In 2023, I moved to Alexandria, Virginia, a historic old town across the river from Washington, DC, the US capital. As I scarfed Vietnamese pho, drunken Thai noodles, Korean barbecue, Taiwanese bubble tea, Russian blinis, Mennonite milk, Neapolitan pizza, mini crepes from Hue, Vietnam, hamburgers charred perfectly, Greek salads, Lao sausage, Spanish tapas, Peruvian rotisserie chicken, Salvadoran pupusas, Uyghar spaghetti, New England meatloaf, clotted cream from England, and dim sum from China… I realized how much I knew about the diverse foods that make up American food but how little I knew about American history. I decided to write a book about the history of America. Through immigrant foods. Then, I realized, this was too vast a topic to undertake in one book, plus I have other things to do in my life… so instead I decided to write about the foods of early American history — from 1492 to 1792. Then, I got to chapter three and realized that I was not going to get anywhere near finished in a year. So instead, I’ll post what I wrote on this blog.
Some would say that the history of the USA should go back to the land bridge from Siberia when the ancestors of the native Americans, indigenous people, first nations, walked to the Americas. Some might say that the Vikings should be included in a history of America. Leif Eriksson was the first white European to set foot on North America, around the year 1,000 CE. Five centuries before Columbus, who never set foot on North America. Leif did not influence American food history. Some say that a history of America should include the Pacific Islanders who canoed to Hawaii a thousand years ago. For this book about the melting pot of American foods, I will start with 1492. This is when the bounty of what Christopher Columbus found in the Americas entered the European lexicon and mouths. Why European? Victors write the history and the Europeans were the invaders of America for several centuries.
I will start somewhere easy as the United States of America is a young-ish country so we only need to go back to 1450 CE (current era or AD). The USA did not come into existence until 1775 but for ease of history, I will refer to it as the USA even from before 1775.
Next time, I’ll start at 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Christopher Columbus was not Italian. Italy didn’t exist as a country until a century after the United States became a country.
