Soul food is undoubtedly a genuinely American contribution to world cuisine, but you must also take into account that each region of our nation has dishes that are unique as well.
Soul food, for example, began among slaves who managed to create meals from the rations allotted to them by their masters augmented with wild herbs, small game, fish, and what they could grow in their own garden plots. These foods were virtually unknown outside of the South until after the Civil War, when blacks migrating to the North brought these culinary traditions with them. This cuisine became very widely known during the 1960's and 1970's.
Germans of the religious groups such as the Amish and Mennonites also adapted the recipes of their central European homelands to the ingrdients at hand in the style known as Pennsylvania Dutch (from the misunderstanding of the word 'Deutsch' by their English-speaking neighbors), and let's not forget other regional styles such as Cajun and Tex-Mex.
All of these, and many, many others that I didn't list, form the patchwork quilt that goes under the general heading of American food
--or rather, the wonderful stew that is our own national cuisine.
