Olivers wrote:
>
> Arri London muttered....
>
>
> >
> > But that's not all that difficult is it? The original versions of
> > those recipes are readily available in the home countries for
> > comparison. Certainly I can compare American German recipes to the
> > originals; we have several German-language cookbooks with classic
> > regional recipes and we also get German magazines to see current
> > cuisine. Same thing for French and Dutch cooking in our house.
> > Fortunately I also have a couple of English language cookbooks from
> > other countries which don't modify the recipes in the translation. I
> > did check with natives from those countries. Of course without those
> > materials I wouldn't have a clue outside my own cultures.
> >
>
> In my case I was referring to immigrants who were illiterate or barely
> literate and unlikely to have learned from or carried coookbooks. They had
> presumably lived with diets limited by modern standards (still accurate
> when describing many of the recent immigrants from Mexico living across the
> US) and arrived attempting to survive on fare lacking in much variety due
> to previous expereience, availability or price.

In that case you are talking about only one group of immigrants.
Different groups had different experiences.
The common complaint I hear from European and Japanese immigrants is the
lack of variety they must endure until they start eating 'American' or
making the changes you suggest.


Many dishes from "home"
> seem to have been altered to fit new circumstances, and the recipes from
> some of the ethnic enclaves (church and lodge cookbooks) around here are
> quaint meldings of traditions.

Yes that's true in other countries as well. Immigrant cooking is
different from that practised at home. As you say, typically due to the
lack of equivalent ingredients.
>
> ....Then there's the availability of cheap sugar which seems to have found
> its way into every local "Czech" dish....
>
> TMO
>
> TMO

Ah but that's a feature of much American cooking to us foreigners. There
is a pervasive sweetness in things that weren't sweet at 'home'.