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Cuisine of the United States

The cuisine of the United States is a style of food preparation derived from the United States. The cuisine has a history dating back before the colonial period when the Native Americans had a rich and diverse cooking style for an equally diverse amount of ingredients. With European colonization, the style of cookery changed vastly, with numerous ingredients introduced from Europe, as well as cooking styles and modern cookbooks. The style of cookery continued to expand into the 19th and 20th centuries with the influx of immigrants from various nations across the world. This influx has created a rich diversity and a unique regional character throughout the country. In addition to cookery, cheese and wine play an important role in the cuisine. The wine industry is regulated by American Viticultural Areas (AVA) (regulated appellation), similar to those laws found in countries such as France and Italy.

History

Pre-1492

Main Article Native American cuisine

Before the European colonists came to America, the Native Americans had an established cookery style that varied greatly from group to group. The vast variety of ingredients and cookery styles were never found in the same locality; any one group had a much more limited diet. Nutrition was an issue for most hunting and gathering societies that wandered widely in search of game and who might encounter serious shortages in wintertime.

Common ingredients

Plant foods

The Native Americans had at least 2,000 separate plant foods which contributed to their cooking. Numerous root vegetables were indigenous to America. Root vegetables were numerous in the diet including camas bulb, arrowhead, blue lapine, bitterroot, biscuit root, breadroot, prairie turnip, sedge tubers, and whitestar potatoes (Ipomoea lacunosa) along with the sweet potato and white potato. Greens included salmonberry shoots and stalks, coltsfoot, fiddlehead fern, milkweed, wild celery, wood sorrel, purslane, and wild nasturtium. Other vegetables include century plant crowns and flower shoots, yucca blossoms, tule rootstocks, amole stalks, bear grass stalks, cattail rootstocks, narrowleaf yucca stalks, and sotol crowns. Fruits included strawberries which Europeans named the Virginia strawberry due to being larger than the European dwarf mountain strawberry. Additional fruits included huckleberries, blueberries, cherries, currants, gooseberries, plums, crab apples, raspberries, sumac berries, juniper berries, hackberries, elderberries, hawthorne fruit, pitaya, white evening primrose fruit, and yucca fruit (of various species, such as Spanish bayonet, banana yucca). Some fruits which were found only in North America at the time were the fruit of various species of cactus (e.g., cholla, saguaro, nipple cactus, prickly pear, etc.), agarita berries, chokecherries, American persimmons, and the wild beach plum.

Nuts proliferated in the diet as well, including pecans, hickory nuts, beechnuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts, chinquapins, black walnuts, and butternuts. Acorns were also popularly used to produce oil for seasoning, and pounded into a flour to mix with cornmeal to thicken soups and fried into cakes and breads. Legumes included peanuts, screwbeans, honey locust beans, and mesquite beans. The grain used in most of Native American cooking was maize, while wild rice (not a true grain) was found in certain southern regions. The seeds from various plants were also commonly utilized: pine nuts (western white pine, western yellow pine, pinyon pine), anglepod, dropseed, pigweed, spurge, sunflower seeds, tumbleweed, unicorn plant.

Land animal foods

The largest amount of animal protein came from game meats. Large game included bison, deer, elk, moose, bighorn sheep, and bear, mountain lion, along with goat and pronghorn being found in the Rocky Mountains. The small game cooked included rabbit, raccoon, opossum, squirrel, wood rat, chipmunk, ground hog, peccary, prairie dog, skunk, badger, beaver, and porcupine. Game birds included turkey, partridge, quail, pigeon, plover, lark and osprey. Water fowl was quite abundant and varied, particularly on the coasts such as ducks, geese, swan, crane and sea crane. Other amphibious proteins included alligators and frogs, which the legs were enjoyed from, especially bullfrogs. Snail meat was also enjoyed, along with various turtles such as the painted turtle, wood turtle, and snapping turtle along with their eggs. In addition the sea turtle and green turtle, endangered today were considered an important spiritual protein by the Native Americans.

Seafood

Saltwater fish eaten by the Native Americans were cod, lemon sole, flounder, herring, halibut, sturgeon, smelt, drum on the East Coast, and olachen on the West Coast. Whale was hunted by Native Americans off the Northwest coast, especially by the Makah, and used for their meat and oil. Seal and walrus were also utilized. Eel from New York's Finger Lakes region were eaten. Catfish seemed to be favored by tribes, including the Modocs. Crustacean included shrimp, lobster, crayfish, and giant crabs in the Northwest and blue crabs in the East. Other shellfish include abalone and geoduck on the California coast, while on the East Coast the surf clam, quahog, and the soft-shell clam. Oysters were eaten on both shores, as were mussels and periwinkles.

Cooking methods

Native Americans utilized a number of cooking methods. Grilling meats was common. Spit roasting over a pit fire was common as well. Vegetables, especially root vegetables were often cooked directly in the ashes of the fire. As early Native Americans lacked the proper pottery that could be used directly over a fire, they developed a technique which has caused many anthropologists to call them "Stone Boilers." The Native Americans would heat rocks directly in a fire and then add the bricks to a pot filled with water until it came to a boil so that it would cook the meat or vegetables in the boiling water. Another method was to use an empty bison stomach filled with desired ingredients and suspended over a low fire. The fire would have been insufficient to completely cook the food contained in the stomach however, as the flesh would burn so heated rocks would be added to the food as well. Some Native Americans would also use the leather of a bison hide in the same manner.

The Native Americans are credited as the first in America to create fire-proof pottery to place in direct flame. In what is now the Southwestern United States, Native Americans also created ovens made of adobe called hornos in which to bake items such as breads made from cornmeal. Native Americans in other parts of America made ovens out of dug pits. These pits were also used to steam foods by adding heated rocks or embers and then seaweed or corn husks (or other coverings) placed on top to steam fish and shellfish as well as vegetables; potatoes would be added while still in-skin and corn while in-husk, this would later be referred to as a clambake by the colonists. The hole was also a location for producing what has become Boston baked beans made from beans, maple sugar and a piece of bear fat.

Colonial period

See main article Cuisine of the Thirteen American Colonies

When the colonists came to America, their initial attempts at survival included planting crops familiar to them from back home in England. In the same way, they farmed animals for clothing and meat in a similar fashion. Through hardships and eventual establishment of trade with Britain, the West Indies and other regions, the colonists were able to establish themselves in the American colonies with a cuisine similar to their previous British cuisine. There were some exceptions to the diet, such as local vegetation and animals, but the colonists attempted to use these items in the same fashion as they had their equivalents or ignore them if they could. The manner of cooking for the American colonists followed along the line of British cookery up until the Revolution. The British sentiment followed in the cookbooks brought to the New World as well.

There was a general disdain for French cookery, even with the French Huguenots in South Carolina and French-Canadians. One of the cookbooks that proliferated in the colonies was The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy written by Hannah Glasse, wrote of disdain for the French style of cookery, stating “the blind folly of this age that would rather be imposed on by a French booby, than give encouragement to a good English cook!” Of the French recipes, she does add to the text she speaks out flagrantly against the dishes as she “… think it an odd jumble of trash.” Reinforcing the anti-French sentiment was the French and Indian War from 1754-1764. This created a large anxiety against the French, which influenced the English to either deport many of the French, or as in the case of the Acadians, they migrated to Louisiana. The Acadian French did create a large French influence in the diet of those settled in Louisiana, but had little or no influence outside of Louisiana.

Common ingredients

The American colonial diet varied depending on where the settled region. Local cuisine patterns had established by the mid 18th century. The New England colonies were extremely similar in their dietary habits to those they many of them had brought from England. A striking difference for the colonists in New England compared to other regions was seasonality. While in the southern colonies, they could farm almost year round, in the northern colonies, the growing seasons were very restricted. In addition, colonists’ close proximity to the ocean gave them a bounty of fresh fish to add to their diet, especially in the northern colonies. Wheat, however, the grain used to bake bread back in England was almost impossible to grow, and imports of wheat were far from cost productive. Substitutes in cases such as this included cornmeal. The Johnnycake was a poor substitute to some for wheaten bread, but acceptance by both the northern and southern colonies seems evident.

As many of the New Englanders were originally from England, game hunting was often a pastime from back home that paid off when they immigrated to the New World. Much of the northern colonists depended upon the ability either of themselves to hunt, or for others from which they could purchase game. This was the preferred method for protein consumption over animal husbandry, as it required much less work to defend the kept animals against Native Americans or the French.

Livestock and game

The more commonly hunted and eaten game included deer, bear, buffalo and wild turkey. The larger muscles of the animals were roasted and served with currant sauce, while the other smaller portions went into soups, stews, sausages, pies and pasties. In addition to game, mutton was a meat that colonists would enjoy from time to time. The Spanish in Florida originally introduced sheep to the New World, in the north however, the Dutch and English introduced sheep. The keeping of sheep was a result of the English non-practice of animal husbandry. The keeping of sheep was of importance as it not only provided wool, but also after the sheep had reached an age that it was unmanageable for wool production; it became mutton for the English diet. The forage–based diet for sheep that prevailed in the Colonies produce a characteristically strong, gamy flavor and a tougher consistency, which required aging and slow cooking to tenderize.

Fats and oils

A number of fats and oils made from animals served to cook much of the colonial foods. Many homes had a sack made of deerskin filled with bear oil for cooking, while solidified bear fat resembled shortening. Rendered pork fat made the most popular cooking medium, especially from the cooking of bacon. Pork fat was used more often in the southern colonies than the northern colonies as the Spanish introduced pigs earlier to the south. The colonists enjoyed butter in cooking as well, but it was rare prior to the American Revolution, as cattle were not yet plentiful.

Seafood

Those living near the New England shore often dined on fish, crustaceans, and other animals that originated in the waters. Colonists ate large quantities of turtle, and it was an exportable delicacy for Europe. Cod, in both fresh and salted form was enjoyed, with the salted variation created for long storage. The highest quality cod was usually dried, however, and exported to the Mediterranean in exchange for fruits not available in the American colonies. Lobsters proliferated in the waters as well, and were extremely common in the New England diet.

Vegetables

A number of vegetables grew in the northern colonies, which included turnips, onions, cabbage, carrots, and parsnips, along with a number of beans, pulses and legumes. These vegetables kept well through the colder months in storage. Other vegetables grew which were salted or pickled for preservation, such as cucumbers. As control over the northern colonies’ farming practices came from the seasons, fresh greens consumption occurred only during the summer months. Pumpkins and gourds were other vegetables that grew well in the northern colonies; often used for fodder for animals in addition to human consumption. In addition to the vegetables, a large number of fruits were grown seasonally. Fruits not eaten in season often saw their way into preservation methods like jam, wet sweetmeats, dried or cooked into pies that could freeze during the winter months.

Alcoholic drinks

Prior to the revolution New Englanders consumed large quantities of rum and beer as they had relatively easy access of the goods needed to produce these items from maritime imports. Rum was the distilled spirit of choice as the main ingredient; molasses was readily available from trade with the West Indies. Further into the interior, one would often find colonists consuming whiskey, as they did not have similar access to the sugar cane. They did have ready access to corn and rye, which they used to produce their whiskey. However, up until the Revolution many considered whiskey to be a coarse alcohol unfit for human consumption, as many believed that it caused the poor to become raucous and unkempt drunkards. One item that was important to the production of beer that did not grow well in the colonies however was hops. Hops only grew wild in the New World, and as such, importation from England and elsewhere became essential to beer production. In addition to these alcohol-based products produced in America, imports were seen on merchant shelves, including wine and brandy.

Southern variations

In comparison to the northern colonies, the southern colonies were quite diverse in their agricultural diet. Unlike the colonies to the north, the southern colonies did not have a central region of culture. The uplands and the lowlands made up the two main parts of the southern colonies. The slaves and poor of the south often ate a similar diet, which consisted of many of the indigenous New World crops. Salted or smoked pork often supplement the vegetable diet. Rural poor often ate squirrel, possum, rabbit and other woodland animals. Those on the “rice coast” often ate ample amounts of rice, while the grain for the rest of the southern poor and slaves was cornmeal used in breads and porridges. Wheat was not an option for most of those that lived in the southern colonies.

The diet of the uplands often included cabbage, string beans, white potatoes, while most avoided yams and peanuts. Non-poor whites in the uplands avoided crops imported from Africa because of the inferred inferiority of crops of the African slaves. Those who could grow or afford wheat often had biscuits on their table for breakfast, along with healthy portions of pork. Salted pork was a staple of any meal, as it used in the preparations of vegetables for flavor, in addition to its direct consumption as a protein.

The lowlands, which included much of the Acadian French regions of Louisiana and the surrounding area, included a varied diet heavily influenced by Africans and Caribbeans, rather than just the French. As such, rice played a large part of the diet as it played a large part of the diets of the Africans and Caribbean. In addition, unlike the uplands, the lowlands subsistence of protein came mostly from coastal seafood and game meats. Much of the diet involved the use of peppers, as it still does today. Interestingly, although the English had an inherent disdain for French foodways, as well as many of the native foodstuff of the colonies, the French had no such disdain for the indigenous foodstuffs. In fact, they had a vast appreciation for the native ingredients and dishes.

20th century–21st century

One characteristic of American cooking is the fusion of multiple ethnic or regional approaches into completely new cooking styles. The cuisine of the South, for example, has been heavily influenced by immigrants from Africa, France, and Mexico, among others. Asian cooking has played a particularly large role in American fusion cuisine.

Similarly, while some dishes considered typically American many have their origins in other countries, American cooks and chefs have substantially altered them over the years, to the degree that the dish as now enjoyed the world over are considered to be American. Hot dogs and hamburgers are both based on traditional German dishes, brought over to America by German immigrants to the United States, but in their modern popular form they can be reasonably considered American dishes, even "All-American", along with the Italian influence of pizza.

Many companies in the American food industry develop new products requiring minimal preparation, such as frozen entrees. Some corporate kitchens (e.g. General Mills, Campbell's, Kraft Foods) develop consumer recipes featuring their company's products. Many of these recipes have become very popular. For example, the General Mills Betty Crocker's Cookbook, first published in 1950 and currently in its 10th edition, is commonly found in American homes.

Common national dishes found on a national level

Common dishes found on a national level

Regional cuisine

Given the United States' large size it has numerous regional variations. The United States' regional cuisine is characterized by its extreme diversity and style with each region having its own distinctive cuisine.

New England

Main article Cuisine of New England

New England is the most northeastern region of the United States, including the six states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The region consists of a heritage linking it to Britain. The Native American cuisine became part of the cookery style that the early colonists brought with them. The style of New England cookery originated from its colonial roots, that is to say practical, frugal and willing to eat anything other than what they were used to from their British roots. Much of the cuisine started with one-pot cookery, which resulted in such dishes as succotash, chowder, baked beans, and others.

Lobster is an integral ingredient to the cuisine, indigenous to the shores of the region. Other shellfish of the coastal regions include little neck clams, sea scallops, blue mussels, oysters, soft shell clams and razor shell clams. Much of this shellfish contributes to New England tradition, the clambake. The clambake as known today is a colonial interpretation of a Native American tradition.

The fruits of the region include the Vitis labrusca grapes used in grape juice made by companies such as Welch's, along with jelly, Kosher wine by companies like Mogen David and Manischewitz along with other wineries that make higher quality wines. Apples from New England include the original varieties, Baldwin, Lady, Mother, Pomme Grise, Porter, Roxbury Russet, Wright, Sops of Wine, Peck's Pleasant, Titus Pippin, Westfield-Seek-No-Further, and Duchess of Oldenburg. Cranberries are another fruit indigenous to the region.

Common dishes found on a regional level

Ethnic and immigrant influence

Contemporary Trends and the reclaiming of roots

The demand for ethnic foods in the United States reflect the nation's changing diversity and growing trends, if not its developmental history over time. According to the National Restaurant Association,

"Restaurant industry sales are expected to reach a record high of $476 billion in 2005, an increase of 4.9 percent over 2004... Driven by consumer demand, the ethnic food market reached record sales in 2002, and has emerged as the fastest growing category in the food and beverage product sector, according to USBX Advisory Services. Minorities in the U.S. spend a combined $142 billion on food and byy 2010, America's ethnic population is expected to grow by 40 percent.

A movement began during the 1980s among popular leading chefs to reclaim America's ethnic foods within its regional traditions, where these trends originated. One of the earliest was Paul Prudhomme, who in 1984 began the introduction of his influential cookbook, "Paul Prodhomme's Louisiana Kitchen" by describing the over 200 year history of Creole and Cajun cooking; wherein, he aims to "preserve and expand the Louisiana tradition. Prodhomme's success quickly inspired other chefs to seek popularity and preach their new philosophy. Norman Van Aken embraced a Floribean type cuisine fused with many ethnic and globalized elements, as was depicted in his "Feast of Sunlight" cookbook in 1988. Finally, the movement took on much notoriety around the world when California gained momentous recognition, then seemingly started to lead the trend itself. Chefs from the popular restaurant Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, both took that restaurant to exceptional acclaim, as well as graduated to expanded concepts on their own. Examples of the Chez Panisse phenomenon and chefs embracing a new globalized cuisine were celebrity chefs like Jeremiah Tower and Wolfgang Puck, both former colleagues at the restaurant. Puck went on to describe his belief in contemporary, new style American cuisine, as it was exemplified and celebrated in its ethnic traditions. Puck states the embodiment of the idea in his introduction to "The Wolfgang Puck Cookbook:

"Another major breakthrough, whose originators were once thought to be crazy, is the mixing of ethnic cuisines. It is not at all uncommon to find raw fish listed next to tortillas on the same menu. Ethnic crossovers also occur when distinct elements meet in a single recipe. This country is, after all, a huge melting pot. Why should its cooking not illustrate the American transformation of diversity into unity?

Puck's former colleague, Jeremiah Tower, in turn, became synomonous with California Cuisine, as well as his "New American Classics, and the overall American culinary revolution. Meanwhile, the restaurant that inspired both Puck and Tower became a distinguished establishment, popularizing its so called "mantra" in its book by Paul Bertolli and owner, Alice Waters, "Chez Panisse Cooking," in 1988. Published well after the restaurants' founding in 1971, this new cookbook from the restaurant seemed to perfect the idea and philosophy that had developed over the years. The book embraced America's natural bounty, namely that of California, while containing recipes that reflected Bertoli's and Waters' appreciation of both northern Italian and French style foods.

Early ethnic influences

While the earliest cuisine of the United States was primarily influenced by indigenous Native Americans, the cuisine of the thirteen colonies or the culture of the antebellum American South; the overall culture of the nation, its gastronomy and the growing culinary arts became ever more influenced by its changing ethnic mix and immigrant patterns over the 20th century unto the present. Some of the ethnic groups that continued to influence the cuisine were here in prior years; while others arrived more numerously during “The Great Transatlantic Migration (of 1870–1914) or other mass migrations.

Some of the ethnic influences could be found in the nation from after the Civil War and into the History of United States continental expansion during most of the 19th century. Ethnic influences already in the nation at that time would include the following groups and their respective cuisines:

Indigenous Native Americans in the United States (Indians) and Native American cuisine
Select nationalities of Europe and the respective developments from early modern European cuisine of the colonial age:

British-Americans and on-going developments in New England cuisine, the national traditions founded in cuisine of the thirteen colonies and some aspects of other regional cuisine.
Spanish Americans (Hispano Americano) and early modern Spanish cuisine, as well as Basque-Americans and Basque cuisine.
Early German-American or Pennsylvania Dutch and Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine
French Americans and their "New World" regional identities such as:

Acadian
Cajun and Cajun cuisine

The various ethnicities originating from early social factors of Race in the United States and the gastronomy and cuisines of the “New World,” Latin American cuisine and North American cuisine:

African-Americans and “Soul Food.”
Louisiana Creole and Louisiana Creole cuisine. Louisiana Creole (also called French Créole) refers to native born people of various racial descent who are descended from the Colonial French and/or Spanish settlers of Colonial French Louisiana, before it became part of the United States in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase.
Cuisine of Puerto Rico
Mexican-Americans and Mexican-American cuisine; as well as related regional cuisines:

Tex-Mex (regional Texas and Mexican fusion)
Cal-Mex (regional California and Mexican fusion)
Some aspects of “Southwestern cuisine.”

Later ethnic and immigrant influence

Other ethnic groups may have arrived in the United States prior to 20th Century, but they were either not part of the main colonial settlers, indigenous Native Americans, Latin American experience, African-American slave class or Creole people; as likewise, their population numbers were probably not as numerous as the other existing ethnic groups or the subsequent populations of their own respective ethnicities forthcoming during the years unto “The Great Transatlantic Migration” and other mass migrations of the 19th Century. This would also include what is current day United States of America, as every year the population census and U.S. immigration populations change, thus changing the cultural influences of the nation. . The later arrival of many immigrants into the United States seemingly does not discount their profound impact on the national or regional cuisine. Many other ethnic groups have additionally contributed to Cuisine of the United States, some with greater impact and productive success than others; as indeed, some of these more prominent groups include the following (listed alphabetically):

Polynesian-Americans, and Polynesian cuisine, Hawaiian cuisine, Cuisine of Philippines
Caribbean-Americans and Caribbean cuisine, Cuban Cuisine, Cuisine of Jamaica
Chinese-Americans and American Chinese cuisine
Irish-Americans and Irish cuisine and Irish pub traditions in America
Italian-Americans and Italian-American cuisine
German-Americans and German Texans (namely, post-civil war), exemplified in German cuisine other than Pennsylvania Dutch.
Greek-Americans and Greek cuisine or Cuisine of the Mediterranean
Japanese-Americans and Japanese cuisine, Asian cuisine, Fusion cuisine, and related influences on the Cuisine of Hawaii
Jewish-Americans and Jewish Cuisine and Cuisine of the Mediterranean
Portuguese-Americans, also known as Luso American and Portuguese cuisine
Polish-Americans and Polish cuisine and Cuisine of the Midwestern United States
Russian-Americans and Russian cuisine and Cuisine of the Midwestern United States
Lithuanian-Americans and Lithuanian cuisine and Cuisine of the Midwestern United States

Today, of the most popular “ethnic” cuisines in the United States, you can see almost everywhere the prevalence of Chinese, Italian and Mexican cuisines in almost every aspect of the food industry. According to the National Restaurant Association, also known as the NRA by industry professionals, of the top three "ethnic cuisines" in the United States...

"Italian, Mexican and Chinese (Cantonese) cuisines have indeed joined the mainstream. These three cuisines have become so ingrained in the American culture that they are no longer foreign to the American palate. According to the study, more than nine out of 10 consumers are familiar with and have tried these foods, and about half report eating them frequently. The research also indicates that Italian, Mexican and Chinese (Cantonese) have become so adapted to such an extent that "authenticity" is no longer a concern to customers.

Contributions from these ethnic foods have become just as common as traditional “American’ fares like hotdogs, hamburgers, beef steaks, cherry pie, Coca-Cola, milkshakes, fried chicken and so on. Nowadays, Americans also have a ubiquitous consumption of foods like pizza and pasta, tacos and burritos to “General Tso's Chicken” and Fortune Cookies. Fascination with these and other ethnic foods may also vary with region.

Notable American chefs

American chefs have been influential both in the food industry and in popular culture. An important 19th Century American chef was Charles Ranhofer of Delmonico's Restaurant in New York City. American cooking has been exported around the world, both through the global expansion of restaurant chains such as T.G.I. Friday's and McDonalds and the efforts of individual restaurateurs such as Bob Payton, credited with bringing American-style pizza to the UK.

The first generation of television chefs such as Robert Carrier and Julia Child tended to concentrate on cooking based primarily on European, especially French and Italian, cuisines. Only during the 1970s and 80s did television chefs such as James Beard and Jeff Smith shift the focus towards home-grown cooking styles, particularly those of the different ethnic groups within the nation. Notable American restaurant chefs include Thomas Keller, Charlie Trotter, Grant Achatz, Alfred Portale, Paul Prudhomme, Paul Bertolli, Mario Batali, Alice Waters, Emeril Lagasse, Cat Cora, and Celebrity Chefs like Bobby Flay, Ina Garten, and Todd English.

Notes

Works cited

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