Eleventh International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

This paper combines the literatures about the Mexican-American War, tourism, taste, and food to conceptualize soldiers as unlikely culinary tourists. Although their reasons for being in Mexico revolved around warfare – causing them to engage in different types of violence – these soldiers nevertheless found themselves experiencing and describing a variety of flavors different from what they had encountered at home. Within the parameters of their White, male, tourist, militant, and imperialist gazes, there nevertheless existed differences between American soldiers’ cultural and sensory perceptions of the tastes of Mexican food. Although Afro-descendant Mexican foods were well established in several parts of the country Americans fought in, these went unrecognized by Americans. By not writing about the African influences in some of the Mexican dishes they ate in the state of Veracruz, US soldiers contributed to the absence of Afro-descendant ingredients, cooking techniques and flavors in the American imagination of Mexican food. Furthermore, because these soldiers were among the first Americans to experience different regional Mexican ingredients and cuisines, their commentaries about Mexican food, cooking techniques and flavors traveled throughout the public sphere in mid-nineteenth America, shaping what Americans visiting Mexico in future decades would expect from the country’s food.