Who says we don’t have a food culture in the US? “NEW YORK (AP) — Patrick Bertoletti of Chicago gobbled down 58 hot dogs to win his first men’s title Thursday at the annual Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July hot dog eating contest.” 😂
Real food culture is cooked at home in everyday meals. A restaurant is an excentricity for certain days. It is not representative.
Talking about food culture an focusing only in restaurants is like a country is educated with a 99% illiterate population an 1% geniuses. It is ST***D. Restaurants are not THE food culture.
In fact, best thing I learnt from my mom was that "in order to eat properly, food has to be cooked at home", an some of her recipes (well, not hers, hers, her mother, her grandmother...) will not be bettered by any restaurant in the world. And it is not only technique or taste. It is feeling and sensation and comfort and love. No restaurant will ever give me that.
US has it's own food culture as any other country in the world and is as good as any culture in the world. Problem is that is forgotten because Americans have been told that is not important, that cooking is something of the past, that is unproductive... This is your legacy. You must reclaim and regain it.
It's easy. Start cooking. In fact, the most difficult thing in the world is finding good honest food. Sincere food. I am tired of "star chefs" and "cooking divas"... Sentence once heard: "They call me Chef. Chef?...I am s cook, A**HOLE!".
I am surrounded by so called good restaurants. There are well known cooks in my country... But to me is crystal clear. They are nobody if we do not cook at home...
A little added nuance here to your assessment- barbecue comes from a French version of cooking imported to the American colonies where a pig is slow cooked on a spit “barbe au queue” : “beard to tail”
That's not even where the word barbecue comes from, and the French are not the only people on the planet to have worked out that slow cooking meat makes it tender.
It’s amazing how wrong you are, its widely accepted by etymologists that the word barbacue actually originated euther from the spanish impromptu of an arwak word “barbacoa” because barbacue originated from native Americans in the Caribbean. The french etymology is only a folk etymology although it’s understandable why you’d believe it considering europeans love being confidently incorrect about American culture and pretending native Americans dont exist
My two favourite meals are French: croissant and cafe au lait before going to watch the tennis at Roland Garros; and steak frites et vin rouge after watching a day of tennis at Roland Garros. Unbeatable.
Thanks for this piece of writing. I really liked the nuanced stance. It also enlightened me because Southern BBQ culture was not on my radar. Now it is!
Given how much I believe cultural differences matter, I see it as two groups arguing effectively in different languages, both convinced that they are right, because in their own way, both are right.Which given how much I believe cultural differences matter, I came to see it as two groups effectively debating in different languages, both convinced they were right, because in their own way, both were. For clearer information, you can visit our website https://furloughedfoodieslondon.co.uk/
I broadly agree with the overall sentiment of the article. Yes, of course, there is rich regional cuisine with a great variety available in the USA. There are also plenty of ethnic restaurants, but this is not the issue he raises, the way I read this. It's about the way the average American looks at food, what they eat when out, what they prepare at home (and how), and how meals are treated more like a necessity than something to really enjoy.
I grew up in Europe, have lived in Turkey and spent considerable time in Thailand when my husband lived there, and also Georgia (the country). I would consider most countries to have better food than America, when it comes to how people eat on a daily basis.
Just look at the vast majority of restaurants in America, which would be considered fast food in Europe. You have to go to expensive places to get real good food, prepared with fresher and higher quality ingredients.
After I immigrated to the USA many years ago, I continued to buy my groceries like I used to do in Europe. That meant, meat and vegetables were usually bought on a daily basis or maybe for a 2 day time frame. I sought out European/German bakeries, if they were available, to get REAL, FRESH bread - not the processed gummy stuff we get in plastic bags here. It still baffles me how long packaged American bread can last sometimes. Anything that doesn't go stale/dry or creates mold after 3-4 days, is processed to the max and most likely contains more chemicals than natural ingredients. I recently threw out hot dog buns, my husband had bought, that had been opened over 2 weeks ago. Visually, there was nothing wrong with them, but I decided that anything that still looked normal after such a long time couldn't be healthy to eat.
Look at the ingredient list of brand items in Europe and compare it to the very same version we have here in the USA. Lately, there have been many videos on that. There are plenty of American foods that are banned in Europe (and who knows where else) because of the endless list of chemical/artificial additives.
We still cook very healthy in our own kitchen, but there is not doubt that over the time I assimilated to the US version of how to prep. More frozen and canned items stocked up instead of going grocery shopping as often as something is needed.
In other countries, people also enjoy the ritual of eating much more and don't treat it like an inconvenient necessity. They easily sit 1-3+ hours at a restaurant and take their time eating and drinking. At home, when friends are invited, it is usually a long lasting event.
Food should not simply be treated as something we have to ingest to make it through the day, but as a welcome experience to enjoy the plethora of fantastic flavors and ingredients. I have always been very adventurous when it comes to eating a big variety of international foods. Sometimes that can come with unsolicited surprises and also negative experiences, but for 90+% it has been an enrichment of my senses and improved my awareness of the many magnificent cultural cuisines.
I find it important to prepare quality food at home, which doesn't mean it has to be expensive. If our US food industry wasn't so set on making everything last 'half a century' by overprocessing, adding chemicals, heaps of sugars and unhealthy oils, people would eat better without having to take extra steps they might not be interested in.
Enjoy your food by making a meal a little ritual that is centered on focusing on what you eat. Take your time. A good way is to sometimes treat a special meal like a Cuisine Tasting Event, even if it is just you and your other half. Or invite some friends to try out a new recipe or one that you really love. Food should be fun and enjoyment as often as our busy lives allow. For some things we should make the time.
My wife is Vietnamese, and when we travel she laments how quick I am to finish food. I don't really enjoy sitting around a table for multiple hours, or grazing on a dozen street food items, and I think this is a cultural question that doesn't really have a "worse" or "better" dimension. I think where America is lacking is in the "floor" of food quality (e.g., accepting a lot more industrial waste in our food than other places), not in the long drinking sessions that never seem to end.
Honestly it feels pretty reductionist and like he’s trying to make broad sweeping arguments without any understanding of the diversity in the usa. I don’t like large claims that obscure nuance and leave out populations that don’t fit the dominant idea of what an American is. I might understand if he spoke more from his own experience and upbringing or culture but he is instead applying his perspective onto all the USA, and kind of just leaning on the salient narrative that America is uncultured
Preposterous take that somehow manages to ignore every single glorious regional American cuisine except Southern BBQ. From an American who has lived in multiple regions here and multiple countries abroad, it is honestly unfair to the French to even compare their cuisine to that of Texas, California, PNW, Louisiana, Chesapeake, Southern, etc, all at once.
It didn’t help that it was Twitter/X whose users are not broadly representative of US citizens, but that’s quibbling. The US doesn’t have a universal food culture at all, good or bad — it’s a stew of cultures, only a tiny fraction of which aren’t outright imports. America writ large has an unhealthy relationship with food which is in part a reflection of its atomization and disconnect from the natural world — the consequences of which are evident in widespread morbidity and falling life expectancy despite its massive wealth.
Have to say the food scene in some parts of rural America is pretty okay. I live 15 minutes from a small town of 1,000 and we have quite the variety of good restaurants, including Vietnamese, Costa Rican, Italian, Mexican, Spanish, the usual American fare and progressive intercultural combo food. Next small town down the road, also about 1000 people, has Thai, more Mexican, upscale farm to table American, a wealth of breweries that are all good, an artisan bakery with fresh bread every day, a local cheese maker and we have a couple butcher/meat processing plants in the area for local meats, sausages, etc. I'd say even rural American food is getting to be darned good in some places. Lucky us.
I was lucky to spend a good chunk of three summers in France on a project. When my wife flew out to meet me in Paris, I brought her a single strawberry to be the first thing she ate in France. She literally cried at the perfection of it: fresh, explosively tasty, glorious. The everyday produce there is streets ahead of American food. Period.
I love the stuff, but I would not call Italian-American food a cuisine or a food culture in the way in which Chris is talking about it here. Yes, it has some distinctive characteristics and dishes (you won't find chicken parm in Italy), but it's really more like a subcategory of Italian food than its own separate thing. The flavors, ingredients, and techniques aren't terribly different from Italian food, or at least some regional varieties of Italian food, they're just altered slightly and kind of amped up (because in America we amp everything up).
I don't mean this as a knock on Italian-American food, by the way. I grew up on that food and, as I said, love it. And it isn't exactly the same as what you get in Italy, of course. But it's very very clearly derived from that, and I don't think it's a particularly good model for the sort of thing Chris is talking about.
I agree that italian and Italian-American cuisines live side by side in the US (same with Chinese and Chinese-American) and aren't always distinguishable. I think most true Italian food is clearly regional (Sicilian, Napoletana, Roman, Emilia-Romagnan, etc.). Italian-American dishes (baked ziti, lasagna, eggplant parm, frittata, NYC coal oven pizza, New Haven pizaa, and - god forbid - Chicago and NJ-style pizza) are more of an Americanized hybrid of southern Italian food. It's true that we can get good true-Italian food like cacio e pepe in the US, but that doesn't mean hey are the same thing.
Who says we don’t have a food culture in the US? “NEW YORK (AP) — Patrick Bertoletti of Chicago gobbled down 58 hot dogs to win his first men’s title Thursday at the annual Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July hot dog eating contest.” 😂
Real food culture is cooked at home in everyday meals. A restaurant is an excentricity for certain days. It is not representative.
Talking about food culture an focusing only in restaurants is like a country is educated with a 99% illiterate population an 1% geniuses. It is ST***D. Restaurants are not THE food culture.
In fact, best thing I learnt from my mom was that "in order to eat properly, food has to be cooked at home", an some of her recipes (well, not hers, hers, her mother, her grandmother...) will not be bettered by any restaurant in the world. And it is not only technique or taste. It is feeling and sensation and comfort and love. No restaurant will ever give me that.
US has it's own food culture as any other country in the world and is as good as any culture in the world. Problem is that is forgotten because Americans have been told that is not important, that cooking is something of the past, that is unproductive... This is your legacy. You must reclaim and regain it.
It's easy. Start cooking. In fact, the most difficult thing in the world is finding good honest food. Sincere food. I am tired of "star chefs" and "cooking divas"... Sentence once heard: "They call me Chef. Chef?...I am s cook, A**HOLE!".
I am surrounded by so called good restaurants. There are well known cooks in my country... But to me is crystal clear. They are nobody if we do not cook at home...
A little added nuance here to your assessment- barbecue comes from a French version of cooking imported to the American colonies where a pig is slow cooked on a spit “barbe au queue” : “beard to tail”
That's not even where the word barbecue comes from, and the French are not the only people on the planet to have worked out that slow cooking meat makes it tender.
It’s amazing how wrong you are, its widely accepted by etymologists that the word barbacue actually originated euther from the spanish impromptu of an arwak word “barbacoa” because barbacue originated from native Americans in the Caribbean. The french etymology is only a folk etymology although it’s understandable why you’d believe it considering europeans love being confidently incorrect about American culture and pretending native Americans dont exist
My two favourite meals are French: croissant and cafe au lait before going to watch the tennis at Roland Garros; and steak frites et vin rouge after watching a day of tennis at Roland Garros. Unbeatable.
While I agree with so much of this, we all know that the bbq capital of America is Kansas City.
Thanks for this piece of writing. I really liked the nuanced stance. It also enlightened me because Southern BBQ culture was not on my radar. Now it is!
Given how much I believe cultural differences matter, I see it as two groups arguing effectively in different languages, both convinced that they are right, because in their own way, both are right.Which given how much I believe cultural differences matter, I came to see it as two groups effectively debating in different languages, both convinced they were right, because in their own way, both were. For clearer information, you can visit our website https://furloughedfoodieslondon.co.uk/
I broadly agree with the overall sentiment of the article. Yes, of course, there is rich regional cuisine with a great variety available in the USA. There are also plenty of ethnic restaurants, but this is not the issue he raises, the way I read this. It's about the way the average American looks at food, what they eat when out, what they prepare at home (and how), and how meals are treated more like a necessity than something to really enjoy.
I grew up in Europe, have lived in Turkey and spent considerable time in Thailand when my husband lived there, and also Georgia (the country). I would consider most countries to have better food than America, when it comes to how people eat on a daily basis.
Just look at the vast majority of restaurants in America, which would be considered fast food in Europe. You have to go to expensive places to get real good food, prepared with fresher and higher quality ingredients.
After I immigrated to the USA many years ago, I continued to buy my groceries like I used to do in Europe. That meant, meat and vegetables were usually bought on a daily basis or maybe for a 2 day time frame. I sought out European/German bakeries, if they were available, to get REAL, FRESH bread - not the processed gummy stuff we get in plastic bags here. It still baffles me how long packaged American bread can last sometimes. Anything that doesn't go stale/dry or creates mold after 3-4 days, is processed to the max and most likely contains more chemicals than natural ingredients. I recently threw out hot dog buns, my husband had bought, that had been opened over 2 weeks ago. Visually, there was nothing wrong with them, but I decided that anything that still looked normal after such a long time couldn't be healthy to eat.
Look at the ingredient list of brand items in Europe and compare it to the very same version we have here in the USA. Lately, there have been many videos on that. There are plenty of American foods that are banned in Europe (and who knows where else) because of the endless list of chemical/artificial additives.
We still cook very healthy in our own kitchen, but there is not doubt that over the time I assimilated to the US version of how to prep. More frozen and canned items stocked up instead of going grocery shopping as often as something is needed.
In other countries, people also enjoy the ritual of eating much more and don't treat it like an inconvenient necessity. They easily sit 1-3+ hours at a restaurant and take their time eating and drinking. At home, when friends are invited, it is usually a long lasting event.
Food should not simply be treated as something we have to ingest to make it through the day, but as a welcome experience to enjoy the plethora of fantastic flavors and ingredients. I have always been very adventurous when it comes to eating a big variety of international foods. Sometimes that can come with unsolicited surprises and also negative experiences, but for 90+% it has been an enrichment of my senses and improved my awareness of the many magnificent cultural cuisines.
I find it important to prepare quality food at home, which doesn't mean it has to be expensive. If our US food industry wasn't so set on making everything last 'half a century' by overprocessing, adding chemicals, heaps of sugars and unhealthy oils, people would eat better without having to take extra steps they might not be interested in.
Enjoy your food by making a meal a little ritual that is centered on focusing on what you eat. Take your time. A good way is to sometimes treat a special meal like a Cuisine Tasting Event, even if it is just you and your other half. Or invite some friends to try out a new recipe or one that you really love. Food should be fun and enjoyment as often as our busy lives allow. For some things we should make the time.
My wife is Vietnamese, and when we travel she laments how quick I am to finish food. I don't really enjoy sitting around a table for multiple hours, or grazing on a dozen street food items, and I think this is a cultural question that doesn't really have a "worse" or "better" dimension. I think where America is lacking is in the "floor" of food quality (e.g., accepting a lot more industrial waste in our food than other places), not in the long drinking sessions that never seem to end.
Honestly it feels pretty reductionist and like he’s trying to make broad sweeping arguments without any understanding of the diversity in the usa. I don’t like large claims that obscure nuance and leave out populations that don’t fit the dominant idea of what an American is. I might understand if he spoke more from his own experience and upbringing or culture but he is instead applying his perspective onto all the USA, and kind of just leaning on the salient narrative that America is uncultured
Preposterous take that somehow manages to ignore every single glorious regional American cuisine except Southern BBQ. From an American who has lived in multiple regions here and multiple countries abroad, it is honestly unfair to the French to even compare their cuisine to that of Texas, California, PNW, Louisiana, Chesapeake, Southern, etc, all at once.
It didn’t help that it was Twitter/X whose users are not broadly representative of US citizens, but that’s quibbling. The US doesn’t have a universal food culture at all, good or bad — it’s a stew of cultures, only a tiny fraction of which aren’t outright imports. America writ large has an unhealthy relationship with food which is in part a reflection of its atomization and disconnect from the natural world — the consequences of which are evident in widespread morbidity and falling life expectancy despite its massive wealth.
Have to say the food scene in some parts of rural America is pretty okay. I live 15 minutes from a small town of 1,000 and we have quite the variety of good restaurants, including Vietnamese, Costa Rican, Italian, Mexican, Spanish, the usual American fare and progressive intercultural combo food. Next small town down the road, also about 1000 people, has Thai, more Mexican, upscale farm to table American, a wealth of breweries that are all good, an artisan bakery with fresh bread every day, a local cheese maker and we have a couple butcher/meat processing plants in the area for local meats, sausages, etc. I'd say even rural American food is getting to be darned good in some places. Lucky us.
To Buddha's health!
I was lucky to spend a good chunk of three summers in France on a project. When my wife flew out to meet me in Paris, I brought her a single strawberry to be the first thing she ate in France. She literally cried at the perfection of it: fresh, explosively tasty, glorious. The everyday produce there is streets ahead of American food. Period.
We also have Low Country, Cajun, New Orleans Creole, Tex Mex, Southwestern, Italian-American, Chinese-American cuisines. It’s not just BBQ
How could I forget New York Jewish cuisine!
I love the stuff, but I would not call Italian-American food a cuisine or a food culture in the way in which Chris is talking about it here. Yes, it has some distinctive characteristics and dishes (you won't find chicken parm in Italy), but it's really more like a subcategory of Italian food than its own separate thing. The flavors, ingredients, and techniques aren't terribly different from Italian food, or at least some regional varieties of Italian food, they're just altered slightly and kind of amped up (because in America we amp everything up).
I don't mean this as a knock on Italian-American food, by the way. I grew up on that food and, as I said, love it. And it isn't exactly the same as what you get in Italy, of course. But it's very very clearly derived from that, and I don't think it's a particularly good model for the sort of thing Chris is talking about.
I agree that italian and Italian-American cuisines live side by side in the US (same with Chinese and Chinese-American) and aren't always distinguishable. I think most true Italian food is clearly regional (Sicilian, Napoletana, Roman, Emilia-Romagnan, etc.). Italian-American dishes (baked ziti, lasagna, eggplant parm, frittata, NYC coal oven pizza, New Haven pizaa, and - god forbid - Chicago and NJ-style pizza) are more of an Americanized hybrid of southern Italian food. It's true that we can get good true-Italian food like cacio e pepe in the US, but that doesn't mean hey are the same thing.