what foods are authentically "American"

[baby_vicuña]

As Americans, we tend to take foods from other countries, dip them in grease, and call them our own. What foods are actually our own? As in dishes or entrées I mean.

Just curious. Thanks

[xrodolfox]

US Road food is about as close to americana as I can think of.
Soul Food is purely a US creation.
Tex-Mex is pretty US.
So is US Chinese food (fortune cookies are San Francisco creations). Chop Suey was invented in the US for US customers.

Thanksgiving meal is pretty North American-centric.

But none of these is the same as a national cuisine like what France, Germany, Mandarin China, Equador, Chile, Thailand, etc. have.

[burl]

When talking about the Americas a ton of foods that are eaten worldwide originated here/ Corn/Maize, tomatoes, potatoes, quinoa, many beans, squash, peppers, peanuts, chocolate, jicama, cassava/manioc and many others.
Don't forget that the Americas are a "melting pot" where people from all over the world have come and influenced the cuisine. Many plants from the New World made several trips across the Atlantic and Pacific and have had a huge influence on cultures all over the world. The best example I always think of is Italian cooking. We wouldn't recognize it without the use of tomatoes because they are so ubiquitous today.
As a New World archaeologist I find all of this quite interesting and important for us to see how quickly foods and ideas can spread around the world.

[xrodolfox]

That is true. If we talk about the Americas, then we are talking about the whole continent. There are certainly foods that are authentically from the Americas (like those countries I stated above: Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, etc.)

If we are talking about the US, then what is authentically US food is more complex. Unlike the myth of the puritan heritage of the US that places US cultural hegemony in a context, the food of the puritans really is only celebrated on Thanksgiving once a year. The rest of US cuisine is like its real culture: a hodgepodge of stolen ideas rehashed into something tasty but often bad for you.

There are regional foods which are very much US foods, like soul food. But since that is not in the same vein as the Mayflower myth of US identity, it still seems like a foreign or special regional food. Collard greens and fried okra might be more US than anything else, but it is not part of dominant US culture.

The complications of what is US authentically US food and what is not is due to the fact that unlike the hegemonic myths of the roots of the US being in Puritans and the Mayflower, real US cultures is not so simply traced back to some white folks and their firebrand religion. Real US culture, as real US people, did not arrive on a mission from G-d. Real US folks are not the folks who actually have relatives who were on the Mayflower (I am calling you out, GS Bush and John Kerry), even though ostensibly, US (elite) culture is tied to that country club myth.

US culture is much more complex, and it is hardly a mission from G-d.

So, unlike other countries and cultures who create the myth of their birth and tie it to food (as I am sure most European, Asian, and some Latin American countries do), the US has no such salient myth about cuisine. If it did, the food it would pick would be food no one would eat regularly because that cuisine does not resonate with common folks (yummy, Mayflower food!), unlike French food, for example, which is eaten by French people regularly, or Chilean food, which is eaten by all Chileans.

What we have in the US is a dissonance between the dominant cultural origin myths, and the reality of US culture.

BV, i am very glad you posted this question. I had no idea I felt this way about it until I wrote it out. Now I am off to eat some veganized Soul Food... which is also a new invention that is all about the new culture we are creating.

[burl]

I have to disagree. The one food that I think defines the United States is the hamburger. It's everywhere and a large portion of people t them in one form or another. Even vegans. Black bean burgers, portabella burgers, beef, soy, raw nut burgers. That I would say is the American food. It has been exported throughout the world thanks to the global economy and colonialism. Though many people may not like burgers many more people in the US do and eat them with regularity.
I also disagree with such broad statements like "all French people eat French food and all Chileans eat Chilean food." All is a dangerous and eay word. It seems like you're saying that those two places are a monoculture which they certainly are not. You seem like a smart person and I would imagine you realize that political boundaries aren't necessarily subject to cultural differences between people. I would caution you from using such language.
There are many countries and cultures that have identity in food. In the US I think of the pan-Indian movement of the 1970s when fry bread became a symbol of Native American unity. Though incredibly unhealthy this food brought members of different tribes together to fight under a unified desire for change. I also think of the tribal groups in New Guinea who base not only their diets but economies and cultural practices around pigs and sweet potatoes. Their importance permeates the culture and serves as a vehicle for conflict resolution, trade partnerships and marriage contracts.
I believe that since the US is an odd conglomeration of people that culinary unity and identity isn't a way for Americans to define themselves a a whole. For me I am an American only because my passport says so and that I live here. What I choose to eat has a lot to do with my upbringing and my place of residence but because it is pretty far outside the mainstream of American though that I personally feel no unity with the people who live in the same country.

[xrodolfox]

^ Yeah. You are right.
First off, I should not have used all French and all Chileans love their respective foods. That was a bit of hyperbole to signify that the national origin myths coincide with the common foods.

In the US, that is not the case. That is why folks from other countries, with national foods often show confusion that the US has no national food. Heck, the US does not even have a national language, whereas other countries have national languages and national everything.

These cases are where the state has successfully created common mythology for social hegemonic power. It is surprising that the US has not done that.

But US road food (like the hamburger) is a new invention, that unlike most national foods is not tied to any origin myth. Heck, US pizza is very much a US product, as least as much as the burger. That is why what US food is so confounding.

I do agree with what you said. I do not think that we disagree at all. I think that hamburgers are pretty much as close to the hegemonic US food as we could get. It represents a narrative about US people (like going on the road, travelling by car to pick up food, etc.), and it is quite universal amongst the dominant groups in the US (it is not a food of a less dominant group like Black people or Latinos, etc.). Road food was a white travelers food. Thus McDonalds (basterdized road/diner food) seems more US (since what US is often racialized), than Kentucky Fried Chicken (bastardized soul food) or Taco Bell (no Mexican could ever claim that has any authentic Mexican in it; it is basterdized Tex-Mex)... even though folks of all races and classes patronize all of them. However, McDonalds, with its burgers, more easily fits the narrative of white US.

Perhaps McDonalds is authentic US food? I would hate this if this is the conclusion, as I hate McDonalds... but when I talk to my relatives in Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela, this is what comes to mind when they talk about US food. Not any burgers. Not any fries... but specifically McDonalds.

[Eat Y'self Fitter]

Everything has its influence, and I think regarding a lot of western culture things spread and everything is borrowed.

I think Fast Food is a pretty American idea. Cheasy, greasy, salty foods. I think smothering everything in cheese and dairy is (I hate to say it) an American (as in the modern United States) thing.

But, depending where you live there maybe a huge immigrant population. The food maybe culturally based but born in the U.S.A.. For instance in Connecticut there's a large amount of Polish and Italian Americans. Apizza is a style of pizza native to New Haven born from Italian Americans. So an American creation or Italian creation? Sidenote- its very good as its not meant to be smothered in cheese often no cheese so if you give them very strict explanation you can get a really mean vegan pie.

[PlantsPlease]

This has just reminded me of what a lovely time it's going to be the next time we have to eat out with my MIL. She always insists on "American food" -- which by her definition is strictly stuff like burgers, BBQ, steaks, and the like. Even Italian food doesn't make the cut and don't try to tell her that Chinese or Mexican food here is more American than not because if it isn't made by someone that looks and talks like her then it is really "American".

My husband and I have mostly eaten out at Asian places because the ones around here have seitan. We know of some more "American" style vegan places, but none around here that we've tried because my husband doesn't care for tempeh (yet) and tempeh, especially in burgers, seems to be the go-to vegan option around here because there's a local place that makes it.

But to answer the question, I agree with those that say it's more about an influence and a mixing of cultures. When I think of American food I tend to think of southern food because that's the stuff I grew up on, for better or worse: mashed potatoes, cornbread, BBQ, sweet corn, collard greens, biscuits and gravy, fried okra, that sort of thing. And of course, none of the traditional recipes are vegan which is why we had to make an exception when we went to my MIL's early Thanksgiving. Absolutely NOTHING was vegan except maybe the sweet tea. But since we had just decided to go vegan a couple weeks prior and hadn't told her yet, we decided that it was better to make the exception and keep our heads. We regretted it later, though, when we felt physically sick for about 24 hours or so. And it wasn't from overeating as we tested at our own own Thanksgiving where all the stuff we made was vegan, including some to-die-for carrot cake my husband made.

[thegoob]

The only thing I can think of that is uniquely american is cornbread. Most everything else is just an attempt at making another cultures food.

I think the biggest reason why america doesn't have a national cuisine is the size of the place. America is ~3,537,441 square miles where as the average sized country is ~296,422 square miles. There are lots of different regional foods, but nothing really national.

[RubyDuby]

exactly^ how could there be, really? Although, I guess the regional foods are technically still authentically "American".

[Sarabi]

Fortune cookie?

[PlantsPlease]

The only thing I can think of that is uniquely american is cornbread. Most everything else is just an attempt at making another cultures food.

I think the biggest reason why america doesn't have a national cuisine is the size of the place. America is ~3,537,441 square miles where as the average sized country is ~296,422 square miles. There are lots of different regional foods, but nothing really national.

Don't forget about grits! Haven't seen them elsewhere, though polenta comes close. I guess most corn things are pretty much American in origin. But then, again, it is regional and not really "national".

Then again, though, are foods in other countries "national" more than regional? Even in Italy there is a lot of regional differences that we don't pick up on here in the U.S. because to us "Italian food" is mostly stuff like spaghetti.

Also, other cultures remake dishes from other places, too, and use ingredients that originated elsewhere and are just influenced by other cuisines because people and food have been moving around the world since before we were human. So, it's not just an American thing. I don't think that makes our versions of dishes less "American" any more than spaghetti with tomato sauce is less Italian because tomatoes were introduced from the Americas.

[RainInStarlight]

Corn is originally North American...
Corn Bread is American
Pinto beans are American, I believe.
And I think fried okra (or the okra plant) is as well.
And so are Great Northern Beans, I think. XD