MADE IN AMERICA
Foreword:
The USA as we know it today is
a result of its diverse population.
Four centuries of
immigration have profoundly affected the culture and society of the United
States. Except for Native Americans, all Americans are either recent immigrants
or the descendants of immigrants who have settled in North America over the
last five centuries.
The first immigrants to colonial America came almost
exclusively from western Europe. During the first decades of the 17th century,
settlers from England colonized Virginia and New England. They established the
first permanent English settlement in North America at Jamestown, Virginia, in
1607.
Although the United States has been
shaped by successive waves of immigrants, Americans have often viewed
immigration as a problem. Established Americans often look down on new
immigrants. The cultural habits of immigrants are frequently targets of
criticism.
Here I want to give you an overview
on immigrants that arrived in the USA since the 17th century, a time
when America was already largely settled by white Eurpopeans.
I also want to show the
development of the distinct American language that went hand in hand with the
appearance and settlement of various national groups.
Another issue that the
immigrants had a strong influence on was the development of the American food,
which is given a survey on in the second part of this report.
IMMIGRATION
Since the beginning of the 17th
century Millions of immigrants from all over the world came and still come to
the United States driven by the hope of finding freedom and a better future,
how the statue of liberty promises them:
'Give
me your tired, your poor,
Your
huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The
wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these,
the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my
lamp beside the golden door!'
HOW IT ALL
BEGAN.( 1830-1900)
By the early 1830ies up to
thousand ships at a time were engaged in carrying cotton from America to
Liverpool.
Most of these ships made their
return journey empty, until the shipowners found a new cargo: people.
The Atlantic crossing took up
to three months, the ships were not intended for passengers and diseases like typhus,
which was commonly called shipfever infested the human freight.But people were
willing to endure almost every hardship to get to America, if the price was
right.
By the mid century a one-way
ticket from Liverpool to New York could be had for as little as 12$.
In the decade 1845-55, 3
million immigrants arrived in theUnited States,a country that had a population
of only 20 million at that time.
In just 20 years ( 1830-1850)
the proportion of foreign born immigrants in America rose from one in a 100, to
one in 10.
Between 1815- 1915 America
took 35million immigrants.
7 million came from Germany.
5 million each from Italy and
Ireland
3,3 million from Russia
2,5 million from Scandinavia
and thousands from almost everywhere around the globe.
Especially for small countries
this meant a significant drain of human sources.
For example Ireland was the
most densley populated country in Europe by 1807.
50 years later it was one of
the least.
The immigrants tended
naturally to congregate in enclaves.
In the first half of the 19th
century the German immigrants dreamed of Pennsylvania becoming an entirely
German state, where German would be the official language.
By 1855 one third of New
York´s population was Irish born.
Between 1880 and 1900
one-third of the Jewish population of Europe came to America and again almost
all of them settled in New York.
By the turn of the century NY
had become the most cosmopolitan city the world had ever seen.80% of its
population were either foreign born or the children of immigrants.
In 1908 the British Zionist
Israel Zangwill wrote a play that gave the Americans a term for that
phenomenon.He called it the Melting Pot.
ELLIS
ISLAND: Gateway To America
Beginning in 1892, the United
States Bureau of Immigration began using Ellis Island to receive and screen
immigrants to America. Sitting about a mile from Manhattan, in New York Harbor,
Ellis Island has ushered in more than 12 million immigrants.
The bulk of immigrants passed
through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924. In 1943, Ellis Island served as a
detention center for enemy aliens. In 1954, the facility closed and, in 1965,
it became part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. Ellis Island began a
restoration process in the 1970s that lasted into the early 1990s.
Between 1892 and 1954 about 17
Million people entered the country through Ellis Island. Up to 10000 daily!
Against the common
horrorstories, Ellis Island was a beautiful richlydecorated complex with first
class health facilities, a roof garden and good food
The immigration
officialsprocessed about 5000 arrivals a day, but they performed their duty
with efficiency and not a little compassion.
Only about 2 percent of
applicants were denied entrance. The list of those who could be denied
admission included prostitutes, lunatics, polygamists, anarchists or those with
contagious diseases.
Ellis Island was a dazzling
display of the wealth, efficiency and respect for the common person of the New
World and it made many truly believe that tehy had passed into an earthly
paradise.
But once landed on Manhattan
they would immediately discover the drawback of Eden.
PROBLEMS
Only few newly arrived
immigrants were not fleeced in some way within their first days.
In the
1860ies 1,2 million people- three quarter´s of NYC´s population were packed
into just 37,000 tenements.As many as 25
people were sharing a single windowless room!
Crime, prostitution, begging,
disease and almost every other indicator of social deprivation existed at
levels taht are all but inconceivable now.On average an Irish immigrant around
the mid century survived only 14 years in America.In 1888 in the Italian
quarter one third of the babies did not survive the first year.
Gangs roamed the streets,
robbing and mugging.
Although NY had a police force
since 1845, it was thoroughly corrupt and ineffectual.
Against such a background it
is hardly surprising that many immigrants fled back to Europe.
Perhaps as many as one third
of all immigrants eventually returned to their native countries.
None the less the trend was
relentlessly upward.
WAVES OF IMMIGRATION
During the forties and fifties
of the last century it was mainly German and Irish people who immigrated.Around
1900 most of the immigrants were Russians Jews and Italians.
When the Irish abandoned their
traditional stronghold their place was immediately taken by Italians.The old
German neighbourhoods were taken over by the Russian and Polish Jews.
The Amish and German
Immigration
Germans had
been present in America from the early colonial times- by 1683 they had formed
their own community, Germantown, near Philadelphia- but teh bulk of their
immigration came in two relatively short bursts.
The first, numbering some
90,000 happened mostly in the five years from 1749 to 1754 and was completed by
the time of the American revolution.
From 1830-50 there was a
second larger wave.
With war waging in Europe,
Germans flocked to America around 1710, many of them settling in Pennsylvania,
where William Penn had established a colony with religious tolerance. Calling
themselves 'Deutsch,' German for 'German,' the name was
shortened to 'Dutch' and they became known as the Pennsylvania Dutch.
They worked hard and developed a reputation as being great farmers.
In the 1720s, Swiss religious
leader Jakob Ammann brought his people to Pennsylvania. They became known as
the Amish, after Ammann. Believing that plain living brings people closer to
God, the Amish today do not drive cars, have television, or wear modern
clothes.
In the 1830s and between 1860
and 1892, there were two more large waves of German immigration. These Germans
left home due to overpopulation, the desire to own their own land, and a search
for political freedom. Many of this second and third wave of Germans had enough
money to travel to the Midwest and buy land. They settled near Milwaukee, St.
Louis, and Cincinnati. Some also settled in farming regions of Texas.
The 1980
Census listed Germans as the second largest ethnic group in America.
The Irish Immigration
The Irish began coming to
America in the 1820s, when the lack of jobs and poverty motivated them to seek
better opportunities abroad.
Then between 1845 and 1847, a
terrible disease struck Ireland's potato crop, upon which many people depended
for food. Potato crops died, causing a terrible famine and about 750,000
starved to death. This lack of food caused huge numbers of people to leave
Ireland. As a result, about one-and-a-half million Irish came to America during
the 1840s and 1850s.
Many of the Irish who came to
America were poor. They remained in areas where they disembarked from the
boats, such as New York and Boston. Later, a sizable Irish-American population
developed in Chicago. Today, these three cities still have huge Irish-American
populations, in which they established solid political bases. According to the
1980 census, the Irish and their descendants form the third-largest ethnic
group in America today.
Italian Immigration
Many Italians who came to
America settled in East Coast cities, like Philadelphia and New York. Here they
opened stores and restaurants featuring foods from home. An Italian
neighborhood was often called 'Little Italy.' These neighborhoods
still exist in many cities today.
In 1905, Gennaro Lombardi
owned an Italian restaurant in New York's Little Italy. He started to serve a
food from Naples, Italy, and people loved it. Made from a flat, yeast bread
baked with melted cheeses and tomatoes, the dish was called 'pizza.'
Today, pizza is delivered to the doors of American homes throughout the
country, but back then it was a way for immigrants to have a slice of home in
their new country.
The first Italian immigrant to
America was Christopher Columbus. Columbus has been credited with discovering
America, although he actually never set foot on mainland America. It is unknown
if he ever ate pizza.
Italy never colonized parts of
America as did their neighbors Spain, France, and England. Instead, many
Italians started coming to America in the 1880s to escape from the poverty at
home. Besides pizza, Italians introduced America to opera and pasta.
Russian Immigration
Most people's image of Russian
immigrants is probably of women wearing babushkas arriving at Ellis Island in
the late 1800s. While this picture is accurate of a huge wave of Russian
immigration, the first Russians to venture to America did so on the other side
of the continent almost 100 years earlier.
Russian expansion into
northwest America began in 1725, as part of that country's search for new areas
in which to trap furs, a profitable Russian business.
The next wave of Russian
immigrants came through New York in the late 1800s, when government pogroms
attacked Jewish villages and the 1891 famine sent native Russians to America.
The Russian Revolution in 1917
also sent people running for shelter in America, as did the subsequent
establishment of the Communist Party in Russia. Soon it became difficult to get
permission to leave Russia. Many yearned for political, artistic, and
intellectual freedom
World Wars I and II added to
the desire to immigrate as standards of living in Russia lagged far behind
those of America. Still, dreaming of leaving Russia for America has always been
easier than doing it. Leaving one's homeland, family, and friends -- perhaps
never to see them again -- is a difficult choice to make, as is getting the
money and necessary papers for leaving Russia.
Jewish Immigration
The first Jews arrived in New
Amsterdam, present-day New York, in 1654 from Brazil, where the Catholic
Church's Inquisition was underway.
The first large wave of Jewish
immigration, however, began in 1882, when Russians blamed the assassination of
their czar, Alexander II, on Jews. This was the start of many pogroms, planned
persecutions, against the Jews.
Jews throughout Russia tried
to escape to Europe and America. Many arrived in New York and settled there,
finding work in the garment industry.
The second large wave of
Jewish immigration came during and after World War II. At the start of the war,
many German and Austrian Jews who felt Hitler's threat, escaped to America.
Some of these people were the top thinkers and scientists of Europe. Among them
were scientist Albert Einstein and psychiatrist Sigmund Freud. Their leaving
Europe was called a 'Brain Drain,' because so much intellectual power
was leaving the country.
During the
war, American laws limiting Jewish immigration prevented many from escaping
Europe and emphasized the need for Israel. Later, the Displaced Person Act of
1948 and the Refugee Relief Act of 1953, opened America to the Jews who had
managed to survive the war and the concentration camps.
The third big wave of Jewish
immigration came in 1989 when Russia relaxed its laws prohibiting Jews from
leaving the country. These people came to America and to Israel.
Chinese Immigration: Looking For Gold Mountain
About the same time gold was
discovered in California, famine hit the Guangdong Province in southeast China.
Hearing about California's Gim San, Gold Mountain, many Chinese men left for
America hoping to make a fortune and return home a few years later to their
loved ones. Few struck it rich and the rest fought to survive.
The Gold Rush in California
and the Pacific Northwest increased the demand for railroads to connect these
remote parts of America. Building railroads required lots of low-paid labor,
which hungry immigrant Chinese provided. By 1880, there were about 300,000
Chinese in America, but few were warmly welcomed by Americans once the
railroads were completed. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act,
the first time in American history that immigration restrictions were aimed at
one ethnic group.
In the mid-1880s, America was
in a post-Civil War depression and the Chinese became a target for American
frustrations. In some Western towns, mobs attacked Chinese. In 1885, 28 Chinese
were killed in Rock Springs; in 1887, seven white men killed 31 Chinese miners
in northeast Oregon.
Some Chinese were forced onto
boats returning to China and some left on their own. America's racist frenzy
then subsided and the remaining Chinese settled into towns and cities to become
productive citizens.
Discriminatory practices by
real estate agents and homeowners prompted strong Chinatowns to develop,
especially in San Francisco, New York, and Seattle. While most Chinese provided
the base labor for fishing, canning, and laundry businesses, a few became
doctors, entrepreneurs, clergy, and other higher-status professionals.
In 1943, immigration law
changed and the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. Now, resident Chinese-American
men could bring their women from home; their population until this time had
been mostly male.
Wartime alliances in World War
II benefited the Chinese. The Walter-McCarran Act, passed in 1952, allowed
first-generation Asian-Americans to apply for U.S. citizenship. More Chinese
entered fields that had been closed to them: medicine, corporate business, and
politics. In 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Act eliminated blatant
anti-Asian bias in U.S. immigration.
Authoritarian
political crackdowns in contemporary China and political uncertainty in Taiwan
and Hong Kong have increased Chinese immigration to America. Today, strong
Chinese communities exist in the West, especially in Los Angeles, which has
become a contemporary Ellis Island for the Pacific Rim. Descendants of the
first wave of Chinese immigrants now excel in such fields as engineering,
fields from which their forebears were barred.
Mexican Immigration
The Mexican Revolution of 1910
brought political and economic instability to Mexico, prompting about 700,000
people to migrate to America over the next 20 years. Most recently, another
wave of immigration from Mexico has occurred, beginning in the 1950s and
continuing today. During this time, millions of Mexicans left poverty and high
unemployment in Mexico in hopes of better jobs and wages in America.
Finally, there is the issue of
America's shared border with Mexico, a border that invites much illegal crossing
by Mexican day laborers and those seeking to permanently resettle in America.
In border cities like San Diego, California and El Paso, Texas, customs
officers and the Border Patrol work to stem the tide of illegal immigration.
This is a large issue in the
Southwest as illegal immigrants, who are undocumented, often drive without
license or insurance, work for very low wages leaving employers to make huge
illegal profits, and sometimes seek health care and other services from
publicly funded agencies.
Today much of the Southwest
has a large Mexican population, which is forming an important political group
as they wield their votes. So large is this population that many Southwest
cities like Los Angeles, Albuquerque, and Phoenix offer bilingual services at
government agencies and bilingual education in public schools.
Many people
believe that Mexican immigrants and their offspring are still subject to
discrimination in America. This results in difficulty getting good jobs. But
this is changing, as Mexican descendants gain political office and create
legislation that benefit their people.
LINGUISTIC INFLUENCE
Immigrant
groups had their own theatres, newspapers, libraries, schools, clubs, taverns
and places of worship.Germans alone could choose betwenn 133 German-language
newspapers by 1850.
It was possible indeed to live
an entire liefe in the USA and never speak English.
Thus the linguistic legacy of
some immigrant groups on the American English spoken today is immense.
Americans freely appropriated
some Dutch terms like stoop, boss, cookie, waffle or the distinctive
American interrogative how come?
Two particulary durable
Americanisms that emanate from Dutch are
Santa Claus ,
Yankee or dope.
A group´s
linguistic influence bears scant relation to the numbers of people who spoke
it.
The Irish hardly supplied any
words as well as teh Scandinavians.
The Italians enrichened the
American language mainly with food words like
Spaghetti, pasta, macaroni,
ravioli or pizza.
Far more productive were the
German immigrants.
Words like sauerkraut ,
pretzel, dumb, kindergarten,nix, delicatessen, kaput, kaffeeklatsch or foodfest
naturalized into American English.
Also an American custom to say
Gesundheit! after a sneeze.
Many words
underwent some mdoifications in spelling.
Autsch became
ouch, krank became kranky, schmierkäse, smearcase
and leberwurst, liverwurst.
Some
terms that have been credited with African roots include bogus, banana,
gorilla, funky, phoney and jazz.
Jazz is
one of the mostly disputed terms in American etymology.
In any case, it´s first use,
among both southern blacks and whites, was to describe sexual intercourse.It
wasn´t until after WW1 that it entered the wider world conveying the idea of a
type of music.Quite a number of Afro- American terms contain some forgotton
sexual association.
Boogie Woogie appears
originally to have signified syphilis.
Blues also originally had a
strong sexual significance.So too did rock´n Roll.
Food terms often had a
distinctly sexual conotation, especially in songs.
Although
most urban, non native speakers of English could get by without English, most
choose not to.
The adoption of American
clothes,speech, and interests often accompanied by the shedding of an exotic
surname, were all part of a process whereby antecedents were denied as a mean
of improving status.
PREJUDICE&RACISM
Until the closing years of the
19th century America preserved most of its official racist animus
for blacks and Indians, but in 1882 it added a new category when Chinese were
expressly denied entry to the United States, and those already in the country
were forbidden the rights and protections of citizenship.
In 1907 the exclusion was
extended to the Japanese.
Beginning in the 1890ies, as
the flood of immigrants from the poorer parts of Europe turned into a deluge,
racism became more sweeping, more rabid and less focused.
Anti-immigrant fraternities
were founded and books like Madison Grant´s Passing of the Great Race ( which
argued „ scientifcally“ that unrestricted immigration was leading to the
dilution and degenaration of the national character) became bestsellers.
Early nicknames that were only
mildly abusive (likecalling the Germans cabbage heads or Krauts( from their
liking of sauerkraut) grew uglier and more barbed ( chink, kike, dago, polack,
spic,hebe)
Never before nor since have
intolerance and prejudice been more visible, fashionable or universal among all
levels of American society.
In 1907 the Congress
established a panel called the Dillingham Commision, that concluded that immigration before 1880 had been no bad
thing-the immigrants primarily from nothern Europe were industrious, largely
protestant and had assimilated well-while immigration after 1880 had been
marked by the entrance into America of uneducated non-protestant masses from
southern and eastern Europe.
But in fact all evidence points
in the opposite direction.
It was because America had a
base of low wage, adaptable,unskilled labour that it was able to become an
industrial powerhouse.
For over half a century
American business had freely exploited its foreign born workers, and now it was
blaming them for being poor and alienated.
Also great intolerance and
prejudice was shown towards the eastern European Jews, that found themselves
accused of working too hard, but even the prejudice the Jews experienced paled
when compared to the black Americans.
African-Americans: Unwilling Immigrants
Slavery was common during the
American Revolution. Thomas Jefferson had slaves on his plantation. In 1808,
the importation of slaves from Africa was outlawed, but trading in slaves
within America remained brisk. The South's agricultural economy was based on
slavery and in 1860 there were 3.5 million slaves in America, and their numbers
continued to grow.
The end of the Civil War gave
African-Americans the first chance to freely move around America
But still unable to find the
social acceptance and financial opportunities that other immigrant groups found
in America, African-Americans remained second-class citizens for many years.
Unable to vote and often untaught in reading and writing, they were at the
bottom of America's social system.
The civil-rights and black-power
movements of the 1950s and 1960s gave African-Americans new rights and a sense
of identity. Some took African names of their ancestral lands from which their
relatives had been taken as slaves. Some chose to return to Africa.
The racial riots of the 1960s
-- and, more recently, of 1992 -- show that many African-Americans still do not
feel they belong, or are wanted, in America. Nevertheless, more
African-Americans are running for public office and winning government
positions. Listed as America's fourth largest ethnic group in the 1980 census,
African-Americans plan to make a difference.
IMMIGRATION LAWS
In 1916“ The Passing of the Race“ by Madison Grant was
published, that proposed just to allow the nordic race to immigrate and
sterilize the inferior races.
The first official prohibition
of immigration was established in 1882.It prohibited the immigration of
Chinese, criminals, prostitutes, alcoholics, illiterates, Anarchists, and blind
and sick people.
Around 1920 a new law was
passed that said that every nation was just allowed to send a certain
percentage of immigrants each year. Japanese people weren´t allowed to
immigrate at all.This law was abolished in 1965.
Important immigration laws
1790 Naturalization is authorized for 'free white persons' who
have resided in the United States for at least two years and swear loyalty to
the U.S. Constitution.
1798 The Alien and Sedition Acts
authorize the President to deport any foreigner deemed to be dangerous and make
it a crime to speak, write, or publish anything 'of a false, scandalous
and malicious nature' about the President or Congress.
1882 The Chinese Exclusion Act suspends
immigration by Chinese laborers for ten years; the measure would be extended
and tightened in 1892 and a permanent ban enacted in 1902. This marks the first
time the United States has restricted immigration on the basis of race or
national origin.
1906 The first language requirement is adopted for naturalization:
ability to speak and understand English.
1917 Over President Wilson's veto, Congress enacts a literacy requirement
for all new immigrants: ability to read 40 words in some language. Most
significant in limiting the flow of newcomers, it designates Asia as a
'barred zone' (excepting Japan and the Philippines) from which
immigration will be prohibited.
1921 A new form of immigration restriction is born: the national-origins
quota system. Admissions from each European country will be limited to 3%
of each foreign-born nationality in the 1910 census. The effect is to favor
Northern Europeans at the expense of Southern and Eastern Europeans.
Immigration from Western Hemisphere nations remains unrestricted; most Asians
will continue to face exclusion.
1924 Restrictionists' decisive stroke, the Johnson-Reed Act,
embodies the principle of preserving America's 'racial' composition.
The new
national-origins quota system is even more discriminatory than the 1921
version. 'America must be kept American,' says President Coolidge as
he signs the bill into law. Another provision bans all immigration by persons
'ineligible to citizenship'—primarily affecting the Japanese.
1950 The Internal Security Act,
enacted over President Truman's veto, bars admission to any foreigner who might
engage in activities 'which would be prejudicial to the public interest,
or would endanger the welfare or safety of the United States.' It excludes
or permits deportation of noncitizens who belong to the U.S. Communist Party or
whose future activities might be 'subversive to the national security.'
1952 For the first time Congress sets
aside minimum annual quotas for all countries, opening the door to numerous
nationalities previously kept out on racial grounds.
Naturalization
now requires ability to read and write, as well as speak and understand,
English.
1965 The United States finally eliminates racial criteria from its
immigration laws. Each country, regardless of ethnicity, will receive an annual
quota of 20,000.
1986 – The Immigration Reform and Control Act gives amnesty to millions of undocumented residents.
For the
first time, the law punishes employers who hire persons who are here
illegally.
The aim of
employer sanctions is to make it difficult for the undocumented to find
employment. The law has a side effect: employment discrimination against those
who look or sound 'foreign.'
1996 –The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act is passed, toughening border enforcement, closing opportunities for
undocumented immigrants to adjust their status, and making it more difficult
to gain asylum.
1997 With the Central American Relief Act, Congress
restores an opportunity for certain war refugees living in legal limbo to
become permanent residents.
1990 – The Immigration Act of 1990,
raises the limit for legal immigration to 700,000 people a year.
IMMIGRATION TODAY
Today New York is ready to
open its doors for 675 000 immigrants per year.
Today the percentage of the
„Caucasians“, the people with white European origin is only at about 43%.There
are about 25% blacks and about as many Hispanics living in New York.
The Asian population grew from
4 to 7 percent within the last 20 years.
Asians and Latin Americans,
especially Mexicans, are the immigrants of our decade.
Many people
believe that Mexican immigrants and their offspring are still subject to
discrimination in America. This results in difficulty getting good jobs. But
this is changing, as Mexican descendants gain political office and create
legislation that benefit their people.
EATING IN AMERICA
INDIAN INFLUENCE
„The first settler had come
upon a land of plenty. They nearly starved in it“
When the Pilgrims first
arrived in the New World, they showed a grim reluctance to eat anything that
did not come from their own stockpile, that basically consisted of salt meat
and dried beans.They´d rather starve than to experiment with the exotic food that
was there of plenty, like lobster, clams,mussles and oysters,salmon and
scallops or duck.
Due to their inexperience as
farmers and the different climate their first crops of peas and wheat failed.
But fortunately there were
Indians to save them.
The natives of the New World
were eating better than any European.
The variety of food they were
supplied with was for Europeans unimaginable and their diet was a lot healthier
too.Among the delicacies unique to teh New World wer the whit and sweet potato,
the peanut, pumpkins, choclate and vanilla, pineapples, chilli peppers, the
sunflower and tomatoes.
The agriculture of the Indians
had a sophistication the Europeans could not even begin competeing with. As a
result, while Europeans struggled even in good years to have enough to eat, the
Indians enjoyed a constant bounty.
The Indians single most
important gift to the colonists,- apart from not wiping them out –was corn.
Under the patient tutelage of
the Indians the colonists gradually became acquainted with native products like
pumpkins.
Pumkin Pie became a big hit
after the Pilgrims were introduced to it at their second Thnaksgiving feast in
1623.
The Indians not only
introduced the colonists to new food, but to more intersting ways of preparing
them. Dishes like clam chowder, cranberry sauce or corn pone were all Inidian
inventions.
INFLUENCE OF THE IMMIGRANTS
Only a relative handful of new
foods entered the American vocabulary in the ninetheenth century, among them
pretzl,pumpernickel,liverwurst,tutti-frutti, and spaghetti.
What changed was the way
Americans ate.
Before the 1820ies, dining out
was an activity reserved almost exclusivly to travellers.
There were no places dedicated
to the public consumtion of food just for the pleasure of it, nor any word to
describe them.
Then in 1827 a new word and
concept entered America from France: restaurant.
Soon restaurants sprouted all
over.By the 1870ies NYC alone had over 5000 restaurants.
In 1905, Gennaro Lombardi
owned an Italian restaurant in New York's Little Italy. He started to serve a
food from Naples, Italy, and people loved it. Made from a flat, yeast bread
baked with melted cheeses and tomatoes, the dish was called 'pizza.'
Today, pizza is delivered to the doors of American homes throughout the country,
but back then it was a way for immigrants to have a slice of home in their new
country.
Many classic Italian dishes
are in fact New World creations.
For example caesar salad,
chicken tetrazzini or spagetti with meatballs were all produc´ts to satisfy the
American palate.
Italian food was often all but
recognizable to visitors from Italy.
A similar situation obtained
with many other well loved „foreign“ foods.
Chilli con carne was unknown
in Spain until introduced there from the New World.
Chop Suey first saw light not
in China but in San Francisco and the Fortune Cookie was invented in Los
Angeles.
The number of restaurants in
America rose between 1910 and 1925 by 40%.
A hungry New Yorker in 1925
could choose between 17,000 restaurants.
FAMOUS AND CLASSICAL AMERICAN
FOOD
CORNFLAKES
In the 19th
century, as the diet in America became livelier a lot of people believed that
the consumption of the wrong food would lead to the nation´s moral breakdown.
In that time Horace Flethcer
gave the world the notion that each bite of food should be chewed 32 times and
wrote a successful book, the ABC of Nutrition.
The zenith of America´s long
obsessive coupling of food with moral rectitude came with John Harvey Kellog,
who took over a health reform institute and introduced a regime of treatments
that was as bizarre as it was popular.
Throughout much of his liefe,
Kellogg nurtured a quiet obsession with inventing a flaked breakfast cereal.
One night the process came to
him in his dreams.In his nightshirt he hastened to the kitchen, boiled some
wheat, rolled it out into stripes and baked it in the oven.
The product was not only tasty
but sufficiently unusual as to be without question good for you.
As it dawned on the people
that breakfast cereals were awfully easy to make, imitators sprang up.Not until
1907 when Kellog at last brought to market his cornflakes, did he begin to get
the credit and wealth his invention merited.
JUNK FOOD
Against such a background it
is little wonder that Americans turned with a certain enthusiasm to junk
food.The term Junk food didnt enter America before 1973, but the concept was
tehre long before and it began with one of the great breakthroughs in food
history: the invention of choclate.
The choclate bar was invented
in England in the 1840ies and milk choclate in Switzerland some 30 years later,
but neither became popular in America until the Hershey bar came to the market
in 1903.
The golden age of candy bars
was the 1920ies. Several classics made their debut in that busy decade- the
Milky way and Butterfingers, Mr Goodbar,Snickers, popsicles, Milk Duds and
The Dubble Bubble Gum in 1928.
The HAMBURGER
No one knows where the first
Hamburger was made.
The
presumption has always been that it came tpo America from Hamburg, Germany,
like the franfurter came from Frankfurt. But also Hamburg, NY and several other
American cities claim to have been the birthplace of the Hamburger in 1885.
By the turn of the century the
Hamburger steak was referred to as apatty of ground beef fried on a grill, but
not until 1921 did the hamburger as the sandwich we know today begin to take
its first steps towards respectability.
The term fats food was coined
in 1954.
McDONALDS: All American Restaurant
When brothers Dick and Mac
McDonald opened their southern California drive-in restaurant, they named it
after themselves. Today, more than 12,000 restaurants in over 56 countries
carry their name, and more than 22 million people eat at a McDonald's every
day. Thanks to McDonald's, people around the world think American food is a
hamburger, french fries, and a milkshake or soft drink. The restaurant's golden
arches are as well known and as welcoming as the Statue of Liberty.
McDonald's became successful
thanks to Ray A. Kroc, a salesman of food mixers. Kroc sold his mixers to the
McDonald brothers, took an interest in their business, and began to franchise
restaurants in their name. In 1961, Kroc bought out the McDonald brothers'
share of the business, then started the Hamburger University in Elk Grove
Village, Illinois. Here, students can earn a Bachelor of Hamburgerology, while
studying the McDonald's way of running a restaurant. This allows customers to get
their food fast and to ensure that all meals served at every McDonald's are the
same. In fact, you can eat the same meal at every McDonald's in the United
States and abroad.
McDonald's leads the fast-food
business in sales. While many busy parents are grateful for the restaurants'
delivery of fast and cheap meals to children, they are also concerned that a
McDonald's meal is not very nutritious. Fried food and sodas do not build
strong and healthy bodies. Responding to this criticism, McDonald's has added
items, such as salads and grilled chicken sandwiches, to its menu. Still, the
hamburger is what made McDonald's what it is today. It is the hamburger that
keeps most people returning to the golden arches either on foot, or for really
fast food, in the drive-through lane.
ABOUT DRINKING
On the 16th of
January 1920 the Eighteenth Amandment, the Volstead Act and Prohibition came
into force, that made any use and trade of alcohol in the United States
illegal.
Of course this law had a
devastating effect on restaurants, bars and
wine growers.
Even though the wine growers
discovered that tehre was nothing illegal about pasting a prominent label on
each bottle of harmless grape concentrate announcing boldly:
“ Warning:Will Ferment and
turn into Wine“, and providing step by step instructions on how a careless
consumer mighht inadvertently convert this healthful beverage into something
with the power to make his legs wobble.
This strict law made people
more creative than ever.
Seldom has any law anywhere
led to greater hypocrisy .
People not only continued to
drink, but in greater number than ever.
The brewers were nearly as
desperate as the wine growers, but they soon discovered a new product and
started producing a huge variety of soft drinks, like Howdy, chero-cola,7-Up,
Root beer or Ginger Ale.
The Story of COCA COLA
However it was not until 1886
that America got its quintessential softdrink when John Styth Pemberton, an
Atlanta Pharmacist, brewed up a concoction of cola nuts, coca leaves, caffeine
and other similarly dubious condiments in an iron tub in his backyard, stirred
it with a wooden oar from an old boat and called it COCA COLA.
His bookkeeper, who had a dab
hand at calligraphy drew up the florid logo that Coke uses to this day.
Anotehr Atlanta pharmacist,
Asa G. Candler bought the formula for 2000 $. By 1919 his outlay had grown in
value to 24 million$.
Such success naturally
encouraged immitation. Coke took trhem all to court.
By 1926 it had resorted to law
no fewer than 7000 times to protect its trademark.
In 1930 it also won the
exclusive right to its alternative name, COKE.
The only competitor it notably
failed to destroy was Pepsi-Cola invented by C.D. Bradham in 1898.
Today Coke
is sold in 195 countries and is claimed to be the second most universally
understood English term, exceeded only by OK.
SOURCES:
Made in
America by BillBryson
Internet
