Was just talking with my wife about this yesterday when we went to an Asian fusion place for lunch. Sometimes you just want to eat gyoza, sushi, and mapo tofu in the same meal. Doesn't mean you don't appreciate that they're foods from different cultures. It's quintessentially American to gather up the best bits of multiple cultures and offer them all in one convenient package.
Aren't all modern cultures (with exception of "lost" tribes perhaps) amalgams of multiple historic influences.
It's the quintessence of culture to be a composite of prior cultural aspects.
It doesn't appear to be distinctly American in that it seems to be present in the other continental areas too?
For example traditional British chip shop food includes battered pineapple, and curry sauce and may just as well be cooked for you by a person born in China, say.
Indeed, food gets remixed worldwide. The gyros I get in Chicago are almost identical to the kebabs I found in Britain, except that the British variety has a wide variety of sauce options, including ones more commonly associated with curry, such as tikka.
Tikka masala, on the other hand, was invented in the UK and has made its way back to India.
Food would be boring indeed if ingredients and techniques strictly stayed in one place.
