Alternate post-1945 American cuisines?

(With a special eye towards stamping out fast-foodism if possible...)

What alternate directions could post-WWII American cuisine plausibly evolve in? Different prominent ethnic cuisines (for example, Indian becoming as important as Chinese), different food standards (more own-prepared meals, less eating-out?), even just different prominent food companies (eg., McDonald's fails miserably).
 
If you were to somehow prevent Automobile Nation from developing in the USA, you could possibly reduce the influence of French Fries. Off the top of my head.

Otherwise, if we could screw up decolonization of Africa and India to the extent where we see massive immmigration to the USA, we could see foods from Africa and India becoming significant in the USA.

Maybe we could also prevent sushi from gaining popularity. How to do this...

And, if you wish to reduce consumption of hamburgers, perhaps you could have Mad Cow Disease become an epidemic in the USA.
 
I think a POD for this is to change or get rid of farm subsidies. Not having those programs would definitely change the economic history of the United States, and one side effect could be less acceptance of the huge, corporate-owned (or at least using corporate seeds) farms and more smaller and mid-sized locally owned farms.

Another part of the reason for America's style of eating is the advent of refrigerated shipping, whether across the railways or on the new interstates. The interstates could also be another big POD, in fact I've kicked around the idea for a TL about a world where freeways aren't developed (though it might be one of those things that's always going to come up with sufficient use of automobiles).

But basically it's a matter of tweaking the economics. I hope. I have faith that Americans don't actually prefer the crap a lot of them call food and just eat it because they don't know any better.
 
I've heard something like farm subsidies given during the economic troubles of the 1970's under Nixon for producing either Corn or Potatoes (I can't recall which) is responsible for the wide spread cultivation of corn or potatoes by farmers and usage of Corn or Potatoes as an American food staple which basically saturates the food market. I think it may very well have been corn given HFCS.

I'm also not sure how accurate this is, but I've also heard artificially high tariffs on sugar importation are kept up in order to support the corn industry, making sugar artificially more expensive and therefore corn byproducts can be used in its place.
 
I'm also not sure how accurate this is, but I've also heard artificially high tariffs on sugar importation are kept up in order to support the corn industry, making sugar artificially more expensive and therefore corn byproducts can be used in its place.

IIRC your tarriffs are on cane sugar in order to protect the American sugar beet industry. The thing with High Fructose Corn Syrup is another issue altogether- it's that HFCS is cheaper and a plentiful byproduct which is why it relegated beet sugar to second place in the US. Unfortunately it's pretty bad for you and doesn't taste as good as sugar.
 
Earl "Get Big Or Get Out" Butz encouraged the planting of corn and other commodity crops while Secretary of Agriculture for Nixon and Ford.

I've heard something like farm subsidies given during the economic troubles of the 1970's under Nixon for producing either Corn or Potatoes (I can't recall which) is responsible for the wide spread cultivation of corn or potatoes by farmers and usage of Corn or Potatoes as an American food staple which basically saturates the food market. I think it may very well have been corn given HFCS.

I'm also not sure how accurate this is, but I've also heard artificially high tariffs on sugar importation are kept up in order to support the corn industry, making sugar artificially more expensive and therefore corn byproducts can be used in its place.
 

loughery111

Banned
You're not going to eliminate the idea of fast food... what they sell isn't so much bad-for-you crap, as it is remarkably consistent bad-for-you crap. Simply put, when you eat at McDonald's, you generally aren't eating there because it provides the best burgers, but because you're significantly more sure that it has palatable food than you are about the new burger joint down the street.

So you can likely change what we regard as being fast food by changing the economics, though I believe this to be a very unlikely alteration; you can't get rid of the concept of fast food and the franchise. It will evolve naturally come hell or high water.

As for how you might change what we call fast food in favor of something lighter and healthier... you could try an early adventure in aquaculture by a US soldier exposed to Japanese practices while deployed there, and discover that it provides an economical supply of fish. If you can fundamentally rebalance the American diet in favor of fish instead of red meat, perhaps in recipes also influenced by returning American troops from East Asia, you may be able to avoid the worst of the fast food we have now.
 
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