Americans are used to it but foreigners notice immediately the giant food portions in the U.S. when visiting. What’s the matter with that? Is it because people in the USA believe that bigger is better?

Chow Time: The Culture of Big American Food Portions Explained

Author: Russell, Elenasmodels.com member

The most frequent comment I hear from foreign tourists visiting the United States for the first time is about the large portions of food served in American restaurants. And indeed, many meals in America are huge in comparison to average meal portions in most other countries.

The culture of large American food portions is not about gluttony, or the idea that “bigger is always better.”

Large food portions in the USA, and of food types that are very high in calories, were born out of necessity along with the rise of the classic American icon: the cowboy.

Historical roots of the large food portions in the USA come from the times of early settlers.

The rise of the American icon — The Cowboy

At the end of America’s Civil War (1865), a new type of worker — a horseman with cattle skills — became a very real symbol of the country’s new identity as Americans moved from east to west by the thousands and established farms and ranches in Western states like Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming.

Their name describes them exactly: a “cow boy” had specific skills on horseback to herd and drive hundreds or even thousands of cattle north and east to the railroads in cities like Kansas City. From this work, legendary men and legendary foods were born.

A true “cow boy” was a tough, rugged, and gritty man who lived almost his entire life on horseback. These guys slept under the stars, no matter what the weather, and were survival experts.

The western states were mostly lawless places, sparsely populated, and a cowboy’s most valuable possession was his pistol.

“Cow boys” left their home towns or ranches for months at a time to live in the wilderness and move cattle to market.

Beef cattle and cowboys became one in the same image across the American west. And their lifestyles became folklore which Americans living in eastern states read dramatic novels about.

“Cowboy Breakfast”: 4 eggs, buttermilk biscuits smothered in pork sausage gravy, and cornbread.

The new style of American cuisine

Along with the cowboy lifestyle came new American cuisine.

To understand this typical USA food, one must realize that “cow boys”, who worked from sunrise to sunset (or in their own lingo, “sunup” to “sundown”), burned 6,000-8,000 calories each day.

Feeding a cowboy was like feeding a professional athlete. Their daily physical demands required large, wholesome, and calorie-rich meals — 3 times a day.

3000-calories meal of country-fried steak with mashed potatoes and beef gravy

The chuckwagon

To move a thousand cattle across a couple of states to a marketplace required a small group of cowboys. Large ranches spread over many square kilometres, or cattle drives across the states, gave rise to a new, mobile chef and his kitchen: the chuckwagon.

A cowboy cook carried his own cast-iron stove, and all the basic ingredients for making quick, easy, and wholesome meals: flour, potatoes, sugar, salt, spices, butter, and often a couple of egg-laying chickens. Of course, the cook had all the fresh beef he needed on hand.

From the cowboy lifestyle, some individual dishes like beef chilli stew became very popular throughout America. Many dishes, like “country fried” steak (a tenderized beef steak breaded in spicy flour and cooked in oil), became standards of the wholesome USA cuisine. These dishes were naturally large in their portions because of how they were made.

But also, the ideal American cowboy meal was simply, by tradition, a very large plate of food.

The chuckwagon was a kitchen and storage of produce to cook meals for “cow boys”.

Fast forward

Today, most USA locals expect a satisfying meal to be not only tasty, but filling.

So, it is customary for American restaurants to serve large, “cowboy” sized portions of food.

If you don’t eat all the food, nearly all American restaurants will provide you with a container to take your “leftovers” home for a second meal.

So, if you’re in the USA, expect every meal to be satisfying if only to serve your most hungry self. And when it is time to eat, a cowboy will come running to the table (and you should too) when someone says, “chow time!”

Russell is an EM member as was born and raised in Colorado, a western US state.

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