American Staple

     Survivalists tout the recitation of the rule of three: three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food. Food is an integral part of human existence, society, culture, and economics, yet as vital as vittles are, alterations to dietary patterns often attract little social comment. Practitioners of old patterns may remark upon differences from memories, but the majority of a collected social gathering will dismiss those claims as insignificant.
     In the previous two centuries industrialization has impacted travel, production, work, communication, farming, war, and every other facet of civilization. The Industrial Revolution has additionally impacted food stuffs, preservation, and availability from Napoleonic France's innovations with canned goods to the adoption of the electric oven.
     The Silk Road's prominence in Europe gained its name from silk and china but maintained relevance mostly for the spices that preserved and improved upon the winter stores of bedraggled Europeans. Black pepper was sold for over $50/lb (0.5kg) which today can be bought for $3/lb (0.5kg). Spices were used to improve the taste, but, importantly, spice was used to preserve quality and mask the task of rot. Meat and vegetables do not greatly endure intact from the harvest to the planting. Thus, with the revolution of agriculture from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, preservation technology shadowed production technology. Napoleon's canned goods allowed his soldiers to fight through the winter and carry rations long distances. Pasteurization purified and preserved milk from bacteria, and germ theory helped cleanse and preserve our food stores against the degradation of mold, fungus, and bacteria.
     Beyond preservation, the changing nature of the home impacted food. From the turn of the twentieth century, gas and oil increasingly replaced coal, and as World War I consumed a majority of energy reserves, Americans turned to electricity. As the century wore on, appliances that used electricity became integrated into the middle class household. By the Great Depression, nearly all middle and high class kitchens had replaced the coal furnace with a gas or electric stove. The replacement of the soot and coal dust with clean burning gas allowed the kitchen to become one of the cleanest rooms in the house, challenged only by the bathroom with its new indoor plumbing. Gas and electric stoves and ovens easily maintained temperature and removed the burdensome task of keeping the coal furnace stoked. Cooks and recipes adapted to these technologies.
     Industrialization also changed the types of foods that were prepared. Railroads in England allowed fish to be brought inland to become a dietary delight, and now, is one of the stereotypes of British foods: fish and chips. Americans were able to send fruits from the North like pears and plums in exchange for the tomatoes and peaches of the South. A wider variety of canned foods was also available, and refrigeration allowed for the development of new foods and techniques altogether.
     Food processing changed how traditional foods tasted and needed to be cooked. Cornmeal, a staple for the Midwestern and Southern diets of the American South, used to be ground by water-powered millstones and filtered kernels through a single-sized grate. The large chunks of corn in the meal provided a flavorful, richly-nourishing bread. As the South embraced industrialization by the Great Depression, steel rollers replaced the millstones and produced a very fine, kernel-free cornmeal. The new texture changed the taste and preparation of cornbread and had a net-negative impact on its consumption in the South in the decades since as it has been replaced with wheat breads and sugared foods.

     As farm work subsided to factory work which transitioned to office work, the dietary patterns changed as well. Family sizes shrank as did caloric needs, and the preparation time diminished as processed foods reduced the amount of labor for the cook. These new experiences facilitated the Joy of Cooking cookbook that has sold over eight million copies. While meals were easier to prepare, fewer were eaten at home. Restaurants allowed office workers to eat closer to work instead of returning home. Thus, as food became faster, the locations of its consumption increased in variety.
     Plastics and Teflon further impacted cooking as containers became disposable and hassle-less to clean. Plastics renovated the style of the kitchen, but changes were still incomplete, and microwaves, introduced in the 1950s, became household items by the 1970s.
     From the type and availability of wide variety of food year round to the preparation, storage, and clean-up of the modern diet, the Industrial Revolution's impact on the kitchen and waist-line of modern peoples is imperceptibly huge. While no recent changes have completely revolutionized diets or cooking in the last few decades, with the advent of microchips and personalized diet data, the future's renovations to America's favorite room may be as dramatic and startling as the one's witnessed in the last century.


 __    
Agatha Tyche