American Regional and Immigrant Cuisine

The United States never developed a single unified national cuisine so much as a set of strong regional traditions shaped by climate, immigration, and history: New England’s seafood-centered cooking, the Southwest’s blending of Mexican and indigenous influences, Tex-Mex’s distinct Texan adaptation of Mexican cooking, and the Pacific Northwest’s emphasis on salmon and foraged ingredients, among many others, together forming a patchwork closer to a set of overlapping regional cuisines than to one national tradition.