And it better have a healthy quantity of American cheese to go with the cheddar, or I’m loading my shotgun.
You forgot the vanilla extract. And you sprinkle the cinnamon on after it’s fried.
Rum extract is good, too.
You’re right. What a glaring omission. That is exactly the breakfast I would make if I were trying to impress someone with an American breakfast. (I would say you can’t go wrong with a Southern breakfast, either, but I think Eggs Benedict is more of a surefire crowd pleaser.)
Yeah, baby! If you want a thoroughly American alternative to fish and chips with lager, try Calabash-style fried flounder served with hushpuppies and sweet tea. An excellent regional specialty! Whenever I make it to the NC coast, I eat this stuff till I’m sick.
Daniel
I think that’s pretty much bullshit. I’m American and I’ve never even once had eggs benedict in my nearly four decades (I’ve seen it in a 3 star hotel, but never eaten it.) and invariably the breakfast places I’ve been to never served it. I believe poached eggs and corned beef hash is more common and All-American than the eggs benedict. Benedict is more upper class and city slicker food, not very common…too hoity- toity.
If you go for a steak dinner you should drink Manhattans as the before dinner cocktail. It is difficult to think of a more American cocktail.
The recipe at wikipedia is pretty much how I make then at Chez Gazpacho.
It’s “special Sunday breakfast” food fer sure, and not the typical type of stuff you’d eat every day (unless you want to die of a massive coronary at an early age), but it’s not exactly haute cuisine, either, and represents American cuisine quite favorably. I mean, most of the blue-collar diners around here, growing up, had eggs benedict of varying qualities (usually bad) on the menu.
Nope. Egg McMuffins are Eggs Benedict with cheese instead of Hollandaise.
And on the buffet table every morning at the $3.99/lb place up the street from here.
Oh, I know that was the inspiration behind the Egg Mcmuffin. My contention is that it’s not all-american, that part is bullshit. I’d definitely say that Corned Beef Hash and Poached Eggs (actually, a pretty good recipe from Sandra Lee) are the quintessential American poachies, and perhaps the Classic American Breakfast.
Yes, and you probably live either on the west coast near LA or on the east coast near NY or in some other large city.
They have eggs benedict at IHOP, fer cryin’ out loud! I hate it though.
Waffle House breakfast - hash browns: scattered (on the grill), smothered (w/onions) and covered (w/ american cheese); grits w/ salt and pepper and butter; 2 eggs over easy; three strips of bacon; and toast with grape jelly. <burp> Milk and coffee to wash it all down with.
Southern Dinner: Chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, cream gravy, some vegetable like peas or green beans. Sliced white bread to sop up the gravy.
Dessert: Nanner pudding made with Nilla vanilla wafers.
Drinks? Bourbon (Jim Beam) and coke for me before dinner. Iced tea with dinner. I don’t drink wine. What kind of wine would you drink with chicken fried steak? 
IHOP! But that’s a hoity-toity city slicker place! 
Yet a variation is served at McDonald’s everywhere. McDonald’s would have actual Benedict had it not been for the premade Hollandaise not having the right consistency.
Lone Star. Or maybe Shiner.
Chocolate brownies and vanilla icream is an American dessert and easier to bake than apple pie.
Yes, but Eggs Benedict are a fairly recent addition to their menu, and we didn’t have an IHOP until their generic dumb down and major expansion in the last ten years, we had Perkin’s and Bob Evan’s and locally owned Diner’s and never once did Eggs Benedict appear on a menu. I blame the nineties for the popularization of Eggs Benedict… ohhh…it has hollandaise, it must be fancy!! Eggs benedict is a recent thing, and if I remember correctly the invention of the egg mcmuffin was to make a generally unheard of and unaffordable favorite breakfast of the rich (Ray Kroc) available to the masses.
Potatoes must be part of an egg breakfast. Either hashbrowns (baked the night before, then peeled and shredded, then pan fried in butter. Please do not use veg. oil. that’s just nasty) or home fries. Home fries are also precooked, then large dice and pan fried in butter with small diced onion, green pepper, and salt and peppered. These would be served with ham, bacon, or sausage and eggs.
I grew up out west. Potoatoes are just part of breakfast. Usually lunch and dinner too.
Grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch. If you want to get fancy with it, use a country style loaf of bread, an upgraded cheese and add tomato slices to the sandwiches.
If you want a western dinner, you can’t beat a chicken pot pie. Make it nice and deep with more chicken and veggies than gravy and you’re good to go. Sunday dinners are often pot roast. Be sure and nestle the potoatoes right down in the bottom of the pot so they absorb the juices from the roast.
Is pudding cake American? Chocolate pudding cake served warm with freshly whipped cream makes everybody happy.
You seem to have some hostility issues with rich folk and hollandaise. I’ve been eating egg and cheese sandwiches for 40 years, long before McD ever thought of it. And eggs Benedict have been around for a very long time. Fancy, shmancy, it’s just good eats; if you’re going to turn up your nose at things just because people in cities eat it, you’ll miss out on a lot of good meals.
For a good US Breakfast… I second Biscuits and Gravy… Hell: Biscuits Gravy and Chicken Fried Steak. And God Damn if Silenus’ CFS recipe didn’t look tasty! I can’t think of any other breakfast food that really seems “American”
I’m not going to suggest a Biscuit recipe as there are a bajillion. (give or take a few)
For Dinner, I would also like to recommend a good old American Bar-b-Que with potato salad, you can grill all sorts of stuff from cheeseburgers to hot dogs to salmon or steaks. I don’t know how easy barbque sauce is to come by in your neck of the woods… but its relatively easy to home make, and there are plenty of online recipes.
Potato Salad, like biscuits have as many recipes to make as there are people in the United States. (Along with Chili)
To drink… sweet tea is really southern, but very good. (then again, so are biscuits and gravy and chicken fried steak… say what you will about the south, but they know how to cook!)
Are you kidding? You act like you’ve never read one of my posts.
I eat and have eaten just about anything- Countryfood, Cityfood, Fancyfood, Foreignfood, Richfood, Poorfood, Good Food, Bad Food…I’ve had an egg mcmuffin, I’ve had hollandaise, I’ve had Oscar, I’ve had Bernaise. I’m not turning my nose up at it, I just don’t think it’s truly America’s best, or most culinarily descriptive breakfast dish…