The pillars of American cuisine are foods we all know well: Grilled cheeseburgers. Southern fried chicken. New England clam chowder. Peach cobbler. Barbecued ribs. Cherry pie.
But look closer.
Americans may be responsible for putting ground beef on a bun, but hamburger itself has its origins along the Baltic coast of Germany. We may have put buttermilk in the batter, but fried chicken’s been popular in China for centuries.
And while the clams may be from the coast of Maine, chowderlike soups were a Celtic favorite long before Europeans started audaciously planting flags on the American shoreline.
In truth, most of what we consider American food is anything but endemic to North America. Instead, our national culinary brilliance has been in our collective adoption and refinement of foods from other places. Like our population itself, American food is, by definition, a cultural mash-up of global influences.
A bad thing? Hardly. This is our unique specialty. No one welcomes and riffs on outside influences as vigorously or cleverly as we do. We embrace – and embellish – foods from every corner of the globe, picking and choosing what we like, then gleefully folding them into our anything-but-static culinary heritage, making them American.
Sometimes we dumb them down (anyone for chow fun by the scoop?) and sometimes we elevate them (another foie gras flatbread pizza, please), but there’s no question we’ve cornered the market on looking outward for inspiration.
It makes me wonder: A hundred years from now, or a thousand, will we have forgotten the Italian roots of spaghetti with meatballs? Will pad Thai’s Siamese roots have faded into the haze of history? Will we believe that sushi came from San Bernardino, that saag paneer started in Cincinnati, that flan first appeared in Flushing, Queens?
Who knows? Culinary history, like cultural history as a whole, is important and captivating and profound, but it’s rarely clear. And nowhere is it muddier than in the USA.
But that’s what sets us apart. We’re committed to a global take on food, eager to grow and develop our heritage. Other countries stick closer to home.
Think of France: The arc of great Parisian cooking over the past century has been on preserving and building on the rich, complex history of wholly French cooking traditions, whereas cutting-edge American cookery has been about adapting and twisting dishes from far, far away.
Or Japan: Tokyo celebrates cooking that builds on the millennia-old art of combining filling staples (shushoku, like rice and noodles) with flavorful add-ons (okazu, meat and fish), while America celebrates the art of local twists on foreign favorites.
So this year, to celebrate Independence Day, I’ll skip the same-old, same-old and follow the great American tradition of looking outward for culinary inspiration.
Maybe a big steaming bowl of Vietnamese pho, or an Israeli falafel- stuffed pita, or a plate of salty Portuguese bacalau.
And to toast the fireworks, a slightly chilled bottle of fizzy Italian Lambrusco or Belgian beer.
What could be more American than that?
Dining critic Tucker Shaw can be reached at 303-954-1958 or at dining@denverpost.com.
What’s your favorite “American” food? Share a recipe in the comments section below.
