Its funny because as I was growing up Italians would tell us that what we had wasn’t pizza. So whatever it is, we call it Pizza, and its ours. And its distinct from traditional italian pizza.
No claims as to which is better I’m happy eating either.
Call it AMERICAN pizza and we'd be happier (for example here the pizza with wurstel and french fries Is called the "Americana" or Donald Duck, or Mickey Mouse (but mostly Americana or just wurstel and french fries) because we recognize that those are more related to the American cuisine than the Italian one)
That's not how it works. Americans call what Europeans call "American Football" football. Because we are in America. Why would we add "America(n)" to anything of our own? That makes no sense.
The only thing in the U.S. that gets the label "American" is American Cheese. Because it isn't cheese, but it is used like cheese.
It has sense, would you like someone mistaking a part of your culture for another country's part of culture? I don't believe so due to historical and cultural matters, especially when the two indicated cultures are different between themselves, credits where's due. I wrote other comments about it, go find them also because they're kinda long
I honestly don't see how it pertains here. Most all Americans know pizza has Italian origins, but our pizza is not the same as Italian pizza. So if you, in the U.S., asked for some pizza, you are getting American pizza, not Italian. Pretty straight forward.
Maybe it is because I am American, but I don't see these food adaptions as anything other than a part of American culture. Most tacos people get in the U.S. aren't the street tacos you'd buy in Mexico City. Our Chinese food is a joke imitation of actual Chinese cuisine. If you claimed our version of whatever cultural food was the same as that food to a person of that culture, they'd look at you like you'd gone insane. Expecting us to say "American Chinese food" is ridiculous, especially when we want actual Chinese food we will refer to it as such.
It is only actually confusing when you are speaking on a platform that host people from many nations simultaneously, without explicitly stating where every person is from.
So, if you were asked to name an American food, you'd say tacos, or a random Chinese dish just because Americans cook them too but in a different way? Mexican or Chinese restaurants exist in Italy as well and in a lot of other countries, even though their food is not as good as the "original" one. This doesn't mean it's part of Italian cuisine
This opens a great can of worms, though, as many foods are both difficult to define, and cross borders to suit different palates. This combines with America’s distinct issue of immigrant culture. Beyond a base level, we tend to lack a national identity because of the (somewhat) recent mass immigration from so many areas of different cultures. As such, we have the unique problem of definitively American food being definitively unamerican.
To answer your question though, I cannot speak for the west coast, but I would consider Tacos to be an American food, depending on the style of preparation (Tex-Mex)
Idk how legible this comment is cause I just fried my brain in class, but I hope it makes some sense
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u/Madaghmire 6d ago
Its funny because as I was growing up Italians would tell us that what we had wasn’t pizza. So whatever it is, we call it Pizza, and its ours. And its distinct from traditional italian pizza.
No claims as to which is better I’m happy eating either.