Why is "fast food" burgers, fries, and chicken?

[@FredoRockwell]

As an American living outside of America, I've always found it ironic that our culture is criticized for "imposing" these fast food classics to the rest of the world, as if they weren't incredibly popular everywhere.

[@courtneyjohnsonhaber4591]

Yeah it's a real cope for people upset that, yeah people like American cultural exports. McDonald's isn't successful cuz people hate it

[@EmpressMermaid]

I had that experience, too, when I lived in Europe. When hearing the usual accusations of America "imposing" these horrible fast food places on them, my answer was always "yeah, but who's buying it?" Because fact is, if local customers weren't purchasing them over there, they wouldn't be sold over there.

[@justinarzola4584]

The irony is that Burgers originate from Germany,French Fries are Belgian.

[@TaliyahP]

@@justinarzola4584 Burgers don't originate from Germany and J.J. even went over this in the video. The style of a ground beef steak/patty was imported and putting it on bread/buns started in the US. What we know of as a burger is quite American.

[@anap3333]

As a Mexican, we love them here keep em coming

[@TheCatholicNerd]

You should do a video on 1950s-ish American dinners. Like fried chicken, meatloaf, Salisbury steak. You know what most Americans consider home cooking.

[@norwegianblue2017]

Almost impossible to find in many parts of the country now. In southern California, the old-school diners and coffee shop cafes are rapidly disappearing. The ones you see now are more like novelty venues. Like a theme park, with theme park prices.

[@jasonvaquero9739]

@@norwegianblue2017Being from New Jersey where there’s basically a diner on every corner, this is perhaps the worst part of living in LA. Most breakfast places are health conscious and overpriced

[@global2829]

Plus the phenomenon of diners having a menu the size of a phone book.

[@ehrenloudermilk1053]

I agree. As an American, those diners have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I hated them as a child.

[@JonRamsten]

Salisbury steak has an interesting story behind it.

[@danmacarro]

I love little linguistic shifts like {Hamburg}+{er} to {Ham}+{burger}, then just swap out that morpheme for chicken, bacon, salmon, veggie. Its fascinating

[@emmanarotzky6565]

It’s like how the word {alcohol}-{ic} spawned {choc}-{oholic} and other jokey words were “oholic” is added to the end of something to mean you’re addicted to it.

[@SayAhh]

This is why Big Dairy's war on soy MILK, oat MILK and almond MILK is insane and stupid. If anything it made me want to drink less cow milk. I think they might have lost (or it is ongoing?) but merchants like Costco didn't want to take a chance and repackaged and and have since labeled their soy-based drink as "soy non-dairy beverage" to get ahead of litigious people or corporation(s).

[@SayAhh]

Also: Watergate led to -gate becoming a suffix for scandal, e.g., Deflategate, Bridgegate.

[@judgesaturn507]

There are a lot of words like that which sort of get 'distorted' when people forget their origins.

[@randallcraft4071]

I know that there is arguments had in some areas about what should be called a burger, it seems like a lot of non-americans will add any meat plus a burgor to define a Sandwich on a hamburger bun, But most Americans would not define that as a chicken burger salmon burger what have you that would be a ex meat sand which the thing that defines it as the burger is the shape of it being a hamburger style Patty so ground up and formed. If you told somebody it was a chicken Burger they would assume it was ground chicken formed into a Patty instead of a chicken filet or a fish filet. I've seen that brought up in several food KZbin comments usually between non-americans calling something a burger and American saying there's no ground meat Patty on that it's not a burger.

[@Jersh.]

Growing up as a first gen child of Portuguese immigrants in the sizeable Portuguese community of Toronto, we used to get Portuguese take out a lot, which always came with this orange rice that I always thought was distinctly Portuguese. Every Portuguese rotisserie place sold the exact same sides of Parisienne potatoes and parboiled orange rice. However, when I’d go to Portugal on family trips and have rice there, it was a dry white rice (Carolino is the type of grain, I believe) with a different texture. And it was the same everywhere there too! Years later, when I wanted to make the orange rice at home from scratch, I searched ‘Portuguese style rice’ and got the kind that I would have in Portugal, not at all the takeout spots in Toronto. I had also bought this style of rice at hot foods counters in supermarkets like Metro and Sobey’s, where it’s sometimes sold as ‘deli rice’, other times Mexican rice. I search for Mexican rice and immediately find Spanish rice, which all look very similar to the “Portuguese” rice in Toronto. Overwhelmed, I closed the tab and never really went back to researching it beyond that but your line about how immigrants just cooked whatever was available in their own style rings true, they probably just decided to make a flavoured rice from an affordable recipe and this was the one that stuck.

[@benjaminwatt2436]

I had a similar experience when visiting Iquitos Peru. The locals took us out to eat (chinese) It was rotisserie chicken with a yellow/orange rice. obviously, being american, I was baffled as to why they called it chinese food, so i asked. They replied "because of the yellow rice of course". Peruvians eat white rice btw. I asked why they thought yellow rice was Chinese, but they were under the impression that is what Chinese eat in China.

[@PedroMata]

I don't know if this will help, but besides the traditional white rice we often will also have rice in a tomato sauce. It's called Arroz Malandro (or Arroz à Grega in Brazil) and the tomato sauce does give it that orange color you were talking about. Again, don't know if this will help or not haha

[@Jersh.]

@@benjaminwatt2436 interesting! This phenomenon seems to repeat endlessly everywhere in the world. We assign nationalities to food almost at random, it seems haha. Portugal’s signature sandwich is called francesinha, which means little french girl but in a pet name kind of way. I’ve often seen it translated as little frenchie, which matches the sentiment. But yeah, this is all so interesting and fun to talk about. So many examples!

[@Jersh.]

@@PedroMata True, I’ve had arroz malandro but I wasn’t thinking about it when I wrote my comment. That’s another good example of the fragmentation of orange rice in the lusosphere! I know arroz malandro is more of a wet rice and man, it’s hella good. Brazilian cuisine has so many additions/variations on Portuguese cuisine, and I love rodízio whenever I can afford it 😂

[@johnindigo5477]

Growing up Mexican i thought all rice was orange and every other rice was bland 😂

[@michaelpsellos770]

Three suggestions: 1. Have you done the American "Breakfast Canon" yet. Pancakes, grits, eggs, bacon, breakfast sandwiches, etc. 2. I think the popularity of Tex-Mex should be explored. One thing I noticed oversees was you didn't really get to the American dominant areas until you saw a Mexican restaurant. Also is this a cultural divide between America and Canada? 3. A timeline of American Health Crazes and Fad diets. We seem to have a new one every decade or so, so going over the rise and fall of certain foods in response to health crises.

[@KayleyWhalen]

I like the fad diet one. Remember Snackwell's in those green boxes? That whole "fat is bad for you" thing that happened in the 1990s which I actually believed? Legitimately was trying to be a healthy eater and probably made it worse.

[@michaelpsellos770]

@KayleyWhalen yeah there really isn't anything more American than reinventing your entire diet every 10-25 years through a mix of science and lobbying.

[@ecstasycalculus]

I've always found #2 particularly interesting because my mother grew up in 1960s Massachusetts and she says there was zero Tex-Mex food, in fact the only thing remotely close to Hispanic food at the time was Campbell's black bean soup (which came from Cuba, not Mexico). In fact, my mother tells me the only ethnic food available at the time was Italian and Chinese. So this seems like a topic that'd be fun to explore, how different immigration patterns affected the American food scene. When I was growing up in the 1990s, Vietnamese and Korean food was extremely rare outside of California. Now, there are pho and Korean BBQ places everywhere. What will the ethnic food scene in the US look a generation from now? Are we going to see a surge in Middle Eastern food due to immigration from Afghanistan, Syria, etc? I would welcome that.

[@KaitouKaiju]

​@@ecstasycalculusWe're already seeing a surge in middle eastern food like hummus and shawarma

[@ecstasycalculus]

@KaitouKaiju hummus and shawarma barely scratches the surface of Middle Eastern cuisine

[@crash6442]

I don't know why I found 12:24 so funny, it just felt like such a departure from the very clean and structured presentation style of JJ. Having fries thrown at the screen is something truly worthy of an award winning video. 10/10 JJ You've done it again!

[@LucasBenderChannel]

It's always funny, when tourists coming to Germany expect Hamburg to be the Hamburger capital of the world - and then are wildly disappointed when they find out, that Hamburg cuisine almost exclusively revolves around fish and crabs. 😜🐟

[@justinarzola4584]

The word Hamburger is derived from the city of Hamburg.

[@Ruiseal]

Hey Lucas Bender, I really like your videos.

[@coyotelong4349]

Didn’t the term “Hamburger” (meaning a slab of ground beef) come from the raw ground beef served in Labskaus?

[@JJMcCullough]

@@coyotelong4349I mention it in the video

[@mbenoni7397]

@@justinarzola4584 A chessboard has 64 squares.

[@BenFitter]

I've always thought that garage sales/yard sales are a uniquely American cultural phenomenon that could be an interesting video.

[@tutscifriscale]

in the uk, we have organised “car boot sales” where the kind of things people might sell out of their gardens in america are sold out the backs of their cars in a big car park. i wonder if we tried to import the tradition of the yard sale but had to do this instead because most people do not have much front garden space at all.

[@dsxa918]

Motherfalkers standing in their driveways saying "this stuff is old!"

[@nade7242]

​@@tutscifriscalelike a mini farmers market?

[@JW-eq3vj]

​@@tutscifriscalelately I've seen a lot of communities here in my US city organize something similar. Usually in a parking lot (car park) an organization will organize a large sale. People wanting to sell will pay a fee (maybe $25-$35) for the space. Usually you will sell off of a table and not out of your trunk (boot). Despite being sold at a park, it will still be called a community garage or yard sale.

[@arcxjo]

​@tutscifriscale we have flea markets like that. One around here is run at a drive-in movie theatre during the day so there's already plenty of parking

[@arlen_95]

What I love so much about JJ is his straightforward honesty. Tons of channels just state things as if they are 100% certain. But JJ talks about how we don’t really know, and maybe this thing is true but maybe it’s not. It feels like he treats us like adults, who can handle nuance and uncertainty, instead of like children.

[@JJMcCullough]

Thank you so much! This is something I try hard to do

[@tomleonard830]

It is worth noting that in USA, burger currently refers to a ground meat patty on a bun. Even though many other countries call chicken (or other meat) on a bun a burger, a bun with filets of meat in the USA is usually referred to as a sandwich.

[@SayAhh]

Did they settle on whether hotdogs are sandwiches or not?

[@generaldissaray4109]

you're doing god's work. bless you, child.

[@arcxjo]

​@@SayAhhclearly.

[@nostaldec4705]

Kind of ironic how Americans actually refer to fewer things as burgers.

[@thedragonadvances]

​@decismuchjuvenile4705 Makes sense actually. The country that invents a new food usually has more reverence for it and will insist on certain particularities. Other countries won't be so concerned with such details and can just use the general concept. Perfect example is pizza in Italy versus the rest of the world.

[@randomations11]

I absolutely love having JJ's perspective on these quintessential American lore highlights. As an American myself, I feel like I am too close to really see things from the outside like this. Thanks for another award winning video, JJ!

[@kevincronk7981]

He's Canadian, he sees stuff about America from pretty much the inside too

[@JJMcCullough]

Yeah I don’t conceptualize myself as some outsider documenting an exotic foreign land, I see myself as describing my own culture.

[@randomations11]

@@JJMcCullough Sorry, i didn't mean to insinuate you're a total outsider or anything, I guess I'm just saying you have a perspective that is at least slightly different from my own, I guess.

[@heisensaul5538]

@@friendlyneighbourhoodanarchist Russia has its own version of McDonald's now

[@RomanBelisarius]

IIRC J.J. had a video on Canadian left-nationalism where he described himself in pan-American terms contrasting to said left-nationalism: he thinks Canadians (including himself) are *culturally* Americans and foresees/hopes for some sort of tightly knit union of Canada and the US (or Canada "joining" the US) in the future.

[@meowsielee]

i would love a video on the history of the “standard” soda flavors (cola, lemon lime, ginger ale, orange, grape, root beer)

[@pablocasas5906]

That could be interesting, here in Argentina the standard soft drink flavors are: cola, lemon-lime, orange and grapefruit (pomelo)

[@benjaminwatt2436]

@@pablocasas5906 Yeah the flavors differ a lot, country to country. In Mexico besides the aforementioned flavors you have, ponche, tamarindo, Sangria, Manzana, among others

[@stevethepocket]

@@pablocasas5906 Grapefruit _used_ to be a fairly popular flavor in the US too, I think, since both Coca-Cola and the 7-Up company (whose name has changed five times since I was in seventh grade) have their own uniquely-branded versions of it-Fresca and Squirt-rather than just lumping it in with their "miscellaneous fruit flavors" brands.

[@lostcauselancer333]

I think Russia and Ukraine both have a McDonalds. That might have been the first war to break the Macers Peace Pact.

[@technetium9653]

It would actually be one before with the Russo-Georgian war, unless you count the 2006 Lebanon war being Israel v Lebanon

[@balpreetsingh6834]

​@@technetium9653I see your 2006 Lebanon Israel conflict, and raise it with India-Pakistan 1999 Kargil skirmish

[@annuitcoeptis9997]

McDonalds stopped operations in Russia in 2022 and sold their stores to a local investor. He reopened some of them under a new name, the food is supposedly pretty much the same.

[@annafirnen4815]

They both DID have McDonald's but after war broke out and sanctions came into work McDonald's "officially" left Russian market and all their restaurants were rebranded into something else. But as far as I'm aware they still do belong to McDonald's lol.

[@HashimAl-Atassi2013]

macers?

[@stripybread3715]

JJ may not be pregnant but he never fails to deliver

[@TheDanishGuyReviews]

That's a doula.

[@Cosmic-P.-Lotl]

Why would you say this

[@Auricalios]

yet

[@spacemanapeinc7202]

I can't get that image out of my head now, thanks bro.

[@AdenMcIsaac]

Miscarriages left the chat.

[@zbynek.gazdik]

I think you could easily expand upon the dipping sauce segment and make an entire video on the history of the great American condiments. Like how did ketchup and mayo earn the status of being the salt and pepper of the condiment world? I demand to know!

[@onewingedangel9189]

Weird, I always thought of ketchup and mustard as the "big two" with mayo in a close third.

[@devenscience8894]

@@onewingedangel9189 I suspect you're both right. It seems to me that on the West Coast, it's ketchup and mayo, and on the East Coast, ketchup and mustard. Either way, I would agree that those are the ""big three" condiments, and a video on how that came to be would be good.

[@Jaunty_Jeff]

we need a condiment video

[@arcxjo]

Mayo is the devil's own fluid.

[@Atticore]

I second this! We need a condiment video; it'd go great with the chip flavor one and this one.

[@roseflavoredbat5571]

I would love a video on how French cuisine came to be seen as the quintessential "fancy" food in America

[@SenhorKoringa]

French conquered england before modern colonization. They were always the “fancy folk”

[@malaquiasalfaro81]

I’d be more interested in why Americans thinks of Italian food as fancy when it was historically a “low class” food in the country

[@MrMultiPat]

Yeah when I was 16-18 and worker at McDonald's I was shocked to discover that many customers ordered honey with nuggets. But that got me to try it, and it wasnt that bad tbh.😊

[@BradyPostma]

I prefer BBQ, but honey is my second choice. McDonalds nuggs go better with honey the most other chains'.

[@Sorcerers_Apprentice]

I find McDonald's chicken nuggets to be way more salty than other brands of frozen/fast food chicken nuggets, they're the only brand I will eat with honey to offset the salt.

[@simplicitylost]

Yep, I’ve been eating mine with honey since the late 80s as a child. So yummy.

[@juliegolick]

I eat my nuggets with honey. I quite like it! (Then again, I dip my Wendy's fries in chocolate frosty, so perhaps I'm not the most reliable judge of what's tasty lol.)

[@BradyPostma]

@@juliegolick - Nope! Fries in a Frosty is an American classic. Your good taste is confirmed.

[@KhAnubis]

Something I’ve always found interesting about American burger culture is how Hamburg-er morphed into ham-burger, even though Bürger is already the German word for ‘citizen’ Also your first point is exemplified by Checkpoint Charlie proudly standing between a McDonald’s and a KFC

[@ScottBorder]

I would look seriously into the evolution of soda flavors more, as there are basically three big companies that each produce their own version of a number of basic "canonical" soda flavors. Seeing how each of these evolved and how caffeination factors into the distinctions between them would be really interesting I think.

[@nade7242]

yes

[@CoasterCrest]

@bubbles581 Also vague caffeine-heavy citrus (mountain dew, mello yello, etc.), root beer, ginger ale, cream soda, dr. pepper and its knock-offs, and purple drink.

[@raiisleep]

@bubbles581 and these videos are about the american cultural canon.

[@whatisthisayoutubechannel]

@bubbles581Ain't no way you just put orange on the same level as cola and lemon-lime! Imagine looking at a self-serve soda fountain at a fast-food place or buffet. There's almost certainly gonna be coke & sprite or pepsi & 7-up. Sure, there might also be Fanta or Orange Crush, but the other slots could just as easily be filled with Mtn Dew, ginger ale, root beer, lemonade/pink lemonade, powerade, iced tea, and any number of other things. Same with a grocery store. If I'm walking into the soda aisle at a grocery store, I'd be pretty damn surprised if I can't find Coke/Pepsi and some variety of lemon-lime, but I wouldn't think twice about orange soda being missing. Cola and lemon-lime simply have no equals in the soda canon. Even if we wanted a "big three" thing going on the other spot should be plain (club soda or sparkling water) based on ubiquity.

[@pablocasas5906]

@bubbles581 I'd say cola is the most popular soda flavor in the world, you just have to look how easy is to find the presence of Coca-Cola in other countries. Coca-Cola, and soft drink culture in general, is so ubiquitous that I think it has harmed the life of more people than the fast food industry alone, I've seen some documentaries where Coca-Cola has practically affected the health of people in Mexico. I'm from Argentina, and I've seen people giving cola to babies, and my late father told me one of his friends at work used to drink non-diet soda and juice at lunch despite being diabetic I personally quit drinking soda after finishing high school some ten or so years ago, and I actually don't miss it that much

[@aaronmetzler7409]

J.J. really has got to be the only KZbinr who alternates between tactful, skilled geopolitical analyses and equally thorough explanations of our food culture THAT quickly and successfully... Bravo!

[@northdakotagamer]

Some potential ideas, as a pseudo-Canadian I’ll preemptively apologize in case you’ve already done some of them: • pop/soda- Cola, Root Beer, Lemon-Lime are what I would think of as big three, but I don’t drink much pop • canned soups - tomato, chicken noodle, cream of mushroom/chicken/celery • sports - football, baseball, basketball, hockey - you did the ball video which is related but these are often called the big four for a reason • condiments - ketchup, mustard, mayo, BBQ, ranch • “ethnic” restaurants - Italian, Chinese and Mexican represent the classic big three but Thai, Indian, Japanese and more have increasing presence over past years, I believe the government in Thailand has specifically allocated money to opening restaurants overseas too

[@luke_cohen1]

Don’t forget Orange Soda and Ginger Ale on the soda front. Those seem to be a major part of the classics.

[@stevethepikmin]

I also want to see JJ do a soda video.

[@MSterling27]

It's interesting how as someone living in the UK, these things are all the same but different - root beer doesn't enter our soda lexicon at all except for those weird American candy stores that sell imported American goods. Ranch also isn't a thing at all here, and I only learned it existed for the first time when I went to the US as a teenager. In terms of ethnic restaurants, I'd say Chinese and Indian are the big two - but if you want to get really meta about it you could say American is #1 with the import of McDonalds, Burger King etc. Obviously with sports, football (soccer) reigns supreme with everything else being several rungs below. I've never met anyone who watches baseball, it's about as niche as you can get.

[@crazybananagurl1999]

i was thinking condiments too!

[@KanyeTheGayFish69]

Also Dr Pepper

[@t_ylr]

You should do a video on traditional Fair/Fall Festival foods: funnel cakes, corn dogs, fried x, turkey legs etc.

[@gerrit2409]

As a somewhat new BC resident (going on three years now) that is an active BC Ferries user for work, I've always pondered why 'White Spot'. Thank you for clarifying in that little tangent - very useful! Now, everyone in the unfortunate position of being near me when passing a White Spot will hear this anecdote.

[@connorapurcell]

An episode regarding the fluctuation of portion sizes (and the relationship between the size/quantity of foods to the cost) over time would be cool

[@thethreerailwayengines825]

I feel like I am legally obliged to say fun fact: did you know that the original French Fries weren't cooked in France? They were cooked in Grease!

[@bugchallin]

Booooo!!!

[@JhowieNitnek]

No in Belgium in modern day Dinant.

[@eddiewillers1]

Ba-boom, tish!

[@emmanarotzky6565]

Blind people using voice to text don’t know even this is a dad joke

[@judgesaturn507]

Hi Dad

[@mierardi88]

Fascinating and entertaining as always, and I do have a suggestion: have you done a video on the origin of the Peanut butter sandwich and its various incarnations?

[@JackRackam]

"Hamburg, which was a German city" oh no, what happened to Hamburg‽

[@TheAurelianProject]

Immigration

[@kylespevak6781]

12:16 I forget it often too, but when i remember it, i order it. Honey is a super food

[@coyotelong4349]

It’s probably worth pointing out that burgers and fries weren’t CREATED by the advent of fast food, but were already popularized as food items by the American Diner before fast food created a way for them to be quickly mass produced

[@miltonbates6425]

Someone needs to start a petition for McDonald's to bring back their original formula for french fries. The decades of lies about saturated animal fat have been thoroughly debunked at this point. Bring back the OG McDonald's fries.

[@randenpederson4784]

amen

[@JoffesThoughts]

I agree, but nowadays there's a huge commercial advantage to using vegetable oil - making your business available to vegans and vegetarians.

[@trevia9941]

i’ve never had the og fries but personally i think mcdonald’s has the best fries than anywhere else, besides maybe arbys curly fries

[@miltonbates6425]

@@trevia9941 You haven't lived, my good man.

[@SayAhh]

What kind of fats did beef tallow contain before they were phased out (in 1990 or something)?

[@aaronzimny8201]

I'd gladly watch JJ do a video on "Why is continental breakfast what it is today?" A pretty specific kind of breakfast served in American hotels, but the term continental usually refers to Europe, where that kind of breakfast isn't served. I don't know if he's already covered that. Also, somewhat related, the rise and fall of roadside restaurants associated with motels, like Howard Johnson's.

[@ecstasycalculus]

From what I understand from traveling through Europe, the term "continental breakfast" came from the fact that in much of continental Europe, the typical breakfast is very light and consists of basic staples like bread, butter, jam, coffee, tea, juice, etc. as opposed to the UK and Ireland where eating meat, eggs, potatoes, etc. is considered the norm. So traditionally, if you went to a hotel in the US with a "continental breakfast", the implication was that it was a light breakfast (pastries, cereal, etc.) and you shouldn't expect there to be any meat, eggs, or potatoes (though this has changed in recent years as I'm seeing a lot more hotel breakfasts that offer all those things).

[@ALuimes]

@@ecstasycalculus A "continental breakfast" sounds impressive but its next-to-nothing.

[@-haclong2366]

04:30 The Vietnamese "lumpia" in the Netherlands is a very good example of this, you can find many different types of lumpia in Viet-Nam but literally none that looks like the ones found in the Netherlands.

[@ethanmackler1892]

Would be interesting to go through what national cuisines have lent themselves to commercialization and mass appeal, and how/why. The Filipino American community is historically as large and deeply rooted as the Chinese American community but obviously nowhere near the same cuisine popularity.

[@anonymoususer8895]

Nah. Filipinos and Chinese are NOT Americans. They’re in Canada and they’re Canadians. You’re confusing the two countries of Canada, where they actually are, with the US.

[@anonymoususer8895]

Chinese and Filipinos are too P00R to come to the US.

[@anonymoususer8895]

You need to stop confusing Canada, with the US.

[@onewingedangel9189]

​@@anonymoususer8895what the hell are you talking about? As an American, Chinese Americans are one of the most famous ethnic groups in the country and there are a lot of Filipino Americans given that we held that country as a colony for half a century.

[@MaxRamos8]

Well El Pollo Loco is also fast food but they have rice, beans, quesedillas, tacos, and of course grilled chicken 🐔

[@simplicitylost]

12:20 Me!! I do it!! It’s actually very good specifically with McDonald’s nuggets. I hate when the employees give me honey mustard by mistake (happens all the time). For a long time, there was a cute bee on the dipping sauce.

[@dstinnettmusic]

Finally. JJ drops the modesty and admits this series truly is award winning.

[@CharlesJohnson-tp7qq]

10:12 I was six in 1983, so I remember Chicken Nuggets being relatively new and the advertising blitz around them.

[@danieltyce7406]

I absolutely love your food cannon series. If there is one thing that all people across the globe can come together over, it would be food.

[@MCHelios618]

American Holiday Food Canon! Thanksgiving: turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, & mashed potatoes Christmas: fruit cake, candy canes, ham vs turkey

[@BinglesP]

Gee, J.J., who knew there was so much history behind just basic eco-'nom-nom'-nomics!

[@overthecounterbeanie]

As a non-American, watching a JJ video is akin to attending an anthropology class - "Today class, we delve into the lifestyle of that mythic species, the North American middle class."

[@lyricusthelame9395]

I hope in the future cheese curds can be added to this list, because I've noticed a gradual and continuous increase in their popularity over the years.

[@evilded2]

?

[@WillTheBassPlayer]

Cheese curds are great, and I think their spread is mainly via Culver's & fairs. Culver's being the regional chain in the midwest, it only makes sense that they'd serve the quintessentially Midwestern cheese curds, and they are steadily expanding across the country. Fairs, too, with their obsession with all thinks fried, it's almost inevitable that they get ahold of cheese curds

[@jljordan1]

@@WillTheBassPlayerFreddy’s has them

[@scoobydoobers23]

​@@WillTheBassPlayerZaxby's sells them too, they just call them cheddar bites. Which I assume is just because they think their customers are uncultured.

[@3p1cand3rs0n]

i'm from tennessee and i don't think i've ever seen cheese curds sold in a restaurant. someone mentioned Culver's, but we don't have many (any?) of them around here. 🙂

[@zacnizib]

you should do a video on fair food, like corndogs, funnel cake, kettle corn, etc. I've always felt like those were an important part of Americana, and are always expected at fairs and festivals. I've also seen other foods start to join the rotation such as gyros and kebab. And there is also some considerable regional variety like hush puppies and fried dough.

[@liamomahoneu4909]

I always wondered about American Condiments! I think that would a great addition to this series. Between Ketchup, Mustard, barbecue, Mayo, and even relish. They is a lot to explore!

[@ShawnRavenfire]

I was recently trying to figure out the difference between ketchup and catsup. Half the sources I find say they're the same thing, and the other half say there's a difference.

[@AduckButSpain]

9:43 Not only they are usually called "Luxembourgers", but also saying LuxemBoURGER, fits better for this video.

[@jljordan1]

As a person currently living in Wichita, Kansas, we do not have White Castle anymore. But we do have Freddy’s.

[@JJMcCullough]

How many nights do you spend there?

[@itDingle]

5:33 This was also before mass produced sliced and preserved bread, right? In the past, people didn't keep bread for up to two-ish weeks like we do, because it gets stale basically overnight like fresh baked bread does. Since they likely needed to fresh bake bread for their sandwiches every day, it'd just make more sense economically to make buns instead of loaves where they could 1, more finely control inventory, and 2, more finely control the final sandwich quality with selected buns.

[@ChessedGamon]

20 year old me reading the menu before choosing the chicken tenders and fries:

[@mich_mash]

Love J.J.'s usage of the FF 6 Magitek Research Facility music for anything factory-related in his videos- always makes me smile

[@theletters9623]

I was a HUGE honey on chicken nuggets kid and I was FURIOUS when a nearby fast food place (couldnt tell you which one) replaced their honey dip with honey mustard, a completely different sauce

[@generaldissaray4109]

if it was mcdonalds, they're lying to you. they still have honey.

[@gerardacronin334]

I couldn’t agree more with your point at 4:00 about how immigrants adapt recipes from their homelands. Another example is corned beef and cabbage, which Americans think of as the quintessential dish for St. Patrick’s day. But nobody in Ireland eats it. How did this happen? Well, in 18th and 19th century Ireland, a lot of beef cattle were raised in Ireland for export to England and was too expensive for most Irish people. Their affordable meat of choice was pork and one of their favourite dishes was bacon and cabbage. After the Famine, millions of Irish people emigrated, mostly to North America, and many of them settled in New York City. Pork was expensive there, so the Irish homemakers learnt from their Jewish neighbours that corned beef was a good substitute. And that is where corned beef and cabbage comes from. Irish-Jewish-New York.

[@alexcolon3630]

You should start doing the food canons or iconic foods of specific U.S. states or Canadian provinces

[@diskonnektion5496]

Great video! Maybe a video on sauces (e.g. ketchup, barbecue, mayonnaise, mustard, blue cheese, ranch, hot sauce) as part of the great American food cannon would be great? I’m not taking about sauces you find at McDonald’s but more so sauces that can be ubiquitously found at gas stations, diners, food stands etc.

[@GreenxEmerald]

Ukraine and Russia both HAD McDonald’s until they pulled out of Russia.

[@benjaminrobinson3842]

With regards to the animation inserts, I liked the rat scurrying by at 7:40. Kudos to the guy who put that together.

[@dilbert719]

One thing I've wondered about from watching this award-winning series: are there items that have fallen out of the American Food Canon, and if so, why? Were they replaced by something more popular, or is there essentially a hole in the modern diet where that food once was?

[@ztl2505]

Mock turtle soup might be a contender. It was considered a very popular comfort food around the turn of the century.

[@eljestLiv]

Here in Sweden, bearnaise sauce is seen as the “default” dip for chicken nuggets at McDonald’s or Burger King, at least as far as I can tell.

[@SpiralSine6]

Another great JJ video, another interesting book to catalogue in my growing list of books I want to eventually read. Not even joking, these past few weeks I’ve made it a hobby to note down every book that JJ has referenced in videos that I’ve watched. I’m up to like fifty books haha.

[@SamSKJL]

One question I’ve always had is about the structure of our meals. Who do we eat three meals a day instead of four or two? Is this totally arbitrary and has this always been the way we eat? Does everyone do this? I know in some countries the meal time varies. For example my Danish family eats very early. However while visiting Iberia they eat meals around 10:30 at night. What leads to these differences?

[@utterdisaster603]

Something I’ve been curious about regarding fast food is how onion rings became such a popular alternative to fries as a side dish and how come some of the biggest players in fast food (McDonald’s, Wendy’s) don’t offer them on a national level?

[@dameanvil]

01:50 🍔 The post-World War II era and technological innovations played a significant role in the rise of fast food culture in America, making restaurants a more routine part of people's lives. 02:41 🍔 The origin of hamburgers is associated with hamburger steak, a ground beef dish named after the city of Hamburg in Germany, where many immigrants to the US came from in the late 19th century. 05:17 🍔 Jay Walter Anderson popularized serving hamburgers on buns instead of slices of bread in the early 20th century, a style that became widely adopted in America. 08:16 🐔 Chicken burgers gained popularity in the 1970s as part of a shift towards favoring chicken over beef for health reasons. This contributed to the rise of chickenas a dominant meat in American consumption. 09:26 🐔 McDonald's introduced chicken nuggets in 1983, which quickly became a popular and iconic fast food item, influencing American food culture and becoming a symbol of low-effort cooking. 11:33 🐔 McDonald's established four dipping sauces for chicken nuggets from the start: barbecue, sweet and sour, hot mustard, and honey, which have become iconic choices for McNugget enthusiasts. 12:28 🍟 French fries have a complex history, with their origins unclear, but they became a staple fast food item, thanks in part to technological advancements like the fryolator and industrial freezing. 15:13 🍟 McDonald's played a significant role in popularizing french fries as a standard side dish with burgers, creating an expectation that the two are served together in fast food establishments.

[@ethanclark85]

You should consider American salad dressing cannon because we have a very rigid idea in North America what is and is not a salad dressing and I think the origin of where they come from would be very interesting

[@WickedMapping]

You should make a video over soul food, or comfort food. Meatloaf, fried chicken, mac and cheese, cornbread, etc.

[@dr00skee47]

not the first 2 notes of casino night zone at 00:10 😭

[@BrickImmortar]

How about the hoagie vs grinder vs submarine vs hero sandwich "debate"? It's kinda like the soda vs pop vs coke deal depending on the region of the US you're in.

[@SmashhoofTheOriginal]

Interesting that you say "chicken burger". My experience is that in the US, this is always called a chicken "sandwich", not a chicken "burger". But I've noticed in other countries that they call it a chicken "burger".

[@tomleonard830]

Agreed. In the USA, it needs to be a ground meat patty in the middle for it to be a burger. Otherwise it’s a sandwich. Other countries don’t necessarily follow that naming convention.

[@pushslice]

@@tomleonard830 Yes, and that probably explains why “Turkey burger” is an accepted term while “chicken burger” is not

[@LonelyOutlaw]

I love this series thank you for making it

[@stolenzephyr]

I would be interested to know about the history of American-Mexican blend of food. Its a food unique to the Americas and usually not found in other countries. It also has a lot of variations, like Cali-Mex and Tex-Mex. Probably a New York variant as well (I'm guessing but I don't know for sure). Tacos are pretty ubiquitous in North America. I've had Mexican friends question the authenticity of any such food north of the border, but I think thats what makes it interesting. Especially with places like taco bell essentially creating a new genre of food that isn't really Mexican but not a classic fast food style either, but a weird blend.

[@beachboysandrew]

I've been to "New England fairs" in Massachusetts where they sell "German fries": they're like a potato chip wrapped around a stick. Not sure I've seen that anywhere else

[@underratedbub]

JJ, I enjoy basically any video you make, but for ideas, I always really enjoy your Canada/America theory videos and deep dives into ideas (like premodern, modern, postmodern) underlying our American/Western society that we all take for granted. I think there is a lot left to be said for causes that you feel passionately about that doesn't get any (positive) press otherwise. Do you have takes on issues or debates that you don't think get enough attention? I do also enjoy your current event videos (like your recent ones on Canada/India and Israel/Palestine) and your travel videos incl. the state tourism video, but I realize these ones would have to be intermittent. I also appreciate your animator's help, but I enjoy your hand-drawn cartoons more than the photo-realistic animations which can be a little grotesque at times. By the way I just want to say that I consider you the best advocate I have ever encountered for America, the West, and conservatism. You fundamentally shaped my thinking in regards to these major topics.

[@rowsofpitch]

A good contrast would be a discussion on Haute cuisine and why thats the "fancy food" in America

[@mind-of-neo]

I couldn't imagine having such a sweet tooth that i'd want to dip my chicken nuggets in honey. This is as strange to me as the donut-bunned burger thing.

[@generaldissaray4109]

nuggets get dipped in honey and fries get dipped in milkshake. whats the problem? it's savory and sweet.

[@Grimmbros1214]

savory and sweet is a good combo. a lot of sauces that you dip nuggets or fries into are also sweet like honey mustard, barbecue, sweet and sour, chick fil a polynesian sauce.

[@luxy9530]

9:45 it’s Luxembourgish. Fun fact in Luxembourg we have many places that sell Burgers called Luxemburgers because the name sounds funny (it‘s just a normal Burger)

[@pjschmid2251]

It’s interesting to hear that Canadians call chicken sandwiches, chicken burgers, too. I’ve heard Brits use that term and it always just is a little disconcerting. Americans don’t use chicken burger to describe a chicken sandwich. Typically to be a burger at has to have some form of ground meat.

[@RenegadeContext]

We differentiate between a sandwich and a burger in the UK and Ireland. A burger is burger shaped and a sandwich is either a whole breast bread crumbed or it's longer. Don't ask me why

[@pjschmid2251]

@@RenegadeContext i’ve seen lots of Brits call chicken sandwiches that are made from whole breaded, chicken, breasts burgers.

[@RenegadeContext]

@@pjschmid2251 were they in America?

[@pjschmid2251]

@@RenegadeContext yes, I’ve heard it when Brits were in America.

[@RenegadeContext]

@@pjschmid2251 I wonder if there was a bit bit of adaption there. or it might be what part of Britain they're from. Accents and dialects vary wildly here

[@TranceCore3]

the word "French" in french fries is a reference to a french cutting style called "Julienne". The world probably decided that french fries rolls off the tongue better than julienne fries. However you can still google "Julienne fries" and it will take you right to a french fry recipe.

[@albertmiller2electricbooga897]

I'd love more of those call-and-response videos, for example asking viewers about the staple fast food dishes in their country. Australia has plain and whole chickens as a large part of fast food, often served with pineapple fritters, and another popular dish is meat pies from service stations

[@hywodena]

Havent watched the video, but I think of fast food as being very similar to street food. It's designed to be delicious, cheap, very fast to make with very little training, with food that either cooks very quickly or can be easily pre-cooked and reheated without losing texture or flavor. Different countries have different street foods, but some of these streetfoods have "upgraded" to fast food restaurants. These restaurants are bigger than carts or stalls that streetfoods are made in and can serve larger crowds plus provide a place to sit while they eat and usually a drive through, which is essential for Americans as we have a very strong work ethic and put far less priority on sitting down to enjoy our meals. We often just want to stuff our face and move on. As for the reason it's burgers and fried food, fried food is extremely easy and fast to reheat from frozen without losing flavor or texture. Potatos are very cheap, so fries are perfect. Chicken nuggets can be made with scraps and byproduct to produce a consistent and yummy product that's bite sized and beloved by children. Fried food in general is delicious and requires very little training. Burgers are also pretty easy, though they do take more training than fried food. The ingredients can all be prepared ahead of time and made pretty fast. It's easy to create new menu items using the same ingredients you already have, so you can have a varied menu with limited space and inventory. You'll see that taco bell, which is one of the few fast food restaurants without a burger focus, has the same advantage of making many menu items with the same ingredients. I mean, how many combinations can you make with hot dogs? Not enough. Hotdogs don't need their own restaurant, they're better suited for streetfood which is cheaper to run. I'm sure theres also a historical component, but I don't know anything about it 😂 I just know about the actual restaurants in the present day and why it works

[@silverharloe]

In the third section on fries, I have to wonder about the stereotypically British dish: fish and chips. (actually, come to think of it, all the big American chains have fish sandwiches) and the breading of nuggets technology you mentioned seems related to "fish sticks" which, if not fast food staples, were super common in school lunches and there's a bag of frozen fish sticks in half of US freezers (half is probably an exaggeration)

[@Wavebeam64]

so what are you, a gay fish?

[@pushslice]

While it doesn’t explain 100% of the preponderance, inclusion of fish in many fast food outlets came from trying to appeal to Catholic customers during Lent.

[@beachboysandrew]

Would be fascinating to see a video like this on the history of soda and the main soda brands

[@TheStickCollector]

Prediction Easy to cook (and popular)

[@Rob_Enhoud]

On the topic of the rise of chicken over beef in America I think and interesting intersection is the chicken wrap. Over my life I've transition from preferring hamburgers on the go to preferring chicken wraps on the go. This is for many reasons. There are perceived health benefits to eating grilled chicken over processed hamburger discussed in this video and additionally a flat bread or pita or tortilla as being more healthy than bread or bun or roll. There is also the added convenience where it's been discussed on this channel that the sandwich was popularized because it was easy to eat for lunch on the job where you may not have a table, I find wraps a step above that which are even easier and more suitable food to stuff in your mouth while driving. I think this is an interesting comparison to Shawarma and I've wondered if fast food wraps are Shawarma. Typically when you go to a mid-east restaurant in the United States and order Shawarma it's typically "higher end" with a fluffier pita, hummus, fresh vegetables, and Americanized sauces; however looking up Shawarma from mid-east and eastern Eurpoe restaurants online shows a wide variety of quality, flatbread thickness, rolling techiques, fillings, etc.... It seems to me that "Shawarma" is about as specific as "Sandwich" in the regions it originates from.

[@zugabdu1]

Another American food canon idea - how sushi made the journey from being a seen by Americans as this exotic, vaguely unnerving, and extremely foreign food to something that is sold in gas stations in only a few decades. In the 90s, the Nickelodeon cartoon show Doug treated sushi like this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/lZLKYqeul8t-apY. Nowadays, portraying sushi this way would seem very weird.

[@JJMcCullough]

There is an early episode of the simpsons that’s similar

[@zugabdu1]

@@JJMcCullough There's also an early episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles where Splinter tries to serve it to April and pronounces it "suSHI" with the stress on the last syllable - a token of how unfamiliar it was to Americans at the time.

[@ryan-sh9bm]

maybe the history of thanksgiving meal like dressing/stuffing and eating turkey in general? christmas meals too would be a good one if thanksgiving is too soon.

[@LaShumbra_Bates_AuDHD]

As an American, I loved watching this video while also trying to stop my eye from twitching everytime I heard "chicken burger" instead of "chicken sandwich". 😂😂😂

[@terranaut3314]

Your point around 5 minutes that "dishes" weren't "imported" is something I've always noted while cooking. Literally every "dish" uses grains, meat, vegetables, and a sauce. Tacos Stroganoff Roast dinner Sandwiches Spaghetti and meat sauce Curry These are all the same thing. Fight me.

[@larissabrglum3856]

Denmark has a dish called hakkebøf, which is basically Salisbury steak. It's normally served with potatoes on the side and may be topped with caramelized onions or fried egg. Northern Germany has quite a bit of cultural crossover with Denmark, so perhaps the hamburger is a sort of niece or nephew of hakkebøf.

[@fossighter9723]

I didn't expect to see the White Diamond in Clark, it's pretty close to me, but I haven't gone there yet. I didn't realize the connection between the White Diamond and White Castle, but it makes sense.

[@jonathanwhite8904]

IDEA FOR FOOD CANNON VIDEO! You should do a video on failed American food cannon. Food that almost made it into the American cultural cannon, but fell out of fashion or just didn't catch on on a national base. This could be food that is still cannon regionally like Maryland crab or new Orleans Cajun food. It could be food that did catch on nationally but then fell out of style like the massive gelatin craze of the 50s and 60s. Frontier food that we don't eat anymore, ECT. You could probably get 4-6 videos out of this if it catches on.

[@IanZainea1990]

Of course, we do eat burgers on sliced bread. We call them patty melts instead. Also, look up "Kewpee" was one of the biggest chain restaurants in the pre-war era. Now just 3 exist.

[@user.3350]

in Egypt, the burger bun type bread is called kaizer not sure how it came to be tho

[@SuperSmashDolls]

12:14 I didn't know this until I asked for honey mustard at a drive-thru and was given packets of raw honey. It's actually one of THE reasons why I dislike using the drive-thru.

[@Turdfergusen382]

Damn can’t believe you showed an old photo of White Grill. That’s something I never thought I’d see referenced in a video. I grew up not far from that place and it’s open to this day.

[@sirquixano5985]

Another reason I think these dominate is because fast food is honestly less about the speed of the food, but especially in America, being able to eat it while traveling in a car. Burgers, fried chicken, tacos, and as a side, french fries, can reasonably be eaten while driving without making a mess or potentially hurting yourself, which is important for people with busy schedules in a country where a car is almost a necessity. Concession food, like hot dogs, pretzels, and pizza slices might also be possible to build fast food restaurants, but full pizzas, chinese, and italian pasta will generally be difficult to eat while driving, so they are more dine in/carry out, even in the cheaper places. I've personally been theorycrafting a subway-style fast food Japanese restaurant around onigiri (riceballs), non-traditional sushi, yakisobapan (yakisoba noodles on a sub bun), and maybe Nikuman (Hot buns), with fillings you can put in them, among meats, veggies, cheese, nuts, and maybe fruit that would be cost effective. One strength is that this is one of the few drivable fast food ideas that don't require bread in the main course, so why not have Japanese style bread as a side for the onigiri and sushi, and maybe sweet potato fries or spring rolls for Yakisobapan and Nikuman. Fill out the rest of the menu with dine-in/carry-out options that you'd expect to see, like rice bowls, yakisoba noodle bowls, and ramen.

[@DaGreatOzzie]

JJ I love all the SNES music you use and I can’t believe I heard music from the Adam’s Family SNES game

[@PASH3227]

JJ we NEED a video on the hot dog cultural canon. Every hot dog stand has mustard ketchup, onions and relish. Why is that? It would be great to put it on the 4th of July, Memorial Day or the opening day of baseball!

[@aldywuff3118]

JJ You're Canadian is showing again. Nobody in the States calls it a "chicken burger" it's a fried chicken sandwich. Chicken burgers are ground patties. Also, I love the poncho. Reminds me of being in high school in the early '90s, we used to call them "drug rugs" curious if you guys had a name for them up there.

[@dogsbark5750]

Growing up I had two pre war burger joints near me. One was a hot dog joint that proudly stated we have hamburger steak on the very old sign. The other "newer" had hamburgers in the name, hot dogs and shakes. You could get cheese, pickles, onions and thats it. The old place close 23 years ago. Totally a thin greese burger. The other place is still around and people still flock there. But what's funny is both use the same buns as white castle.

[@Alan.Endicott]

I'm not sure if food fairs are a thing in your corner, but in Ohio we have several (e.g., Circleville pumpkin festival, Bucyrus bratwurst festival, Norwalk strawberry festival). My own hometown hosts a popcorn festival. As a food specific to the Americas and now exported to the world, it seems this might be a suitable topic for further exploration. Which is more popular, white corn of yellow, and when did each variety emerge (e.g., kettle corn, salted corn with butter, caramel corn, cheese corn and candied corn including popcorn balls)?

[@Bismvth]

I know once upon a time you called poutine "dumb", but I think more and more it has become a real contender in the "Canadian" food canon. For all the similarities we have with America, they can't say with nearly as much confidence, that dozens to hundreds of establishments exist in each of our moderate to large sized cities that one can walk into and purchase a bed of fries topped with various cultural staples and sauces. Like the hamburger to America, post-modern poutine can be perhaps best thought as a canvas for other cultures to paint on. Donair poutine, curry poutine, pierogi poutine, montreal smoked meat poutine, etc.---I get the feeling that it has become a kind of metaphor for pluralism, affordable and accessible where Canadian urbanism shines brightest.

[@E2theBizzle]

“Today, it’s impossible to imagine burgers being sold without fries.” *the hipster bar that charges extra for fries starts to sweat profusely*

[@awogbob]

My wife introduced me to plain honey for dipping. Thought she was insane at first but its actually amazing. Its because honey is quite acidic which you often might not think of and the sweet acidity cuts through the grease basically perfectly