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A brief (and possible inaccurate) history of American food:
Early American food was frontier food. This makes sense, as early America was the frontier. Frontier food isn't known for its flavor. Time is short, so a lot of food was fried, and people ate quickly. European visitors remarked how Americans would quickly eat their meals and then start drinking. Standard fare would be bread, corn, corn, cornmeal, salt pork, and whisky. One account I read about (In "The Alcoholic Republic") was a Swede visiting frontier Alabama and being served a three course meal consisting of:
1)Pickled pigs feet
2)Bacon with molasses
3)Milk and black bread soaked in whiskey
Needless to say, he was a bit turned off.
There was certainly regional influence on food, as well immigrants brought their own cuisine with them, but that had to be adapted to what was available. Immigrants were also usually poorer peasants from places like England, Ireland, Scotland, Eastern Europe, Germany, and Northern Europe, so what they brought was peasant food, not adaptations of Escoffier.
Expecting absurdly fancy food is stupid, because America never had that kind of aristocracy that could have kitchens of 500 cooking a meal for 20 people. It was mostly poorer people cooking for themselves.
American cuisine also had a huge shift in the post-WWII period. Old cookbooks from the prewar period will still contain recipes for things like spicy foods (curries, etc.). But after booming prosperity, the US was hit with the dirty, wretched conditions of WWI, the Great Depression, and WWII. Afterwards the whole country seemed to lose flavor. You saw a rapid expansion of cookie-cutter suburbs (e.g. Levittown), Wonderbread, fast food restaurants, malls, and austere modernist architecture. The whole culture seemed to have decided it didn't want anything approaching exotic food. They wanted regularity, safety, cleanliness. Large-scale corporate production thrived, and there went a lot quality and taste, at least in many places.
However, I'd still say the OP has never really explored American food. Go to a good Soul food restaurant (Sylvia's in Harlem, for example), and tell me it's crap. It's fucking gorgeous.
Not only that, but high-end American-Fusion food - usually innovative takes on traditional foreign dishes (and why not, for a land of immigrants), is very good. There's a reason why chefs from France, Italy, and Japan will come to the US to improve their techniques. If the only place you eat in the US is the food court, I can see why you wouldn't be impressed. But if my only experience with Italian food was at the ripoff tourist restaurant at the Vatican, I don't think you would say it's a fair example.