Most American 'recipes' aren't really recipes, are they? They're assembly instructions.

[MaMight]

I've just found a recipe for Pineapple Upsidedown Cake; ingredients list - 1X plain cake donuts, 1X can pineapple slices.

I suspect there must be a massive swathe of American cooking that I have yet to discover.

(And 'pie filling' is not an ingredient.)

(And neither is 'pizza sauce'. WTF?)

they don't sound like americans to me, expat. they sound like forriners. some morcillo, chica?

Probably more than half of them are, aitch. American nationality is granted by birth. None of this british shit I just went through, having to prove the government could deign to grant my children British passports so they could get back into their own damn country, for the princely sum of about £200 for three of them.

Papa never spoke a word of English until he entered first grade at the age of 6.

Shoes required, he said!

I asked, 'Did you feel out of place, not speaking English?'

He laughed. 'The only people who spoke English were the teachers. And we were forbidden from speaking Spanish. Or any other language than English.'

LOL still at my father's mother. She never obtained American nationality. She died a Mexican living in America. Why? Because some people told her to be granted US nationality, she had to step on the Mexican flag and spit on it.

I don't think she'd have known a ready meal if it bit her on the arse and she only died in 1990, age 92. Buried in San Antonio's San Fernando I Cemetary.

My mother still uses a lid from her wood stove as a comal, and my sister her clay pot to cook the pintos.

She's in Junior League, my sister. Former president of her chapter of Tri Delt sorority.

Ever seen those gals cook?!

It's a force to be reckoned with, I can tell you.

actually, uk supermarkets have far more ready meals than us ones, at least where i live.

they have great deli bars, with prepared food, but all those aisles of 'ready to heat' chinese etc. don't exist.

yes, they do cake mix etc, but so do british shops. there are also specialist food stores (both food suppliers, and of equipment) which do VERY well, so it can't just be a small minority that cook properly. the big difference i've noticed, is that eating out is much cheaper & far more relaxed, so families will go our for a meal at weekends as a 'normal' thing, rather than as a special treat.

also, places like kfc, macdonalds, are out of town places, for when you're travelling around, going out for dinner is more likely to be a small independent place in the local town, rather than a chain.

i suggest you google whole foods or williams - sonoma if you want to see the other end of what is on offer. you could also email a tourist centre for a city, asking for recommendations of places to eat. see what you get back. the uk image of corporate america is warped. yes, it exists, but it is a lot less prevalent than we imagine.

oh, and a LOT of the recipes you get on the internet are like the ones you get on the sides of food packets - laughable. yanks laugh at them too.

check out the joy of baking website for proper stuff.

I think the problem is a lot of people are looking at big cooking websites, where many of them (either blatantly or hidden) are backed by processed food manufacturers. You should be checking out American food bloggers, and you'll find that some people over here actually cook without opening cans or boxes of odd stuff, and have quite a passion for it.

hi dooney! sorry i've been awol - rl took over. hope you're well.

Hi, Kickass. RL took over for me as well. We're good here, our house is up for sale, now, which is quite a pain, though. Hope everything is well with you.

Since moving to the US, I really started cooking from scratch. Mainly because all the supermarket stuff is full of crap. MSG, HFCS, Aspartame and tartrazine (Yellow 5) in EVERYTHING.

I rather miss M&S but Trader Joe's and Whole Foods are great. I won't touch any of the branded food from Kellogg's to Betty Crocker and stay out of mainstream supermarkets on the whole.

Fast food really varies in So-Cal. Chipotle and Flame Broiler are pretty healthy and fresh and Rubios has some lovely grilled fish tacos. But then there's an awful lot of Jack in the Box, Carl's Jr., McDonalds and similar burger chains that are pretty grim.

Aitch, sometimes it seems half the country is foreign. That's America for you; there is no single "American culture".

I bake bread, make cakes from scratch and cook with real ingredients. And I work full time, 40 hours per week. Some Americans do eat decent food. But not all of us . My in-laws don't know the meaning of decent food, and think velveeta is real cheese.

But back to the OP; have have never, ever heard of a pineapple upside down cake made with doughnuts bthat is just revolting!

We have a great American cookbook called I think just USA. It's full of regional specialties most of which are really yummy. The nice thing about American cooking at it's best is that there have been so many different cultures both directly imported and home grown, so there is an incredible variety, and of course huge variety across (and within) the different States, something that I don't think most Europeans pick up, because we tend to think of America as quite homogenous.

In New York we could certainly eat very well (not much different from London there though). The main difference we found was that eating out was much cheaper, but buying good food to cook with was more expensive, especially at the higher end of the market. So in the UK I would mostly shop at Waitrose, but in the US I couldn't afford to do the equivalent at Whole Foods (which is much more poncy/wholefood storish IMO). Trader Joe seemed nice, but was too far away for us. What we found is that people don't use supermarkets in quite the same way as in the UK, most of our friends did all their bulk shopping at places like Costco, used a range of specialist shops, and then got the remainder at the supermarket. So for example the meat selection seemed really poor, but there were large meat shops (often with a national specialty and again you joined a sort of club) and then there would be farmers markets too. Just different I guess, and not what you see on the surface (we found places through friends).

But yes plenty of weird and wonderful things too I'm sure the American over here think the same.

BananaPudding
We met an American woman who bemoaned the fact that in Switzerland 'ye just caaant get yellow cheeeeese'

My neighbour asked her why she wanted plastic cheese when she was living in the cheese capital of the world.

There are Americans here in Geneva who do all their shopping in the American import store. It must cost them an absolute fortune.

America is just way, waaay too big for anyone to try and generalize about American attitudes to cookery.

This thread is making me hungry. NOT for Jell-O salad, but decent sushi, or proper Mexican food, or even pierogies.

Also thinking fondly back to a trip to San Francisco where just about everything we ate was amazingly delicious -- including meals cooked in people's homes

But, lol about the "yellow cheese" woman in Switzerland

Sounds as if you're actually looking forward to the visit, expat -- bet your parents will try everything to get y'all to move back

South West cooking at its best:

Posole
tamales
pinons
calabacitas

Oh, and not forgetting breakfast .

i know, banana, i was having a wee joke with my forrin pal expat.

it's impossible to begin to define america as one country in any case, it's HYOOOGE. each area has it's own vibe.

I can't wait to eat at Damascus, a superb Middle Eastern restaurant!

Oh, the food! The food in Houston is amazing!

If anyone thinks Americans don't cook they should have a look at the Chowhound forums or the Egullet forums.

There are bad dishes of course and bad cooks as there are in any country.

You're wrong about black pudding Expat. It's delicious and not at all bland.

I've never felt that I've had a problem finding good food in my Scottish hometown,Glasgow. It really isn't all deep fried food.

I eat well every time I go out, unless I'm in the mood for junk,sometimes that's exactly what I want.

Glasgow has good food.

Black pud is vile.

Message withdrawn

The school cookbooks are usually compiled by 12 year olds, so wouldn't judge a whole nation based on this.

Off to make Kraft glow in the dark yummy macaroni and cheese

I've got a Jamie Oliver chickpea pasta soup on the hob and garlic bread from a homemade loaf I made.