Freedman Explains "American Cuisine"

Yale Professor Paul Freedman returned to Scarsdale Dec. 11 to discuss his new book about American cuisine (YWAA photos)

After the success of his first book Ten Restaurants That Changed America, Yale Professor Paul Freedman responded with an encore that describes the uniqueness of American cuisine. The newly published book is entitled American Cuisine: And How It Got This Way. Freedman's day job or primary profession on campus in New Haven is professor of medieval history. Nowadays he has become a national expert of American restaurants, American cuisine, Americans' food habits, and the evolution of it all over the past two centuries.

In the day job, Freedman for years has studied the history of what people ate and how they prepared food in medieval times. That study spawned a special interest in food preparation and food trends beyond those times and with focus on America, especially factors that explain changes over time.

On Dec. 11 in Scarsdale, Freedman returned to Westchester to discuss his new book as part of the YWAA lecture series. (The event was co-sponsored by the Scarsdale Library and the Scarsdale Women's Club.)  It gave him an opportunity to explain for his audience what characterizes "American cuisine," what makes it unique in the eyes of the rest of the world. He described the good, the bad, the popular, and current trends and observed that, for the most part, American cuisine has improved remarkably over the decades. 

Only here in this country, Freedman said, Americans will say, "I don't want Thai food tonight, because I had Thai food recently," when they seek to eat out. People in Thailand, Freedman added, don't get to say that. Yet that describes the American food scene today, where restaurant patrons here get to pick from cuisines of Thailand, India, China, Italy and Vietnam on any given evening and don't have to return to it for awhile. 

American cuisine indeed, he said, represents foods from different countries, although since the late 19th century, immigrants have prepared some dishes to accommodate the tastes of Americans or at least to their expectations of what that food should be. Freedman reminded the Scarsdale audience that some foods we think of as ethnic or having originated elsewhere are ethnic-inspired dishes that were invented right here--eggplant parmesan and chop suey, for example. 

American cuisine, too, Freedman said, is cuisine developed over time for evolving, fast-changing, and rushed lifestyles.  TV dinners and other processed foods (with sugary flavors) did just that. 

In March, 2017, at the YWAA-sponsored lecture, Freedman presented his first book, reminding his audience then it wasn't a list of the Ten Best, but a list of the Ten Most Influential. Hence, Howard Johnson's makes that list. The second book was a natural next step, not to select what is good or bad, but to explain what the cuisine has been and what it might be. The book is also an off-shoot from his popular undergraduate food course taught at Yale. 

In Dec., 2019, audience members asked him to assess the current American focus on healthy foods and the farm-to-table movement.  Freedman paid tribute Alice Waters, the founder of the acclaimed Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, Calif., and who in the last decade has worked with Yale to improve the food offerings at Yale College. 

Click American Cuisine to purchase the book on Amazon. Rich Fabbro '76, YWAA director, organized the event.

Freedman responds to questions from the Scarsdale audience, Dec. 11 (YWAA photos)