To sufficiently categorize a food as “American”, one must not only examine the ingredients of the dish, but its place in contemporary culture. Gabaccia notes the increasing acceptance of foreign foods as they were integrated into traditional American diets and as military emergencies called for any and all food to feed soldiers. Gabaccia also described people’s original ideal American cuisine as the diet of New Englanders. This, to me, is an unfair and broad generalization to make of all American diet. Americans themselves could not come to a consensus as to what constitutes an American diet, making the declaration of a New England diet as “the most American” arbitrary.
To me, a food should be categorized as American when a significant portion of the population, be it from immigrants or native-born Americans, is being eaten. Even this is an unfair categorization because so much of America’s diet is regionalized, as Gabaccia states. Southerners have their own cuisine, which to us northeasterners often find odd ourselves. Additionally, there might be food chains that exist in only certain regions of the country, putting us at odds with popular chains unfamiliar to our own region (e.g. White Castle which has no presence in western America).
I cannot classify any food as wholly American. However, I am willing to concede that there are foods that are inarguably un-American, those being foods that are not regularly consumed by any region of America. This would include cuisine coming from a very small ethnic community, one that has no strong presence within any region of America. Ethnic groups with a strong presence, however, have left an imprint on America, and thus, their cultural traditions, namely their food.
Nonetheless, American food is not something that can be officiated and determined by public or private organizations. Food is too widespread and varying within America to make such concrete determinations. The foreign food of yesterday is our favorite meal today, and what might even be called our national cuisine today could change by the next decade. In the American melting pot, there is no formal method of determining the most American food.
