The shaping of American cooking has been dependent on various factors - cooking technologies and available ingredients, and the variety of ethnicity of its people. The Industrial Revolution brought about a series of revolutions in food production, distribution and supply. In the American melting pot - numerous immigrant cuisines have influenced, and then been changed by America's diversity.

• An Edible History of Humanity By Tom Standage. This book trys to strike a balance between the "Green Revolution" and the "Slow Food" movements.
• Food in History by Reay Tannahill
• Cuisine and Culture: A History of Food and People by Linda Civitello
• Near a Thousand Tables : A History of Food by Filipe Fernandez-Armesto
• The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating by James L. Watson and Melissa Caldwell (editors)
• Empires of Food: Feast, Famine, and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations by Evan Fraser and Andrew Rimas. The thesis of this book is that the agricultural system that sustains modern society will eventually destroy it. The last chapter is worth reading.
• Potato How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World Surprizingly, the potato was not popular when introduced, but had a revolutionary impact on history.
• For All the Tea in China: How England Stote the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History by Sarah Rose - how the humble leaf became a global addiction.
• Chocolate Wars: The 150 Year Rivalry between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers by Deborah Cadbury. A fascinating account of the Chocolate Industry - but more than a history of Cadbury, Hershey, Nestle and Mars and how our candy bars came about - an account of men trying to live their faith amidst the social needs of the industrial revolution, a changing business world, world wars, and globalization.
  The Development of The Food Industry
  Originally, the first settlers used the English style of cooking. Cooking was done on the hearth over smoky open fires. The diet was mainly meat and grain (breads and porrage). The more well-to-do had servants to prepare and serve meals, and sometimes this was done in a separate cookhouse. Food preparations were labor intensive and many households had servants to gather ingredients, and to prepare and serve meals, as well as do laundry and other household chores. Prior to 1870 90% of Americans lived in rural settings and most raised their own produce, grains and livestock. See The Way We Ate: Pacific Northwest Cooking, 1843-1900 by Jacqueline B. Williams for more on life in the early pioneer and settlement days of the Pacific Northwest.
  Cities were smaller, and often had farmer's markets, but many city dwellers ate out much of the time. The industrial revolution made it possible to grow, harvest and ship food on a much greater scale, as well as created a demand that especially the potato helped fill. Farm machinery, including tractors (1920's) and reapers (McCormick, 1834), and harvester combines increased production, by gradually small farms were replaced by larger farms and corporate farming. Roads were poor and often muddy and deeply rutted (made much worse by heavy frieght wagons) - making any transport of crops difficult until canal systems or turnpikes were developed. The railroads could transport livestock and produce rapidly across the country (refrigerated cars were put into use after 1867), and with the development of the the trucking industry which increased dramatically with the creation of the Interstate Highway System, and now, even air freight, we have a truely international supply of fresh foods. Most fruits and vegetables are usually available year round on supermarket shelves - it is not unusual to have fresh produce from South America available in wintery North America.

  See Agribusiness: Corporte Farming, Industrial Agriculture, and Factory Farming. Agricultural Marketing. and the Globalization of World food systems.

  Food preservation is another issue. Fresh food could be eaten in season, but from medieval times, drying, salt and smoke were used to preserve food out of season. Refrigeration, commercial canning and frozen food have made possible the supermarket and increased home storage of meat and produce.

  The Food Processing Industry has learned how to preserve food, and make it attractive and tasty. Today, most of the food energy consumed by the world population is supplied by the food industry operated by multinational corporations using intensive farming and industrial agriculture methods. Agribusiness. Food Manufacture

  However, there are issues.

  Food Safety is a major concern among consumers, recent nation wide recalls of products that have been contaminated by E coli or Salmonella; "Mad cow" scares.

  Processed foods are often high in Sodium and High Frutose Corn Syrup which have contributed to increased obesity, heart desease and diabetes.

  With increasing concern in agribusiness over multinational corporations owning the world food supply through patents on genetically modified food, there has been a growing trend toward sustainable agricultural practices. This approach, partly fueled by consumer demand, encourages biodiversity, local self-reliance and organic farming methods.

  Some interesting reading can be found in A Nation of Farmers: Defeating the Food Crisis on American Soil by Sharon Astyk and Aaron Newton, Wendell Berry's essays in Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food and The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry

  From Trading Posts to MegaStores: The Evolution of America's Grocery Industry in the Pacific Northwest
  U.S. grocery stores are descended from trading posts, which sold not only food but clothing, household items, tools, furniture, and other miscellaneous merchandise. These trading posts evolved into larger retail businesses known as general stores. These facilities generally dealt only in "dry" goods such as flour, dry beans, baking soda, and canned foods. Perishable foods were instead obtained from specialty markets: Fresh meat was obtained from a butcher, milk from a local dairy, eggs and vegetables were either produced by families themselves, bartered for with neighbors, or purchased at a farmers' market; or a local green grocer.

  The community I live in at one time had many "Ma & Pa" grocery stores - the neighborhoods of Everett are dotted with buildings that used to be Corner Stores, usually family owned, serving mainly people within walking distance. These stores carried basic grocery items, perhaps they might have a meat counter, seasonal produce, or milk. They often ran credit tabs for regular customers, and sometimes delivered as well. Some of these still exist, but the few that do are mainly independent Convenience Stores or Mini-Marts: small stores or shops that sell items such as candy, ice-cream, soft drinks, lottery tickets, cigarettes and other tobacco products, newspapers and magazines, along with a selection of processed food and perhaps some groceries and usually a few hot food items. Even these are dominated by chains like 7-Eleven. These can often be found combined with a gas station or a fast food outlet, and are located on intersections or freeway exits.

  In the 1920's and 1930's the Supermarkets: defined by "self-service, separate product departments, discount pricing, marketing and volume selling." came into being. Supermarkets proliferated across Canada and the United States with the growth of automobile ownership and suburban development after World War II. Most North American supermarkets are located in suburban strip malls as an anchor store along with other, smaller retailers. They are generally regional rather than national in their company branding. Most Supermarket chains have their own distribution centers, and many manufacture produces under their own brands names.

  • The first supermarket Piggly Wiggly was established in Memphis, Tennessee by Clarence Saunders, in Memphis, Tennessee in 1916. He patented the Self Service concept in 1917. Because customers could choose their products directly, packaging and brand recognition became very important. He also introduced the concepts of check out stands, marking very item in the store, refrigerated cases, uniformed employees, and franchised independent grocers to operate under this model. In 1922, however, the company was taken over and its stores subsequently divested and sold to various other regional grocery companies. Presently, more than 600 independently owned Piggly Wiggly stores operate in 17 states.

  • Kroger (f. Cincinatti, Ohio, 1883) took the idea one step further and pioneered the first supermarket surrounded on all four sides by a parking lot in the 1930's. Now the largest grocery chain in the US, with 3,619 stores, Kroger has acquired numerous other grocery chains, including Fred Meyers and QFC, which are prominent in the Northwest, as well as Ralph's, and King Soopers and City Market, and employs one of the largest networks of private label manufacturing in the country with forty-one plants which create about half of Kroger’s nearly 20,000 private label products.

  • Safeway came about through a merger in 1926 of Safeway (Sam Seelig Company f. Los Angeles 1912, renamed in 1925) and Skagg's (f. American Falls, Idaho 1915)- the two had over 500 stores and became the largest chain west of the Mississippi. Despite a hostile takeover attempt in the 1980's which required a significant sell off of stores and withdrawal from many markets - by merging with a number of smaller chains like Randall's, Vons, Carrs, and Dominicks in the 90's, Safeway has established itself mainly in the Western United States and Canada, and is the third largest chain in the US, Safeway is striving to compete with the superstores by offering better customer service, remodelled and attractive stores with Deli - Floral - Starbucks, etc; and by "Rebranding" itself into the "lifestyle format" offering Ingredients for Life.

  • A & P started as The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company in 1859, opening its first grocery in 1912 and its first supermarket in 1936 in Pennsylvania. In the mid-1950s, A&P was the dominant food retailer. In a few markets, A&P had up to 75% of the market share, with stores in 39 states, but gradually poor preformance caused decline in the 1960's and 1970's resulting in the chain exiting the West Coast and many states. A&P went from over 10,000 stores in 1955 to about 5,000 in 1965. The number of stores fell because in most towns, several smaller grocery stores would be replaced by one larger supermarket. By 1970, the company was down to about 4,000 stores, 2,00 stores by 1980, 1,000 by 1990, 500 by 2000 and finally rebranded itself in 2009. It now operates Food Emporium and Fresh Market stores in the Philadephia/ New York area. Fresh Market is a "niche store" competing with Whole Foods.

  • Albertsons tells a similar story of growth and corporate shenanagans leading to its demise. Founded in 1939 by Joe Albertson, it reached a pinnicle in 1999 making Albertsons briefly the largest American grocery operator, with over 2,500 stores in 37 states. In 2006, it was acquired by Supervalu which proceeded to sell off many stores, withdrew from many regions, and finally rebranding most of the rest. New Albertson's, Inc (officially renamed) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based SuperValu, that operates 463 grocery stores in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, California, and certain parts of Utah.

  • A number of independent supermarkets banded together in 1926 as IGA Supermarkets, whose banner is now licensed in 45 countries and territories to over 4,000 independent supermarkets served by 37 independent distributors. Associated Grocers was another retailer's cooperative in the Western United States - founded in 1934, it was in 2007 acquired by United Grocers currently the largest retailer-owned wholesaler in the western United States.

  • Haggen Food and Pharmacy and Top Foods (its superstore name) is the largest independent grocer in the Pacific Northwest with 33 stores. Founded in Bellingham, Wa. by the Benett and Dorothy Haggen in 1933, it has mostly built rather than acquired stores, slowly expanded southward but avoiding the competition of Seattle's saturated metropolitan market. It was the first grocery to put a Starbucks instore in 1989.
    Just as Supermarket Chains overwhelmed small grocery stores, they in turn have become threatened by even bigger stores - Hypermarkets, Discount Superstores, and Warehouse Clubs. Superstores, such as those operated by Wal-Mart often offer a wide range of discounted goods and services in addition to foods. The proliferation of such warehouse and superstores has contributed to the continuing disappearance of smaller, local grocery stores and supermarkets, increased dependence on the automobile, suburban sprawl because of the necessity for large floorplates, and increased vehicular traffic and air pollution.

    Hypermarkets are very large stores combining Grocery and Department Stores. Fred Meyer (f. 1922 in Portland, Oregon) opened its first one-stop shopping center in 1931. This marketting concept remained in regional use only until in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the three major discount store chains in the United States — Wal-Mart (founded by Sam Walton, 1962 in Roger's Arkansas). Kmart (originally Kresge's 1962) and Target (originally Dayton's 1962) developed discount stores in the hypermarket format. They typically have business models focusing on high-volume, low-margin sales. Because of their large footprints and the need for many shoppers to carry large quantities of goods, many hypermarkets choose suburban or out-of-town locations that are easily accessible by automobile, often to the regret of smaller stores in town which can't compete. Traditional supermarkets face intense competition from these discount retailers, aka "box stores", which typically are non-union and operate with better buying power.

  • WinCo Foods has been an employee-owned supermarket business since 1985, headquartered in Boise, Idaho with 75 stores. Founded as a discount warehouse grocery store in 1967 in Boise, Idaho, its name was an acronym for the states it serves: Washington, Idaho, Nevada, California and Oregon, though now this "WINning COmpany" has stores in Utah as well. It keeps prices down by not providing bagging and other services, and by selling lower quality meats and produce.

    Warehouse Clubs such as Costco offer savings to customers by buying and selling in bulk quantities, also compete with supermarkets. Customers often pay membership fees and are required to buy large, wholesale quantities of the store's products. Warehouse Clubs are able to keep prices low due to the no-frills format of the stores.

    When a small grocery store is in competition with large supermarkets, the grocery store often must create a niche market by selling unique, premium quality, or ethnic foods that are not easily found in supermarkets. Supermarkets have to do the same to compete with the "box stores." Examples of these Specialty or boutique stores are Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe's. Both target a suburban demographic concerned about "green living" and healthy organic foods. Sadly, these usually locate themselves and price their merchandise for this wealthier demographic.

    In some places, food cooperatives or "co-op" markets have been started, owned by their own shoppers, Puget Consumers Co-op: PCC Natural Markets) is a food cooperative based in Seattle, Washington, with over 45,000 members, it is the largest consumer-owned food cooperative in the United States. Both members and non-members may shop at the retail locations, but members receive certain discounts. A number of smaller Co-ops, such as Sno Isle Natural Foods have been started as well. These usually carry natural, organic, pesticide free foods, and other items wanted by members, and are supplied by local samll producers and growers helping to support sustainable farming.

    There are also efforts underway to revive local farmer's markets, often open one day a week during the growing season at specific locations. Local, fresh, and organic food is sold directly by growers to the public, and helps maintain small, sustainable farms on the fringes of urban environments. Pike Place Market on the Seattle waterfront was founded in 1907 and continues to be one of the best in the country. Farmers' markets in the US have grown from 1,755 in 1994 to 4,385 in 2006 to 5,274 in 2009. Upscale restaurants too, have realized the value of fresh local ingredients, and often buy directly from those who produce them.

    Elliot Essman's articles on The Food Processing industry and The Grocery Industry are helpful, he also covers Food safety, organic and genetically modified foods and the Trans-fats controversy, see the America Eats index. Eating out - Fast Foods. Monoculture vs sustainable farming