Recipes - American Food

America is known as the “melting pot”, mostly because of the tendency for people of other countries to come and settle in America, it can also be used to describe the food and culinary practices of America’s people, especially in the recipes and meals that currently occupy American’s dinner tables.

Traditional American food is becoming somewhat of a memory.

As most families are cooking Chinese, Indian, Italian and Mexican dishes as their regular meals, to the point that it’s becoming difficult to determine meals that originated in America and those that have been developed from a combination of other culture’s dishes.

American Pie

You’ve heard the old saying, “As American as Apple Pie”, but what other foods make up American food? Surely American’s offered more than Apple Pie to the culinary recipes shared throughout the world.

Traditional meals

America’s traditional main dishes are mostly beef or chicken related. Pot roasts, sloppy joes, hot dogs, hamburger, and fried chicken are very common dishes routed in American tradition. Salads were popular side dishes, and summer time favorites include macaroni salad and potato salad, as well as ambrosia.

Meat and more meat

American’s eat a lot of red meat, including nice, big juicy steaks! Steaks are common both at home on the dinner table, and in many restaurants. In the 1950’s, barbeques and casseroles (consisting of packaged cheeses and cans of vegetables mixed together!) were all the rage! Dad’s would cook meats on the barbeques, while mom’s would toss together the convenient foods of the era to create gourmet casseroles of velveeta cheese and veggies!

Frozen dinners

In the 1960’s, Swanson developed the first frozen dinner. It was actually quite odd, because most families didn’t own a freezer at this time! They would purchase frozen dinners, turkey, peas, potatoes, stuffing and gravy in aluminum tins, and eat them the same day. This encouraged America’s tendency to look for packaged foods that could be heated or cooked quickly, rather than developing recipes and dishes by combining a lot of your own ingredients and spices.

Exotic foods

In the 1980’s, it was common for farmers and ranchers to raise exotic animals to sell to the most trendy of restaurants throughout the country. Bison, Buffalo, Antelope and Elk were raised on farms so they could be sold to restaurants to create buffalo burgers and other meat dishes.

Traditional food

American’s also use food in a variety of celebrations and holidays. One of the most common, food related holidays, is Thanksgiving. While the first Thanksgiving in 1621 consisted of a feast of lobster, boiled turkey, harvested fruits, roasted goose, stewed pumpkin and rabbit stew, America’s modern day Thanksgiving feasts are quite different. Traditionally, people make turkeys that are filled with bread stuffing, (made from scratch or out of a box!), mashed potatoes with gravy, carrots, buttered rolls, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and a variety of desserts, including our famous apple pie, or perhaps pumpkin pie, chocolate pie, or strawberry rhubarb pie.

Seasonal dishes

Summer celebrations are often in combination of traditional American cook outs, with hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill, and a variety of cold salads, and corn on the cob. Easter is traditionally a holiday where American’s eat a baked ham, with either potatoes with gravy and a side dish of carrots or boiled cabbage, potatoes and carrots.

Famous companies

Other American companies that are well known and loved, include Toll house cookies. Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies were actually invented by accident, when Ruth Wakefield of the Toll house Inn was making cookies for her guests, and ran out of bakers chocolate. She substituted semi sweet chocolate that she cut into pieces, thinking they would melt into the dough when baked, but they didn’t. Instead, the cookies had little bits of chocolate throughout, developing America’s favorite chocolate chip cookies!