American food is like the English language: we took bits and pieces from the places our ancestors came from, got together over here, mixed it up a bit, learned a bit more from the Asian folks that got here a few thousand years before over the Bering land bridge, and did "fusion" before it was $100/plate in douchy restaurants. Added some twists along the way and came up with some stuff that makes folks in Europe lose their shit when they try it - Texas Red chili for example or Cajun gumbo.
And before you do that "everything is fried" bigotry, yeah, we do that, too, but so does the rest of the world - we just do it better.