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American food: The 50

greatest dishes
By Dana Joseph, CNN
29 minute read
Updated 10:18 PM EST, Sat January 16,
2021

We waded our way through America's

greatest foods. Here are our favorites.
Stephen Chernin/Getty Images North
America/Getty Images

(CNN) — Fast, junk, processed –

when it comes to American food, the
country is best known for the stuff
that’s described by words better
suited to greasy, grinding industrial
output. But citizens of the USA have
an impressive appetite for good
stuff, too.

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To celebrate its endless culinary

creativity, we’re throwing our list of
50 most delicious American food
items at you. We know you’re going
to want to throw back.

Ground rules: acknowledge that

even trying to define American food
is tough; further acknowledge that
picking favorite American items
inevitably means leaving out or
accidentally overlooking some
much-loved regional specialties.

Now get the rubber apron on

because we’re going first. Let the
food fight begin:

50. Key lime pie

Key lime pie is a staple on south Florida

menus. Courtesy Joe's Stone Crab
Restaurant

If life gives you limes, don’t make

limeade, make a Key lime pie. The
official state pie of Florida, this sassy
tart has made herself a worldwide
reputation, which started in – where
else? – the Florida Keys, from
whence come the tiny limes that
gave the pie its name.

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Aunt Sally, a cook for Florida’s first

self-made millionaire, ship salvager
William Curry, gets the credit for
making the first Key lime pie in the
late 1800s. But you might also thank
Florida sponge fisherman for likely
originating the concoction of key
lime juice, sweetened condensed
milk, and egg yolks, which could be
“cooked” (by a thickening chemical
reaction of the ingredients) at sea.

49. Tater tots

Tater tots are crunchy fried potatoes.

Tater tots are crunchy fried potatoes.

Courtesy stu_spivack/Creative
Commons/Flickr

We love French fries, but for an

American food variation on the
potato theme, one beloved at Sonic
drive-ins and school cafeterias
everywhere, consider the Tater Tot.

Notice it often has the registered

trademark – these commercial hash
brown cylinders are indeed
proprietary to the Ore-Ida company.
If you’d been one of the Grigg
brothers who founded Ore-Ida, you’d
have wanted to come up with
something to do with leftover slivers
of cut-up potatoes, too. They added
some flour and seasoning and
shaped the mash into tiny tots and
put them on the market in 1956. A
little more than 50 years later,
America is eating about 32 million
kilos of these taters annually.

48. San Francisco

sourdough bread

Sourdough bread is San Francisco's most

beloved baked treat. Justin Sullivan/Getty
Images North America/Getty Images

Sourdough is as old as the pyramids

and not coincidentally was eaten in
ancient Egypt. But the hands-down
American favorite, and the sourest
variety, comes from San Francisco.

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As much a part of NoCal culinary

culture as Napa Valley wine,
sourdough bread has been a staple
since Gold Rush days. Once upon a
frontier time, miners (called
“sourdoughs” for surviving on the
stuff) and settlers carried sourdough
starter (more reliable than other
leavening) in pouches around their
necks or on their belts.

Thank goodness that’s not the way

they do it at Boudin Bakery, which
has been turning out the bread that
bites back in the City by the Bay
since 1849.

47. Cobb salad

Originally made with leftovers, Cobb salad

now one of America's favorite appetizers.
Courtesy Jodimichelle/Creative
Commons/Flickr

The chef’s salad originated back

East, but American food innovators
working with lettuce out West
weren’t going to be outdone.

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In 1937, Bob Cobb, the owner of The

Brown Derby, was scrounging
around at the restaurant’s North
Vine location for a meal for Sid
Grauman of Grauman’s Theater
when he put together a salad with
what he found in the fridge: a head
of lettuce, an avocado, some
romaine, watercress, tomatoes,
some cold chicken breast, a hard-
boiled egg, chives, cheese, and
some old-fashioned French dressing.

Brown Derby lore says, “He started

chopping. Added some crisp bacon,
swiped from a busy chef.” The salad
went onto the menu and straight
into the heart of Hollywood.

46. Pot roast

Braised beef and vegetables -- the perfect

warming hot pot. Courtesy Kim/Creative
Commons/Flickr

The childhood Sunday family dinner

of baby boomers everywhere, pot
roast claims a sentimental favorite
place in the top 10 of American
comfort foods. There’s a whole
generation that would be lost
without it.

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Beef brisket, bottom or top round, or

chuck set in a deep roasting pan
with potatoes, carrots, onions, and
whatever else your mom threw in to
be infused with the meat’s
simmering juices, the pot roast
could be anointed with red wine or
even beer, then covered and cooked
on the stovetop or in the oven.

45. Twinkies

Twinkies are known for their durability and

shelf life -- rumour says they could survive a
nuclear attack. Scott Olson/Getty Images
North America/Getty Images

Hostess’ iconic “Golden Sponge

Cake with Creamy Filling” has been
sugaring us up since James Dewar
invented it at the Continental Baking
Company in Schiller Park, Illinois, in
1930.

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The Twinkie forsook its original

banana cream filling for vanilla when
bananas were scarce during World
War II. As if they weren’t ridiculously
good enough already, the Texas
State Fair started the fad of deep-
frying them.

Dumped in hot oil or simply torn

from their packaging, Twinkies
endear with their name (inspired by
a billboard advertising Twinkle Toe
Shoes), their ladyfinger shape
(pierced three times to inject the
filling), and their evocations of
lunchtime recess. They were
temporarily taken off the shelves
between November 2012 to July
2013 – when Hostess filed for
bankruptcy. Now they are back and
going strong.

RELATED ARTICLE
Behind the appeal of America's craziest
fair foods

44. Jerky

It might not look appetizing, but the taste

speaks for itself. Courtesy Larry
Jacobsen/Creative Commons/Flickr

Dehydrated meat shriveled almost

beyond recognition – an unlikely
source of so much gustatory
pleasure, but jerky is a high-protein
favorite of backpackers, road
trippers, and snackers everywhere.

It’s American food the way we like

our wilderness grub – tough and
spicy.

We like the creation myth that says

it’s the direct descendant of
American Indian pemmican, which
mixed fire-cured meat with animal
fat. Beef, turkey, chicken, venison,
buffalo, even ostrich, alligator, yak,
and emu. Peppered, barbecued,
hickory-smoked, honey glazed.
Flavored with teriyaki, jalapeno,
lemon pepper, chili.

Jerky is so versatile and portable

and packs such nutritional power
that the Army is experimenting with
jerky sticks that have the caffeine
equivalent of a cup of coffee.

However you take your jerky – caf or

decaf; in strips, chips, or shreds –
prepare to chew long and hard.
You’ve still got your own teeth, right?

43. Fajitas

Fajitas: the epitome of Tex-Mex cuisine.

Courtesy Shutterstock

Take some vaqueros working on the

range and the cattle slaughtered to
feed them. Throw in the throwaway
cuts of meat as part of the hands’
take-home pay, and let cowboy
ingenuity go to work.

Grill skirt steak (faja in Spanish) over

the campfire, wrap in a tortilla, and
you’ve got the beginning of a Rio
Grande region tradition. The fajita is
thought to have come off the range
and into popular culture when a
certain Sonny Falcon began
operating fajita taco stands at
outdoor events and rodeos in Texas
beginning in 1969.

It wasn’t long before the dish was

making its way onto menus in the
Lone Star State and spreading with
its beloved array of condiments –
grilled onions and green pepper,
pico de gallo, shredded cheese, and
sour cream – across the country.
Don’t forget the Altoids.

42. Banana split

The banana makes it good for you, right?

Cindy Ord/Getty Images North America

Like the banana makes it good for

you. Still, kudos to whoever invented
the variation of the sundae known as
the banana split. There’s the 1904
Latrobe, Pennsylvania, story, in
which future optometrist David
Strickler was experimenting with
sundaes at a pharmacy soda
fountain, split a banana lengthwise,
and put it in a long boat dish.

And the 1907 Wilmington, Ohio,

story, wherein restaurant owner
Ernest Hazard came up with it to
draw students from a nearby
college. Fame spread after a
Walgreens in Chicago made the split
its signature dessert in the 1920s.
Whatever the history, you’ll find
plenty food for thought at the annual
Banana Split Festival, which takes
place on the second weekend in
June in Wilmington.

41. Cornbread

Cornbread is popular across the country,

but it's a Southern classic. Courtesy Alice
Henneman/Creative Commons/Flickr

It’s one of the pillars of Southern

cooking, but cornbread is the soul
food of many a culture – black,
white, and Native American – and
not just south of the Mason-Dixon.
Grind corn coarsely and you’ve got
grits; soak kernels in alkali, and
you’ve got hominy (which we
encourage you to cook up into
posole). Leaven finely ground
cornmeal with baking powder, and
you’ve got cornbread.

Southern hushpuppies and corn

pone, New England johnnycakes;
cooked in a skillet or in muffin tins;
flavored with cheese, herbs, or
jalapenos – cornbread in any
incarnation remains the quick and
easy go-to bread that historically
made it a favorite of Native American
and pioneer mothers and keeps it on
tables across the country today.

40. GORP

Trail mix: fueling hikers across the United

States. Courtesy Helen Penjam/Creative