Why German-origin Americans keep quiet about their culinary contributions

Irish Americans are arguably the most ostentatious in their national celebrations. It is hard to imagine any other group getting a day off work and spending it turning the Chicago River green. I wrote of my own Irish pride in these pages last year. March 17 was the highlight of our social calendar. My grandfather inaugurated our city’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, which still runs in Great Falls, Montana, today. Montana — especially Butte — is famous for its Irish population, which makes up 15 percent of residents.

But there is a significantly larger ethnic group in Montana, whose traces of national pride are almost imperceptible. According to a US Census Bureau survey in 2020, 24 percent of Montanans claim German ancestry. Germans are the second-largest ancestry group in the US, after the English. The state of Pennsylvania alone is home to 3.5 million German-origin Americans, and in the Midwest states of North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska, they make up 30 percent of residents.

Much of American food is German in origin, too. Indeed, the German influence on food is so widespread, and has fused so successfully with American culture, that one might forget it is there. The all-American hamburger and hotdog are corrupted versions of the German originals, as are gingerbread, cheesecake, apple strudel and cinnamon rolls. Much of New York food culture owes its roots to Germany, and to the strong tradition of Jewish influences on the city: the deli lunch of cured meats, hard cheeses and pickled vegetables, the Reuben sandwich, sauerkraut, pretzels, bagels, cream cheese, and roasted nuts sold from stalls in the street.

The Midwest has adopted the German cheese-making tradition, producing 2.6 billion pounds of it every year. A quarter of all cheese is made in the US: Wisconsin has more than 120 cheese plants and 12,000 dairy farms, many of which make traditional German cheeses Muenster and Beer Kaese (German for “beer cheese”). American lagers and pilsners have claim to German descent too, including some of the most popular brands like Miller and Coors. Budweiser is arguably Czech, but it was originally brewed by German-speaking Bohemians.

Germans first came in large numbers to America in the seventeenth century, arriving alongside the British colonists. They settled primarily in Pennsylvania, Virginia and New York. But an even greater number arrived in the middle of the nineteenth century, when Europe was reeling from the revolutions of 1848.

Between 1820 and the outbreak of World War One, more than 5 mil- lion Germans came to America. The Irish arrived in similar numbers — around 6 million between 1820 and 1920. But apart from Guinness and Bailey’s Irish Cream, the only edible Irish contributions to American cuisine are corned beef and cabbage. Why then, compared with the Irish, are German-origin Americans so quiet?

St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in the US far exceed those in Ireland, but there is really no German equivalent. There are no parades for St. Boniface. I did learn recently of the German-American Steuben Parade held in New York every September, to honor Baron Friedrich von Steuben who fought for George Washington.

It turns out that the Chicago parade Ferris Bueller and his pals crash is that city’s Steuben one, but both were news to me. There is also the odd Oktoberfest in the US, but it has nothing on the original in Munich.

Perhaps there is a good reason for this absence of German pride, which is that the memory of the two world wars is all too recent. Americans had generally welcomed German immigrants, because they were hardworking and established many societies, churches and schools.

When World War One broke out, the American people overall were relatively unconcerned by the threat of U-boats in the Atlantic, despite Germany’s declaration that it would spare no Allied ship, military or passenger.

American passengers continued to cross to Europe on British ships until May 7, 1915, when a U-boat sank the British RMS Lusitania, one of the largest passenger ships in the world, taking down 128 Americans with it. Americans’ feelings toward Germany changed overnight. The New York Herald called the attack a “deliberate, cold-blooded, premeditated outrage” that revealed a “disregard of ordinary human sensibilities.” The Germans responsible were “human butchers of medieval days.” Such an attack broke the previously established rules of warfare, which is what outraged Americans most.

Four days after the US entered World War One, President Woodrow Wilson announced that Germans and even Americans of German descent were enemy aliens. They could no longer live in DC, or within half a mile of any government or military base, enter or depart the US without strict permits, be found within 100 yards of any canal, wharf, pier or dock, or board any aircraft. As the war ground on, regulations restricting German Americans proliferated. The assets of German companies in America were seized by the attorney general and sold to American ones. The US government confiscated close to half a billion dollars-worth of private property. Internment camps were established, most notably in North Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin and Utah. Some did not release their captives until 1920.

Public feeling towards Germans was as harsh as the regulations. Many restaurants scrapped German food from their menus. Some served “liberty cabbage” in place of sauerkraut and “liberty steak” instead of hamburgers. Germans and even Americans of German descent were harassed, fired from jobs for fear of being spies, and even in some extreme cases, beaten, tarred and feathered. German-language books were burned. Newspapers incited aggression against German schools, churches and societies. The German language, which had previously been part of some high-school curricula, was banned in some state schools.

Wilson’s regulations and the persecution that followed were not unique to America — other Allied countries had done the same. The strength of anti-German feeling among the public in America was perhaps not exceptional either. But what is surprising is just how much German culture continued to influence what Americans eat.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s April 2025 World edition.