Ethnic Foods: Defining Ethnicity and Ethnic Food

An ethnic group is usually defined as a group that shares a common history and often a common national origin, culture, religion, and home language. Most recognizable American ethnic groups share three or more of these characteristics, but some ethno-religious groups with distinctive food may share only religion. For example, Moravians originally shared all the characteristics of an ethnic group in their homeland in what became the Czech Republic, but the religious wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries reduced them to a small Protestant sect in Germany. Most Moravians then came to the British colonies in North America and became part of the Pennsylvania Dutch ethnic group, but global missionary work has since broadened the ethnic base of the church to the point at which the largest group of Moravians lives in Tanzania. All Moravians, however, prepare love-feast buns and coffee as part of their religious services, and many continue to enjoy German American Moravian sugar cakes and Moravian cookies. Thus some Pennsylvania Moravians have a common history (generations of membership), national origin (Czech Moravia), culture (Pennsylvania Dutch), religion (Moravian Church), and home language (English and Pennsylvania dialect German), but some share only the religion and some of the foods.