Nothing on the list from Thanksgiving dinner - interesting. You can’t get much more American than that, can you? Or hot dogs??
I suppose “greatest” varies by region and by person, perhaps even by age. It would be interesting to see lists from different parts of the country - how much overlap?
I love it. The mucilage texture is unique. Can’t make gumbo without okra. Poke is here to stay in our house. I had it last night from a food truck!
Yes you can. Okra is common in Creole Gumbo, not in Cajun Gumbo. The latter is much better because it doesn’t have okra in it.
I’ve eaten Bill Wharton’s gumbo at least six times. There’s always gumbo in his, and he’s the sauce boss!
Gumbo is one of the principal ingredients of gumbo.
Hah! Okra. Dammit. I blame the wake/bake lifestyle.
Hm, no hot pockets.
I’m surprised they didn’t list Chop Suey?
We have to accept that articles like this are simply clickbait. A title like “20 Best Regional American Foods” would be more accurate but not gain as many clicks.
I’d rather see a list like that, but the headline will probably still be misleading.
They’ve been eating it in Hawai’i since before James Cook showed up. Absent the current poke trend on the mainland, it’s stiff a sufficiently established regional dish that it should count for this conversation. Certainly, if okra (also regional, very much not trendy) makes the cut, poke should.
If you’ve ever had a burrito in the US, it was probably a Mission burrito. “Mission” burrito is mainly to distinguish it from the San Diego burrito, which is basically the same thing but with french fries inside.
Fry bread is a Native American food dish invented in the 1830s by displaced tribes who were forced onto land that couldn’t support their traditional hunting and agriculture, so they were provided simple staples by the US government. It’s delicious, genocide-inspired cuisine. Very American.
There are at least three forms of gumbo: one thickened with okra, one with filé powder, one with just a roux. And there’s some that combine them. So, no, gumbo does not have to contain okra.
That said, like I said, okra is great, as is poke. Get it in Hawaii, though. It’s almost a different beast.
ETA:
I’ve been using this page for almost two decades now. It’s called “The Gumbo Pages” and contains real down-home Louisiana recipes for Cajun and Creole food. Read through the gumbo recipes. They don’t all have okra.
No Philly cheesesteak?
No Italian hoagie?
No thanks!
Gotta limit it to 20. I’ll put the roast pork WAYYY over the cheesesteak any day. (And that is missing, too.) I’ll give you the hoagie.
Blasphemy! You must be a Cheezwhizaphobe!
See a similar thread to this one about “Most iconic food for each state” with the exact same sort of clickbait and fail.
Although it was a Food Network rather than CNN piece of faux advertising, and the thread is only 4ish months old, and made multiple, egregious failures that seemed directly related to advertising certain foods or locations… hmmmm?
Ughhh.
A curse upon all such things.
I actually do like Cheese Whiz on my steaks, but the Philadelphians have generally admonished me for it. To be honest, that’s the only context I’ve had Cheese Whiz in in about … three decades at least?
Any and every list is going to be seen as clickbait. There is no way to make a list an not have it argued over. I enjoy these lists because sometimes I find something I haven’t seen before. This list is as good as any other. I don’t see any egregious faults with it.
The reason I generally object so much is that there’s often horrible misrepresentation, not just in the titles, but often the first 2/3 of the article before you get to actual reality in such pieces. Oh, not so much the listicles (although there’s a LOT of advertising in some of them for different restaurants where you can get the “best version of a dish”) but when CNN starts talking about “diets that can stop dementia” [ and this is presented as actual health news, not a sponsored ad!] or “CNN reports on best foods for cardiovascular health”… oh, it boils my blood.
Sure, there’s nothing wrong with learning new dishes, but CNN and similar sites increasingly selling crap AND claiming it’s news is far too similar to Fox News and people like Jones hawking supplements in the guise of news and clicks.
Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, just chaps my hide.
Whiz is good, smoked provolone is the runner up, but the best cheesesteak cheese is Cooper Sharp.
I’ve always wanted to try Cooper Sharp. (I’m not a big fan of smoked cheese in general, even though, or perhaps because, I grew up with them). Aged provolone, like what they put on roast pork, is just heavenly, though.