forefathers be proud

happy birthday america!

the 4th of july is an odd duck of a holiday.  not so much in the reasons for its existence, but more in the way it’s celebrated.  is bbq-ing american?  sure it is, unless you count all of the other cultures—africans, arabs, asians—who beat us to it.  there’s also the pesky fact that holding raw meat over open fire may very well be the oldest form of cooking there is.  it’s so easy, a caveman could do it.  sure, they didn’t have frozen burger patties and individually wrapped cheese slices back then (it took america to individually wrap its cheese, by gum!), so i guess we can lay our claim to the experience if not the method.  but is grilling really any more american than frying things?  kfc and paula deen probably don’t think so.  we can probably call the fish-fry an authentic american experience, and it’s even appropriately summery, but i don’t think it’ll ever catch on as a 4th staple.

also, when the temperature rises, there’s a certain segment of the population (myself included) that will always reach for one specific beer—la corona!  That’s just an inviolable fact of summer.  and despite the overall (and also inviolable) blandness of the corona, i have yet to find an american lager that a) combines as well with limes and b) refreshes quite so perfectly.  sure if push came to shove, i would sell my cervezas down the river for a pint of harpoon summer, but sadly, that miracle beer hasn’t made to my little corner of the swamp that is dc.  anyway, the point is that our nation’s birthday is doomed by its own summer date to be celebrated with mexican beer. (don’t worry, america, my coronas were in celebration of their election, not your birthday!)

lastly, fireworks.  we all know blowing things up is as american as apple pie.  but the chinese invented fireworks!  and yes, i suppose if there’s one thing america does better than any other country, it’s appropriate culture and assimilate people.  all things considered though, there’s not one thing about this holiday that’s actually american (not counting mike’s supersnack)!  we even had tortilla chips (mexico again) and pretzels (dutch or german, i don’t know).

i guess what I’m trying to say is, good job america!  this holiday has actually shown me that we can thank the various immigrants we’ve had over the centuries, because i’m pretty sure that without them we’d be eating deep-fried cheetos and setting off real bombs every year.