Interesting - my Mom never put cubes of mozz in with the rest of the Marzetti mix - I’m almost 100% sure it was grated and sprinkled on top like a baked ziti, but I’ll have to check her recipe when I get home.
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It’s a joke, son, a joke.
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Thank you, digga! This looks like a great take to make it better, and worth the effort!
Great posts on your vacation, although off topic here. Thanks for that, too!
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Not sure about that, from the brief history in Kenji’s article. Just as Jennifer 8. Lee did a deep dive into the fortune cookie or General Gao’s chicken, perhaps there’s an interesting backstory of Chinese restaurateurs trying to figure out the American palate.
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So, here’s the recipe my Mom used for Johnny Marzetti. I remember her using leftover meatloaf more often than just ground beef. But as you can see, NO mozzarella at all! (I was honestly not remembering her using it, although I do like Kenji’s cubed mozz idea).
Canned mushroons (because that’s what we used back then) and I’d personally not use green bell pepper anymore (they don’t agree with me, but I could use red bell pepper). Not a lot of tomato sauce, but red wine (go Mom!)
I cringe at the “stir in flour” and my spelling of bouillon. 
Also not sure how this would feed 6 people, but there you go…maybe she said 6 because we’d be 2 adults and 3 young kids.
Always fascinating to look back at old family recipes.
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Part of the joke is that Chop Suey, itself, is an American invention.
On a parallel note, back in the '60s when living among military couples, another young woman told me, “Margaret, I don’t know what we’d be eating if I hadn’t met you and learned about noodles!” In those days, we cobbled together whatever we had, put it in cream or tomato sauce and served it over noodles. Still works.
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Chinese restaurants in Germany have chop suey on the menu, although that’s usually a saucy stir-fry with veg and chicken, pork, or beef - so, not exclusively American.
This totally led me to look for the origins of that name (easily found) but also to reflect on the ways that is part of my repertoire in a vague way. I almost always have a version of tomato sauce (with varying amounts of vegetables, and sometimes with a vegetable mince) ready to go to be thrown into a casserole with cheese and other veg (no noodles) or to be the basis of a variation on shakshuka (i.e. just a way to poach an egg) and think about the spread of this and variations really being about ease.
Not adding anything to this conversation about American foods. So here goes:
I am sure part of my enjoyment comes from remembering sloppy joes which were so exotic to me during the portion of childhood spent in the US. That, chicken pot pies, and hotdogs delighted me when I went over to friends’ houses.
I am much better versed in American Jewish cuisine, but I can talk about that another time.
I’m also just super happy the conversation has moved on from that abomination called “root beer”. UGH. (Apologies for yucking people’s yums here, but omg I have never been able to come around on that, even in the “not for me but I get why people like it” way.)
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I didn’t think so 
Root beer = carbonated pepto bismol.
I had no idea root beer possessed such a powerful aura.
This is cool 
Carry on 
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Not really. It’s incredibly easy to avoid. Not like some mean b’stard would be able to sneak it into my food unbeknownst to me 
More for us root beer lovers!
The soft drink equivalent of liver
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Where did you go that was cheese-less when you visited India (I saw the when)? Because I grew up there, and it was definitely WITH cheese 
Processed-only in those days, not unlike American Kraft or Velveeta (Kraft was the “high end” brand, imported from Australia or the Middle East, Amul was and is the iconic local brand).
Cheese sandwiches were a normal instance, and grilled cheese (“cheesetoast”). Even street vendors selling sandwiches would shower on a pile of grated cheese at the end if you asked.
(Completely different scene these days, with both imported European and excellent locally-produced European-style fresh and aged cheeses available, in the big cities anyway. And lots more brands and types of processed cheese than Amul and Kraft)
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Leaving aside authenticity, American food is both recognizable and crave-worthy especially when I haven’t eaten it in a while.
- Burgers and fries (yeah never mind where fries came from)
- Fried chicken / chicken nuggets
- Wings — buffalo and every other kind
- Chicken fried steak and gravy and biscuits — oh yeah, sign me and my heart up once in a while!
- Chicken pot pie (my mom actually made this growing up, must have read the recipe in an American magazine, and it stuck!)
- New York Chinese: you know it when you eat it (and you miss it when you can’t — as my poor CA-trapped pandemic self discovered)
- Pasta in quantities and sauces that you’d never encounter it in outside the US
- Orange / pink tikka masala sauce (that is definitely not Indian)
- Junk Food at large: cooked or dry snacks, but American junk food as a category is pretty distinctive
There’s so, so much more (and never mind the regional specialties which are a whole different ballgame — lobster rolls in New England, pastrami in New York, beignets in New Orleans, and on and on and on).
American food is very identifiable, and having missed it for a couple months just recently, there’s so much to love!
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No, that sobriquet goes to Dr. Pepper.
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Cool. Cuz I dig both.
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I am bemused by the references to school lunch staples. My family was calorie conscious and rarely served pasta or casserole-type dishes. On the rare occasions I ate in the cafeteria, I looked forward to tuna noodle casserole and American chop suey and mac and cheese. Still do.
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