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What is the "state food" of Nevada? That's a difficult question to answer. Why? Because cuisine is not easily defined by political boundaries. It is a complicated mix of history, cultural/ethnic influence, and local commodities. Some states and cities are commonly associated with recipes (Maryland crab cakes, Boston baked beans, Philly cheese steak, New York style pizza) others are harder to connect with a particular dish. If your teacher asks you to research/bring in a food that represents a particular state, you have several options:
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ABOUT THIS SITE: The food notes provided for each state are meant as starting points for your research. They are not comprehensive; nor are they presented in a standardized format containing exactly the same information for each state, as you would find in an encyclopedia. Our notes, like state foods, are a reflection of the people who land on our site. Most of our state food questions are generated by elementary/secondary students working on state reports. Many of you have to prepare a food representative of your state. That's what this page is all about. If you need more information (looking for state foods connected with a particular period/people? writing a book and need authentic fare? working on a 4H/scout project?) please let us know!
Alabama's culinary heritage is a testament to hard-working people with a healthy appetite for tasty food:
"The first Europeans to visit Alabama were Spanish seamen in 1505...They reported that the Indians feasted on wild turkey, game, fish, melons,
and squash. Around 1700, two French brothers...established an all-male settlement...at Mobile, Alabama...soon after arriving...the young women staged a petticoat
rebellion against the crude food of the settlement, which mainly consisted of game, fish, wild plants, and berries...In 1719 slaves came to the Mobile
Bay settlement and added African cooking techniques, seasonings, and sauces to their owners' recipes. By the middle of the 1700s, Mobile had become
well-established, and exotic foods and drinks were gracing the dinner tables. Pale wine made from native grapes and oranges; peaches baked in
sugar-crust tarts; baked, stuffed Gulf snapper; and and endless variety of aromatic soups and sauces were being served. Native squash was baked and
candied, and Gulf shrimp were used in bisques and jambalayas...The culinary influence of the early French settlers was more prevalent along the
Gulf Coast, where the fish and seafood dishes continue to have a strong French accent...Away from the coast, southern cooking with fried chicken,
green beans, yellow squash, okra, and biscuits became the staple food. There were many types of biscuits...Fried pies are said to have originated in
Alabama. To make a fried pie, a small amoung of filling was heapted on a round piece of rolled-out pie dough. Then the pastry was closed in the
shape of a half moon, sealed at the edges, and fried in deep fat. The pies were dusted with powdered sugar and eaten hot. Fillings for these delicate
half-moon pastries were usually fruit...peaches or peach butter."
---Taste of the States: A Food History of America, Hilde Gabriel Lee [Howell Press:Charlotteseville VA] 1992 (p. 103-4)
"Official" state foods are enacted by the legislature. Alabama's edible symbols are: large mouth bass, pecans, wild turkeys, fighting tarpon (saltwater fish), and blackberries. The state also has an "official" barbeque championship. Details here.
Top crops: Alabama Agricultural Statistics
Recipes
Dr. George Washington Carver's Sweet Potato
recipes
Patsy Riley's family recipes (she is the
wife of the current governor)
The National Cookbook/Sheila Hibben lists these recipes for Alabama:
Aunt Sue's snowballs, Baked oyster omelet, Beaten biscuits, Brains with brown butter, Brown
chicken stew, Chicken turnovers, Christening cake, Corn pone, Crab cocktail, Curds and cream,
Dewberry roll, Fish pudding, Fresh fig ice cream, Ginger loaf, Green corn cakes, Hot Scotch,
Methodist biscuit, Potato soup, Rich Amella, Roast partridge, St. Charles Indian bread and
Stuffed Squash.
The American History Cookbook/Mark Zanger adds these:
Chicken & dumplings, Ja Bolaya, Maria von Braun's "Glorified Hamburger," Peanut macaroni
and cheese, and Sweet potato biscuits
---your local public librarian will be happy to help you obtain copies of these books.
If you need to make something (easy, inexpensive) for class? We suggest:
"St. Charles Indian Bread (Mobile Alabama)
2 eggs
1 pt. Buttermilk
1 pt. White corn meal
1 tablespoon butter
1 scant teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
Beat the eggs very light, and mix alternately with them the buttermilk and the corn meal; add salt and the butter, which has been melted, and beat well. Dissolve the soda in 1 tablespoon of the buttermilk, and add it to the other ingredients. Pour into a well-greased pan and bake in a quick oven."
---The National Cookbook: A Kitchen Americana, Shelia Hibben [Harper & Brothers:New York] 1932 (p. 14)
[NOTE: Quick oven usually means 475 (very hot). No specified time makes this recipe hard for us modern folk. Our advice? Set yr oven timer for 15 minutes. Check for "doneness" with a toothpick or barbeque pick. If the pick comes out "clean" (no dough attached) the bread is done. If not, let it continue to cook for another 3 minutes. Recheck until pick comes out clean.]"Cheese Straws
2 cups grated cheese
2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 heaping tablespoon butter
1/4 teaspoon red pepper
make into stiff dough with ice-cold sweet mik and water mixed. Roll thin, cut into narrow strips and bake quickly."
---New York World's Fair Cook Book: The American Kitchen, Crosby Gaige [Doubleday, Doran:nw York] 1939 (p. 174)"Greenville Spice Cake
1 cup butter
3 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
3 1/2 cups flour
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon soda
1 cup raisins
1 cup pecans
1 tablespoon each: ground cloves, mace, nutmeg, cinnamon
Cream sugar with butter; add well-beaten yolks, Add alternately the flour with which spices have been sifted and milk; add soda dissolved in one tablespoon warm water, raisins and nuts well floured and whites of eggs. Bake in a moderate oven fifty minutes. Ice with mocha icing."
---ibid (p. 175)
In Alaska, as true for places on earth, the concept of "traditional meals" depends up time and peoples. The meals consumed by the first inhabitants, Russian emigrees, 19th century gold miners, and 21st century residents were very different. People currently living in Alaska with ties to other cultures (Chinese, Russian, Japanese etc.) all enjoy their own versions of "traditional meals."
NATIVE CUISINE:
"Traditionally, Inuit dietary staples were seal, whale, caribou, walrus, polar bear, arctic hare, fish, birds,
and berries. Seals were hunted all year round, and the Inuit found a use for almost every part of the
animal. With the exception of the bitter gall bladder, all the meat was eaten, usually boiled or raw. Raw
blubber was often enjoyed mixed in with meat or berries, while blood soup and dried intestines were
favored as snacks. Because they ate raw food, and every part of the animal, the Inuit did not lack
vitamins, even though they had almost no vegetables to eat. With the introduction of modern Western-type food, including convenience foods, over the past two or three decades, the Inuit diet has changed,
and not for the better. The consumption of foods rich in sugar and carbohydrates has resulted in tooth decay
and other diet-related problems."
---Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life, Volume 1: Americas, Timothy L. Gall editor
[Gale:Detroit] 1997 (p. 246)
"The greatest challenge to Eskimo survival was not the cold, but the difficulty of obtaining food, since the
only food resources their country provides in any quantity are mammals and fish...Eskimos proved beyond
any doubt that humans can be sustained by meat and fish alone. To do it, they had to consume not only
the meat of each type of animal and fish they killed, but also the blubber or fat, the eyes, the nutritious
organ meats (especially the liver and kidneys) of the smaller dead mammals, fish livers, and the brain,
tongue, heart, liver, kidneys, stomach, stomach contents, intestines and bone marrow of the caribou. They
somehow managed to recover even the blood of most seals and caribou, consuming it either directly, as a
beverage, or as an additive to soup. Finally, they drank copious amounts of water, a physiological
necessity for people on such an extreme high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet...Eskimos did not dissapate
the nutritional potential of their food by overcooking it. Great quantities of meat and fish were eaten raw,
usually
in either dried or frozen form. When they did cook food they normally boiled it, usually lightly, and drank
the broth...Vegetable products entered the economy in various ways. Berries, leaves, roots, seaweed and
greens were valuable additions to the diet in many areas, especially in Southwest Alaska. In the Western
Arctic generally, certain types of root, leaves and bark were used for medicinal purposes and as colouring
agents..."
---The Eskimos, Ernest S. Burch, Jr. [Macdonald & Co:Great Britain] 1988 (p. 51, 68,70)
"Cuisine. Subsistence food for the Inuit of Alaska included whale meat, caribou, moose, walrus, seal, fish,
fowl, mountain sheep, bear, hares, squirrels, and foxes. Plant food included wild herbs and roots, as well
as berries. Meat is dried or kept frozen in ice cellars dug into the tundra."
---Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, Robert Von Dassanowsky [Gale:Detroit] 2000 (p.
910)
"Inuit cookery (Inuit being more of less equivalent to the old name Eskimo, and applying to peoples in the
northernmost inhabited parts of the eart, e.g. Greenland) is, in its traditional form, subject ot the limitations
imposed by a very cold climate and sparse range of fauna and flora. In this respect it is not unlike
Antarctic cookery. However, there is a big difference; the indigenous inhabitants of the Arctic regions (e.g.
in the southern parts of Greenland, Labrador, Alaska, the Northwest Territories of Canada)...The Inuit diet
has attracted much attention because of its high proportion of meat and fat, as well as fish. The Inuit have
subsisted mainly on:
*game animals, notably caribou, moose, polar bear;
*sea mammals, especially whale and seals;
*fish such as live in the Arctic Sea;
*berries of the far north;
*Pemmican, incorporating meat and berries."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 401-2)
"Fifteen to forty thousand years ago, Asian people walked across a land bridge to the place later called
"Alaska." Their long migration was a natural extension of their following herds of grazing mammals, which
they ate. Those who made Alaska their permanent home gradually evolved into separate cultures...Until
Russian and European explorers made contact in the 1700s, Alaskan native ate what was at hand.
Eskimos chowed down on bowhead whale, walrus, and seal, along with seabird eggs. Aleuts searched
tide pools for shellfish, octopus, and seaweed; they speared seals from kayaks and downed birds with
arrows. Athabascans dined on moose, caribou, bear, beaver, muskrat, geese, ducks, and fish. Tlingit,
Haida, and Tsimshian consumed steelhead, salmon, herring, halibut, and venison. Menus were seasonal,
depending on the migration of caribou, the nesting of birds, and the spawning of fish. Greens and edible
roots supplemented meals. Depending upon the habitat, natives enjoyed greens like rosewort, beach
asparagus, goosetongue...pink plume...and king's crown..The brewed hot drinks from evergreen shrubs,
such as Labrador tea...Food was eaten raw, frozen, fermented, smoked, dried, or boiled. Hundreds of
variations are made possible by combining methods...Clay cooking pots were known to only a few Eskimo
groups; most Alakskans roasted their food on spits or boiled it in baskets. Cooking baskets were woven of
split spruce roots; those roots swell when wet, making the baskets watertight; Rocks heated in the fire
were added and the contents stirred until the food was done...Preservation of food for the lean months of
winter was paramount. Food was dried or smoked; if that was impossible, blubber or whale roasts were
frozen in "ice cellars," holes dug in the permafrost...Celebrations meant Eskimo ice cream of aguduk. The
Eskimo cook whips seal oil until it is creamy and then folds in freshly fallen snow and tundra roots. The
Athabascan version is whipped caribou-leg marrow, cooked meat flakes, and berries. Aduduk was served
on festive occaisions, such as a young man's first successful polar bear hunt or wedding...Russian fur
hunters and settlers introduced new foods--barley, rice, buckwheat, Chiense tea, and flour--as well as a
new kitchen tool, the oven. The Aleuts quickly mastered piecrust and began making pirog, a "fist pie" of
salmon, hard-boiled eggs, rice, and onion, enclosed in pastry. The Russian also introduced rudimentary
agriculture, with crops like cabbage, radishes, turnips, and potatoes. Walrus stew slowly changed from a
simple pot of meat and borth to something complicated, with potatoes and macaroni."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford University
Press:New York] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 29-30)
"Native Alaskans...did not farm since seafood, as well as berries and roots, was plentiful. Like their Pacific
Northwest Indian neighbors, they depended on salmon as the mainstay of their diet. They also made long
journeys out to sea in oversized canoes. In the deep waters the Indians hunted seals, sea otters,
porpoises, and whales. Fish was preserved for year-round eating by drying it and making a form of
jerky...Inland Indians...relied on caribou as their main source of food. The caribou provided not only food
by also clothing, fuel, and oil for lamps...In years past most Eskimos ate their food raw since there was
little fuel available for cooking. They ate Muktuk, whale skin with a thick coating of blubber, raw. It was a
nourishing food, and as recent studies have shown raw meat and fish best meet the body's demands for
fat in a cold climate. The Eskimos did some cooking over a fire of precious seal oil, which also provided
light and warmth. Wild game such as mountain goats, polar bears, caribou, and Dall sheep...were also
part of the Eskimo diet. Today, the Eskimo diet is a mixture of old and new foods. Eskimo children enjoy
chewing on raw walrus kidney just as much as a chocolate candy bar...A modern Eskimo meal might
consist of dried or smoked fish, reindeer stew, and a dessert of fresh or preserved Arctic berries with
sugar and canned milk. If the dessert is served in the traditional manner, the berries are topped with seal
oil."
---Taste of the States, Hilde Gabriel Lee [Howell Press:Charlottesville VA] 1992 (p. 276)
Recommended reading:
"In 1741 Captain Vitus Nering, a Dane in the employ of Russia, was the first white man to set foot on
Alaskan territory...Russian settlers in search of furs established the first permanent settlement in Alaska
on Kodiak Island in 1784. In order to make the area self-sufficient, the Russians tried to grow grain. This
effort failed...Russian culinary influences are still evident in Alaska, particularly in Sitka, where at Easter
time Russian Easter bread, and decorated eggs are part of the Easter celebration. Traditional Russian
Piroghi, rectangular pies filled with rice, are still served as a main course. Beef Stronganoff and Kasha, a
porridge of buckwheat groats served with fruit and nuts, are favorites."
---Taste of the States (p. 276-7)
GOLD RUSH ERA: 19th-early 20th centuries
Gold rush miners brought supplies with them from San Francisco...including food. Sourdough
bread, canned meats, beans & peas, oysters, sugar, coffee were among the staples. Here are some
original lists:
Alaska restaurant menus, 1906: Cecil Cafe, Fairbanks & Royal Cafe, Cleary Creek
"After the United States purchased Alaska in 1867, paddle wheelers began regular journeys up great
inland rivers with supplied like dried beans, sugar, oranges, apples, and canned milk. Gold rush
prospectors survived mosly on beans and biscuits...Holidays were celebrated with feasts of roast
ptarmigan, sourdough bread, canned pineapple, plum duff, and spaghetti concocted of moose rump roast,
goose grease, and dried soup vegetables. Prospectors who lingered to become settlers learned to adapt
local ingredients to recipes of the lower forty-eight states. They made ketchup with currants or cranberries,
piecrust with black-bear lard, butter with caribou marrow, and mincemeat with moose."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Volume 1 (p. 30)
[NOTE: This book contains an extensive bibliography for further study.]
"In 1896 the Klondike and other gold fields were discovered, and prospectors from the lower "Forty-Eight"
streamed into Alaska. Along with the gold rush came sourdough starter, which was used as leavening for
biscuits, bread, and panckaes in the days before commercial yeast became available. Made of a mixture
of sugar, flour, water, and usually a few boiled potatoes, a little sourdough starter was added to each
batch of dough to make it light and fluffy...Alaskan sourdough specialties include poppy-seed potato-bread, caraway-studded rye bread, whole-wheat bread, and French bread. Other food necessities of the
"Sourdoughs," the nickname given to the Alaska gold prospectors, were bacon, salt pork, lard, and coffee
or tea. Most miners' food was dull and monotonous since little food was grown in Alaska at the time and
only the basic necessities were shipped...Aslaskan pioneer created substitutes for foods not readily
available in Alaska. Sea-gull eggs replaced chicken eggs. Clover and other flowers were boiled into a
syrup to produce squaw honey, since there were no bees in Alaska. Relishes were made from kelp, and
moose fat was often used in cooking."
---Taste of the States (p. 277-8)
Recommended reading: Gold Rush Grub: From Turpentine Sterw to Hoochinoo/Ann Chandonnet
Victorian/early 20th century fare (primary documents):
Salmon pie
Smoked salmon
Pickled herring
Halibut pie
Crab casserole
Venison parmesean
Deer sausage
Moose stroganoff
Baked wild duck
Wild cucumber
Goosetongue (sea plaintain)
Lima bean bake
Fiddlehead ferns
Blueberry cobbler
Red huckleberry pudding
Nagoonberry chiffon pie
Lowbush cranberries chutney
Rhubarb crisp
Finnish Sweet bread
Today's Alaskan menus and dining options are not unlike those found in the "Lower 48." There are local truck stop cafes, great burger/salad places, Mexican restaurants, standard cafeteria fare, and four star dining rooms connected with resort hotels catering to the cruise ship crowd.
Recommended reading:
NEED TO MAKE SOMETHING FOR CLASS?
Alaska is a great state to get for a food project. You have so many choices! All you need to do is place the
recipe within historic context. Assuming you're not in the mood for moose, consider:
Inuit--pemmican & fish
Gold rush--sourdough & beans
Russian settlement/Sitka--pierogi & pea soup
Victorian era--Blueberrry cobbler & rhubarb crisp (recipes below!)
We visited Alaska recently and the two most outstanding foods were salmon, halibut and berries (esp. blueberries/huckleberries). The fish were served a variety of ways including baked, broiled, pie, croquettes, and smoked. Berries were featured in mufins, crisps, pancakes and quick breads. Also on the menus (maybe not the best choices for a school party) were cariboo, venison, and moose. They are pretty tasty.
"Blueberry cobbler
1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup blueberries
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon melted butter
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup boiling water
Mix flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, salt. Stir in milk, vanilla, butter. Spread batter in buttered 8 X 8 pan. Scatter blueberries over batter. Sprinkle sugar over berries. Pour boiling water over all. Bake at 375 degree oven for 45 min. or unitl brown and done in center. Berries sink to bottom and form juice. Serve hot with light cream; or cold, topped with ice cream."
---Juneau Centennial Cookbook, Jane Stewart, Phyllice F. Bradner, Betty Harris (p. 43)"Rhubarb Crisp
Mix and place in greased baking pan: 3 C diced rhubarb, 1/4 C sugar
Blend until crumbly and spread on top: 2/3 C butter, 2/3 C brown sugar, 2/3 C white sugar, 1 C flour, dash of salt.
Bake in 350 degree oven for 40 minutes. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream."
---ibid (p. 49)
"Governor George Parks' Sourdough
Cook 3 large potatoes and mash well. To mashed potatoes, add 1 pint of potato water. When lukewarm, add 1/2 cake yeast and 2 C flour. Cover and put in warm place 48 hours.
To use: take out 2 C and add 1/2 tsp soda, pinch salt, 2 T sugar and enough flour to make a hot cake batter. Add a little oil.
To start add 2 C flour and 2 C water. Cook on griddle."
---ibid (p. 54)
Arizona is a challenging state to get for a "food" report. It does not have an "official" state food (these must be made law by the state legislature). The only state symbol you might want to eat is the trout (state fish).
About Arizona's culinary heritage
"Although Texas has annexed the credit for the particular type of cooking found along the
Mexican frontier, Arizona may get closer to the Mexican formula than Texas. The cooking of
Arizona, indeed,, is so closely linked to that of Mexico that its Tex-Mex food not only leans
heavily on the Mex component in general, but even on a specific type of Mexican regional
cooking--that of the state of Sonora, which is just across the border. Sonora is wheat-growing
country, so Arizona tends to make tortillas de harina, wheat tortiallas, instead of using Indian
corn, more common in the rest of Mexico. Sonoran food is less violently spiced than that of most
of the other Mexican states; Arizona goes in for comparatively mild chilies, which it grows itself
along the border. One dish that Arizona borrowed from Sonora deserves special mention, a soup
containing tripe, green chilies, onions, and mint called munodo...If Tex-Mex food is more
specialized in Arizona, it is more widespread in New Mexico, largely because Arizona today has
few descendants of the old families of the Mexican era, but New Mexico has many of
them."
---Eating in America: A History, Waverly Root & Richard de Rochemont [William
Morrow and Company:New York] 1976 (p. 278)
"Because of its arid climate, Arizona has always suffered from a water shortage. There was little
commercial agriculture in the state before irrigation canals were built at the beginning of this
century. Many of these canals parallel those built by the ancient Hohokam Indian culture almost
2,000 years ago...The early pioneers built new canals along the route of these ancient canals.
Modern Indian tribes did not undertake extensive farming. The Apache and Yum Indians in the
southern part of what is now Arizona subsisted on the plants of the Sonoran Desert. The Mojave
and Hopi Indians in the north hunted game, and gathered wild berries and roots in the
mountainous areas. Arizona's grapefruit and other crops grow in man-made oases that were
developed by Spanish missionaries. Later, the Mormons increased the productivity of these
oases...Due to its remoteness, Arizona was not setteled until the 1850s, when copper, silver, and
gold were discovered...The copper and silver mines in Arizona brought Slav and Cornish
immigrants to work in the mines. Although these early settlers could not get many of the
necessary ingredients to cook their favorite native foods, most managed to prepare some of their
native dishes at holiday time. A roasted suckling pig with a necklace of berries frequently graced
the Slavic Christmas table. Prairie chicken (grouse) with spiced gravy, baked noodles, plump
dumplings, and an assortment of poppy-seed tarts, sweet rolls, and cookies were often served in
Slavic homes. Cornish cookes kept busy baking crisp pasties, a turnover made with a pie dough
and filled with meat and vegetables...Beans, a staple food of the Indians, also became an
everyday dish for settlers. They were served along with meat, baked potatoes, homemade rolls or
sourdough biscuits with syrup, and coffee with goat's milk...In the late 1600s Father Kino
brought cattle to Pimeria Alta (southern Arizona). The Spanish missionaires also brought horses
and sheep...Cacti are an intergral part of Arizona's cuisine. The prickly-pear cactus thrives in
Arizona. The bumpy prickly pear, a favorite food of the Indians, was called a fig by some...The
magnificent giant saguaro cactus, which abounds only in the Sonoran Desert, has long supplied a
sweet red fruit that the Pima and Papagos Indians harvested in the summer. About the size of a
hen's egg, the fruit was made into jbam or syrup by the Indians. Today the fruit is eaten raw with
ice cream and continues to be used for jams and syrups...Two other special foods of Arizona are
jicama and tomatillos. Jicama, a tuberous vegetable brought from Mexico and now grown in
Arizona, is crisp like an apple and has a slightly sweeter taste. It is primarily used in salads and
can be shredded as a topping for chili. Tomatillos were used by the Aztec Indians and were
transplanted to the Southwest."
---Taste of the States: A Food History of Arizona, Hilda Gabriel Lee [Howell
Press:Charlottesville VA] 1992 (p. 199-201)
[NOTE: This book offers two recipes: Jicama Salad and Sweet Potato Soup]
"Most of Arizona remained unsettled until after 1860. Spanish missionaries in the seventeenth
century attempted to convert the Hopis of northeastern Arizona, but they resisted the mission
program and had little contact with Spanish settlers in New Mexico. Southern Arizona was the
northern region of Sonora known as Pimeria Alta, where Jesuit missionaries established missions
among the O'dham (Pima) between 1687 and 1711. Settlement of the area proceeded very
slowly, and Tucson, founded in 1776, remained the northern most point of Spanish or Mexican
settlement. In northern Sonora cattle raising was the most important industry, and beef played a
starring role in the diet. Settlers also raised sheep and chickens but few pigs. They grew corn,
beans, lentils, garbanzos, pumpkins, and chilies, and they commonly ate posole, atole, and
tortillas, as well as stews enlivened by chilies. However, Apache raids into the region after 1821
drove most settlers farther south. Fewer than three hundred people remained in Tucson when the
United States acquired the area in 1848, but some Anglos married Hispanas, who continued to
prepare tortillas, frijoles, and other dishes. Arizona grew slowly, primarily with immigration
from the United States, until 1910, when the Mexican Revolution sent thousands of people into
southern Arizona. They brought the food traditions of Sonora with them, including large, very
think wheat tortillas, tamalkes made of green corn rather than the corn flour made from nixtamal,
and carne seca. Beef strips, sometimes unseasoned, other times rubbed with lime juice, salt, and
other seasonings, were air dried in the hot sun and dry air of the region. Later the carne seca was
pounded or shredded and stewed to make machaca."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith edtior [Oxford
University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 2 (p. 484)
"Arizona cuisine, like that of other Southwestern states, was strongly influenced by the native
Indians, Spanish conquistadors and padres, as well as Mexican settlers. Indian and Spanish
dishes are still prevalent in Arizona's cusine...The dishes of southern Arizona have been strongly
influenced by Sonora, the Mexican state directly south of Arizona. In Sonora more wheat than
corn is grown. Consequently, Arizona tortillas are more often made of wheat flour. Another
Sonoran influence is that dishes are less spicy than in other Mexican and Southwestern
cookery...Until the middle of this century, Mexican and Indian dishes were predominant. With
the influx of retired people from all over the country, however, the food of Arizona has become
more all-American, with many Midwestern dishes prevailing."
---Taste of the States (p. 201)
ARIZONA'S AGRICULTURE: top crops
Need to make something for class?
"Mexican Corn
3 cups raw tender corn (cut off the ear)
2 cups tomato puree
1 onion (minced fine)
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 tablespoon Chili powder
1 tablespoon lard
1 tablespoon finely chopped celery
1/4 cup grated cheese
salt ant pepper
Fry the minced onion in the lard, then add puree, celery, Chili pwoder, melted butter, salt and pepper and corn. Mix well and pour in baking-dish. Cook 1 hour in moderate oven."
---The National Cookbook: A Kitchen Americana, Sheila Hibben [Harper & Brothers:New York] 1932 (p. 189) [NOTE: Lard is hog fat. You can substitute butter, margarine or Crisco.]"Corn Tortillas
[Twelve Tortillas]
2 cups blue cornmeal
1 1/4 cups water
1. Mix cornmeal and water until dough is pliable and moist (but not sticky or wet).
2. Shape dough into twelve balls.
3. Flatten balls by patting out with hands or folling between to sheets of greased wax paper.
4 Cook on lightly greased griddle over medium heat about four minutes on each side, or until brown."
---Hopi Cookery, Juanita Tiger Kavena [University of Arizona Press:Tuscon] 1980 (p. 20)
The Fifty States Cookbook/Sheila Hibben contains the following recipes for Arizona: Pozole (pork and hominy soup), Country-flavored chicken halves, Tamale Perfection, Burritos, Enchiladas con Chile Verde, Ground beef filling, Sweet potatoes with orange, Colifolor Acapulco, Date milk shake, Southwestern salad bowl and Almendraro (a layered gelatin dessert).
Other books...your librarian can help you get these:
Recipes/Arizona Dept. of Game and Fish
ABOUT NATIVE AMERICAN SUBSISTENCE
Archaeologists can tell us much about what the Pueblo tribes ate in ancient times. These ancestors of the
Pueblos were the Anasazi. Who are the Pueblos?
"Pueblo Peoples Traditionally, the Pueblo people were labeled by the Spanish as pueblo (stone masonry town dwellers) in contrast to rancheria (brush/mud camp dwellers). As a cultural group they have survived with clearly unbroken continuity into the present from at least as long ago as two millenia. The Pueblo People are culturally diverse, but they all farm corn, beans, and squash. The modern Western Pueblos -- Hopi, Zuni, Acoma and Laguna -- live on high mesa tops in Arizona and New Mexico and practice dry farming (dependent on rain). The Pecos Classification divides all Pueblo peoples into five periods." Source: http://www.cpluhna.nau.edu/Introduction/glossary.htm#Pueblo%20Peoples
Prehistoric
Farmers [Anasazi Peoples], Northern Arizona University
Spread of Maize to
the Colorado Plateau, Northern Arizona University
700AD:
Chaco Culture Subsistence/National Park Service
1200AD:
"The plant, animal, and pollen remains collected during excavations at Castle Rock Pueblo indicate that the
villagers used many wild plants and animals and some domesticated plants and animals for their
subsistence. They dammed a drainage adjacent to their village to supplement their water supply, grew much
of their own food in nearby fields, and apparently raised turkeys for eggs, meat, and feathers. The natural
environment provided water as well as many wild plant and animal resources that were exploited for
building materials, fuel, and additional food. The extensive use of wild plants suggests that the villagers had
a thorough knowledge of edible and other useful plants in their environment."
---The
Archaeology of Castle Rock Pueblo, Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, Colorado
Need historic recipes? We recommend the Arizona Territory Cook Book: Recipes from 1864 to 1912, Daphne Overstreet
Every state offers a unique culinary table set by its people (native inhabitants, settlers, immigrants) and natural resources (catfish, trout, blueberries, yucca). Today? Most every kind of food (from fried chicken & pizza to Thai cuisine & Argentine steak ) is available everywhere.
State symbols
Arkansas, like most states, does not have an 'official' state food. It does, however, offer several edible
symbols include milk & pink tomato. The state cooking vessel is the
Dutch Oven.
About historic Arkansas foodways
"Most of the early pioneers who moved west bypassed what is now Arkansas and its
Ozark Mountains because of the rocky landscape and poor soil. In the late 1700s and
early 1800s, however, hard-working farmers from Kentucky, Illinois, and Tennessee,
who were used to farming under difficult conditions, settled in Arkansas. They brought
their recipes for curing hams, roasting pork ribs over open fires, and baking soda biscuits
and molasses cakes...Since Arkansas borders the South, the Southwest, and the Midwest,
it has a mixture of cuisines. Plantation cookery of the Mississippi Valley, the hill cooking
of the Ozarks, and the Mexican influcences of Texas and Oklahoma all combine to make
a unique style of food...There is a great emphasis of real "down-home" flavors. Fried pork
chops with a light-brown cream gravy to which bits of sausage have been added have
remained a favorite dish. Sausage is also used in poultry stuffings, along with cooked
rice. Arkansas-style chicken is prepared by first simmering the chicken pieces in a skillet
and then baking them in the oven with a Creole sauce. Each region of Arkansas has its
own unique food. In the southern bayou country, roast duck, candied yams, fried chicken,
fluffy biscuits and peach cobblers are often served. Around Texarkana, pinto beans and
barbecued beef of the Southwest are typical fare. Along the Mississippi River, catfish are
popular in stews and fried...In the hill coutnry of the Ozarks, dishes such as bacon with
cracklin's corn bread, baked beans, wilted lettuce with bacon and vinegar, bread and apple
jelly, and ginger bread for dessert are traditional everyday fare...Roasted raccoon, roasted
beaver-tail, and baked opossum are Arkansas soul food...Arkansans prefer hot bread with
their meals...They like steaming-hot corn breads, hot biscuits, or fresh-out-of-the-oven
rolls. Strawberry shortcake is a favorite dessert of Arkansans...The Arkansas version of
the shortcake usese a crisp, buttery biscuit, which is split in half, soaked in strawberry
juice, and then topped with a mound of whipped cream and fresh strawberries...Over the
past 50 years, Arkansas has become an important poulty-producing state, as well as a
major producer of fruits, vegetables, rice, and soybeans. In the 1840s Arkansas farmers
began experimenting with orchards. Their apples soon won first prizes...Peaches also
became an important Arkansas fruit crop."
---Tastes of the States: A Food History of America, Hilde Gabriel Lee [Howell
Press:Charlottesville VA] 1992 (p. 106-9)
"The folks in Arkansas have so many good things to eat, and such different foods at different seasons of th year and in different sections of the state, that I am sending you several different menus; a game dinner to be served to hunters, a plantation dinner, an early summer dinner and a duck dinner. You can take your choice or use all of them. Arkansas has fine fruits; strawberries, youngberries, Boysenberries, raspberries, grapes, peaches, figs and watermelons. The most common meats are poultry, kid, lamb, mutton and fresh pork. There is also an abundance of game and fish. The favorite breads are biscuit and variations of corn bread, from pan bread to corn dodgers. The Mexican influence has extended this far east and north. One finds tomatoes, onions, garlic and pepper, and hotter foods than further north. Also the Mexican chopped hot vegetable and all forms of field peas, such as Crowder peas, lady peas, Black-eyed peas, etc. There are many wild greens and fruits which are much used and relished by the people: Muscadine grapes, possum persimmon, wild plum, watercress, hickory nuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts, walnuts and chinquapins. The wild fruits are eaten fresh and also made into many delicious products for the winter..."
Plantation Dinner
Vegetable soup
Backbones
Lady Peas, Browned Potatoes, Collard greens
Slaw
Corn dodger
Fried peach pie
Coffee
June Dinner
Jellied tomato bouillon
Wafers, Celery, Olives
Broiled chicken
New Potatoes, New peas
Stuffed tomato salad
Boysenberries
Angel-food cake, Coffee...
Mary Rowden's Dinner
Stewed chicken
Fried ham, Creamed eggs
Green beans, Mashed potatoes
Candied sweets, Slaw
Watermelon pickle, Cucumber pickle
Raspberry jelly
Pie, Cake, Coffee."
Did you know there is a large Greek Community in Arkansas? Greek Festival recipes here.
Barbeque is also popular (no recipes here, though): 1 & 2 . Other Arkansas food-related fairs include watermelons, apples and peaches.
Historic recipes
[1906]
Rogers Cookbook (a church cookbook)
Need to make something for class?
The recipes below are offered in our books as examples of traditional Arkansas fare. If you have access to a Dutch Oven, you can
use that as your historic foodways example. Soups, stews, biscuits and cobbler/pot pies are easily rendered in this pot.
"Old-Fashioned Corn Bread
Over the years corn bread has had many variations. Butts of bacon, or crackling, corn kernels, chili peppers, cheese, or onions have all been added to corn bread batter at one time or another. This corn bread can be baked either in an iron skillet, similar to the Dutch ovens the early settlers used, or in a n 8-inch square baking pan. The sugar used in this recipe is traditional in southern corn bread.
Serves 6 to 8
1 1/2 cups cornmeal<
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
4 tablespoons melted butter, margarine or bacon drippings
Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. Stir in the buttermilk, eggs, and 3 tablespoons of the melted butter. Mix well. Brush a 10-inch iron skillet with the remaining tablespoon of melted butter. Pour the batter into the skillet and bake in a preheated 425 degree F. oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Serve warm."
---Taste of the States,(p. 107)"Little Fellows
Makes about 2 1/2 dozen
1/2 cup butter at room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 tablespoon flour
1/3 cup lemon juice
Finely grated rind of 1 lemon
30 unbaked tart shells (about 2 3/4 inches in diameter and 1 1/4 inches deep)
Cream the butter and sugar just enough to blend well--mixture chould not be fluffy or filling may bubble up and boil over in the oven. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in flour. Add the lemon juice and rind (the mixture will seem to curdle but don't be alarmed; it will smooth out in the baking). Spoon mixture into tart shells, filling each no more than 2/3 full. (Should you have any leftover filling, spoon into a custard cups, again filling no more thatn 2/3 fill, set in a small baking pan, and pour water into pan to a depth of 1 inch. These may be baked in the oven alongside the tarts and will be done in about the same amount of time.) Bake tarts in a moderate oven (350 degrees F.) 30 to 35 minutes until filling is puffy and golden and pastry lightly browned. Remove from oven, cool tarts in their pans to room temperature, then remove from pans and serve."
---"Arkansas Territorial Restoration [Little Rock Arkansas]," Recipes from America's Restored Villages, Jean Anderson [Doubleday:Garden City NY] 1975 (p. 234-5)
[NOTE: ""Little Fellows" are nothing more than small lemon "chess" tarts--vey lemony, very buttery, very seweet. Lemon "chess" resembles the English lemon "cheese," and some food believe that "chess" is a corruption of "cheese."..."Little Fellows" are often no bigger than a thimble, but a more practical size is the small individual tart. You can buy prepared tart shells, ready to fill and bake, in many supermarkets." (p. 234)]"Pecan Pies
The recipe used for pecan pies in the [University of Arkansas] Campus Cafeteria...is as follows:
1/2 cup sugar
3 whole eggs
1/2 cup crushed pecans
1 cup corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon butter
Pinch of salt
Bake in a raw flaky paste shell in a moderate oven for ten minutes at 400 degrees F>, then reduce heat to 350 degrees F. and continue baking until firm."
---New York World's Fair Cookbook, (p, 183)"Jelly Pie (Arkansas)
4 eggs
1/2 cup currant jelly
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Cream the butter and add the sugar and beat well. Add well-beaten yolks and jelly, and fold in the whites of eggs. Add lemon juice and bake without upper crust."
---The National Cookbook: A Kitchen Americana, Sheila Hibben [Harper & Brothers:New York] 1932 (p. 368)
Official state foods must be introduced by law and approved by the state legislature. California has many official symbols, only one of which you might want to eat (the golden trout). List of official California symbols here.
If you need to identify and/or cook a food representative of California you have dozens of wonderful choices. You can pick something:
1. That grows there (raisins, dates, oranges, grapes)
2. From history (17th century California mission foods, the Gold Rush era)
3. Representing foreign immigrants and settlers (Chinese, Italian, etc.)
4. Trendy (California cuisine)
5. From a famous restaurant (The Brown Derby, Trader Vics, Chez Panisse)
6. From a famous food company (Del Monte, Chicken-of-the-Sea)
You will find an excellent summary of the foods of California in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America/Andrew F. Smith, Volume 1 (p. 165-172). Your librarian can help you find a copy. Helen Brown's West Coast Cook Book (c. 1952) offers a delightful collection of California recipes, many with historic notes.
A few menu items to get you started
CALIFORNIA MISSION FOODWAYS
The California Mission Studies Association (s
dedicated to study and preservation of the history of Spanish missions.
Information on several Mission web sites confirms foods of these Missions
generally consisted of simple local fare, much of it grown on site.
"The neophytes were given morning and evening meals of atole and a mid day
meal of pozole. They were allowed to gather wild foods, as was their custom
before the Spanish came. On Sundays and special feast days everyone received
almost a half peck of wheat...Mission life was routine; order was brought out of a
wilderness. In general, seven hours of the day were allotted to labor, with two
hours of prayer daily and four or five on Sundays and on days of festivals. In the
morning their food consisted of atole or a gruel of barley, wheat, or corn. At noon,
they got pozole, which consisted of the same grains, only boiled. In the evening, it
was the same food as in the morning, but in addition, every few days cattle were
slaughtered to provide beef. "
---San Diego History, Richard Pourade
According to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, the Spanish introduced many foods to California via Mexico. These included: almonds,
apples, apricots, bananas, barley, beans, cherries, chickpeas, chilies, citrons, dates, figs, grapes, lemons, lentils, limes, maize, olives, nectarines, oranges, peaches,
pears, plums, pomegranates, quinces, tomateis, walnuts, wheat, chickens, cows, donkeys, goats, horses, sheep and domesticated turkey.
"The colonists supplemented their fare with most of the same types of game hunted by the Native Americans. The colonists made corn tortillas, as the wheat
varieties that they brought with them were not easily cultivated in California. When wheat became more abundant, it was used to make tortillas on special
occasions. The Spanish established the first flour mill in 1786. The role of the missions was to Christianize the California Indians. Many Indians did convert to
Christianity and relocated around the Spanish settlements, which resulted in a shift in their diet. They had been accustomed to eating vegetables, fish, and game, but
mission agricultures and husbandry brought them a monotonous diet of atole, a gruel made from ground, leached acorns or other nutlike seeds, and pinole, a flour
made by grinding seeds."
---Oxford Encylopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith [Oxford University Press:New York] Volume 1, 2004 (p. 166)
"Another Spanish holding, California, had no European inhabitants until 1769 when Franciscan priests established their first mission at San Diego. A first concern
of the missionaries was to obtain wine and wheat for holy communion and beeswax for altar candles. The bees they brought from Spain and, with the help of
their Indian converts, they planted vinyards and wheat fields. Citrus fruit trees were also brought from Spain, as were dates and figs. Two other foods that grew
well in these places were brought from Mexico: sweet potatoes and avocados...The Spanish colonists brought with them favorite foods--among them, saffron,
olive oil, and anise and combined these foods with foods of the local Indians and the Mexican Indians to make a New Mexican cuisine that still flourishes today."
---Heritage Cookbook, Better Homes and Gardens [Meredith Corporation:Des Moines IA] 1975 (p. 39)
[NOTE: Recipes included in this book are: Red Chili Sauce, Posole, Chili Meat Sauce, Stacked Enchiladas, Corn Tortillas, Spicy Hot Chocolate,
Chilies Rellenos, Early Spanish Rice, Spanish String Beans, Spanish Vegetables (corn, onion, zucchini, tomatoes). You librarian will be happy to help you obtain
a copy.]
NEED RECIPES?
ABOUT NEW CALIFORNIA CUISINE
The "New California Cuisine" movement began in the 1970s. Notes here:
"California Cuisine, characterized by light sauces, fresh, and often Mediterranean or
Mexican-style combinations and ingredients, beautiful presentation, and a breezy
informality, continued to fascinate [on the 1980s]. Alice Waters and Chez Panisse were
still setting trends in Northern California...while Jeremiah Tower had moved on to an
even trendier level with his San Francisco-area restaurants Balboa Cafe, Santa Fe Bar &
Grill and Stars. Like his earlier partner, Alice Waters, and unlike many who tried their
hand at the new cooking, Jeremiah Tower had strong, clear ideas of what he wanted food
to taste like. His cooking, cutting edge and trendy as it was, had a purity and simplicity
that indeed made it classic, although much of it was a little to "haute" for the home cook
to whip up after a day in the office."
---Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads, Sylvia Lovegren
[MacMillan:New York] 1995 (p. 358)
More
here.
About the creators: Jeremiah Tower & Alice Waters/Chez Panisse. Both Waters & Tower have authored several books. These provide valuble insight. Identify titles (author search) with the Library of Congress catalog. Your librarian can help you get the books.
Colorado does not have an "official" state food. The only state symbol you might consider eating is the trout. The primary commodities are beef and lamb. Which means? This state a challenging one for a food report, especially if you have to make something simple and easy for class.
About food in Colorado's pioneer-days
"Life in the early settlements of Colorado was rather primitive...Customers paid for their purchases in pinches of gold
dust...Potatoes cost $15 a bushel and oysters were $16 a gallon...Some prospectors soon discovered that a good crop of
grain and a few bushels of apples brought in more gold than agonizing hours of panning and digging. By the 1890s
Colorado farms produced more income than the mines. Sugar beets...became a particularly profitable crop. The sugar-beet
industry commenced in Colorado after a French-designed sugar-manufacturing plant, which was brought to America by the
Mormons, failed to work in Utah. The soil and climate of Colorado proved to be good for sugar beets, and the plant was
moved to Colorado..."Ranching began in Western Colorado in the 1870s and boomed in the 1880s...Beef is raised in many areas of the state...Colorado is famous
for its Mountain lamb and it is number one in the nation in lamb production
...In pioneer days "eating out" did not mean going to a restaurant. Rather, it meant that the women
prepared food to be carried outdoors and eaten on a table made from planks laid across two saw-horses..."Eating out"
kept the house cool. When women settlers arrived in Colorado, they could not figure out how to make a good cake. The
high altitude of the mountains prevented cakes from rising properly...high altitude baking was born...Many a Colorado
cowboy had his own special biscuit mix. before stargin out on the range, he would mix together flour, salt, and leavening
in a sack and tie the sack to his saddle. At mealtime he took some of the mixture, added water to achieve the right
consistency, and drop the biscuit dough into a skillet greased with lard or bacon drippings...In the 1890s Russians from the
Volga region came to Colorado to become sugar beet farmers. They brought with them recipes for their favorite foods, such as
sausages encased in rich dough; a sponge cake made with lemon; cucumber salad with sour cream; Piroshki, meat baked in small
turnovers or tarts; and Golbutzi, cabbage leaves stuffed with a mixture of meat, rice, and sour cream...Mexicans came later to
work on the railroads...adding their spicy dishes...Pollo con Mole...Tamale Pie...and Flan. It is said theat the Chinese
cooks working on the transcontinental railraod...invented the Denver sandwishch...It was simply Chinese Egg Fu Yung prepared
with green peppers, onions, and usually chopped ham. The cooked omelet was put between two pices of bread and eaten as a
sandwich."
---Taste of the States: A Food History of America, Hilde Gabriel Lee [Howell Press:Charlottesville VA] 1992 (p. 219-221)
Traditional Colorado foods?
This menu was constructed by Patsy Shole, Assistant Professor of Home Management at Colorado State College, Fort Collins:
A Menu of Typical Colorado Foods
Rocky Ford melon
Puree of mile-high peas
Choice of
Fort Collins roast leg of lamb with mint jelly
Fried mountain turkey with cranberry jelly
Colorado Rocky Mountain rainbow trout wtih hollandaise suce
San Luis Valley Burbank puff potatoes Larimer County buttered peas
Fresh savory mushrooms Heart of Colorado pascal celery
Pikes Peak hot rolls Sweet Colorado State College butter
North Park iceberg lettuce with roquefort cheese dressing
Loveland early Richmond chrry pie
Palisade peach ice cream
Coffee."
---New York World's Fair Cook Book: The American Kitchen, Crosby Gaige [Doubleday, Doran:New York] 1939 (p. 185)
The culinary history of Colorado is an eclectic mix of ethnic and cultural traditions. If you to include information about food in your state report, you can select foods from a variety of cultures/time periods. All you need to do is explain how the food/recipe fits into Colorado history. You can choose from:
The American sugar beet industry has ties to Denver. Charles Boettcher and John F. Campion left the faltering silver city of Leadville for Denver, where they founded the Great Western Sugar Company to grow sugar beets. Stearns-Roger, a major engineering firm, switched from building smelters to erecting sugar beet factories.
Top crops (make a food with one of these ingredients) According the US Dept. Of Agriculture, Colorado's largest crops (2002) are potatoes, followed by pinto beans and light red kidney beans.
Need to make something for class?
"Trappers Fruit
To make about 5 cups
3 cups (about 12 ounces) coarsley chopped dried apples
1 cup canned pureed pumpkin
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup roasted sunflower seeds
1/2 cup seedless raisins
1/4 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon salt
1 quart water
Combine the [ingredients] and water in a heavy 3 to 4 quart casserole and mix well. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce the heat to low, cover tightly and simmer for about 1 1/2 hours, or until the apples are tender. Check the pan occasionally and, if the fruit seems dry, add more water 1/4 cup at a time. Transfer the fruit to a bowl and cool to room temperature before serving. Trappers' fruit, so called because it was easy for Colorado fur trappers on the mid-19th Century to prepare, is served as an accompaniment to roasted and broiled meats."
---American Cooking: The Great West , Jonathan Norton Leonard [Time-Life Books:New York] 1971 (p. 84)"Muffin Cakes (Colorado)
yolks 8 eggs
2/3 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups flour (sifted twice)
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Beat the yolks until they are thick and lemon colored; add the sugar gradually, beating all the time. Add the butter, creamed until soft and fluffy, then add flour and vanilla, and last of all the baking-powder. Grease muffin-pans and dredge them with flour; then invert the pans and tap the bottoms lightly so that no loose flour remains. Put a very little of the batter in each muffin pan, as it rises considerably. Bake in fairly hot oven until brown. Serve the same day as baked. These cakes will fall a little when taken from the oven, which is as it should be."
---The National Cookbook: A Kitchen Americana, Sheila Hibben [Harper & Brothers:New York] 1932 (p. 392-3)
[NOTE: Ms. Hibben's book is well regarded by food historians as accurate. She does not, however, provide notes as to how the recipes she selects connect with the designated state. Baking powder was a favorite ingredient in 19th century Western states, when yeast was sometimes hard to come by.]"Ranch-style Pan Bread
Cast-iron frying pans were used on the frontier for making all manner of breads, including this one, a quick, easy baking powder bread with a light, cakey texture
Serves 9
2 cups siftged all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons vegetable shortening
1 1/4 cups milk
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
Combine the ingredients in a food processor, being careful not to overmix. The dough will be quite sticky. Bake in a greased 9-inch square iron skillet for 25 to 30 minutes, or until dark golden brown. Trust your eyes to tell you when this bread is done, not the clock. For a crustier bread, bake ranch style, spread thinly in a 9- by 12-inch greased iron skillet and baked until dark golden brown. NOTE: For more authentic, traditional flavor, use lard or bacon fat instead of vegetable shortening. Bake ranch style."
---The Fort Cookbook: New Foods of the Old West from the Famous Denver Restaurant, Samuel P. Arnold [Harper Collins:New York]1997 (p. 21)
[NOTE: This book contains dozens of traditional and locally inspired recipes. The author's notes help you understand the connection to Colorado. Your local public librarian will be happy to help you obtain a copy.]
Connecticut, like most states, does not have an official "state food" or recipe. These must
be voted on, and adopted by, the state legislature. Most of the foods traditionally enjoyed
by people in Connecticut are similar to those in the New England Region.
What did people eat in colonial/early America Connecticut?
Connecticut folks ate foods similar to those throughout New England. These colonies were greatly influenced by English cooking traditions.
"In the early 1630s both the English of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Dutch of New Amersterdam Colony eyed the wide,
fertile Connecticut Valley as a possibility for settlment, agriculture, and fur trading. In June 1633 the Hollanders built a fort
at what was to become Hartford. In the fall of 1634, JOhn Oldham and ten others left Watertown in the Massachusetts Colony
to establish a permanent settlement at Wethersfield, south of Hartford. Memebers of the John Oldham group became the first
Europeans to plant seeds in the soil of Connecticut. They sowed rye in a fallow Indian field. The next year several more
groups came from Massachusetts and brought cattle and hogs. The harsh winters, however, drove most of these early
settlers back to their Massachusetts homes. By the end of the 1630s, those who remained had created productive farms,
started the mercantile town of New Haven, and established an independent government. The early Dutch settlers in the
Hartford area did likewise. They planted apple orchards, appointed a committee to select superior calves for breeding
stock, and developed a dairy industry. By the 1640s the efforts of both the English and the Dutch settlers had made the
new territory of Connecticut virtually self-sufficient...As the population of Connecticut increased, so did the farming. The
variety of crops expanded to include many vegetables, as well as berries and fruit trees...the farmers..raised radishes,
lettuce, cucumbers, and melons...The early Connecticut farmers also dug underground pits where they stored cabbages,
squash, potatoes, and other root vegetables...Fishing has always been an important part of the Connecticut economy. Shad
fishing along the Connecticut River...has been a tradition since colonial times...When the English first settled in the
Connecticut River Valley, the numerous shad were despised as food. Eating shad meant that a person was almost destitute
or had exhausted his supply of salt pork."
---Taste of the States: A Food History of America, Hilde Gabriel Lee [Howell Publications:Charlottesville VA] 1992
(p. 12)
This passage describes a colonial wedding feast:
"A Three-day Wedding Feast
In Stonington, Connecticut, in 1726, Temperance Tealleys was wed to the Reverend William Worthington from Saybrook. Because of the large number of guests expected, a two-day celebration was planned. Elaborate advance preparations commenced for the feast. Chairs, tables, dishes, and utensils were borrowed from the neighbors. Folloing the marriage ceremony...tankards of spiced hard [alcoholic] cider were passed...The main course was family-style and consisted of fish or clam chowder, stewed oysters, roasted pig, venison, duck, potatoes, baked rye bread, Indian cornbread and probably pumpkin casserole. A dessert of Indian pudding studded with dried plums and served with a sauce made from West Indian molasses, butter, and vinegar followed. And they did have coffee. The tablecloths were removed and trays of nutmeats and broken blocks of candy made from maple sugar, butter, and hickory nuts...Outside the front door stood a gigantic punch bowl, hollowed out from a boulder, filled with hard cider combined with West Indian products such as sugar, lemons, and limes...After the dignitaries and most honored guests were served on the first day, and after the bride and groom left on horseback for Saybrook, there was a second day of feasting for the second-rated guests. The third day of feasting was a surprise, for some friendly Mohawks and Pequot Indians appeared...and more chowder and roast pig were served to them. (Information courtesy of the Stonington Historical Society.)"
---The Thirteen Colonies Cookbook, Mary Donovan [Praeger:New York] 1975 (p. 69)
Early Connecticut recipes
Amelia Simmon's
American Cookery (originally published in Hartford, 1796)is generally considered to be the first American
cookbook. Why? Because it contained recipes using "Indian" maize.
About the book & its author. Popular period foods
included pies, cakes, soups (chowder, especially), baked beans, roasted meats, breads, and pork (salt pork, bacon, ham).
Need to make something for class?
"Soft Molasses Cakes
2 1/2 cups sifted flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg
1/4 cup cold water
1 cup golden raisins
Sift together flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, and salt. Beat butter, sugar, molasses, and egg together until light and fluffy. Add the sifted ingredients alternately with cold water and beat until blended. Stir in the raisins. Drop by rounded tablespoonsful 3 inches apart onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes at 350 degress F. The size should be approximately 4 inches across."
---The Thirteen Colonies Cookbook, Mary Donovan, Amy Hatrak, Frances Mills and Elizabeth Shull [Montclair Historical Society:Montclair NJ] 1975 (p. 74)
[NOTE: This book contains several other recipes. If you want more choices ask your librarian to help you find a copy.]"Baked Cranberry Pudding
Mrs. John Merrill of Waterford writes, "This recipe was gvein to me by the Librarian at Connecticut College, Miss Hazel A. Johnson. I understand it was originally from a cookbook of old recipes prepared by a Congregational parish in Groton many years ago. It is a recipe my family enjoys and certainly has a New Engalnd flavor."
2 cups flour1 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3 tablespoons melted shortening
2/3 cup milk
1 egg
2 cups cranberries
Sift dry ingredients into bowl; add shortening, milk and egg. Beat for 2 minutes. Stir in cranberries. Bake in a buttered 9-inch square pan in a 350 degress F. oven for about 40 minutes. Serve with Hot Butter sauce (below. Makes 9 three-inch squares.Hot Butter Sauce
Melt butter or margarine in the top part of a double boiler; add sugar and liquid; mix well. Cook over hot water for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve hot over pudding."
---Mystic Seaport Cookbook, Lillian Langseth-Christensen [Funk & Wagnall's:New York] 1970 (p. 214)
Official state foods
Nutmeg: One of Connecticut's nicknames is is called "The Nutmeg State." Nutmegs are spices which are NOT indigenous to Connecticut. This makes for an interesting report. About nutmegs (the spice)
Eastern oyster: This official state symbol was selected because many people in the early days (Native Americans and European settlers) ate them regularly.
Did you know???!
Hamburgers (as we know them today): Some food historians claim
these were "invented" in a tiny restaurant called Louis Lunch in New Haven, CT. Notes
here (scroll
down about half way).
Each state sets a unique table based on history, people and geography. Some of these foods are legislated as official
state symbols.
"The foods of Delaware are primarily English with some German influences. The Germans who settled Pennsylvania
also settled in the northern part of Delaware and continued to prepare their traditional German dishes, which eventually
intermingled with those of Delaware. After the broiler [chicken] industry started, broiled chicken with sour-milk biscuits
became a favorite. Shrimp steamed over a pan of spiced vinegar and served with tartar sauce was a traditinal seafood
dish. Cooks prepared cauliflower with a custard sauce and creamed-corn pudding as accompaniments to meat dishes.
There was also a fish stew, called Muddle, which included fin and shellfish and was cooked in a Dutch oven. Lemon
butter and lemon jelly were used as sandwich fillings. Steamed crabs were cooked at beach picnics. Ham smoked to a
rich brown, almost the shade of mahogany, and aged at least a year has been a Delaware specialty. Delaware has
also contributed to the cooking and packaging of food. Cellophane was invented by the E.I. Du Pont de Nemours
Company of Wilmington."
---Taste of the States: A Food History of America, Hilde Gabriel Lee [Howell Press:Charlottesville VA] 1992 (p.
40)
Delaware cuisine in colonial/early America
The Thirteen Colonies Cookbook/Mary Donovan et al [Montclair Historical Society:Montclair NJ] 1975
offers food notes and modernized recipes from the Corbit-Sharp House in Odessa, Delaware. William and Mary
Corbit were Quakers who lived in Delaware during the late 1700s-early 1800s. According to this book, the family left a legacy of culinary
heritage. Recipes were economical
and uncomplicated.
"The Corbit family manuscript cookbook contains over fifty prized family receipts (recipes) passed down for
several generations after Mary and William Corbit lived in the big house in Cantwell's Bridge. May have been
adapted and appear in this chapter. All the receipts are for typical Delaware foods, carefully recorded by the
Corbits and by Delaware women in other early cookbooks and preserved for generations of Americans to
prepare and savor."
---(p. 140)
Recipes included in the Corbit/Delaware part of the book are: Mary Corbit's Very Special Clam Soup, Alcy's Carrot Soup, Cream Cheese, Scalloped Clams, Stuffed Rockfish, Baked Boneless Shad with Roe Sauce, Ragoo of Lamb-A Made Dish, Delaware Chicken Salad, Chicken and Oyster Pie, To Dress Cauliflower, Garden Peas and Lettuce, Fried Tomatoes, Unrivaled Ripe Tomato Catsup, To Pickle a Ham, Peach Preserves, Grandmother's Potato Rolls, Coconut Jumbles with a Honey Glaze, Lady Cake with Chocolate Dressing, Molly Corbit's Peach Tart, Shrewsbury Cakes-An English Legacy, Date Pudding, Minced pies and Court Dessert. NOTE: All of the recipes listed above are modernized for contemporary kitchens. Sheila Hibben's National Cookbook adds: Baked apple dumplings, Marble cake, Mistard sauce, Onions and mushrooms with rice, Peach blancmange, Prince Albert pudding, Raw carrot salad, Roast veal with vegetables and Trifle.
Sample recipes you can make for class:
"Delaware Chicken Salad
A well-made chicken salad is as elegant a dish as can be made. Ladies from Delaware vies for the best receipt and then often kept it a guarded secret.Take a boiled chicken; skin, bone, and cut it up in pieces (not too small). Cut up celery, about half the amount of chiken. Mix the chicken and celery together and put the dressing on it just before serving. "This dressing is enough for several hens."
Dressing
Beat all of the following ingredients together until smooth. (Today this can be done in a blender.) "If the seasoning does nto seem sifficient add mroe, as it requires to be seasoned very high."
4 hard-boiled eggs
3 gills rich cream (1 gill equals 1/2 cup)
1 1/2 gills salad oil, or oil from the chicken
1 gill good cider vinegar
2 teaspoons mustard
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
2 teaspoons sugar
4 egg yolks, well beaten
Salt and pepper to taste.
(Adapted from the ledger of Corbit receipts and the Cowgill Cookbook)
---The Thirteen Colonies Cookbook, Mary Donovan et al [Montclair Historical Society:Montclair NJ] 1975 (p. 146)
[OUR NOTE: If you don't have time to cook a whole chicken, canned chicken (like tuna) or pacakged (unflavored) cooked chicken will do. Serve with soda crackers, potato rolls, or french bread.]"Molly Corbit's Peach Tart
1/2 cup butter or margarine
2 cups stale cake crumbs, or macaroon crumbs, or graham cracker crumbs
Light brown sugar (about 1 cup)
Cinnamon
12 peach halves, fresh or canned 2 egg yolks
1 cup heavy cream, or sour cream
Melt butter on the bottom of a large pie plate. Pat on crumbs. Sprinkle liberally with cinnamon and about 1/2 cup sugar. Place peaches on top and sprinkle with more sugar and cinnamon. Whip egg yolks and cream together and spread on top. Bake in a hot oven (400 degress F.) for 30 minutes. Remove. Sprinkle light brown sugar on top and run under the broiler to glaze. Serves 8-10."
---ibid (p. 152)
Newcastle, DE
The city of New Castle, Delaware was originally settled by the Dutch,
meaning much of its early foodways would have been influenced by the
cuisine of the Netherlands. Later settlers included the Swedish and the
British. About Dutch foodways in America: The Sensible Cook: Dutch
Foodways in the Old and New World, Translated and Edited by Peter G.
Rose. Additional sources of information: New Castle Historical
Society and the Historical
Society of Delaware.
Need to make something for class?
Chicken (blue hen) or crab are the traditional meats of choice. If you prefer
dessert? Something with peaches (the official state fruit) is perfect. "Peaches,
a new fruit for the Swedes and Finns [living in Colonial-era Delaware], were
grown in orchards, along with cherries and wild plums..."---Taste of the States: A
Food History of America, Hilde Gabriel Lee [Howell Press:Charlottesville VA] 1992 (p. 38). Additional
information:
Sweet History: Delaware's Peach Producing Past & Can It! Canning
in Delaware. Recipes here!.
Every state's food is a reflection of its history, geography and people. Florida has many delicious foods from which to choose!
About Florida's culinary heritage
"Spaniards were the first [European] people to discover the riches of Florida. Ponce de Loen,
Hernando de Soto, and Panfilo de Narvaez explored the Florida peninsula during the first half of
the 1500s. They brought seeds for oranges, lemons, and other tropical fruits but were too busy
searching for gold to care for them. Consequently, the trees grew wild...The first large group of
permanent settlers in Florida were not English or American, but Minorcans, Greeks, and Italians.
They were recruited in 1764 by an Englishman to immigrate to Florida to grow indigo...For a while
the colonists grew indigo but turned to fishing when they found that the sea was laden with shrimp
and fish similar to those of their homeland. They also discovered that lemons, eggplant, and
olives--all staples of their native diets--grew well on the land...Although the Spanish first settled
Florida, their culinary influence was minimal. The Spanish conquistadors, however, did bring
some Caribbean fruits and vegetables to Florida. They also introduced black beans. A typical dish
of the Spanish settlers at St. Augustine was Garbanzo Soup, which was prepared with dried chick
peas and other vegetables. The soup also contained chorizo, a Spanish sausage, plus a pinch of
saffron for color and flavor. The first permanent culinary influence in Florida came from the
American settlers who established citrus farms in the late 1760s. They brought with them a fairly
developed Southern cuisine, which was enhanced in Florida by salads and substantial quantities
of citrus...Recently, Spanish food heritage has been reinvigorated in Florida by the influx of Cuban
immigrants."
---Taste of the States: A Food History of America, Hilde Gabriel Lee [Howell
Press:Charlottesville VA] 1992 (P. 110-111)
[NOTE: This book contains much more information than can be paraphrased here. If you need
more details ask your librarian to help you find a copy]
What to bring for class?
If you want to cook, Key Lime Pie is perfect. It's pretty easy and definately Florida. Serve with
glass of orange juice. If not? Fresh fruit is a healthier choice and easily transported. Oranges, grapefruits, papayas,
guavas, persimmons, lemons, limes, bananas and plantains are all good.
If you are studying a particular place/period (St. Augustine/16th century (Spanish cuisine)? Tarpon Springs/19th century (Greek cuisine)? Miami 1980s? Let us know. Happy to help you find the information you need to complete your report!
Georgia offers many excellent foods for your state report.
About historic Georgia foodways.
"Food historians allege that the first pork dinner eaten in America was probably consumed in 1540 in what is now Georgia. That year de Soto herded pigs
from the Everglades to the Ozarks on his exploration of the southern interior. The pigs provided food for the half-starved, foot-sore conquistadors
when they could no longer get food from the Indians. The de Soto expedition left behind the nucleus of herds of hogs and cattle when it returned to
Spain...In the years between the first settlement of Georgia and the American Revolution, various ethnic settlers contributed their native cuisine
to the colony. Many French Hugenots arrived directly from France or via South Carolina and found the city of Savannah to their liking. To this day
foods served in Savannah have a distinctly French style. German immigrants settled further up the Savannah River. The cookery of this region
included sauerkraut, Pepper Pot Soup, and other German dishes...Southern cuisine, which had beeen developing for almost a hundred years when Georgia
was settled, dominated Georgia cooking during the early years of settlement. Georgia squirrel Stew...is closely related to Brunswick Stew popular in other
parts of the South..."Plain but plentiful" food typified the cuisine of the early Georgian homes...Some of the staple foods of Georgia included rice
grown in the coastal marshes and hot breads or biscuits spread thick with homemade preserves. Chicken and ham were the main meat dishes...Georgia
housewives prided themselves on their light-textured pound cakes, which used a pound each of butter, sugar, and eggs...
W.E. Woodward, a historian of the early 1800s, described a dinner in Augusta. The meal consisted of "turtle soup followed by
brook trout fried in butter, then baked sweet potatoes and roast ham, wild turkey stuffed with walnuts and cornmeal,
accompanied by dishes of rice, asparagus, and green beans, with a cooling orange sherbet to give the guests a breather before
they tackled the cold venison, stewed corn and cheese, and the dessert of corn fritters with syrup and sweet potato pie. Madeira
wine, beer, and milk were the beverages. Oyster suppers, popular at the plantations around Savannah, were often held outdoors
by the light of the moon...Hoppin' John (black-eyed peas with rice) and green salad completed the informal feast. Other
Savannah dishes included crab souffles seasoned with nutmeg and sherry, chicken pies with hard cooked eggs and tiny
mushrooms, cream corn puddings, and fried Georgia peach pies...The food served on the small family farms of the Piedmont area
differed from that of the coastal lowlands. Corn bread was served at almost every meal, while rice was seldom seen. Dairy
products from the family cow--butter, cheese, milk, and cream--were prevalent in the cooking. Just as in the lowlands, ham and
chicken were the main meats, but venison and small game were also common, especially in the local version of Brunswick Stew...
"
---Taste of the States: A Food History of America, Hilde Gabriel Lee [Howell Books:Charlottesville VA] 1992 (p. 115)
About Georgia peaches
Peaches were introduced to the New World by the Spanish when they established a settlement at St. Augustine, Florida, in
1565. Eventually peach orchards spread northward to Georgia, where the warm climate was favorable for peach cultivation. The peach
industry began to flourish in Georgia in the mid-1800s and was further expanded with the advent of refrigerated railroad cars...
The Elberta peach...was developed in Georgia...The story of the famous Elberta peach began at the Rumph plantation near
Marshallsville, Georgia in 1857. A gentleman living in Delaware sent an assortment of peach-tree puddings to his friend
Samuel Rumph. The trees flourished and in a few years produced fruit...An accidental cross-pollination fostered by wind and bees
took place. When the first trees bore fruit in 1870, they produced great golden peaches--a species new to the fruit world.
Samuel named the peach Elberta for his wife. He was one of the first fruit growers to package fruit attractively and to ship it
by sea in refrigerated containers to the Northeast. By 1889 there were 3,000 acres of peach orchards in Georgia. Today, almost every
Georgia cook has his or her own version of peach pie.
---ibid (p. 117-8)
Need to make something (easy, portable) for class?
Peach recipes
Dessert choices
Historic, traditional& popular recipes
we own these books & are happy to send you selected recipes...let us know what type of food you want to make!
Hawaii offers perhaps the most unique blend of culinary history and flavors of all the 50 states. Geography, people, history and evolving local tastes combine to create a cuisine that merits detailed study. Luaus are Hawaiian feasts.
"The food of Hawaii is a diverse blend of all the island and mainland cuisines, especially
those of Polynesia, Japan, China, and Korea, wed to Portuguese and American tastes.
Hawaii was settled by Polynesians who themselves derived form the Indomalayan region.
Except for the bat...which was inedible, Hawaii had no indigenous animals, and all
present animals on the islands were at one time or another brought to Hawaii. These
included the dog... which was bred for food, the pig...domesticated fowl...and other
animals. Fish, which is a mainstay of the Hawaiian diet, was plentiful in the island
waters, and every species was eaten, for no poisonous fish existed in the region."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 152)
"Hawaii's food today is a confusing mixture, a palimpsest of the foods of a dozen different ethnic groups. But one can make sense of it by taking note of two salient facts: fist, that before the arrival of the first humas, probably around the 3rd century AD, Hawaii, one of the most isolated sets of islands in the world, contained essentially nothing edible on land. Very few species had managed to cross those staggering distances; those that did had speciated to provide a fine natural laboratory for evolutionary biologists. But apar from a few birds and a few ferns, there was nothing to eat; most important, there were no edible carbohydrates. Second, since the arrival of the first humans, Hawaii has been the terminal point of three diasporas: the great marine diaspora of the Pacific Islanders; the great voyages of discovery of the Europeans and the Americans; and the end of the road for Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, and lately, SE Asians. From these diverse influences, a creole food is now being created, known in the islands as Local Food.
"When the Hawaiians arrived in the islands, they brought with them some 27 or so edible plants, as well as pigs, dogs...The most important plants were taro and sweet potato. The terrain and climate in Hawaii proved particularly suitable for growing wetland taro...Also important were breadfruit, various yams, sugar cane, and coconut...The staple of the diet was poi. This was usually made with taro, but sweet potato or other starches were used when necessary...The major protein was fish. Both pigs and dogs were eaten but they were largely reserved for the nobility...For the bulk of the population protein was provided by wild fish and shellfish from the streams, the reef, and the ocean. The fish was eaten both raw...and cooked...
" In 1778, Captain James Cook sighted the Hawaiian Islands. Within a matter of years they had become a part of world trade...From the start, new animals and plants were introduced; cows, horses, and goats, and a bewildering variety of plants...Hawaiian food and haole food (the latter being the food of the white incomers) continued side by side with occasional input from the Chinese who also ended up on the islands...On ceremonial occasions, there would be luaus at which largely Hawaaian foods was served: poi, of course, and dried fish and shrimp, luau pig baked in the imu, seaweed, and taro leaves, and a dessert made of coconut milk thickened with Polynesian arrowroot...
" The food landscape of Hawaii began changing dramatically once the sugar plantations began to flourish following the signing of the Reciprocity Treaty with the United States in 1876...In order, substantial number of Chinese, Japanese, Okinawans, Koreans, Puerto Ricans, Portuguese from the Atlantic Islands, and Filipinos arrived in the islands between the 1880s and the 1930s...Each of these groups demanded their own food on the plantations and the plantation stores went quite some way to accomodate them...
" Beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, certain forces began to produce a creole food, Local
Food...One was the arrival of home economists at the university...Trained largely at the Columbia
Teachers College in New York, these women recorded the diet of the Japanese, established the
food values of Hawaiian foods and a range of tropical fruits, trained large numbers of home
economics teachers and school cafeteria managers. Surprisingly sympathetic to different ethnic
foods on the islands, they urged brown rice...milk...and ensured that the food in the public school
system was an all-American diet of hamburger, meat loaf, Salisbury steak, and mashed potatoes.
This exposure to American food was reinforced for the many who joined up following the bombing
of Pearl Harbor in the second World War...Now, at least in public, most of the population of
Hawaii eats Local Food much of the time...The centerpiece of Local Food is the Plate Lunch
available from lunch wagons and from numerous small restaurants...It consists of 'two
scoop'...sticky rice...a large portion of meat, usually cooked in Asian style, a portion of macaroni
salad or potato salads, and perhaps a lettuce leaf of dab of kimch'i on the side."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p.
373-4)
"Food of Hawaii can be separated into two categories; Hawaiian food, the food of the native
islanders, and local food, the eclectic blend of the cuisines of later settlers. Before explorers,
missionaries, and immigrants arrived, Hawaiian food consisted of fresh ingredients that were
prepared raw or cooked simply, using broiling, boiling, and roasting techniques. Protein sources
included poultry, pig, and dog. Fish and other seafood, such as turtles, sea urchins, limpets, and
shellfish, were also consumed but in modest quantities."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith [Oxford University
Press:New York] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 591)
[NOTE: This book contains far more information than can be paraphrased here. Ask your librarian
to help you find a copy.]
"Much earlier, the Japanese had had a tremendous effect on the food in the Hawaiian Islands, but
it did not take Hawaii's statehood to make mainland American practitioners of island cookery.
Bananas and pineapples had become important in the kitchens of New England women whose
seafaring men had brought the tropical fruits back from various ports of call...The fiftieth state
acquired a cuisine as international as any of its sisters. Hawaii was characteristically Polynesian
until the nineteethnc entury, and its diet of fish and fruit remained unmodified until the coming of th
missionaries and clipper ships from New England. Dried meat and salted fish had fed American
sailors, and these foods became a part of Hawaiian tradition--as pipikuala, the jerked beef that is
broiled in tiny pieces and served with a sweet-sour cause, and as lomi lomi, thin fillets of salted
salmon that some New Yorkers have described as better in its indigenous way than lox (smoked
salmon) form their own favorite delicatessens. Mixed with chopped onions and tomatoes, lomi
lomi is habitually served as a salad. Salmon, to the early Hawaiians, was common enough to be
known as "the pig in the sea." Other fish were used after the coming of the missionaries to
produce such things as fish chowder in basic Yankee fashion, and Scots who come to the islands
as technicians and platnation overseers added their native scones and shortbreads to the daily
fare of thousands of Hawaiians who generations before had adopted the Portuguese wheat bread
of the first European immigrants. Cornmeal and red bean soup, also brought by the Portuguese,
have been accepted as Hawaiian by islanders of all ethnic roots, and rather than submitting to a
single style, island cooks have incorporated many European dishes, along with those from
Chinese, Japanese, and Korean sources, developing a culinary tradition that may be among the
most festive if the world. The traditional Hawaiian feast called the luau is the ultimate of
American picnics, cookouts, and barbecues, and it has added much to the variety of
outdoor feasting on the American mainland, especially in California."
---American Food: The Gastronomic Story, Evan Jones, 2nd edition [Vintage
Books:New York] 1981] (p. 167-8)
Recommended reading (your librarian will be happy to help you find these books!)
About luaus
"Because they figure so predominantly in Pacific life, feasts have received a great deal of
ethnographic attention. They were often dictated by politcal motives and defined by
structured social relationships and religious considerations. They were also important
mechanism for exchange and have considerable economic significance. Feasts,
surrounded with rules and rituals, usually involved large numbers of individuals and a
great amount and variety of food. In some societies, all food was prepared and eaten at
one location where the feast took place; in others, cooked or uncooked food was given to
guests for later consumption...In Melansesia, feast preprations might have inlcuded the
slaughter of hundreds of pigs."
"Luau. Hawaiian-style feast, usually held in the outdoors, often at the beach...and
featuring pig cooked in an imu. The word, which in Hawaiian means "young taro tops,"
may also refer to the edible taro leaf or a dish made from taro leaves."
"Ancient Hawaiian feasts and celebrations were mainly religious in nature. A feast
followed sacred cemeromies such as the birth of a child, marriage, or death. When a piece
of work was completed, such as the building of a canoe or a new home, a feast followed.
The feast was to thank the god (akua) or gruardian spririt ( aumakua) that helped make
the work a success. Aumakua were present for anything a person did. They were honored
at any feast with food placed on an altar. Hawaiians believed that the aumakua ate the
food and enjoyed the feast. Today in Hawai'i, not only Hawaiians, but many other ethnic
groups have a lu'au, or feast, to celebrate occasions such as marriage, birthdays,
graduation, or the completion of a new home."
"Hawaiians are farmers and fishermen by tradition. Fish and seafood provide protein,
while poi from the taro or kalo plant, grown in flooded fields, provides starch. Early
inhabitants of the islands often ate meals that combined such delights as taro, sweet
potatoes, fish, pig, bananas, and greens from the taro top. Food was either salted, dried,
boiled, or cooked in an underground oven, or imu. Even then, the imu was reserved for
special occasions, for great effort goes into preparing these underground ovens. First, a
large pit is dug in the earlth and filled with wood. Next, specially selected porous rocks
are heaped on the wood and the fire is lit. When these rocks turn white-hot, a pig is
placed on the hot rocks,--its cavity filled with several more hot rocks and its outside
wrapped in a basket of ti and banana leaves. The pit is then covered with dirt and left to
cook for yours. When the pit is opened, the pig meat literally falls off the bones. Today,
imu cooking is reserved for marriage feasts, first-year birthdays, graduations, and
anniversary celebrations...When it comes to food, perhaps most visitors to Hawaii think
of the luau, a celebratory feast whose origins blend native and foreign cultures, including
that of early traders, missionaries from New England, and the islands' many imigrants. A
typical luau inclues a kalua pig, poi, lomi salmon, chicken, long rice, phihi (raw limpet),
raw fish, haupia (coconut pudding dessert), and a salad made of potatoes and macaroni.
Sometimes the pig is replaced by lualua, a bundle of salted pork or beef wrapped in taro
leaves and steamed in a package of ti leaves.""
"Take a birthday party with all its little goodies, add an elaborate wedding feast with
singing and dancing, throw in a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with the trimmings, then
top it off with an old-fashioned country supper; serve them all at the same time and in the
same gaily decorated room and you've got something like an authentic Hawaiian luau.
Actually, there's nothing that really compares to a genuine Hawaiian luau. At best, we can
only imitate it. For, of all the festive events that Hawaiians are famous for, nothing is
more symbolic to their culture and character than the traditional luau. Love, marriage,
family, friendship, religions and prosperity are all celebrated in a joyous ritual that goes
back to the very origins of tribal structure. The ancient Hawaiian word for this glorious
event was Ahaaina, or "gathering of friends to partake foood". As time passed, the
commonly used word luau, meaning "leaf of the taro" (the taro plant was and still is an
important food source) became the accepted name for this happy occasion...Though the
luau is essentially a happy event, it is also richly endowed with ancient tabus and
religious ritual. It is these sacred laws and tribal customs that dictate not only the type of
food that can be eaten but also how and when it can be eaten. But the prevailing mood
and atmosphere is always one of relaxed contentment and contagious convivality. A
"must" for any traditional luau is the decoratively displayed roast suckling pig...assorted
fruits, fishes, fowl, vegetables and sweets are featured too."
""Even in Hawaii it is not always possible to cook a pig." Such was the laconic remark in
Trader Vic's Pacific Island Cookbook, one of the books that introduced Hawaiian food to
the rest of the world after World War II. Too true. If visitors have heard of anything about
Hawaii they have heard about luaus: those feasts of tender roast pig pulled from a pit dug
in the ground accompanied by purple poi and coconut pudding. Busses take hundreds out
to beaches to drink watery rum punch and watch the hip-twirling Tahitian hula. But in
truth, cooking a pig in the traditional earth oven (the imu) is quite impossible for most
people in Hawaii. Luaus still go on, planned well in advance and involving huge amounts
of preparation. Buying a whole pig (assuming you guy it and don't raise and slaughter it
yourself), keeping it refrigerated, finding a place to dig an imu, preparing lauluas, and
collectin the varieties of raw seafood if a formidable task...Many Hawaii residents...settle
for alternatives: a church luau--Kawaiahao Church has a particularly popular one--or
catered baby luau..."
"Hawaiian Luau. Symbol of island hospitality is the luau, the celebration feast of the
Polynesians, given in honor of birthdays, weddings, holidays, visiting dignitaries and
Alpha Week. Tradition demanded the star of this feast be the Kalua pig, baked
underground in the imu, along with fish wrapped in ti leaves, yams, breadfruit, banans
and laulaus. In bygone days, the preparation took days and everyone helped. Some dug
the underground oven. Others gathered wood to heat the special stones for the oven. Fish
were caught; shellfish, fruit and flowers were gathered. Ti leaves were cut in abundance
for use in cooking and for the native tablecloth. Woven mats were spread on the ground
and the ti leaves so arranged that guests might sit on the mats on either side. Down the
center of the ti leaves were piled fruits and flowers. Shells and bowls were filled with
such goodies as poi, ohihis, roasted kului nuts and red salt. While the feast was cooked
underground, there was singing, chants and ceremonial hulas, along with a bit of
imbibing. When the pit was dug open, the steaming food was taken from the imu, the
meat was cut up in chunks and rushed, in large wooden bowls, to the waiting guests.
Everyone ate with his fingers form banana leaves and drank from coconut cups.
Originally, the partaking of fermented libations was confined to the priests and chiefs, as
part of their rituals, a custom which appears to have prevailed in all early civilizations. In
later years a fermented sweet potato juice was used during festival times by the common
folk. Apparently there was no particular ceremony connected with its use, but the early
Hawaiians reserved it for special occasions...Today's luau has undergone certain
refinements. The ingredients may be the same but the process has changed a bit. On
Oahu, the island where Honolulu is situated, the underground imu is used mostly by
hotels or restaurants which make a specialty of the old-time presentation for the benefit of
tourists...While ti leaves still serve as the luau table covering, the feast is more apt to be
served on tables than on the ground...Sometimes even knives and forks are provided. At
each place is set a small dish or shell of Hawaiian (red) salt, a small container of red
peppers, green onions and limed fish. No luau is ever complete without Lomi Salmon and
Poi, both served in bowls, and the island dessert, haupia, made from coconuts and
cornstarch. Of later years coconut layer cake has been added to typical luau menus."
More about Luaus.
Want to re-create a luau at your school? We recommend: Entertaining Hawaiian
Style: The How To Book of Hawaiian Luaus, Patricia L. Fry [Island Heritage
Publishing:Waipahu], 3rd edition 2003.
Idaho potatoes are world famous!
"The Potato became the state vegetable by the 2002 Legislature. The soil, water, clean air
and climate in Idaho contribute to those consistently high-quality potatoes that have made
Idaho famous for so many years. Idaho's rich volcanic soil is ideally suited for potatoes.
Warm, sunny days, cool nights and water from melting snow in nearby mountains make
the perfect combination for growing the world's best potatoes."
Idaho State Web
"The first potato grower in Idaho was Henry Harmon Spalding, a Presbyterian
missionary, who planted potatoes in 1836 to teach the Nex Perce Indians how to provide
food for themselves other than by hunting. Homesteaders grew potatoes to sell to the
miners who came throughout the state. The Mormons, however, were the first to grow
potatoes commercially. By the time Idaho was admitted to the Union in 1890, its potatoes
were famous for their superior quality. Luther Burbank...developed the Russet Burbank
potato that is today called the Idaho Potato. In 1872 he perfected a long white potato with
a rough russet skin. Adapted to the Northwest, the Russet Burbank has made Idaho the
leading potato producer in the nation."
About Idaho potatoes: (history & recipes): 1, 2 & 3 (with clip art)
Idaho's state fruit
is the huckleberry:
"Several huckleberry species are native to Idaho, all belonging to genus Vaccinium section Myrtillus. The
most common and popular is the black or thin-leaved huckleberry (Vaccinium membranaceum). Plants
grow slowly, taking up to 15 years to reach full maturity. Black huckleberries produce single plump, dark
purple berries in the axils of leaves on new shoots. They depend on an insulating cover of snow for survival
during winter and have not been successfully grown commercially. Black huckleberries grow at elevations
between 2,000 and 11,000 feet with many productive colonies between 4,000 and 6,000 feet. Black
huckleberries usually grow from 1 to 6 feet tall and produce berries up to 1/2 inch in diameter.
Huckleberries are a favorite food of bears."
About Idaho's culinary heritage:
"Fur trapping and trading with the Indians provided the first source of wealth in Idaho in
the early part of the 1800s. By the 1840s...settlers began to arrive to farm the land. Gold
was discovered in 1860, and with the opening of the transcontinental railroad, the
population of Idaho increased rapidly as mining became the quickest way to get rich.
Along with the miners came Chinese immigrants, who took up the claims of Caucasian
miners after they had moved on to more productive claims...As mining declined for the
hardworking Chinese, they moved into trades and vegetable farming. Idahoans began to
rely on their local Chinese vegetable farmer to deliver fresh vegetables door-to-door. The
Chinese raised vegetables on terraced mountain terrain, becuase the land was
cheaper...Some of the first European settlers in Idaho were Finns, Welsh, and Basques,
who came to work in the mines and to raise sheep.. The Finns brought with them a love
for Lobinmuhennos, a salmon chowder, and the Welsh brought Bara Brith, a raisin and
currant bread. The Basque preferred lamb stew and split pea soup. Chorizo, a spicy
sausage, attributed by some to Basque origin, is still being produced in Idaho. In the early
days Basque sheepherders made a sourdough bread on which they slashed the sign of a
cross before baking. This act reflected their devout religious feelings. The first piece of
the baked bread was always given to their sheepdog. The primary food of the early
settlers was bread and beans...Most small settlements had a mom-and-pop general store in
which the smell of kerosene and coffee permeated the air...Northern Idaho is mostly dry
farmed, and wheat, dry peas, and lentils are the predominant crops...Barley and hops for
making beer are grown in northern Idaho...Herbs and spices, broccoli, and small amount
of asparagus constitute the remainder of the crops in Idaho...Treasure Valley in Canyon
County is knowns for its mint and spearmint cultivation...in Idaho's Magic Valley more
trout is raised per square mile than anywhere else in the world...Many homegrown apples
are combined with ham in a casserole. The apples are also used to make jelly, which is
mixed with mayonnaise for a salad dressing. Prunes, another home-grown orchard
product, are often used for prune butter, prune-whip pies, and spicy prune
puddings...Huckleberry pie is an Idaho specialty."
Recommended reading: Bacon, Beans and Galantines: Food and Foodways
on the Western Mining Frontier/Joseph R. Conlin
Each state's cuisine is a unique reflection of its land, people and history. Native
Americans (indigenous foods& cooking methods), European settlers (foreign foods &
recipes) and the Industrial Revolution (meat packing, food manufacturing & railroads) all played
important roles in shaping the foods of Illinois.
Early Illinois food contributions
"The recorded history of Illinois began in 1673, when Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet first explored the region. Althoug
some of the early Indian tribes inhabiting Illinois were planters, raising corn, pumpkins, and beans, it was the pioneers of
the late 1700s and early 1800s who first began to cultivate food crops. Soybeans, corn, and hogs formed the cornerstones
of Illinois agriculture...In the early 1800s two Illinois men, John Deere and Cyrus McCormick, helped revolutionize the
agriculture of...the nation. John Deere perfected the steel plow, and Cyrus McCormick developed the grain reaper. At the
same time Chicago started evolving as a major agricutlrual and industrial city. One of the unique herbs raised in Illinois
is horseradish. It is grown in an area known as the "American Bottoms,"...German immigrants who settled in the area
began growing horseradish in the late 1800s and passed their labor-intensive growing methods down through generations...In
the last third of the nineteenth century, Chicago became the meat capital of America. The first great fortune in meat was
made as a result of the Civil War...Although Armour made his money in pork, it was beef that made Chicago the great meat
center of America...Beef fought a running battle with pork for top spot on the dinner menu until well into the twentieth
century...The Chicago stockyards originated before the railroads came to Chicago as a stopping off point for cattle being
driven from Texas and the Midwest to slaughter in the East. Steers, which had eaten only grass on the long drives, were
fattened on grain in pens for several weeks and then sent off again on cattle drives to the East. The first rail shipment
of cattle from the Chicago stockyards to eastern makets occured in 1854. By the time of the Civil War, the majority of
cattle were being slaughtered in Chicago...Following the Civil War the refrigerated rail car was developed. It meant that
cuts of meat could be sent directly from the Chicago slaughterhouses to retail butcher shops in the East...Illinois packers
were leaders in introducing modern technology in meat processing and perservation..."
Official state foods
A survey of selected Illinois foods
[Prehistory]
19th century-early 20th century
[1893] Chicago's World's Fair
Luau-type feasts are known in many cultures and cuisines. In spirit, they are not so very
different from New England clambakes, upstate New York pit dinners, Texas chili
cookoffs, Iowa covered-dish suppers, Arkansas barbeques, and NASCAR tailgate parties.
Food historians tell us large community food gatherings originated as religious
celebrations. Menus and dishes varied according to culture and cuisine. Though time,
these feasts evolved. Today's community food events serve as a contemporary reminder
of historic proportion.
---The Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Conee
Ornelas [Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2000, Volume Two (p. 1359)
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 190)
---Ethnic Foods of Hawai'i, Ann Kondon Corum, revised edition [Bess
Press:Honolulu] 2000 (p. 14-15)
---"Hawaii," Linda Paik Moriarty, Smithsonian Folklife Cookbook, Katherine S.
Kirlin and Thomas S. Kirlin [Smithsonian Institution Press:Washington DC] 1992 (p. 262)
---Hawaiian Cookbook, Roana and Gene Schindler [Dover Publications:New
York] 1970 (p. 240-141)
[NOTE: This book contains several luau recipes and menus.]
---The Food of Paradise: Exploring Hawaii's Culinary Heritage, Rachel Laudan
[Univeristy of Hawaii Press:Honolulu] 1996 (p. 238)
---Trader Vic's Pacific Island Cookbook [Doubleday & Company:Garden City
NY] 1968 (p. 20-3)
[NOTE: "Trader Vic" is often credited for popularizing Hawaiian/Polynesian food in the
United States after World War II. Many American cookbooks of the 1950s-1970s contain
"Hawaiian" recipes; some offer adapted Luau party menus.]
Idaho
---Taste of the States: A Food History of America, Hilde Gabriel Lee [Howell Press:Charlottesville VA] 1992 (p. 223)
---Taste of the States, Hilde Gabriel Lee [Howell Press:Charlottesville VA] 1992 (p. 222-5)
[NOTE: This book contains recipes for Country Potatoes (p. 224) and Lentils with Red
Pepper Sauce (p. 225).]
Illinois
---Taste of the States: A Food History of America, Hilde Gabriel Lee [Howell Press:Charlottesville VA] 1992 (p. 142)
These are voted into law by state government. The only edible state symbol is the White
Tailed Deer. Symbols list
here.
Native American foodways: Paleo
Indians, Archaic
period, Woodland Indians &
Mississippian peoples
Feeding Our Families: Memories of Hoosier Homemakers/Eleanor Arnold, editor
Cracker Jacks and modern hot dogs
were introduced to the American public. Both were manufactured in Chicago.[NOTE: If you have to
bring a "show and tell" food for your report this is perfect!]
[1906]
Inglenook Coobook, published in Elgin IL (full-text)
[1928]
Horseshoe sandwiches debut in Springfield
[1930s]
The Great Depression. Al Capone sponsored soup kitchens in Chicago:
"Three meals are served each day, including Sundays. Breakfast consists of coffee and a
sweet roll, and dinner and supper of soup, bread and coffee, with a second or third
helping permitted."
---Capone Feeds 3,000 a Day in Soup Kitchen, New York Times, November 15,
1930 (p. 4)
[1934] Chicago World's Fair
Ford
Exhibit restaurant menu...surprising, yes?!
[1930s & 1940s] Viva Italian food!
[1960s] Salad bars
Indiana does not have any official "state foods" (these are enacted by law) or edible state symbols. Not to worry! Indiana's culinary tradi