❧ The Five National Dishes of the United States (According to Me in the Year of Our Lord 2025) ❧
Some time within the last year, I amused myself with the thought experiment of what the five national dishes of the United States would be. I am not an expert on food or food history; my sole authority is that is that I am from the United States. My criteria were the following: (1) the dish had to have been developed within or heavily popularized within the US, (2) it has to be a dish that has been mainstreamed to the point where almost any person raised in the US will have eaten it at least once, and (3) it has to be a comfort food.*
When I use the word "mainstream" here, it largely means, but is not entirely synonymous with, white culture. White Americans have a saying that "We don't have our own food, we just eat everyone else's." Once you see how much "everyone else" had to bend over backwards to change their foods to suit the white American palate, you understand that this statement is bullshit. Many of the foods on this list came to be mainstreamed in the US because of war, colonialism, slavery, or racial or ethnic discrimination. The food of the US is a reflection of our history, and the foods that end up in public school lunches and in suburban strip malls are the product of culture pressures largely invisible to those who eat them. I don't mean to be a downer about an otherwise light-hearted topic. It's just that when you really think about food, it's connect to almost everything else important in human life and history.
But anyway, I asked Skep about it and of course he had to come out with a fancy top ten page on his website. So I needed to come out with my own to prove that it was my idea first. So here we go!
The List
Hamburgers (including cheese burgers and other variations)
I'm pretty sure if you ask anyone to name a national dish of the United States, hamburgers will come to their mind first. We have several regional fast-food chains that base their menus around burgers and countless regional chains and local restaurants that do the same. You can walk into a hole in the wall, an upscale brewery, and even a fancy dinner place and reasonably expect to find a burger. I am pretty sure that the craving of vegetarians and vegans for burgers fueled the explosion in advanced fake beef technology (and if you're skeptical and haven't tried an Impossible burger yet, I'd recommend it.) Hamburgers alone must account for a significant percentage of our health and environmental problems and yet we can't stop ourselves.
Pizza
While pizza is from Italy, the US has played a major role in its development as a global food. I happen to live in Southeast Michigan, where two global pizza chains (Domino's and Little Caesars) and multiple regional chains (including Cottage Inn and Jet's Pizza) originated. American regional variations of pizza abound, including NY style slices, Chicago deep dish, and a favorite of mine: Detroit-style, which in the last 15 years has gone from being a local specialty without a name to a nationwide pizza craze. We eat it in the morning, we eat it in the evening, we eat it at suppertime: Americans love pizza. I have eaten everything from pizza that barely qualifies as food to fancy, purist pizzas. I have made Chef Boyardee pizza kits and tossed my own dough. And I regret nothing.
Barbeque
I say "barbeque" and not specifically pork barbeque. And that's because I grew up in Ohio where barbeque meant any grilled meat that you decided to put barbeque sauce on. Then I moved to Virginia, where barbeque means one thing only: pulled pork. The history of barbeque is pretty long and fascinating. It originated as a fusion between indigenous and European cuisines and was then brought to perfection by African Americans, who were forced to be pit masters though enslavement and eventually became barbeque's guardians and experts. I don't really eat barbeque because I don't eat meat and it's not a food that I was ever really in love with. But I do recognize its importance in American culture. It is a fusion dish that comes out of the tragedy of colonialism and enslavement, which makes it about as American as it gets.
Nachos
Tex-Mex is a cuisine in its own right, being a product of centuries of a shifting southern border, conflict, and cultural exchange with the Hispanic and indigenous cultures of Mexico. I could have chosen tacos or burritos, but I decided to choose nachos since they were actually invented in the United States and have that air about them of being an abomination, which characterizes so many American foods.
General Tso's Chicken
The history of Chinese-American food is very long and complicated and I don't pretend to know much about it. Many Americanized Chinese dishes originated in actual Chinese cuisine and then got Americanized along the way. Usually that meant deep frying, adding sugar, and removing spice. Another contender for this spot would be Sweet & Sour Chicken, which is the first Chinese dish I ever had as a child. But General Tso's has the possible distinction of maybe being developed on US soil (there are conflicting accounts). I did not eat General Tso's for many years after I stopped eating meat, but a Chinese takeout near my house started offering General Tso's tofu. Even though I know a lot more about authentic Chinese food nowadays, I can never, ever resist ordering General Tso's from that place.
Honorable Mentions
(I would not be offended if someone replaced anything on the list with one of these items.)
Hot dogs
If we're restricting it to 5 foods, I do not see a need for both hamburgers and hot dogs to be on the list; either one or the other is good enough. I think hamburgers have the slight edge because they show up in many more places than hot dogs do. Hot dogs are still mostly associated with street food and outdoor cooking; you never see them in more upscale restaurants like you do with burgers. That being said, hot dogs have the distinction of having a lot of regional variations. One in Southeast Michigan is the Coney dog, which was invented by Greeks who first encountered hot dogs on Coney Island and then moved to Michigan to start diners.
Potato Chips & French Fries
Neither of these foods are from the US, but boy howdy do we take the love of them to the next level. I am sure that, over the course of my lifetime, I have eaten my own weight in fried potatoes a few times over.
PB&J
I was fascinated to learn that the peanut butter and jelly sandwich originated as a fancy tea sandwich served by ladies in the early 20th century. However, its cheapness and calorie density could not keep it out of the mouths of children and soldiers for long. Apparently people outside the US think that peanut butter and grape jelly is a gross combination. They will be more grossed out to learn that the supermarket where I shop has an entire peanut butter and jelly section where you can choose from probably two dozen varieties of peanut butter and buy half-gallon jars of jelly. (I do recommend more "adult" variations, like cashew butter and raspberry jelly, if you're interested, though.) Like many Americans, these were a staple of my diet as a child. And for the record: on the rare occasion nowadays when I have a peeb (which is what we call them in my house) I do not cut the crust off and never have.
Bagels and deli sandwiches
I am very aware that my top 5 list leaves out the enormous contributions of Jewish cuisine to US food. Matzoh never made it into the mainstream and there are probably a lot of white Americans who would be surprised to know we owe bagels and deli sandwiches like pastrami on rye to Jews. However, of everything on this list, I eat bagels the most often.
Pumpkin. Just Pumpkin.
If you called us the Basic Bitches of the globe, I think it would be apt. Yes, we cannot get enough of pumpkin, and particularly pumpkin spice (usually a combination of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and allspice.) On its own, pumpkin is starchy and slightly bitter. But when you mix it with sugar, fat, and warming spices, it glows with orange deliciousness. I am not a pumpkinholic like some Americans, but I'm not going to turn down any piece of pumpkin pie, cheesecake, bread, or cookie that gets put in front of me. Maybe I will even don sunglasses for anonymity and buy a pumpkin spice latte somewhere.
Hummus
OK, hear me out. Hummus is not an American food at all. I began eating hummus around 2005 because I went vegan and it's a great calorie-dense vegan food. However, about 10 years ago when my aunt, who has spent her entire life living in 100% white, Christian communities, served me hummus at a party, I knew something had happened. Hummus has made its way to the supermarkets of suburbia and when people began to develop abominations like chocolate hummus, that was a clear sign it had officially entered the American consciousness. I now live in an area where I have regular access to Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian food and I am very happy to eat hummus in the context of those cuisines. But I do wonder how far into the mainstream hummus will get. Who knows—maybe in 20 years it will replace green bean casserole at Thanksgiving (one can only hope.)
*According to Wikipedia, this is actually: apple pie, cheeseburger, hamburger, hot dog, fried chicken, Salisbury steak, turkey, and mashed potatoes and gravy. Blech. I like my list much better.