Once upon a time, Europeans—or at least those in the traditionally Catholic countries—found it easy to dismiss any and all American accomplishment: what good is an air-conditioned "home" with two land yachts in the driveway if you can't get a decent cup of coffee, a palatable glass of wine, or a loaf of Real Bread? But the time for culinary smugness has long since passed. Campbell's soup cans still come with recipes for "casseroles" produced by combining the contents of three cans of Campbell's soup with some breadcrumbs and imitation cheese, but they have been supplemented by generous helpings of delicacies both foreign and domestic, both in grocery stores (the biggest!) and at restaurants (the cheapest!). All this and more is eloquently documented in "America’s Food Revolution" by Jerry Weinberger, City Journal Summer 2009 (HT: Arts & Letters Daily). The piece is not really meant to be an act of social science, but it does leave me with one question: why didn't all this happen earlier? What is it that caused Americans from the 1950s onward to spend so much of their rapidly increasing incomes on more convenient, rather than tastier, foods, for so long, and what is it that turned fine dining into a national pastime after all? It can't be income alone, can it?
