It depends on how you define “uniquely created in the USA”.

Frybread has a rich and complex history within the USA, and I would argue it’s very much “uniquely created in the USA” but most variations have a pretty much identical recipe to hungarian lángos.

Also a lot of USA food is very regional. Hawaii has a lot of unique foods, such as loco moco, spam musubi, etc. but would be unrecognizable to most USAians.

Teriyaki dishes are technically Japanese, but the Pacific northwest has taken the concept and run with it to the point where it’s now it’s own unique creation. It also has cheese zombies, jojos, Seattle dog, huckleberry everything, etc.

Southwest USA and Mexican have a lot of overlap but are also just as distinct with “Tex-mex” being it’s own culinary thing. Puffy tacos, chili con queso, cornbread, cowboy caviar, nachos, etc.

Midwest, Alaskan, southern, east-coast, Puerto Rican, etc. all also have their own unique culinary traditions at this point with lots of micro-regional distinctions within them.

However, they aren’t marketed, advertised or popularized in the same way that things like “Chinese food” is. Despite “American-Chinese food”, like general Tsao, or orange chicken, being very much it’s own genre that is unrecognizable as either traditional/old recipe USA or Chinese foods.

To discover many of these things you can’t just “tourism” through but have to actually try to know and understand the people and places.

Conversely, it’s not like Italian food stops being Italian due to its use of “new world” food stuffs like tomatoes, or pasta is any less “Italian” despite it just being Chinese noodles with a few changed ingredients.

If you insist on playing that game you’ll find nothing is unique.

Those sandwiches also come in regional variations up north. Grinders or Hoagies.

My wife took me to a local deli where she grew up in CT. I got a meatball sub.

The roll was from my finger tips to my elbow. it had 4 meatballs on it bigger each than my fist. It was around $12.

She got the same, but a pepperoni version with tomatoes and lettuce. Each one had to have been 5 lbs of meat.

In New Jersey I got a hoagie, the bread was so big, you couldn’t close your grip around it using both hands

Out of all the dishes you mentioned, only Gumbo is a uniquely USA dish.

Jambalaya is an African recipe with an ingredient change to match what was available.

Mudbugs are eaten everywhere where they are present, and I personally think that Polis Zupa Rakowa is the best usage of that ingredient. If were talking about the mudbug boil, every cousine I know of that has access to them have similar recipe.

Blackened redfish is uhhh… Hot pan with spices to pretend its grilled (ingenious, but not a unique dish https://www.foodrepublic.com/1631780/origin-why-redfish-banned/)

Crawfish etouffee - huh, I think it’s also an invention. The cooking method and igredients seem to be unique enough that its visibly distinct from any other similar dish that I know of and could check the recipe of.

Courtbullion on the other hand is too similar to French one that I would call it a variation, instead of an unique invention.

(Does that make sense? I’m not trying to diminish other foods but to showcase how unique Gumbo and etouffe are)

That’s a no for me. Although I do make a version of jambalaya with no seafood and extra spicy. I love the heat and the seasonings but I’ll pass on crawfish, shrimp and anything else that filters shit as a food source.

What else is there to do there?

I wonder where this idea originates. As an American, I genuinely don’t know of any restaurant that serves any of this (although I suppose you could special order “plain” things most anywhere in the world). I can’t begin to guess what people eat in the privacy of their own kitchens, but no one I know serves themselves these foods, either. I will say I’ve heard the same lore of “deep fried butter” existing at Midwestern fairs somewhere, but again, I’ve never encountered such a thing irl.

Hot dog is Icelands claim to fame

way to brush off thousands of year of native american dishes :/

Every culture takes/mixes foods from other cultures and makes it their own.

Perhaps more importantly, every generation remixes their parents’ and grandparents’ food.

French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Mexican food aren’t the same as they were 50 years ago. Lots of new dishes were invented and remixed, sometimes from imported influence. It’s not like chefs sit around and refuse to do anything different from how they learned. They do invent and innovate and tweak recipes. That’s, like, the job.

Ketchup as close as we know it comes from the Philippines right? So there goes that whole thing.

Yes. I view Chinese American food as American food. Sweet General Tso’s Chicken, orange chicken, fortune cookies, crab rangoons, etc. Basically anything they overly sweetened.

Most of what constitutes “traditional” American cuisine is broadly based on European traditions, with British, French, Italian, and German influences being the most dominant. Though many of the recipes have changed and evolved over time, you can still see the influences pretty clearly.

Take the classic Thanksgiving dinner, for instance: although many of the ingredients (such as sweet potatoes and turkey) were unknown in Europe, the way they are prepared is still very similar to how Europeans prepare traditional holiday roasts.

Also, a “proper” meal generally consists of a chunk of meat, veggies, and carbs, usually all prepared separately, or sometimes as a casserole or a stew. Stir-frying is not that common, for instance, but frying, roasting and baking is. If you look into the history of any particular American dish, its roots can often be traced back to the exact wave of immigration that went on to popularize it.

Depending on the region, however, you may also find Native American influences, such as Creole, Cajun, Tex-Mex, etc.

Which I see as a positive

Fusion kitchens are the best and maybe the only good thing to come out of colonialism

Well, there’s also a pretty good music that jazz doesn’t happen the way it did without putting European instruments in the hands of formerly enslaved Africans. Would be a lot cooler world if we could figure out how to evolve our art and culture without crimes against humanity, tho.

Well, colonialism did bring tomatoes and potatoes to Europe.

I had tex-mex / Indian fusion once and it was surprisingly good.

I want to protest the Döner one. Other countries sell something they call Döner, but the similarity is superficial at best to a real one. It’s a fun little thing I do on vacation in other European countries: try to find a “Döner” and see what travesty they give me

Turkish-German Döner is so popular it is sold basically everywhere now.

I fucking wish. I lived in France 20+ years ago and loved the stuff. Came back to the US and have been waiting to see a good Döner kebab for over 2 decades now.

And every brit is legally required to bring up chicken tikka masala when talking about fusion food.

Babi pangang up in this motherfucker

Sounds good! Is it close to orange chicken or General Tso’s chicken in the USA?

@fell
> Turns out Honey Chicken is a purely Australian invention

Like butter chicken from Indian restaurants … in the anglophone world only, apparently. What is with us anglophones and our propensity for consuming jungle fowl in yellowish fluids?

@FoxtrotDeltaTango

Sounds delicious though.

That wasn’t the Too Many Cooks I was aware of.

I was looking for this. Glad I’m not alone.

I think the joke is that Americans like to adopt foods or cooking techniques from other cultures, then change them to fit local tastes. This is how a lot of “traditional American” foods came to be. There is also a stereotype that American cultural practices (gastronomy included) are “not real” or that American culture as a concept doesn’t exist because it comes as a fusion of cultural practices from other countries. The meme is poking fun at people who may hold that belief.

People also have a habit of describing the American versions of things to be “not real”, even if it never really claims to be. For example, fettuccine Alfredo in the US is an adaptation of fettuccini al burro (a real Italian dish), but is described as “not real Italian food” because it isn’t actually eaten in Italy. Or that orange chicken is “not real Chinese food” because it isn’t eaten in China. Which, to be fair, is true, but most American diners are aware that Panda Express, Olive Garden, and Taco Bell aren’t accurate representations of food eaten in China, Italy, or Mexico. They’re Americanised versions of food inspired by Chinese, Italian, and Mexican cuisine.

All these dishes are Americanized versions of dishes that came from the other countries.

America certainly has the most diverse kitchen because it’s a whole fucking continent. It has grasslands, mountains, coasts, lakes, everything and each microclimate you could imagine. I doubt, OTOH, that you’ve ever seen a Michelin rated restaurant from the inside.

meanwhile everyone in the world, who traveled to the US, will tell you that even the produce has no flavor.

US food is objectively terrible compared to other nations.

How do you get the energy drink and nutrition supplements to stay in the taco

Also, the Taco Bell Breakfast Crunchwrap, steak, with extra creamy jalapeño sauce, is perhaps the greatest fast food breakfast item of all time.

if I plagirise your novel and change things so it is terrible, I still both copied your novel AND said novel isn’t a representation of your work.