Looks Like American Food is Selling

[Xochiquetzal]

The Mankkaa K-Market now has a 'Luxury is the best reward" endcap display of American foods. Guess they are widening the distribution.

[Pursuivant]

skippyyyy......

[Bubba Elvis XIV]

[Belmont]

Love the photo--very clever! Anyway, I don't think there is anything such thing as "American" food...to me, American food is a fusion of everyone else's food or cuisine.

[sinikala]

skippyyyy......

Back in Stockmann Tapiola ... picked up 2 jars today still no sign of grape jelly though

[AldenG]

Anyway, I don't think there is anything such thing as "American" food...to me, American food is a fusion of everyone else's food or cuisine.

I wonder about that.

Suppose you counted all the meals eaten all over America in one day. Add up all the fast-food sandwiches (overwhelmingly hamburgers) and fried-chicken products, the overwhelming majority of which are accompanied by some form of fried potatoes and carbonated beverage. Then add the non-fast-food hamburgers. Then add in all the pizza meals. Then add in all the macaroni-and-cheese meals. And all the canned-pasta meals. Would that be 1/3 of all meals consumed on that day? One-half? More? What happens if you throw in take-out American Chinese?

I wonder how many of the next most-popular meal types you would have to add up to equal all the meals served in that junk-food group. Twenty-five? Fifty? A hundred?

If we're going to talk about high cuisine then sure, we have a fusion food culture. But independent restaurant dining is a minuscule slice of the whole food pie (probably less than 1% of meals) and even suburban franchise dining is a relatively small piece of that pie. In most of America, the Jewish delicatessen has all but disappeared. And in general when we adopt someone else's food variety, we add salt, high-fructose corn syrup (or genuine sugar if it's a vegetable dish), fat, and "flavor enhancers" -- the general idea being that just as normal female breasts are too tiny and boring for American pop culture, we have to synthetically pump everything up to ridiculous and ugly extremes, whether we're talking about pepper, other spices, and artificial flavor enhancers or human anatomy. Most American diners' taste buds are so burnt out that if you gave them a good French meal, they wouldn't taste a thing. Hell, even most of the French restaurants in America have learned they have to exaggerate the seasoning or the clientele will think they left it out.

Here is my list of our (America's) most significant influences on the world's culture and economy since the Marshall Plan helped rebuild Europe and Japan after WWII. As far as this thread is concerned, note #1:

• junk food
• junk culture
• microcomputing
• the near-extinction of subtlety
• junk banking, destruction of Iceland's economy (and possibly of Iceland as a sovereign state), and near collapse of the global economy; of course the final results aren't in on that one, as we've done too much cosmetic smoothing over and next to no fundamental reform of our banking practices; and our banks are still insolvent and vulnerable to the slightest further bad news in the real estate and mortgage markets. I think we've only seen the first shoe fall. But that's a whole other thread.
• a handful of misguided wars and military interventions

So yeah, I think there is such a thing as distinctively American food. Overwhelmingly it's junk food, usually over-seasoned and full of fake colors and industrial flavoring agents (which the FDA bizarrely allows to be labeled "natural"), and often consumed with neon-colored liquid diabetes-bombs.

[Pursuivant]

You can't regard "Rocky Road" and "Pecan pie" as junk foor rather than ambrosia of them gods...

[easily-lost]

I won't complain about Häagen-dazs ice-cream at all.

[EP]

I like pecan pie.

But otherwise no thank you. I didn´t eat more than I do in other places, but gained 16 kilos in just one year.

[AldenG]

You can't regard "Rocky Road" and "Pecan pie" as junk foor rather than ambrosia of them gods...

All I can say is that "Rocky Road" is a slippery slope.

[Vesper]

So yeah, I think there is such a thing as distinctively American food. Overwhelmingly it's junk food, usually over-seasoned and full of fake colors and industrial flavoring agents (which the FDA bizarrely allows to be labeled "natural"), and often consumed with neon-colored liquid diabetes-bombs.

yes, indeed! All Americans need a scientific dictionary to know what they are eatting, putting on their skin, and rubbing their hair. I believe all that crap they put into American food & hygiene products cause dieases & illness, like cancer. Let alone, the numberous of chemicals used to clean the machines that process the food. Mass Production food sucks!

have you ever looked at how many calories Häagen-dazs ice-cream has? I know it's waaayyyy more than other brands of ice cream.

[Rob A.]

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