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American cuisine consists of the cooking style and traditional dishes prepared in the United States of America. It has been significantly influenced by Europeans, indigenous Native Americans, Africans, Latin Americans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and many other cultures and traditions. Principal influences on American cuisine are European, Native American, soul food, regional heritages including Cajun, Louisiana Creole, Pennsylvania Dutch, Mormon foodways, Texan, Tex-Mex, New Mexican, and Tlingit, and the cuisines of immigrant groups such as Chinese American, Italian American, Greek American and Mexican American. The large size of America and its long history of immigration have created an especially diverse cuisine that varies by region.

American cooking dates back to the traditions of the Native Americans, whose diet included a mix of farmed and hunted food, and varied widely across the continent. The Colonial period created a mix of Native and Old World cookery, and brought with it new crops and livestock. During the early 19th century, cooking was based mostly on what the agrarian population could grow, hunt, or raise on their land. With an increasing influx of immigrants, and a move to city life, American food further diversified in the later part of the 19th century. The 20th century saw a revolution in cooking as new technologies, the World Wars, a scientific understanding of food, and continued immigration combined to create a wide range of new foods. This has allowed for the current rich diversity in food dishes throughout the country.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} This was driven in part by the many chefs and television personalities who contributed to the rise of the culinary arts in America.

Highlights of American cuisine include milkshakes, barbecue, and a wide range of fried foods. Many quintessential American dishes are unique takes on food originally from other culinary traditions, including pizza, hot dogs, and Tex-Mex. Regional highlights include a range of fish dishes in the coastal states, gumbo, and cheesesteak. American cuisine has specific foods that are eaten on holidays, such as a turkey at thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner. Modern American cuisine includes a focus on fast food, as well as take-out food, which is often ethnic. There is also a vibrant culinary scene in the country surrounding televised celebrity chefs.

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, who 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.^[6][7]

Wild game was equally a staple of nearly every tribe: generally, deer, elk, and bison were staples, as were rabbits and hare. The Cherokee of the Southern Appalachians used blowguns made of an indigenous type of bamboo to hunt squirrels.^[8]

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,^[9][10] possums,^[11][12] and young alligators^[13] in the subtropical swamps of Louisiana and South Carolina.

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

Fish and crustaceans

As with the 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 is taboo, as well as often inconvenient.^{[citation needed]} The Navajo believe that fish have a part in the story of creation,^[14] the Apache were in general afraid of water since they associated it with thunder,^[15] and the arid desert climate made fish a rarity.^[16]

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.^[17] Originally it would have been done to celebrate bringing in fish from places like the Delaware or Raritan River or the estuary around Manhattan Island and the completion of smoking them as a source of food for the winter ahead.^[18]

Eastern tribes would have eaten cod,^[19][20] particularly groups that spoke the Algonquian languages of New England as far south as present day Connecticut, winter flounder^[21] and other flatfish,^[22] species of herring like the alewife,^[23] shad,^[24] Atlantic herring, and Atlantic menhaden,^[25][26] They also would have consumed the Atlantic sturgeon^[27] and drum.

In the West, Pacific several species of sturgeon, like the white sturgeon^[28] and green sturgeon,^[29] olachen^[30] and several autochthonal fish of the Oncorhynchus family including the rainbow trout,^[31] cutthroat trout,^[32] coho salmon,^[33][34][35] kokanee salmon,^[36] 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 species is named for a family of tribes of the Pacific Northwest, indicating its important role in that food culture.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[37] Catfish was also popular among native people throughout the land, over many types of terrain.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[38]

Cooking methods

Early American natives used a number of cooking methods 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 technique 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.^{[citation needed]} A later addition was potatoes, a garden plant that came to New England by the 18th century, added while still in skin with corn in husk, later to be referred to as a clambake by colonists.^[39]

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.^{[citation needed]} Through hardships and the 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.^[40]

In 1796, the first American cookbook was published, and others followed.^[41] 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."^[42]

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, and 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.^[43]

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.^[44]

Common ingredients

The American colonial diet varied depending on the settled region in which someone lived. Local cuisine patterns had been 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. 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^[45]

A striking difference for the colonists in New England compared to other regions was seasonality.^[46] 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.^{[47][dubious – discuss]} 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.^[48]

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.^[49] In addition to the 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.^[50] The animals provided wool when young and mutton upon maturity after wool production was no longer desirable.^[51] 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.^[52]

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.^[53]

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.^[54]

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.^[55] In addition to these alcohol-based products produced in America, imports were seen on merchant shelves, including wine and brandy.^[56]

Southern variations

In comparison to the northern colonies, the southern colonies were quite diverse in their agricultural diet. The uplands of 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.^[57] 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.^[58][59]

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 did not 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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[60]

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[60]

20th century

The 20th century revolutionized American cooking, with the advent of many new technologies, and a continued influx of immigrants with unique food traditions.

Pre-World War I

At the universities, nutritionists and home economists taught a new scientific approach to food. In the early 1900s muckraking journalists raised public concern about the wholesomeness of industrialized food products that contained various preservatives and adulterants of unknown safety.^{[citation needed]} From 1902 to 1912 Harvey Washington Wiley, a chemist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, supervised "hygienic table trials" to test the safety of food additives and preservatives. His work contributed to the enactment of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. He became the first commissioner of the FDA and later led the laboratories of Good Housekeeping Magazine.^[61]

During World War I the Progressives' moral advice about food conservation was emphasized in large-scale state and federal programs designed to educate housewives. Large-scale foreign aid during and after the war brought American standards to Europe.^[62]

From 1912 to the end of the 1930s researchers discovered and popularized the role of various vitamins and minerals in human health. Starting with iodized salt in 1924, commercially distributed food began to be fortified with vitamins and minerals. In 1932, milk began to be fortified with viosterol, a purified vitamin D2 product. Synthetic thiamin (vitamin B1) first became available after 1936 and bakers began voluntarily enriching bread with high-vitamin yeast or synthetic vitamins in the late 1930s.^{[citation needed]}

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".^[60]

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.^[60]

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) and other prepared foods. Jewish immigrants from Germany soon followed suit, replacing pork dishes with corned beef (salt-cured beef) and pastrami. Ice cream soda was served at soda fountains, along with various other early "soda water" recipes like the Garden Sass Sundae (rhubarb) or the Oh-Oh-Cindy Sundae (strawberry ice cream topped with chocolate syrup, chopped nuts, whipped cream and candied cherries).^[60]

During that same time frame, grain-feeding of cattle during low pasture months made milk increasingly available year-round. The invention of milking machines lowered production costs. Pasteurization, homogenization, evaporation, condensation, and refrigeration along with glass milk bottles, wax-paper cartons, and then plastic bottles made milk increasingly available and safe for urban consumers.^[63] Milk became a staple food item and an increasingly important ingredient in American cuisine. Examples include the root beer float and the milkshake.

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.

Major railroads featured upscale cuisine in their dining cars.^[64] Restaurant chains emerged with standardized decor and menus, including the Fred Harvey restaurants along the route of the Santa Fe Railroad in the Southwest.^[65]

World War II and later

The Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Science established the first set of "Recommended Dietary Allowances" in 1941. In 1943, the US War Foods Administration issued the War Food Order No. 1, which made enriched bread the temporary law of the land.^[66]

In 1945 George Stigler published an article on "The cost of subsistence" which described the so-called Stigler diet, his solution to the problem of providing a diet that met the RDA at a minimum cost.

The logistical requirements of the US military during WW2 and the Korean War spurred the development and growth of the processed foods industry in the US.^[67] These wars encouraged the production of shelf-stable ingredients processed on a vast industrial scale. Examples include powdered milk, powdered eggs, potato flakes, and frozen concentrated orange juice.

After the war, low-cost, highly processed foods became one of the foundational elements of an era of mass prosperity.^[68] Many companies in the American food industry developed new products requiring minimal preparation, such as frozen entrees.^[69] One such example is the TV dinner in which a multi-course meal was assembled in aluminum packaging in a food factory and flash frozen, then reheated at home in a thermal oven to be served while watching TV.^[70] Convenience foods of the era were designed to simplify home preparation.

One example is macaroni & cheese created using a powdered artificial cheese product that is reconstituted at home with fresh milk. Newspapers and magazines ran recipe columns, aided by research from corporate kitchens, which were major food manufacturers like General Mills, Campbell's, and Kraft Foods. For example, General Mills Betty Crocker's Cookbook, first published in 1950, was a popular book in American homes.^[71][72]

Highly processed foods of the mid-20th century included novelty elements like multi-colored Jell-O using various chemical food colorings, prepared breakfast cereals marketed to children with large amounts of sugar and artificial colors (e.g. Froot Loops).^[73] Fruit-flavored punches made with artificial fruit flavorings (e.g. Tang, Hi-C). Mid-20th-century foods also added novelty packaging elements like spray cheese in an aerosol can, pimento-stuffed olives, and drink pouches.

The development of the microwave oven resulted in the creation of industrial food products and packaging intended to take advantage of the opportunities and overcome the unique challenges of that technology.^[74] Microwave popcorn is an example of such a product.

Throughout the second half of the 20th century the US commercial food system has become increasingly dependent on subsidized maize (corn) production to provide feed for livestock and ingredients for human foods such as high-fructose corn syrup.^[75] It is estimated that the typical American gets 70 percent of their carbon intake from maize (corn) sources.^[76]

The last half of the 20th century saw the development of controversial technological innovations intended to lower the cost of, improve the quality of, or increase the safety of commercial food including: food irradiation,^[77] genetically modified organisms, livestock treated with antibiotics/hormones, and concentrated animal feeding operations. Activists have raised concerns about the wholesomeness, safety, or humaneness of these innovations and recommend alternatives such as organic produce, veganism/vegetarianism, and locavore diets.

Fast-food restaurants with standardized product and franchised service models began to appear and spread with the development of the highway system. White Castle (1916)^[78] was one of the first examples. Franchising was introduced in 1921 by A&W Root Beer. The McDonald brothers created their "Speedee Service System" in 1948. Other examples include Burger King, KFC, Wendy's, Pizza Hut, Little Caesars, Domino's Pizza and Papa John's Pizza.

Ethnic influences

One signature characteristic of American cooking is the fusion of multiple ethnic or regional approaches into completely new cooking styles. For example, spaghetti is Italian, while hot dogs are German; a popular meal, especially among young children, is spaghetti containing slices of hot dogs.^[79][80] Since the 1960s, Asian cooking has played a particularly large role in American fusion cuisine.^[81]

Some dishes that are typically considered American have their origins in other countries. American cooks and chefs have substantially altered these dishes over the years, to the degree that the dishes now enjoyed around the world are considered to be American. Hot dogs and hamburgers are both based on traditional German dishes, but in their modern popular form they can be reasonably considered American dishes.^[82]

Pizza is based on the traditional Italian dish, brought by Italian immigrants to the United States, but varies highly in style based on the region of development since its arrival. For example, Chicago style has focus on a thicker, taller crust, whereas a "New York Slice" is known to have a much thinner crust which can be folded. These different types of pizza can be advertised throughout the country and are generally recognizable and well-known, with some restaurants going so far as to import New York tap water from a thousand or more miles away to recreate the signature style in other regions.^[83]

Some dishes that Americans think of as being of "foreign" in origin and/or associated with a particular immigrant group were in fact invented in America and customized to American tastes. For example General Tso's chicken was invented by Chinese or Taiwanese chefs working in New York in the early 1970s.^[84] The dish is unknown in China, except for a distant resemblance to a much spicier dish from Hong Kong said to have influenced the American version. The fortune cookie was likewise invented in California in the early 1900s and is known in Asia only as an American style food.^[85]

A wave of celebrity chefs began with Julia Child and Graham Kerr in the 1970s, with many more following after the rise of cable channels like Food Network. Probably the best-known television chef was Child, who taught French cuisine in her weekly show, The French Chef.^[86] By the beginning of the 21st century, regional variations in consumption of meat began to reduce, as more meat was consumed overall.^[87] Saying they eat too much protein, the 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans asked men and teenage boys to increase their consumption of underconsumed foods such as vegetables.^[88]

New American

During the 1980s, upscale restaurants introduced a mixing of cuisines that contain Americanized styles of cooking with foreign elements commonly referred to as New American cuisine,^[89] a type of fusion cuisine combining flavors from the melting pot of traditional American cooking techniques with those from other cultures, sometimes adding molecular gastronomy components.^[90][91]

21st century

In the 21st century, vegan and vegetarian meals increased in popularity, with more restaurants catering to vegans and vegetarians.^[92][93][94]

Regional cuisines

In the present day, the modern cuisine of the United States is very regional in nature. Excluding Alaska and Hawaii, the terrain spans 3,000 miles (4,800 km) from east to west and more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from north to south.

Northeast

New England

New England cuisine traces its roots to English cuisine and the Native American cuisine of the Abenaki, Narragansett, Niantic, Wabanaki, Wampanoag, and other native peoples. It also includes influences from French, Italian, and Portuguese cuisine, among others. It is characterized by the extensive use of potatoes, beans, dairy products and seafood. Corn, historically the main crop grown by Native American tribes in New England, continues to be grown in all New England states.^[95][96] It is traditionally used in hasty pudding, cornbread and corn chowder. Three prominent foodstuffs native to New England are maple syrup, cranberries and blueberries. Maine is the only state with a commercial wild blueberry industry, with 105 million pounds harvested in 2021.^[97]

Initial European colonists came from East Anglia in England. East Anglian cookery included dishes like suet puddings, soda breads, and a few shellfish delicacies, and would have been quite simple in contrast to the dishes prepared in contemporary London. Most of this cuisine was one-pot cookery, which developed into such dishes as succotash, chowder, baked beans, and others.^[98]

The most popular starches in New England cuisine include potatoes and cornmeal, and a few native breads like Anadama bread, johnnycakes, bulkie rolls, Parker House rolls, popovers, ployes, and New England brown bread. Because of the influence of New Englander health reformers, the most well known of whom is Sylvester Graham, this region is fairly conservative with its spices, but typical spices include nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice, especially in desserts, and for savory foods, thyme, black pepper, sea salt, and sage. Typical condiments include maple syrup, grown from the native sugar maple, molasses, and cranberry sauce.

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. Though not anywhere near as productive a region as the top three apple-producing regions, apples have been a staple of New England foodways since at least the 1640s, and it is here that a very high amount of heirloom varieties are found, many of them gaining renewed interest as part of locavore movements and the re-emergence of cider as a beverage of choice. Apples from New England would include varieties imported from their earliest in Europe and a few natives, like Baldwin, Lady, Mother, Pomme Grise, Porter, Roxbury Russet, Rhode Island Greening, Sops of Wine, Hightop Sweet, Peck's Pleasant, Titus Pippin, Westfield-Seek-No-Further, and Duchess of Oldenburg. Beach plums a small native species with fruits the size of a pinball, are sought after in summer to make into a jam. Cranberries are another fruit indigenous to the region, often collected in autumn in huge flooded bogs. Thereafter they are juiced so they can be drunk fresh for breakfast, or dried and incorporated into salads and quickbreads.^[99]

Winter squashes like pumpkin and butternut squashes have been a staple for generations owing to their ability to keep for long periods over icy New England winters and being an excellent source of beta carotene; in summer, they are replaced with pattypan and zucchini, the latter brought to the region by immigrants from Southern Italy a century ago. Blueberries are a very common summertime treat owing to them being an important crop, and find their way into muffins, pies and pancakes.

Historically New England and the other original 13 colonies were major producers of hard cider and the only reason why this changed were that immigrants from Western and Central Europe preferred beer, especially lagers, to apple based alcohol. In more recent years cider has made a roaring comeback nationwide, with New England being the first to break out of the box and with many pomologists scouring the woods for abandoned apple trees and heirloom varieties to add to the cider press. Angry Orchard is a local commercial brand that began in New Hampshire but has since skyrocketed in sales, with other large marques following suit around the land.^[100]

Typical favorite desserts are quite diverse, and encompass hasty pudding, blueberry pie, whoopie pies, Boston cream pie, pumpkin pie, Joe Frogger cookies, hand-crafted ice cream, Hermit cookies, and the chocolate chip cookie, invented in Massachusetts in the 1930s.

New England is noted for having a heavy emphasis on seafood, a legacy inherited from coastal tribes like the Wampanoag and Narragansett, who equally used the rich fishing banks offshore for sustenance. Favorite fish include cod, salmon, winter flounder, haddock, striped bass, pollock, hake, bluefish, and, in southern New England, tautog. All of these are prepared numerous ways, such as frying cod for fish fingers, grilling bluefish over hot coals for summertime, smoking salmon or serving a whole poached one chilled for feasts with a dill sauce, or, on cold winter nights, serving haddock baked in casserole dish with a creamy sauce and crumbled breadcrumbs as a top so it forms a crust.^[101] Clam cakes, a savory fritter based on chopped clams, are a specialty of Rhode Island. Also, a hard shell clam is unique to Rhode Island called the Quahoag which is used in clear chowders. Farther inland, brook trout, largemouth bass, and herring are sought after, especially in the rivers and icy finger lakes in upper New England where New Englanders will fly fish for them in summertime.

Meat is present though not as prominent, and typically is either stewed in dishes like Yankee pot roast and New England boiled dinner or braised, as in a picnic ham; these dishes suit the weather better as summers are humid and hot but winters are raw and cold, getting below 0 °C for most of the winter and only just above it by March.^[102] The roasting of whole turkeys began here as a centerpiece for large American banquets, and like all other East Coast tribes, the Native American tribes of New England prized wild turkeys as a source of sustenance and later Anglophone settlers were enamored of cooking them using methods they knew from Europe: often that meant trussing the bird and spinning it on a string or spit roasting. Today turkey meat is a key ingredient in soups, and also a favorite in several sandwiches like the Pilgrim. For lunch, hot roast beef is sometimes chopped finely into small pieces and put on a roll with salami and American or provolone cheese to make a steak bomb.^[103] Bacon is often maple cured, and often bacon or salt pork drippings are an ingredient in corn chowder, a cousin of clam chowder.^[104] Veal consumption was prevalent in the North Atlantic States prior to World War II.^[87]

A variety of linguiça is favored as a breakfast food, introduced by Portuguese fishermen and Brazilian immigrants.^[105] Dairy farming and its resultant products figure strongly on the ingredient list, and homemade ice cream is a summertime staple of the region: it was a small seasonal roadside stand in Vermont that eventually became the internationally famous Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Vermont is known for producing farmhouse style cheeses, especially a type of cheddar.^[106] The recipe goes all the way back to colonial times when English settlers brought the recipe with them from England and found the rocky landscape eminently suitable to making the cheese.^[107] Today Vermont has more artisanal cheese makers per capita than any other state, and diversity is such that interest in goat's milk cheeses has become prominent.^[108]

Crustaceans and mollusks are also an essential ingredient in the regional cookery. Maine and Massachusetts, in more recent years, have taken to harvesting peekytoe crab and Jonah crab and making crab bisques, based on cream with 35% milkfat, and crabcakes out of them: often these were overlooked as bycatch of lobster pots by fishermen of the region, but in the past 30 years their popularity has firmly established them as a staple. They even appear on the menu as far south as to be out of the region in New York, where they are sold to four star restaurants in the form of cocktail claws. Whelks are eaten in salad, and lobster, which is indigenous to the coastal waters of the region and are a feature of many dishes, baked, boiled, roasted, and steamed, or simply eaten as a sandwich, chilled with mayonnaise and chopped celery in Maine and Massachusetts, or slathered with melted butter on Long Island and in Connecticut. Shellfish of all sorts are part of the diet, and 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 an American Indian tradition.^[109]

In summer, oysters and clams are dipped in batter and fried, often served in a basket with french fries, or commonly on a wheaten bun as a clam roll. Oysters are otherwise eaten chilled on a bed of crushed ice on the half shell with mignonette sauce, and are often branded on where they were harvested. Large quahogs are stuffed with breadcrumbs and seasoning and baked in their shells, and smaller ones often find their way into clam chowder. Other preparations include clams casino, clams on the half shell served stuffed with herbs like oregano and streaky bacon.

Southern New England, particularly along the coast, shares many specialties with the Mid-Atlantic, including especially dishes from Jewish and Italian-American cuisine. Coastal Connecticut is known for distinctive kinds of pizza, locally called apizza (pronounced locally as abeetz), differing in texture (thin and slightly blackened) and toppings (such as clams) from pizza further south in the so-called pizza belt, which stretches from New Haven, Connecticut southward through New York, New Jersey, and into Maryland.

Delaware Valley and Mid-Atlantic

The mid-Atlantic states comprise the states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Northern Maryland. The oldest major settlement in this area of the country is found in the most populous city in the nation, New York, founded in 1625 by the Dutch. Today, it is a major cultural capital of the United States.^[110]

The influences on cuisine in this region are extremely eclectic owing to the fact that it has been and continues to be a gateway for international culture as well as a gateway for new immigrants.^[111] Going back to colonial times, each new group has left their mark on homegrown cuisine and in turn the cities in this region disperse trends to the wider United States. In addition, cities like New York and Philadelphia have had the past influence of Dutch,^[112] Italian, German,^[113] Irish,^[114][115] British,^[116] and Jewish cuisines,^[117] and that continues to this day. Baltimore has become the crossroads between North and South, a distinction it has held since the end of the Civil War.

A global power city,^[118] New York is well known for its diverse and cosmopolitan dining scene.^[119] Its restaurants compete fiercely for good reviews in the Food and Dining section of The New York Times, online guides, and Zagat's, the last of which is widely considered the premier American dining guide, published yearly and headquartered in New York.

Many of the more complicated dishes with rich ingredients like Lobster Newberg, waldorf salad, vichyssoise, eggs benedict, and the New York strip steak were born out of a need to entertain and impress the well-to-do in expensive bygone restaurants like Delmonico's and still standing establishments like the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.^[120][121] Modern commercial American cream cheese was developed in 1872.^[122]

Since the first reference to an alcoholic mixed drink called a cocktail comes from New York State in 1803, it is not a surprise that there have been many cocktails invented in New York and the surrounding environs. Even today New York bars are noted for being highly influential in making national trends. Cosmopolitans, Long Island iced teas, Manhattans, Rob Roys, Tom Collins, Aviations, and Greyhounds were all invented in New York bars, and the gin martini was popularized in New York in speakeasies during the 1920s, as evidenced by its appearance in the works of New Yorker and American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Like its neighbor Philadelphia, many rare and unusual liquors and liqueurs often find their way into a mixologist's cupboard or restaurant wine list.

New York State is the third most productive area in the country for wine grapes, just behind California and Washington. It has AVA's near the Finger Lakes, the Catskills, and Long Island,^[123] and in the Hudson Valley has the second-most productive area in the country for growing apples, making it a center for hard cider production, just like New England.^[124][125] Pennsylvania has been growing rye since Germans began to emigrate to the area at the end of the 17th century and required a grain they knew from Germany.^[126] Therefore, overall it is not unusual to find New York grown Gewürtztraminer and Riesling, Pennsylvania rye whiskey, or marques of locally produced ciders like Original Sin on the same menu.

Since their formative years, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore have welcomed immigrants of every kind to their shores, and all three have been an important gateway through which new citizens to the general United States arrive.^[127] Traditionally natives have eaten cheek to jowl with newcomers for centuries as the newcomers would open new restaurants and small businesses and all the different groups would interact.

Even in colonial days this region was a very diverse mosaic of peoples, as settlers from Switzerland, Wales, England, Ulster, Wallonia, Holland, Gelderland, the British Channel Islands, and Sweden sought their fortune in this region.^[128][129] This is very evident in many signature dishes and local foods, all of which have evolved to become American dishes in their own right.

The original Dutch settlers of New York brought recipes they knew and understood from the Netherlands and their mark on local cuisine is still apparent today: in many quarters of New York their version of apple pie with a streusel top is still baked. In the colony of New Amsterdam, their predilection for waffles in time evolved into the American national recipe and forms part of a New York brunch. They also made coleslaw, originally a Dutch salad, but today accented with the later 18th-century introduction of mayonnaise.^{[112][130][131]}

The doughnut began its life originally as a New York pastry that arrived in the 18th century as the Dutch olykoek, with later additions from other nations of Europe like the Italian zeppole, the Jewish/Polish pączki, and the German Berliner arriving in the 19th century to complete the variety found in modern doughnuts today.^[132]

Crab cakes were once a kind of English croquette, but over time as spices have been added they and the Maryland crab feast became two of Baltimore's signature dishes. Fishing for blue crab is a favorite summer pastime in the waters off Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware where they may grace the table at summer picnics.

Other mainstays of the region have been present since the early years of American history, like oysters from Cape May, the Chesapeake Bay, and Long Island, and lobster and tuna from the coastal waters found in New York and New Jersey.^[133][134] Philadelphia Pepper Pot, a tripe stew, was originally a British dish but today is a classic of home cooking in Pennsylvania alongside bookbinder soup, a type of turtle soup.

In the winter, New York pushcarts sell roasted chestnuts, a delicacy dating back to English Christmas traditions,^[135] and it was in New York and Pennsylvania that the earliest Christmas cookies were introduced: Germans introduced crunchy molasses-based gingerbread and sugar cookies in Pennsylvania, and the Dutch introduced cinnamon-based cookies, all of which have become part of the traditional Christmas meal.^[136][137]

Scrapple was originally a type of savory pudding that early Pennsylvania Germans made to preserve the offal of a pig slaughter.^[138] The Philadelphia soft pretzel was originally brought to Eastern Pennsylvania in the early 18th century, and later, 19th-century immigrants sold them to the masses from pushcarts to make them the city's best-known bread product, having evolved into its own unique recipe.^[139]

After the 1820s, new groups began to arrive and the character of the region began to change. There had been some Irish from Ulster prior to 1820, however largely they had been Protestants with somewhat different culture and (often) a different language than the explosion of emigrants that came to Castle Garden and Locust Point in Baltimore in their masses starting in the 1840s.

The Irish arrived in America in a rather woeful state, as Ireland at the time was often plagued by some of the worst poverty in Europe and often heavy disenfranchisement among the masses. Many of them arrived barely alive having ridden coffin ships to the New World, very sick with typhus and gaunt from prolonged starvation.

In addition, they were the first to face challenges other groups did not have: they were the first large wave of Catholics. They faced prejudice for their faith and the cities of Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore were not always set up for their needs.

For example, Catholic bishops in the U.S. mandated until the 1960s that all Catholics were forbidden from eating red meat on Fridays and during Lent,^[140] and attending Mass sometimes conflicted with work as produce and meat markets would be open on high holy days; this was difficult for Irishmen supporting families since many worked as laborers.

Unsurprisingly, many Irishmen also found their fortunes working as longshoremen, which would have given their families access to fish and shellfish whenever a fisherman made berth, which was frequent on the busy docks of Baltimore and New York.^[141][142]

Though there had been some activity in Baltimore in founding a see earlier by the Carrolls, the Irish were the first major wave of Catholic worship in this region, and that meant bishops and cardinals sending away to Europe for wine. Wine, with water, is consecrated as part of the Catholic Mass.

Taverns had existed prior to their emigration to America in the region, though the Irish brought their particular brand of pub culture and founded some of the first saloons and bars that served Dublin style stout and red ale; they brought with them the knowledge of single-malt style whiskey and sold it.

The Irish were the first immigrant group to arrive in this region in massive millions, and these immigrants also founded some of the earliest saloons and bars in this region, of which McSorley's is a still operating example.

It was also in this region that the Irish introduced something that today is a very important festival in American culture that involves a large amount of food, drink, and merry making: Halloween. In England and Wales, where prior immigrants had come from, the feast of All Hallows Eve had died out in the Reformation, dismissed as superstition and excess having nothing to do with the Bible and often replaced with the festival of Guy Fawkes Night. Other immigrant groups like the Germans preferred to celebrate October 31 as Reformation Day, and after the American Revolution all of the above were less and less eager to celebrate the legacy of an English festival given they had fought against Great Britain for their independence.

The Catholicism of the Irish demanded attendance at church on November 1 and charity and deeds, not just faith, as a cornerstone of dogma, and many of their older traditions survived the Reformation and traveled with them. Naturally, they went door-to-door to collect victuals for masked parties as well as gave them out, like nuts to roast on the fire, whiskey, beer, or cider, and barmbracks; they also bobbed for apples and made dumb cakes. Later in the century they were joined by Scots going guising, children going door-to-door to ask for sweets and treats in costume.

From the Mid-Atlantic this trend spread to be nationwide and evolved into American children trick-or-treating on October 31 wearing costumes and their older counterparts having wild costume parties with various foods and drinks such as caramel apples, candy apples, dirt cakes, punch, cocktails, cider (both alcoholic and non,) pumpkin pie, candy corn, chocolate turtles, peanut brittle, taffy, tipsy cake, and copious buckets full of candy; children carving jack-o-lanterns and eating squash derived foods derive from Halloween's heritage as a harvest festival and from Irish and Scottish traditions of carving turnips and eating root vegetables at this time of year. Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=American_cuisine
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