"The best way to destroy a culture is to destroy the kitchen" http://devdutt.com/the-talking-thali/

I have just read the article that Panfusine has linked. Please read it! It reflects issues that have been on my mind -- Americanization of my immigrant family, and, what food legacy have I given my children? We are all food-centric (my family, food52), but in a highly multicultural way. I want the world, but I don't want to lose my heritage.

Now that this conversation has taken on a life of its own, I'll just throw out detail on my original note -- from Wikipedia, under 'quinoa' --
History and culture

The Incas, who held the crop to be sacred,[6] referred to quinoa as chisaya mama or 'mother of all grains', and it was the Inca emperor who would traditionally sow the first seeds of the season using 'golden implements'.[6] During the European conquest of South America, the Spanish colonists scorned quinoa as 'food for Indians',[7] and even actively suppressed its cultivation, due to its status within indigenous non-Christian ceremonies.[8] In fact, the conquistadores forbade quinoa cultivation for a time[9] and the Incas were forced to grow wheat instead.[10]
And it wasn't only quinoa -- food and religion were firmly intertwined in those cultures, and the Spanish and Portuguese wanted to enforce conversion.

I react to this is maybe a different way. Sometimes a 'culture' does need to be updated. Like Slave cooking, having only substandard parts to create. This doesn't mean it shouldn't be acknowledged in their traditions. But the diet for African Americans And southern cooking was/ Is a primary cause for high blood pressure and disease. And Cajun Cooking, which is fantastic as a culture...but very bad as diet. Then we can go into meat pies from Michigan, and heavy pasta foods....etc..etc. So it's not just southern USA here.

Look at the flack Obama gets for 'eating healthy" as being unAmerican. Now of course a high fat, sugar, carb diet would be great if you picked cotton or worked in a steel mill..and burned 1000's of calories for your job. Not so much today in the office as a cube dweller.

Paula Dean's food is very authentic as a "Culture" is that really the way to go to preserve that culture?

This is a powerful question. On the one hand, I agree completely (such as comments on famine or wartime crop killing and starvation tactics). On the other, I think that culture and food are so strongly tied that destroying the kitchen only leads to a determined food revivals of sorts. I think about how our memories are so closely tied to our sense of smell, how hearth and home are often synonymous with the foods we eat. Food culture seems to transcend the everyday ins and outs and ups and downs of life. I've heard moms stand up and declare "I'm a Little Debbie's mom and you can't take that from my child" (in reference to removing junk food from school cafeterias). I've heard folks reminisce about the way grandma could make chicken soup, like nobody today (but we still all try to recreate that feeling, don't we, whether that feeling is real or imagined). The food culture of this country is so vast and varied because, I think, we have such a diverse population, mostly immigrants from one time or another (native populations being a minority now) and we can see that each "immigrant" (now American) culture has brought with it food memories and food culture and that culture has survived, in its morphed form, the destruction of its original (homeland) kitchen. I know my cooking is highly influenced by traditional methods and a return to basics, this makes sense as I believe our current food culture (factory farming, processed foods, fast food industry) is leading to the destruction of the American kitchen (and concurrently reshaping the idea of American food which, in turn, is leading to the destruction of American culture through poor health). I'm still thinking about this, but I find it a very interesting question and look forward to more responses!

It's also a two edge sword. If the move to more local foods. Less processes foods, less factory farming. Which has been in our 'culture' in the USA for decades. Would that be a bad thing?

Also consider the kicking about Paula Dean has...while she was promoting a heavy fat, sugar...'cultural' dishes.

What about "British Food" which in the past has always been very bad (The "Two Fat Ladies" were the Paul Dean's of British food). Newer chefs transform those into much better items.

I know you're speaking about Asian diets, which are now becoming western, factory, and processed. But then again, we as American's tend to reinvent ourselves every few decades.

Think about places around the world that have experienced famines, whether for political or environmental causes. When there is no food to cook or eat, things fall apart rapidly.

Think of what the Spanish did when they 'conquered' Mexico, Central and South America -- forbade certain food crops that were central to the culture and the religion.