the nation of immigrants, melting pot

One characteristic of American cooking is the fusion of multiple ethnic or regional approaches into completely new cooking styles. Asian cooking has played a particularly large role in American fusion cuisine.

Similarly, while some dishes considered typically American many have their origins in other countries, American cooks and chefs have substantially altered them over the years, to the degree that the dishes now enjoyed the world over are considered to be American. Hot dogs and hamburgers are both based on traditional German dishes, brought over to America by German immigrants to the United States, but in their modern popular form they can be reasonably considered American dishes.

Many companies in the American food industry develop new products requiring minimal preparation, such as frozen entrees. Many of these recipes have become very popular. For example, the General Mills Betty Crocker's Cookbook, first published in 1950 and currently in its 10th edition, is commonly found in American homes.

One stereotype of the United States is that of a culture where television, sports and other forms of popular entertainment overshadow the arts. In fact, Americans are deeply committed to the arts. Not only do more people today attend arts events than sports events, but almost as many people go to art museums as to pop concerts. As American culture evolved, American artists began to create their own art forms. The styles of American art are as diverse as the people. American artists have been inspired by a variety of influences, including folk primitivism and European sophistication. Painters, sculptors, musicians, and innovators in other fields have won fame both at home and abroad. Until the 1940s, America's visual arts—painting and sculpture—were primarily influenced by European trends. Abstract expressionism, which was begun by a group of New York artists in the 1940s, became the first American art movement to command the attention of artists abroad. Abstract expressionists rejected traditional subject matter, such as the human body, still life, or rural scenes. Instead, they focused on such things as the utilization of space, dimension, and surface texture, and the interrelationship of colors. American sculptors developed new styles of their own. Alexander Calder designed the mobile. David Smith was the first sculptor to work with welded metals. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, young artists reacted to abstract expressionism to produce works of "mixed" media. Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns integrated everyday objects such as photographs and newspaper clippings into their paintings. The reaction to abstract expressionism continued with a movement called "pop art". The members of this movement attempted to produce works of art that would reflect the pervasive influence of mass marketing, mass media, and other trends in American popular culture. Important in the pop-art movement were Andy Warhol, famous for his multiple rows of soup cans and multiple portraits of Marilyn Monroe; and Roy Lichtenstein, recognized for his mimicry of well-known comic strips. "Pop" was followed by "Op" art, based on the principle of optical illusion. Recent trends in art emphasize variety and innovation. Movements of the 1970s and 80s include performance art, earth art, conceptual art, graffiti art, neo- and figural-expressionism, and neo-geo art.

Born in Hollywood after the turn of the century, the motion picture became the monumental popular art form of the century. In Hollywood's golden age during the 1940s, the major studios were turning out over 400 movies each year. Like most businessmen, motion picture executives and entrepreneurs wanted to develop products that had mass appeal. Once they found a successful formula, they repeated it in film after film. Westerns, gangster films, comedies, and musicals were some of the popular films that emerged as distinct genres. Hollywood films were tailored to an American audience and appealed to its tastes by reinforcing traditional myths, values, and beliefs. The western fused violence and rugged individualism into larger, mythical themes of taming the frontier, curbing lawlessness, and forging a nation. Entertaining comedies and musicals carried messages of aspiration and optimism. In film director Frank Capra's (born 1897) It Happened One Night (1934), the poor boy who fell in love with a rich girl managed to win her heart. Class divisions were healed and everyone lived happily ever after. Audiences were charmed. During these decades of Hollywood's golden age, films, movie stars, and even the architecture of the theaters were glittering and glorious. The movies have changed since television intervened. Film attendance declined sharply, conglomerates bought up studios, and Hollywood's old monopoly on stardom and American style was lost. Today's moviegoers are mostly teenagers. Their parents prefer television entertainment. The major film studios have adapted to the new viewing patterns by cutting back on production, targeting films to the younger audience, and creating new markets. Studios have recaptured television audiences by renting their feature films to television networks and by producing low-budget made-for-TV movies and television series. Video cassettes have also created new markets for film studios. Although the golden age is past, films remain a popular and profitable form of entertainment in America. Innovations in these varied artistic fields have enriched America's cultural life and have made an impact on the rest of the world. The flourishing of the arts in America today signals a continued momentum for new developments in American art in the future.

Unique forms and styles of music have developed in America. Ragtime, blues, jazz, country-western, rock 'n' roll, and the musical are all American-born. The black American music tradition has produced and influenced a variety of genres. Ragtime was the first black American music to gain wide popularity. Composer Scott Joplin helped develop ragtime from simple parlor piano music into a serious genre. Ragtime is most important for its association with the blues, which then inspired jazz, America's most original music form. The blues evolved from African folk songs and church music. Sung by soloists or featuring solo instruments, blues music often expresses disappointment or regret. Jazz, now recognized as a world-wide art form, originated around the turn of the century among black musicians in the American South. The music was inspired by African culture but evolved directly from spirituals, ragtime, and blues. Jazz is characterized by improvisation and a lively attention to rhythm, something famous jazz musician Duke Ellington called "swing." By 1920, jazz had spread from the South, and in the 1930s, it reached its heyday of mass popularity as big band music. Louis Armstrong, a trumpeter and soloist, was one of the first well-known jazz singers. Although the improvisational style of early jazz still survives today, jazz has moved on to new frontiers. In the 1960s and 70s, jazz musicians began combining the rhythms of rock 'n' roll and electronic instruments with traditional elements of jazz to form a blend of music called "fusion." Today, jazz is extremely popular in America and abroad. Jazz concerts draw thousands of listeners every year. Another popular type of music which came out of the American South is country-western. However, its cultural origin and musical sounds are totally different from jazz. The style of country western music has its roots in the folk songs and ballads of the early Scottish and English settlers in the southern colonies. The music developed over a long period with melodies and lyrics reflecting rural life in the Southeast and Southwest. The distinctive sound of country music depends on the guitar, banjo and fiddle. Lyrics generally focus on the sorrows of love or the economic hardships of poor whites. In the 1930s another native American-born art form emerged. The musical was a new form of entertainment which combined acting, music, and ballet.

The region consists of 12 states in the north-central and north-eastern United States:  Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri,Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Wide regional diversity makes the West hard to typify. While most of the Mountain West is arid wilderness interrupted by a few urban oases, California has some of the richest farmland in the country, and, along with Oregon and Washington in the rainy Northwest, does not share the rest of the West's concern over the scarcity of water. California is different in other ways. The narrow band along its southern Pacific coast is densely populated and highly industrial. By combining the nation's highest concentration of high-tech industries with the greatest percentage of service industries, California's progressive economy is a trend-setter for the rest of the nation as it enters a new post-industrial age. Even if one disregards the Pacific coast states, the rest of the West is marked by cultural diversity and competing interests. Mormon-settled Utah has little in common with Mexican-influenced Arizona and New Mexico. The aims of Western commercial developers anxious for quick profits clash with environmentalists' campaigns for preservation of the region's natural beauty. Montana ranchers have different needs and different outlooks from the senior citizens clustered in a retirement community near Phoenix. Westerners like to think of themselves as independent, self-sufficient, and close to the land, but they feel they cannot control their own destiny while Washington controls their land. Western life is dominated by resources. the region is rich in uranium, coal, crude oil, oil shale, and other mineral deposits. Despite the differences that may exist within the region, the Western states face these problems together.

the Midwest, by contrast, has long been regarded as typically American. The farmland and abundant resources have allowed agriculture and industry to strengthen the Midwesterners' conviction that people can make something of themselves. Midwesterners are seen as commercially-minded, self-sufficient, unsophisticated, and pragmatic. The Midwest is known as a region of small towns and huge tracts of farmland where more than half the nation's wheat and oats are raised. The Midwest's position in the middle of the continent, far removed from the east and west coasts, has encouraged Midwesterners to direct their concerns to their own domestic affairs, avoiding matters of wider interest.Great Plains, physiographic region in central Canada and the United States. The region has a vast, generally high plateau, called the plains, extending from northwestern Canada through parts of the Northwest Territories. In the United States the plains continue south through sections of Montana, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. The region is bordered on the east by the Canadian Shield and the Central Lowland of the United States and on the west by the Rocky Mountains. The area of the Great Plains is 3.2 million sq km. The Great Plains cover a wide area of the North American continent. In general, the Plains closer to the Rocky Mountains are drier because they are in the rain shadow of the mountains; these are the short grass prairies. Farther east, where it is more humid and there is more rain, there are tall grass prairies. In general, the Great Plains have a wide variety of weather throughout the year with very cold winters and very hot summers. There is usually plenty of wind, too. The prairies support abundant wildlife in undisturbed settings, but people have easily converted much of the prairies for agricultural purposes or pastures.