The World on a Plate is divided into seven chapters and limits its focus to seven immigrant groups: Italian, Middle Eastern, Greek, Jewish, Chinese, Indian/Pakistani and Latino.
However boundaries are often blurred. In the Chinese food section is the story of Jeno Paulucci, born into an Italian immigrant family in Minnesota. Paulucci started life as a miner, but quickly gave up his studies and the mines to go into the wholesale food business. During World War II fresh produce was rationed and thus a premium commodity. On a sales trip to Minneapolis, Paulacci noticed a group of Japanese men selling bean sprouts that they had grown indoors. Fascinated by this and seeing the opportunity to make money, Paulucci borrowed money and went into business. By canning bean sprouts during the winter, he could get better rates at canneries that normally operated during the outdoor growing season. His success with canned bean sprouts led to making canned chop suey (an American dish), which used bean sprouts in the recipe. Paulucci said, "With so many young men returning from the far corners of the world (after WWII), I was sure the exotic food business was going to be a growth industry." By the 1950s his Chun King Chinese canned foods became the largest manufacturer of Chinese foods. Paulucci sold Chun King in 1966 to R.J. Reynolds for $63 million. Within a year he launched Jeno's Frozen Pizza. More recently he started Yu Sing and Michelina frozen food lines.
In addition to these immigrant success stories, Denker describes the particular impact one group of immigrants had on local cuisine. Before the Civil War, New Orleans was the port used to deliver Italian produce, particularly citrus, to the Midwest. Subsequently, by 1850 Louisiana had the largest Italian population in the US. The newly arrived immigrants opened bakeries, restaurants, and small grocery stores. One Italian grocer married Creole and Sicily cuisines and invented the muffaletta, New Orleans' signature sandwich.
Later, in 1909, Giuseppe Uddo responded to the local New Orleans' Italian communities' needs for tomato paste by peddling imported goods from a horse cart. This cart led to a grocery store. When embargoes on Italian products occurred during World War I, Uddo bought a factory in California and started making his own tomato paste. The California plant produced more than the New Orleans market needed so Uddo started selling to the Italian enclaves in the Northeast. For the next few decades, business grew and Uddo's company, Progresso, started canning soups and beans. But it wasn't into World War II that Progresso went mainstream and started marketing their products in grocery stores such as Winn Dixie.
Not all the stories Denker reveals are as financially successful as these. While he cites the origin of Nathan's Hot Dogs and Dove Bars, a by-product of Greek immigrant Leo Stefanos' Dove Candies Shop in Chicago, the narrative explores how immigrants changed their native dishes to make them more palpable, and thus saleable, to American tastes. Such is the story of Colombo yogurt, which was first marketed to Armenian shops in small towns around Boston by the Colombosian family. Later, to gain a wider audience, the family sweetened the product and sales took off.
Denker observes that within the Greek community the idea wasn't to market to other Greeks, but to go mainstream as soon as possible. The coffee shop, luncheonette, and pizzeria became the first step to owning a diner. Diners were popular and "in their heyday, the 1960s and 1970s, diners appealed to immigrants who had entrepreneurial dreams and little capital." Diner manufacturers, which sold diners per linear foot, "often advanced 75 percent of the down payment." Greeks employed family and friends within the business with some owners "indenturing" employees after helping them immigrate into the US. Dishwashers became owners and these owners bought stores once owned by Jewish or Italian immigrants.
Denker writes that this cycle continues as newly arrived immigrants buy diners from Greeks whose children are opting out of the restaurant business. "Recent ethnic groups have already invaded Greek turf. Their historic rivals, the Turks, have opened diners in New Jersey, sometimes erecting them out of former convenience stores. Korean delis in New York City are taking away customers from the coffee shops."
The World on a Plate isn't a thorough discussion of every ethnic group's arrival and contribution to the inclusive American palate, nor does it intend to be. His narrative is, however, informative and often entertaining, allowing the reader to understand some of the underlying factors in America's ever-changing culinary scene.
Eaters' Digest
Have you ever wondered what an extraordinary amount of press can do to a hole in the wall restaurant? Red's Eats in Wiscassett, Maine, is such a place. A few months ago I saw the Red's Eats lobster roll featured on a food show, but it wasn't until I approached the Route 1 Bridge in Wiscassett on the way to the Maine coast that I realized what was going on. Here was the now famous, for gourmands at any rate, bright red, roadside stand, hardly the size of an SUV, with a long queue of folks. Not able to resist, I, too, waited for 34 minutes to buy their famous market-priced ($14 that day) lobster roll. A printed sign on their wall thanked numerous magazines including Bon Appetit and Gourmet, CBS, the Food Network, and others, while noting another television show was scheduled to be taped in August. Debbie Cronk, daughter of owner Alan Gagnon, told me they're "considering expanding." Was the pure claw and tail meat lobster roll worth the wait? Absolutely.
Have a restaurant tip, compliment, complaint? Do you know of a restaurant that has opened, closed, or should be reviewed? Does your restaurant or shop have news, menu changes, new additions to staff or building, upcoming cuisine or wine events? Fax information to Eaters' Digest: 704-944-3605, or leave voice mail: 704-522-8334, ext. 136. Note: We need events at least 12 days in advance. To contact Tricia via email: TLChild@bellsouth.net.