Melting Pot: Immigrant Foodways, The Progressive Era, and the Development of American Food

The United States is often described as a melting pot, but while cultural exchange has long been an important facet of life in the Americas, immigrants in the Progressive Era, and their foods, were often viewed with suspicion. Some of ourmost iconic American foods – dill pickles, bagels, pretzels, pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs – all started as scorned immigrant foodways. So how did foods once viewed as strange and foreign become so mainstream? Join food historian Sarah Wassberg Johnson as she traces the connections between Progressive Era immigration policies, labor shortages, sanitation, and immigrant foodways in building our modern American cuisine.

Sarah Wassberg Johnson is The Food Historian – author, speaker, educator, podcaster, and blogger on all things related to food history. A frequent interviewee of journalists looking for historical context, she was featured in seasons 1-4 of The History Channel’s “The Food That Built America” and has been featured on NPR, the Atlantic, CNN, Atlas Obscura, and more. She has published in New York History journal and the Agricultural History journal and is currently finalizing edits on her book, “Preserve or Perish: Food in New York State during the Great War, 1916-1919,” under contract with SUNY Press.