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" If the French are snooty about their cuisine, they once had every right to be. And if an Italian threw up his hands in horror at the crap Americans used to eat, you just had to agree with him. American cooks used to have a dreary larder of foodstuffs to work with, but over the last decade we have moved neck-and-neck with Europeans, especially as FedEx and DHL have leveled the playing field for obtaining great ingredients overnight. Overall, Europeans still do have better chickens, shellfish, mushrooms, certain vegetables, shrimp, and cheeses than you can find here unless you work hard and pay plenty for some artisanal American products. But what foods do we grow, cultivate, raise, or fish that are actually better than anything the Europeans or Asians have? Here&amp;#039;s a proud list: Beef: Nothing comes close to USDA Prime. Largely corn-fed, it has a richness of well-fatted flavor and, at its best \u2014 aged for weeks in ideal conditions \u2014 the primordial smell of animal that cooks up into a tender-but-not-soft slab of sizzling holy goodness. European beef is grass-fed and barely aged at all. And Kobe is just a gimmick, now banned (for Mad Cow fears) from the U.S. anyway.  Lobster: How big do you want to go? Five pounds? Not a problem. Homarus americanus is fatter, sweeter, and richer in flavor than the puny crawlers in Europe, plus ours have massive claws with more meat in them than the bodies of any species found in the North Sea. You need do nothing with an American lobster but steam it and dip it in some melted butter. What do they do with their lobsters in Europe? They cover up its anemic taste with cream and sherry sauces and truffles and artichokes and give it names like Thermidor.  Tomatoes: Southern Italy grows terrific tomatoes (which they got from the Americas) but in peak season, no tomato beats an American tomato, as sweet as candy (it is a fruit, not a vegetable), tasting of sunshine and acid and enough juice to make a pitcher of bloody Marys. Now we have an abundance of heirlooms, too, with evocative names like Big Boy, Jubilee, Bouncer, Bonney Best, and Beefsteak.  Peppers: Europe and India and Thailand and the entire Far East should get down on their knees in thanks for our sending them, as of the 16th century, fleshy sweet and hot peppers, from jalapenos to bell peppers, and scores of others that completely transformed the dull flavors of the world&amp;#039;s cookery. We still have more varieties \u2014 Guajillo, habanero, pequin, cayenne, serrano, poblano \u2014 and we know just what to do with them. Montezuma even flavored his hot chocolate with them.  Crabs: Okay, there are good crabs in Asian and European waters, but nothing comes close to the American blue crab of the eastern coastline \u2014 called &amp;quot;savory swimmer&amp;quot; \u2014 and the Dungeness and King crabs of the west. Then there&amp;#039;s the well-named stone crab, whose shell, said Damon Runyon, is &amp;quot;harder than a landlord&amp;#039;s heart.&amp;quot; And, God bless us, the softshell crab is a miracle of seasonal flavor you wait for and gorge on for good reason. Corn: In Europe the only good corn dish they could come up with since they imported it from the Americas is Italian polenta, and even that needs a lot of help from other ingredients. American corn was called &amp;quot;Sacred Mother&amp;quot; by the Central Americans and up north it is so associated with the best of summer&amp;#039;s and fall afternoons that it&amp;#039;s worth remembering that Mark Twain said the only way to eat it was to drag a kettle of water into the cornfields.  RELATED: 36 Reasons It&amp;#039;s (Still) Good to Be an American Man &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/food/a8583/best-american-ingredients-092710/>