What’s Cooking?
You are what you eat. Foodways are a key source of identity. Except for the English.
Most social scientists see cultural habits surrounding food as among the most enduring customs in any community. That’s one reason why it is usually more accurate to talk about the “food court” created by immigration rather than the “melting pot.”
Certainly, a food revolution has been a key change in British life in my lifetime. My mother cooked the same dishes her mother had. Grandma had eventually opened a cake shop and bakery, so all the pies had a delicious pastry. My mother, in turn, ran a small hotel for a time and guests sometimes returned, mainly to taste again her lemon meringue or meat and potato pie. But it was a cuisine that was clearly defined. Only on those rare occasions when we went to a restaurant or traveled abroad, did our family encounter international foods. My mother treated them with suspicion.
