Chefs Battle It Out Over What Iconic Food Best Represents The U.S.

Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton
unesco food list
What's The Most Iconic American Food? Alison Dominguez


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Neapolitan pizza, French baguettes, Chinese tea—these customs represent their native countries not only as beloved foods, but also as pieces of cultural heritage officially recognized by the United Nations. In 2010, UNESCO added a food preparation category to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Basically, it’s what they agree to be the world’s most creative, culturally-diverse food customs. So far, they’ve selected 30 iconic global food traditions to be a part of this prestigious group.

However, the United States and its food traditions are notably missing from UNESCO's list.

So, we asked American chefs and food writers to weigh in on what dish would best represent the U.S. And we got many different answers, from pancakes to chocolate chip cookies to barbecue.

Here’s how the list works: UNESCO press officer Thomas Mallard told us that “it is not the actual food that is inscribed, but the traditions that surround these dishes.” Anya von Bremzen, author of “National Dish,” has traveled the globe to research national dishes, along with the history and politics tied to them. In order to secure a spot on the UNESCO list, a government body starts a lengthy application process, collecting information that argues the custom’s importance, Von Bremzen said. A specific committee—currently made up of members from 24 nations—then decides which nominations make the list. Von Bremzen said France “lobbied very intensely” to earn one of the first food-related entries: the gastronomic meal of the French.

grilled ribs getting cut
PHOTO: ERIK BERNSTEIN; FOOD STYLING: MAKINZE GORE

However, it’s created “touchy territory” in some cases. “The whole idea was very quickly hijacked by various state players because, around the same time, food was becoming a very important part of different national brands,” Von Bremzen said.

For instance, the Ottoman Empire once included Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, so they all share food traditions. Therefore, “when they award lavash bread to Armenia, Turkey becomes very upset,” Von Bremzen said. Alternatively, when Turkey was recognized for its ceremonial Keşkek—a wheat porridge—in 2011, “Armenians will say, ‘How come the Turks got that?’”

A more recent controversy occurred around borscht, a beet soup credited to Ukraine as a piece of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding in 2022. “Borscht is one of the dishes that can potentially be claimed by different countries in the region: Russia, Poland, Moldova, Lithuania—they all have a version,” said Von Bremzen, a Jewish Russian who grew up in the Soviet Union and immigrated to the U.S. when she was 11.

Before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, its government’s Twitter account “was making provocative tweets about borscht being a Russian dish, which really upset the Ukrainians,” Von Bremzen said. She agrees that borscht “is most associated with Ukraine, and it has the most symbolic value and emotional impact” there.

Recognition on the UNESCO list “can enrich and enhance a national brand in terms of cuisine—not just abroad, but also for domestic audiences,” she said. In the case of Japan, its population’s interest in the nation’s cultural foods was waning, with consumption of rice and miso on the decline, when Washoku—traditional Japanese cuisine—made the list in 2013.

If the U.S. decided to vie for an entry, Von Bremzen said barbecue is a good choice because of its “rich culture,” particularly within the South. But she doesn’t see that happening soon. The “U.S. tends to be a very self-sufficient culture,” Von Bremzen said. “It looks to itself and not to the world, sometimes.”

Matt Conroy, chef-partner at Washington, D.C., restaurants Lutèce and Pascual, hadn’t heard of the UNESCO list. “In the U.S., it’s not something that’s talked about,” he said.

For Conroy, a Massachusetts native whose cooking career started at a diner as a teenager, pancakes could count as a ubiquitous American food tradition to be celebrated. “As silly as it might be, I think everyone’s had a pancake for breakfast at some point,” he said. In his household and many others across the country, “it would always be a Sunday morning thing.”

However, Isabel Coss, pastry chef at Lutèce and Pascual, called the list “such a big deal in Mexico.” Born and raised in Mexico City, “food is such a big part of my culture and my country,” she added.

gumbo with chicken and sausage pieces in a bowl with rice topped with green onions and served with a bottle of hot sauce on the side
ANDREW BUI

Alongside France, Mexico secured one of the first customs on the list in 2010, with its traditional Mexican cuisine. The entry specifically recognizes women cooks in the state of Michoacán, where Coss’ family hails from. She depicted getting on the list as “like winning the World Cup—every country wants it.”

Coss thinks that the U.S. could get on the list with its chocolate chip cookie—a dessert emblematic of “the whole Betty Crocker movement” sparked by the invention of condensed milk, milk powder, and Philadelphia cream cheese.

Ji Hye Kim, chef and managing partner at Miss Kim in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is aware of the UNESCO list because of its significance to her homeland, South Korea. She immigrated to the U.S. at 13 years old.

The South Korean practice of Kimjang, or “making and sharing kimchi,” got on the list in 2013. For Kim, it’s a fitting tribute because “I heard somebody say that there is as many kinds of kimchi as there are mothers in Korea.”

North Korea is represented by two entries on the list—kimchi-making and the cold noodle dish, Pyongyang Raengmyon—but Kim said they aren’t controversial because different regions specialize in various dishes throughout the Korean Peninsula.

As for the U.S. trying to join the list in the near future? “I just don’t see who wants this badly enough to invest time, money and effort into it,” she said. But she pointed to Native American wild rice as a contender because of its anthropological importance to Indigenous people.

“This list doesn’t just list a dish; it also lists an act or celebration or history around an ingredient or dish,” Kim said. “Maybe the U.S. as a whole does not need a separate promotion of our food because we’re such a first-world country, but Native American traditions need to be really preserved.”

Irena Stein, founder and proprietor of Alma Cocina Latina in Baltimore, has ideas for dishes that represent two nations paramount to her journey: Venezuela and the U.S. She first immigrated to the U.S. from Caracas on a J-1 student visa.

For her ancestral land, Stein chose arepas. “Every Venezuelan is born with an arepa under their arm,” she said. And for the country she now calls home, one food immediately comes to mind: hamburgers. “Everybody in the world refers to the American food starting with the hamburger,” Stein said. “Arepas are everywhere in Venezuela; burgers are everywhere in the U.S.”

Kwame Onwuachi, the Nigerian-American chef behind Tatiana in New York City, can’t imagine U.S. chefs would band together for recognition on the list. “I don’t know if it’s going to move the needle on ending poverty or food insecurity,” he said. “That’s what chefs really get behind.”

But if there’s one dish that encompasses the American spirit to Onwuachi, it’s gumbo, and, more importantly, the cultures behind it. “You have the Native Americans with their filé; you have West Africans with the okra; you have Germans with the sausages; you have fishermen from the Canary Islands with the seafood,” he said. “That really tells the story of America.”

best homemade pancakes with butter and maple syrup
PHOTO: ERIK BERNSTEIN; FOOD STYLING: SPENCER RICHARDS

Here’s the complete UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity: Food Preparation

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