Description
What is American food to you?
America is a changing demographicand has always been so. The population of America includes indigenous people and immigrants from Africa, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, China, other Asian countries, island nations, and Australia and New Zealand too. Right now Asians are one of the fastest expanding demographics. Each American cultural, ethnic, religious, or regional group has its own food habits and preferences. With this in mind, what do you consider as, “American food” and why?
Discussion Directions:
After you type your initial post by Wednesday evening (by 11:55 pm), read through the other entries and reply directly to at least one classmate by Sunday evening (by 11:55 p.m.).
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Remember your post must be a minimum of 200 words for the first/initial post and 75 words for your reply. Include content from our course or other related content from other sources. Attempt to reply to a student who has not yet been replied too. In your replies include a question about their post and a connection. A connection is how you relate.
Reply to Leah: When I hear the term “American Food”, my mind can’t help but to immediately imagine fast food; hamburgers, fries, hot dogs, etc. As a third generation Asian American, I grew up idolizing these foods and the fast food restaurants that served them as they were too expensive for my family to afford on a regular basis. After further research it has come to my conclusion that hamburgers originate from Germany (Ofgang, 2021), fries from Belgium (Rothman, 2022), and hot dogs from Germany as well (Butler, 2021). So why is it that we consider these foods to be American when they were created in other countries? I thought about this question a bit more and realized that it is not about the food item specifically that makes it americanized, but rather the source of it and the way of preparation. Restaurant chains like McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Panda Express are great examples. People from outside of America would consider the food from these restaurants to be American food because it differs from their way of traditionally preparing the items. I may not be Chinese, but as an Asian in general I know that neither I nor most Asians/Asian Americans consider Panda Express as Chinese cuisine. This is due to the lack of traditional dishes on the menu, the change in taste and preparation, and the lack of real Chinese flavors. “Americanizing” something, in this circumstance, refers to the social influence applied to the food to change it to better attract the target customers, Americans. So to me, American food is any food item from any origin, changed to better fit the societal American image of it in terms of taste, look, and accessibility.
