I eat French cuisine (among others) at home. I also enjoy going out for a French meal. I expect these meals to be recognizable to French people but interpreted through the ingredients available in America.

It's interesting to me how ethnic cuisines travel and establish themselves in other cultures. For instance, the food in America is Americanized. No tragedy at all, that's what happens everywhere. Eat French food in Japan. It is adapted to Japanese ethnicity. Eat Chinese food in France. It is influenced by French cuisine. Food is always adapted to local ingredients, local tastes and sometime to local traditions. A little bit of adaptation to feet the local expectations is very normal, but too much alters the real sense of any foreign cuisine. I have to say that the French meal I had in Boston was delicious but it was not like French food in Paris. It was definitely Americanized.

My main complaint about the Americanization of French cuisine is the excessive addition of sugar or sweet ingredients. I do not expect the food to be sugared up. Most French restaurants in the U.S. where I have eaten use too much sugar when preparing French dishes. They do the same thing when cooking Chinese or Thai food. Americans like this so it works for the restaurant's bottom line.

In general, I think that Americans lean towards the very sweet. American desserts tend to be too sweet for my tastes. Same with the savory food. Most American bread is too sweet for my taste. Adding ketchup to a dish mens lots of sugar there. You'll never go broke underestimating the American preference for sweet.

George Toupakis is a freelance writer interested in subjects such as cuisine at home Visit http://cuisine-home.blogspot.com/ to learn more.

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