@DianaB, I hope the OP comes back and joins in too, but it has turned into a great discourse, hasn't it?
Kimchi, in my understanding is Korean in origin, not American, but it is popular among U.S. Americans and Canadians and especially several of the members here. I think of it as fermented cabbage, sometimes with hot peppers and other inclusions. I understand that originally it was buried in the ground to ferment. After listening to some of the tales of the members who make it at home, and the pungent aromas produced, I can see why. I can get it at my local S-Mart, a Korean-owned Pan-Asian grocer. They offer discounts if you bring the jars back, so I suspect it's locally made. I do not partake, so can't offer any commentary in that direction. I can say that it is not something that appears in mainstream American grocery stores, and that most members here tend to be both more knowledgeable about food and more adventurous about it than the average citizen here by an order of magnitude or so. Kimchi, is not a food that I think of as having been adopted into mainstream American foods.
I think the Hawaiian plate lunch was already mentioned upthread, but not much detail given. I saw it first on Roadfood.com where a member over there was on a trip to Hawaii and reported on it. There is a lot of information on that site about American regional food specialties. Hawaiian plate lunch consists of a meat entree and two carby sides. White rice and macaroni salad are very common. It's rare the mainland to serve rice and macaroni salad in a plated meal, although they may appear together as selections at a buffet, pot-luck or picnic for a lot of people where a cornucopia of variety is offered. When this happens, I find the rice on offer is usually jazzed up somehow from plain white rice as broccoli cheese rice, Cajun style dirty rice with sausage, Spanish red rice, yellow saffron rice, fried rice or something. Also, I am always surprised when looking at other peoples' cafeteria tray selections where you go though a line and select individual dishes at how many (especially men) select two or more carby sides, though still not white rice and macaroni salad.
Pizza is good any time of the day here! For lunch and dinner it is ubiquitous. There are special breakfast pizzas topped with stuff like eggs, bacon or sausage. We even have frozen versions of these in every grocery store, but cold leftover regular style pizza is a college student breakfast staple. I've eaten pizza for breakfast, but prefer mine piping hot.
