The new decade: American as jerk spice and stir-fry

It's refreshing to start a new decade by celebrating American food - American food such as Doro We't (Ethiopian chicken stew), Swedish fish balls, gnocchi (Italian potato dumplings), Slovenian cabbage rolls, pad thai and Caribbean catfish. That's the kind of "New American Table" that Marcus Samuelsson celebrates in his book by that name, published by Wiley in 2009.

Samuelsson, in some ways, is an archetypal "American." Born in Ethiopia, he was raised in Sweden, coming to the United States as a young chef who was warned by a French mentor, "You can't go cook in America. All they eat is burgers!"

What he found instead was a vital culinary culture that embraced ethnic influences from all over the world. Subsequent studies in France and a stint traveling the globe as a chef on a cruise ship only persuaded him that the United States was where he needed to be.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Samuelsson, who is chef and co-owner of Aquavit restaurant in Manhattan, became the youngest chef ever to receive two three-star ratings from The New York Times.

Even his "American favorites" have a twist. His fried-chicken recipe contains coconut milk, lime juice and chili peppers; his T-bone steak is cooked with red Thai chilies and lemon; his burger is layered with fried eggs, cabbage leaves and homemade ketchup.

The recipe here, for Jerk-Spiced Catfish, has the added benefit of using an affordable fish that - when farm-raised in the United States - garners the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch label of "Best Choice" for sustainability (montereybayaquarium.org). The beef stir-fry will quickly become a favorite.

• Marialisa Calta is the author of "Barbarians at the Plate: Taming and Feeding the American Family" (2005 Perigee). More at marialisacalta.com.