h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What exactly *is* American food? Being as I live here, it's sometimes hard for me to tell what food is considered uniquely American, as opposed to food that might be found anywhere. For example: hamburgers, I'm told, are "American" food.

They even have this ridiculous expression "As American as apple pie" - nearly every country has a version of apple pie

Well, I do think hamburgers was invented in the US. Apparently so was chinese fortune cookies.

aerosol cheese in a can

twinkies

gritts

chow mein

*Re-reads sentence. Suddenly realizes how sarcastic it sounds.*



*Attempts to correct mistake:*

No no, I meant it. What kind of food is American food? Like, you have Mexican food: tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, etc. And you have British food: steak-and-kidney pies, mince meat pies, treacle tarts, etc. And you have Italian food: pasta, pizza (sort of), lasagna, etc. So what's American food?

burgers and fries

massive stakes

gritts

corn bread

twinkies

corn dogs

dirty water hot dogs

eggs over easy(????????????????)

bacon and pancakes(together????????)

a million types of ice cream

What's so strange about eggs over easy? Apart from being all runny and half raw(Can you tell I prefer my yolks hard?) Or is it just the name that's strange?

the names for eggs

here you get fried egg, hard or runny is usually the choise or skill of the chef

Then it's just the name that's American, not the dish, which is what I figured

<>

and what exactly is "american cheese"????????

It ranges from orange rubber to something vaguely edible.

I'm also entertained by the tendency to call anything with holes in it "Swiss cheese" - Switzerland has about 450 kinds of cheese, and most of them don't have holes.

~*~and what exactly is "american cheese"?~*~

Well it's the little, yellow, square kind that doesn't actually taste very good. I've always preferred blocks of cheddar myself.

Well America is a young country with a vast array of ethnic mixes to which she is still adding new ones.Thus she has yet to produce anything American as such.What she does do is take the old of the old world and blend that into her own style..America is truly cosmopolitan in regards to food.

The one twist that she adds is the large portions..

This kind of 'non-cheese' is the kind of food we tend to associate with the US. It's convenience food and convenience seems to outweigh any other factor. it's long-life, you don 't have to remove rind, slice it (wow, all the crumbs from slicing). If the taste/texture of convenience food puts people off, taste/texture 'enhancers' will be added, often taking it even further from 'real' cheese. This kind of food is often cheap which expands its market even more.

I'm sure many Americans share an aversion to this kind of food but perhaps a little less in the case of cheese. I understand that the US Food & Drug authority bans certain cheeses common in Europe because unprocessed milk is used.

http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/ There you go, the worst end of the "American food" spectrum.

For the more haute cuisine American food, I read recently that the White House website publishes the menus for formal dinners with foreign dignitaries, where they try to serve American food. It often involves buffalo or other American animals, or New World fruit and veg like tomatoes and potatoes, though you find those in South America as well - but they aren't native to Europe.

It just occured to me, a very 'American' food is beef. US beef that it is, it's banned in the EU because of the way cattle are reared (using hormones).



*starts dreaming of a brilliant cheeseburger*

I don't know how many Native American recipies are still known, beyond things like corn bread or pemmican, but those would certainly qualify as well!

(Keep your horrible beef over there )

Just saw Mala's thread......Bacon Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup

*My* thread? I am in no way affiliated with that website.