Review

When considering the vast amount of historical writing devoted to the mass migration from Europe to the United States during the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the first two of the twentieth, it would be difficult to imagine that someone could come up with a new slant on the subject. Yet, that is precisely what Hasia Diner contributes in this work. In her comparative study of Italian, Irish, and east European Jewish immigration she convincingly demonstrates that food, the lack of it in Europe and the promise of its availability in America, was the prime factor in the decision to emigrate. She also emphasizes the role of food in shaping ethnic identity and a sense of community. In her first chapter, Diner explains the roles of age, gender, and class in determining the distribution and consumption of food. She points to the impact of historical developments such as the rise of the nation state, colonialism, and the industrial revolution on he kinds of food people ate and the availability of food for various segments of society both in Europe and the United States.	1
The remainder of the book consists of a pair of chapters for each immigrant group, one concerned with the European experience and one with the American, and a final brief summary chapter. While these immigrant groups shared the condition of hunger, it is the differences among them in their foodways as experienced both in Europe and the United States that makes for fascinating reading. For example, one learns that Italian food, as we know it today, emerged not in Italy but in America. In their native land, differences in regional crops resulted in local rather than national food patterns. Whatever their locality, however, for the poor laborer and farmer food was meager. For many, a meal of dry bread soaked with oil and salt was a staple of their diet. But the Italian poor knew full well of better food, of the meat and macaroni and other delicacies available to the better-off. They had opportunities to sample them a few times a year at religious holidays, when the landlords distributed food to their tenants. American abundance offered the Italian immigrants the opportunity to first replicate the best foods of their native regions and later to add foods from other regions of Italy as well from America. They called the product "Italian" and, as the author convincingly points out, "Feasting upon dishes once the sole preserve of their social and economic superiors enabled them to mold an Italian identity in America around food" (p. 54).	2
Food played no such role in forging Irish identity in America. Prof. Diner argues, "The Irish experience with food—recurrent famines and an almost universal reliance on the potato, a food imposed on them [by the British]—had left too painful a mark on the Irish Catholic majority to be considered a source of communal expression and national, joy" (p. 84). Hunger also drove east European Jews to find relief on America's shores, but, as the author reveals, for them it was not only a matter of the scarcity of food, it was also a matter its sacredness. In the Jewish religion, special food dishes played a key role in the observance of the Sabbath and in the celebration of holy days. Jewish law determined what could and could not be eaten. Thus, the increasing poverty resulting from government economic and political persecution in Europe led to spiritual as well as physical deprivation. Interestingly, American abundance and American freedom rather than strengthening Jewish culture and identity built around traditional foods had the opposite effect. In their desire to sample the good things America had to offer, including its foods, many compromised their adherence to religious strictures regarding food while otherwise maintaining allegiance to their Jewish heritage,.	3
The extent of Hasia Diner's research is remarkable. She has drawn upon memoirs, films, novels, newspaper accounts, scholarly studies, and other sources to present a colorful, readable account. Hers is a work that will inform and enliven the study of immigration for college students and students in high school upper level and advanced placement classes. Not only are there vivid descriptions of foodways, but also detailed descriptions of the historical background and social setting of each of the three migrant peoples. Diner's account of peasant society in Italy, her description of famine in Ireland, and her depiction of the centrality of food in traditional Jewish practice are among the topics bound to arouse the interest of students. In our society of abundance perhaps the book's greatest contributions to learning are its explanation of the centrality of food in shaping the basic forms of social organization and its depiction of hunger as a motive force in the movement of millions to America's shores.	4
College of Staten Island, City University of New York Frederick M. Binder

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