Introduction: What Do We Eat? Colonial Creoles Immigration, Isolation, and Industry Ethnic Entrepreneurs Crossing the Boundaries of Taste Food Fights and American Values The Big Business of Eating Of Cookbooks and Culinary Roots Nouvelle Creole Conclusion: Who are We? Sources Notes Acknowledgments Index
Donna R. Gabaccia is Professor of History at the University of Toronto, Scarborough.
Today’s multiethnic American diet offers intriguing insight into
the character of the nation, the subject of Donna Gabaccia’s We Are
What We Eat… Rigorously annotated and dense with detail, Gabaccia’s
writing nevertheless evokes knee-buckled puritans and buckskin-clad
settlers, sunbonnets and babushkas, and the clamor of street
markets at the turn of the century. Drawing from early American
cookbooks and immigrant journals, Gabaccia unravels the nation’s
earliest ‘regional creoles,’ dishes combining cultivated
ingredients with indigenous plants, game and seafood, enriched by
the foodstuffs of Native American traders… Gabaccia explores the
journey of these ethnic foods from pushcarts to the national
marketplace and how—despite the homogenizing effects of
industrialized canning, milling and meatpacking—ethnic cuisines
have retained their essential and often ritualized role in American
life.
*USA Today*
Donna Gabaccia…has assembled an impressive piece of research and
writing about [eating]. We Are What We Eat…takes the immigrant
metaphor of America—whether it be a melting pot or a tossed
salad—and brings it to the dinner table… It’s a fascinating trip
through everything from the history of Fritos corn chips to the
wild rice traditions of American Indians in Minnesota to the rise
of ethnic grocery chains in New York City… She sees the popularity
of ethnic food as nothing less than a chance to bring together
disparate folk—and create a nation of eaters who, through their
dining experiences, manage to get along.
*Associated Press*
[A] fascinating guided tour of American foodstuffs… Gabaccia
pursues the oscillations of 20th-century taste from the bland
mass-market fare of Middle America to the revived interest in
ethnic cuisine, particularly in phosphorically powerful pepper
sauces. Stressing the ‘extraordinary diversity’ which runs in
tandem with ‘homogeneous, processed, mass-produced foods,’ she
insists that America is ‘not a multi-ethnic nation, but a nation of
multi-ethnics.’
*The Independent*
Plenty of thought-provoking and probably little-known details are
presented along the way [in We Are What We Eat]… Gabaccia has a
lightness of style, but this should not beguile readers into
thinking that this is just a pleasing story-book with vivid
illustrations. It is a skillfully written professional history
imbued with a social anthropological sensibility. I wish that more
British social anthropologists (and sociologists) in this field
would trouble themselves to return the compliment by paying such
diligent attention to social history. Gabaccia not only embraces
the anthropological insight that human beings bestow meaning on
food, making it not just good to eat but also good to communicate
with, but goes on to grasp the other side of the anthropological
debate, which requires detailed analysis of the material and
economic circumstances that bring people and food together to allow
communicative meanings to be created. But more than this, Gabaccia
recognizes that understanding eating habits requires not just one
but several histories: of recurring human migrations, of
agriculture, of (big) business and of consumption. This
intellectual attitude and methodological grip on the study of food
and eating is the book’s great strength.
*Nature*
In this academic, yet readable—even entertaining—work, Ms. Gabaccia
explores how ethnicity has influenced American eating habits… She
answers why every town in America ended up with a Chinese
restaurant, how sacred Italian pasta morphed into Spaghetti-Os and
why burritos are filled with everything from beans to bok choy… We
Are What We Eat is a unique approach to this country’s melting pot,
and demonstrates the multicultural side of all Americans.
*Forward*
Donna R. Gabaccia serves up an intriguing appetizer on the growing
menu of food history… The book raises intriguing and important
questions regarding the cultural meaning of food and the
significance of foodways in social change.
*Journal of American History*
How did enclaves of immigrants obtain the foods to which they were
accustomed in their new homes in America? How did pasta, tacos, and
bagels move from ethnic fare to popular American foods? These are
the types of questions Gabaccia addresses in this well-researched
and thoroughly documented volume. Through case studies and
anecdotal records she traces the way immigrant groups, from
Colonial times to the present, maintained their culinary identity
in spite of efforts to Americanize them. Concurrently,
entrepreneurs succeeded in mainstreaming many of these same ethnic
foods into American households and culture. Gabaccia concludes that
we are ‘not a multi-ethnic nation, but a nation of
multi-ethnics.’
*Library Journal*
Today's multiethnic American diet offers intriguing insight into
the character of the nation, the subject of Donna Gabaccia's We
Are What We Eat... Rigorously annotated and dense with detail,
Gabaccia's writing nevertheless evokes knee-buckled puritans and
buckskin-clad settlers, sunbonnets and babushkas, and the clamor of
street markets at the turn of the century. Drawing from early
American cookbooks and immigrant journals, Gabaccia unravels the
nation's earliest 'regional creoles,' dishes combining cultivated
ingredients with indigenous plants, game and seafood, enriched by
the foodstuffs of Native American traders... Gabaccia explores the
journey of these ethnic foods from pushcarts to the national
marketplace and how-despite the homogenizing effects of
industrialized canning, milling and meatpacking-ethnic cuisines
have retained their essential and often ritualized role in American
life. -- Linda Temple * USA Today *
Donna Gabaccia...has assembled an impressive piece of research and
writing about [eating]. We Are What We Eat...takes the
immigrant metaphor of America-whether it be a melting pot or a
tossed salad-and brings it to the dinner table... It's a
fascinating trip through everything from the history of Fritos corn
chips to the wild rice traditions of American Indians in Minnesota
to the rise of ethnic grocery chains in New York City... She sees
the popularity of ethnic food as nothing less than a chance to
bring together disparate folk-and create a nation of eaters who,
through their dining experiences, manage to get along. -- Ted
Anthony * Associated Press *
[A] fascinating guided tour of American foodstuffs... Gabaccia
pursues the oscillations of 20th-century taste from the bland
mass-market fare of Middle America to the revived interest in
ethnic cuisine, particularly in phosphorically powerful pepper
sauces. Stressing the 'extraordinary diversity' which runs in
tandem with 'homogeneous, processed, mass-produced foods,' she
insists that America is 'not a multi-ethnic nation, but a nation of
multi-ethnics.' -- Christopher Hirst * The Independent *
Plenty of thought-provoking and probably little-known details are
presented along the way [in We Are What We Eat]... Gabaccia
has a lightness of style, but this should not beguile readers into
thinking that this is just a pleasing story-book with vivid
illustrations. It is a skillfully written professional history
imbued with a social anthropological sensibility. I wish that more
British social anthropologists (and sociologists) in this field
would trouble themselves to return the compliment by paying such
diligent attention to social history. Gabaccia not only embraces
the anthropological insight that human beings bestow meaning on
food, making it not just good to eat but also good to communicate
with, but goes on to grasp the other side of the anthropological
debate, which requires detailed analysis of the material and
economic circumstances that bring people and food together to allow
communicative meanings to be created. But more than this, Gabaccia
recognizes that understanding eating habits requires not just one
but several histories: of recurring human migrations, of
agriculture, of (big) business and of consumption. This
intellectual attitude and methodological grip on the study of food
and eating is the book's great strength. -- Anne Murcott * Nature
*
In this academic, yet readable-even entertaining-work, Ms. Gabaccia
explores how ethnicity has influenced American eating habits... She
answers why every town in America ended up with a Chinese
restaurant, how sacred Italian pasta morphed into Spaghetti-Os and
why burritos are filled with everything from beans to bok choy...
We Are What We Eat is a unique approach to this country's
melting pot, and demonstrates the multicultural side of all
Americans. * Forward *
Donna R. Gabaccia serves up an intriguing appetizer on the growing
menu of food history... The book raises intriguing and important
questions regarding the cultural meaning of food and the
significance of foodways in social change. -- Susan Levine *
Journal of American History *
How did enclaves of immigrants obtain the foods to which they were
accustomed in their new homes in America? How did pasta, tacos, and
bagels move from ethnic fare to popular American foods? These are
the types of questions Gabaccia addresses in this well-researched
and thoroughly documented volume. Through case studies and
anecdotal records she traces the way immigrant groups, from
Colonial times to the present, maintained their culinary identity
in spite of efforts to Americanize them. Concurrently,
entrepreneurs succeeded in mainstreaming many of these same ethnic
foods into American households and culture. Gabaccia concludes that
we are 'not a multi-ethnic nation, but a nation of multi-ethnics.'
-- Sherry Feintuch * Library Journal *
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