Pondering Cuisines

[talon]

Many Americans believe that America doesn't have a cuisine. Perhaps they're right but only because American has a surfeit of cuisines. We don't have one, we have many. I don't see anything wrong with this because America is a huge country composed of states instead of countries. Even the much smaller European countries don't have a single defining cuisine, but variations on a theme or even completely different cuisines depending upon their nearest neighbors. Why would we expect America to have single cuisine?

We do have dishes that we've made uniquely ours and are known and loved all across our wide country: PBJ sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches, hot dogs, hamburgers, barbecue, chocolate chip cookie, brownies, fried chicken, ice cream in a cone, sno-cones, macaroni and cheese, po' boys - whether they're known as po' boys, submarine sandwiches, Dagwoods, blimps, grinders, heroes, hoagies, torpedos, bombers, cosmos, spuckies, zeppelins, wedges, Italian sandwiches, rockets, banh mi, bobbies, or potbellies - and pizza. Almost anyone who's lived in America a decade knows what these are, has probably eaten most, if not all, of them, and may have cooked a few themselves. Half of these dishes are sandwiches, which sort of kind of means Americans love their sandwiches, hot or cold, all across the country. They may serve these dishes in other countries and some of these may even have originated in other countries, but they've become quintessentially American. Hot dogs and hamburgers were originally German, pizza and sub sandwiches were Italian, grilled cheese and mac and cheese were French, PBJs have Caribbean and African roots, fried chicken has Scottish roots,

Each wave of immigrants brought their native cuisines to our land and mingled it with what was here. Intermarriage mingled the cooking techniques and ingredients so that American cuisine was a blended cuisine that used the old to create the new. And that innovation and constant culinary experimentation is what defines American cuisine. If it's new, unusual, and probably tasty, chances are it's American.

Against this nation-wide background, we have our regional specialties.

New England (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maryland, New Jersey, New York state, Delaware, Virginia and West Virginia) is known for its baked beans, chowder, succotash, lobsters, clambakes, cranberry sauce, grape jelly, corn and rye bread, and apple pie. Like other northern coastal states, it was heavily influenced by British cookery. Virginia has roast meats, fricassees, corn porridge, hominy, and fried chicken. Delaware has the boiled breakfast, pop-robins (eggy batter balls boiled in milk), apple dumplings, and cream cheese. New York City has perhaps the most diversified cuisine of the entire country because it was the primary destination of so many immigrants, wave after wave of them. Many stayed in the area and contributed their ethnic cuisines to the cuisinescape. Pennsylvania has a heavy German influence. Louisiana has a heavy French influence. Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, southern Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and southern California have a heavy Spanish, Mexican, and Native American influence. Florida is influenced by Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean as well as African, French, and Native American. Southern Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and the Carolinas were influenced by African, Scottish, French, and Native American cuisines. Coastal California and Hawaii are heavily influence by Asian and Philippine cuisines such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korea, along with Portuguese and Polynesian cuisines. Oregon, Washington, and Alaska is influenced by Canadian, Native American, and transient cuisines brought to the port cities. Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, Indiana, Iowa, and Michigan are heavily influence by central, northern, and eastern Europe - Poland, Sweden, Germany, Russia, - along with Greece and Italy. Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Idaho and the Dakotas share a blend of Basque, Native American, and rancher cuisine (a blend of cattle and hunting). Larger cities and cities with different ethnic areas have a slightly different cuisine As you can see, some states have multiple influences because they border on other regions and Americans travel a lot and share food a lot.

No matter what the original influence, Americans have taken the techniques and foods of their immigrant populations and native ingredients and touched it up to make it wholly ours. We have some amazing fusions and blends that deserve recognition as the cuisines they've become.

There's not a country's cuisine in the world that hasn't been influenced by the cuisines of its neighbors or of immigrants within its borders, and America is no exception.

What makes American cuisine so unique is the enthusiasm, curiosity, and experimentation we bring to the pot. Pizza may be served I Italy, but it's nothing like American pizza. Hot dogs may be available at corner stands all through Germany, but they're nothing like America's regional and haute cuisine hot dogs. Chinese and Japanese foods undergo such Americanization that they are virtually unrecognizable back in their home countries. And that's the way it should be. We take a dish and we tinker with it. We look at it and say, "What if?" We ponder the possibilities and then we eat them.

That's American cuisine.