How ethnicity has influenced American eating habits - and thus, the make-up and direction of the American cultural mainstream - is the story told in this text. It is a complex tale of ethnic mingling and borrowing, entrepreneurship and connoisseurship, of food as a social and political symbol and weapon - and a history of American culinary tradition and multiculturalism. The book follows the fortunes of dozens of enterprising immigrant cooks and grocers, street hawkers and restauranteurs who have cultivated and changed the tastes of native-born Americans from the 17th century to the late-20th century. It looks at the mass coporate production of ethnic food obliterating their identities, and at the surprsingly peaceful relations between Americanized foods and pure ethnic dishes. The author invites the reader to consider: if we are what we eat, who are we? Amid wrangling over immigration and tribal differences, it argues that on a basic level, in the way life is sustained and pleasure is sought, we are all multi-cultural.