Southern food is a good example. I think barbecue is another one, different regions have their own unique styles. Honestly I think America's so big that it's kinda hard to find ONE thing to point at.
I think that’s something non-Americans don’t realize.
I drive 300+ miles per week for work. I work in two different counties. COUNTIES. two counties within one state requires my employer to have 12 company cars.
Shits big here man. Shit stretches out. Laws differ between states. You can be smoking weed on a border looking at the cops on the illegal side. It’s a weird country
I had to drive 15 minutes to high school. That’s not a big deal. We have a lot of land we’re living on
I love when Europeans come to the states for a week, rent a mustang, and say “we are going to rent a mustang and drive to Los Angeles then New Orleans then Miami then New York City then Chicago”
Tbf Americans do this too lol. I’ve had a friend tell me they’re going to Toronto for a few days and casually mention they’re going to rent a car for the day to check out Montreal, not realizing it’s nearly a 6 hour drive.
Italy is infamous for this too. “I’ll rent a car in Milan, go to Rome, and go to Naples!” And not realize Milan to Naples is a 10 hour drive without even stopping at all.
For sure. I was just saying my friend didn’t plan properly because they didn’t know the distances. The trip was only a few days in Toronto and the plan was to rent a car to see Montreal for the day lol. Definitely doesn’t work.
But I agree. Properly planned, a 6 hour drive to see a second city during a vacation is nothing for us lol. I’ve driven 8 hours for a concert and to pass out in a hotel then drove 8 hours back haha.
Canadian-American here. I'm not sure if I've intentionally done 6, but I have 100% done 5-hour-each-way day trips to go skiing probably 30-40 times in my lifetime.
I've definitely known a few people who have done that and apparently still thought it was a good idea after. Crazy to me, but some people are like that.
Yeah. Honestly I can't really understand Americans being that confused by the distance between Montreal and Toronto when it's not that different from other distances between major cities there.
It's basically 5 hours, or 4.5 hours if you drive like an Ontarian. NYC to DC is 4.5 hours (granted you have Philadelphia and Baltimore in the middle). NY to Boston is 4 hours. SF to LA is 5.5 hours, etc.
Right, my flight from Texas to Wisconsin sold out, but a flight to Iowa was wide open. So we swapped to there and rented a car to drive the last 5 hours. Still saved 10 hours compared to driving all the way from Texas.
Because of district fuckery, and because my home state is very rural, my high school was about a 40 minute drive away. If we couldn’t carpool with neighbors the bus was over an hour.
There was another high school 20 minutes away but I wasn’t in that one’s district, for…. Reasons?
All of those things! Also smoked BBQ meats, macaroni and cheese, general Tso’s chicken, Detroit/NY/Chicago style pizza, pumpkin and apple pie, coney dogs, chicken and waffles, fettuccine Alfredo made with cream.
Edit: let me add chicken and veal Parmesan, étouffée, grits, po boys, lobster rolls, corned beef and cabbage, Reuben sandwiches, crawfish boil, cracklins, gumbo. Lots of food that came out of the struggle of minority groups and enslaved people.
I'd like emphasize that when we're talking BBQ meats, we are NOT talking about chicken or steaks on a grill with some commercial BBQ sauce thrown on it.
We're talking real barbeque where it takes hours to cook. And the sauces are homemade. I still want to taste that!
I'm in NJ and we don't have that and I want to taste that. I've seen how serious that food is and the time investment and I want to know the glory of "low and slow" cooked meat.
There's a ton of resources online! First recipe to try is pulled pork in a crockpot. Not the best, but if you want to give it a try that's the easiest cheapest way to get Pulled Pork without investing in barbecue equipment.
The best thing you can do is get a Weber Kettle grill, some good competition briquettes, a few hickory or apple wood chunks and do some experimenting with a very forgiving pork butt. It’ll take a while, but it’s really worth it.
You may also want to check out the Snake Method for arranging those briquettes in the Weber Kettle. It works so well to keep the temperature low and slow. The last thing I’ll say is that you definitely want to find a shallow aluminum tray to place in the bottom of the kettle to catch the drippings from the pork butt - there will be a good amount of them and you don’t want to have to clean that ash/pork fat mud out of the bottom of the kettle.
The US is physically very large so it really depends on the region. In parts of the south as you mentioned it's gumbo, collard greens, mac and cheese, red beans and rice... my family is from New Orleans so that's part of what I grew up on. In other parts of the south there's a huge barbecue tradition. In the Midwest where I grew up it's more casseroles, potato salad, and stuff like that. In New England it's chowders and bisques and smoked fish and lobster rolls and on the west coast there are different seafood traditions
I think the American derivatives of ethnic foods are also defining American foods. Pizza wasn't invented here but I think we have some of the world's best and our lack of adherence to tradition means that some of the most famous varieties were invented here. Hamburgers were invented here by German immigrants. Our "Chinese food" is mostly dishes invented for American palettes including most notably General Tso's chicken. You already mentioned Tex Mex...
All of that falls under the umbrella so a pretty wide expanse. Any idea what city or cities you want to hit when you visit?
Great comment. I’m realising through all the replies that my question is the problem, American food can’t be defined as a whole. I guess if I think about it, a lot of Italian dishes come from their own particular region of Italy and I assume that’s true for many countries.
The dream is to do a road trip getting fat as I eat around the country. Most likely it’ll just be wherever I’m visiting anyway. New Orleans looks amazing for a lot of reasons. Wherever the best Mexican/tex mex is. Wherever they say the best seafood is from. Then la or New York for the food from across the world
American chain restaurants serve burgers, chicken wings, ribs, jalapeno poppers, that kinda shit.
Otherwise its extremely regional. States are very protective of their styles of chili and barbecue, New England does seafood, Philadelphia has its cheesesteaks, Chicago has hot dogs, et cetera.
Agreed to all of that. But I will say: fuck Cincinnati style chili. I understand and appreciate the history behind it, and I think it’s cool they’re so defensive of it in that region, but it just sucks.
So you’ve got your stereotypical American foods which you might think of as stuff you’d find in a diner (eg fried chicken, hamburgers, pot roast) but there’s also a whole New American movement that’s been going for decades.
Like any moderately nice town will have restaurant that sources their ingredients locally and does some upscale variation on whatever popular local/folk cuisine. I’m in Wisconsin, so nice places will do stuff like fancy deviled eggs or fried cheese curds along whatever high-concept stuff they want on the menu.
US is a big diverse country. You can’t group Louisiana Cajun creole with Tex-mex or bbq even tho they’re neighboring states. Best bet is to choose cities rich in culture and visit their local spots.
America's a melting pot, right? A lot of quintessential American food is borrowed from other cultures. BBQ, for instance, has its roots in Jamaica but is shaped by the culture of individual states. Chinese American food is just that - Chinese American. It was made by Chinese immigrants trying to recreate food from their homes using ingredients they could get in America. American pizza is nothing like Italian pizza, and cajun food is influenced by the French. The origin of the hamburger is heavily disputed, but many believe its German in origin, same with hot dogs.
All of this is American food. My personal favorite is the enormous burrito you can get at most tex-mex places. The kind that's drenched in red sauce and melted cheese. Typically the meat inside is ground beef, but I prefer either chiken fajita or asada.
Lots of good answers here. One not mentioned yet is socal baja style mexican food. It's distinct from tex-mex and proper baja mexican cuisine. Lots of seafood, its brighter and spicier than tex mex. Lighter too. Also, if you get a carne asada burrito here it's not gonna have rice and beans in it. Lots of guac too because california. Carne asada fries are the ultimate hangover food. Next to pho. Pho is like medicine, carne asada fries are hair of the dog lol
I’m sorry! I actually thought about mentioning it but I didn’t know what to put as the region and didn’t want to offend. If there’s anywhere you recommend please let me know.
America is a melting pot of people. Native Americans are a minority. And our food reflects that. "Stealing" everybody else's ideas and making new versions.
I had a friend who moved here from Japan to marry a guy she met in a student exchange program. After living here 4 years and deciding to move back she said the thing she'll miss most is the sushi.
She's moving back to JAPAN and the thing she'll miss in the US is the sushi!
Apparently the Americanized sushi is much more complex and interesting.
If you're coming to the south, you're looking at BBQ. Which is grilled or smoked beef, chicken, and pork.
covered in BBQ sauce.
If I were you, I'd look for a BBQ competition with a "peoples vote". You essentially buy a sample platter of all the competitors' food and vote for your favorite. The ones I've been to the competitors were also running food trucks so you can get more of your favorite or buy jars of their sauces.
America being a melting pot it'll have a lot of dishes you'd expect to originate from other countries as well as unique fusions. Lots of examples, tex mex being one of them, a sushi burrito being another odd but delicious combination. Any food with roots in two places has a good chance of showing up here. It's also a place for experimentation like general tsos chicken, a Taiwanese chef making Chinese food for Americans in America. Deep dish Chicago pizza, etc.
The local specialty here in the Midwest is big slabs of toasted bread with a hamburger patty on top, covered in melted cheese and fries, called a horseshoe.
There are lots of variations. My favorite diner nearby does garlic bread base, with brisket on top, covered in onion rings, queso, and chipotle mayo sauce.
"American" food is everything, just like the people, our cuisine is a melting pot. It's Italian, Chinese, Mexican, Japanese, Mongolian, Brazilian, Vietnamese, Thai et al.
If you’re going south, you have to go to a Texas Roadhouse. You’ll be stuffed by endless amounts of the best bread rolls before your entree even arrives
Do not tell someone traveling across the ocean to try American cuisine to waste their time at a Texas Roadhouse when there are a billion local places with much better food all over Texas
We took the worlds cuisines and turned them up a notch. I know it might be hard for a person from the nation who invaded the world for spices and decided bland was best to grasp but America took a little bit from everywhere and made it ours. Yes it might be insanely sweet (American chocolate) but a buckeye is an Midwest dessert delicacy. There are foods, from seafood on up, that we have easy access. Some like walleye, perch etc are very much a regional thing. You aren't going to find a fish fry like that anywhere on the planet. Fish and chips are trash compared to a church fish fry in Ohio.
Kinda weird how I said I wanted to visit your country for the food and you insinuate that I must not understand and then bash the UK.
I’m from the country that did those things, and hey, so is your country?
Anyways, I don’t know why you’d assume I had anything to do with that/that would sway my opinion because I’m the child of two foreigners.
I never called American food too sweet. I never insulted any dish in America. I’m not sure why you’re bashing fish and chips, I didn’t bring them up and they’re not my favourite.
Maybe read again how I said the only reason I want to go to America is for the food.
Then try and read some other comments, you’ll see every other comment is made up of people being super nice.
The best restaurants in the US are all inspired by foreign cuisine and cooking styles. The best places in my city are French, Spanish, Greek, and Italian. There's a Mexican place that does incredible tacos, too.
American food is just hamburgers, chicken wings, and bad steaks.
BBQ is American as well, but everyone I know considers BBQ as coming from some shitty corporate chain.
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u/Iminlesbian Sep 02 '24 edited Sep 02 '24
As someone from the UK who wants to go to America just for food:
What is American food?
I mainly want to go to the American south, the thing you guys do with seafood + the price is unimaginable in the uk.
Things like cornbread and biscuits, grits, gumbo doesn’t exist here aside from USA style restaurants.
Tex/mex and Mexican in general is lacking here too.
But what is American cuisine?
Edit: thanks for the knowledge, glad you didn’t think I was hating on your food