Written by Maria Pistocchi — Thursday, October 25th, 2012

Three famous U.S.A. dishes from an Italian point of view

A country can be known not only by walking on its roads, but also by tasting its foods' flavor.

Did you ever eat some of the most famous U.S.A. dishes? To tell the truth, here in Italy we are generally a little bit biased to taste any food out of our dear old Europe, but we are completely wrong: that's just a prejudice, because a country can be known not only by walking on its roads, but also by tasting its foods' flavor.

The Hot dog and its origins

In NY City the hot dog is really good with its soft bread. The hot dog is a sausage served in a sliced bun very often garnished with mustard or ketchup or many others ingredients.

Its origin are shrouded by mystery, like all the good things on this earth, but perhaps it comes from Germany. In fact in Frankfurt the pork sausages is known since the 13th century. It was given for the first time to the population during the coronation of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor as King.

We can say that the hot dog crossed the Atlantic ocean towards America only in the 19th century because we saw it for the first time around 1870, on Coney Island. Here a German immigrant named Charles Feltman began selling sausages in rolls. But the idea of a hot dog on a bun is ascribed also to the wife of a German named Antonoine Feuchtwanger, who sold hot dogs on the streets of St. Louis, Missouri, in 1880 and to Anton Ludwig Feuchtwanger, a Bavarian sausage seller which served sausages in rolls at the World's Fair and I will stop here because the list is very long!

However there is a really sure thing: the hot dog is a good street food.

The Muffin and its sweet lullaby

Oh, do you know the muffin man, The muffin man, the muffin man, Do you know the muffin man, Who lives in Drury Lane?

Oh, yes I know the muffin man, The muffin man, the muffin man, Yes, I know the muffin man, Who lives in Drury Lane.

Muffin

We are in England in the 19th century and this lullaby was dedicated to the hawkers selling sweets bringing on wooden trays hung around the neck.

However for the muffin the fight is tough because we have three countries that claim paternity:

England with the moofin;
France with the mouflet;
Germany with the muffen.

If I could choose I would give the paternity to England, especially thanks to the sweet lullaby.

In England the family baker initially cooked the muffins for the servants with the leftover bread and the remnants of manufacturing of biscuits all mixed with the mashed potatoes. Then the compound was fried to get soft and crunchy muffins.

But the goodness of the muffin was soon discovered and appreciated by the hosts and, gradually, from all social classes of the time, becoming the favorite dessert for tea time.

So were created a large number of furnaces dedicated to their production and, on the street, the Muffin Men were their sellers.

Between the X and the XI century in Wales they were modeled as a ring and placed directly on the fire or on the bottom of a frying pan, while only in the XVII century the muffin crossed the Atlantic ocean towards America with the Pilgrim Fathers, together with several Anglo-Saxon traditions and customs.

In the United States three states have adopted three official muffins:

The Massachusetts with Corn Muffin;
New York with the Apple Muffin;
Minnesota with the Blueberry Muffin.

Nowadays there are many varieties of muffin as chocolate muffins, yogurt, and even the savory cornbread muffins, but all have the same distinctive features: round, with the top semi-spherical, very soft and extremely delightful.

The Hamburger and its Americanness

A hamburger (or burger) consists of a cooked patty made with ground meat, usually beef, placed in a sliced bun or in bread or toast. There are several condiments used for the hamburgers, such as ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, as well as lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, pickles.

Even if its name sounds a little bit German (they say that the hamburger crossed the Atlantic ocean starting from the port of Hamburg in the XIX century, to arrive in America), the hamburger has a great American profile. Who should we thank for this delicacy? Many States are struggling to have the inventor:

Fletcher Davis of Athens,Texas which sold them in 1880 at his Cafè at 115 Tyler Street;
the Menches brothers Frank and Charles from Ohio that were vendors at the 1885 Erie County Fair;
Charlie Nagreen of Seymour, Wisconsin now known as "Hamburger Charlie". Nagreen was only fifteen when he made sandwiches out of meatballs that he sold at the 1885 Seymour Fair, so that customers could eat while walking;
Oscar Bilby of Tulsa, Oklahoma was the first person to serve a real hamburger. It was July 4, 1891 when ground beef was served on his wife’s homemade buns;
Louis Lassen of New Haven, Connecticut was a butter dealer which in a small lunch wagon sold the first hamburger in the U.S. in 1895;
McDonald’s from United States to all over the word, that in 2006 patented burgers.

With the last notice, who doesn’t believe that the hamburger has not any Americanness?