‘New American,’ ‘Fusion,’ and the Endless, Liberating Challenge of Describing American Food Right Now
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Loading... - Masika Khaled
- 09 Mar 2023
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Chefs are pushing the boundaries of what “American” cooking means, being more creative than ever. We need better language to describe their food.
Take a look at the sorts of restaurants that were celebrated on best-of lists this past year by The New York Times, Eater, and here at Bon Appétit, and you will see a mish-mash of cuisines. Rooster & Owl in DC features cornbread, banh mi, panzanella, and tabouleh. At Elvie’s in Jackson, Mississippi, the menu careens from “New Orleans-style baked oysters to pork tonkatsu, vegetable lumpia to redfish amandine, shrimp remoulade to cacio e pepe,” as the Times puts it. Bonnie’s in Brooklyn flirts with a new vision of Cantonese American food, its menu including salted duck egg-custard French toast, and cha siu done two ways: as a hash for brunch, or as a “McRib” at dinner.
The current moment in American food is pushing the boundaries of what “American” means—resolutely taking what was historically not considered American and making it so.
Yet amidst this burst of creativity and invention, a question has emerged: What do we call the kind of food that defines how Americans eat now? Instead of being neatly confined by geography or a single culture, the food of cutting-edge chefs pulls from varied cultural backgrounds, as well as the cities where they learned to cook. Such cooking, like the things that defined this year’s best-of lists, blends cuisines and cultures in a way that we don’t quite yet have a name for. Read More…
