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If I think of western food, I refer to European. I won't put "the US" as part of it as there is no such thing as US food and please don't mix in among countries with long and rich history of cuisine as if they are equals.
You keep saying there is no such thing as US food, seemingly due to the short history of the U.S. and the huge impact of European culture on American food, but remember there were people in the US before Europeans arrived and their cuisine did have an impact on US food (and the entire world's). A corn tortilla, for example, is American food (the continent, not the country, since they were likely invented in Mexico). Cornbread, cranberry sauce, smoked Turkey, mashed potatoes, etc. a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, for example, is almost entirely Native American cuisine.
Corn, potatoes, chili peppers, chocolate, turkey, ... All of these things are indigenous to the Americas and didn't exist in any cuisine outside of the Americas until just a few centuries ago. Even famous Chinese cuisine like Szechuan cuisine is influenced by this--chili peppers didn't exist in Asia until the Portuguese brought them over about 400 years ago and they have obviously had a big impact on spicy Asian cuisine.
You keep saying there is no such thing as US food, seemingly due to the short history of the U.S. and the huge impact of European culture on American food, but remember there were people in the US before Europeans arrived and their cuisine did have an impact on US food (and the entire world's). A corn tortilla, for example, is American food (the continent, not the country, since they were likely invented in Mexico). Cornbread, cranberry sauce, smoked Turkey, mashed potatoes, etc. a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, for example, is almost entirely Native American cuisine.
Corn, potatoes, chili peppers, chocolate, turkey, ... All of these things are indigenous to the Americas and didn't exist in any cuisine outside of the Americas until just a few centuries ago. Even famous Chinese cuisine like Szechuan cuisine is influenced by this--chili peppers didn't exist in Asia until the Portuguese brought them over about 400 years ago and they have obviously had a big impact on spicy Asian cuisine.
I am talking about food/cuisine originated in the United States, not the entire Americas.
Also it has to be primarily American, which means food originated some where else but took a different form in the US doesn't count.
Sorry to hurt your pride, but American cuisine simply doesn't exist. If you don't believe me, then name 10 dished that are American that you can serve on the table for some important guests you want to impress. The Chinese can, the Japanese can, the French can, the Italians can. The Americans definitely can't.
Are you gonna serve tortilla chips and corndogs (yuck) to the guests?
But I give you the credit for the fact that this thing called "Chinese food" most Americans are familiar with did originated in the US, including the famous fortune cookies. That's probably the most famous American food.
One mistake some Americans make on Chinese food is that they eat everything in the dish. In fact, the sauce/gravy is supposed to be dumped after you eat the meat and vegetables (no need to eat all the vegetables either).
If you eat everything, you consume too much sodium and fat.
Well, sometimes we like to drizzle a bit of that on the rice. Just a bit.
But yea, I think that's a common misconception especially with family style eating where you'll have different dishes and some of them are in a pool of oil, but you aren't actually eating that much of the oil because you're using chopsticks to move that to your bowl and leaving most of the oil out.
Compare that to some other cuisines where the sauce is eaten completely or to baked goods that have a great deal of butter baked into (but doesn't "look" greasy).
That's not to say that there aren't extremely fatty Chinese foods, of course. Those exist in virtually any great cuisine.
Asia exists. The "West" doesn't exist. It is more of a political concept. Has little to do with cuisine.
If I think of western food, I refer to European. I won't put "the US" as part of it as there is no such thing as US food and please don't mix in among countries with long and rich history of cuisine as if they are equals.
No, that's not quite accurate. The West exists both as a political concept and historically. Western cuisine as a concept has also existed for a long time in many different contexts.
I understand what you're saying about the US in regards to it mostly being a melange of other cuisines and not having much time to have cohered into an entirely distinctive cuisine to some extent, but I think your wording of "no such thing as US food" is adorable but easy to misinterpret. However, I'd also wager that you're probably pretty unfamiliar with any nuances in cooking with the US so it's difficult to put much weight into your opinions on this especially given your difficulties in naming even something as simple as 10 food items from the US.
I specifically said the kind of food you can treat your respected guests with. Unless you think what you mentioned will do.
Since when "fried chicken" is an American thing?
If you mean something that can be fancier but specific to the US, then you can go in the direction of oysters rockefeller, gumbos, crabcakes and the like since there is a longer tradition of serving fancy versions of those. There's stuff like waldorf salad and lobster newburg and the various other fancy urban dishes from early 20th century, but I can see an argument for those being essentially French.
Since it was done with a brined chicken and dipped in a strongly seasoned batter.
There are different kinds of fried chicken out there.
A lot of dishes, or variants of dishes, that are idiosyncratic to the United States, and become different from that of Europe is through mixture with West African and Native American influences so it's why US fried chicken was notably different though the last several decades of US cultural export means that a lot of areas have absorbed some of that influence into its own.
Have you been to the US before? Did you only eat fast food or go to Chinese restaurants?
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 01-16-2017 at 07:27 AM..
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it's quite nice.
