As American as Apple Pie

"Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es." [Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are].
-- Brillat Savarin

Identity, the concept of how to define the self, is closely tied to one’s surroundings. Where we live, how we communicate, and most importantly, what we eat. In this sense, culture can be defined by cuisine. But since man first started to draw borders around nations, trying to define themselves, people have crossed those borders. And with them, they bring the culture, the cuisine, of nations outside those borders. This cross cultural exchange is paradoxically two-fold: on one front, it blurs cultural divides, creating a more global and interconnected society; and on the other hand it reinforces aspects of one’s own culture by taking something foreign and transforming it, domesticating it. This cross cultural interaction is clearly exemplified in the evolution of a nation’s cuisine; how it adopts new ingredients and techniques and makes them unique to its own culture. And no nation has had a bigger influence, both importing and exporting, in cuisine than the United States of America.
While making dinner one night, I asked my roommates to name some ‘American foods’ and while a few answers were expected (hamburgers, Coca-cola, etc.), one in particular stimulated further debate: burritos. Are burritos American cuisine? Growing up in Southern California, they were certainly a typical meal for me. The obvious argument is that burritos are Mexican (popular tradition asserts that it was invented in Northwestern Mexico in the mid 19th century , though definitive facts are hazy at best.) and therefore cannot be a part of ‘American cuisine.’ But like pizza’s relationship to Italy , the burrito’s relationship to Mexico seems to be one more for the sake of Americans than for natives of these countries. Americans have adopted, cultivated, and bred the burrito to fit domestic tastes, tastes that have become quite divergent from their Mexican roots. In “Comida Sin Par,” Sylvia Ferrero explores Mexican restaurants in Los Angeles with her Mexican friend Elia.
Of course [Elia] was aware that those restaurants were not for “real Mexican people” and that the food was either “Americanized,” as she kept saying, or “standardized”…Thus the menus of many Mexican restaurants in different areas of Los Angeles demonstrate that their customers are considered as tourist diners who lack the knowledge to demand authenticity of Mexican food.

So the burrito, and chances are most ‘Mexican food,’ that I recognize from my past (and still eat to this day) is too American to really be considered ‘authentic.’ This food was a concept that was carried over through the traditions of immigrants, eventually taken in by the community at large, and adapted to its new surroundings.
Indeed, that is a reasonable approximation of the history of the United States in general. At just over 200 years old, the United States is an infant of a nation, a mere seven generations, compared to the deep cultural tradition of the rest of the world. The United States is also the last bastion of immigrants, perpetually seeking to pick themselves up and improve their lot in life. And with them comes their traditions, brought into ours; a cultural melting pot as it were. This idea of a hodge podge of foods to make up a national cuisine is a notion that was brought to Sidney Mintz’s attention in a discussion about ‘American cuisine’ or lack thereof.
He talked happily about ‘eating Thai’ one night, and ‘eating Chinese’ the next, and asked rather plaintively whether that couldn’t be ‘our cuisine.’ He plainly felt that having access to a lot of different ‘cuisines’ was a wonderful idea—and certainly better than meatloaf.

This brings up the concepts of both commodification and simplifying nations to basic symbols.
In fact, this concept of making distinct cuisines aspects of the American culture is exactly how Belize started to form its own national culinary identity. Belize, like the United States, is a nation that was founded and shaped by colonists and immigrants. This explains why as Richard Wilk researched the history of Belizean food, its past is so brief.
The first published mention I have been able to find of national food is in the early 1960s, when an American expatriate called rice and beans the ‘national dish’ and noted that it was served with potato salad made with imported ingredients.

Not only does written record of any national cuisine go back barely 50 years, not even two generations, it is also made up of food with imported ingredients. How can a dish used to symbolize a nation rely on food from outside the nation? As Wilk goes on, he explains that not only is Belizean food imported, but even the concept of national cuisine had to be imported into the country.
In a similar way, the public, self conscious version of Belizean national food owes more to the Belizeans living in the United States than it does to Belize itself…the idea that [Belizean food] was unique, special, and part of a national identity was largely prompted by the processes of migration and tourism. Belizean restaurants in the United States were the first to portray their food as part of the national character. Migrants returned to Belize from the United States and carried the idea of a national cuisine home. In 1990 the first self-proclaimed Belizean restaurant in Belize was opened by a couple that had just returned from living in Los Angeles for twenty years.

Though it was food that the people of Belize had always been eating, the concept that it was authentically and uniquely theirs was one that had to come from the influence of the United States.
The United States has had, arguably, more influence in the global diet than any other nation. Nothing makes this more evident than the photo journalism of Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio’s Hungry Planet: What the World Eats.
Peter Menzel and I invited ourselves to dinner with 30 families in 24 countries to explore humankind’s oldest social activity: eating. Anyone who remembers grocery shopping 20 years ago knows that the U.S. diet has changed rapidly, but fewer people realize that this transformation is worldwide. Some dietary changes are due to globalization as largescale capitalism reaches new places…And some changes are due to the tides of migration, as travelers, immigrants, and refugees bring their own foods to new lands and acquire new tastes in return.

The photos of families, from around the globe, with a week’s worth of food before them speak volumes to this effect. From Australia to Greenland, China to Egypt, the familiar names of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Heinz’s Ketchup, and Kraft cheddar penetrate into the homes of families who have never set foot in the United States. Even if ‘American cuisine’ is still up for debate, at the very least these products represent ‘American food.’ And no product is as ubiquitous as the Atlanta based beverage Coca-cola.
Coca-cola not only serves as a symbol of the United States but also represents modernity, which partly explains why it has been so universally embraced as the beverage of choice in this increasingly interconnected globe. A classmate who grew up in Africa revealed the anecdote that while traveling, one always stopped at the gas stations and shops with neon Coke signs. They were shining beacons of not just soda, but of food, water, electricity, modernity. This imagery of coke as American modernity is furthered by how the people of Trinidad have fully adopted it into their culture.
For example, sweet drinks are never viewed as imported luxuries that the country or people cannot afford. On the contrary, they are viewed as Trinidadian, as basic necessities and as the common person’s drink…no one but the most destitute would request water per se while ordering a meal or snack.

Coca-cola has become so integral to life in Trinidad that it is considered a necessity of society: living without it is possible, but is a clear sign of poverty. Coca cola has been localized to such a degree in Trinidad that it defines what they drink, and therefore who they are. A black sweet drink from Atlanta, defining Trinidad.
Commercialization is a strong driving force behind globalization. It has touched cultures in ways that it never intended to. It has changed how we, not as nations, but as a world, eat.
In this time at the beginning of the new millennium it is not unusual to hear intelligent people ay that the era of the nation state and national culture is ending and a brave new world of global consumer culture, multinational economies, and transnational migration is upon us.

Are these people right? Are national cultures “withering away” or “on their last legs?” Certainly national cuisines are not as rigid and well defined as they once were and hybrid or fusion cuisine is emerging as a more popular force. But national identity is so closely tied to personal identity. And nobody wants to lose their sense of self. Time has proven that people seem fiercely determined not to let outside presence homogenize the world, but rather let it change and further personalize the individual. Kids in both China and France may wake up to a bowl of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes but those two cereals, despite corporate attempts, will never be eaten exactly the same. We take new things, we make them our own. It is just what we have always done. And what we always will.