at relatively low prices. This is one reason why steak or beef roast is probably the most “typical” American food; it has always been more available. But good Southern-fried chicken also has its champions, as do hickory-smoked or sugar-cured hams, turkey (which some people wanted to make the national bird), fresh lobster, and other seafood such as crabs or clams.

In a country with widely different climates and many fruit and vegetable growing regions, such items as fresh grapefruit, oranges, lemons, melons cherries, peaches, or broccoli, iceberg lettuce, avocados, and cranberries do not have to be imported. This is one reason why fruit dishes and salads are so common/ family vegetable gardens have been very popular, both as a hobby and as a way to have money, from the days when most Americans were farmers. They also help to keep fresh food on the table. Vegetable gardens are so popular that even The New Yorker always prints a few zucchini cartoons each autumn. One thing that always grows is zucchini, and trying to get the family to eat more of it with everything, or the neighbours to accept just a few more, has become a kind of national joke. In some areas where just about everyone goes fishing now and then, fish replace zucchini (“you caught them, you eat them! ”). the first few fresh perch or mountain trout are quite good …

The second advantage America has enjoyed is that immigrants have brought with them, and continue to bring, the traditional foods of their countries and cultures. The variety of foods and styles is simply amazing. Whether Armenian, Basque, Catalonian, Creole, Danish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, traditional Jewish, Latvian, Mexican, Vietnamese or what have you, these traditions are now also at home in the United States. A toasted bagel for breakfast (with Philadelphia cream cheese), a crisp taco with fresh lettuce (and a sharp cheese) for lunch, or a serious dinner starting with sweet-and-sour in a Chinatown restaurant have also become “typically” American.

There seem to be four trends in America at present which are connected with foods and dinning. First, there has been a notable increase in the number of reasonably priced restaurants which offer specialty foods. These include those that specialize in many varieties and types of pancakes, those that offer only fresh, baked breakfast foods, and the many that are buffets or salad bars. Secondly, growing numbers of Americans are more regularly going out to eat in restaurants. One reason is that they are not too expensive. Another reason, probably more important, is that many American women today do not feel that their lives are the best spent in the kitchen. They would rather pay a professional chef and also enjoy a good meal. At the same time, there is an increase in fine cooking as a hobby for both men and women. For some two decades now, there have been popular television series on all types and styles of cooking, and the increasing popularity can easily be seen in the number of best-selling specialty cookbooks and the numbers of stores that specialize in often exotic cooking devices and spices.

A third trend is that as a result of nation-wide health campaigns, Americans in general are eating a much lighter diet. Cereals and grain foods, fruits and vegetables, fish and salads are emphasized instead of heavy and sweet foods. More than one American, of course, will refuse to give up that “solid” meal, potatoes, and gravy. Yet strong health and fitness movement in the U.S. shows no signs of being a temporary trend.

Finally, there is that international trend to “fast food” chains which sell pizza, hamburgers, Mexican foods, chicken, salads and sandwiches, seafood, and various ice creams. While many Americans and many other people resent this trend and while, as may be expected, restaurants also dislike it many young, middle-aged, and old people, both rich and poor, continue to buy and eat fast foods. Perhaps it’s all taken a bit too seriously? After all, while most Americans would still judge France to be the home of fine cuisine, Paris is also the home of the word'’ busiest Burger Chef restaurant.

Text 8 CHINESE FOOD – WHAT A WAY TO COOK!

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