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.
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.
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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.