"If you're going to America bring your own food." Fran Lebowitz
It seems to me that American food, just like British food, has a bad image. Bad in different ways of course, but bad anyway - and that quote at the top - from one of their own no less - really illustrates that attitude.
But as for Britain it's really, really unfair. Every country has its bad food, and every country has its treasures. And America has treasures aplenty, and even several sub cuisines, which probably deserve a post of their own - creole, Italian/American, Chinese/American, cajun, New England, New York, Texmex, Jewish/American ..... There are many more. Not to mention the huge number of Michelin starred restaurants and influential American cooks, writers, publishers and influencers.
It's a vast country - a nation of immigrants, descendants of slaves, and also of course its indigenous population who have a vibrant cuisine of their own. In a word the topic of American food as part of my world tour, is really too huge to tackle in a normal sense. I feel a bit defeated, but I'll give it a go. A very brief and shallow overview.
The bad image of course, stems from all the commercially produced foods that have caused the obesity crisis in this country. - well everywhere really. Not quite the worst. I just looked at one world ranking of world obesity which was actually quite interesting. The USA was number 10 on that list following 9 different Pacific Island states. Following the USA you get into the Middle East and a couple more Pacific Island nations, plus Romania. Enough of this because it's a whole other topic, but it is indeed interesting, although possibly not surprising. Maybe Romania.
So back to America and its addiction to junk food, both of the sweet and the savoury kinds. The list is endless and this, coupled with the size of the servings that you encounter there have caused the obesity problem which has spread throughout the world. Although as that list demonstrates, they are not the only ones at fault here. The Pacific Islanders are indeed large people, which may well be a cultural as well as dietary thing. Maybe even genetic.
However, if you take each one of those things on the lists of junk food, if eaten sensibly and occasionally and in small portions many of them are potentially delicious - well they would be wouldn't they? That's why we get addicted to them.
Take the hamburger which I featured as my lead photograph, because it's always the first thing that springs to mind when I think of American food. Maybe because it's what my friend Carole and I largely existed on as we travelled, as students around the USA. They were cheap and, we reasoned, relatively nutritious as they contained most of the food groups. And if you make your own it can indeed be a delicious and healthy thing. As long as you don't overload it with fatty things, add sugar somehow (how?), and make sure you have plenty of vegetables in there. Very messy to eat though.
I guess it's companion is the hot dog - another immigrant food that has become uniquely American - possibly even uniquely New York, although I'm not quite sure about that. America took it from Middle Europe, and they have exported it back to the world with different emphases according to which country you are in. Here in Oz it has become the snag and sauce in bread that you pick up on Saturdays at Bunnings. But in America it is adorned with American mustard, sauerkraut and onion relish. Well that's the basic take - being America anything goes really.
So what, besides these, could be considered America's gifts to the world in terms of food? So many of course. Perhaps first I will suggest the ones that that long ago trip struck me as food I had not tasted elsewhere and which I found everywhere. My list? Clam chowder, corn on the cob, barbecued T-bone steaks, hash browns and milk shakes.
But how could I have forgotten Fried chicken, Caesar salad, mac'n cheese, deep dish pizza, spaghetti and meatballs, chilli, apple pie, and chocolate chip cookies?
And in the blink of an eye I'm sure you could think of a whole lot of other things. For the point is that - a bit like Scotland and it's best and worst (whisky and deep-fried mars bars) - America has given the world great foods that we all love, some of which, as well as being healthy are delicious too, as well as food overloaded with fats and sugars, to which many are addicted leading to the current crisis in obesity around the world. America is the home of Donald Trump, guns and mad religious cults, as well as some of the greatest, artists, inventors, writers, technical innovators, scientists and generally good people - even politicians - the world has seen. And so it is with its food - from food that reaches the heights of taste, originality and beauty to travesties of what good food should be. I shall be interested to hear what my grandchildren think of it all when they return from their summer/winter holiday there.
Having come across that website Good Food on Bad Plates, and its authors quest to tour the world - online - and cook something from each country they come across, I said I would do the same. So what to cook from the huge number of quintessentially American dishes? Some of which I cook pretty frequently I might say - hamburgers, spaghetti and meatballs, macaroni cheese, corn chowder (instead of clams), Caesar salad ... I think it should be something I have never cooked before, so maybe I shall have to think on it a bit.
An afterthought - now that I think of it, maybe Fran Lebovitz by saying 'bring your own food' was indicating that American foods are, of course, the product of its immigrant population who did indeed bring their own food with them, changed it slightly and made it American. Silly me. How could I not have got that?
YEARS GONE BY
December 12
2023 - Nothing
2022 - Nothing
2021 - Nothing
2020 - Hot chocolate
2019 - Fried eggs - a quickie
2018 - Semifreddo
2017 - Nothing
2016 - Capers
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