Tariffs Are Going to Make Restaurants So Boring

​​In Rockford, Illinois, the small city where I grew up, the thought of being able to go into a restaurant and order phở was, until recently, unimaginable. It was home food only. But now there are several Vietnamese restaurants in Rockford, each serving rich broths seasoned with proprietary mixtures of fish sauce, rock sugar, and star anise. 

A place that was once dominated by American fast food, red sauce Italian joints, and Sysco-driven meat-and-potatoes buffets has made way for mid-tier restaurants that engage a totally different, more international culinary vernacular, especially as urbanites from Chicago have spread into the area — first gradually, then en masse during the pandemic. 

Thanks to online shopping, my family doesn’t have to drive out to the big city to pick up rarer ingredients like high-quality fish sauce and fermented tofu anymore, and friends in even the most rural areas can keep their pantries stocked with Lebanese harissa and single-origin turmeric powder.

In the past few decades, eating whatever cuisine you want, when you want it has become so easy in the United States. But the Trump administration’s punitive tariffs on every country in the world threaten to hike up prices on the affordable imported goods that have allowed diversity to flourish in our culinary scenes.