New American cuisine

New American cuisine is a style of cuisine that developed in the United States in the late twentieth century and continued to be popular in the early twenty-first century. The label “new American cuisine” encompasses a broad range of cooking styles, and the cuisine has been influenced by numerous immigrant and ethnic groups. Some people have criticized the term “new American cuisine” because it is so broad, and critics claim that the number of styles included under the umbrella of the category cannot all be related enough to be included in the same group. Nevertheless, restaurants, food critics, and others have used the term to describe food made in the United States since the 1980s.

Background

Before the twentieth century, styles of cooking around the United States varied mostly based on the items available to a particular region. In a time before mechanical refrigeration and fast modes of transportation, shipping food long distances—especially food that had not been preserved—was usually impossible as it would spoil before it reached its destination. For that reason, clams, lobsters, and other seafood were commonly used in the northeast, for example. Meanwhile, catfish and corn were commonly used in Southern cooking.

However, the introduction of new technology, including refrigeration and new farming tools that allowed for the mass production of fruits and vegetables, brought with them an increase in processed foods and more homogenization of American food culture. Canned and frozen foods became more common in the mid-twentieth century, and improved road systems and vehicles allowed companies to ship mass-produced foods to more parts of the country than ever before.

The twentieth century also saw major cultural changes. For example, the Great Migration saw thousands of Black Americans move from the South to urban centers in the North and West. As Black Americans moved, they brought their food culture with them and influenced the cooking styles and food products produced in certain parts of the country. Simultaneously, new waves of immigrants from Europe and Asia also brought with them their own styles of cooking and eating that would influence the cuisine in the areas where they settled.

Some immigrant groups had a major influence on American cuisine, in part because many immigrants from a particular region came to the United States at one time. For example, Italian Americans’ style of cooking greatly influenced American cuisine, with dishes such as pasta with red sauce and pizza becoming staples of Americans’ diets by the end of the century. Furthermore, immigrants from parts of China brought with them Cantonese cooking. Americans enjoyed cuisines from other Asian countries as well. Although these foreign cuisines influenced American food culture, American tastes also influenced the style of food some immigrants prepared. For example, many immigrants who opened restaurants in the United States changed their foods, sometimes in small ways and sometimes significantly, to better fit American tastes.

Other changes in American culture also influenced American cuisine during the twentieth century. For example, many American women began questioning the domestic roles they played at home. Some women began to choose to work outside the home and, therefore, valued convenience foods and prepared foods that made cooking faster and easier. Furthermore, American families began traveling more than they had in the past, which increased the popularity of fast food restaurants and quick-to-prepare convenience foods.

Overview

The food trends of the 1900s in the United States focused heavily on the inclusion of processed foods such as frozen vegetables, canned meats, and other convenience foods such as pudding and gelatin mix that home cooks could quickly and easily prepare. Most American restaurants that did not sell a specific foreign cuisine (e.g., Italian cuisine or French cuisine) sold what was seen, at the time, as American cuisine. This style of food included hamburgers, hotdogs, and potato chips. This traditional American cuisine would continue to play an important role in the country’s food culture, but it would be greatly transformed in the 1970s and 1980s by other influences.

The counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s helped bring about cultural change that would help popularize New American cuisine. Some members of the counterculture were interested in healthy eating, and they helped popularize tofu and other “health foods” that had not previously been common in American cooking. Furthermore, the back-to-the-land movement of the 1960s and 1970s—which had some overlapping participation with the counterculture—encouraged people to grow their own food and reject the highly processed foods popularized by American corporations earlier in the century.

These social changes in the United States made many people ready to adopt a different style of cooking and eating, which is part of the reason why the French nouvelle cuisine became popular in the 1970s in the United States. In the 1960s and 1970s, French chefs popularized a style of cooking in their country called nouvelle cuisine. This style of cooking rejected some of the traditional elements of traditional French cuisine. For example, cooks who embraced nouvelle cuisine avoided using rich, heavy sauces that were popular in some traditional French dishes. Nouvelle cuisine focused on using fresh ingredients and making light, healthy dishes. Cooks who used this style of cooking wanted to bring out the natural flavors and textures of the ingredients they used.

When nouvelle cuisine reached the United States, it found an eager group of American chefs who quickly adopted the idea of making light dishes using fresh, local ingredients. The focus on fresh ingredients from local sources made nouvelle cuisine especially popular in places with mild climates and long growing seasons. One such place in the United States was California. Starting in the 1970s, chefs in California began focusing on cooking that prioritized fresh, local ingredients. Alice Waters was one of the leaders of this movement in California, and her restaurant Chez Panisse is credited with helping to change American food culture and cooking for decades. Waters and other chefs who embraced this style of cooking changed their menus and their dishes based on the ingredients that were available and of high quality. In traditional American cooking, restaurants often picked a menu and made the same food throughout the year. They focused on their technique and presentation rather than on the quality of the ingredients they used in the food. For example, chefs would use vegetables that were of lower quality rather than change the offerings they had on their menus. This focus on fresh, high-quality ingredients helped lead to the farm-to-table movement that would be popular in the United States in the coming decades.

Other chefs around the country also began opening restaurants and cooking foods similar to those popular in California. For example, Ben and Karen Barker were chefs living in North Carolina who wanted to create a restaurant that served fresh and local ingredients. They converted a health food store into what became Magnolia Grill, which would become one of the restaurants famously offering New American cuisine in the late 1980s and 1990s. The couple sourced ingredients locally and focused on transforming traditional ingredients and traditional dishes into new, inventive meals. Other chefs who helped popularize New American cuisine included Bob Kinkead, Charlie Palmer, and Waldy Malouf.

Like the French chefs cooking nouvelle cuisine, American chefs who began to embrace local, high-quality ingredients also began to prepare the food simply and create light, healthy dishes. The trend in American kitchens and restaurants was to serve dishes with small portions that were light but laden with heavy sauces or many rich ingredients. In the 1970s and 1980s, many American chefs also avoided elaborate presentations that had been common among American chefs and home cooks in the middle of the century.

The influence of nouvelle cuisine in the United States was clear by the late 1970s. In 1981, the magazine Apartment Life published a book called The New American Cuisine. The book’s publication is seen as the official beginning of the New American cuisine movement in the United States. The cookbook New American Classics by chef Jeremiah Tower also helped cement the phrase and the style of cooking called New American.

Although New American cuisine had been established by the early 1980s, it would undergo further changes throughout the late twentieth century as other cultural influences changed Americans’ eating and cooking habits. In the 1970s, the American culinary establishment had mainly been men trained in classical European (often French) kitchens. However, the trend slowly changed in the coming decades. These changes stemmed from the cultural changes—such as the women’s rights movement and demographic changes—that first propelled the country toward nouvelle cuisine.

One influential aspect of New American cuisine in the late twentieth century was fusion cooking, or cooking that incorporates food traditions from different cultures. Asian fusion cooking, which included methods, ingredients, and dishes from Asian cultures and from traditional American cooking, became especially important as part of New American cuisine. Immigrants had always influenced American food and food culture. However, in the late twentieth century, chefs from outside the dominant food culture had more opportunities to open restaurants and assume leadership positions in kitchens.

Different types of fusion cuisines became popular in different parts of the country, mainly in areas with large immigrant populations. For example, so-called Tex-Mex cuisine is an Americanized version of a cuisine originally developed by Mexican immigrants living in Texas. This type of fusion cooking is most popular in the American Southwest, specifically in Texas, Arizona, and southern California. Nuevo Latino is a type of fusion cooking that incorporates styles and foods from numerous Latin American cultures, and it includes some American influences as well. This type of cooking first became popular in large cities with larger immigrant populations, such as New York City and Washington, DC.

Asian fusion food, sometimes referred to as Asian American cuisine, became extremely popular after Korean American chef David Chang opened Momofuku Noodle Bar in New York City in 2004. Chang and the restaurant became famous quickly. Soon, other Asia American restaurants and food trucks became well known, giving New American cuisine a fresh direction and new leaders.

Despite the popularity of Asian American cuisine, some chefs whose food was categorized in that way rejected such labels. Some chefs felt that this label was restrictive and reductive. Some claimed that, although their food was influenced by their family’s heritage and culture, it was equally influenced by American culture—thereby including influences from countless other cultures and the traditions that had also impacted so-called American cuisine as a whole.

Indigenous American cuisines, which are the oldest cuisines in the United States, also played an important role in New American cuisine as that style of cooking developed in the early twenty-first century. New American cuisine’s focus on using fresh, locally grown ingredients lent itself to highlighting Indigenous American cuisine, which almost exclusively included ingredients that were native to the United States and could be readily grown in a local area. Different Indigenous American groups have vastly different cuisines, as each developed in a specific region with the foods that were available in those regions. However, they all feature fresh ingredients, most of which have been available in North America for hundreds of years.

As the twenty-first century progressed, New American cuisine continued to evolve. While there was still a focus on fresh, local ingredients, new trends, such as micro-cuisine (cuisine specific to a hyper-specific region), a focus on condiments, and collaborative cooking, emerged.

Bibliography

“Culinary Forecast Predicts 2025 Menu Trends.” Provisioner Online, 13 Nov. 2024, www.provisioneronline.com/articles/117868-culinary-forecast-predicts-2025-menu-trends. Accessed 10 Jan. 2025.

Daley, Bill. “What is ‘New American’ Food, Anyway?” Chicago Tribune, 28 July 2015, www.chicagotribune.com/dining/ct-food-what-is-new-american-story.html. Accessed 10 Jan. 2025.

Fabricant, Florence. “Dining Out; Enter the ‘New American Cuisine.’” The New York Times, 25 Sept. 1983, www.nytimes.com/1983/09/25/nyregion/dining-out-enter-the-new-american-cuisine.html. Accessed 10 Jan. 2025.

Freedman, Paul. American Cuisine and How It Got That Way. Liveright, 2019.

Desta, Yohana. “Padma Lakshmi’s ‘Taste the Nation’ Deconstructs the Myth of ‘American’ Cuisine.” Vanity Fair, 17 June 2020, www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/06/padma-lakshmi-taste-the-nation-interview. Accessed 10 Jan. 2025.

Diner, Hasia. Hungering for America: Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration. Harvard University Press, 2001.

Lakshmi, Padma. “Honoring the Stories of American Cuisines.” Time International (Atlantic Edition), vol. 196, no. 1/2, July 2020, pp. 24. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=144273542&site=ehost-live. Accessed 10 Jan. 2025.

Lamalle, Cecile. “New American Cuisine.” Restaurant Hospitality, vol. 78, no. 8, Aug. 1994, pp. 82.

Mishan, Ligaya. “Asian-American Cuisine’s Rise, and Triumph.” The New York Times, 10 Nov. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/t-magazine/asian-american-cuisine.html. Accessed 10 Jan. 2025.

Neman, Daniel. “The Father (or at Least One Father) of New American Cuisine Gets His Due at Last.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO), 7 June 2017. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=n5h&AN=2W62297162864&site=ehost-live. Accessed 10 Jan. 2025.

Stein, Joshua David. “The New ‘New American’ Cuisine: A Guide to the Country’s Most Exciting Restaurants Now.” Wall Street Journal, 22 July 2022, www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-new-american-cuisine-a-guide-to-the-countrys-most-exciting-restaurants-now-11658512571. Accessed 10 Jan. 2025.

Walkup, Carolyn. “Daniel Vezina: Exploring the Frontier of New American Cuisine.” Nation’s Restaurant News, vol. 32, no. 39, Sept. 1998, p. 39. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=1134447&site=ehost-live. Accessed 10 Jan. 2025.