Culinary Tourism

Chapter 12. Ethnic Heritage Food in Lindsborg, Kansas, and New Glarus, Wisconsin

CHAPTER 12 Ethnic Heritage Food in Lindsborg, Kansas, and New Glarus, Wisconsin Barbara G. Shortridge The Midwest is dotted with small, European ethnic settlements, a legacy from the immigration streams of the nineteenth century. Several of these communities, including New Glarus, Wisconsin (a Swiss settlement established in 1845), and Lindsborg, Kansas (a Swedish settlement of 1869), have purposely reinvented themselves as heritage destinations for tourists. Architecture , signage, music, dance, costumes, and special events are all facets of the fabrication, but food is especially important. To the townspeople, selling ethnic food to tourists is a reliable source of income. To visitors, eating (or taking home a food product) is a major participatory component of their ethnic explorations. Tasting another culture is part of the expected experience for those who want to be Swiss or Swedish for a day. Culinary tourism has many facets. People who want to experience another culture may eat authentic ethnic foods to gain status among peers and to contribute to their touristic cultural capital. At another level, those who are curious about other places may be dining as part of an imaginary foreign trip. For such people, the goal is a multisensory experience: food plus other visual and auditory markers. Still other visitors, however, may be actively reinforcing their own ethnic identity by returning to nostalgic culinary roots. A dish, for example, that might be difficult or tedious to prepare in a home cooking situation can here be readily provided by professionals . A vague food memory of times past can now be tasted again. The ethnic foods available in these two towns are, in general, familiar to a midwestern palate (without intense spices or unusual cooking methods) Barbara G. Shortridge I 269 and thus provide modest exoticism and not much skepticism. Because of their geographic positions near larger population centers, Lindsborg and New Glarus are well situated for even an abbreviated visit such as an evening meal. Finally, we must not ignore the possibility that many regional patrons return again and again simply because they savor the goodtastingfood . In addition to North American tourists wanting to partake of an exotic cuisine, the two towns also attract significant numbers of visitors from Switzerland and Sweden. These people come to participate in food memory tourism, to see what eating and culture was like a hundred years ago in their homelands. The developers of New Glarus and Lindsborg provide all the classic tourism facilities for shopping, playing, and eating.l They do so with a twist, however, by constructing environments that allow the tourist to be readily integrated into an ethnic culture and to have contact with the local populace. This accessibility is facilitated by their rural locations, settings that also enhance the difference factor for a visitor from an urban environment. A person entering these towns is immediately aware that they are constructed and commodified landscapes, but usually pleased that the garishness of many other tourist venues is absent. In Lindsborg and New Glarus, the IIforeign" is purposely made familiar to the visitor, and this familiarity is responsible for their success. In order to see how the process of culinary tourism works from the consumer's point of view, I analyzed promotional material, restaurant menus, food imports from the homeland, food specialty shops, cookbooks, and festival foods; interviewed townspeople; and observed the landscape as a geographer. By examining the carefully constructed presentation of ethnic food from several aspects, I hope to reveal the multiple ways food is important to the tourist experience. Background The people of Lindsborg and New Glarus decided to turn themselves into full-scale tourist destinations at almost the same time in the 1960s. These reinventions, led by some strong-willed visionaries but with the agreement of the entire communities, were not abrupt. Both places had hosted well-attended ethnic festivals before and, as a result, were used to accommodating crowds and the associated problems of parking and restrooms. The transition was not a matter of a swelling local pride that had to find an outlet. Instead it was simple economics. Agriculture was in decline and farm towns had to change if they were to survive. Local leaders recog- 270 I Ethnic Heritage Food nized a growing fascination of Americans with ethnicity and heritage and realized they had something to selL Tourism became the new focus. The strategy worked better than even the dreamers could have imagined. Today there are no empty storefronts in...