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Food and Cuisine in America is very broad based..There is no specific type of cuisine that Americans eat. Since America itself is an amalgamation of people from different cultures, different countries, they bring their culture, and subsequently , food, here. I must say that people here must be quite open minded.

Many believe Americans like non spicy, almost bland food. Not true. I have met many people who eat Mexican, Spanish, Indian food heartily. Many are vegetarians too. Some subtle differences I have seen is that their so called "white sauce" combines milk, eggs, flour, and butter. While we Indians use curd. That is our white sauce.

People have also started using basmati rice a lot in their cooking. Top chefs in the country, like Ming Tsai, Todd English, Bobby Flay, and others, have used basmati rice as one of the ingredients in their dishes. If you watch Iron Chef America, people do kababs, use garam masala, use a lot of cinnamon, clove, cardamom, curry powder, in their dishes. Bobby Flay is especially famous for his 16-spice chicken.

I haven't seen this variety of restaurants In India. Even if they were there, they were out of budget. Here, there are affordable restaurants,and high-class restaurants for every kind of food. Sweet Tomatoes, Olive Garden , are what I would call the affordable Italian restaurants, while Maggiano's is a fine dining Italian restaurant.

And it is precisely due to this kind of blended, broad based food culture, that there is a separate TV channel on food,and everything related to food.
We had dinner at Olive Garden recently, and found that the place was brimming with customers. People were either being seated or going out, every time I looked across the restaurant. And there , some of the Indian restaurants were running empty, on week ends, due to lack of customers.
Seated in Olive Garden that day, I was thinking, " Is the economy really down? How come these people have time and money to eat out? Or is there something really nice about this restaurant, that makes people want to come back for more?"

Well, for all my ramblings on this topic, our eating habits have to be changed . Thanks o India's ban on exports of rice, 10 kg/ 20lbs of Ponni rice is being sold at USD 40.00. One customer is allowed only one bag at a time. And Idli rice, is being sold for USD 35.00 To top it all, Basmati rice is till cheaper, going at USD 20/25 for the same 20 lbs. Seems like pulav and biryani are more affordable than normal rice and sambar. Rice eaters are turning to chapatthis. At least we are. I am making dosa batter at home after 2 months, just because every time we went to the Asian market, idli rice just wasn't available. As of December 2007, Ponni rice was 16.99, a 2 dollar increase in 2 months made is all whine. Now its 40.00, and we are speechless.

Thoughts and comments welcome!!!

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