A lot of "traditional" white American food rises from traditions of using government issued foodstuffs. Government cheese, spam, various concoctions devised from military rations. But quite a lot also comes from what immigrant communities were able to afford, which was generally the worse stuff. There's also a not-insignificant number of white households that possessed no generational cooking knowledge because it was done by slaves, and thus had no culinary culture they could continue without the requisite skills.

[–] jaywalker@hexbear.net 20 points 1 month ago

Roughly 30% of white families in the confederate states owned slaves

[–] copandballtorture@hexbear.net 10 points 1 month ago

A lot of the Americanization process encouraged immigrants to give to their customs and replace them with American substitutes. Shitty food is a result of generations of urban working class proles fed on cheap "American approved" slop and losing their customs and knowledge