Skep’s Place

 

Top 10 Most American Foods

The other day, I received a question from Emily over at The Bone Folder: what five foods did I consider to be the most “American”? A number of people have seemingly been asked this same question, and I imagine the results of this little experiment will be fascinating to read should they ever be shared. However, we all know my rankings are 100% definitive and stand up to any argument. So since I was halfway toward a Top 10 list anyway, I figured I may as well round out this ranking of culinary staples and prove I’ve done my homework here.

10. Potato Chips

a photograph of a woman in loose-fitting clothes holding a bowl of potato chips in one hand and a single chip in the other

In the US, chips are such a staple snack item that my local 13-aisle grocery store dedicates an entire aisle just to chips (and the occasional pretzel, but I digress). But that’s not what makes them American. No, what elevates them to true patriot status is the fact that you cannot eat these things without feeling like the most disgusting person on the planet. They’re uncomfortably greasy, they’re so crunchy that they practically announce to the world “I’m eating chips”, and they are either so large and misshapen or so cracked and broken that there’s no way to elegantly insert them into your mouth. This displeasure is multiplied when you are consuming them straight from the bag, inserting your greedy, grubby hands over and over, rummaging through the crinkly material, digging crumbs out of the corners, suffering the shame of it all as you do so. Our national snack, everybody.

9. Soda Pop

an overhead photograph of unopened soda cans

When they were first created, “soft drinks” were marketed for medicinal use, largely because a) they contained cocaine, and b) nobody thought it would be easy to convince people to regularly consume what essentially amounts to effervescent sugar water. Eventually, we made cocaine illegal to everybody who wasn’t a high-power business mogul (easily the most American of professions), so soft drink companies pretty much had no choice but to fall back on the “well, it also tastes good” argument. This ended up being easier than they expected, and now people drink so much of this stuff that even RC Cola is still able to continue existing somehow. Of course, nobody makes it with sugar anymore, because sugar isn’t cheap enough; now they make it with corn syrup, which is somehow even worse for you. But you need to keep drinking it because your favorite restaurants rely on its huge profit margins to keep from going out of business.

8. The Egg McMuffin

a photograph of an Egg McMuffin, made up of an English muffin, egg, cheese, and Canadian bacon

Only the United States could be so brazen as to go “Hmm, we need Americans to leave the house as early as possible in the mornings to drive to the office and start generating capital for us, but we also need them to eat an adequate and fulfilling breakfast so they’re capable of working through lunch,” and instead of deciding that these two goals might be somehow incongruous with one another, they figured out a way to charge us $4.99 for it.

7. Pizza

a photograph of two hands pulling a slice of pepperoni pizza out of a pizza box

I know what you’re thinking. “But pizza is Italian!” Technically accurate. But let’s be real here: Italy is so invested in spaghetti and alfredo and shit that they essentially let their trademark on pizza lapse, and we snatched it up in a BIG way. Pizza is everywhere over here. Wikipedia says that, on any given day, 13% of Americans consume pizza. We get into fights over which regions make the best pizza. I have maybe 8 restaurants near my house, and 7 of them are pizza joints; and when one of those happens to go under, they just replace it with a new pizza place, because even if demand for pizza does have an upper limit, it sure as hell doesn’t seem like it does.

Pizza is Italian? Please. Overpaying for delivery so we have one less reason to do anything outside our house is so American it hurts.

6. American Cheese

a photograph of three slices of orange American cheese wrapped in plastic
Photo credit: Steve Spring

No, I’m not just including this in the list because it has “American” in the name. But, look, if your boss asked you to make an “American” version of cheese, and you gave them a neutered orange square that neither tastes good nor absorbs light in a convincing way, AND you needlessly wrapped each slice in its own sheet of plastic, they would make you president of the goddamn company.

5. The Denny’s Grand Slam Breakfast

a photograph of a plate containing pancakes with a pat of butter, eggs sunny-side-up, two sausage links, and two slices of bacon, with a fork and glass of orange juice nearby
Photo credit: DFO, LLC

Really, I could have gone with any combination platter featuring pancakes/waffles/French toast/scrambled eggs/fried eggs/soft-boiled eggs/eggs benedict/omelets/hash browns/home fries/sausage links/sausage patties/bacon/Canadian bacon/scrapple/corned beef hash/country fried steak/sausage gravy/oatmeal/cereal/grits/yogurt/white toast/rye toast/English muffin/bagel/fruit, cooked exclusively in butter and lard, and served with a cup of coffee/tea/hot chocolate/orange juice/apple juice/milk/chocolate milk/strawberry milk/Coke products/Pepsi products/water for under $15 at an establishment somehow equipped to offer this smorgasbord to you 24 hours a day, but I’m giving it to Denny’s because they named theirs after baseball for some reason.

4. Fried Chicken

a photograph of two pieces of fried chicken on a decorative plate

Naturally, I had to include SOMETHING deep-fat-fried on this list. That plus the state of Kentucky is synonymous with fried chicken, and if I was doing a list of the most American states, Kentucky would be pretty high up there.

3. Pork Barbecue

a photograph of a slightly charred hunk of meat, which Skep assumes is pork because the people who did the stock imagery don’t say, sitting on top of a grill

This is the only entry on this list that I, as an American, am not horribly embarrassed by.

2. Hot Dog

a photograph of a person appling ketchup of all condiments to a sad-looking hot dog

Recall that earlier in this list, I looked at pizza and argued that it’s kind of an American thing now. Well, picture that for hot dogs, except worse. We basically took German sausage and weaponized it in our War on Culture, converting a food that was earnest and nuanced into something that’s pink, floppy, and sold in packs of 12. A hot dog is not a delicacy; it is easy to cook and easy to eat, which is why it is commonly associated with backyard grilling, ballparks, and street vendors alike. Hell, a hot dog has more value to us as entertainment than it does as a meal. We now fire hot dogs out of cannons at the faces of eager stadium-goers because it’s funny. We wear hot dog costumes as a joke. We have people who make entire careers off of a once-a-year hot dog eating contest, undergoing intense training regimens, developing new strategies, pushing the boundaries of hot dog consumption, all so we can witness a person stuffing as many hot dogs into themself as humanly possible.

You know how we look back at the Roman Colosseum drawing in roaring crowds for blood sport and understand how it says something damning about the society of that time? Yeah, that’s going to be Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest someday.

1. Hamburger

a photograph of a cheeseburge topped with veggies, with potato wedges in the background

I could rattle off some armchair historian bullshit about how the need for an on-the-go food staple took advantage of ample pasture lands to produce a beef patty that could easily be slapped onto a bun by underpaid workers and sold quickly and cheaply to the Great American Motorist, thus explaining how the hamburger came to be closely tied to the United States; and I would probably be right. But what I know is, you ask any non-American what an American food is, they’re going to say hamburger. That’s all there is to it.