What is ‘American cuisine’? We will look beyond the ubiquitous hamburger to explore foodways of the Americas (North, Central and South America) as the multifaceted result of millennia of cultural practices and centuries of immigrants adapting culinary practices of their homelands to their new environment. This course starts with perspectives on Indigenous foodways, then moving through the founding of the US with its republican mythologies, the westward expansion, the impact of wars (both Civil and international), the Gilded Age and its Progressive Era reaction, and the Great Depression. We will consider how innovation and politics met the domestic need to feed the rapidly growing cities dotting the vast continent and the challenges posed by the cultural collision of successive generation of newcomers with established populations. We will then expand our gaze to analyze the consequences—good and bad— of America’s post-war spreading of its foodways on the global stage, exporting ingredients, products, fast food, technologies, and other changes throughout the world. We will conclude with questioning how one can be an ethical eater in 21st century America.