Though with americanized food money is important it can help to make people feel excotic and different, even though there eating something pretty familiar, not authentic and made in their own country. An example of this is with takeout Chinese food. Customers go to their local Chinese restaurants and order things such as beef and broccoli,General Tso's chicken and wonton soup. These items are not authentic, they are full of unneeded sugar and does not use seasoning that is generally found in China. According to Jennifer Polland, a deputy editor for at INSIDER, authentic chinese food, “varies tremendously by region: Sichuan cuisine is spicy, Shangdong cuisine is generally salty and crispy, and Cantonese cuisine is sweet, for example.” (Polland). …show more content…
The classic example of this is Chinese fortune cookies. In an article that Jesse Rhodes wrote for Smithsonian.com , entitled “Cracking Open the History of Fortune Cookies” the origins of the fortune cookies discovered. The fortune cookie actually has Japanese origins, not Chinese. In Japan there are still bakeries that make the fortune cookies or “tsujiura senbei ("fortune crackers")”(Rhodes). Compared to the fortune cookies made in the United States the ones in Japan are, “flavored with sesame and miso, the cookies are larger and browner than their American cousins, and the little paper fortunes are found on the outside, held in the cookie's little "arms."(Rhodes). Then during World War II with the influx of Chinese and Japanese immigrants, “Chinese food spiked in popularity and, at least on the West Coast,dinners were commonly accompanied by fortune cookies”(Rhodes). Then there were internment camps and most of the Japanese Americans were put into them and their bakeries were forced to close. In order to stop their businesses from closing, do to lack of fortune cookies, “ Chinese entrepreneurs stepped in to fill the void and by the end of the war they were indelibly associated with fortune cookies, whose popularity had …show more content…
The basis of americanized food, taking authentic food and adding what is considered american to make it their own, has allowed for the mixing and creation of new types and subcultures of food. An example of this is with Tex-Mex food. Tex-Mex is a combination of the words Texan and Mexican (Olver) and really started in the 1950s after a large influx of Mexican immigrants into lower Texas (Olver). This allowed for the combination of, “ Northern Mexican peasant food and with Texas farm and cowboy fare.”,(Olver) foods like chili, with lots of ground beef and cheese, and refried beans. Ultimately this lead to favorites such as enchiladas, tacos, chimichangas, which were invented in the 1950s (Olver), and nachos. With all the popularity that surrounded Tex-Mex food it slowly allowed it to transform from small mom and pop restaurants, like the Cuellars restaurant El Chico which was one of the first well known Tex-Mex restaurants ( Tex-Mex Invasion), to bigger, more recognizable chains such as Qdoba or