Patterns of American Rice Consumption 1955 and 1980

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. American Geographical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Geographical Review. HE opening sentence in "The American Heritage Cookbook" serves as a beacon and a challenge for scholars interested in the variety of American society. "Ours is not a 'cuisine' such as homogeneous nations boast, but a rich potpourri of dishes and drinks that have evolved from the native bounty of this country and the cultures of dozens of others."' A host of terms suggests the regional expression in this potpourri. Boston baked beans, Southern fried chicken, Cajun crawfish, San Francisco sourdough, Maine lobster, Texas chili, and Virginia ham immediately come to mind. Foodways clearly can tell much about the people of the United States and their cultural geography.The focus of this article is the consumption of rice, one of the few foodstuffs for which detailed data are available. We survey state patterns for 1955 and 1980 with an emphasis on the process of change between the two years. Our basic argument is that these patterns are important not only in their own right but also as general cultural indicators. The eating of rice like food habits in general is both tenacious and dynamic.2 Changing intensities of regional usage may provide important clues about hearths of innovation, diffusion routes, and the relative strengths of processes creating diversity and homogeneity in society.The lack of data is the bane of research on foodways in the United States. Detailed information exists for the production of most crops and animals at the state and county levels, but for some reason data on consumption by human beings are usually summarized for the country as a whole. Some detailed information on consumption may be found in the work of nutritionists, folklorists, and anthropologists, but their samples tend to be limited either in terms of population (for example, pregnant women) or area (for example, an urban neighborhood). Nutritionists frequently translate "food eaten" into some dietary equivalent like proportion of protein. The National Food Consumption Survey, conducted three times since 1955, avoided these problems, but the sample is adequate only for a gross, four-part regional division of the country.3 Another measure of food consumption is needed, something between the individual dietary surveys and the countrywide statistics.Unique and almost ideal data for geographical analysis exist for rice. Thirteen times since 1955-56 officials of the U.S. Department of Agriculture have surveyed rice mills and repackagers to ascertain shipments of rice made to each state.4 The studies, intended to help the traditionally regional rice industry to expand domestic consum...

Cultural landscapes and ecology III: foraging/farming, food, festivities

“…Rice consumption provides a window on yet another set of shifts in diet and attitudes. J.R. Shortridge and B.G. Shortridge (1998b) show through careful analysis of producer and shipper data (most rice consumed in the USA is grown and shipped there) that before the 1960s little rice was eaten outside the producer regions in the Deep South, or in ethnic enclaves where rice was a customary item in the diet.…”

Cooking in Eden: Inventing Regional Cuisine in the Pacific Northwest

“…He identifies six "contempormy diet regions"-the No1theast, the South, the Midwest, the Southwest, the Interior West, and the Pacific West-and discusses the forces which have helped shape food consumption in each of these regions. Like Shmtridge and Shortridge (1998b), Pillsbmy argues that the West Coast-and again California most significantly-is where the nation's ideas about food and cuisine develop.…”

“…It is not known what is commonly eaten at home in the region as no studies have addressed this question. Additionally, studies have shown that is difficult to accurately measure daily eating habits(Shortridge and Shortridge 1998b;Thompson and Newman 1999).…”