Recipes from your corner of the world

A while back, I read somewhere (quite possibly here) about a young Asian woman who was invited to tour the US and was hosted in a different home each time - and wound up eating fried chicken as a "typical American" meal nearly every day. This got me to thinking: while you hear about fast food as being "American," it's hardly what you would prepare for a guest. While regional cuisine is often discussed when it comes to "American" food, the Midwest (with the exception fo the Chicago dog) is notably absent from these discussions.

What is the typical Midwestern family meal? Growing up - though admittedly not your typical midwestern family - fried chicken was a two or three times a year treat. Our weekday menu consisted of the following rotation: spaghetti with meat sauce (1 lb of crumbled hamburger, rendered, simmered into 1 can of Ragu over pasta) and a side salad of iceberg lettuce, broiled chicken parts (what would be referred to here as "Greek lemon chicken") with rice and 2 kinds of frozen veggies, seared round steak deglazed with red wine, served with instant mashed potatoes or roasted cubed potatoes and 2 kinds of frozen veggies...and I don't remember the rest, but a lot of it involved cans of La Choy and Ortega mixes. Oddly, much of my own rotation is the same, except that it uses fewer prepared foods - spaghetti with meat sauce (crumbled rendered italian sausages simmered in my own canned sauce,) Hi-roast whole chicken with tostones, sauteed spinach and corn, and (in the summer) grilled ribeye with a side salad of mixed greens and roasted cubed potatoes.

However, if we were hosting someone from a different culture, I'm not sure what I would choose to represent our household. My own "signature" dishes are much more Argentine than American (which, in a way, rooted in my family's immigrant heritage, represents our country better than my take on "American") Carbonada Criolla, or Lengua a la vinagreta. The steak, probably, strikes me as the most "American" dish that I make - though typically my husband mans the grill. I recognize, however, that "American" means as many things as, say, "Indian." Especially in an area with roots as diverse as Chicago, every family is going to have a different take on "typical."

So, in preparation for this imaginary guest, I present my own representation of my country in food:

Summer menu:
Ribeye steak - rubbed with garlic, olive oil, black pepper, cumin and salt and grilled to medium-rare.
Roasted potatoes - cubed unpeeled red potatoes, rinsed to remove the starch and rubbed with olive oil and salt, and occasionally herbs de province if the mood hits me.
Grilled mixed vegetables - zucchini, onions, bell peppers marinated in homemade italian-style dressing
Salad - mixed baby greens (often from my garden,) cherry or grape tomatoes, parmesan shavings, sliced cucumbers.
Sauteed swiss chard (usually from my garden) quick-sauteed with garlic, sesame oil and a sprinkling of sesame seeds.
Homemade crusty bread
Strawberry shortcakes

I suppose in winter, the menu might look something like this:
Thick-cut pork chops sauteed with apples, shallots, thyme and hard cider
Colcannon: mashed potatoes with collard greens and cheddar cheese
Rounds of roasted acorn squash drizzled with maple syrup and butter
Salad of fresh baby spinach with red onions and grape tomatoes
Homemade crusty bread
Chocolate pots-de-creme

What would you prepare to represent your corner of the world? What is your take on "typical midwestern cuisine?"

I think this is a really tough one! I grew up in the Midwest, but my mother was from Wyoming and my father grew up in western Canada (the plains, not the coast) and was of very recent German roots. To complicate things, my mother rented a room while she was in college from a woman who was eating brown rice and whole wheat bread in the 1940s, thus we ate these health foods before anyone else had ever seen them. Food in rotation in my childhood included roasted chicken, beef roasts, pot roasts, meat loaf, creamed chipped beef, the occasional sauerbraten and rouladen, as well as pork chops with red cabbage, fried chicken livers, and lots of veggies (frozen in winter and out of our garden if possible in summer - both sets of grandparents had big gardens and ate veggies, and so did we) and salad (we were the only people who made vinegrette at home rather than use bottled dressing, as far as I knew). Friday night was always spaghetti, my father was in charge, and it was a can of chef-boy-ar-dee mixed with a can of tomato sauce with cheese cut and melted into it over pasta (my best friend thought it was gourmet food; the mother of my Italian friend who lived next door actually cooked sauce from scratch, which was considered strange.) In the later 60s we started baking bread and making yogurt and granola, but that clearly was not midwestern.

After moving to Chicago as a young adult, I discovered ethnic food, and have never eaten the same since. We moved out of Chicago for two years, and that forced me to learn to cook many of our favorite ethnic foods at home, rather than relying on restaurants, so now I would say that I am more likely to make a stir fry or biryani or a braise with Ethiopian spices than to make a quintessential midwestern beef roast or chicken.

But if I were trying to entertain foreign guests and wanted to provide an American meal, what would I do.

I suppose in the winter I would make a pot roast (if my mother could come back and cook one meal for me, this would be it). Pot roast with potatoes and carrots, and a big salad and crusty bread, with a nice red wine (I suppose it would have to be American, though we have been buying only French since the days of 'freedom' fries, as our personal statement of solidarity with the French people). Dessert? Brownies with ice cream.

Summer: I would either cook chicken on the grill, corn on the cob, grilled veggies and salad; or go straight to the salad, mixed greens, with grilled chicken breast, sliced red peppers, pea pods, purple onions with a citrus vinegrette. (perhaps the salad is not properly midwestern, the chicken fits better) Dessert would involve whatever fruit was in season-- berries of some kind hopefully, either fresh with cream, or in a galette or something like that.

My mom was from a Polish-Italian+Swiss couple, raised in *southern* Illinois, across from St. Louis. My dad was a Canuck. Mom was an inveterate reader of 50s women's mags: Ladies' Home Companion, Woman's Day, etc. and was always up on the latest food thing, which, in those days, usually meant new processed food-types. But we had some mid-Western standards: green beans & ham, stewed spinach with a dash of vinegar, fresh peas (later frozen) with our Sunday fried chicken and smashed taters, Swiss steak, lamb chops, Friday fish fingers, and, of course, two real 'Murican treats: mac 'n cheese, and tuna fish and noodles. We *always* had dessert, puddings--bread, rice, tapioca--pies, cakes, cobblers, strawberry shortcake.

I now do a pretty excellent version of mac 'n cheese. That might very well be something I'd do for someone not from around here. Also, my dad was in charge of charcoal roasting the turkey for holidays, something he excelled at. That's an American original, fer shure.

Good topic Mhays!

Geo

I've faced the challenge of deciding what was "American" food when I've lived abroad. I was occasionally asked to make something from my country and, off the top of my head, I can remember having presented the following representatives of my native cuisine:

- brownies (many times for German friends)
- pancakes (again, as a teen in Germany -- American pancakes are nothing like German Pfannkuchen)
- enchiladas with refried beans (in college in Munich, and missing American Mexican cuisine)
- curried chickens salad with grapes and walnuts (for a summer picnic -- it was a huge hit and totally unfamiliar and a huge hit with fellow diners from Hungary, France, Italy, and Germany)
- the stove-top green bean casserole (from the Cooks Illustrated recipe: this wowed a French dinner party that had gathered for an American Thanksgiving dinner)

I do remember, however, having long ago come up with a standard response for "What is American cuisine?" and that is: "Because we are a nation of immigrants, most of us cook in a way that is related to our family background. My mother's family is from Italy, and so . . ." etc.

MariaTheresa, you've reminded me of something: cooking abroad for friends! And you know what was a hit, every time? (And here I'm talking about '70-'79, which is when I did this.) I cooked *Tex-Mex chili* (using pork and beef) in several places in England, and several places in Germany, and it was a big hit every time. So long as I didn't make it tooo hot.

I think chili is as 'Murican as it gets!

Geo

My mom was from Canada and my dad was from Florida, though he'd been in North Africa, the Middle East, and Italy during World War II, so he added a lot of exotica to the family dining blend. Mom lived by Joy of Cooking and Gourmet Magazine. So I'm with the other folks who have no real idea what Midwest cooking is, other than those cuisines that represent the people who settled here. That, and corn-fed beef. No one else in the world has the beef we have in the Midwest. And maybe Kansas Barbecue. But otherwise -- yes, it's the Swedish/Polish/Italian/German/Dutch/African American/Jewish base with everyone else on top.

As for cooking overseas for friends, I've either done our family Scottish shortbread recipe or, when an American meal was needed, made turkey and pumpkin pie -- can't hardly get more American than that -- though it's not really Midwest, just Americana.

Hi,

I'm really surprised to find anyone being served consistently fried chicken. I just don't know that many people who cook it at home. She might have influenced people to do this by providing a list of food she will not eat or a list of food she was dying to try. There is no other reason I can think for this mono-menu situation occuring. If she had been served a lot of steak and potatoes, which is far easier to manage than fried chicken and for many a default special meal, it would have rung more true to my experience.

Monica Eng and her ex-husband were on an academic trip through Uzbekistan, whose national dish is plov aka pilaf. This is a meal served at all special occasions. Since they were special guests, they were served this meal endlessly. We don't exactly have this universal special meal here, whether you are talking Midwestern cuisine or a national American cuisine.

In the late 1980's, we had a 10 person delegation from People's Republic of China visit us. They would eat nothing but Chinese food. I offered to cook a meal, they declined. I had a gal from Italy-Croatia with a list of food prejudices a mile long.

The openess to trying new food is really more an American trait, because of our polyglot of cultures. Many people who visit here come from a more homogeneous culture than ours and many do not like departures from their native cuisine. While we have our share of picky eaters, we think nothing of going for Chinese (maybe Americanized), Italian pastas, tacos and not think we left "American" food.

Regards,

I grew up on the east coast, in a 'burb of NYC. My mother, of Irish heritage, grew up well enough off so that she never learned to cook--there was always hired help. My father grew up on a farm in PA. His parents were from eastern Europe. He would eat whatever you put in front of him.

If I was to feed a guest a meal that was typical of my childhood I'd have to find a TV dinner...

Now, older, wiser, wanting to represent the Midwest well, I would probably make meatloaf with mashed potatoes and green beans.

This thread topic reminds me of when I lived in Chile, and an entrepeneur decided to try his hand at farming catfish and marketing them to the Chilean market. (Let's not even go into how hard it ought to be to market a freshwater trash fish to a country where no one lives more than 100 miles from the ocean). As part of the marketing blitz, articles appeared in the weekend food section of the Santiago newspaper claiming that the typical American family ate catfish at least once a week.

I was an exchange student in Australia for one full year ('84-'85) for my Junior/Senior year of high school. I had really wanted to go to a Spanish speaking country and initially was a tad disappointed that I was going somewhere where there "wasn't a new language to learn" (ahem!) and where the food wouldn't be "that exciting". Well, I certainly had to learn to speak "'Stralian" and be open to trying things like sheeps' brains and having a fried egg and beet on top of a hamburger (oh and the pain of eating insanely fresh shrimp and locally-raised lamb and currant scones with clotted cream) . . . I was suprised by what Aussies were totally fixated on and fascinated by in terms of American food. They wanted to know everything, but eve[i]rything[/i] about Thanksgiving and a roasted turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing and pumpkin pie. In 1984, the thought of pumpkin being a sweet food item just completely evaded their brains. Pumpkin was (and is) mashed with potatoes . . . and they also thought it "vile" that we ate doughnuts and pancakes for breakfast. There, we only ate savory breakfast items like sausage and eggs or weird to me but yummy, baked beans or last night's spaghetti on toast.

So I still think Thanksgiving is very American and one thing that hasn't been globalized. I say this because I went back to Oz last year, all prepared for you know, baked beans on toast and mashed pumpkin and all that and the sad news is that Aussies now are fully on board with the current fast food American approach to breakfast: sweet muffins, doughnuts, cinnamon rolls, and yes, doughnuts for "brekkie" as they call it. So I don't know if this is progress (they have McCafe and Starbucks!) but it was a surprise.

But they still are fascinated with Thanksgiving and stuffing and pumpkin pie!

bjt

Yeah bjt, there's something to this Thanksgiving bit. In July '70 I went to Oxford on a kind of a postdoc, and moved into a small village (Great Haseley) a few miles out in the country. As November time came closer, we wondered what we were going to do about Thanksgiving... Our neighbors, who became close friends, had heard about roast turkey (which they were unaccustomed to but could imagine), knew mashed potatoes, thought sweet 'taters/yams peculiar, cranberries simply outré, and pumpkin pie beyond conception. So, of course, we got together with another ex-pat family and did the whole bill o' goods for our friends in the village. Except for the pumpkin. It was simply unavailable, even at Palm's Deli, in the Oxford Covered Market, which, at that time, already had a few Old El Paso items--the sole supply point in all of England.

In the end we found ourselves a bloody great 'vegetable marrow'--a sort of Autumn hard yellow squash--and made the punkin pie out of that. The rest of the meal went down well enough (altho' folks did strain a bit at the cranberries), but the pie was a dead loss. Our neighbors simply couldn't bring themselves to eat it, even with lots o' wonderful whipped cream.

It's funny how so much of this lot has become routine: everyone, everywhere, now knows all about turkey, esp. roasted with stuffing. Sweet 'taters are now widespread in UK because of all the Caribbean immigrants, and, of course, stuffing is everywhere.

But I don't think just anyone is munching on punkin pie, no sireeey.

So maybe our Thanksgiving feast remains the most originally American of all fests. Which is exactly as it should be.

Geo

oh my goodness, you totally nailed the pumpkin pie conundrum on its head! My mum in Oz, who knows her way around scones and damper (Irish soda bread) has now tried three times to make pumpkin pie and it has always come out runny and well, the word they always say is "vile". I am now wondering if it isn't because I didn't stash a couple of cans of pumpkin pie "filling" in my suitcase to let her have a go with? . . . I mean really, how many people here in the US really make our pumpkin pies from scratch? (Wait, don't assault me, I am sure many) but in this instance, my family always got our pumpkin (and er, cranberry "mold") from a tubular can. Hmmmm . . .

bjt

Geo wrote:So maybe our Thanksgiving feast remains the most originally American of all fests. Which is exactly as it should be.

Geo

Uh-huh. Curiously enough, we spent a week this past fall in Lake Louise (which means Alberta, Canada). We were there during Canadian Thanksgiving (who knew?). What was even more astonishing (to us) was that the Fairmont, where we stayed, offered various takes on Thanksgiving in its restaurants. (I feel silly putting in this plug, but it's exceedingly well-deserved. They had five restaurants in the hotel, a couple of which were unexceptional, relaxed places--perfectly fine but nothing unusual. But the three high-end places, including a steakhouse and a Swiss place, were truly exceptional. We ate more dinners than we anticipated in the hotel simply because the food in those places was so extraordinary. But that's another post.)

Anyway, for Thanksgiving, we finally opted for the "traditional" Thanksgiving meal. Yup. You guessed it: roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberries, pumpkin pie, etc. etc. Just like Mom would make--i.e., they pretty much nailed it. We were puzzled about the menu, not to mention the whole notion of a Canadian Thanksgiving. So we quizzed our server, who said he was Canadian, born and raised (albeit back in Ottawa). Were there Canadian Pilgrims? we asked.

He gave us this bizarre history cum explanation that we could barely follow, much less understand about how and where Canadian Thanksgiving came from and why their Thanksgiving had the same traditional menu as the U.S. holiday. More puzzled than ever, we approached a concierge with whom we had become friendly. She, too, was Canadian born and raised (Alberta, this time). She was frank and forthright: "we stole it." Her exact words. Both as to the holiday and the menu.

I'll throw a little curve ball because I am curious to see if it is unique to my situation or not...

My in-laws cook and enjoy the typical American Thankgiving meal, as described above, but with one exception - they use chicken stock for the gravy, totally dissing the wonderful turkey stock in the bottom of the roasting pan.

I'm OK with chicken gravy on general principles but, dammit, I want turkey gravy love ladled over my turkey meat and stuffing from inside the turkey! Like a good little son-in-law I eat the chicken gravy, but I wondered if this practice was more common than I am aware.

Oh - and one year I found out, to my horror, that when the chicken gravy isn't "yellow" enough - in goes a drop or two of yellow food coloring "to make it look right.

Please, say it ain't so - the rest of America!

Davooda

Davooda wrote:Please, say it ain't so - the rest of America!

It ain't so, Davooda!! It is *always* turkey giblet gravy, made from the turkey parts which have simmered for the longest time, making the house smell oh! so good.

And bjt, IIRC, even Cook's said to use the punkin pie filling from the can, rather than trying to do it from scratch. It's a terrible and typically unsuccessful job, it really is.

Geo

This is a cool topic! I enjoy hearing about what people grew up eating...I find it to be a great way of getting insights into people's ethnic backgrounds, family roots, etc.

I grew up on very "workaday" Indian food...rice, chapati, one sabji (dry veg) & one curry (or daal). Being born & raised in Michigan, I constantly wanted what my schoolmates talked about having for dinner: pot roast, meatloaf, spaghetti, etc.

Once in a while, my mom would give in to my whining & try to make something "American"...spaghetti (cooked pasta sauteed in a pan with diced tomato, cilantro, cumin, green chilis, coriander, garlic, onion & green beans), macaroni (cooked pasta sauteed in a pan with diced tomato, cilantro, cumin, green chilies, coriander, garlic, onion & green beans), meatloaf (ground beef or turkey mixed with diced tomato, cilantro, cumin, green chilies, coriander, garlic, onion & green beans & baked in a loaf pan), french toast (bread dipped in a beaten-together mixture of egg, cilantro, cumin, green chilies, coriander, garlic & onion)...you get the picture

Of course, things have changed since then. I spent college & years afterward eating all the "American" foods I was dying for as a kid, mostly out of necessity...I hadn't yet discovered the satisfaction of cooking a great meal from scratch, nor had I learned the joys of seeking out great meals (which often cost less than the frozen/boxed crap I was eating instead). But now, when we visit my parents, I make sure to lay out the menu with Mom beforehand...not her goofy (but strangely tasty) Indianized American foods (which eventually became dinnertime staples at our house), but the real deal.

I think the menu that really stands out in my mind is a very typical Sindhi meal...my Mom once mentioned to some friends of theirs that I request this meal every time, so now when we make the rounds of our family friends, I end up getting this same meal 3 or 4 times in the course of a long weekend:

- Sindhi curry: gram flour-based curry, with lady fingers, okra & green beans
- Aloo took: flattened potato chunks (or flattened small potatoes, skin on), pan-fried
- Fried suran: chunks some sort of canned brined yam (here's a pic), smashed flat & pan-fried
- Phulka: our word for roti or chapati
- Bhugga chawal: basmati rice with caramelized onions & roasted cumin seeds (and likely coriander seeds & other stuff I can't pinpoint) mixed in

For breakfast/brunch, I would definitely go with koki (similar to parathas, only more dense & studded with diced onions, cilantro, green chilies, and roasted cumin & coriander seeds), served with homemade yogurt...simple, delicious, and filling. The very first time I got dragged to spend a weekend with my then-girlfriend's parents (the in-laws now), I made kokis for her entire extended fam. Nothing like sweating it out, both from the heat of the stove & "don't screw it up don't screw it up don't screw it up" panic...luckily they came out well!

This is an interesting topic. The thing is, there is no "typical" American (or Midwestern) food because so many of us came from different ethnic immigrant backgrounds that our respective American experiences were formed in the context of those backgrounds. I think this is especially true on the coasts, at least growing up on the East Coast, most families I knew were of Italian heritage. So, someone's typical meals from an Italian background would vary significantly from their neighbor's, who might be Irish. In my case, I don't think that I can really replicate what I ate growing up -- my Mom's side is Slovak and my Dad's side is Swiss, but both sides were immigrant -- except for a few standards, I've never really come around to replicating my Mom's family's food, if only because their cooking was so ingrained that when the earlier generations died out, the later generations looked around and realized that no one could cook like they could. And the Swiss side, that wacky, outdoorsy, self-sufficient, Mountain mentality of the Swiss, meant that they were really game-focused, and in my grandparents' case, they had four boys who hunted and fished a lot, which was, believe or not, a large source of their food. Who, in this modern society, can reliably replicate food that was, for the most part, hunted and gathered? Soooo. . . .

Except for the occasional craving for my Mom's side of the family's food (don't really crave the Swiss side's food, natch), I generally go my own way, which could be influenced by anything at any time. So if I were to have people over for dinner from another country, I would probably gravitate toward serving modern Cal-American cuisine with local, seasonal ingredients rather than attempt to re-create a Midwestern cuisine.

It seems most people here have had family influences outside of the midwest, so I'll throw my two cents in. On my mother's side, our lineage is French then French Canadian, then Chicago from about the 1920's on - so many of their dishes had some sort of "melting pot" influence. On my father's side, our family has been in the US since the 1680's or so and have resided in the Midwest for over 150 years. They reside in central IL and the food is pretty one dimensional. It typically consists of meat (beef, pork, or chicken) and starches (potatoes, bread, dumpling/noodles) and some vegetables (either fresh out of the garden or canned).

If someone really wanted what I would consider a Midwestern dish (excluding the international influences of Chicago), it would be meat and potatoes. The foods I grew up eating when visiting my grandmother were beef, pork (mostly bacon and ham), potatoes (mostly mashed), and vegetables that grew in her garden, which were varieties that were successful from year to year - cabbage, radish, green onions, carrots, tomatoes, green beans and corn.

To me, this reflects the farming communities of the midwest. Heavy starches to get the farmers through their 14 hour days and food that was simply prepared and seasoned, reflecting what was available. A typical family meal could consist of a meatloaf, mashed potatoes, noodles (ala beef and noodles), cooked green beans (with bacon or ham for flavor), corn (either plainly cooked or in a pudding-like casserole), rolls, sliced tomato, raw cabbage, raw green onions, raw radishes, and sweetened tea.

Thanksgiving and Christmas meant a turkey and a ham and a few more casserole type dishes (sweet potatoes, etc.) and of course the pies, brownies, fudge and popcorn balls.

with our current houseguest from the Phillippines, I try to expose her to as much as Chicago has to offer more than what people would consider "American Cuisine".

We have visited Chinatown, Argyle Street, Renga Tei, Cajun Connection, Klas, Cemita's, Smitty's, for a wide range of foods and styles.

At home I have steamed live lobsters, grilled prime steaks, smoked chicken on the smoker, made gumbo, cream of broccoli soup, french onion soup, clam chowder, crawfish bisque, jambalaya, fried shrimp, brined/deep fried chicken wings, roasts, gravies, pastas, baba ganoush, hummus, pizza, stir frys, chili rellenos, etc.

Typical "American" maybe not, but it it what we eat on a regular basis.

This weekend will be the S.Side Irish favorite of Corned beef, cabbage, and boiled potatoes.

jimswside wrote:At home I have steamed live lobsters, grilled prime steaks, smoked chicken on the smoker, made gumbo, cream of broccoli soup, french onion soup, clam chowder, crawfish bisque, jambalaya, fried shrimp, brined/deep fried chicken wings, roasts, gravies, pastas, baba ganoush, hummus, pizza, stir frys, chili rellenos, etc.

Typical "American" maybe not, but it it what we eat on a regular basis.

Do you have any vacancy? I swear I'd pay the rent on time, and wouldn't take up much room...heck, I'll even supply my own chair at the dinner table

Khaopaat wrote:
Do you have any vacancy? I swear I'd pay the rent on time, and wouldn't take up much room...heck, I'll even supply my own chair at the dinner table

thats funny..

She is my wifes cousin, & our live in nanny, so she pays her dues..

When she talks to relatives back home they say she is lucky to be in the U.S., and eating so well.

GREAT thread!

We had some experience along this line in 2005, when Rotary Internationaol hosted their One Hundredth Anniversary Convention in June of 2005 - with 50,000 visiting Rotarians from around the workd. Rotary was founded here in Chicago in 1905.

It was a considerable question in the planning - what are we gonna show 'em about the US of A!?

Including food.

The Hinsdale Rotary elected to go with BBQ (I know, they do it in Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Turkey, Greece, and dang near everyplace else, but not like Memphis, Kansas City, Lockhart TX, Austin, Memphis, and on and on. )

The Hinsdale Rotary hosted an outdoor BBQ party for 400 Rotarians from abroad, catered by Uncle Bub's of Westmont, a pretty darn good BBQ joint. It was a huge success, and we got emails of thanks and gratitude from around the world for the next four months.

On a more personal basis, four or five Hinsdale Rotarian families decided to throw a COMPLETE Thanksgiving dinner - ALL the trimmings - for seven or eight couples from abroad. (This was in June. don't forget.) It was really great, and I have seldom gotten so much satisfaction from a cooking adventure.

Forget the fried chicken (though I grew up with a lot of it done by my mother who grew up a little way north of St. Louis and had a decidedly Southern bias to her cooking repertoire.) Even though her grandfather served in the Union Army. 'Nother story.

Mike

I am not trying to de-rail this thread but all day long I have been thinking about North American foods. (Not Midwestern but North American, which I know is much broader than the discussion.) But here's where I am going. Many moons ago at an IACP conference, (Int'l Association of Culinary Professionals) someone did a fabulous presentation on the five food items that were completely unique and indigenous to North America. But being where I am in life these days and having not taken notes way back when, I can only remember two. The first is: Maple Syrup. Maples trees are all over the world but only here in the US and Canada are the conditions just right (in terms of very cold and then warm temps in spring) to force the sap up and get it flowing. The second one is "wild rice" which isn't really rice but actually Native grass but again, apparently, it is unique to North America.

So . . . does anyone have any ideas on what the other three are? I guess I am wanting to be reminded because it really could make a compelling conversation starter for foreign visitors.

thanks!

bjt

Don't know whether or not it's a member of your five food bjt, but fer shure Jerusalem artichoke is native, indigenous and only from N. America.


Geo

bjt, I'm no culinary anthropologist, but I think two are cranberries and blueberries (though my parents recently discovered that, due to migrating birds, cranberries are alive and well in Patagonia, and blueberry production is on the rise in Argentina as well, though I don't know for how long) I would guess black walnuts are the other one, but they aren't very widely distributed.

I'm really enjoying everyone's responses, btw. Thank you all for putting so much thought and personal history into them!

(Khaopaat - yes, our (somewhat less interesting) evoke-our-ethnic-heritage seasoning was oregano, granulated garlic and Filipo Berio Olive Oil. Every meal at our house was seasoned with them, including the spaghetti sauce, the chicken, and the steak. I was just as guilty as my Mom, I'd stir it into canned soup.)

OK, time to play culinary historian a bit... Jerusalem Artichokes are sunflowers, called "girasole" in Italian, hence the "Jerusalem" origin.

Sunflowers are native to North America, although they have spread all over the world; they're Russia's primary source of cooking oil.

JoelF wrote:Sunflowers are native to North America, although they have spread all over the world; they're Russia's primary source of cooking oil.

On trains through Slovakia, I saw field after field of sunflowers . . . I assumed they were cultivated for the seeds, but oil makes more sense.

Similarly, all through central France, from Beaune to Parthenay, hectare after hectare after hectare of sunflowers follow the sun. It's actually kind of freaky to drive through in the morning and see the whole field smiling one way, and then, a few hours later, see them smiling quite another way, in total unison. Ultimately, it all ends up in cooking oil.

In Kansas—the Sunflower State—on the other hand, the sunflowers are wild. They're everywhere in the ditches, the creek banks, the crop margins, tall, gawky, and very very yellow. But I don't know that I've ever seen a field of cultivated sunflowers in Kansas. Odd, eh?!

Geo

oh this is so fun. Mhays, I think you totally nailed the third completely unique and only native to North American food item, cranberries. Isn't this interesting since cranberries in all sorts of former versions of themselves feature heavily on the Thanksgiving table . . . (what I mean by that is that in my family, if the "cranberries" didn't have the concentric rings from the can the were slurped out of, I don't know that we would have recognized them). But I do not think you can find cranberries anywhere else. (By this I mean originally. If someone has figured out a way to do cranberry bogs in Botswana, well fine, but until a few decades ago, it was a true North American food.)

Blueberries? I don't think so, I mean, aren't there wild blueberries al over Germany? Or am I wrong?

Turkeys . . . are turkeys something our ancestors introduced to Mexico or was it the other way around? And by the way, when defining North America and Central America, where the heck does Mexico fall? (Bigger cartography discussion maybe?) When we were living in Mexico and made a weekend trip to Mexico City we were impressed and somewhat tickled to find an entire section of the DF devoted to Pavo Relleno diners. That would be stuffed turkey. I wish I could tell you how they tasted but I was so ill I could barely stand. I still plan on returning one day . . .

anyhow. anyhow. what are the 4th and 5th foods? anybody?

thanks!

bjt

#4 Pecans
#5 Huckleberries

those are my guesses