American food is the sum of its parts. There is nothing that is really consider “American Cuisine”. American food is the food of immigrants. Where you are, who settled there. What did they bring and how did they prepare it?
Colonial period: British came for religious freedom. Puritans were plain people with plain style. Cooked with bare essentials. A hearth and a spit or 2.
Weather and religion were big factors. Puritan Sabbath: sundown Saturday to sundown Sunday. No work except required minimum.
Pepper, cloves, mace, cinnamon and ginger were big. Fish was a staple. Corn was the greatest gift from native Americans and it became a Pilgrim mainstay.
Baked Beans: salt pork. never cooked to a paste. maple syrup and bacon. variations on this dish are endless.
Maple syrup: the sweetener of choice, learned from Indians.
Fish: 16730 began fishing for salmon off the east coast. Served with cream sauce with peas. Salt cod - a must for Saturday dinner.
Scrod (young cod) and Haddock were big. [Some fish have worms that are killed when you eat them; which is different from the disease ‘worms’ you can get.]
Lobster: very plentiful back then and used as bait and in clam pie, lobster pie and chowder. When newly fished, they were much larger than today.
Desserts:
cobbler: a baked fruit dessert, baked in a shallow dish. A layer of fruit, topped with biscuit or cake batter. Never cover during baking. Fruit is the most important focal point. Apples, peaches, cherries. Always with sugar added. Very moist.
Grunt/Slump/Bramble: baked fruit stew with dumplings. Sung fitting lid. Water creates steam to cook fruit, turns into syrup.
Slump made on stovetop. Grunt and Bramble in oven. Not in a shallow dish.
Nothing exciting here, but it seems like we missed some of the great New England classics like lobster rolls and clambakes.