Food and “stollen” are an odd mix since so many cultures in history have so many dishes in common either through diffusion and interaction or concurrent invention.
Fun fact on pizza though- nah. Not really. Americans brought pizza to Italy.
Whaaat?! Well- ok, sort of. Here we go.
When Italians came to America two things to mention.
1. They couldn’t get exactly the same things as in Italy always.
2. Many things that were very expensive in Italy or couldn’t be had were cheap and abundant here.
So Italian Americans started making dishes that diverged from traditional Italian food.
Spaghetti and meat balls, pizza as Americans and much of the world know it, etc.
Americans went to Italy in the war (and other times of course but that’s a big one) and wanted the Italian food they knew and loved. America was big in Europe around WW2 and popular believe it or not. Cool. So many also wanted to adopt the American style of things.
So it’s a bit condensed but basically Americans brought a bunch of “Italian food” to Italy and it caught on, but just like the Italians coming to America had to deal with differences in local produce and markets, the reverse was true and of course tastes often differ by region or country so they made changes there as well.
I mean think about it for a second man. Tomato doesn’t exist as a plant in the “old world.” Tomato came to Europe after establishing consistent commerce with the Americas. Pizza as most know it literally couldn’t exist without American produce.
Hamburgers:
There is actually a lot of debate as to the origins here. Hamburg was known for beef and sailors,
But many claim that Americans who immigrated from Germany actually created the hamburger by taking a local dish or idea (like ground meat patty) and turning it into a sandwich prepared in a way we would recognize as a hamburger.
So the hamburger MAY be an American invention, but regardless it is not strictly a german invention because by most accounts Germans got the concept of ground meat patties from Tartar that they encountered trading in the Balkans.
Meaning the origin of the “quintessentially Americana” Hamburg might actually be Russia.
Hot dogs as we know them are also generally believed to be an American origin product. Sausage has existed across cultures for thousands of years. Long before america existed. Of course so have flat breads but a taco, pita, naan, fry bread, matzo etc. are each distinct.
It is believed that the combination of the sausage and bun in a manner we call a “hotdog” originates in the USA, and a “hot dog” is a type of sausage but is distinct from sausage in its composition and flavor and preparation etc. you wouldn’t likely serve a hot dog as a breakfast sausage or go to a German eatery and order a Bavarian sausage and get a ballpark Frank made in the Bavarian plant no?
Of course at some point in time someone, somewhere, likely put a sausage in some bread.
That’s sort of the thing with food- you think no one ever had the idea that certain foods go together or just had X ingredients and wanted to make something to eat that wasn’t disgusting?
That’s why tracing origins of food can be difficult in large part. It is less accurate usually to say “invented” or “created first” than to say “popularized.” Foods made with ingredients found readily in the environment often exist and are known to many for long periods of history. At some point someone probably made a dish or something similar but who made it known? Who is it associated with? Etc.
Macaroni and cheese: really? Really? England? Yes. Because England is who the world thinks of when it thinks pasta.
Bad news. The first recorded instance of a butter and cheese pasta is a 14th century Italian chef. What’s more, we know Americans didn’t invent max and cheese, there is a myth Jefferson introduced it to America- but no.
Jefferson bought a macaroni pasta making machine and studied making macaroni pasta- from Italy.
First hand accounts from Jefferson’s dinner guests include writings that contrary to the idea he popularized the dish, many found his Mac and cheese inelegant and to strong in flavor. Mac and cheese were known dishes and these same accounts, others, and recipes of the time indicate it was strongly associated with or believed to be of origin from Italy.
Many sources will say that the earliest record of what could be considered modern mac and cheese comes from a British cook book. I will not debate that fact but I will point out that putting a recipe in a cook book doesn’t mean you made it. There are cookbooks around the world with Sushi in them but Sushi is a Japanese dish* so just because a person in Spain changes some ingredients or writes it down in a book doesn’t make sushi of Spanish origins does it?
Regardless, even IF we attribute max and cheese to the Brits and ignore that by default the macaroni would have been “stollen” from Italy, the USA was originally… British colonies… full of lots of… British people.
So if mac and cheese are British and British Americans kept the recipe… how can you steal your own recipe…?
That said- the modern concept of Mac and cheese often associated with America- the “instant” type and “boxed macaroni” ARE American in origin. The first recorded instances of the product and where it became popular were in the Great Depression in St. Louis USA by an American salesman. Actual cheese powder was also invented in America by a U.S. government dairy scientist.
But of course that doesn’t mean other inventors around the globe didn’t discover the same or alternate processes over time, and food has often been an iterative international process, though in this day and age with food science it often is a direct collaborative effort of international participants.
Also we can’t forget when we talk about the “USA” as a singular culture we are talking about largely a country of immigrants and various distinct indigenous peoples.
The USA is different than many other nations in this way because it is not simply a new country made in majority of the same peoples of one region or by combining peoples of a region, it has not had thousands of years to form history and distinct culture. It is the “melding pot,” a young nation of only a couple hundred years who can have more and less dominant or represented groups on average but is an amalgamation of traditions and cultural elements and the concessions and interactions of so many groups trying to…
.. harmoniously co exist.
In these food examples, america didn’t “steal” anything- you can’t steal what the america people or what fiends and associates give freely. Various immigrants bring their cultures and share them with others in America.
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Fun fact on pizza though- nah. Not really. Americans brought pizza to Italy.
Whaaat?! Well- ok, sort of. Here we go.
When Italians came to America two things to mention.
1. They couldn’t get exactly the same things as in Italy always.
2. Many things that were very expensive in Italy or couldn’t be had were cheap and abundant here.
So Italian Americans started making dishes that diverged from traditional Italian food.
Spaghetti and meat balls, pizza as Americans and much of the world know it, etc.
Americans went to Italy in the war (and other times of course but that’s a big one) and wanted the Italian food they knew and loved. America was big in Europe around WW2 and popular believe it or not. Cool. So many also wanted to adopt the American style of things.
I mean think about it for a second man. Tomato doesn’t exist as a plant in the “old world.” Tomato came to Europe after establishing consistent commerce with the Americas. Pizza as most know it literally couldn’t exist without American produce.
There is actually a lot of debate as to the origins here. Hamburg was known for beef and sailors,
But many claim that Americans who immigrated from Germany actually created the hamburger by taking a local dish or idea (like ground meat patty) and turning it into a sandwich prepared in a way we would recognize as a hamburger.
So the hamburger MAY be an American invention, but regardless it is not strictly a german invention because by most accounts Germans got the concept of ground meat patties from Tartar that they encountered trading in the Balkans.
Meaning the origin of the “quintessentially Americana” Hamburg might actually be Russia.
It is believed that the combination of the sausage and bun in a manner we call a “hotdog” originates in the USA, and a “hot dog” is a type of sausage but is distinct from sausage in its composition and flavor and preparation etc. you wouldn’t likely serve a hot dog as a breakfast sausage or go to a German eatery and order a Bavarian sausage and get a ballpark Frank made in the Bavarian plant no?
Of course at some point in time someone, somewhere, likely put a sausage in some bread.
That’s why tracing origins of food can be difficult in large part. It is less accurate usually to say “invented” or “created first” than to say “popularized.” Foods made with ingredients found readily in the environment often exist and are known to many for long periods of history. At some point someone probably made a dish or something similar but who made it known? Who is it associated with? Etc.
Bad news. The first recorded instance of a butter and cheese pasta is a 14th century Italian chef. What’s more, we know Americans didn’t invent max and cheese, there is a myth Jefferson introduced it to America- but no.
Jefferson bought a macaroni pasta making machine and studied making macaroni pasta- from Italy.
First hand accounts from Jefferson’s dinner guests include writings that contrary to the idea he popularized the dish, many found his Mac and cheese inelegant and to strong in flavor. Mac and cheese were known dishes and these same accounts, others, and recipes of the time indicate it was strongly associated with or believed to be of origin from Italy.
Regardless, even IF we attribute max and cheese to the Brits and ignore that by default the macaroni would have been “stollen” from Italy, the USA was originally… British colonies… full of lots of… British people.
That said- the modern concept of Mac and cheese often associated with America- the “instant” type and “boxed macaroni” ARE American in origin. The first recorded instances of the product and where it became popular were in the Great Depression in St. Louis USA by an American salesman. Actual cheese powder was also invented in America by a U.S. government dairy scientist.
Also we can’t forget when we talk about the “USA” as a singular culture we are talking about largely a country of immigrants and various distinct indigenous peoples.
The USA is different than many other nations in this way because it is not simply a new country made in majority of the same peoples of one region or by combining peoples of a region, it has not had thousands of years to form history and distinct culture. It is the “melding pot,” a young nation of only a couple hundred years who can have more and less dominant or represented groups on average but is an amalgamation of traditions and cultural elements and the concessions and interactions of so many groups trying to…
In these food examples, america didn’t “steal” anything- you can’t steal what the america people or what fiends and associates give freely. Various immigrants bring their cultures and share them with others in America.