America is a true melting pot — not just of people, but of food. While we may think of hamburgers and apple pie as emblematic of America, most of the foods we cherish have roots elsewhere. With only 248 years under our belt, many of our beloved dishes were born from culinary traditions around the globe.
Our palates are influenced by places as far away as Asia and as close as Mexico. From sweet and sticky to crunchy and savory, we’ve taken foods from around the world and made them our own.
A Hole In One
Whether simply glazed, filled with cream or topped with icing and sprinkles, doughnuts are a quintessential American favorite. But did you know that these rings of fried (or baked) dough have been around for centuries?
While it’s believed ancient Romans and Greeks ate doughnuts, their history in the U.S. can be traced to Dutch immigrants who came to New York in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The first doughnuts to come to America were fried dough balls called olie koeken or olykoeks, which means “oil cakes.” Unlike modern doughnuts, they were not round with a hole, but rather were balls of dough, similar to today’s doughnut holes.
Anna Joralemon, a Dutch woman, is said to have opened the first doughnut shop in 1673 on Broadway (near Maiden Lane) in New York City. Most doughnut shops to come after were small and individually owned.
Vernon Rudolph opened the first Krispy Kreme in Winston-Salem, N.C., in 1933. Today, there are 370 locations in 41 states. The company also is in 26 international markets.
Competitor Dunkin’ Donuts first opened in 1948 by William Rosenberg in Quincy, Mass., under the name Open Kettle. Two years later, that name was changed to Dunkin’ Donuts. In 2019, it was shortened to Dunkin’. That first store still exists, along with 9,150 others in 45 states.
As American As... Nope
Although apple pie may be a symbol of Americana, its history is not rooted in the U.S. In fact, the only apples that were in America were crab apples, which were not tasty. The first edible apples were brought to the colonies by Europeans.
The dessert as we know it today originated with the British and Dutch with the first recipes appearing in England around the 14th century. Recipes for Dutch apple pie date to the Middle Ages.
It wasn’t until the late 1700s that the first recipe for apple pie appeared in America’s first cookbook, “American Cookery” by Amelia Simmons.
Apples, however, originated in Asia, while the spices we put into the pie — generally cinnamon and nutmeg — come from Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
How apple pie came to symbolize America dates to the early 1900s when the phrase “as American as apple pie” began to be used in advertisements. During World War II, soldiers began to say they were fighting for Mom and apple pie, establishing the dessert as a symbol of the American ideals.
If you enjoy apple pie à la mode, you have concert pianist Charles Watson Townsend to thank. He is said to have invented it while staying at the Cambridge Hotel in New York. When a guest heard him order a slice of pie with ice cream, he was asked what he called it. He replied, “Pie à la mode,” and the rest is history.
Lions And Tigers And Bears
America’s sweetheart Shirley Temple may have sung about animal crackers in her soup, but did you know those tiny treats did not originate in the U.S.? Known in England as animal biscuits, they started selling there in the 1800s. However, they became so popular that Americans decided to create their own.
Several companies sell animal crackers. Stauffer Biscuit Company was the first to sell in the U.S. in 1871, and they’ve been using the same recipe since the turn of the 20th century. In 1902, Nabisco started to sell Barnum’s Animals, styled after the many animals in P.T. Barnum’s circus. They sold for 5 cents in boxes with strings at the top, designed to be hung from Christmas trees.
Today, you will find bears, bison, camels, cougars, elephants, giraffes, gorillas, hippopotamuses, hyenas, kangaroos, koalas, lions, monkeys, rhinoceros, seals, sheep, tigers and zebras. There have been 54 different animals represented in its 122-year history.
Even though Temple sings, “Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop,” there have never been animal crackers in the shape of a rabbit.
While many food trends come and go, animal crackers have remained popular, with 40 million packages sold around the world every year and distributed to 17 different countries.
Let's Go Nuts
Veteran food critic Florence Fabricant has called peanut butter “the pâté of childhood.” And for many, it was and is. Although peanut butter has become a staple in most American kitchens, the National Peanut Board attributes the Incas and Aztecs with its invention.
Three North Americans, however, are credited with creating what we know as peanut butter today. In 1884, Canadian chemist Marcellus Gilmore Edson patented peanut paste made from milling roasted peanuts between two heated surfaces. The following year, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (of Kellogg’s cereal fame) patented a process for making peanut butter from raw peanuts. He marketed it as a nutritious protein substitute for people struggling to chew solid food. Many of Kellogg’s clients, including Amelia Earhart, Sojourner Truth and Henry Ford, helped popularize peanut butter. In 1903, Dr. Ambrose Straub of St. Louis, Mo., patented a peanut butter-making machine.
Over the next few decades, various people improved upon its production. Its popularity peaked during World War I when meat was rationed, and again during World War II. Peanut butter accounts for about half of the U.S. edible use of peanuts — making up about $850 million in retail sales each year, according to the Peanut Board.
The first PB&J sandwich recipe first appeared in 1901 in the “Boston Cooking School Magazine of Culinary Science and Domestic Economics” written by Julia Davis Chandler. She suggested using currant or crab apple jelly.
A Cash Cow
A staple at many barbecues, it is estimated Americans eat about 50 billion burgers each year. But the hamburger didn’t get its start in the U.S. The name comes from the German port city of Hamburg, where it is believed 19th-century sailors brought back beef tartare after trading with the Russians.
However, there are a few stories about where the hamburger (as we know it today) originated.
Some believe that a man named Fletcher Davis first put the cooked ground beef patty on bread in Athens, Texas. Davis is said to have brought his creation to the World’s Fair in St. Louis in 1904, where it became a hit.
However, if you ask folks in New Haven, Conn., where the burger originated, they will insist it was invented by Louis Lassen in 1900. It is said that a customer wanted a quick and delicious meal and Lassen put together a burger from ingredients meant for steak sandwiches.
Four generations later, the Lassen family continues to operate Louis’ Lunch, although the building has moved a few times over the years.
Today, there are more than 84,000 burger restaurants in the U.S. worldwide, McDonald’s sells about $50 million worth of burgers a day, which is about 750 burgers sold per second. Wendy’s comes in second while Burger King, the home of the Whopper, comes in third place in sales.
Seeing Red
Can you imagine putting fish sauce on your burger or hotdog, or dipping your fries into it? If you were in Southern China around 300 B.C., fermented pastes made from fish entrails, meat byproducts and soybeans were called kê-tsiap, a word that refers to fish sauce. It was more like soy sauce than anything else.
Ketchup, with all its various spellings, including catsup and catchup, soon referred to any variety of spiced, savory sauces. Its use spread to Indonesia and the Philippines, where British traders took home samples and changed the recipe. Cookbooks featured recipes made with oysters, mussels, mushrooms, walnuts, lemons, celery and even plums and peaches.
It wasn’t until 1812 that the first tomato-based recipe for ketchup made its debut. Philadelphia scientist James Mease is credited with coming up with it. In 1876, Henry Heinz, a first-generation German American, introduced the company’s famous formulation using tomatoes, distilled vinegar, brown sugar, salt and spices.
The ketchup market size is estimated at $17.17 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach $21.04 billion by 2029, according to the market research company Mordor Intelligence. While many of the major brands such as Heinz, Hunts and Del Monte are still around, many other lesser-known brands as well as store brands are seeing increased sales.