The Top 10 Foods Only America Could Have Invented
Photo: Emdot
When it comes to food, America gets a bad rap. It’s a common refrain that America has no cuisine to call our own. We’ve got apple pie and hot dogs, but that’s about it. (And when you really get down to it, the Germans invented hot dogs, and the British were eating apple pie like 1,000 years ago.
But the truth is, America does have a cuisine to call it’s own. Over the past 232 years we’ve invented some of the most creative, daring, and yes, downright craziest dishes the world has ever seen. Sure, they can be overly greasy, a little too cheesy, and sometimes fried a few times too many. But they’re ours. So to celebrate Independence Day, we’ve put together this list of the best foods that only a country with just the right combination of greed, grit, and gluttony could have possibly dreamed up.
The Top Ten Foods Only America Could Have Invented:
10. Corn Dog
Photo: Intangible Arts
In 1942, at a beautiful place called the Texas State Fair, an industrious young man named Neil Fletcher came up with a way to make his hot dogs sell quicker: dip them in corn meal, deep fry ‘em, and pop ‘em on a stick. And so an American tradition was born. Every year, as the weather turns warmer and state fair season comes around, Americans say to themselves: what can we deep fry next? We’ve deep fried twinkies, oreos, hamburgers, even coca-cola. But all of these wondrous achievements owe a debt to the original food that really didn’t need to be battered and fried but just had to be: the corn dog.
9. Philly Cheesesteak
Photo: x-eyedblonde
Only Philadelphia, the most American of all cities, could invent an iconic sandwich and then vehemently insist that there shall be no attempts to make it good. Crappiest ingredients only, please. Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell explained problems non PA-ers have when trying to make cheesesteaks: “First, they use good meat. You need the fattiest, stringiest meat to get a proper taste.” The second mistake, of course, is that you’ve got to use Cheese Whiz; no real cheese allowed. Rendell insists this is became “real cheese doesn’t melt,” which is of course a lie. But never matter. The Philly Cheesesteak is delicious. Would it be more delicious if it were made with thinly slice Kobe steak and melted Gruyere? Of course it would be. But it wouldn’t be as amazing.
8. “Chinese Food”
Photo: VirtualEm
One of the great things about American cuisine is that when we come up with something so outrageous that even we can’t stand behind it, we figure out a way to pin it on someone else. Case in point: “Chinese Food.” All across America, Chinese buffets offer endless arrays of beautiful, deep-fried, grease-soaked food. General Tso’s chicken, chop suey, egg rolls, chow mein, fortune cookies. What do all these dishes have in common? They were all invented in America. Seriously people, do you really think Chinese people eat this crap? No. They eat rice. With vegetables and maybe a little meat. And it’s not battered or fried, or double fried, or double battered, and it’s certainly not filled with cheese. I mean, crab rangoon? Come on, that stuff has imitation crab meat and cream cheese. It could only have been invented in one place, and I think you know where that is.
7. S’mores
Photo: Phil Hawksworth
It’s difficult to say exactly how s’mores became so popular throughout America. Graham crackers are not particularly well-liked, and neither are marshmallows. We generally do not enjoy eating things that were cooked on a stick our little brother just found in the dirt, nor do we usually like to burn our food to a crisp before dinnertime. Yet somehow, s’mores just work. Despite their cutesy contraction of a name, and the fact that we have to actually cook and assemble them ourselves, rather than order them from a fast food window, I’ve yet to meet a person who does not love s’mores. Except for foreigners, who will look at you like you are the craziest person ever if you try to explain what a s’more is.
6. Reuben Sandwich
Photo: kimberlykv
This fully-loaded sandwich may seem like an international delicacy, but the reuben is as American as it gets. Start with pastrami–a meat so infused with spices that it has more flavor in a single bite than most full meals. Pile this sky-high, preferably using at least a pound of meat per sandwich. Add on some “swiss” cheese–a bland, hole-y cheese that no actual Swiss person would ever touch. Top it off with “Russian dressing,” a beautiful orange mayonnaise concoction that–you guessed it–hasn’t a thing to do with Russia.
5. Cobb Salad
Photo: Richard Moross
The responsibility of eating all this greasy, fatty food can be weighty. Sometimes so much so that Americans have been known to say “I think I’ll just have a salad today.” Of course, when we say salad, we don’t mean it in the same greens-and-tomatoes topped with balsamic way that the Euros do. No, when we make a salad, we pile it so high with meat, cheese and carbs that it passes the caloric intake of the cheeseburger we were so proud of ourselves for passing up. The ultimate example: the cobb salad. Bacon, chicken, eggs, cheese, and really whatever else you can find in your fridge, ideally piled so high that the eater can see no shred of lettuce at all.
4. Baked Alaska
Photo: Angusf
We Americans are complex people. When we face serious decisions like “What would you like for dessert, dear? Ice cream or pie?” we don’t merely sit back and say, “How about you put a scoop of ice cream on top of that pie?” No, no. We take the entire box of ice cream, and figure out a way to bake it inside the damn pie. How does it work? Damned if I know. But I do know this: you can throw rum on top of it and light it on fire – now that’s a meal.
3. Buffalo Wings
Photo: rick
So yeah, chicken is fine. I mean, it can taste OK sometimes, but really it’s kind of a bland protein. Why can’t you be more like pork, chicken? Wait a minute. What if we fry it at 600 degrees to a burnt little crisp, until it’s barely recognizable as meat, then smother it in XXX hot sauce and serve it with a heaping bowl of gooey cheese product? That’s more like it, chicken! Bonus points: the use of vegetables—solely as a palette cleanser between bites of meat.
2.Turducken
Photo: The CJM
Such a brilliant-but-simple innovation, it’s hard to believe that 5,000 years of civilization couldn’t create it without us. Take one turkey, shove a duck inside it, and then shove a chicken inside that. From there you’re on you’re own, although it’ s most preferably enjoyed with sausage stuffing in the very middle, deep-fried, and wrapped in bacon if possible. Bonus points if you can figure out a way to enjoy some form of melted cheese product with this monstrosity. Some people have pushed to have the turducken become the traditional Thanksgiving feast, while others have begun to enjoy it on Christmas. But this invention is so uniquely American that there is no better day to enjoy one than the Fourth of July.
1.Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream
Photo: WayTru
When Ruth Graves Wakefield of Whitman, Massachusetts first chopped up a semisweet chocolate bar and added it to her buttery cookie recipe in 1937, she invented a treat that likely would have made this list on its own merits. But it was to be significantly improved. As the decades went on and millions of Americans attempted to recreate Ruth’s recipe, they came to a shocking realization: they were way too lazy to actually bake the cookies. On the flip side, they realized that eating the cookie dough straight from the bowl was actually even tastier than waiting for the final cookie, despite the salmonella risks. Searching for a way to eat this delicious snack without having mom yell at you to get your hands out of the mixing bowl, America put our collective heads together for one epic conclusion: chop it up and put it in ice cream. Now that’s cooking.
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A good article, but I must interject that they are not “Buffalo” wings. They are called chicken wings, and they were first made in Buffalo, NY. We don’t have much to be proud of, so we’ll defend that to the end of time.
We get it. You hate America. But try and get your facts straight before you go on a moronic rant.
And you wonder why most americans can’t see their own feet….
who deep fried coca cola? what was the dish?
“The Philly Cheesesteak is delicious. Would it be more delicious if it were made with thinly slice Kobe steak and melted Gruyere? Of course it would be. But it wouldn’t be as amazing.”
Than it wouldn’t be a Philly Cheesestake…It would be a Kobe steak and melted Gruyere, on a baguette, with a side of douche bag.
They are totally buffalo wings.
Also, I like “American Food” but It really is bad for people! Especially in huge portions. Americans do need to get more healthy and eat better food, but its okay to have unhealthy food- just in very rarely, and if someone wants to be unhealthy, that is up to them… I won’t judge.
What the Author has failed to mention is that almost all the items listed have some europ. heritage. Most of the fattiest foods actually derive from old slave recipes. They were only given the poorest cuts of meats and the meager of spices and flavorings. But as Americans, we just take things too damn far.
To Kris R.
Some people have to be over weight and unhealthy and die at a young age. I am not being cruel and sadistic in the next point, but absolutely realistic.
The whole economy and infrastructure of the world is based on death. Would you want to get a low paying job that there is no chance of promotion for 200 years, because nobody dies for 5 or 6 hundred years? Of course not. Thomas Jefferson wrote something to the effect that slavery will never be fully dissolved without death of the for bearers. It took until almost all the “Slave Owner Minded” peoples (Old Slave Owners and Their direct Kin) to die off before Equal Rights became a full reality in the United States. So let them eat Turducken and baked Alaska chased down with a heaping bowl of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice cream so some one else can move up the corp. ladder.
So now i find that I sort of have to defend the culinary virtues of my country.
Asians do not eat any better off health wise than we do. I give you a good example. Freakin’ poisonous Puffer Fish. Come on. How is that anymore healthy for you than a Big Mac. At least with a Big mac, you have a fighting chance. Sure, it’ll kill you, but not until your at least done with desert.
Now, if you still want to believe that the Asian People of the world shy away from our customary deep fried origins, then check out this tid-bit of a web site.
http://www.lastappetite.com/french-fry-coated-hotdog/.
then scroll down a few frames and check out the vendors wares. So much for chop suey being bad for you. I doubt that she fried all those gastronomical nightmares in some ancient Chinese secret oils.
Let those without cholesterol cast the first cardiac arrest.
I know that we’re all lard asses, but I think we need to look at the stuff they’re making in the other fatty nations. Someone needs to set up an international gastronomic nightmares page (or at least one I’ll Stumble on in the next five seconds). Although, there’s always “This Is Why You’re Fat”. . .
I’m not actually from America…I’m from Ireland and I was doing a project with my friend on America’s food so I went online to try and find something, and then, naturally, I looked at the comments. I expected to see people putting up stuff like, LOL and ROFL and stuff..but mostly it was just sour remarks. WHAT IS WRONG WITH U PEOPLE! DON’T YOU SEE THE FUNNY SIDE OF THIS WHOLE THING!? I was seriosuly laughing my head of at the food descriptions. The one about the insane Turducken seriosuly cracked me up! XD
i thought some of it was amusing, and I’m from the u.s.
it wasn’t clever enough to be quite lol funny to me though. On the flip side I was not offended either, especially since the author is American. People will always make fun of other countries, but we should really take a second to get on the right side here. Stupid fat Americans (with more scientists than any country in the world I might add), Canadians with their hockey and kraft dinner, and Europeans with there bad teeth should all be comrades. There are way worse people out there that need made fun of, you know, the ones that habitually kill members of all these areas.
YUM!
So… How can CHINESE food be “American” food??? It originates in CHINA and I can tell you that every Chinese restaurant I have been to, that has people so Chinese I can barely understand what they say when you order anything, and I see them eat that food. Not everyone in America eats a Turducken, you can only get them in certain places unless you make it yourself. Who the hell actually makes s’mores on a regular basis??? NO ONE. They are made when you are having a campfire and it’s cold outside… AND that’s the only Cobb Salad I have ever seen in my life that doesn’t have any lettuce under it. I could make a better list of awesome American food, in my sleep.
yum!!!!!!!
The food is all delicious!!!!!
Ha, this is great! I don’t care what the other reviewers have to say, I think this is hilarious and fits a lot of the ridiculous American-made foods to a T!
american food is the best tasting by far. it may be the unhealthiest but for most people, taste is more important anyway. my father lived on steaks, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, coffee, ice cream, sodas and some beer and he lived until the ripe old age of 92 without a wheel chair and with a smile on his face. I have also seen people who eat very healthy and exercise who died young due to health issues. live a good decent life, eat moderately and have fun, and your chances for a long life are improved.
People love to make fun of American food but they sure are gobbling it up around the globe. We have some of the best foods around and have invented lots of great dishes here. You can eat smores, turkunken, twinkies, doritos, baked alaska, etc. if you want but you can also eat grass-fed bison burgers, home-made mashed potatoes, sauteed organic vegetables and ice-cream too. That’s also American food.
Katy: I believe you missed the point about the Chinese food being invented here in the United States.
The author is correct when he says that the Chinese food you’ll find in American Chinese restaurants has very little to do with actual Chinese cuisine. There is a great book about the subject called, ‘Chop Suey: A cultural history of Chinese Food in the United States’ which details exactly how and why Chinese immigrants to this country changed their rich and diverse cuisine to suit their ‘American’ neighbours’ tastes. Also, while you may see some Chinese workers eating the buffet food from time to time, more often than not you are not seeing the real Chinese food they are cooking for themselves after the restaurant has shut down. I would encourage you to make a few friends at one of the better Chinese restaurants and ask them if you could try some ‘authentic’ Chinese food. Depending on where you live, and how long the local Chinese have been there…you could be in for a real treat!
I am not saying that all Chinese food is healthy, but as a rule, it is healthier than most American food. One of the saddest things I have witnessed traveling in Asia is how quickly American franchises such as McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken are popping up everywhere, and how quickly Asian children are growing fatter and less healthy as they gobble up all of that deep fried goodness.
Anyway, great article.
I remember when Chinese food was named the unhealthiest food of all because of the copious use of MSG and other flavor enhancers and all the deep frying. It was a Japanese professor who identified this fifth flavor resulting from all the flavor enhancers used in Asian cuisine. They are still widely used in Asia where it was invented and introduced to Americans by the Chinese. I remember when a study came out about it and it explained why I would often get headaches and bad dreams after eating at a Chinese restaurant. That was a kind of running joke too. Now Chinese restaurants go out of their way to advertise no MSG and some try to use less oil for frying to cater to those trying to avoid all the excess oil and flavor enhancers. Most Americans can handle small amounts of it but not the large quantities that are often used. Considering China has the highest incidence of stomach cancer in the world I wouldn’t assume that it’s healthy one way or the other.
Baked Alaska was invented at Delmonico’s Restaurant – opened by Swiss immigrants – in New York City in the 1870s.
Why do Americans wonder why they are fat? That Turducken? How fucking greedy are these people? FUCK!
It’s obvious you didn’t read any of the previous posts and chose instead to degrade an entire country based on one dish that less than 1 percent of the population eat. By the way, many countries have fat people and more greed than Americans who are the most generous people on Earth. What a racist and hateful remark. If you think so poorly of America feel free to either leave or stay out. No haters wanted here.
I had a teacher from Kenya who told me that the tribes there lived on cow’s blood mixed with milk. I’ll take a reuben thank you very much.
The Turduken is actually a take on a tudor British dish:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-502605/It-serves-125-takes-hours-cook-stuffed-12-different-birds—really-IS-Christmas-dinner.html
the rest looks like a heap of shit.
Sorry but a heap of shit is watching snakes being cut open while they are still alive and eating their beating hearts or stabbing a lobster in the balls and drinking the juice that comes out of them or eating monkey brains while they are still alive. Now that’s what I call shitty food. Eating a smore or a corn dog is sounding better and better all the time.
you guys need to stop hating on americans (not all of you) im sure if other countrys had alot of money and the same food as us they wuld be fat to…
Someone needs to set this poster straight.
America is actually number 11 on the list of the worlds fattest nations.
This is Directly from the UN web site.
Not from some reporter who wants to bash America but from the UN who keeps statistics on this type of thing NOT used for the purpose of Nation Bashing.
Australia is the world’s fattest nation, with 36.2 percent of adults being obese.
Here are the Top 15 fattest nations according to Actual Data from the UN Web site.
Not from some nation Hating Reporter who has an Agenda.
Australia 36.2 percent
Nauru 35.7 percent
Federated States of Micronesia 35.1 percent
Cook Islands 34.9 percent
Kiribati 34.5 percent
Germany 34.5 percent
Egypt, 34.1 percent
Bosnia-Herzegovina, 33.9 percent
United Kingdom, 33.2 percent
Israel, 31.9 percent
U.S.A 31.7 percent
Croatia 31.4 percent
New Zealand 31.0 percent
Cook Islands 29.9 percent
Argentina 29.4 percent