In an interview on Food and the City

Last book: Paradox of Plenty.

This is the book that you should read if you want to understand where modern American food came from – how hamburgers and McDonald's came about – and why the rest of the world is now eating it. His argument is based upon the fact that in America in the 19th century, waves of immigrants were coming from all over the world, arriving with their own food cultures intact. If you look at food culture anywhere, what you find is that recipes are based usually on locally sourced ingredients and so national tastes develop. In Italy it might be garlic, and in Hungary paprika, in Mexico chilli and so on, flavours which make food interesting and tasty. When you put these different food cultures together you get a clash of tastes. The Italian immigrants in America found that if they invited their Lithuanian neighbours over for dinner, the Lithuanians couldn’t stand the garlic, and if the Lithuanians invited the Italians, they found the blood sausage disgusting. In order to get on with their neighbours, these different food cultures began to take out the elements of the food which were offensive. What you ended up with was bland food. Now what are the three flavour enhancing elements of food which nobody finds offensive? Salt, fat and sugar, and it was these that were used to compensate. In order to make up for the fact that food which is bland doesn’t fill you up as fast, they made the portions bigger. And there were vast quantities of meat available as well, of course, due to the extensive land available. So there you have it: Harvey Levenstein’s explanation of how the American diet came to be!