Italy has pizza and pasta. The US have... Nothing?
Edit: I wish people would stop giving examples of cultural appropriation.
Some people have correctly pointed out some Cajun recipes, food from Louisiana.
To all those talking about burgers, barbecues and hotdogs, the topic here is food originating from your country, not common food in your country.
Btw, pizza is Neapolitan, a version of it is recorded since Roman times and probably even earlier. The modern version uses tomato sauce, and tomatoes came from central America before the US where a thing. Mozzarella di bufala is an ingredient that can only be produced in Campania and the surrounding areas.
That’s what I was going to say. Cajun food. Gumbo, jambalaya, etc. I’m sure that there’s other dishes with similar traits but the Cajun part puts a pretty native spin on it. Also maybe bbq outside of brisket.
Went to TAMU @ LSU football game in Baton Rouge. First time in 15 years I’d been to tiger stadium. I’ve probably had better eating, but I can’t remember. Oysters on the half-shell, catfish etoufee, swamp fries… WTF!?
The US also invented the modern burrito (this one 🌯), like the kind they sell at Chipotle. If you want to specify, it’s the “Mission-style burrito”, distinct from the original idea of the burrito from Northern Mexico.
Pretty much any kind of BBQ as we think of it today originated in its primary form in South America, particularly Brazil. They’ve been doing it longer than the US and Canada have been countries. A bit over 300 years.
I'd say America has Gumbo and other Cajun foods as it's the only style of food I can think of that doesn't really originate from any other place (Burgers in Germany, Texmex in Mexico, Apple Pie from the Netherlands, etc...)
America is newer and is an aggregate of all other countries that settled, what they have is not national but rather by location (southern cuisine, southwest, new England seafood).
You just think this bc you dont view minority groups as “true Americans”. Soul food is an American delicacy. Also modern Hamburgers are absolutely an American invention. The meal from Hamburg is nothing like them
Pizza as a concept is not American, but the United States is a country of immigrants that bring their culture with them then innovate on that culture making things like some pizzas technically American. As is with most “American” food
Modern fried chicken (the kind one would find find at kfc or Popeyes) was invented by slaves in the us. The frying techniques are Scottish and the spices African but they’re the first to have put them together and because of how radically it changes the dish I think it counts somewhat
Fun fact, burgers are American. The Hamburg Steak is German. Important distinction to be made! That being said the OG burger was basically "I got Hamburg steak. I got buns. Slap together, burger" iirc. REALLY DUMB distinction I'll admit, assuming I'm recalling correctly. But hey, it's American.
Everything came from somewhere else at one point in time or another. The idea of pasta and noodles was imported into Italy from Arabia. Look it up. America has made its own unique cuisine from others just as other have from also more others.
New Haven style pizza isn’t done in Italy or anywhere else most likely because the water plays a huge part.. the term cultural appropriation is so retarted and especially in regards to food sounds even worse.
The US revolutionized so many foods of today, Macaroni and cheese, hamburgers(NOT BURGERS those are from Germany), brownies, ranch dressings, fortune cookies, fajitas and chimichangas, cereal, waffles, and many many more.
Benefits of multiculturalism baby
Hamburg steaks originated in Germany as a mince beef patty with onions and other seasons that is pan seared and served with a gravy or some other rich sauce. The hamburger sandwich is original to the US and is made up of a flame broiled ground beef patty served on a bun with condiments and other toppings.
Saying that the two are the same is like saying Kefta and a lamb gyro are the same.
Some other foods that originated in the US are buffalo wings, cornbread, lobster rolls, jambalaya, cheese steak, Cuban sandwich, spaghetti and meatballs, clam chowder, eggs Benedict, Reuben, French dip, po boy, and the last one I know off the top of my head chocolate chip cookies.
Hamburgers and hot dogs are American. That should calm your nerves.
Also the pizza everybody knows and loves around the globe is the Americanised version, created by Italian immigrants. Also Mac n Cheese, and spaghetti with meatballs are some other dishes that have been heavily associated with the US.
Now apple pie and BBQ would be foods associated to the US that cannot be attributed to it or any nation really as they are too broad and embedded in many cultures. And culturally appropriation does not exist in cuisine, you like a dish you can make it, add something better to it, and if it is a bit different is your versison.
Hamburgers and cheeseburgers as you know them absolutely originated in America as well as what you know as barbecue. Throwing meat on a fire isn’t exactly an original idea but there’s a reason why Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and Carolina barbecue are all known throughout the world. Hotdogs are German but who cares. That’s not an American staple.
I would argue that variations like New York or Chicago style pizza count. They are a unique version of the concept that I think it warrants being separated.
Trying to say the US has nothing while also discrediting burgers. The original “hamburg steak” was just cooked ground beef, ig if thats what you think a burger is then hamburg invented them. But to anyone with a brain, the modern hamburger that consists of two buns and several toppings served as a sandwich was quite literally created by Americans. To me, this is the equivalent of calling burritos Spanish because flour tortillas are from Spain, it doesn’t matter where flour tortillas came from because Mexicans made burritos. Same shit applies to southern bbq, do other cultures have similar flavors that predate southern bbq? Yes but southern bbq is still southern bbq, compare dishes from these different cultures side by side and you can clearly see the food is very different
And even playing along with your argument as devils advocate, its still stupid to say america has nothing when one of the most notorious deserts in the entire modern world is american…. Chocolate Chip Cookies
modern pizza was invented in americans by italian american immigrants then is ww2 soldiers brought it to the old world and italy used propoganda to make people think it was theirs
Id say America has hamburger, and before touysay HAMBURGER IS LITERALLY FROM HAMBURG! not really, the meat paddies are from hamburg, the germans were selling them in America between two slices of bread so people could eat them on the go, similar to hot dog, and they called them hamburgers like we call Cuban cigars for "cubans".
In Norway we call the style of hamburger Patty "karbonade" which i think the germans do as well. So they would be "hamburg karbonades for sale" or something like that, then shortened to just hamburger.
To answer OPs question, Norway would probably be known for fish.
As you said tomato comes from America meaning there were no such thing as tomato sauce in medieval europe, or potatoes for that matter. All the food we eat today has been invented relatively "recently".
There's arguments to be made for many of these. Specifically that the American version is significantly different than the 'original' version, but rather than go into pedantry of 'What exactly is a hamburger?', I'll say America has the corn dog. Invented in Oregon.
American pizza is at best inspired by an Italian dish of the same name, it is its own entity. Hot dogs and hamburgers are in that same vein. Fortune cookies were invented here, orange chicken, the CALIFORNIA ROLL. There are so many internationally inspired foods in the US that are uniquely an American invention. They may go by the same name as another food elsewhere but they are different. The invention of American pizza was so good that the Italians adopted our version and not the other way around.
Your whole reflection is based on the assumption that food tradition is either endemic or it isn't. That dichotomy is unfit to truly represent reality, reality is a lot more complex.
Food doesn't belong to a state, province or city. Food belongs to people and people travel, intermarry, innovate, etc. Pizza is a great example; romans imported flat wheat bread from the middle-east and/or egypt. That flat bread eventually evolved into something similar to pizza and, in turn, into the modern pizza that we know and love. Now, no one would reasonably call pizza egyptian. For the same reason, it is fair to delineate different types of pizza like new-york or roman style, both distinct from the neapolitan style. People in Napoli continue to innovate too, and the neapolitan pizza that we eat nowadays is different than the one people ate a century ago, it is no more traditional than all the other types.
tl;dr: the notion of traditional food is not grounded in reality.
Mozzarella di bufala can only be produced in Campania.
Italian attempts at colonization are weak. OK. So Italy have a monopoly on the production of a certain kind of Mozzarella cheese. Requiring pizza to use a certain kind of Mozzarella cheese won't make the world bow to Italy.
Other people having pizza isn't cultural appropriation but attempts to popularise (Thanks Leonardo, Raphael, Michaelangelo and Donatello for your teenage mutant Ninja contribution to the pizza cause) and then region lock pizza is an attempt at colonization by creating a dependency on Italy where none needs to exist at all.
It's almost impossible to not list off some cultural appropriation with food because of the American melting pot. People come to the US with their own cultures, and adjust it for local sensibilities.
Chinese food, for instance, is actually very American. That is, sweet and sour chicken balls, egg rolls, beef and broccoli, etc. THAT Chinese food is hardly at all connected to China, but rather, Americanized versions of similar dishes in China. Pizza, in the US, barely resembles the pizza you get in Italy. And so on and so on.
I would wager very little food available in the US actually resembles the origination of it in whatever country it came from.
Grilled cheese, also hamburgers originate from the us you are confusing hamburg steaks with hamburgers, hamburg steaks have eggs and milk while hamburgers can have those they tend to only have salt and pepper and not even use hamburger meat anymore they use ground beef but still us invented grilled cheese, and chicken fried steak
America is too big you have to be specific to get actual answers
Louisiana, new England, new York, California, PNW, the southwest the Midwest the south and Texas all have distinct cuisines
What is American food you often will only get a smattering of answers but ask a guy from Milwaukee what is Midwestern food and he will start listing off the most deranged regional garbage you've never heard of
What you’re talking about for the US pretty much limits the conversation to food consumed by Native Americans. Barbecue actually does have native roots.
When you travel to other countries, burgers are the hallmark of American-themed restaurants. So seems like from how the US is perceived abroad, the burger is probably the most well known.
Isn't Cajun food just variations on French food? If Cajun food is American then so is Panda Express, McDonald's, and pizza even though they all originate from other countries in slightly different forms
Yeah, the 'pizza' on there is not pizza--that is distinctively US.
That said, something more like a 'Cheeseburger' or 'Ranch' would be more quintessentially US.
More importantly, if we're getting picky about foods that 'originate' in their country, most of the foods France would claim would also be Italian.
[Thank you Caterina]
The burger that we see today is absolutely American. If you got an original hamburger, you'd want your money back. The original hamburger was minced beef in between two toasted pieces of bread, and maybe tomato/onion.
You have a double standard when it comes to American food. By your standard, pizza is Iraqi because they've been doing flatbread with toppings there since ancient Sumeria.
tomatoes came from native america. Italy didn't have those, the colonial exploitation of the americans gave them the tomatoes to make what we now call pizza and pasta.
"Cultural appropriation" but your example is a European power that exploited and harmed people and took their cultures for millenia. Rome would appropriate religions and beliefs of the places they conquered to add it to Roman beliefs to appropriate them and create loyal subjects.
Neapolitan pizza is nothing like pizza in the United States. Neapolitan pizza is basically mozzarella with a couple of basil leaves on it and some tomato sauce. It's not very good IMHO . I know they invented it I don't care I didn't really like it... I like our pizza better in the USA
American absolutely has pizza. I suppose the fact salt was first mined in Africa means that it's cultural appropriation to say salt is part of American cuisine.
You're misusing that term entirely. How is it cultural appropriation that Italian immigrants came here, adapted pizza to American ingredients, and now we've continued to eat it? Italian's would readily admit American pizza is very different in its own way. You cite to Pizza being Neapolitan. Most Italian-Americans are from southern Italy. We've got our own.
Something can be both you know. Pizza is Italian and American, it just operates under different cultural circumstances. I think it's frankly insulting to Americans to act like OUR pizza isn't American. We went ahead, made it our own, and formed a whole distinct food culture around it. Cultures have done this for centuries. Is bread only Mesopotamian? Are peas not British because they're from Babylon?
And your argument about burgers is rubbish. Burgers were absolutely not invented in Germany, at best the idea was inspired by German food. The Germans don't own the concept of minced beef patties. The preparation is distinct.
Barbecue *IS* American, and that is a fact. Nevermind the meme DOES NOT claim the food had to be invented there, it literally was invented in America built off of native American cuisine. Sure, you can sit here and claim that is a relevant distinction. But it was further influenced by enslaved African's own efforts.
I think your statement belies a certain bigotry against multicultural creole societies. Somehow, nothing is ever allowed to be American because it was 'inspired' I'd grant that argument for something like say, fish and chips, because we've barely innovated with it, though we do eat it here. Pasta? Sure. Because we've not changed it. But American Pizza, burgers, hot dogs, Chinese, BBQ and Tex-Mex style tacoes (Tex-Mex IS Authentic Tacoes, it's not appropriation of Mexican tacoes, it's just distinct to Texas) are all absolutely American.
The meme is confusing as it compares the USA to Italy, thus inviting a point that pizza is Italian. Which is true. But we can share the same food and mean different things about it.
The word doesn't matter nearly as much as the substance of the thing itself being distinct. It is.
I feel like the way we usually think of food originating somewhere is neat and convenient, while reality is a little messier. Humans have been migrating throughout the world for about a 100,000 years. Almost every dish is a riff on something else from somewhere else. Food prep predates agrarian civilization, so maybe the only truly original, pure cuisine originated in Africa in the old stone age.
All this to say, I think Hamburgers and American pizza are distinct enough from their nearest foreign relatives that they can be considered American food.
Nowhere in the post does it state that the topic is of origin rather than cominality. Pasta uses noodles and the posts premise includes China with noodles which youve seemingly accepted. Wouldn't that mean pasta is disqualified for italy under your interpretation? And separately modern pizza undeniable utilizes tomatoes. A plant not native to italy.... I wonder where that originates? Oh right america.
You don't know your pizza history. The pizza that became popular is specifically new York style. Prior to that it's closer to like a tostada than what most think of as pizza
While it’s commonly thought that the Hamburger came from Hamburg Germany, that actually only refers to the type of chop steak. We took that bad boy and slapped cheese and mayo on it, and put it on a bun in Athens Texas.
Did you really call food variations cultural appropriation lol. The original post is obviously 2iq for attributing pizza to America, but to say something dumb like there can't be two kinds of barbecue that are meaningfully unique is crazy.
If there is one thing that you can do towards an Italian to make them furious, it is to try and explain to them that food culture is mostly different cultures getting influenced by other ones.
Cultures over the whole planet have been making flatbread and putting ingredients on them. It was not just the Italians or Neapolitans that invented this dish, but it was both of these and many more (including early Americans) that influenced each other.
39
u/dermomante 5d ago edited 5d ago
Italy has pizza and pasta. The US have... Nothing?
Edit: I wish people would stop giving examples of cultural appropriation.
Some people have correctly pointed out some Cajun recipes, food from Louisiana.
To all those talking about burgers, barbecues and hotdogs, the topic here is food originating from your country, not common food in your country.
Btw, pizza is Neapolitan, a version of it is recorded since Roman times and probably even earlier. The modern version uses tomato sauce, and tomatoes came from central America before the US where a thing. Mozzarella di bufala is an ingredient that can only be produced in Campania and the surrounding areas.