{"id":105,"date":"2020-05-19T16:55:42","date_gmt":"2020-05-19T16:55:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-garfield\/?p=105"},"modified":"2020-05-22T19:57:47","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T19:57:47","slug":"learning-objective-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-garfield\/learning-objective-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning Objective #2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
How much does awareness of a foreign cuisine affect that cuisine\u2019s transnational character and its inclusion in PFM\u2019s? (Preconception and Industrial Food Networks)<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Naturally,\nas befits its status as a \u201cmelting pot,\u201d a crucible for immigrants from around\nthe globe, the United States is a nation stuffed to the brim with various\nimported foodways. This has been the case for the entirety of the nation\u2019s\nrelatively short life: from the very first European settlers in the colonial\nera to the bustling food cart pods peppering today\u2019s city streets; not to\nmention the meals being prepared each and every day at home. We can examine the\nhistorical record and track the primary influx of significant ethnic groups to\nthe US, such as waves of Chinese, Italian, Irish, or Filipino immigrants\u2014all\ntypically tied to global political relations at the time. As we have seen,\nevery particular immigrant cuisine is inextricably tied to that group\u2019s\nparticular cultural identity; the day-to-day habits and practices peculiar to\ntheir place of origin. Just as awareness of these \u201cnew\u201d American minority\ngroups builds among the nation\u2019s populace, so does awareness of their peculiar\ncuisines. What we think of as \u201cAmerican\u201d cuisine is really a historical record,\nlike a geological cross-section, constructed and fossilized layer by layer as\nnew groups contribute their foodways to the quilt: English, Dutch, West\nAfrican, Scandinavian, Italian, Chinese, and Mexican, to name but a few of the\nprimary constituents. I use the term \u201cfossilized\u201d quite deliberately here, because\nas each layer of cuisine gets added to the American identity, its popular\nconception tends to become pigeonholed; set in stone, as it were. Chinese-American\ncuisine is a perfect example of this trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A powerful modern nation with some of the deepest roots of\ncultural tradition, China has thousands of years of contiguous history\ninforming its kaleidoscope of proud culinary practice. Its many unique regions,\nethnic groups, and religious and philosophic traditions lend to a vast array of\napproaches to food preparation and consumption. And yet here in the United\nStates, the conception of \u201cChinese food\u201d has developed into a unique cuisine\u2014endemic\nto no particular Chinese region or traditional practice\u2014and yet one that also\nserves to strengthen and support a minority group seeking to carve its own\nniche in American identity. As Yong Chen states in the introduction to his book\nChop Suey, USA<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[Chinese food\u2019s] rise to popularity embodied the budding mass-consumer\nempire\u2019s desire for the convenience and service that Chinese laborers provided\nin restaurants, more than for the long and rich tradition of Chinese cuisine.\nThis explains why the American dining public embraced the Chinese food\ncharacterized by simple and inexpensive foods like chop suey but largely\nrejected China\u2019s haute cuisine represented by exquisite dishes such as shark\u2019s\nfins.<\/em>\u201d (Chen, 4)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chinese-American cuisine thus arose as a result of the\ncombination of immigrant foodways and the preconceptions and expectations of\nAmerican popular consumption culture. The Chinese, as an immigrant minority,\nwere associated in the American consciousness with service-industry labor, and\nthus appetites for their food came with notions of convenience and\naffordability. In efforts to establish their cultural knowledge as a commodity\nviable in the American economy, Chinese entrepreneurs over the last two\ncenturies worked to adapt their products to the tastes of US consumers. It is\nalso important to note that despite these adaptations, Chinese-American cooking\nat home remained relatively traditional\u2014the evolution of chop suey and General\nTso\u2019s chicken happened in the commercial sector. In this way, Chinese\nentrepreneurs were performing transnationality threefold: the traditional\nChinese identity of the homeland, the Chinese-American identity within the\nhome, and the unique Chinese-American identity presented to American consumers.\nAs such, the acceptance of Chinese-American restaurant cuisine in the US can be\nseen more as an economic product than a genuine embrace of immigrant identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I discuss the example of Chinese-American cuisine to\nhighlight the powerful influence preconceptions have on the development of\nimmigrant foodways and identity. I also seek to point out how the trends\noutlined above affect the level of entanglement between a transnational cuisine\nand the industrial food system. The continuing association between Chinese\ncuisine and convenience shows itself in the current prevalence of Chinese food\nin the frozen foods aisles of grocery stores across the country, from\nubiquitous brands like P.F. Chang\u2019s, Panda Express, Tai Pei, and Ling Ling. As\ndemand for ready-made frozen meals has developed, interest in bags of\nmicrowaveable egg rolls and dumplings has grown at a commensurate rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along with Chinese-American food, a modern shopper will find\nshelves devoted to frozen lasagna, pizza, fettucine alfredo, and Italian\nmeatballs\u2014foods that fall under another hyphenated category: Italian-American. As\nthe introduction to The Silver Spoon<\/em>,\na comprehensive Italian cookbook in print for seventy years, states: \u201c\u2026Italian\ncooking is traditionally based on excellent, fresh, seasonal ingredients. This\nis one of the main reasons why Italian food varies so much from region to\nregion and even from village to village.\u201d (Silver\n<\/em>Spoon, 8) Indeed, the primary factors in Italian cuisine\u2019s rise to\nprominence in the United States are attributed to be \u201cits taste, simplicity,\nand high-quality ingredients.\u201d (Camillo, 550) Thus we see that the presence of an\nethnic food in the frozen aisle may not simply be due to a prolonged\nassociation with convenience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Variety and connection to regions and seasons (read:\nfreshness) are acclaimed aspects of many national cuisines, including Chinese. Socio-economic\nfactors and a complex history dictate personal preference for the cuisines of\nspecific regions such as Sichuan, Fujian, or Hong Kong. Each of these unique culinary\ntraditions are also constantly undergoing processes of blending and mixing, as\nCheung and Wu observe: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChinese\ngourmets used to argue about whether there should be three, four, six, or eight\nmajor high cuisines in China, but the post-modern food scene in China,\nincluding Hong Kong and Taiwan today, has obscured all the boundary markers,\nbecause of migration, innovation, modern communication, creolization and\nglobalization.\u201d <\/em>(4)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet for all this variety, Chinese food was originally\nrecognized by American citizens as a single \u201crancid,\u201d \u201crepulsive,\u201d \u201cheavy and\noffensive\u201d odor which identified one\u2019s location in Chinatown. (Chen, 84) Eventually\nbecoming one of the most popular foreign cuisines in the United States, Chinese-American\nfood has yet to fully escape this homogenization imposed upon it by American\npreconception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With such differing paths to the modern level of acceptance\nin the U.S., how is it that both Chinese-American and Italian-American cuisines\nhave converged to inhabit such a large proportion of industrial convenience\nfoods? Keeping the above discussions in mind, it becomes clear that there is a\nrelationship between awareness of a transnational cuisine and the level with\nwhich it is involved in the industrial food system. After all, demand drives\nproduction, and a population of consumers can only demand a product after\nbecoming aware of it\u2014and more importantly, accepting\n<\/em>it. This latter notion is very important, and more complicated than it\nfirst appears. Acceptance is a double-edged sword: the decreases in xenophobic\nacts of aggression almost always come with some sort of subversion of cultural\nidentity. In other words, an ethnic cuisine has the potential to become \u201cso\nwell known and prevalent that it is no longer considered ethnic.\u201d (Ray, 78)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These cuisines have become identifiable and lodged in\nAmerican consciousness, and as such have become less and less recognizable by\nnationals from their countries of origin. In an oft-repeated process, \u201cimmigrants\nwho are self-taught cooks improvise both cooking materials and how they present\ndishes, to satisfy the imagination of a Chinese eating culture comprising both\nChinese migrants and host (non-Chinese) populations.\u201d (Wu, 77) As this process\n(which occurs in any transnational group) progresses, the foreign cuisines\nbecame more and more aligned with the industrial appetites of Americans, whose\neating habits in the 20th<\/sup> century came to be centered around\ncapitalist ethics of labor and expediency. Here we can see how a host\npopulation\u2019s (in this case, American) acceptance of a foreign cuisine can\ndirectly result in that cuisine\u2019s inclusion in and absorption into the\nindustrial food system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some ways, Filipinx cuisine represents the other end of\nthe spectrum. In 2014, Filipinx restaurants were the only<\/em> major ethnic culinary category not represented in either the\nMichelin or Zagat guides to New York City eating, despite having at least\ntwenty-three locations across the city. (Ray, 80) Philippine food exists on the\noutskirts of American consciousness, known well only to those who identify as\nFilipinx, Filipinx-American, or their immediate relations. Though this position\nmay make it more difficult to find particular ingredients or to eat \u201clocally,\u201d\nit does allow identity to be enacted and defined by those within the community,\nversus industrial interests who develop food products based on economic demand.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we consider the antithesis of progressive food movements\nto be the leviathan that is the current industrial-global food system, then it\npresents a curious facet to the questions of transnational identity inclusion.\nPosed as a question: can a high level of acceptance of an immigrant cuisine\nactually decrease<\/em> its viability in\nprogressive food movements?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How much does awareness of a foreign cuisine affect that cuisine\u2019s transnational character and its inclusion in PFM\u2019s? (Preconception and Industrial Food Networks) Naturally, as befits its status as a \u201cmelting pot,\u201d a crucible for immigrants from around the globe,… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"geo":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-garfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-garfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-garfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-garfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-garfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-garfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-garfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions\/116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-garfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-garfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-garfield\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}