The truth, however, is that good cooking in America is as varied and delicious as any other national cuisine, despite its lack of reputation. A Little History .
American cuisine is very regional.
And regional cuisines in America, much like the rest of the world, are usually characterized by the animals and plants that flourish, or flourished, in the area. But we are nothing if not a nation of experimenters, which leads to a widespread usage of certain produce. Corn, a good example, is one of the few crops domesticated by the Native Americans, and it was quickly incorporated into many dishes across the land. Potatoes, first grown as a crop in South America, also feature prominently in dishes from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Of course, being a highly mobile population, we don't have such strictly defined regional cuisines as some older, more static nations.