No food nation

The perils of eating in America are the abilities to each all different types of cuisines. One night you can each Asian food and the next night you can have Mexican. No problem. Our access to different cultural foods symbolizes the melting pot that our nation represents. But when you eat “American” cuisine, what types of food come to your mind? Sidney Mintz’s “Eating America” emphasizes the reasons to why our nation does not have a typical cuisine. Mintz questions why our nation feels the need to have our own cuisine. Shouldn’t we be proud that we represent all different types of cultures, not just one? The history of our country provides many reasons to why we do not have typical American food. The United States is heavily populated with immigrants from all over the world with a majority of descendents from Europe. While these immigrants bring their culture to America, many of the aspects are lost due to the strong pressure to change to their surroundings. But to become American do you really need to give up your cultural values? Does our nation not believe that you can be who you want here? Most immigrants gain a significant amount of weight when they move to America. This is due to the change of diet in America. While many older generation immigrants try to maintain their cultural values, the “cultural identity of their children…is changing rapidly.” There are many social influences that have changed the cultural identities of immigrants. When the world thinks of American food, ice cream, pizza, hot dogs and hamburgers come to mind. And we wonder why there is currently an obesity epidemic. Most of our citizens rather eat out or go to a fast food chain than cook a well- balanced meal at home. Are we too embarrassed to acknowledge that these foods are our national cuisine? I surely am.