I was impressed (and so was my stomach) with the ethnic diversity of my diet. A fourth course of bicarbonate of soda was in order.

Still, my experience proved it's true that we in California have access to some of the most diverse cuisines in the world, mostly because we also have one of the most diverse populations. Those arriving from other lands have brought their cooking with them, and not only do they cook for themselves but they also open restaurants where those of us from someplace else can sample their cuisine.

You have only to look at the restaurant section in the Yellow Pages of the telephone book to discover this. Everything from Ethiopian to Thai cooking is readily available.

But it's not only restaurants that provide us with a taste of other cultures. My children have grown up on tacos, burritos and tamales, and their children are doing the same thing. They can't speak much Spanish, alas, but they'd feel at home in Mexico around mealtime.

In like fashion, I don't know much about the Middle East, but I sure do love falafels, which are pita bread sandwiches filled with lettuce, tomatoes, fried and tasty chickpea patties, sour cream and hot sauce. And, of course, the many kinds of pasta we cook in our house are so much a part of our diet that we tend to forget pasta is essentially an Italian food.

I suppose there once was something we might call American cooking. I have a vague recollection of it from the days when I was growing up. It's a vague recollection because nothing much about it was very memorable, except, perhaps, Thanksgiving dinner.

As nearly as I can tell, the diet of my formative years was a combination of the way things were cooked in New England and how things were served in the Midwest: lots of meat and potatoes, a kind of modified English diet, or at least a diet derived from northern Europe.

Successive waves of immigrants have brought different kinds of cooking to America. The French left their mark on parts of the South, the Germans on places like St. Louis, and the Italians and Chinese almost everywhere. Since the Italians sort of invented good cooking and taught it to the French, we are fortunate they decided to immigrate to Northern California and fill San Francisco's North Beach with tasty hangouts.

But, after all, it isn't so much where the cooking you enjoy came from—it's how it tastes. And there is a wide spectrum of tastes available in Santa Clara County from its many different ethnic communities. There are all the cuisines I have previously cited: Italian, Chinese and Mexican. There's Ethiopian and Thai. There's Vietnamese and French and something in between French and Italian called "continental." There's German and Swiss and Scandinavian. There are even a scattering of British and Australian eateries. I'm not sure what the difference between these two is, but both types of cuisine are available if you want to sample them.

And finally there is fast food. I don't guess we can call this ethnic, but rather sort of universal. Hot dogs and hamburgers are peculiarly American and restaurants serving them have been established in countries near and far.

Burger King and McDonald's have put this particular bit of Americana down in such cities as London, Paris, Hong Kong and Rome. The French and Italians complain about it a lot, but they seem to be eating it nevertheless.

But fast food is more than hamburgers. Fast food in California also includes Japanese, Chinese and Mexican food. It is hardly the same as the ethnic foundation from which it came. It is—well, it is American fast food.

The good thing about it is that it is cheap and fast. The unfortunate thing about it is that it all tastes the same.

But no matter. In this state if you tire of Big Macs you can always find at least a dozen different restaurants as a change of pace—and learn a little about another place and culture at the same time.

Carl Heintze is a frequent contributor to the Willow Glen Resident. He can be reached at feodorh@juno.com.