Ethnic Hits the Melting Pot

The United States subsists on a steady diet of immigration, and each successive wave introduces a new raft of thick accents and even thicker kitchen traditions. As those traditions collide with the economic and cultural reality of a new country, assimilation happens.

It's transformed hotdogs, bagels and spaghetti from steerage-class foreigners to American favorites. More recently, it's put a new face on everything from enchiladas and egg rolls to samosas and satay. True, not all evolution improves upon the model. But when chefs and product developers shepherd culinary change along a path of cultural awareness, marketing savvy, and processing practicability, authenticity takes a backseat to simple good taste.

For example, consider the evolution of Italian-American cuisine, which began as early Italian immigrants hit U.S. shores. Relocated to an urban setting unimaginable in the Old Country, they "demanded a touchstone to their culture, something that made them feel at home in this crazy place called America," explains Mike Orlando, board chairman, Sunnyland Mills, Fresno, CA, and chairman, Whole Grains Council, Boston. Food proved a good touchstone, so Italian immigrants began putting informal recipes in writing and inventing dishes like Christmas Eve eel and the paschal abbacchio al forno.

New World markets lacked many of the ingredients that homesick Italian-Americans took for granted, forcing them to adapt their traditions or lose them. They chose the former, conjuring sunny pepper plants from window boxes, making do with cow's-milk mozzarella when water-buffalo milk was nowhere to be found, and reformulating cioppino with San Francisco's Pacific Dungeness crab instead of the Mediterranean's branzini and polpi.

Affection for and identification with traditional foods still compel immigrants to flex their adaptive ingenuity. Spinach and kale replace dasheen leaves in a transplanted Caribbean callaloo. Thai cooks adjust curries to accommodate cinnamon and gingerroot instead of cassia bark and galangal. A pot of pozole is no less Mexican for its canned American hominy. And shrewd Chinese shoppers find Virginia's Smithfield hams substitute for the salty, but scarce, Xuanwei variety.

First-generation immigrants stomach these substitutions because abandoning their foodways entirely is untenable. However, "In the immigrant community, changes occur with each passing generation as it becomes homogenized and the traditions of its heritage are lost," says Melissa Ventura, corporate research chef, Red Arrow Products Company LLC, Manitowoc, WI. Kitchen skills weaken, recipes evolve, and it gets easier to swallow a dish that's a mere shadow of its source.

For Joe Ertman, president, Pacific Foods International, Sumner, WA, that means that despite growing up in a French-German household where veal was a biweekly regularity: "I haven't eaten veal in 10 years. That root of what my parents ate, now that I have my own family and home, carries forward only to a small extent." And if popular culture doesn't reinforce food habits, "one is not likely to go back and revisit them."

Sarah R. Labensky, associate professor of culinary arts and director of the Culinary Arts Institute at the Mississippi University for Women, Columbus, MS, would agree. "There's a lifestyle change that occurs in immigrant populations as they transplant themselves, whether it's to the United States or to Western Europe or to any other first-world area," she says. "The second generation doesn't necessarily want to prepare what Granny is preparing, doesn't want to spend the time." Cues from media also take their toll, exerting an assimilatory pressure that threatens to crush Old World foodways.

Many stalwarts hang onto culinary traditions for a living. "Stop and think about what immigrants do when they get here," Labensky says. "Look at how many open restaurants. They've got the family to work there, it's something that they're familiar with, and Grandma knows how to cook." The romantic notion of the up-from-the-bootstraps ethnic eatery may be a cliché, but Labensky maintains that it's still "a perfect starting point for so many immigrants to begin their quest for that American dream."

Their quest usually begins in an ethnic neighborhood where proprietors feel comfortable serving a clientele that shares their tastes. But as newfound prosperity moves immigrants from urban ethnic districts to the suburbs, they bring their restaurants with them. When word about these restaurants spreads, folks from the 'burbs start bringing home shawarma along with DVD rentals. While Orlando notes that "it would be difficult for a lot of people to go into an ethnic enclave where they might not feel comfortable as outsiders," sandwiching an Afghan kebab shop between the dry cleaner and a pizza chain domesticates it and sets the stage for cultural exchange.

Suburban ethnic restaurants negotiate a balance between preserving their cuisines and promoting them to a curious, yet cautious, public. In so doing, "they try to retain as much integrity to the originals as they can without violating the palate expectations of the consumer," says Ertman.

Or, as Labensky puts it, "they 'gringoize' their food." Goat meat gets the boot in favor of lamb, beef or chicken. Fiery curries and salsas get toned down. And in a literal case of "gringoization," Mexico's complex regional cuisines often get smothered underneath alarmingly orange American cheese versus, say, an inky mole negro Oaxaqueño.

With more leisure time, money, and exposure to media and travel, consumers court dining diversity. "Everybody has traveled so much and has had the opportunity to experience more than our parents did," says Toni Armando, vice president of technology, Food Marketing Support Services, Inc. (FMSS), Oak Park, IL. And, she adds, the parade of celebrity chefs only strengthens our experiences. "You see something on TV," she says, "that reinforces that it's doable."

While making an authentic Vietnamese pho with braised pork knuckles may be doable, home cooks haven't exactly embraced pig's feet. Nor are they necessarily eager to order the soup at the neighborhood noodle house. American consumers may talk about embracing new cuisines, but scrape the surface and you find a profound ambivalence toward authenticity. "We want food that we like to taste," says Myron Becker, founder and owner, Myron's Fine Foods, Inc., Orange, MA. In the cities and on the coasts, early adopting foodies may seek menus that dare the senses, but their influence trickles in marginally, and only with time. "There are still pockets in this country that are very conservative in adopting new tastes," he adds, and they may never warm up to a plate of cod cheeks a la Catalana.

Still, Americans are very experimental -- "much more experimental than a lot of Western Europe," says Labensky. As a nation of immigrants, we don't have much choice. The U.S. Census Bureau projects the country's Hispanic population to grow by 96% and its Asian population by 110% in the first decade of this century. By 2020, according to the Economic Research Service of the USDA, the number of foreign-born Americans will have risen to 38 million. Such figures delight fans of Bangladeshi, Peruvian and Ethiopian foods, but they also nudge garden-variety Mexican, Chinese and Italian out of the "ethnic" category and into the mainstream -- a change that a 2000 study by Chicago-based National Restaurant Association, "Ethnic Cuisines II," says has already occurred. Indeed, 70% to 80% of the study's respondents claim familiarity with Japanese, Indian, regional Chinese, Scandinavian, Spanish and Greek cuisines, among others.

A study of foreign foods that make it to the mainstream offers a few guiding themes for product designers. "Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside" is a universal mantra for mass appeal. Americans seek out deep-fried items like radar, locking on everything from pakoras to taquitos and tempura. If the crispy parcels include a creamy burst of cheese -- mozzarella sticks, jalapeño poppers and fried ravioli -- all the better. "Items from Chinese immigrants, such as fried wontons, are traditionally filled with meats or vegetables," notes Ventura. "But in America, you find them filled with cream cheese to appease consumers' desires for fried cheese items."

Add our insatiable sweet tooth. "Innately, we've been born with this sweet desire," says Danny Bruns, CRC, CCC, corporate chef, Kerry Americas, Waukesha, WI. "And when new flavors come to the U.S. market, we shift them toward greater sweetness." Exhibits A, B and C: the sweet-and-sour pork, fruity lemon chicken and roast duck with plum sauce at any American-style Chinese restaurant.

In Japan, Becker says, the blend of shoyu, rice vinegar, and yuzu juice known as ponzu is extremely sour -- "so much that it almost makes your cheeks suck in." Skeptical that something so tart would float in the United States, he sweetened his company's version, adding evaporated cane juice and honey. And while he admits that his "souped-up ponzu" wouldn't pass the authenticity test in Tokyo, it's still his second-best seller.

Credit Thai food's sweet side for some of its popularity here, but add its use of bright herbal and lemon grass notes, tang of citrus, and chile punch. The combination works, says Nancy C. Rodriguez, president of FMSS, because "we're a culture that loves surprises," and these flavor peaks so common to Southeast Asian and Latin American cuisines enliven our sensory terrain. She believes that any cuisine providing an "experiential burst of flavor" has better odds here than one that produces a "palate-smother effect, where you're just so inundated and fatigued that you're going to eat two teaspoons and not ten bowls."

Some blame the smother effect for Indian cuisine's difficult transition to the mainstream. But Lionel Vil, R&D director for seasonings at Kerry, thinks the culprit is less Indian food's flavors than its overall sensory impression. "I contend that some may be turned off by the fact that it is mushy, brown and yellowish in appearance," he says. But when he's put classic Indian seasonings in meatloaf, "We find that people love it."

Presentation can make or break a cuisine's chances in a wary market. The practice of serving fish or duck with head and tail -- a sign of respect in Asia -- "would be totally unacceptable here," Vil says, "so we have to make adjustments to make sure that people will not be totally turned off."

That also means keeping strong aromas in check. We may warm up to Thai cuisine's play of sweet, sour, salty and spicy, but many prefer that the pungent fish sauce underlying it all, continues lying under it all. A ripe Roquefort may inspire adoration in Rouergue, France, but American consumers prefer less-ripe cheeses with fewer fermentative "inhabitants" -- a request more easily met, Ventura adds, because U.S. regulations require most use pasteurized milk.

Consumers always prefer choice -- particularly when testing a new cuisine. Perhaps that's why salsa, hummus and other dips have done so well. "They give you the option of choice," Rodriguez says. "And you're not being inundated with the quantity you've chosen to take. This is how we learn ... by tasting and experiencing first, and then we eat."

Hummus presents an American success story. While Orlando recalls first trying the chickpea spread at a Dearborn, MI, restaurant favored by Middle Eastern expatriates, "every party you go to now has hummus." The more comfortable people get with it, he says, "the more comfortable they feel taking that step into something even more different, like baba ghanoush. And then they try grape leaves, whereas they wouldn't have tried that before. They just keep stepping along the path."

It's a paradox, Ertman says, "that as much as we want to let original ethnic foods in, we also want to take those original ethnic foods -- even something as simple as pizza -- and put barbecued chicken on them." The result is what he calls a "natural migration to the center. It's a give and a take."

That back-and-forth has turned tabbouleh into a supermarket staple that's different from what Levantine immigrants brought here. "If you go to a Whole Foods today, tabbouleh is a dish of bulgur wheat with parsley," Orlando explains. "But if you try a real Lebanese tabbouleh, it's a parsley dish with a little bit of bulgur." An early American adopter might have been "turned off by all that parsley," he suspects, "so whoever first started doing it here probably said: 'Hey, this grain tastes good. Let's put more grain in it.' And that became what Americans know as tabbouleh."

Given a limited consumer history with the product, product designers enjoy more liberty in interpreting it. Such is the case with pierogies, Ertman adds, which penetrate only about 5% of U.S. households. "If I introduce that product to a new user, they don't know what a pierogi is," he says. As far as they're concerned, an authentic pierogi is the first one they taste. Thus, he tries to bring a contemporary flavor structure that the new user is going to identify to the Eastern European potato dumpling. Along with traditional cheese-onion and mushroom-herb varieties, he's developed pierogies with rosemary and toasted garlic, as well as with jalapeño peppers and soy-jack cheese.

He's also restructured the dumpling's wrapper. Traditional pierogies are about 55% to 60% dough and 40% to 45% filling. "In years past, when people made pierogies by hand, they had to make the dough very thick," Ertman notes. But today's consumer doesn't want a dough-heavy product, so he reversed the ratio to 60% filling, 40% wrapper. "I'm still delivering a pierogi," he maintains. "I'm still using potatoes. And I'm still giving it some authenticity. But I've got to contemporize it and be sensitive to what consumers are accustomed to eating today."

Ertman understands and respects the prototype he's making over. This marks a refreshing shift from when an "Oriental" entrée meant sprinkling fried chow mein noodles on something. As Ventura points out, diversification and education "have forced manufacturers to be more respectful of the origins of a dish."

We may cluck enlightened tongues at the culturally naïve "ethnic" foods of the post-World War II era, but Rodriguez praises those early efforts for shaking America out of culinary complacency. "That someone like Chung King took 'Chinese food' and canned it and froze it -- that was a huge change for the American public compared to peanut butter and burgers," she says. "Bamboo shoots? That was a big deal."

Rodriguez's company leads clients on "sensory treks" to help get R&D teams out of the test kitchen for a total cultural immersion. These expose participants to everything from the tastes and aromas of an ethnic community to its sounds, colors and spirit.

Product developers can explore their own ethnic communities for clues, too. "You always hear chefs saying, 'Hey, I know this great little place around the corner where they make the best such-and-such,'" Bruns says. "It's always these places that people flock to for true flavors, true texture."

Ironically, the more food professionals internalize a cuisine, the less bound they feel to reproduce it herb for herb. "I try to find what the traditions are," says Ana Sortun, chef-owner of Oleana Restaurant, Cambridge, MA. "And when I feel comfortable that I understand the dish and where it comes from -- when I've seen as many as 15 or 20 different versions of it -- then I feel that I can use some creative freedom."

In International Cuisine: Turkey Travels the Globe, by National Turkey Federation, Washington, D.C., Labensky writes that once a product developer grasps a cuisine's signature principles, "you can apply these principles to various proteins and starches to create dishes that are, if not authentic, at least evocative of a given regional or ethnic cuisine. Anything stir-fried with soy sauce, fresh ginger and rice indicates Chinese cuisine, while braised meat and potatoes flavored with lard, onions and paprika represent Eastern European dishes."

Brian Halloran, corporate chef and director of culinary development, Fishery Products International, Danvers, MA, followed such a strategy to develop UpperCrust, a line of cod, tilapia and salmon fillets encrusted with Mediterranean, pan-Latin and Asian ingredients. "Once we targeted those particular flavor profiles," he explains, "we went after the more-or-less mainstream examples." For Asian-themed tilapia, that meant forgoing edgier seasonings like Thai basil, fish sauce and green curry for soy, sesame and ginger -- a profile that was a bit more recognizable to North Americans. Mild cod and tilapia can support a variety of ethnic flavors.

"Fresh Mex" chains like Baja Fresh, Thousand Oaks, CA, have taken advantage of American chicken. "They grill the meat because they know that the culture embraces smoky notes, and then they marry it with a salsa verde," Rodriguez notes. The value of a neutral carrier, she adds, is that "everything you add to it stands out as punctuation. You get the citrus bits, the crushed red chiles -- you get all these wonderful bursts of flavor, but you don't get drowned."

Mashed potatoes can be Japanese or Italian dressed with wasabi paste or Gorgonzola. Sometimes a spike of harissa is all white rice needs to signal "Tunisian."

Labensky applauds the rice- and noodle-bowl phenomenon for spreading international cuisines to consumers who may not have had the opportunity to try them otherwise. "The concept has adopted a lot of different ethnicities," she says. "I've seen a Cajun andouille sausage étouffée rice bowl, Indian curry bowls and a bunch of different Asian themes." She attributes bowls' appeal to their convenience, because "people don't really cook anymore." They're even less likely to cook when they have to search for "exotic" ingredients and attempt mysterious, time-consuming recipes.

Even a simple stir-fry entails chopping and making a sauce, and takeout still needs to be picked up, so we have to provide easy-to-drive vehicles for the ride to ethnic cuisine. Manufacturers must often turn involved recipes into products that pop in the microwave. "It's a difficult challenge," Armando says. "Certainly, you have to be cognizant of manufacturing capabilities and constraints."

For instance, say you want to produce a tandoori chicken entrée. "The tandoori oven is a traditional round-top oven made of clay and brick," says Ventura. "When food, such as chicken, is baked in it using intense heat, it creates an earthy, ashy taste unique to the cooking method." Rare is the manufacturing facility blessed with such an oven, but normal manufacturing practices and various liquid smokes can still generate comparable flavors, she says.

Halloran suggests replicating the technique in an impingement oven. If your plant doesn't have one, use a co-packer, he says. It still might behoove manufacturers to choose dishes whose cooking techniques scale up more easily: steaming, grilling, deep-frying and baking. Or consider delivering an ethnic dish in a meal kit that lets consumers complete critical -- but simple -- cooking and seasoning steps.

"We deal with a lot of grains and doughs," Ertman says, "and we have to handle the ingredients as delicately as possible so that we don't destroy the textural attributes that normally occur when someone is gingerly making the products by hand." Examining everything from formulation to equipment to processing conditions is key, he says: "We really have to ask ourselves: 'What do we do from a formulation perspective? What can we do with starches or gums? Do we use fresh ingredients or dry? What happens when we go with freeze-drying? Do we precook the filling outside the shell, or do we cook it in the shell?' All those factors come into play."

What about ingredient availability? Suppliers of tropical produce, unusual grains and pastas, rare seasonings and specialty meat and dairy products have boomed in recent years, providing lemon grass, varietal chiles and even purple Peruvian potatoes in quantity and consistency. But product developers can still find themselves calling on the same culinary ingenuity that immigrants use when they can't find their favorites. So substitute toasted farina for the manioc sprinkled over Brazilian dishes, as Labensky suggests in International Cuisine; make paella with frozen peas, use turmeric instead of saffron, and add common smoked sausage instead of chorizo; and take advantage of American cultivars, such as Texmati rice in place of basmati.

R&D can make the job a lot easier -- and consumers happier -- when they consider this question from Becker: "Who's putting the product in their mouth? Chefs and those of us in manufacturing always have to keep our sights on the consumer." You can get away with a lot if the food just tastes good.

Kimberly J. Decker, a California-based technical writer, has a B.S. in Consumer Food Science with a minor in English from the University of California-Davis. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area, and enjoys cooking and eating food in addition to writing about it.

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