Dear Erica,
No offence, I hope, to American cuisine. But it. like British cuisine, has suffered at least as much as it has benefited from mass production and industrialisation. The benefits (not to be forgotten) are that far larger numbers of people have a greater variety of foods available to them at (at present) a much lower real price than their ancestors had.
But the varieties and specific tastes are diminishing. I know how hard it is in the USA to find organic food; in Britain it is easier, but all the same it is mostly organic food with little specific taste. Even certified organic tomatoes tend to taste like cardboard.
Where I live, Macedonia, where politically everything tends to be insane, on a daily basis people are at least sane enough when they buy vegetables to ask whether they are "staro seme" (old varieties), and sometimes get them. The leeks which I grew (and ate) tonight had an oniony taste which I have never had with leeks before (is this because they were grown near onions and may be of the same family?)
When we buy recipe books we like to think that following the same recipe will give the same results. But the same recipe for imam bayildi gives different tastes, from the same egg-plants, in spring, summer, and autumn. Perhaps this is a parable for Geni humans.
Slavic Macedonians don't much like the idea that they share a territory with Albanians (even though one of their most common surnames, Arnaudov, means "son of an Albanian"). But their two Nobel Prixewinners, Mother Theresa and the inventor of Viagra, have both been Albanians. If there was a Nobel Prize for Cooking it would have gone to a third Albanian from Macedonia, Rene Rexhepi, who runs the Noma Restaurant in Copenhagen, is one of the most inventive chefs in the world; but his favorite dish remains the one that I had yesterday, chicken with rice, and not much else (celery, I think). Quality of chicken; quality of rice; quality of cooking.
Mark
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