The most striking change in American food in the last 40 or so years, is the mainstreaming of global flavors. A good example is the now-ubiquitous sushi. Who would have thought that raw fish and seaweed would one day be consumed so eagerly by Americans? Today, sushi is sold in restaurants, supermarkets, employee cafeterias and lunchtime takeout shops from coast to coast. And hot on its heels is the addictive Japanese soybean bar snack, edamame.

The number of Japanese restaurants has more than doubled in the past decade, from 4,086 to 9,182, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing Japanese Food Trade News. The Journal also pointed out that sushi sales have jumped to $2.8 billion from $1.1 billion in 2000. Even more impressive, the article notes that Technomic, the foodservice industry research firm, expects continued growth of 10 to 20 percent annually for the next five years, compared to the overall restaurant industry’s projected annual growth rate of 5 percent per year. [more…]

Unlike the Chinese, who celebrate the lunar new year, January 1 is the start of the year for Japanese and Japanese Americans. For my family living in Hawaii, the week between Christmas and New Year’s was a time of frenzied activity — cooking and cleaning in preparation.

We wiped down cabinets, washed windows and screens, did all the laundry and made our house sparkle. We decorated the front porch with bamboo and pine branches.

New Year’s Eve was the thrilling start of the celebration, with firecrackers exploding sporadically from every front yard. Kids and adults set off Roman candles, sparklers, cherry bombs — a cacaphony of noise and sulphrous smoke filled the air — culminating in a mighty roar at the stroke of midnight.

And there was the food. [more…]

Before there were Mario and Lidia and Rocco, there was Marcella. And before there was Marcella, “Italian” cooking was spaghetti and meatballs smothered in tomato sauce.

In 1973, Marcella published The Classic Italian Cookbook and introduced authentic regional Italian cuisines to Americans. “I wanted to tell the story — the way we eat, the way we shop,” she said to me recently, as we sat down at the Sonesta Hotel in Coconut Grove, Florida, where Marcella was to be honored with a Grande Dame Award for lifetime achievement from Les Dames d’Escoffier International.

How Marcella came to be the Grande Dame of Italian cooking is quite a story. [more…]