Americans and Food

What is it about Americans and food? We love to eat, but we feel guilty about it afterward We say we want only the best, but we strangely enjoy junk food. We're obsessed with health and weight loss but face an unprecedented epidemic of obesity. Perhaps the answer to this ambivalence lies in our history. The first Europeans came to this continent searching for new spices but went in vain. The first cash crop wasn't eaten but smoked. Then there was Prohibition, intended to prohibit drinking but actually encouraging more creative ways of doing it. The immigrant experience, too, has been one of in harmony. Do as Romans do means eating what "real Americans" eat, but our nation's food has come to be defined by imports-pizza, say, or hot dogs. And some of the country's most treasured cooking comes from people who arrived here in shackles.