No, they don’t. They just pay a surcharge to eat it while calling it polenta. :smack:
Yes, I know what hominy is. The point still stands.
Very true. I was attempting to keep the discussion balanced as, in my opinion, it was weighted heavily towards comfort foods.
Pizza and hot dogs are all well and good but there are other very good chefs that are exploring American Cuisine in quite different directions and I just thought I’d mention it.
I shouldn’t have called the thread “depressing”. Its was just becoming a bit unbalanced. No offence intended.
That raises an interesting semantic question: at what point does a dish “become” part of a national cuisine? I would argue that it is when the majority of a nation’s citizens no longer think of it as “exotic” or “foreign”. I can’t imagine that when most Americans (or Canadians, for that matter) order a pizza, they think of it as “Italian food”. Certainly no one thinks of hamburgers as “German food”, or French fries as “French food”. So I think you can say that pizza and hamburgers and French fries have become “American” food. Burritos, nachos, and eggrolls are on the same path.
It’s just the same as when a foreign word gets adopted into English. Do you think you are speaking German when you say “kindergarten” or Spanish when you say “plaza”? Of course not. So now “kindergarten” and “plaza” are English words - that just happen to have exact cognates in German and Spanish.
It’s not just us doing it, either. Potato chips are a distinctly American food - possibly invented by a chef in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. in 1853. But definitely first appearing in American cookbooks in the 1850s. But when a bloke 'aving a pint in his local in Ealing gets a packet of crisps to go with it, is he thinking that he’s “eating American”? I doubt it.
Culture is syncretic - that’s just how we humans roll.
Well, from another American “foodie”'s point of view, I think it’s awesome. Maybe I’m just a bas cuisine “foodie,” but those are the sorts of things I love about indigenous cuisines. The envelope-pushing stuff is cool, but I’ve always been much more interested in the “peasant” food. (Which has a funny way of turning into the expensive shit very quickly. To wit, America’s trend over the last few years of tip-to-tail cooking.) A nation’s cuisine–to me–is based more on comfort foods than it is haute cuisine, so there shouldn’t be any shame in celebrating American comfort food.
For me, American food is barbecue, chili, clam chowder, cornbread, grits, navy bean soup, peanut butter and jelly, Carolina barbecue, Texas brisket, Kentucky mutton, burgoo, Tex-Mex, green chili, a “bowl of red,” Cincinnati chili, Michigan (and elsewhere) coney dogs, corn dogs, pizzas of all sorts (New Haven clam pies, New York and New Jersey style pies, Detroit’s caramelized pan pizzas, Chicago’s deep dish and stuffed, Midwest cracker crust, Quad cities malted crust, California’s experimental styles, etc.), Buffalo wings, Philadelphia cheese steaks, Primanti brothers sandwiches, pastrami and corned beef, Maine lobster, catfish, hushpuppies, hamburgers, hot dogs, Salisbury steak, hot links, Mississipi delta tamales, deep fried cheese curds, pork tenderloin sandwiches, jibaritos, Midwestern casseroles, boudin, jambalaya, and so on, and so forth. I can go on for paragraphs and paragraphs.
There is just so much going on, so many different style of foods regionally in America, that you can spend a lifetime exploring and probably run out of time trying to taste everything.
Well, hamburgers really are, in my opinion, American. Salt-and-peppered fried ground beef between buns with ketchup and mustard, etc., are not really a German thing. Sure, they developed out of stuff like “Hamburg steak” and frikadell, but I think the American version is sufficiently different to be its own foodstuff, and I have no problem unambiguously claiming hamburgers as American. I really don’t think anyone would challenge us on that.
I’d say French fries (which are Belgian) and American pizza are much closer to their progenitors, though.
But is it national American cuisine, like hot dogs or corn on the cob? I would say that it is regional American cuisine, and is at least quasi-exotic in other parts of the country; it’s “from there”, and not “from here”. National cuisine, IMO, is not just a mosaic of regional cuisines.
Is “corn on the cob” national? I think of that as Midwestern, myself. I just don’t really believe there is a single “national” cuisine for any large country, really. It’s all going to be somewhat regional. I mean, yeah, I guess hamburgers you can get pretty much anywhere in the US, but there’s probably only a small handful of foodstuffs that qualify in complete ubiquity. Much of what we identify with other “national” cuisines is similarly regional.
Very much so, IMO.
While I still maintain steak & potatoes, burgers & fries, pizza, etc… as examples of American food, I’d like to change my answer.
In thinking about the question from the POV of opening an “American restaurant” abroad, I’m considering what local Chinese and Italian restaurants are like. Everything on their menus has a similar overarching style.
In that respect, I’ve got to go with a BBQ Grill as the quintessential American restaurant style if opening chains in other countries. Ribs, steak, pork chops, burgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob, baked potato, etc…
That’s interesting. I live in Chicago, and I can’t even remember the last restaurant I’ve been to that had corn on the cob, nor the last time I’ve been at someone’s cookout and eaten it. I agree that it’s “American,” but I don’t think it’s as ubiquitous as hot dogs and hamburgers. I should not have simply said “Midwestern,” though. I associate it with the South as well.
But I doubt the local Chinese is that similar to an overarching Chinese national cuisine. China would actually be a good example. It’s hard for me to think of dishes that are ubiquitously Chinese (other than, say, rice or fried rice or something like that) as it is for me to think of American dishes besides hamburgers that are enjoyed coast-to-coast.
Juk (or congee). But then, that spans pretty much all of Asia.
As Baal Houthom mentioned earlier, I think you’ll find that “breakfast cereal” was invented in America.
Except in Shaw’s Supermarkets, Stop & Shop, Market Basket, Hannaford. . .
The corn muffin is the “Official Muffin” of Massachusetts.
Burgers and fries
Turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, squash and cranberry sauce
Barbecued ribs, cole slaw, cornbread
Corn on the cob
Macaroni and cheese
Casseroles with a base of Campbell’s Cream of Something Soup
Apple pie
Agreed, but for the most part it’s all cooked with the same method. That’s why I think BBQ would probably be the American equivalent.
Except that a good portion of America doesn’t seem to know what barbecue is about. Unless you mean grilling in general, and not barbecue.
Please don’t start this national movement. Us non-Americans are perfectly happy with regional US cuisine like Cajun, New England, Tex-Mex, Little Italy, etc.
I used to have it regularly as a kid in England- with salted butter, rather than salt and butter, but my mother never added salt to anything for some reason. It’s not popular on the continent, I don’t think, but it’s actually quite common over 'ere.
Incidently, though you might claim crisps (‘chips’ to you lot), you can only claim salted ones- flavoured ones are an Irish invention.
Yeah, I was thinking more 40,000 foot view. As in (and God forgive me), classifying Tex-Mex in with “Southwestern” cuisine.