On Mon, 12 Apr 2004 15:48:33 -0500, Olivers >
wrote:

>An interesting discussion the other evening provided a great deal of
>support for a theory which I've not seen previously advanced in this
>group....

While, your theory has a bit of truth, it's pretty simplistic and
doesn't really take into account the real trends and patterns of
immigration here in the United States.

>Immigrants settling in areas of the US often represented small localized
>segments of larger ethnic groups, with the "Norwegians" in a particular
>county all originating in the same small community/area in Norway (or as in
>my home town, with about 80% of the pre1960 Mexican American families
>originating from a small area of a single Mexican state).

First, you have to consider where the immigrants to the U.S first
settled.
Did they first settle in New York City, like the Irish, Germans,
Jews, Italians, Dutch, and now the rest of the world?
I'll give you an example of an "ethnic" dish that isn't traditional,
but is accepted to be so.
On St. Patricks day--a US Irish Holiday--everyone tries to eat
corned beef and cabbage--a "traditionally" Irish dish. Wrong! Corned
Beef is Jewish. The Irish of the Lower East Side of NYC bought this
meat to replace their traditional salted bacon.
Now, if you take into account European immigrants, who moved into
the mid-western states, you have a little more "wiggle room"..
I am a descendant of Swiss and Alsatian Germans that settled, as
farmers, in Ohio in the nineteenth century. We always were fed
"traditional German" food but "ala the American farm". My people
assimilated and ate typical farm cooking.
I lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota for about ten years, and lived
among those of "Skandihoovian" (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and
Finnish--never trust a Finn!) ancestry. Gasrto-cultural heritage was
Lutefisk--or, whether or not you could eat this.



>
>Therefore, many dishes which have been popularized as ethnic (in a broader
>sense) are as much community, area or even family origined (and of course
>subject to vastly altered results because of the need to substitute
>different ingredients in search of traditional foods).
>
>Comment....
>
>TMO