The Stomach of Man Under Socialism: A Culinary History of Socialist America

So far as potash is concerned, it seems odd to me that kelp farming would be dominant when the United States has large mineral potash deposits (e.g. in New Mexico). Was that just a temporary thing before they learned of and began exploiting those?
New Mexico’s potash deposits weren't exploited until the 1930s IOTL and to my understanding, didn't really take off in the region until later. Probably need to edit that footnote though, as I didn't intend for kelp to be the majority of American potash production in to the present day (IOTL the US did it during WW1, then shuttered the project because it was non-competitive with potash from potassium minerals, here it sticks around longer specifically because of limited trade and a general preference towards autarky).
 
The way it’s phrased, the worst examples of American tofu are bland. The author clearly means for the better examples to be just as good as any other food. Besides, I’m sure a visit to the Southwest could be arranged…
That is true but I was thinking about American tofu in "general" is inherently bland, not just the preparation. I've heard the Chinese and other Asian peoples prefer tofu that has a more "soybean" flavor as they don't really treat it as a meat substitute as hard as the West does.

The preparation of Tofu in Socialist America is probably worse than OTL, IMO. Nothing hurts a country's cuisine like a relentless pursuit for "efficiency" and "min-max" of nutrients unless people get really creative without the government's officially printed cookbooks.

So, how does the Southeast incorporate tofu into barbecues?
If I was preparing "barbecued" tofu, I'd need to extract as much water from the tofu as possible (to give it a meat-like texture) and later fry it before dousing it with as much barbecue sauce as it could be coated with. They'd quickly find out that it can't be prepared like a regular piece of meat, so I reckon it would be a side dish or a vegetarian option at best.
 
Well something you can do is grill tofu on a pan to brown it and then create a sauce of some kind and serve it together. My family usually does chicken soup and thicken it with some egg mixed in.
 
Wildly inventive framework to examine a popular, but usually thinly developed scenario --a Socialist America.

I love what you're doing here
Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying it so far.
They could also do a lot more to maximize the output of soybean products like offering leftover tofu skins or soya chunks as a snack or ingredient.
The puffed tofu snacks are a reference to this, more or less. I've never actually had tofu skins but have had puffed tofu snacks (they're good, like a more uniform pork rind).
My god, America is already unrecognizable but this takes the cake. What the hell is America without a massive industrialized meat industry that slaughters chickens, pigs, and cows by the conveyor so we get meat for less than $5-10/lb? This is an utter travesty. /s
Less meat consumption in the US than OTL is not that hard, but here they pursue it as a policy goal for various reasons. The wild increase on size of animals like chickens largely doesn't happen ITTL so some of the meatlessness is actually a consequence of that.
The way it’s phrased, the worst examples of American tofu are bland. The author clearly means for the better examples to be just as good as any other food. Besides, I’m sure a visit to the Southwest could be arranged…
So, how does the Southeast incorporate tofu into barbecues?
That is true but I was thinking about American tofu in "general" is inherently bland, not just the preparation. I've heard the Chinese and other Asian peoples prefer tofu that has a more "soybean" flavor as they don't really treat it as a meat substitute as hard as the West does.

The preparation of Tofu in Socialist America is probably worse than OTL, IMO. Nothing hurts a country's cuisine like a relentless pursuit for "efficiency" and "min-max" of nutrients unless people get really creative without the government's officially printed cookbooks.
So, ironically, the tofu which Americans would eat during the Special Period and on the Subsistence Homesteads would likely be more soybean-y than the later commercial product, and some of the blandness would be the appeal, as it can be easily smoked or sauced or otherwise flavored and because soybean-iness just isn't a flavor profile *Americans would particularly enjoy.

So I actually agree with you that American tofu would probably be bland to an Asian visitor, but I disagree with you on the reasons.

A common preparation I would expect would actually be to replace eggs or tuna in 'salads'- I actually have a mid-century cookbook with exactly this kind of preparation, just tofu, mayo, mustard and herbs all mixed up together.
 
New Mexico’s potash deposits weren't exploited until the 1930s IOTL and to my understanding, didn't really take off in the region until later.
Right, that's why I said "was that just a temporary thing?" I read it as kelp being the main source of potash for the United States forever afterwards, which seemed unlikely to me; but a project that ends up supplying the chemical industry for a few decades before being retired as more cost-effective sources are found, that makes sense.
 
I love the Orwell quote in the beginning about sandal wearing vegans…which returns with menace as the wildflower movement, some of whom are probably DeLeonists or worse.
 
Does America have any equivalents to seitan or mock duck? Or quorn?
Seitan would have been known (Seventh Day Adventists and Asian immigrant communities definitely used it) but it doesn't really take off here, in part because it consumes a resource (wheat flour) that they are trying to economize on.

Quorn is a really fascinating product, but I don't really see it here. It should also be noted Quorn was a British innovation and product launched in the late 1980s, so if anything, it would be a recent novelty.
Well something you can do is grill tofu on a pan to brown it and then create a sauce of some kind and serve it together. My family usually does chicken soup and thicken it with some egg mixed in.
I imagine such preparations as this could be common when cooking at home (as has been hinted at a lot of American hones and apartments do not have full kitchens, so a lot of their home cooking- for completely different reasons than IOTL- is just assembling and reheating factory-kitchen ingredients.)
Right, that's why I said "was that just a temporary thing?" I read it as kelp being the main source of potash for the United States forever afterwards, which seemed unlikely to me; but a project that ends up supplying the chemical industry for a few decades before being retired as more cost-effective sources are found, that makes sense.
I have edited the footnote to be more clear as to my intent. Thanks!
I love the Orwell quote in the beginning about sandal wearing vegans…which returns with menace as the wildflower movement, some of whom are probably DeLeonists or worse.
I started writing that then realized it was basically just riffing on Orwell, and ultimately decided to leave it in.
 
This is exactly my jam and I can't believe I hadn't read it before today.

And as far as meatlessness, American meat production is just a process by which corn is converted into protein. If you didn't have the massive agricultural productivity of the corn belt, chicken would still be expensive luxury meat and beef would be a stringy product for canning. Obviously you won't have a completely cornless corn belt, and you mentioned earlier that American beef is corn fed and not grass fat, but a lot of our assumptions about meat are the product of mid-20th century American agriculture.
 
Does America have any equivalents to seitan or mock duck? Or quorn?
Though as noted by the esteemed author, quorn is a recent and a British product, some sort of mycoprotein, grown in giant vats, seems right up this country's alley.

On the other hand, we have the giant failure that is pond scum, so maybe a successful one would be inappropriate.

Also, I just discovered this TL yesterday and live every part of it.
 
Unrelated to food, but it feels very likely that "Solidarity Forever" will be the national anthem here. It was originally a Wobblie song, it's sung to the same tune as "Battle Hymn of the Republic," and "for the union makes us strong" is a nice patriotic and socialist double entendre.
 
Unrelated to food, but it feels very likely that "Solidarity Forever" will be the national anthem here. It was originally a Wobblie song, it's sung to the same tune as "Battle Hymn of the Republic," and "for the union makes us strong" is a nice patriotic and socialist double entendre.
I think it will follow a similar trajectory to the State Anthem of the Soviet Union- it starts as The Internationale and then after time, moves to a more country-specific tune (Solidarity Forever probably being the best candidate). But they definitely keep the more radical stanzas in!

The Party Anthem will be 'The Red Flag', which was the first song in the first edition of The Little Red Songbook.

I don't recall if I said it here or not, but I imagine public and patriotic displays in the Cooperative Commonwealth to be a sea of red flags with an occasional arm-and-hammer Party flag and pops of the old United States flag (48 stars, 13 stripes) which has been rehabilitated by time. The States as have been alluded to in the text don't actually exist as real legal entities but are still remembered as cultural and geographical markers, similar to the provinces of France.

One thing which the Cooperative Commonwealth has in common with OTL's Soviet Union is that in many ways the Party is bigger and more powerful than the 'actual' state apparatus, only it shares that power with the (ostensibly One Big Union) Industrial Unions.
 
Last edited:
The States as have been alluded to in the text don't actually exist as real legal entities but are still remembered as cultural and geographical markers, similar to the provinces of France.
I had not caught that at all. I had assumed that the state governments had merely been given a ref coat of paint—the United States is far too large to be particularly centralized at this point in time, and if you need to have autonomous subnational entities then going with the existing and familiar ones is certainly easier. Especially where the Reds had control over the state apparatus to begin with or they willingly joined later on.
 
I had not caught that at all. I had assumed that the state governments had merely been given a ref coat of paint—the United States is far too large to be particularly centralized at this point in time, and if you need to have autonomous subnational entities then going with the existing and familiar ones is certainly easier. Especially where the Reds had control over the state apparatus to begin with or they willingly joined later on.
The States as legal entities have stopped existing (we're 60+ years after the Revolution at this point, so it likely wasn't an overnight thing)- but there are still local governments, rather dully named Administrative Regions usually named after either the largest towns/cities or geographical markers.

The fact is US States just aren't very good administrative units, especially if you are concerned about regional power blocs. The person appointed over all of Texas is going to have a lot more potential power than the person appointed over all of Indiana. If you break up the United States into more similar chunks (whether on economic activity or population or an amalgam of both) you're going to get something which looks nothing like our States. The SLP has a disdain for geographically based representation anyhow, and they tend to try and cycle leaders from region to region to try and avoid any consolidation of power or the formation of geographically based interests.
 
Though I wouldn't be too sure on the rehabilitation of Old Glory, at least in its last "modern" version as opposed to like the Betsy Ross Continental Army flag, if there had been some proper fighting in the early 20th century revolution that established the Cooperative Commonwealth. I mean imagine Blair Mountain and the violent suppression of the Bonus Army but happening multiple times in semi-regular waves of labor wars and protest marches as the collapse of old republic reaches its climax- plus redoubled race riots against blacks, Asians, immigrant Europeans esp. Jews, everyone part of the clear conspiracy to replace the white man's natural dominion with communist race-mixing, all bloodying and besmirching that star-spangled banner those racists wrapped themselves in. And all that's before we get to whatever the MacArthur-y West Point guys and the Regulars got up to in the main shooting war and the paramilitary terror of civil war.

I could see it as like the flag of a minor progressive party in something of a tame opposition- the results of the united front after bodying the reactionaries. Or like a deliberate protest statement among the youths and/or weirdos who think economic liberalization wouldn't hit them with Shock Therapy But British, being just edgy enough to still be protected by the right to expression. But like Soviet Russia purged a guy for suggesting bringing back the Tsarist flag with a hammer-and-sickle in the middle of it, for betraying the international brotherhood of socialist peoples with Russian national chauvinism or whatever. I think it would be likewise etched in the memory of Commonwealth culture that the old bourgeoise republic tried to kill and enslave them all, especially if a bunch of the Anglo-American communities et al get like real Cuban Exile brained about how everything was perfect under Calvin Coolidge and how everything would have been fine if those uppity blacks and foreign papists had remembered their place.
 
Last edited:
Oh, damnit, I was confused—I was actually thinking of a completely different socialist America story I was reading (which at this point is only in the 1920s) Serious wire-crossing moment there.
 
Though I wouldn't be too sure on the rehabilitation of Old Glory, at least in its last "modern" version as opposed to like the Betsy Ross Continental Army flag, if there had been some proper fighting in the early 20th century revolution that established the Cooperative Commonwealth. I mean imagine Blair Mountain and the violent suppression of the Bonus Army but happening multiple times in semi-regular waves of labor wars and protest marches as the collapse of old republic reaches its climax- plus redoubled race riots against blacks, Asians, immigrant Europeans esp. Jews, everyone part of the clear conspiracy to replace the white man's natural dominion with communist race-mixing, all bloodying and besmirching that star-spangled banner they wrapped themselves in. And all that's before we get to whatever the MacArthur-y West Point guys and the Regulars got up to in the main shooting war and the paramilitary terror of civil war.

I could see it as like the flag of a minor progressive party in something of a tame opposition- the results of the united front after bodying the reactionaries. Or like a deliberate protest statement among the youths and/or weirdos who think economic liberalization wouldn't hit them with Shock Therapy But British, being just edgy enough to still be protected by the right to expression. But like Soviet Russia purged a guy for suggesting bringing back the Tsarist flag with a hammer-and-sickle in the middle of it, for betraying the international brotherhood of socialist peoples with Russian national chauvinism or whatever. I think it would be likewise etched in the memory of Commonwealth culture that the old bourgeoise republic tried to kill and enslave them all, especially if a bunch of the Anglo-American communities et al get like real Cuban Exile brained about how everything was perfect under Calvin Coolidge and how everything would have been fine if those uppity blacks and foreign papists had remembered their place.
This is a fair criticism and I have gone back and forth on it for exactly these reasons.

Ultimately, I think it is a case where time heals all wounds and potentially, you could rearrange the stars in the canton creatively to differentiate (I'm not really a vexillologist). The flag only gets into rotation after the 'Blues have gone grey' and is always surrounded by red flags in the interest of propriety. Displaying the 'old' canton arrangement or flying only the American flag is suspect, for the same reasons you mention, but when at a Party endorsed event and flanked by red flags, who will say otherwise?
 
Last edited:
This is a fair criticism and I have gone back and forth on it for exactly these reasons.

Ultimately, I think it is a case where time heals all wounds and potentially, you could rearrange the stars in the canton creatively to differentiate (I'm not really a vexillologist). The flag only gets into rotation after the 'Blues have gone grey' and is always surrounded by red flags in the interest of propriety. Displaying the 'old' canton arrangement or flying only the American flag is suspect, for the same reasons you mention, but when at a Party endorsed event and flanked by red flags, who will say otherwise?
If we're looking for specifically American symbology that would also shed links to the ancien regime, I can imagine a flag that's red with Liberty's torch on it. Flags like the Abolitionist Stars and Stripes (20 stars, dropping the slave states) could also make a comeback--I can imagine that attempts to root the Cooperative Commonwealth in American history would focus on the abolitionists as predecessors to the socialist revolutionaries.
 
The Food Systems and Research Division did not attract any undue attention in the Twenties, likely because it cost the Industrial Union and the Party almost nothing. The work it conducted was primarily literature reviews, with special attention paid to the developing science of vitamins and the translation of papers from German, and ‘assessments’ of the recalcitrant elements of the former United States Department of Agriculture and their extension offices. It took two major successes in the Thirties before the Food Systems and Research Division would be given an actual budget and any place within the Emergency Programs- the first was the use of taka-koji for the production of industrial alcohol covered in the chapter on bourbon whiskey, the second was a pilot project in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, San Diego Administrative Region for the refining of potash, iodine, acetone and various other constituent chemicals from the kelp of California’s shores[2].
You could also use the kelp as a food source and as a food supplement as well
 
Top