Yeah, I always find this fact + people saying "America" has no unique food culture to be quite funny in tandem.
Of course the United States does have unique food culture beyond that juxtaposition, but still.
Of course the United States does have unique food culture beyond that juxtaposition, but still.
There are definitely some unique food cultures within the US (cajun/creole comes immediately to mind, as does Chicago pizza), but are there really American food cultures - flavours or preparations that are eaten both throughout the US and not elsewhere? All of the obvious candidates like hamburgers are popular in many countries and cultures; whenever I've gone to an "American restaurant" (as distinct from a "New York deli" or a "New Orleans grill" or what have you) they've seemed to be serving much the same stuff as a generic restaurant.
Your second requirement—that it be not eaten elsewhere—would likewise exclude every major exported food culture. Do the Italians no longer get to claim spaghetti because an American mom makes it as a quick dish at home for her kids?
I don't know Mexico well enough to comment, but yeah there absolutely isn't a unified "Italian" culture (perhaps there is the beginnings of one) and it's a mistake to think of one (not just in food but in other matters as well). Just as there is no "Chinese" food, there are several distinct Chinese food cultures.
> Your second requirement—that it be not eaten elsewhere—would likewise exclude every major exported food culture. Do the Italians no longer get to claim spaghetti because an American mom makes it as a quick dish at home for her kids?
At some point it just becomes generic food yeah, just like trademarks. I'm sure for the first people to bake bread it was a unique cultural food, but it would be madness to call that Mesopotamian food now, it's just food.
Right, but those are mostly global (or at least broadly western) - I'm interested in the question of whether there's an American food culture. BLT is an interesting thought though, I think America does have a distinct "bacon" culture involving different, more heavily cured meat than you find in Europe.
There are a lot of things like that -- you find chili in Europe, but you don't ever find good chili. Same with, say, pies. BBQ even less. And zero gumbo. Or fried okra. And so on.
Ooh, here's a fun one! Craft beer. It's pretty interesting watching American beer styles migrate over to Europe.
(I've spent about equal parts of my life in the US and Europe, and am a pretty avid cook.)
Comment significantly changed since I replied, so adding:
Actually the original American beers did have a lot of impact. American Adjunct Lagers are brewed in a lot of countries:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/styles/38/
I don't like them, but they've certainly had a major influence on world beer. Most of the world's 10 most popular beer brands are American Adjunct Lager.
Well, sure, but so what? At the point where something's popular worldwide, to the point that people draw on it without thinking of it as from somewhere else, it's not a cultural thing anymore.
> Ooh, here's a fun one! Craft beer. It's pretty interesting watching American beer styles migrate over to Europe.
Craft beer very much came out of the UK with CAMRA and British traditional ales, American involvement came later. What we have now is very much international with influences in all directions, not an American culture spreading out one way.
If you define "true" American cuisine as something that is (a) only eaten in America and (b) eaten consistently throughout America, you've come up with a definition that probably nothing fits. Though: watch the British Bakeoff episode where they attempt brownies, one possible contender.
Lots of stuff is probably only gettable in America! I doubt you can get a good cheese steak, italian beef, po' boy, biscuits & gravy, or scrapple in Europe. But you can't get a good version of all of those in most places in America, too.
> [a sentence about caesar salad that disappeared]
Sure. But not at a generic restaurant; you'll have to go to a specifically Chinese restaurant. I guess you could argue that you'd have to go to a western restaurant for Caesar salad, but at least where I am now you'd be more likely to find a Caesar salad in a "european" restaurant than in an "american" one.
America is huge. There is American food, universal throughout the 50 states, but almost definitionally anything that's 3,000 miles successful is going to be popular outside of the US as well.
There is no such thing.
Europe has a refined food history even if certain foods are young. There was some type of pizza before and it evolved in what pizza is today.
Alone the amount of cheese types is huge.
What did the USA invent in comparision? What is specific to USA? Even plenty of typical USA Food was invented in Europe.
First of all, humans invent recipes based on the locally available raw foods, nothing special about that. Secondly, humans reinvent the same recipes time after time because we are all the same. Each culture invents their own stuffed dumplings, flat bread with toppings, etc. and they believe it's soooo unique and local
Obviously different groups of humans in different times and locations are going to invent similar foods. But, for example speaking of flat bread, how you actually execute it and the differences in texture, thickness, crunchiness, what you put on top of it and what order can make two dishes that are the same macro idea but end up as two completely different things.
Low and slow style BBQ
Well, there’s California cuisine: https://guide.michelin.com/sg/en/article/features/california...
I'm not sure how you'd make a claim like "plenty of typical XYZ food was invented elsewhere" when all food is similar to or a variation of or build upon something that came before unless we literally evolve new ways of ingesting nutrients.
Clamato juice?
I think I might need to have one today.
Some of these were invented in North America, but before the USA was founded. If you do some research you can find much more.
It amounts to a considerable contribution to the culinary arts. Chocolate chip cookies alone are worthy of a lifetime achievement award.
> Dried meat is a pretty universal concept
Irrelevant in my opinion. Putting something on bread has probably existed since the day after someone invented bread. But we still give Italy credit for inventing pizza. Just like startups, the implementation is more important than the idea.
Cornbread: Native Americans
I give you breakfast cereals, toaster pastries, hot pockets, grits, pumpkin pie, milkshake.
Coca-cola? do we now start to listen all types of drink recipetes?
So pure cultural, usa invented easy foods. This has very little to do with cultural foods like cheese, or the million types of sausages and breads and etc.
It does not amount to a considerable contribution to the culinary arts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_cuisine#Ethnic_influe...
The list of US-specific and US-influenced food is pretty long, and includes lots of ‘slow’ foods. Why are you basing your argument on cherry picking from an incomplete list of examples?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_foods
And what do you mean that so-called ‘easy food’ isn’t a contribution to food culture? It’s trending globally (for better or worse), and relates closely to food supply economics.
> Cornbread: Native Americans
Native American foods count, why wouldn’t they?
> This has very little to do with cultural foods like cheese
What's a "cultural food"?
I could go on about the entire villages built around wine, the historic efforts required to get the grapes we have today, the unique chemical compounds making for the aromas, and more.
And you’re telling me you want to seriously compare thousands of years of agricultural tradition to a mere hundred years of stimulating Coca Tonic that accidentally tastes pretty good?
Edit: BTW Coca Cola’s revenue does stack up meaningfully against the entire wine industry. (The Google results are all over the map, so I’m being careful with my claims, but according to some web pages out there, Coca-Cola’s net revenue is higher than all wines combined.) There is an economic basis for comparing Coke to wine, which does support a cultural basis for comparison, in addition to other reasons Coke is culturally relevant. Notice I’m not (and upstream comments were not) coming to any conclusions about the result of that comparison.
I’m just a bit salty on comparing such a giant category like European wine or beer to a single company‘s soda.
I don't know if generally all sweetened carbonate drinks are mainly American, but I wouldn't be surprised.
Gumbo, jambalaya, barbecue, cornbread, chili, clam chowder, fried chicken, pancakes, biscuits and gravy, pies (any sweet sort, not just pumpkin), cheesecake, brownies, fudge. The US is also one of the three great pizza countries (along with Italy and Argentina).
And that's just the some of the stuff that's relatively decisively American. In practice, as I said in my original post, things are incredibly fluid, and a lot of American dishes are heavily based on other cultures, and a lot of other cultures' mainstays are based on New World ingredients. American and Italian versions of "Italian" cuisine significantly co-evolved, and it's virtually impossible to separate one from the other.