Outline

1. Purpose:
- To analyze effect history, specifically population shifts/patterns/make-ups, has on the
culinary culture of a country
2. Thesis:
- The unique history of a country, including immigration and migration patterns and
population make-up, changes the culinary culture of a country (quickly & profoundly)
3. Introduction
4. Subheading Topic 1: Immigration and migration patterns in the United States & development
in the culinary culture
A. Argument 1: Asian (Thai) immigrants in Los Angeles
- Source: Too Hot to Handle Food, Empire, and Race in Thai Los Angeles
(Padoongpat)
- Most Thai restaurants were temporary in the mid-1900s, but they became
popular among the whites as well, causing many Thai immigrants to seek rare
ingredients that were used in Thai cuisine. The relationship between Thailand and
the U.S. after World War II also affected the prevalence of Thai restaurants in
Thailand that targeted Americans.
* Significance: During the post-civil rights era in the United States, most
Americans were unfamiliar with Thai cuisine. However, the mass influx of Thai
immigrants to the U.S. after passing of the Hart Cellar Act in 1965 facilitated
popularization of Thai food, and this popularization among whites undermined

racial tension by focusing on culture, rather than on physical features and

biological makeup.
B. Argument 2: Italians in New York City
- Source: Chili Queens and Checkered Tablecloths Public Dining Cultures of
Italians in NYC and Mexicans in San Antonio, Texas, 1870s-1940s (Gabaccia
and Pilcher)
- Middle- and upper-class New Yorkers have long sought elegant European
cuisines, and the high number of immigration from Italy in the late 1800s led to
the popularization of Italian food.
C. Argument 3: Mexicans in San Antonio
- Source: Chili Queens and Checkered Tablecloths Public Dining Cultures of
Italians in NYC and Mexicans in San Antonio, Texas, 1870s-1940s (Gabaccia
and Pilcher)
- Unlike Italian immigrants, Mexican immigrants had more trouble getting their
food accepted among the white popularization in the United States.
5. Subheading Topic 2: Migration patterns in other countries & emergence of new food
A. Argument 1: Mexico
- Street foods and fondas in Mexico
- Prevalence of fondas with a mass migration to urban areas
B. Argument 2: Italy
- Urbanization of the late 18th and 19th century street foods
- Unification of the rich and poor, locals and tourists by the common consumption
from street vendors

6. Subheading Topic 3: Minority existence in the United States & differences in the food culture
A. Argument 1: African Americans in the South
- Source: Partaking of Choice Poultry Cooked a La Southern Style Taste and
Race in the New Deal Sensory Economy (Begin)
- The newly produced sense of taste that reflects the evolving definition and
geography of race, region, and nation in 1930s United States
- Racial distance by racial etiquettes, rather than by the content of the food. Both
blacks and whites ate the same food. Thus, segregation is a spatial, rather than
sensory issue (public/private space to be analyzed).
B. Argument 2: Native Americans
- Source: Colonial Beef and the Blackfeet Reservation Slaughterhouse, 18791895 (Wise)
- Food colonialism: the government manipulated the Blackfeet Indians source of
food to transform American Indians into colonial subjects (meatpacking and
liquor)
7. Subheading Topic 4: Minority existence in other countries
A. Argument 1: Moors in Spain
- Source: to be added
B. Argument 2: China
- Source: Nutritional Governmentality: Food and the Politics of Health in Late
Imperial and Republican China (Swislocki)
8. Conclusion