The Americanization of Food

Americanization of Foods:
Food is traditionally considered as a simple means of subsistence but has developed to become filled with cultural, psychological, religious, and emotional significance. Consequently, food is currently used as a means of defining shared identities and symbolizes religious and group customs. In the early 17th and 18th centuries, this mere means of subsistence was considered as a class maker but developed to become a symbol of national identity in the 19th centuries. In the United States, food has been influenced by various cultures such as Native American, Latin America, and Asian cultures. Consequently, Americans have constantly Americanized the foods of different cultures to become American foods. The process on how Americans have Americanized different cultures’ foods and reasons for the Americanization is an important topic of discussion.
Background Information:
As previously mentioned, food was traditionally considered as a mere means of subsistence, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries. The early history of food involved its use to define shared identities and reflected religious and group customs. Furthermore, food was filled with psychological, cultural, religious, and emotional significance. During this period, a unique court tradition of cuisine and sophisticated table manners emerged to distinguish the social elite from the ordinary people. However, during the 19th century, the history of food slightly changed as it became a defining symbol of national identity. This period was characterized by the association of several dishes to particular countries and cultures (Mintz, par 1). For instance, American hamburger and tomato-based Italian spaghetti are cultural foods that were in...

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... sweet things. As a result, they adapt foods from other cultures and add sugar and salt or even fry them to make sweet or sweeter. This process sometimes involves the elimination of certain ingredients that are not considered sweet or necessary in the specific cuisine.
The other aspect of the Americanization of different cultures’ foods is lessening the spiciness of certain foods. For instance, foods from Thailand usually have a significant amount of heat and spice based on the Thai food culture that largely incorporates vegetables. In this case, Americans lessen the spiciness through changing a major ingredient of the ethnic cuisine in order to prepare an Americanized Thai cuisine. Therefore, Americans have primarily Americanized different cultures’ foods through salting, adding sugar, or frying and lessening changing major ingredients of the native cuisine.