Indigenous cuisine of the Americas in the context of "Cuisine of the Southern United States"

The cuisine of Veracruz is the regional cooking of Veracruz, a Mexican state along the Gulf of Mexico. Its cooking is characterized by three main influences—indigenous, Spanish, and Afro-Cuban—per its history, which included the arrival of the Spanish and of enslaved people from Africa and the Caribbean. These influences have contributed many ingredients to the cooking including native vanilla, corn and seafood, along with rice, spices and tubers. How much the three mix depending on the area of the state, with some areas more heavily favoring one or another. The state has worked to promote its cuisine both in Mexico and abroad as part of its tourism industry.

American cuisine consists of the cooking style and range of dishes prepared in the United States, an especially diverse culture in a large country with a long history of immigration. It principally derives from a mixing of European cuisine, Native American and Alaskan cuisine, and African American cuisine, known as soul food. The Northeast, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, South, West, Southwest, and insular areas all have distinctive elements, reflecting local food resources, local demographics, and local innovation. These developments have also given some states and cities distinctive elements. Hawaiian cuisine also reflects substantial influence from East Asian cuisine and its native Polynesian cuisine. Proximity and territorial expansion has also generated substantial influence from Latin American cuisine, including new forms like Tex-Mex and New Mexican cuisine. Modern mass media and global immigration have brought influences from many other cultures, and some elements of American food culture have become global exports. Local ethnic and religious traditions include Cajun, Louisiana Creole, Pennsylvania Dutch, Mormon, Minnesotan, Tlingit, Chinese American, German American, Italian American, Greek American, Jewish American, and Mexican American cuisines.

American cooking dates back to the traditions of the Native Americans, whose diet included a mix of farmed and hunted food, and varied widely across the continent. The Colonial period created a mix of new world and Old World cookery, and brought with it new crops and livestock. During the early 19th century, cooking was based mostly on what the agrarian population could grow, hunt, or raise on their land. With an increasing influx of immigrants, and a move to city life, American food further diversified in the later part of the 19th century. The 20th century saw a revolution in cooking as new technologies, the World Wars, a scientific understanding of food, and continued immigration combined to create a wide range of new foods. This has allowed for the current rich diversity in food dishes throughout the country. The popularity of the automobile in the 20th century also influenced American eating habits in the form of drive-in and drive-through restaurants.

Soul food is the ethnic cuisine of African Americans. Originating in the American South from the cuisines of enslaved Africans transported from Africa through the Atlantic slave trade, soul food is closely associated with the cuisine of the Southern United States. The expression "soul food" originated in the mid-1960s when "soul" was a common word used to describe African-American culture. Soul food uses cooking techniques and ingredients from West African, Central African, Western European, and Indigenous cuisine of the Americas.

The cuisine was initially denigrated as low quality and belittled because of its origin. It was seen as low-class food, and African Americans in the North looked down on their Black Southern compatriots who preferred soul food (see the Great Migration). The concept evolved from describing the food of slaves in the South, to being taken up as a primary source of pride in the African American community even in the North, such as in New York City, Chicago and Detroit.

Cajun cuisine (French: cuisine cadienne [kɥi.zin ka.dʒɛn], Spanish: cocina cadiense) is a subset of Louisiana cooking developed by the Cajuns, itself a Louisianan development incorporating elements of Native American, West African, French, and Spanish cuisine.

Cajun cuisine is often referred to as a "rustic" cuisine, meaning that it is based on locally available ingredients and that preparation is simple. Cajuns historically cooked their dishes, gumbo for example, in one pot.

The cuisine of Minnesota refers to the food traditions, cooking techniques, dishes, and ingredients found throughout the state of Minnesota. It is a unique type of Midwestern cuisine, made distinct by its heavy Nordic influence.

Typical Minnesota cuisine is based on Norwegian, and Swedish, with influence from German, Czech, Cornish, Italian, and Polish cuisine and minor Native American influences (mainly seen through the usage of wild rice). Since the 1960s, The Twin Cities' food scene has been influenced by the cuisines of the various immigrant and refugee groups who have settled in Minnesota; immigrant cuisines popular in Minnesota include Somali, Hmong, Mexican, Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, Ethiopian, Burmese, Laotian, and Liberian cuisine. Minnesotan cuisine also has regional variations: Fusion cuisine and New Nordic Cuisine in the Twin Cities, which is home to the inventions of the jucy lucy and the bundt cake, Italian inspired dishes are eaten and Cornish pasties in the Iron Range, more German akin dishes on the Western prairies, and lake fish on the North Shore.