Delicious.com.au: 10 American foods that we just do not understand

From Wonderbread to sloppy Joes, America has some intriguing foods. Delicious.com.au has compiled a list of 10 interesting offerings from the USA. How many of these would you eat?

We know we really shouldn’t be throwing stones in glass houses but there are certain ‘foods’ in the USA that we will never get our heads around.

What is Ambrosia salad?

Ambrosia salad

Tinned fruit, coconut, mini marshmallows, and glacé cherries. That’s what you’ve been missing out on. With its roots as a luxury food (hey, tinned fruit was new, ok?) and named after the food of the gods, we live in fear of being smote if we served this up at a barbecue Down Under.

It's cheese. In a can.

Cheese in a can

Whatcha doin’ there, buddy? Just putting cheese into a can? While we can’t quite comprehend what business cheese has living in an aerosol canister, at least there’s no need to refrigerate!

Wonder Breads are so sweet and refined that it’s easy to imagine it living in your stomach for 40 days and 40 nights.

The bread

Many Australians worry that they’ve accidentally bought some sort of cake the first time they buy bread in the US. And we appreciate that there is a growing movement toward slow-food in certain pockets of the US, the Wonder Breads of the world are so sweet and refined that it’s easy to imagine it living in your stomach for 40 days and 40 nights.

Too much sweet stuff?

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

Sweet and savoury is a beautiful thing, yet there’s something a bit cloying about adding sweet ‘jelly’ to sweet peanut butter, on sweet white bread that we’re just not here for.

Mayonnaise goes on everything.

Mayonnaise on everything

After the recent revelation that butter does indeed go on bread, surely it’s time to release the chokehold that mayonnaise has on the US of A.

Thanksgiving and Christmas just wouldn’t be the same without this.

Sweet potato with marshmallows

Sorry, yams. We’re not convinced that these sweet tubers really require cups of brown sugar and a topping of marshmallows but here we are. This classic side dish (nope, it’s not dessert) is admittedly not an ‘every day’ treat but Thanksgiving and Christmas just wouldn’t be the same without the, erm, delicacy.

Fluff marshmallow spread is exactly what it sounds like.

Fluff marshmallow spread

Fluff marshmallow spread is exactly what it sounds like. Liquidy marshmallow goo in a jar, to be spread onto sandwiches. We have a toothache just looking at it. It may be a tasty treat to some but how does one even get through more than a teaspoon of this stuff?

Like a liquorice milkshake just after brushing your teeth.

Root beer float

We would like to be clear with our confusion here. It’s not the ‘float’ part that is perplexing – after all, many of us grew up on the delicious creamy fizz of a spider. It’s the root beer. With the essence of sassafras, chugging down a root beer float is akin to drinking a liquorice milkshake just after brushing your teeth.

The beef mince, vegetables and tomato sauce is actually pretty tasty.

Sloppy Joes

Sloppy Joes. Where to begin? To be fair, the beef mince, vegetables and usually some sort of tomato sauce, er, ketchup, is actually pretty tasty but when you’re this close to making bolognese, why stop?

A turkey, stuffed with a duck, then a chicken.

Turducken

There really is something just so… American about this one. A turkey, stuffed with a duck, then a chicken. Yes, the tradition can be traced back centuries in Europe as a means of showing off the bounty of one’s land but to keep on trucking well into the 21st century? Go off, we guess.

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Originally published as Delicious.com.au: 10 American foods that we just do not understand