Three suggestions: 1. Have you done the American "Breakfast Canon" yet. Pancakes, grits, eggs, bacon, breakfast sandwiches, etc. 2. I think the popularity of Tex-Mex should be explored. One thing I noticed oversees was you didn't really get to the American dominant areas until you saw a Mexican restaurant. Also is this a cultural divide between America and Canada? 3. A timeline of American Health Crazes and Fad diets. We seem to have a new one every decade or so, so going over the rise and fall of certain foods in response to health crises.
I like the fad diet one. Remember Snackwell's in those green boxes? That whole "fat is bad for you" thing that happened in the 1990s which I actually believed? Legitimately was trying to be a healthy eater and probably made it worse.
@KayleyWhalen yeah there really isn't anything more American than reinventing your entire diet every 10-25 years through a mix of science and lobbying.
I've always found #2 particularly interesting because my mother grew up in 1960s Massachusetts and she says there was zero Tex-Mex food, in fact the only thing remotely close to Hispanic food at the time was Campbell's black bean soup (which came from Cuba, not Mexico). In fact, my mother tells me the only ethnic food available at the time was Italian and Chinese. So this seems like a topic that'd be fun to explore, how different immigration patterns affected the American food scene. When I was growing up in the 1990s, Vietnamese and Korean food was extremely rare outside of California. Now, there are pho and Korean BBQ places everywhere. What will the ethnic food scene in the US look a generation from now? Are we going to see a surge in Middle Eastern food due to immigration from Afghanistan, Syria, etc? I would welcome that.
As an American living outside of America, I've always found it ironic that our culture is criticized for "imposing" these fast food classics to the rest of the world, as if they weren't incredibly popular everywhere.
I had that experience, too, when I lived in Europe. When hearing the usual accusations of America "imposing" these horrible fast food places on them, my answer was always "yeah, but who's buying it?" Because fact is, if local customers weren't purchasing them over there, they wouldn't be sold over there.
@@justinarzola4584 Burgers don't originate from Germany and J.J. even went over this in the video. The style of a ground beef steak/patty was imported and putting it on bread/buns started in the US. What we know of as a burger is quite American.
I don't know why I found 12:24 so funny, it just felt like such a departure from the very clean and structured presentation style of JJ. Having fries thrown at the screen is something truly worthy of an award winning video. 10/10 JJ You've done it again!
I absolutely love having JJ's perspective on these quintessential American lore highlights. As an American myself, I feel like I am too close to really see things from the outside like this. Thanks for another award winning video, JJ!
@@JJMcCullough Sorry, i didn't mean to insinuate you're a total outsider or anything, I guess I'm just saying you have a perspective that is at least slightly different from my own, I guess.
IIRC J.J. had a video on Canadian left-nationalism where he described himself in pan-American terms contrasting to said left-nationalism: he thinks Canadians (including himself) are *culturally* Americans and foresees/hopes for some sort of tightly knit union of Canada and the US (or Canada "joining" the US) in the future.
What I love so much about JJ is his straightforward honesty. Tons of channels just state things as if they are 100% certain. But JJ talks about how we don’t really know, and maybe this thing is true but maybe it’s not. It feels like he treats us like adults, who can handle nuance and uncertainty, instead of like children.
You should do a video on 1950s-ish American dinners. Like fried chicken, meatloaf, Salisbury steak. You know what most Americans consider home cooking.
Almost impossible to find in many parts of the country now. In southern California, the old-school diners and coffee shop cafes are rapidly disappearing. The ones you see now are more like novelty venues. Like a theme park, with theme park prices.
@@norwegianblue2017Being from New Jersey where there’s basically a diner on every corner, this is perhaps the worst part of living in LA. Most breakfast places are health conscious and overpriced
It is worth noting that in USA, burger currently refers to a ground meat patty on a bun. Even though many other countries call chicken (or other meat) on a bun a burger, a bun with filets of meat in the USA is usually referred to as a sandwich.
@decismuchjuvenile4705 Makes sense actually. The country that invents a new food usually has more reverence for it and will insist on certain particularities. Other countries won't be so concerned with such details and can just use the general concept. Perfect example is pizza in Italy versus the rest of the world.
I think you could easily expand upon the dipping sauce segment and make an entire video on the history of the great American condiments. Like how did ketchup and mayo earn the status of being the salt and pepper of the condiment world? I demand to know!
@@onewingedangel9189 I suspect you're both right. It seems to me that on the West Coast, it's ketchup and mayo, and on the East Coast, ketchup and mustard. Either way, I would agree that those are the ""big three" condiments, and a video on how that came to be would be good.
McDonalds stopped operations in Russia in 2022 and sold their stores to a local investor. He reopened some of them under a new name, the food is supposedly pretty much the same.
They both DID have McDonald's but after war broke out and sanctions came into work McDonald's "officially" left Russian market and all their restaurants were rebranded into something else. But as far as I'm aware they still do belong to McDonald's lol.
@@annuitcoeptis9997It was the same at first but that was because they were using leftovers from McDonalds. After a while the quality of the food declined.
J.J. really has got to be the only RU-vidr who alternates between tactful, skilled geopolitical analyses and equally thorough explanations of our food culture THAT quickly and successfully... Bravo!
Something I’ve always found interesting about American burger culture is how Hamburg-er morphed into ham-burger, even though Bürger is already the German word for ‘citizen’ Also your first point is exemplified by Checkpoint Charlie proudly standing between a McDonald’s and a KFC
Some potential ideas, as a pseudo-Canadian I’ll preemptively apologize in case you’ve already done some of them: • pop/soda- Cola, Root Beer, Lemon-Lime are what I would think of as big three, but I don’t drink much pop • canned soups - tomato, chicken noodle, cream of mushroom/chicken/celery • sports - football, baseball, basketball, hockey - you did the ball video which is related but these are often called the big four for a reason • condiments - ketchup, mustard, mayo, BBQ, ranch • “ethnic” restaurants - Italian, Chinese and Mexican represent the classic big three but Thai, Indian, Japanese and more have increasing presence over past years, I believe the government in Thailand has specifically allocated money to opening restaurants overseas too
It's interesting how as someone living in the UK, these things are all the same but different - root beer doesn't enter our soda lexicon at all except for those weird American candy stores that sell imported American goods. Ranch also isn't a thing at all here, and I only learned it existed for the first time when I went to the US as a teenager. In terms of ethnic restaurants, I'd say Chinese and Indian are the big two - but if you want to get really meta about it you could say American is #1 with the import of McDonalds, Burger King etc. Obviously with sports, football (soccer) reigns supreme with everything else being several rungs below. I've never met anyone who watches baseball, it's about as niche as you can get.
I would look seriously into the evolution of soda flavors more, as there are basically three big companies that each produce their own version of a number of basic "canonical" soda flavors. Seeing how each of these evolved and how caffeination factors into the distinctions between them would be really interesting I think.
@@bubbles581 Also vague caffeine-heavy citrus (mountain dew, mello yello, etc.), root beer, ginger ale, cream soda, dr. pepper and its knock-offs, and purple drink.
It’s probably worth pointing out that burgers and fries weren’t CREATED by the advent of fast food, but were already popularized as food items by the American Diner before fast food created a way for them to be quickly mass produced
JJ you are my best friend. I love that you can go from giving a rational opinion on geopolitical conflicts and then talk about chicken nuggies and fries
you should do a video on fair food, like corndogs, funnel cake, kettle corn, etc. I've always felt like those were an important part of Americana, and are always expected at fairs and festivals. I've also seen other foods start to join the rotation such as gyros and kebab. And there is also some considerable regional variety like hush puppies and fried dough.
Would be interesting to go through what national cuisines have lent themselves to commercialization and mass appeal, and how/why. The Filipino American community is historically as large and deeply rooted as the Chinese American community but obviously nowhere near the same cuisine popularity.
Nah. Filipinos and Chinese are NOT Americans. They’re in Canada and they’re Canadians. You’re confusing the two countries of Canada, where they actually are, with the US.
@@anonymoususer8895what the hell are you talking about? As an American, Chinese Americans are one of the most famous ethnic groups in the country and there are a lot of Filipino Americans given that we held that country as a colony for half a century.
I hope in the future cheese curds can be added to this list, because I've noticed a gradual and continuous increase in their popularity over the years.
Cheese curds are great, and I think their spread is mainly via Culver's & fairs. Culver's being the regional chain in the midwest, it only makes sense that they'd serve the quintessentially Midwestern cheese curds, and they are steadily expanding across the country. Fairs, too, with their obsession with all thinks fried, it's almost inevitable that they get ahold of cheese curds
@@WillTheBassPlayerZaxby's sells them too, they just call them cheddar bites. Which I assume is just because they think their customers are uncultured.
i'm from tennessee and i don't think i've ever seen cheese curds sold in a restaurant. someone mentioned Culver's, but we don't have many (any?) of them around here. 🙂
Something I’ve been curious about regarding fast food is how onion rings became such a popular alternative to fries as a side dish and how come some of the biggest players in fast food (McDonald’s, Wendy’s) don’t offer them on a national level?
Fascinating and entertaining as always, and I do have a suggestion: have you done a video on the origin of the Peanut butter sandwich and its various incarnations?
You should consider American salad dressing cannon because we have a very rigid idea in North America what is and is not a salad dressing and I think the origin of where they come from would be very interesting
JJ we NEED a video on the hot dog cultural canon. Every hot dog stand has mustard ketchup, onions and relish. Why is that? It would be great to put it on the 4th of July, Memorial Day or the opening day of baseball!
I would be interested to know about the history of American-Mexican blend of food. Its a food unique to the Americas and usually not found in other countries. It also has a lot of variations, like Cali-Mex and Tex-Mex. Probably a New York variant as well (I'm guessing but I don't know for sure). Tacos are pretty ubiquitous in North America. I've had Mexican friends question the authenticity of any such food north of the border, but I think thats what makes it interesting. Especially with places like taco bell essentially creating a new genre of food that isn't really Mexican but not a classic fast food style either, but a weird blend.
I know once upon a time you called poutine "dumb", but I think more and more it has become a real contender in the "Canadian" food canon. For all the similarities we have with America, they can't say with nearly as much confidence, that dozens to hundreds of establishments exist in each of our moderate to large sized cities that one can walk into and purchase a bed of fries topped with various cultural staples and sauces. Like the hamburger to America, post-modern poutine can be perhaps best thought as a canvas for other cultures to paint on. Donair poutine, curry poutine, pierogi poutine, montreal smoked meat poutine, etc.---I get the feeling that it has become a kind of metaphor for pluralism, affordable and accessible where Canadian urbanism shines brightest.
My wife introduced me to plain honey for dipping. Thought she was insane at first but its actually amazing. Its because honey is quite acidic which you often might not think of and the sweet acidity cuts through the grease basically perfectly
Havent watched the video, but I think of fast food as being very similar to street food. It's designed to be delicious, cheap, very fast to make with very little training, with food that either cooks very quickly or can be easily pre-cooked and reheated without losing texture or flavor. Different countries have different street foods, but some of these streetfoods have "upgraded" to fast food restaurants. These restaurants are bigger than carts or stalls that streetfoods are made in and can serve larger crowds plus provide a place to sit while they eat and usually a drive through, which is essential for Americans as we have a very strong work ethic and put far less priority on sitting down to enjoy our meals. We often just want to stuff our face and move on. As for the reason it's burgers and fried food, fried food is extremely easy and fast to reheat from frozen without losing flavor or texture. Potatos are very cheap, so fries are perfect. Chicken nuggets can be made with scraps and byproduct to produce a consistent and yummy product that's bite sized and beloved by children. Fried food in general is delicious and requires very little training. Burgers are also pretty easy, though they do take more training than fried food. The ingredients can all be prepared ahead of time and made pretty fast. It's easy to create new menu items using the same ingredients you already have, so you can have a varied menu with limited space and inventory. You'll see that taco bell, which is one of the few fast food restaurants without a burger focus, has the same advantage of making many menu items with the same ingredients. I mean, how many combinations can you make with hot dogs? Not enough. Hotdogs don't need their own restaurant, they're better suited for streetfood which is cheaper to run. I'm sure theres also a historical component, but I don't know anything about it 😂 I just know about the actual restaurants in the present day and why it works
What about a video talking about the different styles of pop. Like how a cola, a root beer, a lemon lime drink and an orange drink have become the standard
In the third section on fries, I have to wonder about the stereotypically British dish: fish and chips. (actually, come to think of it, all the big American chains have fish sandwiches) and the breading of nuggets technology you mentioned seems related to "fish sticks" which, if not fast food staples, were super common in school lunches and there's a bag of frozen fish sticks in half of US freezers (half is probably an exaggeration)
While it doesn’t explain 100% of the preponderance, inclusion of fish in many fast food outlets came from trying to appeal to Catholic customers during Lent.
As far as I know, the French in French fry doesn't imply the location of its creation, but instead the manner of the cut. Think French cut green beans, the long thin cut. It would also make sense as to why we don't say "waffle French fries" or "curly French fries" because they aren't French cut
Maybe for the next episode of this series, all the typical American thanksgiving foods? Mashed potatoes and gravy, turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc
It’s interesting to hear that Canadians call chicken sandwiches, chicken burgers, too. I’ve heard Brits use that term and it always just is a little disconcerting. Americans don’t use chicken burger to describe a chicken sandwich. Typically to be a burger at has to have some form of ground meat.
We differentiate between a sandwich and a burger in the UK and Ireland. A burger is burger shaped and a sandwich is either a whole breast bread crumbed or it's longer. Don't ask me why
@@pjschmid2251 I wonder if there was a bit bit of adaption there. or it might be what part of Britain they're from. Accents and dialects vary wildly here
I've been to "New England fairs" in Massachusetts where they sell "German fries": they're like a potato chip wrapped around a stick. Not sure I've seen that anywhere else
maybe the history of thanksgiving meal like dressing/stuffing and eating turkey in general? christmas meals too would be a good one if thanksgiving is too soon.
the word "French" in french fries is a reference to a french cutting style called "Julienne". The world probably decided that french fries rolls off the tongue better than julienne fries. However you can still google "Julienne fries" and it will take you right to a french fry recipe.
You could do a video about the traditional genres of fiction canon. Like the origins and tropes of the popular genres of science fiction, fanstasy, mystery, horror, etc.
12:20 Me!! I do it!! It’s actually very good specifically with McDonald’s nuggets. I hate when the employees give me honey mustard by mistake (happens all the time). For a long time, there was a cute bee on the dipping sauce.
Of course, we do eat burgers on sliced bread. We call them patty melts instead. Also, look up "Kewpee" was one of the biggest chain restaurants in the pre-war era. Now just 3 exist.
How about the hoagie vs grinder vs submarine vs hero sandwich "debate"? It's kinda like the soda vs pop vs coke deal depending on the region of the US you're in.
Denmark has a dish called hakkebøf, which is basically Salisbury steak. It's normally served with potatoes on the side and may be topped with caramelized onions or fried egg. Northern Germany has quite a bit of cultural crossover with Denmark, so perhaps the hamburger is a sort of niece or nephew of hakkebøf.
Another American food canon idea - how sushi made the journey from being a seen by Americans as this exotic, vaguely unnerving, and extremely foreign food to something that is sold in gas stations in only a few decades. In the 90s, the Nickelodeon cartoon show Doug treated sushi like this: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_ag1txbfK44.html. Nowadays, portraying sushi this way would seem very weird.
@@JJMcCullough There's also an early episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles where Splinter tries to serve it to April and pronounces it "suSHI" with the stress on the last syllable - a token of how unfamiliar it was to Americans at the time.
Your point around 5 minutes that "dishes" weren't "imported" is something I've always noted while cooking. Literally every "dish" uses grains, meat, vegetables, and a sauce. Tacos Stroganoff Roast dinner Sandwiches Spaghetti and meat sauce Curry These are all the same thing. Fight me.
Growing up I had two pre war burger joints near me. One was a hot dog joint that proudly stated we have hamburger steak on the very old sign. The other "newer" had hamburgers in the name, hot dogs and shakes. You could get cheese, pickles, onions and thats it. The old place close 23 years ago. Totally a thin greese burger. The other place is still around and people still flock there. But what's funny is both use the same buns as white castle.
I would kill if you could make up a followup video to the potato chip canon video. Specifically mentioning Flamin' Hot, Tortilla chips, and Kettle Chips. As, imo, recently they seem even more popular compared to their potato chip counterparts. Or movie theater popcorn !! There's so much to explore !
12:14 I didn't know this until I asked for honey mustard at a drive-thru and was given packets of raw honey. It's actually one of THE reasons why I dislike using the drive-thru.
Because of this video, I ordered honey with my McDonald's nuggies today. I used to always use honey on chicken nuggets when I was young, at school or fast food. It's a good salty sweet combo, thanks for reminding me of it!
I would love to see you expand on this series and make videos talking about influential companies that were the “first” to create or do things that are commonplace in America. I’m an economics guy so understanding how corporations altered modern America is fascinating to me.
I remember when Mcnuggets replaced the Southern Fried Chicken at McDonald’s. It was a novelty but I remember the general consensus was the friend chicken pieces tasted better.
Great condensed history on these fast food classics. Though I always like to remind people that McDonalds didnt invent the chicken nugget, they instead perfected marketing the nugget and increasing it's ability to be mass produced. The real inventor is Robert C Baker, a poultry scientist who taught at Cornell and was adamant about cutting down on meat wasteage.
i actually think about this a lot. i guess its easier to store and make these kinds of foods, but we need healthier options, or places like panera should be more accesible
I didn't expect to see the White Diamond in Clark, it's pretty close to me, but I haven't gone there yet. I didn't realize the connection between the White Diamond and White Castle, but it makes sense.
Wait, wait wait wait wait, I was in eighth grade in 1980/81, and I had a lot of doctors appointments which meant that frequently I didn’t get to school until just about lunchtime. There is a McDonald’s across the street from the school so when my dad was driving me back from whatever doctor I needed to see, we would stop off at McDonald’s and get me chicken nuggets for lunch because they were small and fast and cheap. We did this multiple times so I know that it’s not a false memory. I do remember that consistency wise. They were a little different from the more modern ones, and occasionally there would be a little glue between the meat and the breading, so they were probably in their prototype phase, but they were readily available at least in my market.
Comparing the chicken to beef/pork ratio from the sixties and today, along with the BMI on americans at the same timespan is pretty fascinating.. More chicken = fatter people.
I couldn’t agree more with your point at 4:00 about how immigrants adapt recipes from their homelands. Another example is corned beef and cabbage, which Americans think of as the quintessential dish for St. Patrick’s day. But nobody in Ireland eats it. How did this happen? Well, in 18th and 19th century Ireland, a lot of beef cattle were raised in Ireland for export to England and was too expensive for most Irish people. Their affordable meat of choice was pork and one of their favourite dishes was bacon and cabbage. After the Famine, millions of Irish people emigrated, mostly to North America, and many of them settled in New York City. Pork was expensive there, so the Irish homemakers learnt from their Jewish neighbours that corned beef was a good substitute. And that is where corned beef and cabbage comes from. Irish-Jewish-New York.
5:33 This was also before mass produced sliced and preserved bread, right? In the past, people didn't keep bread for up to two-ish weeks like we do, because it gets stale basically overnight like fresh baked bread does. Since they likely needed to fresh bake bread for their sandwiches every day, it'd just make more sense economically to make buns instead of loaves where they could 1, more finely control inventory, and 2, more finely control the final sandwich quality with selected buns.
My mom is from Hamburg. We make Frickadellen at home -- they're just big meatballs: ground beef, some ground pork, chopped onions, bread crumbs soaked in milk, crack an egg in for binding. In contemporary Hamburg Frickadellen are usually served with a roll (Broetchen) on the side to absorb juices. The meatballs are round but they're big enough (fist size) that you end up with two distinct 'sides' because you need to fry them until they're cooked all the way through. You can see how the large-meatball-with-bread can easily slide into patty-in-bread.
I have to admit JJ, I am one of the ones who uses honey as chicken dipping sauce. It is my second choice to sweet and sour or plum sauce. I am a bit shocked that I can't hate on McD's as much now, because they are responsible for mass producing one of my favourite foods and are probably the reason I got to eat so many throughout my life(commercialization) Food is an inherent part of our culture and I absolutely love these videos where you explore the who/what/when/where/why of it. JJ is always here to answer those questions your mom or dad couldn't!
The hamburger with a bunch of toppings is american, but the idea of putting the hamburger steak between two pieces of bread actually originates in Hamburg. Hamburger steaks were sold in stands on the street and the vendors needed a fast delivery system for the sailors that needed a bite on the go so they fitted the steak between two pieces of bread/buns. Hence the hamburger steak sandwich was born, a 100% German thing. Americans improved on it, granted, but the hanburger as we know it was already created in Germany.
Another amazing video! I think a later one should be on the standard American condiments (Ketchup, Mustard, Relish, Mayonnaise, and sometimes Barbecue or ranch).
I work as a manager at McDonald's, and we still have the hot mustard, which it and the mambo and sweet spicy chili sauces are actually quite good. The regular honey is mostly asked for during breakfast. And also, random fact, but according to the boxes the fries come in, they are made with potatoes from J.J.'s country! I will never get how the almighty algorithm works, but I'm glad it led me to this channel, as his topics are fun and light-hearted and in a similar light as that of Mental Floss. Even when it's politics related, J.J. has a very down the middle, unbiased and easy to comprehend approach.
Frikadellen do not have umlaut. They are not just there to fancy up a word. (I thought you knew that already.) Very nice depiction of a Frikadelle, though. It appears to be a German one, since my Mother's don't have what appears to be parsley like that one.
Hot mustard is still very much an available sauce at McDonald's. As I recall, honey mustard was introduced when they started offering (temporarily) chicken tenders (or strips if you prefer) and they were strangely really strict about only letting you have it if you ordered the right kind of chicken. After the chicken tenders LTO was gone, the sauce remained. But the hot mustard has been available continuously since I was a kid in the late 80's.
It never ceases to amaze me how low the bar for innovation is in the food space. In the time we went from hang gliders to the moon landings we also went from hamburgers to bacon cheeseburgers
Fries were so much tastier and healthier when they were cooked in beef tallow and not the toxic concoction of cheap RBD seed oils that they use today. Blame millionaire Phil Sokolof for demonizing saturated animal fat and initiating the immeasurable damage that ensued.
