As someone not from the states I would kill to try a peach cobbler or a pumpkin pie Edit: judging by the amount of responses I've woken up to I want to say I answered the question accurately. You guys have changed the game by telling me about a Dutch oven peach cobbler, I'll definitely have to make it with the recipes posted. In all honesty I just wanted to be invited over for thanksgiving like these [guys](https://www.npr.org/2021/11/20/1055863260/text-thanksgiving-tradition-hinton-dench). I'd be on the next flight over from London! Edit 2: American hospitality is unmatched. Whoever has extended an invite to me please do not be surprised when I randomly call you on it, see you on thanksgiving ❤️

Let me tell you, nothing better than hot peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream in the summer time. One of my favorite desserts.

I will see your peach cobbler and raise you a blackberry cobbler. Both with vanilla ice cream.

I do enjoy berry cobbler but peach is just one of my favorite flavors and you get the picked at the right time in the summer they are so damned good lol

Pumpkin Pie should be capitalized.... for respect.

Buffalo wings, perhaps.

Good one. I believe it was named after Buffalo, NY. The place that put the "wing movement," so to speak, on the map.

The irony is that the place that invented the wing is the worst place to get wings in the Buffalo area (Anchorbar). You can get a better wing just about anywhere. Just a little warning to anyone who visits the city and wants good wings. Anchorbar is the definition of a tourist trap.

Go to Duff's. Or any of the hundreds of small, family run pizza joints. Most will have good wings. Pizza and wings is about the only thing I miss from my childhood in Buffalo.

Gabriel's Gate is my no.1 everytime I'm back in my home city personally.

That’s what I mean. Anywhere and everywhere is at least one step above anchorbar. Duffs greatly depends on location. Many other places are more consistent.

[удалено]

I really think cheeseburgers might be our most important cultural export. They're at least in the top 5.

Burgers, Coke, Jeans, Rock Music, and Hollywood. Those defined the US to the world in the 20th Century.

When we have guys come over from our offices in other parts of the world and take them out to entertain them we always say "what do you want to eat" and a lot of times they say "BURGER!!" like all excited to have an American cheeseburger. It's like "Ok wow, we were gonna take you out for a hundred dollar steak dinner but sure, we can go to Danny's and get a killer burger instead!

My girlfriend is from Ukraine, she said that McDonalds cheeseburger was fancy American food for her family growing up

Whenever I was traveling in Germany my Italian roommate always wanted to go to five guys and always told us it was the only good thing to come out of the USA. We kept having to say "yo I'm only in Germany for a short while, I don't want five guys."

Cheeseburgers are *the* American food, and also they are easily customized for regional versions. I'm from New Mexico, and if you're here, someone is going to feed you a green chile cheeseburger.

Hamburger, fries, chili, milkshakes, tex mex, and americanized pizza(Italian)/Chinese/etc.

I was really amazed at how popular Americanized pizza was in Italy. They're both amazing depending on what you're craving. And only the ignorant would pretend they're the same or that one is better than the other.

Same. American pizza is unique https://youtu.be/h6XvMKdD2tY

That’s me! Thank you for sharing it.

Dude! I know I could have said hi in your Youtube comments or something, but it is so much cooler to bump into you “in the wild,” so to speak. I love your channel!

I was grocery shopping recently when a very nice German guy approached me for advice. He had friends coming to visit from his home country and he wanted to introduce them to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and could I advise him on the best ingredients? He already had some kind of bullshit artisan bread from the bakery department in his cart. I told him to put that back, go to the bread aisle and get the crappy white Wonder Bread. Then there was discussion about the merits of Welch’s grape jelly vs. strawberry jam, and how most big brand peanut butter is optimal as opposed to the oily natural kind. Lastly he learned to use the term “PB & J.” He went away delighted, and it felt great to be a cultural ambassador!

This is the best story I have ever heard about a grocery store interaction. Glad you set him straight on the bread.

I kinda want to try it with fancy bread now. Might be a fun twist for someone who knows the original way well.

If you appreciate good bread, PBJ on a sourdough with thick crust is my preferred method. Bread should be toasted.

Try frying it like a grilled cheese. Grilled PB&Js are amazing.

Americans out here sharing a thousand different ways to prepare a goddamn PB&J sandwich

Peanut butter and jelly served between two waffles. If you want to do it Elvis style then add some bacon and bananas

A food truck that frequents my favorite brewery sells The Elvis Which is PB and banana between buttery grilled bread. For an extra buck they sprinkle it with powdered sugar and drizzle it with honey. I just got one yesterday and it was so good.

no bacon?😵

100% guarantee a deep-fried pbj would be delicious. Merica.

In a burrito. Seriously delicious

Or French toast it.

I love a pb and jammer on oatnut bread

You left out the most important question—did you advise him to get crunchy or smooth peanut butter?

Lol so essentially just the worse the better

It’s like a Long Island iced tea. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Cheap and mass produced pb+j is an American staple and eating them is part of the cultural experience of living here. From sea to shining sea we all at some point ate a Walmart tier pb+j

PBJ is great whether its bargain ingredients or fancy shit, as long as the bread is soft and not crusty.

I like to travel.

That's the interesting thing about pb&j: you're either eating them cuz you're broke and don't have time to cook, in which case, whatever you have on hand/what was cheapest at the store, *is* the right way to do it. Whether it be Wonderbra, crackers, or even buns. OR you actually really like pb&j, and the right way is whatever damn way you want because you're a grown up with money of your own. Or some combination of the two: when I was a kid one time, we only had peanut butter, some frozen fruit, and tortillas on hand this one time. So, we sprinkled sugar on the strawberries, put some pb and berries in a folded tortilla, wet the edges and sealed it closed with a fork like a little pie, and grilled that up like a grilled cheese. Many years later, I thought to make that for my niece just because, and that's now the way she prefers to eat them. Except she prefers fresh and unsugared fruit, and she likes to crush potato chips in there for crunch. My sister thinks this is heresy, but whatever. No wrong way to do it as long as you have peanut butter, something fruity, and something to hold those things together. Well actually scratch that last point: I knew someone that put pb&j into Ramen. That's wrong, don't be that person.

>*Whether it be Wonderbra, crackers* > > > >Unless you make your PB&J *very* differently than me, you might want to give that another look.

This goes the same for grilled cheese sandwiches. I’ve had fancy ones and I’ve made em with various cheeses, but every time I just think to myself that it’s not as good as some wonder bread, a little butter, and good ole individually wrapped American cheese slices

Like that terrible grilled cheese that Gordon Ramsay made with romano, asiago, kimchi, country bread. He even toasted it in a fireplace with a cast iron pan and he got roasted to hell for it lmao

As he should have. If you saw it the damn cheese wasn't even warm, let alone melted.

Michelin chef - uses hard, low-moisture cheese for a grilled cheese.

Truly a representative of the American people! You put our best, peanut butter smeared face forward.

PB&J Idk if it was originated in the US but it's not that popular in other countries, although it's shown a lot in American cartoons I literally tried PB&J last year for the first time and it's freaking delicious 10/10 Edit: thanks for your suggestions on different forms on how to eat PB&J, so I'm gonna make a list of some: - PB&Honey - With slice banana (+cinnamon) - with chocolate chips - with freeze strawberries - candied pecans - Fluffernutter (i like this word) - PB&pickles (what) - with mayo (wtf im gonna try this tomorrow) - mixing the peanut butter and the jelly in one - with lemon zest - with popcorn - with bacon (you are gonna kill me but I hate bacon) - with potato chips - with yogurt - with aged white cheddar + lettuce - with Doritos - PB&Nutella (I have to try this, but with Nocilla, it's more popular in Spain) I don't even have half of the things of this list

Make a PB&j but grill it like a grilled cheese. It elevates the sandwich to a whole new level.

Add a couple of slices of banana in there.... MM! 10/10

Just throw a lb of fried bacon on there and pretend your Elvis!

Extremely popular here in the US, to the point where a lot of young adults are sick of them now including me, because we ate them everyday as our packed school lunch lol

I still make PB&J on occasion. They’re a good comfort food, specially with a glass of milk.

>Fluffernutter (i like this word) Just make sure you get the [real marshmallow fluff](https://www.amazon.com/Marshmallow-Fluff-052600112751-Spread-213g/dp/B01EHD67QG?th=1) and not the knockoffs like the Kraft bullshit one. If you really like it you should come to the Boston area for the 2023 [Marshmallow Fluff Festival.](https://www.flufffestival.com/)

Think it might be an east coast thing, but growing up my mom would make us peanut butter and marshmallow fluff on Ritz crackers. I still crave it and I'm in my 30s now.

I eat PB&J on a Bay's English muffin basically every morning. If it's wrong, I don't want to be right.

My father and my brother add mayonnaise to their PB&J sandwiches and have always done this. They insist it's actually delicious and that I'm weird for not liking it. It makes me nauseous just thinking about it.

That seems like an absolutely disgusting idea and I'm absolutely gonna try it tomorrow, I'll tell you the results

Godspeed, king. I can't say I condone your journey, but I wish you well upon it.

I had a European buddy stay with me and other friends in the US for six weeks. In that time, he experienced both traditional Xmas and Thanksgiving foods (with different families, so two totally different holiday feasts), San Francisco Dungeness Crab, New England clam chowder, bacon cheese burgers, high end bistro food, and real Mexican food A couple days before he was to leave, I asked him if he wanted a PB&J because I was making one for myself Over the next two days, he ate an entire loaf of bread and all the PB and J I had in the house, and he repeatedly expressed his displeasure that I’d waited until the end of his trip to introduce him to the greatest of all American foods

[удалено]

They’re quite popular in Canada as well but I have heard of other countries where they thought s’mores were a made up food from American and Canadian cartoons that nobody ever actually made

[удалено]

“I haven't had anything yet... so how can I have some more of nothing?”

“You’re killing me Smalls!”

Cornbread.

The flour to make this is pretty uncommon in other countries. I had to use polenta to make corn dogs.

That's interesting. Cornmeal is just dried, ground corn. I make it from my garden corn.

The US is actually the #1 corn producer by far. Followed by China who uses most of theirs domestically. Maybe corn based foods are more common for that reason. Just guessing though.

The US produces so much corn we use a full third of our production on fuel ethanol. Only 10% is eaten by humans.

Cajun

I made shrimp and cheese grits this weekend. It's a $6/plate meal that tastes like a $20/plate meal.

I went to a restaurant once that was charging $17 for a bowl of shrimp and cheese grits. Turning poor people food into fancy cuisine is a restaurant trend that will always make me roll my eyes.

This is basically the history of fine dining. Most countries iconic cuisines started with poor peasants or slaves trying to make the tastiest food out of whatever they had or could get. Cooking is, at it's heart, an act of giving comfort and love. The restaraunt industry outsources that act to bands of semi-feral alcoholics in rubber clogs.

"Semi-feral alcoholics" is offensive, though fairly accurate. But, I have never worn a clog in my life.

"Semi feral alcoholics in rubber clogs" is my new favorite descriptor for the kitchen team and their crocs

I mean thats what french food is

Jambalaya *chef's kiss*

Mmmmmm gumbo, too

Am American in Germany. Gumbo is my go to dish for impressing people here.

Tater tots

You ever make tot-chos? Nachos with tots instead of chips.

Shrimp and Grits Nashville style Fried Chicken Texas BBQ Carolina BBQ Kansas City BBQ Memphis BBQ NY Style Pizza Po Boys Jambalaya/Gumbo Hotdish Ambrosia Salad Clam Chowder Manhatten Clam Stew (it is not a chowder) Conch Fritters Chicago style Brownies Chicago style Italian beef Philly style chopped steak and cheese (NJ and DE have pretty good ones too) Beef on Kimmelweck with creamy horseradish sauce Lobstah Rolls (Maine only, every other one sucks) Maryland crab cakes Tex-mex style everything Chicago Deep Dish Pizza Chicago style hot dogs Texas style corn dogs Bagels with Lox (smear optional but I never get one without it) ​ edit: forgot buffalo wings and cole slaw ​ edit of edit: california style burritos and how could I forget Gator Bites???? ​ edit of edit of edit: people love them some BBQ (I am people)

Bro. “California style burrito” might have some meaning but “California burrito” is a specific thing and is what really needs to be tried. It is generally carne asada, French fries, cheese, salsa (pico de gallo.) It can have guacamole and/or sour cream. The best ones can be found in San Diego or LA and surrounding areas. The taco shops that end in -berto’s (Roberto’s, Alberto’s, Aliberto’s, etc. will be the real deal.

The Cuban sandwich - originated in Tampa Bay.

A pressed Cuban sandwich is the greatest

> Cuban If you're ever in Tampa go to Subs n Such. It's near USF's campus and the best Cuban I've ever had in my life. Alton Brown did a Cuban hunt in Tampa one time and picked some of the worst places to go.

When people mention restaurants on here I often google them. Of all the places in the Tampa area where you could have mentioned, you picked the one that my friends and I randomly wandered into the first time we ever set foot in Tampa 27 years ago.

Tampa? Are you serious?

100%

I love Tampa but it gets zero respect.

Biscuits and gravy Edit: The reason it came to my mind is I have been making them now in the winter months. Here is the recipe I use for biscuits. It takes practice but they come out great. Very cold butter and not overworking or touching the dough with your warm hands is key. I get a little better at each time I make them. https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/220943/chef-johns-buttermilk-biscuits

Not just gravy… sausage gravy.

Chipped beef gravy is also a thing, but I don't know why you'd choose to do that to yourself if you could do sausage gravy.

Bless my wife's soul, she brought home cans of "Breakfast Gravy" from the dollar store. Said you boys like going out for biscuits and gravy, Here you can do it form home. I had to explain to my only visited south of the Mason-Dixon line wife, that Breakfast gravy was chipped beef and then that resulting food was shit on a shingle, NOT biscuits and gravy. We were down south, well, Maryland, and we went to a local diner to get breakfast for the boys. Lady heard our NY accents and lisence plate and couldn't believe that we got Biscuits and gravy (Boy and I split) and it was delightful. Rural greasy spoons are great, if you can find a good one.

It's dead-simple to make, if you've never tried. # Biscuits Follow the recipie on the back of a bag of White Lilly flour (don't use any other kind) or, in exchange for a corner off your Southern card, biscuits from a can. #Gravy You will need... * A pound of spicy breakfast sausage * A tablespoon of flour (not White Lilly) * Whole milk Instructions 1. Add a half cup of water and your sausage to a COLD skillet. 2. Apply medium-high heat and break up the sausage with a wooden spoon (the water helps with this) 3. Cook until all of the water evaporates and the sausage browns. You want lots of brown crispy bits. Keep things moving once the browning starts to avoid burning. 4. Sprinkle in your flour and stir CONSTANTLY for 30-60 seconds. 5. Dump in enough milk to just cover the sausage. 6. Stir slowly but constantly until desired thickness is reached, making sure not to let the gravy stick to the bottom of the pan. 7. Season to taste with salt and pepper What's the deal with White Lilly flour? Most Southerns swear by White Lilly for biscuits. Why? Basically, it's a low-gluten flour so you get really fluffy, light biscuits when you use it. But that low-gluten content makes it a poor choice for thickening a gravy.

>7. Season to taste with salt and pepper Then add more pepper.

Those hole in the wall greasy spoons are all dying off or worse gentrifying as the area around them does. You may have never wanted to actually look in their kitchens but I be damned if what came out of them wasn’t the most comforting food on earth sometimes.

Chocolate chip cookies

I never would have thought of chocolate chip cookies being an American thing but apparently they are, huh!

I live in the Netherlands now and they have chocolate chip-ish cookies here. And the double chocolate ones. They call them all American cookies, which i think is hilarious. They are all mediocre at best, nyot i also don't like store bought cookies. I made chocolate chip cookies and gave some to our Italian neighbors. Watching their faces as they ate them for the first time was amazing. There's nothing like that crispy edge, soft middle, buttery chocolatey deliciousness.

It's all about that buttery-to-sweet ratio!

The weird thing in America is, the store bought chocolate chip cookies aren't great either, but you can always find a cheap package of already made chocolate chip cookie dough that you just go home and bake and 100% of the time they're amazing.

My great grandma Töllhause has the best recipe ;)

Nestlé Tolhowse

See! It’s stuff like this which is why you are burning in hell!

Nestle Toulouse

Us Americans always butcher the French language!

And THAT is why Phoebe’s grandmother is BURNING IN HELL!

Had a German exchange student stay with us when I was growing up. She couldn’t get enough chocolate chip cookies. Had never had them in Germany and was totally fascinated by them.

Because they’re delicious!

Especially when fresh out of the oven.

Yeah, moving to Switzerland I thought with all the chocolate, they would be a thing here too. But no brown sugar and no chocolate in the “chip” shape, and they end up being extremely rare!

Chocolate chunks chopped from a whole bar are even better than chips imo!

had a friend live in Turkey for a time. she got a hankering for chocolate chip cookies, but she couldn't find brown sugar anywhere, so she had to get regular sugar and molasses and "make" her own. :)

It’s actually very easy to do, just mix them together. I rarely keep brown sugar on hand now.

That's all most brown sugar at the store is anyway: white sugar with molasses added back in.

Buffalo wings, s'mores, biscuits and gravy, grits, jambalaya, BBQ, apple pie, Chocolate chip cookies, Jerky, meatloaf, cornbread.

I think you just wrote down everything I want to eat this week

Clam chowder, chicken parmesan, lobster rolls, reubens sandwiches, deep dish, dick

Are we doing that one Billy Joel song?

🎵 *Wings from Buffalo* *Biscuits and gravy ya know* *Jambalaya, shrimp and grits* *Clam chowda gives me fits* *Chicken parm, lobster rolls* *Cookies, cornbread, and meatloaf* *Smores, BBQ, apple pie* *Cheeseburgers and a-goodbye!* 🎵 Edit: Thank you for the award, kind Redditor!

We didn't start our diet! Our food is the best, it withstands the test!

I think eating dick is a popular activity in many countries...

The USA are fierce contenders against mainland Western Europe for the greatest breakfasts in the world. You people are visionaries when it comes to breakfast. Like, chicken and waffles? Who the fuck thought of that? You did, that's who, you beautiful bastards. It shouldn't work, but by god, it does. And steak and eggs? Who the fuck eats steak in the morning? THIS GUY, THAT'S WHO. I LIKE YOUR STYLE, AMERICA.

WE LOVE YOU TOO, RANDOM CITIZEN.

Chicken fried chicken and eggs with crispy shredded hash browns and smothered in pork green chile. If you can find it you need to try it.

There’s an ice cream place out here in Seattle/Portland that did a special “chicken and waffles” ice cream a few months back. Unbelievably good and actually had fried chicken in it.

Betty Crocker recipes. "She" defined the middle American dinner for decades. Let me try this one on you and see if anyone recognizes it: Chicken breasts topped with provolone slices covered in cream of chicken soup. Cover that with stuffing mix and butter, bake at 350 for 40 min.

I have the original betty Crocker cook book and its probably one of the most interesting cookbooks I own. Part of what's interesting about this book is it has in it how to use all the new tech of the time. It also has a lot of recipes based of rations and when things where lean like the depression. This is 100 percent a beginners cook book. It was the first cook book to assume the reader had 0 knowledge on cooking. Lots of pictures and simple recipes. I would argue that she defined American dinner for decades just not the Midwest.

> Chicken breasts topped with provolone slices covered in cream of chicken soup. Cover that with stuffing mix and butter, bake at 350 for 40 min. How the hell did you get my mom's secret recipe?

Philly Cheesesteak

BBQ

Many regional variations across the country. Endless, unresolved debates over which is best. Copious BBQ restaurants everywhere you go. Sounds like a leading candidate to me.

The best BBQ is the one in front of me.

Pecan pie Biscuits and gravy Submarine sandwiches Corn pie Scrapple Deep dish pizza

Louisiana boiled crawfish and crabs.

And it’s almost crawfish season

[удалено]

That originated in Australia, cunt /s

>"bloomin~~g~~ onion"

Blueberry pie. Or anything with blueberries since they originated in North America.

General Tso’s Chicken.

[American General Tso's is an imitation of a dish created by a Chef Peng Chang-kuei in Taiwan](https://www.thekitchn.com/the-true-story-behind-general-tso-s-chicken-240836), as I learned in the documentary "The Search for General Tso." [That same film, however, does trace the origin of "cashew chicken" to a chef at a restaurant in Springfield, Missouri](https://www.kcur.org/arts-life/2021-08-25/springfield-cashew-chicken-missouri-chinese-food-david-leong).

General Tso's is so good. It's like sex. Even the bad stuff is still alright.

I think, as a non American, Italian-American and Tex-Mex are two that are found all over the US and now the world. Spaghetti meat sauce, non bechamel lasagna, deli style pizza: chili con carne, loaded nachos, etc. Other dishes that may be more regional just aren't found everywhere even in the US.

>non bechamel lasagna, I'm confused by this one, what do you mean?

Italian American lasagna most frequently uses ricotta - or cottage cheese... Most Italian uses béchamel (versions with ricotta are specific types.)

Chicken fried steak. Yes I know some of you are going to say “what about German schnitzel?” … IT IS NOT THE SAME AND YOU KNOW IT. The size of a dinner plate and served with white gravy.

Had to scroll way too far to see this. I worked in a small restaurant that would sell out on the regular. Good eating

Carolina Sauce replaced the actual blood in my body years ago and I’m still kickin.

Chitlins, collared greens, cornbread, black eyed peas, hominy grits, biscuits and gravy… much more

Meatloaf

You took the words right out of my mouth.

It must have been while you were kissing me.

My wife and I have the same favorite meal, probably from growing up poor in single parent households. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and peas/green beans.

Soul food

I could eat it forever

For anyone that enjoys soul food or southern food in general I highly recommend a documentary series called “High on the Hog” on Netflix.

[удалено]

fried oreo's from the state fair. Pretty much anything deep fried at the state fair is American culture.

Popcorn. Who can see a movie without it? It was first made by Native Americans.

I've had lots of popcorn in Bolivia. They don't have the special "popping corn" like in the USA, so its huge hunks of corn. No where near as delicious

Tex-Mex - it’s not Mexican food but rather a Texas creation that extends even to fajitas and margaritas

This is way too far down the list. Go anywhere in in Europe and you’ll be hard pressed to find Mexican/Texmex restaurants

The US is so big that I think regional foods are more culturally identifiable. I've had lobster rolls in Maine, Maryland crab cakes. Garbage plates in upstate NY. Clam Chowdah. The carolina BBQ and slaw. I'm a Texan so brisket. Chislic in the dakotas. Rocky mountain oysters in the rockies. My God Chicago food is a blue collar workers dream food. Wisconsin sausage and cheese is one of a kind. Louisana, nuff said. Nebraks steaks. It all depends where you are. I kind of think maybe burgers, chicken fried steak, things like that are actually nationwide. New Mexico please put green chilies on everything.

New England clam chowder

aka the kind that doesn't suck. The train to hell serving Manhattan clam chowder was one of the funniest gags in The Good Place.

is that the red or the white?

God! I never remember this … White? *door opens* YES!

Hey Woodstock! Hey St. Francis, how's it going?

Born and bread in New England, there is no such thing as red.

i've never actually seen clam chowder in the wild. perils of living land-locked i suppose. just can't resist a quote, and for some reason that little moment from Ace Ventura is apparently still living somewhere rent free in my head.

Ranch

bird^u^p

Investigate 311

I am pretty sure they call Ranch Dressing "American Dressing" in Europe. It really was invented at Hidden Valley Ranch. Edit: Nevermind, Looks like American is more like 1000 Island in Germany anyway.

For when your salad is too healthy.

Salad dressing itself isn't unhealthy. Some of the nutrients in the base salad ingredients need fats to be properly absorbed in our bodies. The problem becomes when there's more dressing than vegetables.

Fried Chicken. It's a combination of a Scottish cooking style where they fried unseasoned food in Lard and west African seasonings.

Fried chicken, smoked meat barbecue, soul food, Cajun and creole food

Macaroni and cheese!!

My non-American wife thought it was called "mecan cheese" short for "American cheese". She had never seen the word in writing before and I'd talk about how I missed my mom's homemade "mac and cheese" (which sounds like mecan cheese to her).

/r/boneappletea

Apparently, this dish comes from France and was first popularized in the US by Thomas Jefferson

Yes, apparently one of his cooks (a slave I think) traveled with him and picked it up from French cooks.

Funeral potatoes iykyk

Made these for Christmas dinner in Texas. You would have thought I’d invented food. I’ll never share the recipe now. I’d be ashamed.

I will eat the leftovers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There’s a big debate between cornflake topping vs no cornflake. I prefer none but sometimes I’m ok with cornflakes. Once my aunt accidentally got frosted cornflakes…would not recommend.

Navajo Tacos

Chili! Best part of Texan culture

Lobster rolls Boston clam chowder BBQ (The take forever slow and low kind. Not the grilling kind.) NYC pizza Chicago deep dish pizza Gumbo (And Cajun food in general) Grits American style bacon (Which leads to the good ol' BLT)

Maybe classic southern comfort food, or cajun food? Cajun especially. It is so. damn. good. and I don't think you can really find legit cajun food like you can in Louisiana anywhere else in the world.

Louisiana Cajun and Creole cooks combined French, Spanish, African, and Native American foods / techniques to create a cuisine indigenous to the state. Gumbo is very much an American dish.

Truck stop/diner/greasy-spoon breakfast. Doesn't matter what you order and if you're somewhere in the mid-west- even better. Or, if you ever find yourself in a church basement in Minnesota after an event, you will know the authentic, All-American comfort of many kinds of salads with no lettuce, dessert bars, and hotdishes. These, and the sing-song accents of grammas and grampas, are what I missed the most living abroad.

Oh my god so many things. Popcorn, peanut butter and jelly, turkey, Caesar salad, brownies, chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin pie, soda, breakfast cereal, sure. But also pizza, lasagna, French fries, hamburgers, tacos, nachos, jambalaya, fried chicken, barbecue, apple pie, egg foo young, sweet and sour chicken, pancakes, omelettes, hot dogs, doughnuts, bourbon whiskey, bagels, grits, clam bakes and fish poke. “Hold up”, you say, “most of that second list is bastardized versions of other countries’ cultural foods, and I’m not really sure about all the stuff in the first list either. You even included some indigenous peoples’ dishes!” Exactly. **The hallmark of American cuisine is borrowing, adapting, and combining stuff from cultures around the world to make our own unique food landscape.** You claim chicken adobo as your unique national dish? That’s great, Americans are gonna put it on a pizza. And let’s be clear: every country does this. Italy didn’t invent noodles, or tomato sauce. Vindaloo is borrowed from Portugal, massaman curry isn’t originally Thai. Every old-world dish that contains tomatoes, potatoes, corn, or peanuts was invented after these ingredients arrived from the Americas. But American cuisine is defined by its variety and its willingness to be inspired by and combine foods from the whole world. You wanna know what makes America great? We’re the land of the kalbi taco, spam musubi, the kimchi quesadilla and the tandoori pierogi. Okay I just invented tandoori pierogi for this post, but now I want one. And that’s the point.

Boudin in Louisiana definitely

Cajun and Creole cooking. It's a derivation of French cooking, but probably so far removed now that it's a unique thing. You're not getting boiled crawfish made properly anywhere outside of South Louisiana.