As a nation of immigrants, many of the dishes we enjoy today sailed to our shores from faraway lands. But keep in mind, when the Pilgrims sat down with their Native-American neighbors, they feasted on indigenous foods found readily in the wilds of North America - turkeys, sturgeon, corn, squash and cranberries. Many of these foods, including the lowly potato, were carried back to the old country and became staples in foreign diets.
"American cuisine is the result of the evolution of uprooted Old World culinary traditions," says Chef Susan Gross of Zinfandel, a restaurant specializing in American cuisine with a different regional menu each month. "The majority of Americans trace their ancestry to another country. Faced with poverty, language difficulties and new customs, our ancestors clung to their culinary heritage, fiercely guarding an important tie to their homeland. American cuisine is the result of what happened to those culinary customs in the face of a new land, new foods and new pressures. It is the outcome of the blending of many different cuisines. Immigrants from Italy, Germany, Africa, Portugal, Japan and China changed and combined their cooking styles to produce a new style of cooking - American: the expression of the global melting pot that is America."
As settlers spread in all directions to fulfill their Manifest Destiny, distinct regional cuisines began incorporating local produce, environmental conditions and the cooks' immigrant roots. In the South's temperate climate, for instance, gardens flourished and foods such as sweet potatoes, rice, okra, collards, pecans, peanuts, black-eyed peas and watermelon became meal mainstays. Warm weather also helped create a preference for spicier and sweeter foods. According to Hecky Powell of Hecky's Barbecue in Evanston, a man whose barbeque style is reverently explained by the slogan "It's the Sauce," seasoning is everything to good soul food. "Sometimes it's a little hot, sometimes a little sweet - it's the blending of seasonings that makes good Southern food really stand out," Hecky says.
Settlers were able to borrow from their new neighbors, synthesize flavors and develop their own distinctive fare. Regional cuisines were built on menus the Indians had been cultivating for some 2,000 years. The Pilgrims learned to sweeten their meals with maple syrup and were introduced to the littleneck clams that became the meat in chowder, replacing the haddock and cod used in European kettles. Midwestern Indians taught pioneers how to grow wild rice, while Southwestern Pueblo Indians introduced homesteaders to corn and chili peppers, and Northwestern native fishermen helped frontiersmen learn to cook salmon in hot coals. Additional emigration to our shores continued to infuse local cooking with foreign flavors and brought new menus. Many of these ethnic-influenced dishes are still consumed with hearty appreciation in the Midwest, where Scandinavians, Germans and Eastern Europeans introduced Swedish coffee bread, Swiss cheese and a finer appreciation for any kind of ground meat stuffed in a casing - particularly when it took the final form of a grilled bratwurst or a Chicago-style dog.
Driven by economic and social change, migrations within our boundaries spread regional specialties to other areas - witness soul food's journey to the urban kitchens of the North. The advent of modern transportation and refrigeration also supported the dissemination of regional tastes, allowing Cheddarheads to enjoy key lime pie in a snow storm and Texans to savor Michigan bing cherry pie year-round at the price of their own local fare. The railroad system and its refrigerated box cars allowed Americans to become a nation of steak eaters, while fruit and vegetables gained distribution out of the Sun Belt when Philip D. Armour, who was looking to use the cold boxcars more efficiently to carry products other than meat, encouraged Southern farmers to grow a larger quantity of perishables that required refrigerated shipping to the northern states.
The availability of international air travel after World War II, allowing folks to have more exotic dining experiences, helped drive the globablization of the American menu. Today, Thai fish sauce and Japanese udon noodles can be found down the aisle from macaroni 'n' cheese and Spaghetti-O's, while the bulk food departments stock rice - long grain, short grain and wild, as well as arborio and basmati.
As we contemplate our freedoms and privileges as citizens of the U. S. of A. - our contract with America - it's a great time to exercise our culinary rights and sample some of the unique dishes that truly make this the land of the beautiful. Dig into that turkey and gravy, wrestle down some ribs and fried chicken, and savor the fresh salmon. You might even want to kick back, tune in a game and enjoy a Coke, some Fritos, Twinkies, nachos with Cheese Whiz and Oreos. It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it.
- Zinfandel, 59 W. Grand, (312)527-1818. Lunch Tue-Fri 11:30am-2:30pm, Sat brunch 10:30am-2:30pm, Dinner Tue-Thu 5:30pm-10pm, Fri-Sat 5:30pm-11pm. Closed Sun & Mon.
Hecky's Barbecue, 1902 Green Bay Rd., Evanston, (847)492-1182. Mon-Thu 11am-9pm, Fri-Sat 11am-10pm, Sun 2pm-8pm.
copyright 1998 New City Communications, Inc.