The Top 10 Foods Only America Could Have Invented
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.
Back to #10 – 6 Foods Only America Could Have Invented
Read More:
Top Ten Drinks Only America Could Have Invented
America’s Top Ten Drunk College Foods
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Interesting piece.
There are two things I would like to point out:
1. To all the Americans that keep claiming this is “America-bashing”: Get over yourselves, this is a fun piece that explores dishes that are popular in our nation (or in particular parts of our nation). You are lying if you say you haven’t encountered most of these dishes a few times a year.
2. To all those who say “this is why America is fat”: You realize this is not what a majority of us eat all the time, right? Many of these foods are reserved for special occasions- the s’mores for camping, the turducken for large holiday dinners, the corn dogs for festivals/fairs, etc. I, for the record, erroneously believed that America was the fattest nation, until another commenter pointed out that there are 10 nations fatter than us.
Why do so many people feel so inclined to go to the most extreme ends of the spectrum? Why are there so few people from the US chuckling about this? Why are there so few people from outside of the US taking this list with a grain of salt? ::facepalm::
Loved this article! Great humor, great list, funny commentary, overall extremely fun to read.. thank you
Baked Alaska is not American, it is French.
I too enjoyed this article with a few corrections. Actually egg rolls date back to ancient China, having originated out of South China in early Cantonese cuisine. They also appeared in East Asia long before America existed. And though many historians state that chop suey is an American invention, it actually originated in Guangdong Province in China, called za suey. That said, I still love the fact that fortune cookies are completely American.
correction to my last post, chop suey’s original name is “za sui”
Looks like you’ve missed one of the key ingredients of a Reuben Sandwich — sauerkraut! You can’t have a Reuben without it….
Too bad you wrote this article before the KFC double down.
I love buffalo wings. They are popular even here in the Philippines. Thanx for the post, made me hungry though..
Do a little research the English and French have been stuffing one animal inside another for centuries, so the Turducken is not actual unique to America.
Chinese food is chinese. We do eat chow mein, fried foods, a LOT of fried foods. In fact, Chinese people eat Stewed pork belly that has been stewing in it’s own fat. Have you ever been to a dim sum restaurant? Have you not seen the mounds of fried foods? General Tso’s chicken is a chinese food. American’s have just POPULARIZED certain foods that the chinese don’t because we have better fried foods that you guys just don’t know about yet.
Great and funny article, with one exception. the Turducken.
In France, people were already stuffing birds one into the other and cooking them, long before Columbus was born. An ancient French cook book from more than a century ago, even contains a recipe involving 14(!!) types of birds stuffed one into the other, from a huge turkey to a humming bird…
“Chinese Food”
The familiar American cuisine typically called “Chinese Food” originated in America in the 1800s. Chinese-run restaurants in San Francisco at the time did actually offer authentic Chinese cuisine (primarily to Chinese customers), but Chinese owned restaurants in smaller towns throughout California and the West served whatever their customers requested, from pork chop sandwiches to baked beans. American Chinese cuisine began to emerge when these restaurants began modifying traditional Chinese dishe to suit local, Western palates. Chinese immigrants set up eateries in rail towns all over the West where traditional Chinese food was completely unknown and catered primarily to miners and railroad workers. These restaurants created a new, hybrid American/Chinese cuisine, adapting Southern Chinese dishes like Chop suey, Ginger beef and others.
It’s important to point out that Chinese restaurants (and Chinese laundries) became prevalent at that time because these kinds of businesses provided a viable economic niche for Chinese immigrants who were largely excluded from almost every other kind of job because of racial discrimination and, very often, a lack of language fluency.
“Westernized” versions of original Chinese dishes include Egg foo young, Egg rolls, Fried rice, Ginger beef and Ginger fried beef, Lo mein, Moo shoo pork, Wonton soup and many others.
Try some Native American recipes. You can’t get more American than that.
Most of these foods are special occasion only, though of course every American knows someone who eats this junk on a daily basis. Personally, I’ve only eaten hot dogs at county fairs when I lived in the Midwest, and s’mores once of twice in my life, when my family camped out. I’ve never had baked Alaska, Buffalo wings (though I know they’re very popular) or Turduken (gross!).
When I worked at a deli-style restaurant in Manhattan during college there were people who ordered a Reuben sandwich tree or four times a week, and I remember thinking about how unhealthy it was. That’s another one I haven’t tried, mostly because pastrami smells gross to me.
This was an entertaining piece!
american here, this was epic. no pizza though?
#1 should have been ramen noodles
Still laughing about the chocolate chip ice cream one.
who ever wrote this is a fucking retard. how can CHINESE food be invented by americans…
poop, pizza is from itally you dimwit!!!
I don’t know much about Food… but a retard would know Fortune Cookies are from Fucking China you down syndrome fuck nut!
Very funny, it was a humourous article, I thoroughly enjoyed it
Wow, there are truly some stupid people posting about this article! THIS IS JUST SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY!!!! And it is, if you aren’t an anal, self absorbed fool! Just laugh and enjoy the humor folks!
I’m American, the ones I’ve heard of
1. Corn Dog
2. Philly Cheese Steak
3. Chinese Food
4. Smores
5. Reuben Sandwich
6. Buffalo Wings
7. Cookie Dough Ice Cream
The ones I’ve eaten.
1. Corn Dog – plenty of times
2. Cheese Steak – plenty of times
3. Buffalo WIngs – plenty of times
4. Smores – A few times
5. Cookie Dough Ice cream – a few times.
The ones i’ve never even heard of.
1. Baked Alaska
2. Turducken
3. Cobb Salad
So I haven’t heard of 3, I haven’t eaten 5. Which is half your list, and this list is as American as it gets? That’s strange considering I consider myself very American in that I don’t really care how unhealthy something is, if it taste good I’ll eat it.
Oops I forgot Chinese Food, I guess that only makes 4 I haven’t eaten.
General Tso’s Chicken in Chinese is called ??? (zuo zong ji). Named after a Qing Dynasty general from Hunan Province, it is a very common and popular dish.
Nobody eats Chicken Fingers in China.