Ashley's Stew Theory

I may be taking our class discussion a bit too far, but I think instead of teaching the salad bowl theory that is not realistic, I like the idea of a stew theory.  With a stew there is a cohesiveness within the taste, which would symbolically be the typical American society, but there are many separate ingredients that make up this flavor.  In the stew you can taste everything, or you can choose to pick out each individual ingredient such as a piece of meat or a chunk of celery.  This shows that though there is an overall flavor of America, there are still individuals that make up this recipe and still hold their own properties and tastes (values and perspectives).  It shows the individualism as how the individuals all together make up America rather than America making up the individual.  I'm not sure if this makes sense to others, but this is just what I immediately thought of when I realized that the salad bowl theory being taught in classrooms now really doesn't give a correct representation of American society.