That's a no for me. Although I do make a version of jambalaya with no seafood and extra spicy. I love the heat and the seasonings but I'll pass on crawfish, shrimp and anything else that filters shit as a food source.

Out of all the dishes you mentioned, only Gumbo is a uniquely USA dish.

Jambalaya is an African recipe with an ingredient change to match what was available.

Mudbugs are eaten everywhere where they are present, and I personally think that Polis Zupa Rakowa is the best usage of that ingredient. If were talking about the mudbug boil, every cousine I know of that has access to them have similar recipe.

Blackened redfish is uhhh... Hot pan with spices to pretend its grilled (ingenious, but not a unique dish https://www.foodrepublic.com/1631780/origin-why-redfish-banned/)

Crawfish etouffee - huh, I think it's also an invention. The cooking method and igredients seem to be unique enough that its visibly distinct from any other similar dish that I know of and could check the recipe of.

Courtbullion on the other hand is too similar to French one that I would call it a variation, instead of an unique invention.

(Does that make sense? I'm not trying to diminish other foods but to showcase how unique Gumbo and etouffe are)

Every culture takes/mixes foods from other cultures and makes it their own.

Perhaps more importantly, every generation remixes their parents' and grandparents' food.

French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Mexican food aren't the same as they were 50 years ago. Lots of new dishes were invented and remixed, sometimes from imported influence. It's not like chefs sit around and refuse to do anything different from how they learned. They do invent and innovate and tweak recipes. That's, like, the job.

way to brush off thousands of year of native american dishes :/

Most of what constitutes “traditional” American cuisine is broadly based on European traditions, with British, French, Italian, and German influences being the most dominant. Though many of the recipes have changed and evolved over time, you can still see the influences pretty clearly.

Take the classic Thanksgiving dinner, for instance: although many of the ingredients (such as sweet potatoes and turkey) were unknown in Europe, the way they are prepared is still very similar to how Europeans prepare traditional holiday roasts.

Also, a “proper” meal generally consists of a chunk of meat, veggies, and carbs, usually all prepared separately, or sometimes as a casserole or a stew. Stir-frying is not that common, for instance, but frying, roasting and baking is. If you look into the history of any particular American dish, its roots can often be traced back to the exact wave of immigration that went on to popularize it.

Depending on the region, however, you may also find Native American influences, such as Creole, Cajun, Tex-Mex, etc.

Fusion kitchens are the best and maybe the only good thing to come out of colonialism

Well, there's also a pretty good music that jazz doesn't happen the way it did without putting European instruments in the hands of formerly enslaved Africans. Would be a lot cooler world if we could figure out how to evolve our art and culture without crimes against humanity, tho.

Well, colonialism did bring tomatoes and potatoes to Europe.

I guess the proper criticism would be that we stole their shit and bastardized it. I don't care, chicken alfredo slaps.

It depends on how you define "uniquely created in the USA".

Frybread has a rich and complex history within the USA, and I would argue it's very much "uniquely created in the USA" but most variations have a pretty much identical recipe to hungarian lángos.

Also a lot of USA food is very regional. Hawaii has a lot of unique foods, such as loco moco, spam musubi, etc. but would be unrecognizable to most USAians.

Teriyaki dishes are technically Japanese, but the Pacific northwest has taken the concept and run with it to the point where it's now it's own unique creation. It also has cheese zombies, jojos, Seattle dog, huckleberry everything, etc.

Southwest USA and Mexican have a lot of overlap but are also just as distinct with "Tex-mex" being it's own culinary thing. Puffy tacos, chili con queso, cornbread, cowboy caviar, nachos, etc.

Midwest, Alaskan, southern, east-coast, Puerto Rican, etc. all also have their own unique culinary traditions at this point with lots of micro-regional distinctions within them.

However, they aren't marketed, advertised or popularized in the same way that things like "Chinese food" is. Despite "American-Chinese food", like general Tsao, or orange chicken, being very much it's own genre that is unrecognizable as either traditional/old recipe USA or Chinese foods.

To discover many of these things you can't just "tourism" through but have to actually try to know and understand the people and places.

Conversely, it's not like Italian food stops being Italian due to its use of "new world" food stuffs like tomatoes, or pasta is any less "Italian" despite it just being Chinese noodles with a few changed ingredients.

If you insist on playing that game you'll find nothing is unique.

Buffalo wings

...and the buffalos came " this close to extinction so that was almost one less dish.

America does have its own style, though. Or rather a set of styles, just like any other region.

I would say that one aspect of "American-style" cooking (and "American" here includes "Canadian") is avoiding cooking. There's so many options when you don't really want to cook. Just stack some premade elements onto the premade bread and you've got a sandwich. Or stick a frozen dinner in the oven (with entire sections of grocery stores dedicated to the options). Or boil some premade dried pasta and mix with heated up premade sauce. Or just get someone to bring you warm food made by someone else.

Or for actual cooking, there's each of the variants in the OP meme. So many things that people complain about not being authentic, when it's actually just being cooked American style. Might be due to what ingredients are easier or cheaper to get, which style is easier to make, or just preference.

Pizza is a great example. I've had pizza that was described as "authentic italian" and personally I find it to be soggy and floppy compared to the pizza I normally eat. It's not bad, but I prefer the American style by far. At least in general, a poorly executed American pizza can still be gross, and a high end Italian pizza will probably still be more enjoyable than a mid end American pizza, but all else equal, I like pizza with crust that isn't saturated with sauce to the point of no structural integrity and toppings smothered in cheese.

Curry is another one that varies quite a bit by style. I like the Thai style (the curry is more of a soup than a sauce) the best personally, but don't think I've ever tried a curry I didn't like. It's a dish where you need to be more specific than "curry" to say what you have in mind.

The reality is that the vast majority of people have had as little to do with how their culture's cuisine has developed as anyone else, so the bragging or competitive comparisons don't really make sense. Same thing if there's any shame with being from one of the less prominent or made fun of cultures. I'm Canadian and while I love a good poutine, I had nothing to do with their invention.

Whether or not the dishes were invented in North America, I'd say that the following all are North American dishes (mostly based on my own upbringing in Southern Canada):

• pizza
• hot dogs
• hamburgers + french fries
• traditional thanksgiving dinner (turkey, stuffing, mashes potatoes, bread, cranberry sauce, etc)
• eggs/bacon breakfast
• various mayonaise + X sandwich salads (eg egg or tuna)
• potato chips
• steak/ribs bbq style
• chicken wings
• clam chowder
• chicken noodle soup
• chili
• sloppy joes
• casseroles
• mac and cheese
• grilled cheese sandwhiches
• deviled eggs
• loaded fries/baked potato
• pasta and meat sauce

Today, my culture includes things like sushi and curry, too. Not to say I have any kind of ownership or special connection other than I enjoy eating them and make an effort to do so from time to time.

Those sandwiches also come in regional variations up north. Grinders or Hoagies.

My wife took me to a local deli where she grew up in CT. I got a meatball sub.

The roll was from my finger tips to my elbow. it had 4 meatballs on it bigger each than my fist. It was around $12.

She got the same, but a pepperoni version with tomatoes and lettuce. Each one had to have been 5 lbs of meat.

In New Jersey I got a hoagie, the bread was so big, you couldn't close your grip around it using both hands

I think the joke is that Americans like to adopt foods or cooking techniques from other cultures, then change them to fit local tastes. This is how a lot of "traditional American" foods came to be. There is also a stereotype that American cultural practices (gastronomy included) are "not real" or that American culture as a concept doesn't exist because it comes as a fusion of cultural practices from other countries. The meme is poking fun at people who may hold that belief.

People also have a habit of describing the American versions of things to be "not real", even if it never really claims to be. For example, fettuccine Alfredo in the US is an adaptation of fettuccini al burro (a real Italian dish), but is described as "not real Italian food" because it isn't actually eaten in Italy. Or that orange chicken is "not real Chinese food" because it isn't eaten in China. Which, to be fair, is true, but most American diners are aware that Panda Express, Olive Garden, and Taco Bell aren't accurate representations of food eaten in China, Italy, or Mexico. They're Americanised versions of food inspired by Chinese, Italian, and Mexican cuisine.

That wasn't the Too Many Cooks I was aware of.