Cross Cultures : Many Flavors Mix in California’s ‘Stew Pot’

In Southern California, the pattern of shifting and mixing cultures can be read in the signs and menus of restaurants.

We gain acceptance of other cultures through food, and after a while we think nothing of seeing a little stand selling “teriyaki burgers” or having lunch at a restaurant that serves both Mexican and Chinese food. What this means is that another culture has been incorporated into our melting pot, or stew pot. When two new groups come together, their cuisines are separate at first; later they meld in a kaleidoscope of ingredients and flavors.

Restaurants and food stands offer immigrants an equality of opportunity even when they can’t speak any language but their own, and even when they have little or no education.

The biggest trend in food today is low fat, high carbohydrates, lots of grains, not much meat. As we learn more about healthful eating we are getting closer and closer to the “roots” of food, foods that turn out to compose the basic, native diets of countries all over the world.

People coming to a new land have a comfort attachment to foods from home. In all the other stresses of trying to adjust to a new culture, it’s an important part of their centering and preservation of their old identities. But they often have to give up native foods that require hard-to-find ingredients. They have to substitute, so that a new cuisine--based on the old but incorporating the new--is always evolving.

This mirrors what happens in other types of assimilation, where some compromise is always required. The end result can be wonderful!