Wallach and Salazar

Wallach's piece relating food tradition and transformation to cultural stereotypes and thinking opened my eyes to many aspects of American society I had not previously recognized. Yes, I know that the Mexican and Chinese food that I regularly eat cannot be considered remotely authentic, but I had not realized the implications of such a hybrid in terms of cultural hierarchy. This was the first time I had been made aware of some of the historical aspects of the evolution of cuisine from foreign cultures within America, and I was actually very taken aback that the way in which immigrants were manipulated both physically and culturally into conforming to American society's wants and needs. I have never considered food to be an indication of what Wallach refers to as "imperialism" but this reading certainly brought my attention to it. The fact that foreign cuisines were so heavily criticized before conforming to both the image and the palate of America is pure evidence of the superiority complex occurring among these cultures. It almost seems as if American society feared the unknown until an "upper hand" was established and inferiority was enforced on the unknown. Food is a staple, comfort, and large part of identity for any culture and its diminish, conformity, or acceptance as a means of societal survival is an indication of cultural relationships.
As for the Salazar reading, I must admit, I was a little overwhelmed by all of the cultural comparisons and relationships being described, but the point that I found most interesting was that the piece did not take the approach of comparing "white" to "the other" but rather gave me a historical and cultural insight on the relationships between all of the minorities that are often grouped as one.