Cuisine of the United States

American cuisine consists of the cooking style and traditional dishes prepared in the United States. It has been significantly influenced by Europeans, indigenous Native Americans, Africans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and many other cultures and traditions. Principal influences on American cuisine are Native American, British, German, Spanish, West African, Greek and Italian cuisines.

While some of American cuisine is fusion cuisine, many regions in the United States have a specific regional cuisine. Several are deeply rooted in ethnic heritages, such as American Chinese, Cajun, New Mexican, Louisiana Creole, Pennsylvania Dutch, Soul food, Tex-Mex, and Tlingit.

American cuisine saw significant expansion during the 19th and 20th centuries, primarily due to the influx of immigrants from different nations. This has allowed for the current rich diversity in food dishes throughout the country. This was driven in part by the many Chefs and television personalities who contributed to the rise of the culinary arts in America.

History

Native Americans origins: American cuisine before 1600

Early Native Americans utilized a number of cooking methods in early American cuisine that have been blended with the methods of early Europeans to form the basis of what is now American cuisine.

Nearly all regions and subregions of the present day cuisine have roots in the foodways of Native Americans, who lived in tribes numbering in the thousands. Prior to 1600, native peoples lived off the land in very diverse bioregions and had done so for thousands of years, often living a nomadic life where their diet changed with the season.

Many practiced a form of agriculture revolving around the Three Sisters, the rotation of beans, maize, and squash as staples of their diet; in the East, this was documented as early as the 1620s in ''Of Plimoth Plantation,'' evidenced by the pages William Bradford wrote regarding Squanto: he showed them the traditional regional method of burying a fish or eel in a mound with seeds for maize to improve the soil; this itself is also part of the widely practiced phenomenon of companion planting.

Other tribes across the land were practicing an iteration of using the same three staples, evidenced by 100 years of archaeological investigations in every region.

Wild game was equally a staple of nearly every tribe: generally speaking, deer, elk, and bison were staples as were rabbits and hare of every kind. The Cherokee of the Southern Appalachians used blowguns made of an indigenous type of bamboo to hunt squirrels.

Northern tribes like the Ojibwe of what is now the state of Michigan and the peoples of the Wabanaki of what is now the state of Maine would stalk and hunt moose, whereas their Southern counterparts, like the Choctaw or Catawba, hunted snapping turtles and other testudines, possums, and young alligators in the subtropical swamps of Louisiana and South Carolina.

Many tribes would preserve their meat in the form of pemmican, needed greatly on long journeys or to survive harsh winters.

Fish and crustaceans

As with hunted game, the biome in which one lived often dictated what was available to catch. For example, the Apache and Navajo peoples of the Southwest, whose territories each would have included swathes of New Mexico and Arizona, generally do not eat fish because in both cultures it's taboo, as well as often inconvenient.

The Navajo believe that fish have a part in the story of creation, the Apache were in general afraid of water since they associated it with thunder, and the arid desert climate made fish a rarity.

However, in the culture of the Lenape, the tribe that originally lived in New Jersey, on the Delaware River, and the area that now comprises New York City, fish and shellfish were a staple in their diet and it was such a revered part of the culture that there is a documented and still practiced harvest dance called the Fish Dance.

Originally it would have been done to celebrate the bringing in of fish from places like the Delaware or Raritan River or even the estuary around Manhattan Island and the completion of smoking them as a source of food for the long winter ahead.

Eastern tribes would have eaten cod, particularly groups that spoke the Algonquian languages of New England as far south as present day Connecticut, winter flounder and other flatfish, species of herring like the alewife, shad, and Atlantic menhaden, They also would have consumed the Atlantic sturgeon and drum.

In the West, Pacific several species of sturgeon, like the white sturgeon and green sturgeon, olachen and several autochthonal fish of the ''Oncorhynchus'' family including the rainbow trout, cutthroat trout, coho salmon, kokanee salmon, and chinook salmon. The last makes an appearance in the accounts of Lewis and Clark as being fished for in the Columbia River Basin, and this specific species is named for a family of tribes of the Pacific Northwest, indicating very strongly its important role in that specific food culture.

Pacific gray whales and humpbacks were hunted by American Indians off the Northwest coast, especially by the Makah, and used for their meat and oil. Catfish was also popular among native people throughout the land, over many types of terrain.

Crustaceans included shrimp, lobster, crayfish, and dungeness crabs in the Northwest and shrimp, lobster and blue crabs in the East. Other shellfish include abalone and geoduck on the West 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

Early American Natives used a number of cooking methods in early American Cuisine that have been blended with early European cooking methods to form the basis of American Cuisine. 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 pottery that could be used directly over a fire, they developed a technique many anthropologists call " stone boiling". They heated rocks in a fire, then added the rocks to a pot filled with water until it came to a boil to cook the meat or vegetables.

In what is now the Southwestern United States, they also created adobe ovens, dubbed '' hornos'' by the Spanish, to bake products such as cornmeal bread. Other parts of America dug pit ovens, which were also used to steam foods by adding heated rocks or embers.

One example performed extensively by New England tribes was adding seaweed or corn husks on top of the layers of stones to steam fish and shellfish as well as vegetables.

A later addition was potatoes, a garden plant that came to New England by the 18th century, added while still in skin with corn while in-husk, later to be referred to as a clambake by colonists.

Colonial period

The European settlement of the Americas introduced a number of ingredients, spices, herbs, and cooking styles to the continent.

When European colonists came to Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and any of the other English colonies on the eastern seaboard of North 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.

Through hardships and eventual establishment of trade with England, the West Indies and other regions, the colonists were able to derive a cuisine similar to what they had previously consumed in Britain and Ireland, while also introducing local animals and plants to their diet.

American colonists followed along the line of British cookery up until the Revolution, when a desire to distinguish themselves from Britain led Americans to create "American" styles of cookery.

In 1796, the first American cookbook was published, and others followed. There was a general disdain for French cuisine/French cookery, even with French Huguenot settlers in South Carolina and French-Canadian emigrants in America. One of the cookbooks that proliferated in the colonies was ''The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy'' (1747) by Hannah Glasse, who referred to "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 given in the text, she speaks out flagrantly against the dishes as she "... think it an odd jumble of trash."

With the introduction of slavery, Africans were brought into the colonies. With them, came foods and ingredients such as bananas, peanuts, Sweet potato/yams, and coffee. During this era, cooking and the preparation of food was primarily done by enslaved peoples and because of this, cooking styles reminiscent of West African cuisines are still found in many dishes, especially in Southern cuisine.

The expulsion of the Acadians from Acadia led many of them to Louisiana, where they left a French influence in the diet of those settled in Louisiana, and among the Acadian Francophones who settled eastern Maine and parts of what is now northern Vermont at the same time they colonized New Brunswick.

Some of the Jews who fled from the Inquisition with other Sephardic Jews in the 15th century had previously settled in Recife, Brazil and the West Indies, where their cuisine was influenced by new local ingredients like molasses, rum, sugar, vanilla, chocolate, peppers, corn, tomatoes, kidney beans, string beans and turkey.

In 1654, twenty three Sephardic Jews arrived in New Amsterdam bringing this cuisine with them to the early colonial United States. Early American Jewish cuisine was heavily influenced by this branch of Sephardic cuisine. Many of the recipes were bound up in observance of traditional holidays and remained true to their origins. These included dishes such as stew and fish fried in olive oil, beef and bean stews, almond puddings, and egg custards.

The first kosher cookbook in America was the ''Jewish Cookery Book'' by Esther Levy, published in 1871 in Philadelphia and includes many of the traditional recipes.

Common ingredients

The American colonial diet varied depending on the settled region in which someone lived. Local cuisine patterns had established by the mid-18th century. The New England colonies were extremely similar in their dietary habits to those that 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, northern colonists' close proximity to the ocean gave them a bounty of fresh fish to add to their diet.

Wheat, 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 useful when they immigrated to the New World. Many of the northern colonists depended upon their ability to hunt, or upon others from whom they could purchase game. Hunting was the preferred method of protein acquisition, as opposed to animal husbandry, which required much more work to defend the kept animals against raids.

Livestock and game

Commonly hunted 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 pastries. In addition to game, colonists' protein intake was supplemented by mutton.

The Spanish in Florida originally introduced sheep to the New World, but this development never quite reached the North, and there they were introduced by the Dutch and English. The keeping of sheep was a result of the English non-practice of animal husbandry. The animals provided wool when young and mutton upon maturity after wool production was no longer desirable. The forage-based diet for sheep that prevailed in the Colonies produced a characteristically strong, gamy flavor and a tougher consistency, which required aging and slow cooking to tenderize.

=Fats and oils

=

Fats and oils made from animals served to cook many 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.

=Alcoholic drinks

=
Prior to the Revolution, New Englanders consumed large quantities of rum and beer, as maritime trade provided them relatively easy access to the goods needed to produce these items. 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, however, one would often find colonists consuming whiskey, as they did not have similar access to sugar cane. They did have ready access to corn and rye, which they used to produce their whiskey.

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. 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. The uplands of the Piedmont and the coastal lowlands made up the two main parts of the southern colonies.

The diet of the uplands often included wild game, cabbage, string beans, corn, squashes and white potatoes. People had biscuits as part of their breakfast, along with healthy portions of pork. The lowlands of Louisiana included a varied diet heavily influenced by the French, Spanish, Acadians, Germans, Native Americans, Africans and Caribbeans. Rice played a large part of the diet in Louisiana. In addition, unlike the uplands, the lowlands subsistence of protein came mostly from coastal seafood. Much of the diet involved the use of peppers, as it still does to this day.

Post-colonial cuisine

During the 18th and 19th centuries, Americans developed many new foods. Some, such as Rocky Mountain oysters, stayed regional; some spread throughout the nation but with little international appeal, such as peanut butter (a core ingredient of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich); and some spread throughout the world, such as popcorn, cola, fried chicken, cornbread, unleavened muffins such as the poppyseed muffin, and brownies.

19th century American farmhouse

During the 1800s, American farms were mostly self-sufficient, but certain staples like salt, coffee, sugar, and baking soda would be purchased at the town general store. If the family didn't grow wheat, then flour would also be purchased.

Another luxury was canned salmon, which was sometimes eaten for Sunday dinner. Items purchased at the general store would be paid for with eggs, butter or some other food from the farm.

Women were responsible for much of the processing of food like straining fresh milk, churning butter, making molasses from sorghum, grinding corn into cornmeal or cleaning whole chickens.

Fresh picked apples were pressed into cider, which could be fermented to make apple cider vinegar. Fruits and vegetables were preserved by various means like canning, drying or pickling.

One contemporary writer from Michigan described October as cider season, when apple butter would be made. Her writings mention johnnycakes, and, as winter fare, buckwheat cakes.

Typical farmhouse fare included fried chicken, simmered green beans, boiled corn, chicken and dumplings, fried ham, boiled beans and beets, stewed tomatoes, potatoes, and coleslaw made of shredded cabbage. ''Pon haus'', similar to the scrapple of the Pennsylvania Dutch, was a typical breakfast dish among the Germans who had settled Indiana in the 19th century.

Pork scraps and corn meal were cooked into a thick porridge and molded in loaf pans. Once solidified, the mixture would be cut and fried. During the fall months, pork might be replaced with fried apples or potatoes. It was served with buttered biscuits, jam, jelly, milk gravy or sorghum syrup. Fruit butter might be made from apples, plums or peaches to accompany the meal.

20th century

Pork was a staple of the rural diet through the Southern and Midwestern United States. Lard was used for baking, frying and even as a seasoning.

The cookware of the period was made of cast iron and these were thoroughly seasoned with pork fat. Fried salt pork with gravy was an indulgent fat-laden dish often served with a side of boiled potatoes. In the Appalachian region a dish called "killed lettuce" was made with pokeweed, dandelion and assorted wild greens that were drizzled with hot bacon grease until wilted or "killed".

Pie could be served up to three times a day and many varieties were prepared depending on the season. During the spring months, pies would be made of rhubarb and strawberry; in summer peach, cherry, blackberry, blueberry, elderberry and grape; and in fall apple.

The staples of the urban diet were bread, dairy and canned goods. Dinner might be tomato bisque from a can topped with cream or a salad made of canned string beans and mayonnaise. Many preferred to purchase food at delicatessens, rather than attempt to prepare meals in the cramped kitchenettes.

German delicatessens in cities like New York and Milwaukee sold imported cold cuts, potato salads, ''schmierkase'', ''wienerwurst'', North Sea herring, assorted pickles (pickled cucumber

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