Oil down is the national dish of Grenada, a humble dish from a humble country and a flavorful one-pot meal consisting of local vegetables, starchy tubers, green bananas, salty meat, and a blend of various seasonings. The ingredients are all combined in a big pot and cooked in coconut milk, giving the dish its name, referring to the coconut milk as it simmers and gets absorbed by all the other ingredients until only the coconut oil remains on the bottom of the pot.

The preparation of this dish is important as the dish itself, because it is traditionally cooked over an open fire on the beaches where families spend their whole days and everybody pitches in to help so that a true communal feeling emerges while the dish cooks for a few hours. 

Pork and beans is a classic American dish made with pork and beans as the main ingredients. There are many variations on the dish, and although the origin is murky, the 1832 cookbook The American Frugal Housewife lists only three main ingredients – beans, salt pork, and pepper.

Over time, the dish was commercially available in canned versions, generally consisting of navy beans, tomato sauce, and chunks of salt pork or pork fat. Nowadays, the dish is often enriched with the addition of carrots, onions, garlic, and fresh herbs such as thyme and bay leaves, while versions prepared in the American South sometimes include ingredients such as barbecue sauce, white vinegar, paprika, mustard, and brown sugar. 

This American comfort food dish consists of various types of pasta such as egg noodles or macaroni, along with ground beef or hamburger, tomatoes, onions, paprika, and garlic. Typically served as a main meal, the popularity of American goulash lies in the fact that it is easy to prepare and inexpensive.

The first written mention of the dish was found in a cookbook from 1914, but the only connection to the traditional Hungarian goulash is the addition of paprika. Today, the dish is often garnished with grated or melted cheese, and it is often prepared with leftovers.

Asopao de gandules is a variety of Puerto Rican asopao, made with pigeon peas as the key ingredient. They are typically combined with onions, ham, sofrito, chicken stock, rice, tomato sauce, and olive oil. The result is a hearty stew that is often enriched with plantain dumplings, when the dish is known as asopao de gandules con bolitas de platano.

Chock-full of Hispanic ingredients, the stew is ready for consumption when thickened, and the rice is fully cooked. It is recommended to serve it warm, but it can also be reheated and enjoyed the next day.

Pozole is a soupy and aromatic Mexican stew that comes in three versions – red, white, and green, symbolizing the colors of the Mexican flag. Although there are many variations, the white version known as pozole blanco is usually made with a combination of pork, hominy, garlic, onions, and garnishes such as avocado slices, lime wedges, and diced onions.

The onions, garlic, salt, and water are blended until smooth, and then mixed with the rest of the ingredients. The mixture is covered with water and simmered for a few hours until everything is fully cooked. The stew is served in individual bowls and it's usually garnished with avocado slices, lime wedges, and diced onions. 

Fricot is a hearty Acadian stew made with any kind of meat, potatoes, and onions. The dish is topped with fluffy dumplings consisting of flour and egg yolks. This comfort food dish is believed to have originated in France in the 18th century, but evolved in Canada to become a staple of Acadian cuisine.

Today, there are numerous variations of fricot depending on the type of meat used in the dish such as fricot au poulet (chicken) or fricot au lapin (rabbit).

Asopao is a Puerto Rican dish that is best described as a cross between a soup and a stew. It always contains rice, and can be made with beef, pork, seafood, pigeon peas, or chicken – which is also the most popular and traditional version of asopao, called asopao de pollo, where the chicken is typically flavored with various spices and cooked with ham, peppers, onions, tomatoes, olives, and sausages.

Due to the fact that asopao is usually very filling and flavorful, it can be found in numerous local restaurants and most households.

Even though its origins are the subject of a heated debate, with Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia all claiming the dish to be their invention, everyone agrees that squirrel meat was the original ingredient of this Southern smoked meat stew.

Today, rabbit or chicken are used instead of squirrel, along with chunks of tomatoes, potatoes, beans, corn, okra, and salt pork or bacon. The stew has a distinctively smoky flavor due to smoking the meats before adding them to the pot, accompanied by a hefty dose of barbecue sauce.

Virginians originally called the dish Virginia ambrosia, invented in 1828 by Jimmy Matthews, an African American chef who was hired to cook for a squirrel-hunting party in Brunswick. 

Karni stoba is a traditional Caribbean stew originating from Curaçao. In order to prepare it, chunks of beef are marinated with pepper and garlic, seared, then combined with bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, chili peppers, soy sauce, stock, cumin, and nutmeg.

The dish is cooked slowly until the meat becomes tender and the stew develops a thick consistency. This fragrant stew is often garnished with cilantro, and it is recommended to serve it with steamed white rice.