If Chinese cuisine comes from geography, American cuisine comes from the cuisines of various countries brought by immigrants. Despite the unremitting efforts of generations, American recipes have almost all the American cuisines that most Americans love, and they are Americanized. As a result, American cuisine has always been rich in variety and styles, which make people dizzying and lingering.
However, if when you walk into an American restaurant, the waiter asks if you want Blue Cheese or Chedder Chesse, you are confused; or if you ask for Dressing, only the mayonnaise appears in your mind (not even knowing how (Pronunciation); or you have no other idea than french fries when choosing a side dish; or you are preparing to come to the United States-you may read this (series) article

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Whenever I talk about Chinese cuisine with Americans, I will always be particularly proud to say that we have eight cuisines and various cuisines, such as Shanghai cuisine sweet Hakka cuisine is a culture Hangzhou cuisine has Dongpo meat cloud, so Americans will stare With big glasses, he said "wow ~ cool!" With a look of confusion, but in the end he will tell you that his favorite Chinese dish is "sesame chicken" (a kind of sweet and sour chicken).
As a graduate student in communication and culture, in my eyes, the distinction between food and cuisine stems from geographical isolation and the influence of the climate-the more humid the place is, the more inclined to eat spicy food to relieve moisture; and the north The wheat-producing southern rice-producing rice contributes to the difference between rice and noodles; it is also because of the historical geographical isolation that makes food in a certain region show its special style-imagine 600 years ago, it was estimated that it would take several months to transport Sichuan from Sichuan. Spicy bean paste sauce to Hangzhou, Hangzhou people naturally can only use soy sauce and sugar to make Dongpo meat.

(Dongpo meat is actually a special example. Su Shi was born in Sichuan, so he brought this method of roasting meat to Hangzhou. In fact, many dishes with heavy oil and sauce are not common in Hangzhou dishes.)
(Brackets again, there is a study downstairs. According to the emperor, peppers were introduced into China from South America hundreds of years ago, so there must be no peppers in the Su Dongpo period. The landlord was illiterate, but the landlord meant that. The region caused a difference in food culture. I feel good ~)
If Chinese cuisine comes from geography, American cuisine comes from the cuisines of various countries brought by immigrants. Despite the unremitting efforts of generations, American recipes have almost all the American cuisines that most Americans love, and they are Americanized. Therefore, when you see Chinese reviews online, there are tags like “Sichuan cuisine” and “Cantonese cuisine”, while the labels on Yelp are “Italy”, “Mexico”, “Vietnam”, and “Mediterranean”.

What I want to talk about today is the "American" on the Yelp label-American, and it is the most typical of them: America Diner
If you've seen Two Broke Girl, they work in a Williamsburg retro restaurant, a Diner. Maybe in a diverse New York, such a Diner is already "retro", but in the traditional Midwest, she still represents "originating from the United States", "cheap" and "comfortable and free dining atmosphere" cuisine.
In my eyes, Diner can't be classified as a "fast food". Otherwise, why do n’t you let McDonald ’s love Burger King? On the other hand, most Diners are private restaurants, not our common chain (except of course IHOP, APPLEBEE, VI etc.), so on top of standard American food, each store also has its own characteristics and combines some Local characteristics can better reflect American culture.

America Diner originated during the Great Depression-people could not afford expensive restaurants, but wanted to get food quickly and easily, so a typical restaurant like Diner attracted many customers with a menu under $ 5. After World War II, the economy of the urban-rural junction has developed extremely fast. A restaurant facing the neighbourhood without much investment is called a lot of new immigrant entrepreneurial options. Today, however, most Diner cuisines are only in brunch (collective name for Chinese breakfast)-because they are too simple to meet the diverse tastes of modern Americans. However, Diner also has its own characteristics after absorbing different cooking styles from around the world and from the US states.

I. American Breakfast (Brunch)

In my eyes, Brunch in the American family symbolizes a family member coming back from church on Sunday for lunch. Compared to the vast variety of food in the United States, Brunch is just the most traditional one. As I said before, most of Brunch ’s dishes are derived from the meals of Americans in the colonial era. However, with the improvement of people ’s living standards, eating only one plate of scrambled eggs can no longer meet their requirements for dinner, so hamburger steaks gradually Gradually became the staple food of Americans.

1. Basic combination options
This basic combination is a bit like a domestic buffet at breakfast. These can be grouped into a platter or can be ordered separately as a side dish. The reason why I want to introduce some basic combinations here is that when ordering, the waiters usually don't tell you what options, for example, they will ask "how much is the fried egg?" "What bread do you want?" If you don't know these options, it's often quite awkward.

In American restaurants your choice is often
Egg bread

1) Choice of eggs: In the basic combination, the eggs are often fried eggs, but this fried egg is different from the high-fried fried eggs we often make in China. Americans spread butter on the bottom of the pan, medium heat, and then add eggs. Add a little bit of water and fry the eggs with steam and butter. Usually waiters will ask you what kind of familiarity, and these names are often used in the United States
'Sunny side up':Only one side is fried, the egg yolk does not solidify at all, and part of the protein does not solidify.
'Over easy': Fried double-sided, egg yolk is not solidified, egg white is solidified-my favorite!
'Over medium': Fried on both sides, yolk coagulation, protein coagulation
'Over well': Fried on both sides, the yolk is completely solidified, and the white is completely solidified
'Over hard: Fry both sides, pierce the egg yolk, the egg yolk is completely solidified, and the egg white is completely solidified-a bit like an egg cake. . .

In the movie "Fastest Indian Motorcycle in the World", the uncle from New Zealand traveled across the ocean to the United States. He went to breakfast with a Boy lady the first morning, and made a joke because he didn't understand what was Sunny side up. . It is estimated that the director also used this paragraph to joke that Americans have to divide the fried eggs so thoroughly.

2) The choice of meat: very simple, sausage patties or bacon strips, some restaurants also provide sausage (sasugae), the most traditional is ham!
I'm afraid that sausage patties don't match the sausage we imagined. It is a cutlet made with minced pork mixed with various spices. If you want to make it yourself, you can buy it for $ 3 a pound in the supermarket and throw it back in the pan and fry it.

Ham Slice (ham slice) is another very traditional breakfast.Generally, a piece of bone-in ham slices as small as a palm and as large as a face pan is fried in a pan. . .But please be prepared before ordering, some private restaurants will really give you a whole piece of ham...

3) Bread selection

Europeans are still very particular about bread, from the degree of fermentation of the bread to the color to the shape to the hardness of breakfast and eating cereals; and the United States under the influence of the long-term fast-food culture, bread has been classified into several types, like The same kind of bread you can choose from Subway:

-White bread (left): Bread made from pure wheat flour is also the most common in our country.
-Wheat bread left 2: 3: bread made of wheat bran and malt flour (the deeper the shell, the higher the ratio)
-Rye bread (Rye bread) left 4: Bread made from rye flour, often with a harder texture. Another use of rye is to make beer.
-Marble bread, mixed bread (below)
-Various breads can be mixed with different grains

Of course, if you go to the restaurant for dinner, it ’s meaningless to eat simple sausages and bread. The real American breakfast is mainly divided into scones, pancakes, and stir-fried (this is my own classification ...)

2. Scones

1) Egg Benedict (egg Benedict): As a leader in American breakfast, we regret that we couldn't find a better translation in the Chinese-English dictionary.

It's very interesting about the origin of Egg Benedict. As early as a century ago in New York, a very wealthy Mr. Benedict went to a restaurant for breakfast every morning. After eating all the dishes on the menu, one day he asked, "Can you order something fresh?" So he asked the chef to place the English-style muffins on the English-style muffins and quickly simmer them in boiling water. Add bacon and top with Dutch chutney.

The delicious part of this dish is that when you cut the eggs, the yolks will flow out, mixed with Dutch chutney and moistened into English muffins, and then eat with bacon, there is a thick egg sauce With the crispy feel of bacon. An American friend and I once described that measuring a brunch restaurant's authenticity depends on how their Egg Benedict makes it, because delicious Dutch chutney is not easy to make.

In fact, it is called Dutch chutney, and the sauce does not have too much spicy taste. His main ingredients are egg yolks and butter, seasoned with lemon juice, salt and yellow pepper. The egg yolks need to be insulated with water, gradually become sauce, then slowly add butter, and finally season. In this process, temperature control is very important, because the egg yolk will solidify when the temperature is too high, and the egg yolk will never become sauce-like when the temperature is too low. Because of this, the restaurant can only make Dutch chutney alone every day, because the egg yolk in it is still raw, so you can't let it go the next day.
Modern American brunch has not only used bacon on Egg Benedict, more options include steak, chicken breast, smoked salmon and so on. But no matter what kind of meat is used, Dutch chutney can perfectly blend them together.

2) Biscuits and gravy

Many times I have to admit that Biscuits and gravy is one of the foods that I have seen with the most contrast and taste, and it is also a very full-fledged food-2 Biscuits and gravy I can fight for a day.
Biscuits and gravy can be said to be the originator of American food: she originated from the south because of the shortage of early American characters, especially in the south, people often had to resist a whole day to eat a meal; at the same time, people in the colonial era wanted to break away from the British Influence, so the English muffins were removed by a small spoonful of soda to make smaller and tighter Biscuits. Interestingly, Biscuits means biscuits in British English, while Biscuits in the United States is a food between biscuits and bread.

Gravy is a soup of milk, flour, sausage, bacon, black pepper, and salt. It is also a food most commonly eaten by the American people during the colonial era. In traditional American restaurants, gravy can be poured on any food, such as steak, fried pork chops and the like. The smooth milky and peppery flavors are mixed with the crispiness of fried foods, very unhealthy, but very tasty. . .

3. Fried

1) skillet or Potato platter (fried bacon sausages in a pan)
To be honest, Skillet in the United States is far from what we call Japanese sizzling sizzling, teppanyaki, etc. Basically, you use a pan with butter, fry a bunch of vegetables and meat, and put it on a plate. Put 2 eggs and sprinkle with Cheese and Black Pepper. But the reason this food exists is that you can choose any vegetables you want.

Most of these pan woks combine food with ranch potatos or hashbrown. I have never seen a restaurant that offers both types of potatoes. As for how the eggs are mixed with the dishes, each restaurant has its own hobby.

For example, in the picture above, the eggs are fried separately from the vegetables, and the fried potato pieces are also separated.

For example, in the picture above, the eggs are fried with vegetables, and the potatoes are fried with

Another example is the above picture, the eggs are not broken, and the fried potatoes are used instead of fried potato pieces. . .
I have n’t found out when the skillet is fried with eggs and when it ’s fried potatoes instead of fried potatoes.

2) The most cheating American breakfast in history: Scrambled eggs and Omelettes
I haven't figured it out yet. When Americans want to eat scrambled eggs, why do they go to restaurants?Little did they know that in our great celestial dynasty, every child would already pick up a spatula and make tomato scrambled eggs before they learn to drive.I personally think that the only difference between a 5th grade kid’s scrambled eggs with tomatoes and a plate of Scrambled eggs in American restaurants for $7 is: Scrambled eggs use butter, a little bit of sausage and mushrooms are added, and the tomatoes are cut into small pieces. Ding.

Even though Omelettes and Scrambled eggs are such simple foods, she is still the most popular food in Brunch (know the Americans are cheating!)

scrambled eggs

Of course, you can argue with me about whether Scrambled eggs are so difficult. I once saw an article on "How to Make American Fried Eggs" for everyone. The article did mention that this great scrambled egg is easy to make, but not easy to make, such as how to control the oil temperature, how to add milk, and how to stir the eggs to make the scrambled eggs look tender and delicious, but also exude buttery fragrance. . . . After I strangled more than 2 dozen eggs, I finally summed up some rules of experience, and I will share with you the other day.

Omelettes is a kind of fried quiche with various vegetables and meat on it. Finally, you can sprinkle a cheese on the hot side. The more elegant ones will roll you into an omelet. I'll just put you a quiche on the dish. For example, the picture above belongs to a California style omelette, because it contains avocado and Salsa.

4.Baking

1) Quiche (French Ham) (pronounced Ki-SH)

This dish is often not common in restaurants. I am afraid that it is too time-consuming to prepare and a person cannot eat such a large cake. In simple terms, Quiche is the oven version of Tianchao steamed eggs (of course, there will be a lot of vegetables added) or the egg version of PIZZA. . .

 

5. Pancakes

1) Waffles
Remember when the main characters of the Gossip girl were still in high school, if Uncle Rufus wanted his son or daughter to stay at home, he could say "Ah, I will make waffles in the morning", and then a few of them would stay at home with ease. After Rufus and Lily got married, they often had waffle parties.

What I want to ask is, is waffle really so attractive?

If you live in any express hotel with breakfast in the United States, you can make a waffle for yourself in the morning: pour the batter into the waffle maker and it will "drop ~~" after XNUMX minutes, then your Waffles are done!
The waffle story is said to go back to Europe in the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries. Because of the high price of sugar, the merchants who controlled the sugar business also controlled the waffle market. Today, Belgian waffles are still a very famous dessert. However, when Americans introduced waffles to the United States, they made a very American change-adding butter and more milk to the ingredients, making the cakes more buttery and softer.

Of course, you may use better milk, better butter, plus better fruit, better cream, and better maple syrup, but no matter how good, this is the secret of waffles. .
In fact, waffles are the most common breakfast in Western countries. It is probably that the various pastry shops in China have made it too mysterious and complicated. Most people prepare the batter in the refrigerator in advance (you can also go to the supermarket to buy the batter), and directly send it to the waffle machine in the morning, and it will be done in a few minutes.
In addition to the sweet additions mentioned above, you can also eat waffles with fried chicken chops and pour maple syrup-this is probably the strangest food I have ever eaten.

2) Pancake

In a sense, Pancake and Dorayaki are actually a kind of thing, but there is no red bean filling. Like the waffle story, Americans learned how to make pancakes from Europeans, and then added bus butter and soda to make pancakes soft, fragrant, and high-calorie. Because it was so popular and costly to make Cheap, so the Americans opened a lot of Pancake restaurants, such as the common IHOP (International House of Pancakes, Pancake House), and Pancake became infamous. . .

6. fancy bread
1) French toast (French toast)
In fact, I have forgotten to write French toast, because this is one of the foods I hate most-I hate liar and Cinnamon in my life, and the main ingredient of French toast is cinnamon powder. But it is undeniable that French toast is an integral part of American brunch. However, I personally feel that the two French toasts are not enough to eat, so I usually cannot accept or order them.

French toast should belong to our idea of ​​how to handle overnight food. A long time ago, when bread didn't add so many preservatives, it usually dried after 2 or 3 days, so people thought of a way to make this dry bread more delicious: put bread in milk, eggs, (sugar) Soak it in a mixture of cinnamon, vanilla and vanilla, and fry it in a pan full of butter. In this way, the bread is fragrant and delicious, and has the flavor of milk and cinnamon.
When French toast was introduced to the United States, Americans naturally could not afford to miss the opportunity of American improvement! So they add a spoonful of cream to the french toast, give you a bottle of maple syrup, and sometimes put a bunch of fruit on top. . . Everything is aligned with high heat!

 

2) Bagel bagels (bagels cooked first and then baked)
Someone mentioned Bagel in the comments. It's hard to say whether this is a cafe food or a Brunch Menu Food. Most Diner does not provide bagel. On the one hand, because it is too simple, cut a half of the bagel and apply cream, so he should be more classified as cupcake and the other is sour cream ( sour cream) and smoked salmon are so fancy, they don't meet Diner's cheap price of 5-10 dollars. Of course, some of the more advanced Brunch restaurants offer a variety of Bagel options, such as bacon, beef, various luncheon meats, or just two sandwiches.

If you want Bagel, go to Panera Bread. They have the most complete Bagel product line in history, such as pumpkin flavor, rye, sour cream noodles, whole wheat, garlic, onion, blueberry, sea salt, cinnamon Walnut, chocolate, cheese flavor. . . Every month Panera comes to our company to provide breakfast for one day. After trying all the above varieties, I still find the garlic taste unique.
If Polish immigrants first brought Bagel from Poland to the United States, in less than a century, Americans invented donuts. There may not be an inevitable connection between them, but I can fully imagine the Americans' adjustments to national cuisines-just like how they treat Chinese food: change salt to a lot of sugar, and then roast to fry.

I once discussed with my friends why there is a hole in Bagel, and they told me that because Bagel needs to be cooked briefly, then baked. The holes can be heated more evenly, because sometimes they are burnt around when they are not cooked in the middle. Then I asked why it was such a big hole? According to our research, it was said that the person who originally created the donut digs a hole with a pepper pot. I'm afraid Bagel's hole is like this. .

Recently, a Polish classmate told me that there is another type of bagel without holes called bialy. . . Okay, you guys won. . .

3) Croissant bread
Like the bagel above, Croissant generally does not appear in Diner's Menu, more like a cafe food. Croissant as a breakfast seems to be more sophisticated than the casual American Diner, so it is generally classified as a part of the Continental breakfast. Some students in the reply said why I do n’t write cereals and other cereals. They should also be a component of Continental breakfast (from continental Europe), which is actually different from our unhealthy and high-calorie American Brunch.

Of course, if Croissant exists in the American Diner, it often comes in the form of a sandwich. But when it's called a sandwich, it's lunch—this is Dinner's dinner.

Even such a simple brunch can be given different "styles" by mixing different vegetables, sauces and meats. In the next article, we will talk about the regional food style of the United States.

This article is adapted from Xu Ren's article on Renren, the original linkClick here