Americans love to eat and have a wide variety of choices in American Cuisine! Americans like food hot and cold. They like meat and fish, vegetables and grains. Americans like salty food and spicy food, food broiled, fried, or cooked on an open flame.
Americans like Greek food, Thai food, Italian food, and French food. They like German food, Polish food, Chinese food, and Indian food. They like soul food and American food, such as burgers, hot dogs, and ice cream.
Americans’ food tastes are endless! That’s large because Americans have a chance to try so many kinds of food. Americans have come from many different backgrounds. And many different foods have come from these backgrounds. Americans have a huge number of food choices. Most of them are tasty, but they are not always healthy.
Americans’ food
Beginning in the 1500s, Europeans began settling in America. At first, there were Spaniards, French, and English. Africans came to America as slaves of the English settlers. As the years passed, Swedes, Germans, Irish, Italians, Poles, and many more Europeans poured into America. More recently, Hispanic and Asian people have settled in the United States. Italians brought with them to America many recipes for food- dishes that use pasta noodles.
Each new group that came to America brought its own recipes and food customs. And there was already food here. The many groups of Native Americans had a history of their own food.
It’s often difficult to tell who first brought certain food dishes to America.
As new groups of Americans exchanged or borrowed recipes from another group, food dishes changed. Each group tended to add its own stamp to the food it borrowed.
Even in the early days of American history, Americans ate hybrid foods. The early American settlers had food with Native, English, African, European, and even Far Eastern backgrounds. Still, many food dishes in America have kept at least some of their ethnic character.
Most Americans aren’t afraid to try “new” foods. Many ethnic foods have become widespread in American Cuisine. There are Greek gyros, German sausages, Italian pasta, and Mexican tacos and chili. Salsa, once familiar only in Mexico and the Southwest, now outsells ketchup!