The American Cuisine: Does it Exist?

Eating American by Sidney Mintz

In this article Sidney Mintz talks about whether or not America has it's own cuisine. He went to a colleague's class to lecture on a completely different subject and was asked about American eating habits by the students. He responded by saying that he believes there is no such thing as an American cuisine. Students then wrote a reply about the lecture in which a couple students claimed the opposite of Mintz. So begins Mintz's argument as to why there is no American cuisine. Mintz believes that there may be cuisines in different regions of the United States (New England, Southwest, Gulf Coast, Northwest Pacific), however, they don't combine to form one American cuisine. People also believe that the American cuisine is not only a combination of different cuisines of different regions in the country, but also different countries themselves. When walking down a street you might see a Chinese restaurant, an Italian restaurant, a Japanese restaurant, and a French restaurant lined up next to each other. People think that this is the American cuisine. Mintz begs to differ. He believes having a cuisine is having one category of food that is eaten on a regular basis, not having different kinds of food eaten whenever you're in the mood for it. For instance, Mexicans eat Mexican food, the Chinese eat Chinese food etc. It is also thought that the American cuisine includes such foods as hamburgers, hot dogs, fried chicken, steak, and baked potatoes. However, these foods still fall under regional cuisines, and not a whole national cuisine.

I think after weighing out all of the key points, I agree with Mintz. As Americans we don't have our own distinctive cuisine. Just think about it. A Japanese family eats Japanese probably every day. That's a cuisine. I eat Japanese, Italian, and Mexican food among others almost every week. Sure I also eat foods under the category of the "American" cuisine, but the combination of different national cuisines does not form our own national cuisine; it never will. New foods classified as American don't are not invented every day, so I don't think that there will ever be enough different kinds of food that are part of one national American cuisine.

1. If by some miracle an American cuisine was formed, would Americans switch to strictly eating American food and no longer eat foods of other national cuisines?

2. If an American cuisine were formed, would it be integrated into restaurants in other countries as other national cuisines have been integrated into restaurants here?