America's 50 greatest foods
We got chips, we got grits, we got ribs,
we got wings. We've even got a salad. Have you got the appetite?
Fast,
junk, processed -- when it comes to food, the United States is best
known for the stuff that's described by words better suited to greasy,
grinding industrial output.
But Americans have an impressive appetite for good stuff, too.
Tell us about your favorite U.S. foods in the comments!
Now get the rubber apron on because we’re going first. Let the food fight begin.
50. Key lime pie
More than 200 years old and still a national favorite.
If life gives you limes, don’t make limeade, make a Key lime pie. The
official state pie of Florida, this sassy tart has made herself a
worldwide reputation, which started in -- where else? -- the Florida
Keys, from whence come the tiny limes that gave the pie its name.
Aunt Sally, a cook for Florida’s first self-made millionaire, ship
salvager William Curry, gets the credit for making the first Key lime
pie in the late 1800s.
But you might also thank Florida sponge fisherman for likely
originating the concoction of key lime juice, sweetened condensed milk,
and egg yolks, which could be “cooked” (by a thickening chemical
reaction of the ingredients) at sea.
49. Tater tots
We love French fries, but for a variation on the potato theme, one
beloved at Sonic drive-ins and school cafeterias everywhere, consider
the Tater Tot.
Notice it often has the registered trademark -- these commercial hash
brown cylinders are indeed proprietary to the Ore-Ida company. If you’d
been one of the Grigg brothers who founded Ore-Ida, you’d have wanted
to come up with something to do with leftover slivers of cut-up
potatoes, too.
They added some flour and seasoning and shaped the mash into tiny
tots and put them on the market in 1956. A little more than 50 years
later, America is eating about 32 million kilos of these taters
annually.
48. San Francisco sourdough bread
Baguettes, U.S. style. Bigger, badder, sourer.
Sourdough’s as old as the pyramids and not coincidentally was eaten
in ancient Egypt. But the hands-down American favorite, and the sourest
variety, comes from San Francisco.
As much a part of NoCal culinary culture as Napa Valley wine,
sourdough bread’s been a staple since Gold Rush days. Once upon a
frontier time, miners (called “sourdoughs” for surviving on the stuff)
and settlers carried sourdough starter (more reliable than other
leavening) in pouches around their necks or on their belts.
Thank goodness that’s not the way they do it at Boudin Bakery, which
has been turning out the bread that bites back in the City by the Bay
since 1849.
47. Cobb salad
The chef’s salad originated back East, but salad innovators out west weren’t going to be outdone.
In 1937, Bob Cobb, the owner of The Brown Derby, was scrounging
around at the restaurant’s North Vine location for a meal for Sid
Grauman of Grauman’s Theater when he put together a salad with what he
found in the fridge: a head of lettuce, an avocado, some romaine,
watercress, tomatoes, some cold chicken breast, a hard-boiled egg,
chives, cheese, and some old-fashioned French dressing.
Brown Derby lore says, “He started chopping. Added some crisp bacon,
swiped from a busy chef.” The salad went onto the menu and straight into
the heart of Hollywood.
46. Pot roast
The childhood Sunday family dinner of baby boomers everywhere, pot
roast claims a sentimental favorite place in the top 10 of American
comfort foods. There’s a whole generation that would be lost without it.
Beef brisket, bottom or top round, or chuck set in a deep roasting
pan with potatoes, carrots, onions, and whatever else your mom threw in
to be infused with the meat’s simmering juices, the pot roast could be
anointed with red wine or even beer, then covered and cooked on the
stovetop or in the oven.
45. Twinkies
So good, the shelf life of 25 days has never been tested.
Hostess’ iconic “Golden Sponge Cake with Creamy Filling” has been
sugaring us up since James Dewar invented it at the Continental Baking
Company in Schiller Park, Illinois, in 1930.
The Twinkie forsook its original banana cream filling for vanilla
when bananas were scarce during World War II. As if they weren’t
ridiculously good enough already, the Texas State Fair started the fad
of deep-frying them.
Dumped in hot oil or simply torn from their packaging, Twinkies
endear with their name (inspired by a billboard advertising Twinkle Toe
Shoes), their ladyfinger shape (pierced three times to inject the
filling), and their evocations of lunchtime recess.
Note to hoarders: supposed shelf life of decades is in truth 25 days.
44. Jerky
Dehydrated meat shriveled almost beyond recognition -- an unlikely
source of so much gustatory pleasure, but jerky is a high-protein
favorite of backpackers, road trippers, and snackers everywhere.
We like the creation myth that says it’s the direct descendant of
American Indian pemmican, which mixed fire-cured meat with animal fat.
Beef, turkey, chicken, venison, buffalo, even ostrich, alligator,
yak, and emu. Peppered, barbecued, hickory-smoked, honey glazed.
Flavored with teriyaki, jalapeno, lemon pepper, chili.
Jerky is so versatile and portable and packs such nutritional power
that the Army is experimenting with jerky sticks that have the caffeine
equivalent of a cup of coffee.
However you take your jerky -- caf or decaf; in strips, chips, or
shreds -- prepare to chew long and hard. You’ve still got your own
teeth, right?
43. Fajitas
Cowboy cuisine comes good.
Take some vaqueros working on the range and the cattle slaughtered to
feed them. Throw in the throwaway cuts of meat as part of the hands’
take-home pay, and let cowboy ingenuity go to work.
Grill skirt steak (faja in Spanish) over the campfire, wrap in a
tortilla, and you’ve got the beginning of a Rio Grande region tradition.
The fajita is thought to have come off the range and into popular
culture when a certain Sonny Falcon began operating fajita taco stands
at outdoor events and rodeos in Texas beginning in 1969.
It wasn’t long before the dish was making its way onto menus in the
Lone Star State and spreading with its beloved array of condiments --
grilled onions and green pepper, pico de gallo, shredded cheese, and
sour cream -- across the country. Don’t forget the Altoids.
42. Banana split
Like the banana makes it good for you. Still, kudos to whomever invented the variation of the sundae known as the banana split.
There’s the 1904 Latrobe, Pennsylvania, story, in which future
optometrist David Strickler was experimenting with sundaes at a pharmacy
soda fountain, split a banana lengthwise, and put it in a long boat
dish.
And the 1907 Wilmington, Ohio, story, wherein restaurant owner Ernest
Hazard came up with it to draw students from a nearby college.
Fame spread after a Walgreens in Chicago made the split its signature dessert in the 1920s.
Whatever the history, you’ll find plenty food for thought at the Banana Split Festival the second weekend in June in Wilmington.
41. Cornbread
World's easiest meal?
It’s one of the pillars of Southern cooking, but cornbread is the
soul food of many a culture -- black, white, and Native American -- and
not just south of the Mason-Dixon.
Grind corn coarsely and you’ve got grits; soak kernels in alkali, and
you’ve got hominy (which we encourage you to cook up into posole).
Leaven finely ground cornmeal with baking powder, and you’ve got
cornbread.
Southern hushpuppies and corn pone, New England johnnycakes; cooked
in a skillet or in muffin tins; flavored with cheese, herbs, or
jalapeños -- cornbread in any incarnation remains the quick and easy
go-to bread that historically made it a favorite of Indian and pioneer
mothers and keeps it on tables across the country today.
40. GORP
“Good Old Raisins and Peanuts,” GORP is the energy salvation of
backpackers everywhere. Centuries before trail mix came by the bag and
the bin, it was eaten in Europe, where hiking’s practically a national
pastime.
The thing to remember here is that the stuff is rocket fuel. Add all
the granola, seeds, nuts, dried fruit, candied ginger, and M&Ms you
want. Just be sure to store in a bear-proof canister because suspending
from a branch in a nylon sack isn’t going to do it.
39. Jambalaya
Tastiest way to clean out your kitchen cupboards.
Jambalaya, crawfish pie, file gumbo … what dish could be so evocative
that it inspired Hank Williams to write a party song for it in 1952 and
dozens more to cover it (including everyone from Jo Stafford to
Credence Clearwater Revival to Emmylou Harris)?
The sweep-up-the-kitchen cousin of Spanish paella, jambalaya comes in
red (Creole, with tomatoes) and brown (Cajun, without). Made with meat,
vegetables (a trinity of celery, peppers, and onions), and rice,
Louisiana’s signature dish might be most memorable when made with shrimp
and andouille sausage.
Whatever the color and secret ingredients, you can be sure of one
thing when you sit down with friends to a big bowlful: son of a gun,
gonna have big fun on the bayou.
38. Biscuits ’n’ gravy
An irresistible Southern favorite, biscuits and gravy would be a
cliché if they weren’t so darned delicious. The biscuits are
traditionally made with butter or lard and buttermilk; the milk (or
“sawmill” or country) gravy with meat drippings and (usually) chunks of
good fresh pork sausage and black pepper.
Cheap and requiring only widely available ingredients, a meal of
biscuits and gravy was a filling way for slaves and sharecroppers to
face a hard day in the fields.
“The Southern way with gravies was born of privation. When folks are
poor, they make do. Which means folks make gravy,” says The Southern
Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook. The soul, you might say, of soul
food.
37. Smithfield ham
Orwell was right -- pigs do rule.
“Ham, history, and hospitality.” That’s the motto of Smithfield,
Virginia, the Smithfield of Smithfield Virginia ham. Notice “ham” comes
before history, which really says something considering this hamlet of
8,100 was first colonized in 1634.
Epicenter of curing and production of a head-spinning number of hogs,
Smithfield comes by the title Ham Capital of the World honestly: lots
of ham is called Virginia, but there’s only one Smithfield, as defined
by a 1926 law that says it must be processed within the city limits.
The original country style American ham was dry cured for
preservation; salty and hard, it could keep until soaked in water (to
remove the salt and reconstitute) before cooking. The deliciously
authentic cured Virginia country ham happens to have been the favorite
of that famous Virginian, Thomas Jefferson.
36. Chicken fried steak
A guilty pleasure if there ever was one, chicken fried steak was born
to go with all-American sides like mashed potatoes and black-eyed peas.
A slab of tenderized steak breaded in seasoned flour and pan fried,
it’s kin to the Weiner Schnitzel brought to Texas by Austrian and German
immigrants, who adapted their veal recipe to use the bountiful beef
found in Texas.
Lamesa, on the cattle-ranching South Texas plains, claims to be the
birthplace of the dish, but John “White Gravy” Neutzling of Lone Star
State cowboy town of Bandera insisted he invented it. Do you care, or do
you just want to ladle on that peppery white gravy and dig in?
35. Wild Alaska salmon
The slowest swimmers taste the best.
Guys risk life and limb fishing for this delish superfood.
Unlike Atlantic salmon, which is 99.8 percent farmed, Alaska salmon
is wild, which means the fish live free and eat clean -- all the better
to glaze with Dijon mustard or real maple syrup. Alaska salmon season
coincides with their return to spawning streams (it’s an amazing sense
of smell that guides them to the exact spot where they were born).
Worry not: before fishing season, state biologists ensure that plenty
of salmon have already passed upstream to lay eggs. But let’s get to
that cedar plank, the preferred method of cooking for the many Pacific
Northwest Indian tribes whose mythologies and diets include salmon.
Use red cedar (it has no preservatives), and cook slow, for that
rich, smoky flavor. Barring that, there’s always lox and bagels.
34. California roll
So much more than the gateway sushi, the California roll isn’t just
for wimps who can’t go it raw. But that’s essentially the way it got its
start in Los Angeles, where sushi chefs from Japan were trying to gain a
beachhead in the late 1960s/early 1970s.
Most credit chef Manashita Ichiro and his assistant Mashita Ichiro,
at L.A.’s Tokyo Kaikan restaurant, which had one of the country’s first
sushi bars, with creating the “inside out” roll that preempted
Americans’ aversions by putting the nori (seaweed) on the inside of the
rice and substituting avocado for toro (raw fatty tuna).
The avocado-crab-cucumber roll became a hit, and from that SoCal
beachhead, sushi conquered the country. After leading the charge for the
sushi invasion of the 1980s, the California roll now occupies grocery
stores everywhere. Wasabi anyone?
33. Meatloaf
Meatloaf -- made with the love of millions of mothers every day.
The most humble of comfort food. Who would have imagined when the
recipe for “Cannelon of Beef” showed up in Fannie Farmer’s 1918 "Boston
Cooking School Cook Book" that every mom in America would someday have
her own version?
Fannie made hers with slices of salt pork laid over the top and
served it with brown mushroom sauce. (In her day, you had to cut the
meat finely by hand; the advent of commercial grinders changed all
that.)
However your mom made it -- we’re guessing ketchup on top? -- she
probably served that oh-so-reliable meatloaf with mashed potatoes and
green beans.
And you were probably made to sit there, all night if need be, if you
didn’t eat all your beans. A better threat might have been no meatloaf
sandwich in your lunch tomorrow.
32. Grits
People who didn’t grow up eating them wonder what the heck they are.
People who did grow up eating them (and that would be just about
everyone in the South) wonder how anyone could live without them.
Grits, beloved and misunderstood -- and American down to their Native
roots. They’re the favored hot breakfast in the so-called Grits Belt,
which girdles everything from Virginia to Texas and where the dish is a
standard offering on diner menus.
Grits are nothing if not versatile: They can go plain, savory, or
sweet; pan-fried or porridge-like. Simple and cheap, grits are also
profoundly satisfying.
Which might be why Charleston’s The Post and Courier opined in 1952
that “Given enough [grits], the inhabitants of planet Earth would have
nothing to fight about. A man full of [grits] is a man of peace.” Now
don’t that just butter your grits?
31. Macaroni and cheese
Nothing crafty about this Kraft phenomenon -- just great tasting grub.
The ultimate comfort food, macaroni and cheese is also the salvation of many a mom placating a finicky toddler.
Nothing particularly American about pasta and cheese -- except for
the fact that on a European trip, Thomas Jefferson liked a certain
noodle dish so much he took notes and had it served back home at a state
dinner as “macaroni pie.”
Jefferson’s cousin Mary Randolph included a recipe for “macaroni and
cheese” in her 1824 cookbook "The Virginia Housewife." So whether you’re
eating a gourmet version by one of the countless chefs who’ve put their
own spin on it, or just digging like a desperado in the pantry for that
box of Kraft, give mac and cheese its patriotic props.
30. Maryland crabcakes
The Chesapeake Bay yields more than just the regatta-loving suntanned
class in their sock-free topsiders. It’s the home habitat of the blue
crab, which both Maryland and Virginia claim as their own.
Boardwalk style (mixed with fillers and served on a bun) or
restaurant/gourmet style; fried, broiled, or baked, crab cakes can be
made with any kind of crab, but the blue crabs of Chesapeake Bay are
preferred for both tradition and taste.
When Baltimore magazine rounded up the best places to get the city’s
signature food, editors declared simplicity the key, while lamenting the
fact that most crabmeat doesn’t even come from home turf these days.
Kind of makes you crabby, doesn’t it?
29. Potato chips
One of the world's best-selling jokes.
We have a high-maintenance resort guest to thank for America’s hands-down favorite snack.
Saratoga Springs, New York, 1853: American Indian chef George Crum is
in the kitchen at the elegant Moon Lake Lodge. A persnickety customer
sends back his French fries (then highfalutin fare eaten with a fork)
for being too thick. Crum makes a second, thinner, order.
Still too thick for the picky diner. Annoyed, Crum makes the next
batch with a little attitude, slicing the potatoes so thin, the crispy
things can’t possibly be picked up with a fork. Surprise: the wafer-thin
fried potatoes are a hit.
Traveling salesman Herman Lay sold them out of the trunk of his car
before founding Lay’s Potato Chips, the first nationally marketed brand.
Lay’s would ultimately merge in 1961 with Frito to create the snack
behemoth Frito-Lay.
28. Cioppino
San Francisco’s answer to French bouillabaisse, cioppino (cho-pea-no)
is fish stew with an Italian flair. It’s been around since the late
1800s, when Portuguese and Italian fishermen who settled the North Beach
section of the city brought their on-board catch-of-the-day stew back
to land and area restaurants picked up on it.
Cooked in a tomato base with wine and spices and chopped fish
(whatever was plentiful, but almost always crab), cioppino probably
takes its name from the classic fish stew of Italy’s Liguria region,
where many Gold Rush era fishermen came from.
Get a memorable bowl at Sotto Mare in North Beach, Scoma’s on
Fisherman’s Wharf, and Anchor Oyster Bar in the Castro District. Don’t
feel bad about going with the “lazy man’s” cioppino -- it only means
you’re not going to spend half the meal cracking shellfish.
27. Fortune cookies
One thing the Chinese did not actually invent.
Culinary snobs like to look down their holier-than-thou chopsticks at
ABC (American-born Chinese) food, but we're not afraid to stand up for
the honor of such North American favorites as General Tso's chicken,
Mongolian beef, broccoli beef, lemon chicken, deep-fried spring rolls
and that nuclear orange sauce that covers sweet-and-sour anything.
As the seminal symbol of all great American-born Chinese grub,
however, we salute the mighty fortune cookie. Almost certainly invented
in California in the early 1900s (origin stories vary between San
Francisco, Los Angeles and even Japan), the buttery sweet crescents are
now found in Chinese joints around the world ... with the notable exception of China.
That's OK -- the crunchy biscuits are still our favorite way to close out any Chinese meal.
26. Peanut butter sandwich
If it's good enough for the King ...
Creamy or chunky? To each his own, but everybody -- except those
afflicted with the dreaded and dangerous peanut allergy and the moms who
worry sick about them -- loves a good peanut butter sandwich.
First served to clients at Dr. John Harvey Kellogg’s sanatorium in
Battle Creek, Michigan, peanut paste was improved upon when chemist
Joseph Rosefield added hydrogenated vegetable oil and called his spread
Skippy.
That was 1922; not quite 100 years later, peanut butter is an
American mainstay, often paired with jelly for that lunchbox workhorse
the PB&J. For a rocking alternative, try peanut butter sandwiches
the way Elvis Presley liked them: with ripe mashed bananas, grilled in
butter.
25. Baked beans
It’s not a cookout, potluck, or the end of a long day in the saddle
without a bubbling pot full of them. Just ask the Pioneer Woman, who
waxes rhapsodic about the baked-bean recipe on her site (not a version
with little weenies, but how fun are they?).
Yummy and plenty historical. Long before Bostonians were baking their
navy beans for hours in molasses -- and earning the nickname Beantown
in the process -- New England Indians were mixing beans with maple syrup
and bear fat and putting them in a hole in the ground for slow cooking.
Favored on the frontier for being cheap and portable, chuck wagon, or
cowboy, beans will forever live hilariously in popular culture as the
catalyst behind the "Blazing Saddles" campfire scene, which you can
review in unabashed immaturity on YouTube.
24. Popcorn
Movie theaters have a lot to be thankful for.
As the imperative on the Orville Redenbacher site urges: “All hail
the super snack.” The bow-tied entrepreneur pitched his popcorn tent in
Valparaiso, Indiana, which celebrates its heritage at the Valparaiso
Popcorn Festival the first Saturday after Labor Day.
It’s just one of several Midwestern corn belt towns that vie for the
title of Popcorn Capital of the World, but centuries before Orville’s
obsession aromatically inflated in microwaves or Jiffy Pop magically
expanded on stovetops, Native Americans in New Mexico discovered corn
could be popped — way back in 3600 B.C.
According to www.popcorn.org, Americans currently consume about 15 billion liters a year; that’s 48 liters per man, woman, and child.
23. Fried chicken and waffles
Scottish immigrants brought the deep-fry method across the pond, and
it was good old Colonel Saunders who really locked in on the commercial
potential in 1930 when he started pressure-frying chicken breaded in his
secret spices at his service station in Corbin, Kentucky, paving the
way for Kentucky Fried and all the other fried chickens to come.
Nuggets, fingers, popcorn, bites, patties -- one of our all-time
favorite ways to eat fried chicken is with waffles. And one of our
favorite places to eat it is at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles.
Immortalized in "Pulp Fiction" and "Swingers," the L.A. institution
got the soul-food seal of approval when Obama himself related to Jay
Leno on "The Tonight Show" that he’d popped in for some wings and
waffles and downed them in the presidential limo.
22. New England clam chowder
Creamy, oniony, clammy ... more please.
Gone are the days when Catholics religiously abstained from eating
meat on Fridays, but you’ll still find clam chowder traditionally served
in some East Coast locales -- not that it reminds anyone of penance
these days.
There are time-honored versions of chowder from Maine to Florida, but
the most famous and favorite has to be New England style: creamy white
with potatoes and onions.
There’s Manhattan: clear with tomatoes. And there’s even Minorcan
(from around St. Augustine, Florida): spicy with hot datil pepper. The
variations on East Coast clam chowder are deliciously numerous.
Even the West Coast has a version (with salmon instead of pork). With
your fistful of oyster crackers ready to dump in, you might stop to
wonder: What were the Pilgrims thinking when they fed clams to their
hogs?
21. New Mexican flat enchiladas
It was the pre-Columbian Maya who invented tortillas, and apparently
the Aztecs who started wrapping them around bits of fish and meat. You
have only to go to any Mexican or Tex-Mex place to see what those
ancients wrought when someone dipped tortillas “en chile” (hence, the
name).
“Flat” (the stacked New Mexico style) or rolled, smothered in red
chili sauce or green (or both, for “Christmas” style), enchiladas are
the source of much cultural pride in the Land of Enchantment; they’re
particularly enchanting made with the state’s famed blue-corn tortillas
-- fried egg on top optional.
Have a giant flat red one in Las Cruces, New Mexico, the last weekend
in September at the Whole Enchilada Fiesta, where the main event is the
making and partaking of the world’s biggest enchilada.
20. S’mores
S'mores on frozen hot chocolate.
Proust’s madeleines? We’ll go you one better on remembrance of things
past: s’mores. Gooey, melty, warm, and sweet -- nothing nostalgically
evokes family vacations and carefree camping under the stars quite like
’em.
Whether they were first to roast marshmallows and squish them between
graham crackers with a bar of chocolate no one seems to know, but the
Girl Scouts were the first to get the recipe down in the 1927 "Tramping
and Trailing with the Girl Scouts," transforming many a standard-issue
campfire into a quintessential experience.
Celebrate sweetly on August 10: It’s National S’mores Day. Get those marshmallow sticks sharpened.
19. Lobster rolls
Boiled or steamed alive -- animal cruelty some insist -- lobsters
practically define a great Down East occasion. And maybe nowhere more so
than in Maine, which provides 80 percent of the clawed creatures, and
where lobster shacks and lobster bakes are culinary institutions.
Melted butter on knuckle, claw, or tail meat -- we love it simple.
But the perfect accompaniment to a salty sea air day in Vacationland
would have to be the lobster roll. Chunks of sweet lobster meat lightly
dressed with mayo or lemon or both, heaped in a buttered hot dog bun
makes for some seriously satisfying finger food.
Fabulous finger-licking lobster time in Maine is during shack season,
May to October, and every August, when Rockland puts on its annual
lobster festival. Suggested soundtrack for a weekend of shacking: B-52s’
“Rock Lobster.”
18. Buffalo wings
Nothing to do with buffaloes, everything to do with delicious.
Long before Troy Aikman became pitchman for Wingstop, folks in
Buffalo, New York, were enjoying the hot and spicy wings that most agree
came into being by the hands of Teressa Bellissimo, who owned the
Anchor Bar and first tossed chicken wings in cayenne pepper hot sauce
and butter in 1964.
According to Calvin Trillin, hot wings might have originated with
John Young, and his “mambo sauce” -- also in Buffalo. Either way, they
came from Buffalo, which, by the way, doesn’t call them Buffalo wings.
If you think your kitchen table or couch-in-front-of-football
represents the extreme in wing eating, think again: Every Labor Day
weekend, Buffalo celebrates its great contribution to the nation’s pub
grub with the Buffalo Chicken Wing Festival.
At the 2011 event, 85,000 people snarfed 37 tons of the things.
17. Indian frybread
If you’ve had it at Indian Market in Santa Fe or to a powwow or
pueblo anywhere in the country, you’re probably salivating at the very
thought. Who would think that a flat chunk of leavened dough fried or
deep-fried could be so addictive?
Tradition says it was the Navajo who created frybread with the flour,
sugar, salt, and lard given to them by the government when they were
relocated from Arizona to Bosque Redondo, New Mexico, 150 years ago.
Frybread’s a calorie bomb all right, but drizzled with honey or
topped with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, cheese, and lettuce for an
Indian taco or all by its lonesome, it’s an American Indian staple not
to be missed.
16. Barbecue ribs
President Lyndon Johnson eats ribs the Texas way at a 1964 election victory barbecue party.
Pork or beef, slathered or smoked -- we’re not about to wade into
which is more embraced, what’s more authentic, or even what needs more
napkins. There are cook-offs all over the country for your own judging
pleasure.
But we will admit we’re partial to pork ribs. The Rib ’Cue Capital?
We’re not going to touch that one with a three-meter tong, either. We’ll
just follow signs of grinning pigs in the South, where the tradition of
gathering for barbecues dates to before the Civil War and serious
attention to the finer points of pork earn the region the title of the
Barbecue Belt.
Outside of the belt, Texas smokes its way to a claim as a barbecue
(beef) epicenter -- check out the ’cue-rich town of Lockhart. And let’s
not forget Kansas City, where the sauce is the thing. But why debate it
when you can just eat it?
15. BLT
How many sandwiches get to go by their initials? When tomatoes come
into season, there’s hardly a better way to celebrate the bounty than
with a juicy bacon, lettuce, and tomato. Food guru John Mariani says the
BLT is the no. 2 favorite sandwich in the United States (after ham),
and it’s no. 1 in the United Kingdom.
Bread can be toasted or un, bacon crispy or limp, lettuce iceberg or
other (but iceberg is preferred for imparting crunch and no interfering
flavor), and mayo good quality or just forget about it.
Provenance of the BLT isn’t clear, but a remarkably similar club
sandwich showed up in the 1903 Good Housekeeping Everyday Cook Book.
Even if the sodium level gives the health-minded pause, the BLT tastes
like summer -- and who can resist that?
14. Apple pie
When a pornographic scene in a delinquent movie does nothing to affect its popularity, you know a food is great.
According to a pie chart (seriously) from the American Pie Council,
apple really is our national favorite -- followed by pumpkin, chocolate,
lemon meringue and cherry.
Not to burst the patriotic bubble, but it’s not American in its
origins. Food critic John Mariani dates the appearance of apple pies in
the United States to 1780, long after they were popular in England.
Apples aren’t even native to the continent; the Pilgrims brought seeds.
So what’s the deal with the star-spangled association? The pie
council’s John Lehndorff explains: “When you say that something is ‘as
American as apple pie,’ what you're really saying is that the item came
to this country from elsewhere and was transformed into a distinctly
American experience.”
And you’re saying Americans know something good enough to be an icon
when we eat it, with or without the cheddar cheese or vanilla ice cream
on top.
13. Frito pie
Even the most modest chili has legions of fans. Consider Kit Carson,
whose dying regret was that he didn’t have time for one more bowl. Or
the mysterious “La Dama de Azul,” a Spanish nun named Sister Mary of
Agreda, who reportedly never left her convent in Spain but came back
from one of her astral projections preaching Christianity to Indians in
the New World with their recipe for venison chili.
Less apocryphally, “chili queens” in 1880s San Antonio, Texas, sold
their spicy stew from stands, and the “San Antonio Chili Stand” at the
1893 Chicago world's fair secured chili’s nationwide fame.
We really love the American ingenuity that added corn chips and
cheddar cheese to make Frito pie, a kitschy delight you can order served
in the bag at the Five & Dime on the Santa Fe Plaza, the same
physical location of the original Woolworth’s lunch counter that came up
with it.
12. Po’ boy
Amazing Po’ boy sausages.
The muffaletta might be the signature sandwich of Crescent City, but the po’ boy is the “shotgun house of New Orleans cuisine.”
The traditional Louisiana sub is said to have originated in 1929,
when Bennie and Clovis Martin -- both of whom had been streetcar
conductors and union members before opening the coffee shop that legend
says became the birthplace of the po’ boy -- supported striking
streetcar motormen and conductors with food.
"We fed those men free of charge until the strike ended,” Bennie was
quoted. “Whenever we saw one of the striking men coming, one of us would
say, ‘Here comes another poor boy.’”
Enjoy the beloved everyman sandwich in its seemingly infinite variety
(the traditional fried oyster and shrimp can’t be beat) and fight the
encroachment of chain sub shops at the annual Oak Street Po-Boy Festival
in November. www.poboyfest.com
11. Green chili stew
Have pork and green chiles ever spent such delicious time together?
Green chile stew has been called the queen of the New Mexican winter
table, but we don’t need a cold winter day to eat this fragrant
favorite.
We like it anytime -- so long as the Hatch chiles are roasted fresh. Order them from Hatch Chile Express in Hatch, New Mexico, the Chile Capital of the World; they come already roasted, peeled, deseeded, chopped, and frozen.
Better yet, make the trip to green chile stew country and order up a
bowl. Whether you eat it in New Mexico at a table near a kiva fireplace
or at your own kitchen table, the aroma and taste are to die for, and
the comfort level remarkable on the resurrection scale.
10. Chocolate-chip cookies
Chew-crunchy, yummy perfection.
Today the name most associated with the killer cookie might be Mrs.
Fields, but we actually have Ruth Wakefield, who owned the Toll House
Inn, a popular spot for home cooking in 1930s Whitman, Massachusetts, to
thank for all spoon-licking love shared through chocolate chip cookies.
Was Mrs. Wakefield making her Butter Drop Do cookies when, lacking
baker’s chocolate, she substituted a cut-up Nestle’s semisweet chocolate
bar? Or did the vibrations of a Hobart mixer knock some chocolate bars
off a shelf and into her sugar-cookie dough?
However chocolate chips ended up in the batter, a new cookie was
born. Andrew Nestle reputedly got the recipe from her -- it remains on
the package to this day -- and Wakefield got a lifetime supply of
chocolate chips. Can you feel the serotonin and endorphins releasing?
9. Blueberry cobbler
Also charmingly called slump, grunt, and buckle, cobbler got its
start with early oven-less colonists who came up with the
no-crust-on-the-bottom fruit dish that could cook in a pan or pot over a
fire.
They might have been lofting a mocking revolutionary middle finger at
the mother country by making a sloppy American version of the refined
British steamed fruit and dough pudding. Cobblers become doubly American
when made with blueberries, which are native to North America (Maine
practically has a monopoly on them).
We love blueberries for how they sex up practically any crust, dough,
or batter, maybe most of all in cobblers and that other all-American
favorite, the blueberry muffin.
8. Delmonico’s steak
If cows weren't meant to be grilled, why did God make them sizzle so deliciously?
There are steakhouses all over the country but perhaps none so
storied -- with a universally acclaimed steak named for it no less -- as
the original Delmonico’s in New York.
The first diner called by the French name restaurant, Delmonico’s
opened in 1837 with unheard-of things like printed menus, tablecloths,
private dining rooms, and lunch and dinner offerings. Among other
firsts, the restaurant served the “Delmonico Steak.” Whatever the
excellent cut (the current restaurant uses boneless rib eye), the term
Delmonico’s Steak has come to mean the best.
Lightly seasoned with salt, basted with melted butter, and grilled
over a live fire, it’s traditionally served with a thin clear gravy and
Delmonico’s potatoes, made with cream, white pepper, Parmesan cheese,
and nutmeg -- a rumored favorite of Abraham Lincoln’s.
7. Chicago-style pizza
Naples gave us the first pizza, but the City of Big Shoulders (and
even bigger pizzas) gave us the deep dish. The legend goes that in 1943,
a visionary named Ike Sewell opened Uno’s Pizzeria in Chicago with the
idea that if you made it hearty enough, pizza, which up till then had
been considered a snack, could be eaten as a meal.
Whether he or his original chef Rudy Malnati originated it, one of
those patron saints of pizza made it deep and piled it high, filling a
tall buttery crust with lots of meat, cheese, tomato chunks, and
authentic Italian spices.
Thin-crust pizza made in a brick oven has its place, but if you lust for crust, nothing satisfies quite like Chicago-style.
6. Nachos
For snacking perfection, just add salsa and guacamole.
The bane of diets and the boon of happy hours -- could there be a
more perfect calorie-dense accompaniment to a pitcher of margaritas?
Less rhetorically: why does Piedras Negras, Mexico, just over the
border from Eagle Pass, Texas, host The International Nacho Festival and
the Biggest Nacho in the World Contest every October?
Because it was there that Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya invented nachos when a
gaggle of shopping wives of American soldiers stationed at Fort Duncan
arrived at the Victory Club restaurant after closing time.
Maitre d’ Ignacio improvised something for the gals with what he had
on hand, christening his melty creation nachos especiales. From thence
they have gone forth across the border, the continent and the world.
5. Philly cheese steak
It’s a sandwich so greasy and hallowed in its hometown that the
posture you must adopt to eat it without ruining your clothes has a
name: “the Philadelphia Lean.”
Made of “frizzled beef,” chopped while being grilled in grease, the
Philly cheese steak sandwich gets the rest of its greasy goodness from
onions and cheese (American, provolone, or Cheese Whiz), all of which is
laid into a long locally made Amoroso bun.
Pat and Harry Olivieri get the credit for making the first cheese
steaks (originally with pizza sauce -- cheese apparently came later,
courtesy of one of Pat’s cooks) and selling them from their hot dog
stand in south Philly.
Pat later opened Pat’s King of Steaks, which still operates today and
vies with rival Geno’s Steaks for the title of best cheese steak in
town.
4. Hot dogs
Designed so perfectly for the human mouth, it's rude to decline.
Nothing complements a baseball game or summer cookout quite like a
hot dog. For that we owe a debt to a similar sausage from Frankfurt,
Germany (hence, “frankfurter” and “frank”) and German immigrant Charles
Feltman, who is often credited with inventing the hot dog by using buns
to save on plates.
But it was Polish immigrant Nathan Handwerker’s hot dog stand on
Coney Island that turned the hot dog into an icon. Every Fourth of July
since 1916, the very same Nathan’s has put on the International Hot Dog
Eating Contest (current five-time winner Joey Chestnut took the title in
2011, downing 62 hot dogs and buns in the 10-minute face-stuffing).
Meanwhile in Windy City, the steamed or water-simmered all-beef
Chicago dog (Vienna Beef, please) is still being “dragged through the
garden” and served on a poppy seed bun -- absolutely without ketchup.
3. Reuben sandwich
Who knew sauerkraut could be so sexy? Was it the late-night
inspiration of grocer Reuben Kulakofsky, who improvised the eponymous
sandwich in 1925 to feed poker players at Omaha’s Blackstone Hotel? Or
perhaps the brainchild of Arnold Rueben, the German owner of New York’s
now-defunct Reuben’s Delicatessen, who came up with it in 1914?
The answer might be important for dictionary etymologies, but the
better part of the secret to the Reuben is not who it’s named after but
what it’s dressed with. Aficionados agree: no store-bought Russian or
Thousand Island -- the sauce needs to be homemade.
And you’ll want thick hand-sliced rye or pumpernickel, and good
pastrami or corned beef. Don’t have a serious deli near you? Go to www.foodnetwork.com
and try the recipe from Ann Arbor, Michigan’s famed Zingerman’s deli --
proof you don’t have to be named Reuben to do this classic right.
2. Cheeseburger
Lunch counter, traditional, gourmet, sliders, Kobe. White Castle,
Whataburger, Burger King, In-N-Out, McDonald’s, Steak N’ Shake, Five
Guys, The Heart Attack Grill. It’s hard to believe, but it all began
with a simple mistake.
Or so say the folks in Pasadena, California, who claims the classic
cheeseburger was born there in the late 1920s when a young chef at The
Rite Spot accidentally burned a burger and slapped on some cheese to
cover his blunder.
Our favorite rendition might be the way they do cheeseburgers in New
Mexico: with green chilis, natch. Follow the Green Chile Cheeseburger
Trail at www.newmexico.org (don’t miss them at Bobcat Bite and Bert’s Burger Bowl in Santa Fe).
1. Thanksgiving dinner
Home is wherever there's a turkey like this.
No fancy centerpieces or long-simmering family squabbles at that
first Thanksgiving when the Pilgrims decided not to fast but to party
with the Wampanoag Indians in 1621 Plymouth.
Today we eschew the venison they most certainly ate, and we cram their three days of feasting into one gluttonous gorge.
Indigestion notwithstanding, nothing tastes so good as that
quintessential all-American meal of turkey (roasted or deep-fried bird,
or tofurkey, or that weirdly popular Louisiana contribution turducken),
dressing (old loaf bread or cornbread, onion and celery, sausage, fruit,
chestnuts, oysters -- whatever your mom did, the sage was the thing),
cranberry sauce, mashed and sweet potatoes, that funky green bean
casserole with the French-fried onion rings on top, and pumpkin pie.
Almost as iconic (and if you ask most kids, as delicious) is the
turkey TV dinner, the 1953 brainchild of a Swanson salesman looking to
use up 260 overestimated tons of frozen birds. No joke: He got the idea,
he said, from tidily packaged airplane food. We do love those
leftovers.
Tell us about your favorite U.S. foods in the comments!
Last time we talked about EDUCATIONAL podcasts. Today we will go right into the COMEDY genre.
4. This last show is quite weird. But if you like to celebrate the New Year, EVERY WEEK, this podcast is for you! Happy New Year Everyday! 最後は。。。 もしも毎週末が新年のお祝いのふりしたければ、このポッドキャストへ！ききやすいし、本とに〝何だこれっ！” になる！Check it out!
