Hungering for America

Rendering on a large collection of bases, Hasia Diner's Hungering for America "explores how the memories of hunger and the realities of American plenty merged together to shape the ethnic identities of millions of American women and men from Italy, Ireland, and Jewish Eastern Europe" (p. xvii). Sensitive to the physical and the existing predicament of hungry people, Diner strengthens our understanding of the influence of American abundance on immigrants by arguing that culturally specific memories of the European past determined Italian, Irish and Jewish food ways in the U.S. In this essay I will discuss how the European Jewish immigrants and the Italian immigrants dealt with the issue of identity formation. For the Italians food was a significant factor in strengthening ethnic identity and community in the United States because to them food was very significant. Family and food play a large role in Italian life. Diner says, “The matrix of food family-sanctity served as an Italian peasant ideal, in part because it is so often lay beyond the grasp of the poor.” (p. 35). In other words, even the poor people of Italy found the appreciation of food to be a very important part of Italian culture. When the Italian immigrants entered America they impacted communities in the United States by the way of food. The most prominent Italian food is macaroni. Many macaroni factories were opened in America and represented the Italian culture. America changed Italian culture because the food was much cheaper in America. Italians were eating the food they considered sacred everyday, compared to rarely being able to afford to eat it back in Italy. In the book Diner says, “What had functioned historically as a sacred system that held Jews together and separated them from non-Jews took a different turn in America.” (p. 180). In other words, the religious beliefs that Jews followed in Europe were not being followed anymore since food is less scarce and inexpensive. In America standards of the Jewish religion, kashruth, separated rather than brought together Jewish families due to the new founded dietary practices in America such as, “cake for breakfast.”(p. 180). Food from Eastern European Jews was significant in strengthening ethnic identity and community in the United States because of their specific religious dietary restrictions. With more and more Eastern European Jews coming to the United States it led to a change in advertising for many companies such as Coca-Cola who began to advertise to the Yiddish press. At first it was very odd to see what the Jews were eating, but as they became more popular America adjusted the changes and eventually ended up profiting from the Jewish style of eating. In conclusion, food created a sense of identity for both genuine Italians and Italian Americans. Although Italian immigrants embraced many traditional American foods, they still were proud to claim them as their own. Food helped form communities for Italian Americans in the 20th century as it still continues to do so in present day America. Unlike Italians, the Eastern European Jews did not develop a culture of culinary reminiscence. The Jews came to America to live, unlike the Italians who most likely eventually went back to where they came from. This being so, they most likely adapted to the new ways of eating in America rather than worshiping their old ways.