American Cuisine
As Davis, McBride et al. (2008), cuisine is "a form of cultural expression in the same way that sculpture and dance are" (p. 2). Thus, if we think about American culture and the cuisine that best expresses the American experience -- we are, unfortunately, hit with one obvious example: fast food. This lamentable fact is not meant to redirect attention away from the regional cuisines found all over the nation -- it is merely the one single overwhelming piece of evidence that underscores everything that America is: giant, monolithic, corporatist, disconnected from nature, and global. Today, fast food is the same thing: it is the cultural expression of our country in the form of cuisine.
But, fortunately, it is not the only cuisine that America has. One should consider that fast food is a 20th century development, born out of the post-War halcyon days of easy credit, booming families, fast cars, and drive-thrus. The rise of fast-food in the latter half of the 20th century was a distinctly American phenomenon and thus, for a time, a radical and new type of American cuisine -- that spread over the entire world in the short space of a few decades, reflecting that American "culture"...
2).
Thus, while some point to apple pie or macaroni and cheese or hamburgers and hotdogs as being authentic American dishes (and there is something to be said for this), the only real Authentic American Cuisine is McDonald's, Arby's, White Castles, Burger King, In and Out (some of these are regional, too, of course). What are they: typically a burger, grilled or steam cooked (or microwaved), fries, and a large Coca-Cola (an American beverage).
This assessment might be offensive to some, who prefer to point to regional dishes as examples of real authentic American food -- bbq in the South or tacos out West (a Mexican-American hybrid?) -- and one certainly does not like to argue -- but humans have been roasting and spicing their meats for thousands of years, and as for tacos, most Americans might be reluctant to claim something so distinctly "Mexican" as American cuisine.
New Orleans has its French influence, New England has its English influence -- but nothing…
