13 Foods Actually Newer to America Than We Realized

Nearly every American-style restaurant seems to have chicken tenders, nachos, and buffalo wings on their menu.

While it may seem like these foods have always been popular, several are more recent additions to American cuisine than we realize. The most popular dish of 2022 (according to Grubhub’s 320,000 partnering restaurants) was a burrito bowl — which became popular in the 2000s thanks to Chipotle.

The American cuisine canvas is ever-changing. If you can spot the trends over the past few decades, you might be the first one to introduce your friends to the next big culinary fad.

Poké

Have you noticed how many poké bowl restaurants there are nowadays? The dish is a Hawaiian staple that has been around since the 1970s. The raw fish, salt, and seaweed combination took a while to make its way across the Pacific, as the dish didn’t appear in the mainland until after 2012.

After 2012, it exploded in popularity, doubling the number of Hawaiian restaurants on Foursquare between 2014 and 2016.

Oat Milk

If you go into any coffee shop today, chances are they’ll have oat milk as a dairy milk alternative. Yet, the beverage was only invented in the ’90s by Swedish food scientist Rickard Öste (who later founded the popular oat milk brand Oatly).

It wasn’t until 2017, when Oatly launched a massive marketing campaign targeted at millennials, that oat milk started to flood the U.S. market. In just over five years, oat milk sales in the U.S. went from essentially zero to $527 million.

Brussels Sprouts

Okay, we know what you’re going to say: Brussels sprouts as a vegetable have been available in the U.S. for quite some time. However, the Brussels sprouts you’re used to today have only been around for the last few decades.

This is because, in the 1990s, Dutch scientists identified the specific chemical that gave the vegetable a bitter taste for many people. By crossbreeding less-bitter plants, farmers have completely changed the taste of the sprouts — which is largely why the veggie is so much more popular today.

Nachos

Nachos are a gameday staple at any sports bar in America, and it seems the tear-and-share dish has only been popular for a short amount of time.

Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya, a maître d, created the dish in the 1940s in Mexico when he needed to throw a dish together when the cook was unavailable. The dish began making waves in the U.S. in the ‘70s, particularly after Frank Liberto made the shelf-stable melted “nacho cheese” to sell to hungry Texas baseball fans.

Nacho Cheese Doritos

Nowadays, dozens of flavors of Doritos are available on the shelves, including everything from anchovies and garlic to clam chowder. Yet, nacho cheese is the tried-and-true flavor the chip brand is known for.

This leads many to assume that when Doritos were first released in 1966, they burst onto the market with their nacho cheese flavor. Yet, this wasn’t the case. The first Doritos released were toasted corn flavor — making them just plain tortilla chips.

Our beloved nacho cheese flavor wasn’t introduced until 1972.

Chicken Tenders

Have you ever wondered why millennials have such a strong attachment to chicken tenders compared to previous generations? It’s because they grew up in the “rise of the chicken tender” era.

The boom of “chicky tendies,” as they’re affectionately referred to today, occurred in the ’80s and ’90s, when chain restaurants started putting them on all their menus. Yet, it’s difficult to pinpoint where these chains got the idea for the crispy finger food.

The Puritan Backroom restaurant in New Hampshire claims to have created the first finger in 1974, while Mussari’s Sun Valley Motel and Restaurant in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, says they made the first in 1966.

California Rolls

Sushi, which consists of fish and rice, was invented in China over 2,000 years ago. It first came to the U.S. in the early 20th century but started gaining steam after World War II, when trade routes reopened to Japan.

California rolls, made with imitation crab, became popular in the 1980s. The spike in orders was due to people who wanted to enjoy sushi but not raw fish now having a tasty option.

Bubble Tea

A version of bubble tea, pearl milk tea, came to America between the ’60s and ’80s with the influx of Taiwanese immigrants and was only sold in small family shops.

The bubble tea we know today was perfected in the ’80s, but it took a few decades before large bubble tea companies like Coco and Gong Cha broke into the U.S. market.

Then, in 2013, the song “Bobalife” went viral on YouTube, introducing the iced drink with tapioca pearls to a larger American audience.

Buffalo Wings

Buffalo wings were created exactly where you’d imagine: Buffalo, New York. Teressa Bellissimo, owner of The Anchor Bar, cooked up some leftover chicken wings in hot sauce for some of her friends in 1964.

The menu item took off thanks to a few fast food chains, the first (surprisingly) being McDonald’s, which started selling “Mighty Wings” in 1990. This set off the fast food race, with KFC introducing “Hot Wings” in 1991 and Domino’s introducing their wings in 1994.

Edamame

Just a few years ago, people couldn’t pronounce the name of this protein-packed bean. The reason? Edamame wasn’t readily available in the U.S. before the 1990s because the bean wasn’t grown as a crop here. While some believe edamame is the same as the soybeans we regularly grow in the U.S., it isn’t. In the ’90s, small trials of edamame crops were first planted in the U.S.

Before long, edamame began dominating the market because of its nutrient-dense quality.

Mozzarella Sticks

Unsurprisingly, the go-to cheesy appetizer came from the land of dairy: Wisconsin. It’s said that cheesemaker Frank Baker came up with the concept for snack-sized bits of fried cheese in 1976.

By the ‘80s, chains like Applebee’s and TGI Fridays put the sticks on their menus, opening the dish to the country.

Pad Thai

The history behind pad Thai is almost unbelievable. Thai government officials manufactured a national dish (pad Thai) to spread worldwide. In 2001, they launched a global marketing campaign, offering investors interested in opening a Thai restaurant in their city an entire menu and decoration plans.

Because of this, pad Thai started blowing up in the U.S., where it remains a staple for a tasty, filling dish.

Burrito Bowl

If you prefer a bowl to a wrapped burrito, you have one restaurant to thank: Chipotle.

The chain released the burrito bowl option in 2004, and customers quickly adopted the idea. In 2022, burrito bowls were the most popular dish in America (per Grubhub’s data).

What is the reason for the love for the bowl? It cuts out the carb and gluten factors of a tortilla. It’s also much easier to eat (and save for later) than a big burrito.