1. WHAT IS THE AMERICAN CUISINE?

• American cuisine is known for blending and transforming

complex flavors from different countries, they are also
known for toning these intense flavors down for a much
more bland, simple style of cooking as demonstrated by
other typical American fare such as comfort food and
processed snacks. 
• American cuisine is an amalgamation of food from
different cultures, with strong influences from the British
Isles, southern Italy, West Africa, France, Germany,
Mexico, China and Japan, and from Native American
ingredients and techniques.
2. HISTORY OF AMERICAN CUISINE
• Before the European colonists came to America the native Americans had an established cookery style
varied greatly from group to group. Device verity of ingredients and cookery styles were never found in
the same locality because any one group had a much more limited diet. Nutrition was an issue fore
most hunting and gathering societies that wandered widely in search of game and who might encounter
serious shortages in wintertime
• Up until the late 1800s, people preferred to eat the foods that filled them up. Dairy, meat, hominy,
oatmeal and sugar were staples – vegetables, not so much. Vitamins wouldn’t be fully appreciated until
the 20th century.
• Up until the late 1800s, people preferred to eat the foods that filled them up. Dairy, meat, hominy,
oatmeal and sugar were staples – vegetables, not so much. Vitamins wouldn’t be fully appreciated until
the 20th century.
2..AMERICAN CUISINE HISTORY

• Early in American history, American cuisine was influenced by Europeans and Native Americans.
With the westward expansion of the United States, Spanish and Mexican cooking styles were
introduced into the culture.There are also styles of cooking and types of foods that are specific
to a region. Southern-style cooking is often called "American comfort food" and includes dishes
such as fried chicken, collard greens, black-eyed peas and cornbread, according to Southern
Living.
• American cuisine is extremely diverse because the United States has long attracted immigrants
from a wide variety of nations and cultures. While the American cuisine incorporates styles of
cooking that takes something from each immigrant community, American cooks have exported a
great variety of dishes around the world, and in many ways American cuisine is just as
recognisable and as popular as French, Chinese, or Indian.
• Today, there are a number of foods that are commonly identified as American, such as
hamburgers, hot dogs, potato chips, macaroni and cheese, and meat loaf. "As American as apple
pie", despite the dishes non-American origins, has come to mean something that is authentically
American, according to the Smithsonian.
TOPOGRAPHY OF AMERICAN CUISINE

• It is the third-largest country in the world by area and has a varied topography. The eastern regions
consist of hills and low mountains, while the central interior is a vast plain (called the Great Plains
region). The west has high rugged mountain ranges (some of which are volcanic in the Pacific
Northwest).
3.IDENTIFY THE CUISINE

• Many dishes that are widely popular were imported from Europe and Mexico. For example, apple, pies,
pizza runzas, chowder and hamburgers are all derived from europian dishes. Burritos and tacos similarly
have their origins in Mexico. There is much regional variation in the United States. Notable regional
styles include Hawaiian cuisine, Cajun cuisine and New England cuisine. Each is a part of the larger
category of American cuisine, each influences the others, and each is served nation wide.
• Most American cuisine developed as home cooking rather than Haute cuisine. Typical foods include a
large variety of beef, pork and chicken dishes, baked beans, barbeque and clam chowder
4.AMERICAN UNIQUE TECHNIQUES

• Boiling, baking, frying, poaching, grilling, roasting, and stir-frying are some of the most popular cooking
techniques of Americans. Some of these methods were indigenous while others they have acquired
from the immigrants. In the initial years, Africans and English had the most profound influence on
American cooking.
• Jambalaya, crawfish pie, file gumbo what dish
could be so evocative that it inspired Hank Williams to
write a party song for it in 1952 and dozens more to cover it
(including everyone from Jo Stafford to Credence
Clearwater Revival to Emmylou Harris)?
• The sweep-up-the-kitchen cousin of Spanish paella, jambalaya comes in red (Creole, with
tomatoes) and brown (Cajun, without). Made with meat, vegetables (a trinity of celery, peppers,
and onions), and rice, Louisiana’s signature dish might be most memorable when made with
shrimp and andouille sausage.
• Whatever the color and secret ingredients, you can be sure of one thing when you sit down with
friends to a big bowlful: son of a gun, gonna have big fun on the bayou.
• A guilty pleasure if there ever was one, chicken fried steak
was born to go with American food classics like
mashed potatoes and black-eyed peas.
A slab of tenderized steak breaded in seasoned
flour and pan fried, it’s kin to the Weiner Schnitzel
brought to Texas by Austrian and German immigrants, who adapted their veal recipe to use the
bountiful beef found in Texas.
• Lamesa, on the cattle-ranching South Texas plains, claims to be the birthplace of the dish, but
John “White Gravy” Neutzling of Lone Star State cowboy town of Bandera insisted he invented it.
Do you care, or do you just want to ladle on that peppery white gravy and dig in?
• San Francisco’s answer to French bouillabaisse, cioppino (cho-pea-no) is fish stew with an Italian flair.
• It’s an American food that’s been around since the
late 1800s, when Portuguese and Italian fishermen
who settled the North Beach section of the city brought their
on-board catch-of-the-day stew back to land and area restaurants
picked up on it. Cooked in a tomato base with wine and spices and
chopped fish (whatever was plentiful, but almost always crab), cioppino probably takes its name from the
classic fish stew of Italy’s Liguria region, where many Gold Rush era fishermen came from.
• Get a memorable bowl at Sotto Mare in North Beach, Scoma’s on Fisherman’s Wharf, and Anchor Oyster
Bar in the Castro District. Don’t feel bad about going with the “lazy man’s” cioppino – it only means you’re
not going to spend half the meal cracking shellfish.
• It was the pre-Columbian Maya who invented tortillas, and apparently the Aztecs who started
wrapping them around bits of fish and meat. You have only to go to any Mexican or Tex-Mex place
to see what those ancients wrought when someone dipped tortillas “en chile” (hence, the name).
• “Flat” (the stacked New Mexico style) or rolled, smothered in red chili sauce or green (or both, for
“Christmas” style), enchiladas are the source of much cultural pride in the Land of Enchantment;
they’re particularly enchanting made with the state’s famed blue-corn tortillas – fried egg on top
optional.
• Long before Troy Aikman became pitchman for Wingstop,
folks in Buffalo, New York, were enjoying the hot and spicy wings
that most agree came into being by the hands of Teressa Bellissimo,
who owned the Anchor Bar and first tossed chicken wings in
cayenne pepper hot sauce and butter in 1964.

• According to Calvin Trillin, hot wings might have originated with John Young, and his “mambo sauce” – also
in Buffalo. Either way, they came from Buffalo, which, by the way, doesn’t call them Buffalo wings.
• If you think your kitchen table or couch-in-front-of-football represents the extreme in wing eating, think
again: Every Labor Day weekend, Buffalo celebrates its great contribution to the nation’s pub grub with the
Buffalo Chicken Wing Festival.
1. WHAT IS MEXICAN CUISINE?

• Mexican cuisine is a nice blend of the indigenous and Spanish cuisine. It is still based in beans, corn,
tortillas and chili pepper, but these are now usually served with some sort of meat and cheese. Most
dishes come with some sort of rice and spices as well, a clear nod to the European influence.
2. MEXICAN CUISINE HISTORY

• Mexican cuisine can be traced back to 7000 BCE, when Mexico and Central America had yet to be
colonized. Back then indigenous people roamed the area and survived by hunting animals and gathering
plants. One of the most common plants in the area was the wild chile pepper, which they ate frequently.

• 1200 BCE- Corn first entered their diet 500 years. It was domesticated through a system called
"Nixtamalization" where the corn would be treated with lye to soften it for grinding.

• Nixtamalization- lead to the use of tortillas and other types of corn based bread
• Today, Mexican Cuisine is a nice blend of the indigenous and Spanish cuisine. It is still based in
beans, corn, tortillas, and chile peppers, but these are now usually served with some sort of meat
and cheese. Most dishes come with some sort of rice and spices as well, a clear nod to the
European influence. Since the colonization many cuisines have influenced Mexican Food, including
French. The French intervened in Mexico in the 19th century, and their food was enjoyed by the
upper class even after they left.
TOPOGRAPHY

• Mexico’s topography is characterized by a diverse range of landscapes including coastal plains,

temperate highlands and extensive mountain ranges which climb to elevations of over 10,000 feet
above sea level. This diversity creates a variety of different climate zones across the country.
PRACTICES

• Mexican drink lots of milk, like salty foods more than sweet foods, eat an average of 6 tortillas everyday,
and have a traditional domestic diet; soup, rice and stew. Without leaving out salsa and beans.
3. IDENTIFYING OF MEXICAN CUISINE

• Mexican cooking is packed with flavor among the herbs and spices that gives its distinct kick are a
variety of chillies ( fresh, dried, smoked and pickled), along side oregano, coriander (known as cilantro in
North America), Cinnamon and cocoa, garlic, onions, lemons and limes are also used generously. It is
based primarily on mayan food with influences from the Caribbean, Central Mexican, European
(especially French) and Middle Eastern cultures. As in other areas of Mexico, corn is the basic staple, as
both a liquid and a solid food.
4. MEXICAN UNIQUE TECHNIQUES

• Mexican Cooking Techniques to Know

• There are several traditional Mexican cooking methods adapted for modern kitchens. While they
resemble the ancient traditions of Mexican cooking, they take far less time.
Steaming
• Steaming is central to Mexican cooking. Historically, steaming is a way to take advantage of the residual
heat from a wood fire. Cooks would wrap meat in cactus or banana leaves and suspend it over a pot of
boiling water. The leaves trap in flavor and moisture.

• Today, you can use a slow cooker or pressure cooker to achieve the same tender results. The most
notable example of this method is barbacoa, which is a type of smoked, barbecued meat (usually beef or
pork) is used in tacos or in stews.
Dry Roasting
• Dry Roasting is a Mexican technique that brings the characteristically smokey flavor to sauces and
spices. Cooks use a flat, round tool called a comal to achieve that toasty effect. Traditionally,
comals are made from clay, but it’s more common today to find cast iron or carbon steel options.

• To use a comal, place it on your stovetop to warm and toast tortillas, roast dried chiles, and toast
spices. They’re also great for quesadillas and searing meat for tacos or fajitas.
Sweating
• Sweating is a method used to cook peppers and chilies. Place the vegetable directly on a flame
and allow the heat to char and loosen the skin. The insides begin to sweat, softening the flesh,
and eventually blistering the skin. Remove the peppers when they’re blackened on all sides.
• Once cooled, the skin falls off easily and you’re left with a delicate, smoked pepper that intensifies sauces.
Rajas is a good example of this technique, in which sweated poblanos create a creamy sauce to fill tacos.

Sautéing
• Sautéing is a universal method that’s also used in Mexican cooking to soften ingredients, enhancing their
flavor. Sautéing vegetables are better able to absorb additional flavor from sauces or spices.
Desflemar
• Desflemar is the process of neutralizing flavor, specifically to tone down the hot chiles in Mexican cuisine.
Most dishes from Mexico have a subtle heat, even when they include intensely spicy chile peppers.
Spreading the heat throughout a sauce softens the impact of the heat and leaves you with flavor, rather
than a burning palate.
5. EXAMPLES OF DISHES

• Three states claim to be the original home of mole

(pronounced ‘mol-eh’), a rich sauce popular in
Mexican cooking. There are myriad types of mole
but all contain around 20 or so ingredients, including one or more varieties of chilli peppers, and all require
constant stirring over a long period of time. Perhaps the best-known mole is mole poblano, a rusty red
sauce typically served over turkey or chicken.
• Boasting the three colours of the Mexican flag, chiles en nogada is one of Mexico’s most patriotic
dishes. Poblano chillies filled with picadillo (a mixture of chopped meat, fruits and spices)
represent the green on the flag, the walnut-based cream sauce is the white and pomegranate
seeds are the red. Originating from Puebla, history relates that the dish was first served to Don
Agustín de Iturbide, liberator and subsequent emperor of Mexico.
• What should you do with stale tortillas? Why, fry them of course! Literally meaning toasted,
tostadas are a simple but delicious dish involving corn tortillas fried in boiling oil until they become
crunchy and golden. These are then served alone or piled high with any number of garnishes.
Popular toppings include frijoles (refried beans), cheese, cooked meat, seafood and ceviche.
• This historic dish is one of the most popular varieties of tacos, with origins dating back to the
1920s and 30s and the arrival of Lebanese and Syrian immigrants to Mexico. To create tacos al
pastor (meaning ‘in the style of the shepherd’), thin strips of pork are sliced off a spit, placed on a
corn tortilla and served with onions, coriander leaves and pineapple.
• This popular traditional breakfast dish features lightly fried corn tortillas cut into quarters and
topped with green or red salsa (the red is slightly spicier). Scrambled or fried eggs and pulled
chicken are usually added on top, as well as cheese and cream. Chilaquiles are often served with a
healthy dose of frijoles (refried beans).