That’s interesting, guess i wasn’t tracking that closely enough. Thank you!

Ah, wasn’t aware, thanks!

I thought it was India and South Africa, not Iran and Saudi Arabia

To be fair, about that women’s world cup team, if i recall correctly it was a PR move to play an exhibition match with those kids and they were not trying very hard to win. I don’t think they would truly lose to U-15 if it was, for example, a tournament.

Your overall point has merit but i think that specific example gets overused a bit.

Right, but that was the point of the episode of the documentary. At a basic level, American cuisine is based on plentiful food sources, and we get things like burgers and hotdogs. I recommend watching it, it was quite interesting. I’m not trying to suggest that this is the only explanation, but it was an interesting theory nonetheless.

Sure, some regions have some variety (as you mention, a casserole). Size is a factor, but similarly maybe countries have some form of culinary identity (russian, chinese, brazilian). They have sub cultures as well. I’m not well versed in them, to be honest, but i know they exist.

It was an interesting point that i found to be somewhat profound especially as i explored other cuisines, which are typically developed during hardship.

Yeah that’s fair, but in some ways other young countries have their own distinctive cuisines that are popular, such as Mexico and Peru. Additionally, i don’t think the blend of other cultures is really the problem in having an identity. Other countries have plenty of immigrant populations, but they still have their own identity. For example, turkish doner is huge in Germany, but German cuisine is very much its own thing. Then you can even dial it in even further, looking at bavarian, franconian, swabian, etc.

I don’t think i made my point clearly enough. I get that there are regionally distinct cuisines such as cajun cuisine, but my point was that this occurs even in smaller countries and locations such as the UK, which has numerous culinarily distinct cultures despite being a fraction of the size of the US. I’m not sure why you’re completely ignoring my point there. I’m also not sure how highlighting Americanized versions of other cuisines is relevant at all. I understand that other cuisines coexist inside of the US, but they are not actually US cuisines. Are you suggesting that Mexican food existing in California or the midwest is one possible definition of US cuisine? Because this actually feeds into my point that American cuisine doesn’t really have its own distinction.

I’ll try using Germany as an example. German food has an identity, wurst, schnitzel, etc. sometimes it’s borrowed (wiener schnitzel from vienna), sometimes its distinctly German. But Germany also has various regions with their own distinctive cuisines (former independent states like bavaria, swabia, franconia, hesse, etc each with their own cuisine). This would be like cajun is in the US. On top of that, there’s plenty of transplant cuisines, such as Turkish doner which is quite popular. This would be like mexican food in California. Yet, german cuisine is still able to stand out as its own thing.

I also completely disagree, North African cuisine as an example absolutely has some level of shared culture. Sure, Morocco and Libya have different cuisines for example, but they sit on the southern Mediterranean and share spices, vegetables, etc, and have a shared history.

I understand that I’m not a food expert and I’m citing a documentary about food experts that was interesting. I’m not certain why this feels like an attack. Additionally, that doesn’t mean it’s my only source of information.

I typically don’t watch documentaries, and I watched the entire series. It’s pretty well done!

Each episode follows one world renowned chef and their personal history, their food journey, their take on food in general, and where they are now. The first episode was an Italian chef who tried to bring home cooking to restaurants in Italy and was met with backlash by the community (you can’t monetize Mom’s home cooking). The second one was about a highly regarded chef who moved to Argentina to cook for a remote village and that’s pretty much it (as far as i recall) because it was way less stressful cooking a whole pig underground than running a 3 Michelin star French restaurant.

Fascinating stuff.

I think they would identify as more as their own regional cuisine, as opposed to being a part of some larger US identity. I think this would be similar to understanding of french or italian cuisine, but then if you dig into specific regions you’ll get “tuscan” as opposed to prototypical “italian.” That nuance for “US cuisine” is not as well defined because it doesn’t exist in the same way, even though regional cuisines are totally distinct in their own way.

I used the UK as an example because they have distinct regional cuisines like Cornish, Welsh, Scottish, Yorkshire, etc, even though it is geographically quite small. To me, that defies the logic that the US can’t have a more distinct food identity but then also coexist with various subcultures across a larger geographic area.

Lol fair. Though I don’t mean to suggest that there is no hardship anywhere in the US (i think that’s why chicken wings became popular), but across the board, food has historically been more easily accessible in the US than most nations than pre existed it. Sure there are some regional delicacies, but no true US cuisine. I’m sure that could be partially explained by the geographic size as well, but there are some distinct differences in UK cuisine even though those cultures are significantly closer.

I thought this was an interesting topic of one of the episodes of chef’s table (netflix docuseries). The chef focused on what real “american” cuisine looks like, and since cuisine typically comes out of hardship, American food doesn’t have as distinct of an identity since the USA has typically been a country of “plenty.” Was really a fascinating point, and it made me look at food culture in a very different way