American Food

As a study-abroad-student in Tübingen back in the 90s, I had the pleasure of living in a German dormitory.  My floor, save for me, two French students, and an angry Turk who'd grown up in Germany, was entirely German.  We shared a rather large kitchen.  Most of us used the kitchen almost every night to cook meals.  Occasionally, we'd cook a shared meal, but, more often than not, we cooked solitary meals to be consumed near one another at the table.

I was enamored of the market that set up each Wednesday in the town square and took to buying fresh fruit and veg on a weekly basis.  I didn't know it initially, but by buying fresh produce and cooking it for dinner in our dorm kitchen I'd managed to break down a rather large stereotype the Germans held about Americans.  That is, of course, that we ate heavily processed foods at every meal, and didn't really cook so much as eat McDonald's (they had said this to me) or pour goop out of cans to heat up.

Am Markt

I am a child of the 70s and, sure, we'd eaten our fair share of canned and frozen veggies, but we had also had the pleasure of growing our own produce in the back garden as well as buying it fresh at our local markets.

My grandparents and great-grandparents hailed from Scandinavia, England and Ireland.  I have relatives from Mexico and East Asia, too.  So, what does an American eat?

Chilaquiles?  Flank steak over rice with soy sauce?  Pickled herring on brown bread?  Mac-n-cheese?  Avocado and shrimp over lettuce? Home-made plain yogurt with honey drizzled over it? (Hint: we ate all of these things.)

We are a country made up of many different ethnic groups.  We are a lumpy stew, if you like.  So, too, is our food.


American food is the food you grew up eating.

American food is not burgers, fries and a milkshake, unless, I suppose, that that is what you grew up eating, and, might I say, bummer for you.  My parents never cooked us french fries, nor did they blend us milkshakes for dessert.  Never once was uttered, "Just one more bite of double cheeseburger, then you're excused from the table."

In addition to the above mentioned fare, here is a sampling of the food we regularly ate:

*boiled garlic sausages with cabbage, carrots, and potatoes (all cooked in a pressure cooker) served on a plate with spicy mustard on the side.

*artichokes from the garden with mayonnaise and some sort of casserole.

*Dad's homemade cioppino with shellfish that he had caught himself down at the shore.  I'd write 'we', but I can't say any of us kids really helped much outside of baiting the crab traps.

*lasagna-dad's grandmother's recipe-with some green vegetable accompaniment.

*stir-fried tofu with veggies (all in a wok)--this was the 70s in California, folks!

*Limburger cheese sandwiches--Dad was the only one who ate them, actually.

*meatloaf!

*baked chicken with rosemary and garlic

*lima beans, brussel sprouts, broccoli

Fridge staples: pickled herring in wine sauce, stinky cheese, Parmesan, mayo, mustard, ketchup, butter pickles, dill pickles, butter, milk, yogurt and orange juice.

If we did have fast-food burgers, then it was an occasional 'treat' and not at all a daily occurrence.  McDonald's wasn't the end-all-be-all either.  A & W Rootbeer was our burger joint of choice.

Good eats.

Recently, I had the pleasure of chatting with a lovely woman at a cookery shop.  I couldn't tell where she was from by her accent, but it was full of heavy consonants and flat vowels.  Her English, however, was fluent.  She was buying a housewarming gift for a friend.  We chatted about mini Le Creuset cups, milk pitchers with floral prints, and what we would like to receive as housewarming gifts ourselves. It turned out, actually, that she was "from" Philly. I really like Philly and told her so.  We each took turns talking about the things we liked best about her city of Philadelphia. I imagine that her version of American food may differ from mine slightly, but it's American nonetheless. 

Lumpy stew are we.