Although most of the people who emigrated from Europe to America
were from poor areas, they were generally not the poorest of the poor.
It was usually the small peasant landowner or craftsman whose jobs
were threatened by big landowners or cheap mass-manufactured
goods. Most of the people who went were also young and unmarried
or had young families. Interestingly, many people—perhaps as many
as one in three—went back to Europe after a few years.
As is often the case when one set of families blaze the trail, a slew
of other family members or friends follow in their wake, and they
tend to stick together in their own distinctive neighborhoods, which
means that they didn’t assimilate. The general pattern is that the
fi rst generation to emigrate rarely becomes fully assimilated, but
their children—the second generation, who are born in the new
land—want to assimilate. Ironically, it’s the third generation that
struggles to fi gure out who they are and where they came from and
suddenly gets interested in the old language, culture, and recipes.
The other very interesting thing about the infl ux of peoples is
that although their own tastes may have changed from generation
to generation and they may or may not have become assimilated,
most of the cuisines of these peoples did survive. Sometimes they
evolved, making use of ingredients available in the United States,
or they may have toned down the fl avors after a few generations.
Even more fascinating is that most of these cuisines have, to some
degree, been adopted by Americans on the whole. Some ethnic
dishes go completely mainstream; others are at least known by
most Americans or recognized as coming from a certain place.
Many ethnic dishes get toned down or adapted to American tastes,
especially in restaurants, but they survive in some form.
Ironically, the obsession with maintaining traditions has created
some very interesting fossils among immigrant populations. That
is, they may prepare a dish or eat a certain food with meticulous
care that it not be changed, but back in the mother country, the dish
evolved or sometimes even disappeared entirely.