No Foreign Food The American Diet In Time And Place [Paperback]

Reading Richard Pillsburys remarkable No Foreign Food, like the grand opening of a new restaurant in ones neighborhood, is an exciting and pleasurable event. He engagingly chronicles the amazing diversity of Americas food ways that are so central to our history and culture, but he also tells us why our eating habits are much more than mere gastronomic experiences. Karl Raitz UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY No Foreign Food is the only serious up-to-date treatment of American food habits that I knowa subject unaccountably neglected by most students of the American scene. In Pillsburys skillful hands, American food habits become more than just a set of cranky likes and dislikes, but instead a mirror to Americas larger culture. & It is an indispensable book for any serious student of the American scene. Pierce Lewis PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY No Foreign Food explores the evolution and transformation of the American diet from colonial times to the present. How and why did our bland colonial diet evolve into todays restless melange of exotic foods? Why are Hoppin John, lutefisk, and scrapple, once so important, seldom eaten today? How has the restaurant shaped our daily menus? These and hundreds of other questions are addressed in this examination of the changing American diet.Concept and Content: An Introduction -- Concept: On What We Eat and What We Dont -- Content: A Traditional American Diet -- Stocking the Pantry: Technology and the Food Supply -- Too Busy to Cook: The Coming of Prepared Foods -- Marketing to the Masses -- Cooking by the Book -- Imported Tastes: Immigration and the American Diet -- Eating on the Town: Restaurants and the Diet -- A Contemporary American Diet -- Cuisine Regions: Concept and Content -- Continuity and Transformation: Last Thoughts