I’ve had some great regional foods across Europe (just discovered the wonder of Tiroler Gröstl this week), but what I was gettting at with ‘cuisine’ is a generally accepted body of recipes that are a cornerstone of the national culture. You think of Germany and you think of sauerkraut and currywurst. Things you’d be able to eat every day of the week. The Dutch word for cuisine is just “kitchen”, as in the meals you make in the kitchen. I love me some hutspot or snert but is Dutch aren’t able to fill a meal plan properly, I’d argue. And to also answer kleinbl00, decent is the wrong word, because yeah most cuisines are fine for most people. What I meant is “good enough to be up there with the best cuisines around the globe”. Which is what you do hear from Brits from time to time.
"fill a meal plan properly" is a good way to look at it. Can you eat the national cuisine every day of the week. This is definitely a test where Americans fall down, not because there's no food but because so much American food is borrowed and then bastardized. I could have English muffins, yogurt parfaits, omelets and oatmeal for breakfast, sandwiches, burritos, quesadillas and sushi for lunch, then spaghetti, roast chicken, burgers and pizza for dinner and ostensibly only two of those meals are "American" but everything else is an American version so mutated from where it started that its owners wouldn't recognize it. You can't properly call it "American cuisine" because so much of it has been borrowed. And even then, you would definitely be better off eating in France or Italy.