Ethnic Foods: Mainstreaming of Ethnic Dishes

Since the middle of the nineteenth century immigrants have made substitutions with American commercialized foods, such as canned tomatoes for other acidic ingredients, baking powder in yeast breads, chilies for black pepper, potatoes for other starches, and cornmeal in some baked products. Groups often select a single dish that becomes emblematic of the ethnic group for outsiders. For Irish Americans it is raisin soda bread. For Lithuanians, who have an elaborate cuisine but first came to the United States as male migrant laborers, it is kugelis, a casserole of potatoes, onions, and bacon. Swedish meatballs, Jewish matzo balls, French Canadian pea soup, and Pennsylvania Dutch shoofly pie are intercultural shorthand for three ethnic cuisines.