An excellent observation. I’d add in Turkey, Italy, Greece, middle East, Philippines, North Africa …

Had a professor in college who used to half-jokingly refer to this WWII cultural-exposure as the Oregano Effect. Apparently oregano was largely absent from US cuisine until returning soldiers began asking for what they called “the pizza spice.” Don’t know how much of that is true but I do know that oregano was fairly rare in US cooking until the 1950s.

Tom

> On Aug 10, 2025, at 2:39 PM, dbernat <xxxxxx@gol.com> wrote:
>
>
> US soldiers returning to Pennsylvania from Europe after World War I were exposed to Europe.
>
> US soldiers returning to Pennsylvania from Burma, India, China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan after World War II had been exposed to non-western cultures that operated in quite different ways. Piper might have met some of them.
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