I think for a food to be considered American, it should be widely consumed by the country as well as invented in the country. When I think of American food, I think of packaged food. I think of a big corporation mass producing food that has too much sugar, too much fat, too much sodium, or all of the above. It is funny to think, and quite ironic, that what I think about American food is quite the opposite of what “Americans” thought of their own food in the early 1900s. About a century ago, Americans believed that their own foods was superior and more nutritious than immigrant foods. Americans thought that immigrants “ate too little meat and too little milk”. They believed the “problem” with immigrants and their foods were because of their ignorance. Americans even believed that they needed to educate all the immigrants on what the proper way to eat was. Although I understand the urge to create a national cuisine to unite the country’s people, America was founded by immigrants. It also amazes me that immigrants were asked to cook without certain ingredients to make their food blander, because this would be healthier, but in reality this only decreases the enjoyment of eating.
A standard American meal to me consists of a can of Coke, a hamburger or hotdog and that’s really it. But as stated in almost every health conscious blog, the amount of sugar in one can of coke (39 grams of sugar) is more than the suggested amount of sugar consumed in one entire day (~25 grams of sugar for women). Plus, there is basically no fruits or vegetables in the typical American diet.
I definitely think that corn is also an iconically American food because it was originally grown in North America. Almost every American food that is sweet, is sweetened with corn syrup. Unless otherwise noted on the packaging, all the beef in America comes from cows that are fed corn.
http://yourstory.tenement.org/api/artifacts/gold-ear-pick
