I recently read Ruth Reichel’s short article titled ‘What Is American Food?’ As a foodie and food writer with a 50-year career (and former editor of Gourmet Magazine), she has a nice perspective on our national cuisine. The article made me reflect on our family’s food habits, likes, and nomenclature.

We love to cook and eat. We love to try foods we are unfamiliar with. We have shelves full of cookbooks and binders full of recipes clipped from newspapers and magazines and printed from blog sites. We swap recipes with friends and CSA members. I would guess we have only tried 10% of our recipe stash, but they serve an important function: inspiration. How many ways have we prepared a stir-fry over the years (many)? Or, beans and rice? Chicken-broccoli casserole? Slaw?

Ruth talks about the current trend of naming cuisines in a hyphenated manner, such as Mexican-American and Korean-American. Chefs are taking inspiration from multiple cultures to create new flavor creations. I think we need to recognize the strengths of specific culinary traditions as well as the idea that all traditions can and should be combined for the best food we can make! Of course we should honor our Norwegian ancestors with a lefse recipe, a neighbor’s Oaxacan tamales, and the Sioux Chef’s indigenous ingredients. The world is truly a melting-pot of people and foods these days, and let’s celebrate it all.

We stopped for a quick bit of Indian food on a trip to Coralville recently. We were in a hurry to beat a snowstorm, and were challenged to find things that were not too messy to eat in the car. We got some large and very yummy samosa’s and something new – stuffed naan. We were imagining burritos, but found that they were 16-inch-wide naan that had ingredients like chicken and potatoes mixed into the batter and fried. New to us, and easy to eat in the car!

Vegetables form the core of almost every ethnic cuisine (an exception might be the Inuit and other polar groups). As vegetable farmers and eaters, we relish (pun intended) experimenting with any tried-and-true and new preparations of vegetables we can find. Fresh and locally-grown are best for any recipe, and we’ll keep sharing what we grow and our pleasure in eating it in every preparation!