Old Ways In A New World
As different as regional American cuisines were at first, they all began to converge in the early to mid-18th century, when increasingly secure Anglo-Americans began to emulate genteel English eating, employing fancier kitchen and dining ware and following English recipes. A widely shared thirst for domestically brewed beer fostered trade and further strengthened ties among the colonies. Eating and drinking had become an important way for the colonists to assert their status as full-fledged British subjects. That explains why Anglo-Americans took particular offense when royal tariffs threatened their access to tea, sugar, and farm produce. Such goods, McWilliams notes, were "absolutely integral to the sense of liberty that colonists believed was sacred enough to fight the American Revolution to protect."
After the revolution, Americans would turn away from English culinary models to embrace a "frugal plain repast" that underscored the republican simplicity of the newly independent people. But that would be a new chapter in the story of American food.
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