American

Mexican and Chinese food have something in common. They’ve both been Americanized! Plus, when you put them together like two colors, you get a third color! We realized using actual colors in our example would be racist, but we wanted to illustrate fusion. Chinese + Mexican = ?

Italian.

But we broke that news in our earlier review of Peter and the Straw. If you recall, Italy didn’t have the tomato before Cortez conquered the Aztecs and didn’t have the noodle before Marco Polo met Genghis Khan. Yes, we’re giving China Genghis Khan even though he was Turkic and China is actively persecuting its Turkic minority, the Uighurs, and other Muslims. Who knows who actually invented the noodle, but it wasn’t Italians (probably someone knows, but maybe it’s like fire or the wheel).

Here is a list of ingredients that could only be found in the “New World” before Columbus and his ilk went apeshit on the Americas (not exhaustive):

turkey, chocolate, peanuts, tomatoes, chilies (yes, all peppers), corn, blueberries, avocados, beans (yes, all beans), squashes (yes, all squashes), pumpkins (yes, all pumpkins) potatoes (sorry Ireland, they’re from Peru), tobacco (yum), vanilla, pineapple

This is not a joke list. Look at all the ingredients the New World was keeping to itself. And what world cuisines would be without these?

America. Is there a post-colonial term we can use instead of “New World”, “The Americas, “The West”? If there is, we’re all ears. And this isn’t being politically correct. Time out to talk about that briefly: Politically Correct or Just Plain Polite?

Ok, now that that’s over, where were we? Oh, right. We’re trying to be polite when we think about what to call things. We think it’s safe to call Spaghetti Mexican-Chinese fusion, but what do we know? No doubt there are core elements in Italian cuisine that come from that peninsula and that peninsula alone. We don’t know enough about that cuisine to speculate right now. But we also remember that Rome was a large empire that brought back foodstuffs from across Eurasia and Africa, so what is Italian that is nowhere else? Perhaps its not about the ingredients but the methods you use to combine them that defines a cuisine. And if you look at the definition, you might be right!

America. America was named after Amerigo Vespucci. In fact, America refers to the Americas, not just to the United States of America. The USA is just part of the whole which is America.

So what is American Food? Instead of trying to define all food in the Western Hemisphere, let’s narrow it down. What is USA Food? Hint, it’s mostly a fusion. There’s an Anglo-American base to most of it, but then there are regional cuisines that we’d probably subtract out that have a different European admixture. So let’s cut loose New Mexican Cuisine (from the state of New Mexico), Tex Mex (whoa buddy that’s a loaded one), Louisiana Creole, Cajun (let’s never confuse Cajun and Creole again), Southern Food (which doesn’t include Cajun or Creole or Tex Mex or New Mexico), and Native American Cuisines. We’ll talk about them separately, and I really really wish, like Canada, we could call them First Peoples, because they had other names for the landmasses that came to be called, collectively, America.

Wait, I thought we were talking about Chinese and Mexican food?

We are, but we have to define “USA Food” (FKA “American Food”) so that we can define “Americanized”.

You’re right.

I know I’m right.

USA Food is how the English settlers adapted (or bent to their bland will) indigenous ingredients to feed their colonial ambitions. It started in Virginia and more generally the thirteen colonies. Let’s call it Ango-American Food.

I’m suddenly tired. Let’s just say American cheese and be done with the whole thing. And hamburgers and hot dogs.

Hamburgers are from Hamburg.

Hot Dogs are from Hotdoggia. Just kidding, they’re called Frankfurters and they’re from Frankfurt.

Anglo-American Food is Coca-Cola and Doritos. And it turns out to be a lot like Scottish. Thanks, Peter and the Straw for clarifying!

-F/S

P.S. Corn is from Mexico.

P.P.S. Are Doritos made of corn?

P.P.P.S. Both Coke and Doritos are made from corn.

P.P.P.P.S. Checkmate!