– I always thought bacon grew on a magical tree. But apparently it is made from pork belly, and if you’re a particularly enterprising fellow, you can even cure your own at home. [Salon]
– Too lazy for that? Too lazy to even use a microwave? There’s always bacon in a can. [Stunt Eater]
– Even Michelle and Barack love the bacon. [LA Times]
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.
It’s come to our attention that while all of you surely read every Endless Simmer post carefully and in its entirety, some of you may not have the time to scroll through and read the comments on every story. While we clearly disagree with your decision, we’ve decided to make it easier for you by providing this weekly roundup of the very best of ES commenters. This week:
– MamaBear raised an excellent point in the Cindy McCain/Michelle Obama Cookie War:
Whooooooooops! They BOTH screwed up. The winner ALWAYS goes to the one that posts a chocolate chip recipe. REALLY! Go back over the years.. and you’ll find.. the spouse of every elected President since they started doing this cookie contest.. has posted the good old.. Chocolate Chip Recipe! REALLY!! I’m NOT kidding! lol
– Several of you abstained from our bacon cocktail contest (Maidelitala: I refuse to vote on account I might vomit), but the rest of you were entranced by the idea of bacon-infused bourbon. JoeHoya, being JoeHoya, actually went home and tried it:
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Anyone can eat bacon for breakfast, but it takes a real man to drink bacon for breakfast. No, we’re not talking about licking bacon grease from the pan (actually, you might want to reserve some of that to rim the edge of the glass with). No kidding, folks–it’s the bacon cocktail.
This whole crazy thing started, as many crazy things do, in Vegas, at the Double Down Saloon. They claim to have invented the bacon martini: Bacon-infused vodka, Tabasco, olive juice, a lil bacon grease for the edge, and of course, a slice of bacon.
If you like your drunk breakfast more on the sweet side, head to the Capitol Club in Seattle. The vodka here is infused with candied bacon and mixed with Godiva chocolate liquor and splash of cream. Intense.
Over in New York, ultra-hip bar PDT whips up some bacon-infused bourbon, and mixes it with maple syrup, bitters, and a twist of orange to make their Benton’s Old Fashioned. Confused? Grub Street has a video of how it’s done.
Photos: CHOW, sparktography, dansays
So Top Chef Season 4 is over, and America has our first female commander-in-chef. Richard may have shot himself in the foot, but I think it’s pretty clear that Stephanie won because of her brilliant tactics on one specific dish. Her roasted lamb medallions, cooked with mushrooms, braised pistachios, olives and blackberries, were so over-the-top, so utterly batshit insane that the judges had no choice but to give her the win. I mean, whoever heard of a braised pistachio? And blackberries with olives? On lamb? All flavored up in miso, butter, red wine, balsamic, and chicken stock?
Stephanie really pulled a fast one on the judges here. If you put that dish on a menu in a fine restaurant you would have zero people order it. But they put her all the way into the final, so they couldn’t very well admit that she had made something fit for service at the looney bin, so they had only one choice: proclaim her a genius.
This is my favorite part of Top Chef. The just plain insane things that the cheftestants make in an effort to appear “avant garde.” I love that Bravo puts all the recipes on their web site, as if any human would actually make these. Like one day you’re just gonna say, oh ho-hum, I happen to have some leftover braised beef tips in my fridge, perhaps I’ll batter them in crumbled frosted flakes, quickly sear them on each side and serve them up with a pomegranate-truffle foam. Yeah, that sounds nice.
So for this week’s Who Cooked It Better, we’re looking at the craziest, most nutso things that the Top Cheftestants have ever put before us.
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(In the spirit of the picnic, palsticware was used, blankets available and sandwiches wrapped)
Last week I asked ES readers and foodies from across the land to help me with my dilemma. I was to attend a potluck picnic but had no idea what to cook, nor what to suggest to my friends, as I was the orchestrator of the event. For our non-DC readers, this past weekend was a complete wash-out; it rained for days. As concern was mounting, we were thinking of creating paddy fields on the national mall. All this rain meant we had to cancel our outside activities, which included missing the Lighting to Unite event at the National Cathedral. We’re not ones to be defeated so we decided to go full steam ahead, transferring the picnic to my apartment.
My friends who cooked did an impeccable job, and we had some amazing dishes. These included:
Coconut & Almond Cupcakes thanks to my friend BJ.
My friend 3Y’s made a delicious Olive Tapenade, I don’t like olives myself, not even on pizza, but this was really something new for me which I know I’ll be trying myself.
There was a Babaganoush made with homemade tahini, thanks to Boozilla.
Summer Camp went totally crazy. She made a Tyropita (Greek cheese pie): Feta and Kasseri cheeses with nutmeg and mint; a Kreaopita (Greek meat pie): Beef with kasseri cheese, cinnamon, cumin, and allspice; also a Tzatziki (Greek yogurt dip): Greek yogurt with cucumber, garlic, and mint.
I made a Brie and Avocado baguette with a mint, garlic and oregano mayonnaise.
Finally, it pains me to write this but I do have to give a shout out to MD, he brought with him boxes and boxes of Popeye’s chicken, yes, you read that right, leave your thoughts on that one in the comments!
I pleaded and pleaded for my friend Tucker to make the potato chip cookies that gansie suggested, but to no avail. He chose to bake some absolutely amazing hazelnut chocolate cookies, the how-to on those are after the jump. They were seriously amazing.
The other superb dish I want to tell you about is the cabbage and bacon salad come coleslaw which one of the more discerning guests created. He used 1lb of bacon for this delight. Again, the recipe is after the jump.
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Chalk up another win for the blogs over the MSM, as Sushi Day’s steak sushi rolls over Gourmet, 58 percent to 42 percent in last week’s Who Cooked It Better.
For this week’s contest, we’re going with a hot new trend that combines a possibly tired trend with a classic taste to make everything new and creative again. Confused? You’ll understand in a second.
As you know, cupcakes have been quite the ubiquitous presence over the past few years, to the extent where some are declaring them so over already. I liked them better myself in grade school, when they weren’t trendy and didn’t cost nine dollars, but I think we can all agree, overexposed or not, these little devils are delicious.
One thing that is definitely not over is bacon, so it was only a matter of time before bacon collided with cupcakes to create something God is kicking himself for not inventing. Bacon cupcakes are here indeed, and all of a sudden they seem to have taken over the food blogosphere. I browsed through said blogosphere to find the best of the best, and there are no half-assed bacon-topped cupcakes here, each of these three contenders mix actual bacon into their batter to present three tantalizing recipes.
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On the left is one of the first known versions of the mythical bacon cupcake. From the Vanilla Garlic blog, this maple bacon cupcake is for “those who eat with no fear,” and it sure lives up to that claim. Diced bacon is mixed into the brown sugar-maple syrup cupcake, which is then topped with a maple syrup-butter frosting and finished off with a sweet and salty kick from turbinado sugar and kosher salt. (Note: This does not make the cupcake kosher in any way). Full recipe here.
Appearing in the middle, No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner throws a chocolate spin on the BC, dreaming up an amazing coffee-buttermilk-dark chocolate-bacon batter. While she doesn’t give us a chocolate frosting recipe, she more than makes up for it by sprinkling bonus bacon (crispy, of course) on top of the cupcake. Full recipe here.
A Good Appetite, on the left, also goes with the dark chocolate theme, whipping up a batch of Hershey’s dark cocoa batter, topped with some dark chocolate frosting and a sprinkling of fleur de sel for that extra salty (and artsy!) touch. Extra points for some creative black and white photography. Full recipe here.
Wow I am hungry after writing all that up. I, for one, will surely be trying one of these recipes soon – so which one?
Find more cupcake commentary in Endless Cupcakes
(Photos: Vanilla Garlic, No One Puts Cupcake in a Corner, and A Good Appetite)
