>>7022319>Sadly though it's morphed into some sort of national icon and thus is immune to any sort of criticism and any attempts to due so is met with ridicule and xenophobia.I wouldn't quite put it that way, but it's not as far off the mark as it sounds. The culture has English roots. For a long time in the US mild foods were considered classy and properly American, while strongly flavored (or strong smelling) foods were looked down because they were what immigrants ate. They were ethnic.This goes all the way back to the first waves of German immigrants bringing a taste for sauerkraut and strong mustard with them. It took the arrival of Italians and Greeks to make garlic common here, and was a long, slow acceptance. As recently as 1975 it was called "the most controversial addition to food" in the Joy of Cooking!
Remember, the availability of fresh veg year round is a recent development. During most of American history canned vegetables were the norm most of the year. So living off meat and potatoes didn't seem that absurd if you could afford to. And if you couldn't you ate beans until you hopefully did well enough to afford meat and potatoes.
This kind of thinking still holds on in American backwaters. You see less of it in cosmopolitan places, where immigrants have added many new tastes to the American diet. In the backwaters these tastes are still viewed with suspicion or contempt because they're "foreign".
