Dear Dartmouth, 

You’ve no doubt heard people remark that America has no food culture. After all, burgers and fries can’t constitute an entire cuisine, can they? I argue, however, that the legacy of America’s ethnic and racial diversity has left us with a food culture that is as heterogeneous as it gets. Simply because we can’t codify this culinary diversity in a few adjectives, or because we can’t paint broad strokes over the dozens of cuisines that Americans consume every day, doesn’t mean this country is void of a food culture. It just means that America’s food culture is a product of its diversity – in other words, the fact that it can’t be cleanly put into a box is the essence of its appeal. With that in mind, I got to thinking about how immigration into the major cities of this country has contributed to those cities’ culinary landscapes. When immigrants arrive at their new home, oftentimes cultural preservation is at the forefront of their thinking – not only as something to pass onto future generations, but also to find grounding and a sense of comfort amidst a sea of unfamiliarities and culture shock. An indubitable part of this preservation is forming communities with people who have shared histories and shared culinary practices. Food is an undeniable link to who immigrants were, who they are, and who they and their children will be. The descriptions below are obviously unexhaustive, as enumerating all the culinary influences on a region seems an impossible feat. Instead, I tried to focus on specific cuisines that have profoundly influenced the dining landscape within a city.

New York City

If there was a singular melting pot city within this melting pot of a country, it would be New York City. New York’s Ellis Island along with its promise of economic opportunity resulted in waves of European and Asian immigrants landing on its shores. Irish and German immigration in the latter half of the 19th century was followed by waves of Russian, Italian, and Polish immigration in the early 1900s (6sqft). The turn of the century saw an influx of Asian, Cuban, Caribbean, and Mexican immigrants (6sqft). By 2000, 2.9 million immigrants, or 36% of the city’s population, called the city home (Asanet). It is for this reason, I believe, that along with Paris, New York City is heralded as the gastronomic capital of the world. Chefs from diverse countries and cuisines see New York as a place of culinary innovation, a place where “pushing the envelope” will be met with congratulations and ovations instead of furrowed brows and cries of inauthenticity. Beyond the world of haute cuisine, the streets of New York city are lined with restaurants that seek to appeal to diners searching for authentic food, be it Indian, Italian, Japanese, or Lebanese – or even culture-specific establishments, like Jewish delis. Owned and operated by immigrants and meant to deliver a slice of home to customers, these restaurants form the foundation of New York’s food scene.

Many of them have adapted to fast-paced New York lifestyles, like dollar pizzerias or dumpling houses. We can’t ignore the fad foods either, like the Cronut that people would wait in line for in the wee hours of the morning, or the cookie dough restaurants that cropped up within the last decade. Recently, restaurants that align themselves with particular lifestyles have grown in popularity, like vegan or gluten free restaurants. There’s also been an emphasis on culture mash-ups, where chefs find similarities in seemingly disparate cuisines and work up incredibly innovative dishes to appeal to the fast-moving palettes of NYC diners (AMNY). To that end, you’ll find everything from an Italian and Greek restaurant to a Mexican and Vietnamese eatery. New York City is known as the city that never sleeps and as a city whose identity is inseparable from immigrant identity; as such, the existence of authentic dining experiences and the more recent development of cross-cultural restaurants encapsulates the very soul of this culinary capital. 

Washington D.C.

 The US’s capital city is currently the second most popular destination for African immigrants to settle, after New York. Almost half are of Ethiopian citizenship, with Nigerians and Cameroonians making up another significant percentage of the immigrant population (Urban). African immigration to DC began in the late 1950s, as newly independent African countries sent forth young men as diplomats and as the city’s reputation as a hub for international work grew (PRB). The appeal of historically Black universities also drew a young population of Africans to immigrate as students to this country (PRB). As we’ve seen, immigrants bring their homes with them when they travel to new countries, and a part of this home is food. As result, West African and sub-Saharan cuisines have jumped in popularity and numbers since the beginning of this century. Ethiopian injera, Nigeran jollof rice, and plantain dishes have become staples in many DC residents’ restaurant rotations, not only for their perfectly seasoned flavors but also because these cuisines can fit almost any dietary preference (World Remit).

San Francisco

Chinese culinary traditions have been a permanent part of the San Francisco foodscape since the first wave of Chinese immigration in the 1840s during the Gold Rush (PBS). In fact by the end of the 1850s, Chinese immigrants made up a fifth of the region’s population and lived in large settlements surrounded by people who spoke the same language and ate similar foods. Today, the iconic Dragon’s Gate marks formal entry into Chinatown which is populated with traditional eateries, bakeries, bars and cultural centers that emulate Chinese flavors and customs. Existing alongside traditional tea houses are haute cuisine chefs who strive to innovate and capture the essence of Chinese cuisine in new forms (Timeout). Chinatown here, as in LA, is a popular culinary destination for Asian Americans and other Americans alike searching for an authentic dining experience.

San Francisco is also known for its thriving Vietnamese community. Thousands of refugees fleeing persecution and violence during the Vietnam War found themselves in Southern California in 1975 (Eater). They settled in enclaves, the most famous of which is Little Saigon in San Jose, home to almost two hundred thousand Vietnamese Americans today (Eater). Some of these immigrants pursued a professional career route while others established traditional restaurants all over San Jose. Today, culinary entrepreneurs are forming an up-and-coming Vietnam Town, a small shopping center that is already well-known to locals for its pho and selection of East Asian decoratives and foods (San Jose).

Austin

In the recent decades, Austin has become one of those cities that encompasses the culinary traditions of a diverse array of countries. On every block a city-goer will find Asian restaurants standing happily alongside a barbeque joint and Tex-Mex food trucks. The food truck industry is thriving in Austin – food truck festivals and venues see dozens of trucks in a small area, allowing families and friend groups to pick whatever they like from a dizzying array of options (Visit Austin). Texas’s cattle ranching and prairie cowboy culture gave rise to the fame of barbeque in the early 1900s, where meat takes center stage and Americans build on their culture of casual, animal protein-centric meals. Around the same time, the first Chinese immigrants arrived in Texas to work as laborers constructing railroads, and some of these families stayed even after construction was complete (Texas Standard). Today, Indians, Chinese, and Vietnamese-origin Americans make up the largest subset of Asian immigrants in the city, and by 2012, Asians made up 6.5% of the city’s population (Statesman).

As much of a fusion as Tex-Mex is of American and Mexican food, it’s also an amalgamation of Texas barbeque and Mexican spices. Similarly to LA’s Mexican food origin story, post America’s annexation of modern-day Texas in the Mexican American war, some Mexican nationals remained in the territory and their culinary influence continued to pervade regional cuisine. The staples of a Mexican diet – including masa harina, frijoles, arroz, and tamales – have been adopted by Mexican and Mexican American entrepreneurs into food trucks and sit-down restaurants (KUT). Many of these restaurateurs add a Texan flare to the food they serve, be that in the form of BBQ sauce or specific meat preparation. This concept of white Americans “discovering” Mexican food in recent decades, however, has rightfully stirred up controversy about how one can consciously consume food while respecting and acknowledging the culture and history that stands behind the cuisine (KUT).

I think it’s important to end this brief culinary history with a note about the immigrant experience, in this country in particular. Each of the migrant groups that entered this country faced the pressures of complete assimilation, an unspoken pressure or even a vocalized order to abandon one’s previous identity and completely assume an American philosophy and way of life. This kind of forced separation is detrimental to a person’s identity: severing anyone from the way they’ve always interacted with the world around them seems like a direct path to complete loss of self. Faced with these pressures, then, food became a way for immigrants to express their love and longing for their culture while imbuing their children with the same values and patrimony they themselves embody. Americans have only recently begun to “discover” and appreciate the flavors and dishes of Asian, African, and South American cuisines – and oftentimes, to me, anyways, this “discovery” seems to correlate to the extent to which a cuisine is perceived as “legitimate” and “sophisticated” – in a Western sense. Thankfully, as a country we seem to be moving towards cultural acceptance where white populations’ acceptance of a culinary tradition does not decide how Americans as a whole perceive it. When we consume the food – the culture – of another country or subculture, it’s important to recognize the role that such power structures may play in how we act towards a certain food or people.

Eat well and be happy,

Sanjana

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