Celebrating the 4th in the United States of Now

A few weeks ago, Epicurious put out a call for stories about Independence Day cooking. Specifically, we went looking for stories that didn't involve hamburgers and hot dogs (nothing against hot dogs).

Instead, we looked for anything else. For the holiday that celebrates independence—the holiday that, in theory, asserts we should be free from control, and be exactly who we are—we wanted to hear about American cooking that lives outside the 4th of July clichés.

These stories are easy to find. Every day in kitchens across North America, cooks are making food that is Taiwanese, Japanese, Lebanese, and/or Argentine. And as the stories below show, sometimes the borders of this cooking blur. Caribbean side dishes get paired with New England-style lobster rolls; Chinese dumplings suddenly start sporting kimchi or feta. This is hybrid cooking, or multinational cooking.

Or it's simply cooking in America. On the 4th of July especially, we celebrate it.