While the earliest cuisine of the United States was influenced by indigenous Native Americans, the cuisine of the thirteen colonies or the culture of the antebellum American South; the overall culture of the nation, its gastronomy and the growing culinary arts became ever more influenced by its changing ethnic mix and immigrant patterns from the 18th and 19th centuries unto the present. Some of the ethnic groups that continued to influence the cuisine were here in prior years; while others arrived more numerously during “The Great Transatlantic Migration (of 1870—1914) or other mass migrations.
Some of the ethnic influences could be found in the nation from after the American Civil War and into the History of United States continental expansion during most of the 19th century. Ethnic influences already in the nation at that time would include the following groups and their respective cuisines:
· Select nationalities of Europe and the respective developments from early modern European cuisine of the colonial age:
· British-Americans and on-going developments in New England cuisine, the national traditions founded in cuisine of the thirteen colonies and some aspects of other regional cuisine.
· Spanish Americans and early modern Spanish cuisine, as well as Basque-Americans and Basque cuisine.
· Early German-American or Pennsylvania Dutch and Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine
· French Americans and their "New World" regional identities such as:
· Acadian
· Cajun and Cajun cuisine
· Louisiana Creole and Louisiana Creole cuisine. Louisiana Creole (also called French Créole) refers to native born people of the New Orleans area who are descended from the Colonial French and/or Spanish settlers of Colonial French Louisiana, before it became part of the United States in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase.
· The various ethnicities originating from early social factors of Race in the United States and the gastronomy and cuisines of the “New World,” Latin American cuisine and North American cuisine:
· Indigenous Native Americans in the United States and American Indian cuisine
· African-Americans and “Soul food.”
· Cuisine of Puerto Rico
· Mexican-Americans and Mexican-American cuisine; as well as related regional cuisines:
· Tex-Mex (regional Texas and Mexican fusion)
· Cal-Mex (regional California and Mexican fusion)
· Some aspects of “Southwestern cuisine.”
· Cuisine of New Mexico