G. G. Govindajaran muttered....

> 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.

The real trends and patterns?

The real trends and patterns stretch all the way from your massive Irish
and Italian urban enclaves to the groups of Eastern and Northern Europeans
who scattered themselves across the Southwest. The Pope traveling down to
Panna Maria during a visit to San Antonio wasa pretty Polish sort of
things, but the "Polish" dishes of the town are a bit transmogrified from
their Polish correspondents.

Nor is corned beef "Jewish" (although on a scale of ten, maybe more Jewish
than Irish). Corned beef replaced the traditional pork (and not much of
it) in the Irish immigrant bill of fare because it was available and
affordable. New York had a large Jewish immigrant population just as it
had a large Irish immigrant population. Corned beef lent itself to
compliance with religious dictates in preparation, was available year
'round, easy to ship and during the 19th century must have been relatively
cheap in US markets where beef was as over-supplied as if we were on the
pampas of the Argentine. Corned beef is a vivid example of the theory I've
attempted to expound. Eastern European Jews had not been beef eaters
either, but washed up on the American shore, the "technology" was quickly
matched to the ingredient.

I suspect that another factor was the price and availability of salt in the
US, almost universally untaxed and uncontrolled by government. Corned beef
wasa culinary step forward from "salt horse", much more appealing to both
cooks and diners.

Raw herring disappeared from the diets of both urban and rural Dutch
immigrants becaue herring fishing was poor, menhaden and mullet just don't
lend themselves to raw consumption, and the US is a big wide place where
the Dutch could not all live close to the sea.

Fortunately for the Italians, they had landed in a land where growing
tomatoes was possible almost anywhere with water, although the principal
evidence of the points of origin of Italian immigrants was that polenta
sure did not arrive on US restaurant menus quickly (nor was it popular in
Italian immigrant homes). In past years, there was a modest Italian
community in the Central Brazos Valley of Texas, immigrating to become
"truck" farmers. Some names and even a produce house, "D'Onofrio's", still
survive. There on the edge of the Plains, corn growing all about them, you
couldn't have given away polenta except to the starving. Grits maybe...

>
>>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?

They settled all across the land, and entered ports no longer existing. If
you iamgine all the immigrants passed through Ellis Island and moved to
Brooklyn, I've got this bridge.....



> 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.

Rebutted above....


The Irish of the Lower East Side of NYC bought this
> meat to replace their traditional salted bacon.

The folks selling meat on the "Lower East Side" were predominately Jewish
as were many of the people slaughtering, cutting "preserving" meat in that
part of the City. They didn't sell pork. They sold corned beef,
especially in the Spring when no self respecting livestock raiser was going
to sell skinny underweight cattle.

> Now, if you take into account European immigrants, who moved into
> the mid-western states, you have a little more "wiggle room"..

About 60 lanes of 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.

Therefore forming a textbook example of my "theory", a veritable lab rat in
conformation and context.


> 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.
>

Chicago may only exist so Minnesotans are within a day's travel by rail of
a decent meal, good whisky and a bit of strange poontang.

>
>
>>
>>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
>