[DaveB]

To the best of my knowledge, the oldest documented "American" food is succotash, a boiled mixture of corn and beans. Early explorers, visiting the Native American tribes along the Southern Altlantic coast, reported both the recipe and the name around 1600.

Click here for a basic contemporary recipe

For something more interesting and complex, click here

[Kimmie]

I laughed equally hard while I was reading YOUR post! You are such a card! LOL!

I must admit that I grew up in the purest "French" environment, that's Grandfather's legacy...oui il parlait pointu...!

As for Poutine, well, I still have to taste it...

And with respect to traditional foods served with maple syrup, I went to a sugar shak only once, a very long time ago. I remember eating maple syrup on snow!

Thanks Isa for completing my post

[sisrst]

I remember my grandfathers smokehouse in Virginia, hams hanging for months to cure.

Sliced ham with red eye gravy and mashed potatoes
and always homemade biscuits.

Country ham can be used to flavor many dishes, Elizabeth Terry from Elizabeth's on 37th in Savannah has some great American recipies using ham and other southern items.

[Isa]

Was it a dream or was I just talking poutine to you? Anyway you're not missing much.

[9hundred]

The only thing I know is absoulutely 100% American is.....


SQUEEzECHEESE

[shroomgirl]

Squeezecheese???!!! Ummmmm is that what we're know for abroad? I gather that is a velvetta (processed rubbery orange/yellow) "food product".

[elakin]

sadly, it's true, shroom. when i was living in italy, i got so much grief from my fellow cooks over how bad american food was.

they're only exposed to the aspects of american culture that are exported--coca cola, mcdonalds, etc--and they think that's all there is. absolutely no awareness of the amazing variety that makes up american regional cooking.

very much like, i guess, the (now, thankfully outdated) perception that most americans had about italian food. that it's all spaghetti and meatballs or lasagna.

that's why i really appreciate this topic and i'm grateful to see that there are people out there who keep their minds open to what's really being eaten in some "foreign" land.

i personally love the trend of taking "low" foods that are traditional regional specialties and dressing them up in a more fine-dining setting. Patrick Clark was a master at this, elevating things like biscuits, country ham, grits, and black-eyed peas up to the level of foie gras and lobster. anyone interested in this should check out the charlie-trotter-produced cookbook that honored patrick clark. i think it's the best book charlie's done.

[Isa]

What about the jar with peanut butter and jelly swirl? Goes well with squeeze cheese.

[Suzanne]

When I think of American (all parts of North American), I think of great feasts -- potlatches of native foods such as game and squashes and beans and such; and foods that just can't be made in small quantities: New England boiled dinners with corned beef or pork, potatoes, beets, other root vegetables, the leftovers of which yield Red Flannel Hash; Midwestern Fish Boils, with freshwater fish, onions, potatoes; Clambakes, with lobsters, clams, chicken, corn, potatoes, sausages...

and of course the "traditional" Thanksgiving feast, which like the best of the continent's cuisine celebrates the bounty available here. We are truly lucky to have such good foods, and have to work to make sure that it is these wholesome foods -- and not the over-processed, high-salt, high-fat, low-nutrient, low-flavor stuff -- that are available to everyone, whatever their income and class.

[CJ]

Oh, I love living in a melting pot! With our mobile society, the regional pockets are leaking into each other. Even though current American food is a mixture of regional, ethnic, and just plain convenience, to me, "traditional American" means food native to here. Maple syrup. Turkey. Squash; zucchini, acorn, butternut, pumpkin – this time of year, we throw pumpkin into just about everything; cookies, muffins, cakes, ice cream, pie. Roasted, salted pumpkin seeds, anyone? In previous centuries, pumpkin was used as just another squash, or sliced, dried, and used as sweetening.
Potatoes, tomatoes – those two have really traveled the world. (You’re welcome, world.) Sweet potatoes. Several different beans, including lima beans for succotash, and navy beans used in baked beans.
And corn; sweet corn, popcorn, cornmeal. For corn muffins, johnnycake – great with maple syrup! Then there’s corn on the cob, an all-American favorite seen at just about every picnic. We’re so used to this that we don’t realize it’s not everywhere. During the 1970s, some family friends greeted their European exchange student with an American spread complete with corn on the cob. She ran crying from the room, insulted. Eventually she forgave them for treating her like a barnyard animal… Then there are some things that are rarely eaten nowadays; squirrel, opossum, groundhog. Or at least not widely admitted to – I have made Brunswick stew - but somebody else caught the squirrels. I know there are more foods native to North America...Anyone?

Squeezecheeze, Blech!

[panini]

I'm pretty sure all soul food is quite American. Here in the South it is not as ethnic as in some places. Red Beans, greens,all corn based foods, pork a thousand different ways. I love most peasant foods from all cultures.
Baking: German Chocolate Cake, Red Velvet Cake, 7 up Cake,
Dump Cake, Rice Krispy Treats, Grooms Cake, Fruit Cake, etc.

[shroomgirl]

American foods....we've had alot of threads this past year on regional foods...big list....it's almost like taking China and saying Chineese food or European food,what crosses all the state borders and is identified as American...(Velvetta DOESNOT count as it is not really food) hmmmmm

[Shimmer]

Yeah, and besides, they make Velveeta in places besides the United States anyway. I should know, because I was a DJ at the university I went to, and I had a night-time talk show full of silliness, and one night we had a Velveeta Taste Test, between American and Canadian Velveeta. They really are different!

Wasn't as succesful as the eyebrow contest, but still fun.

~~Shimmer~~

[Mezzaluna]

Judging from what I've seen of American food imports in European grocery stores (England and France) we know whom to blame for a reputation for abysimal food! It's the food importers and exporters who need the educating, so we send the French and English better food products than Old El Paso refried beans, Pop Tarts and Diet Coke. Add to that Kentucky Fried Chicken and fast food burgers, and you have a very poor profile of Americans as diners indeed. If we can agree that the best food is freshly made from fresh ingredients, it's cookbooks and chefs we'll have to place our trust in, to educate Europeans via television and print. You can't export a really good plate of freshly-prepared food, only the expertise to prepare it. We import a lot of creditable European cooking shows; do they import our best?

[Chef Nosko]

Hi Canadian Chefs:

I was in Ontario over the Christmas holidays....

Stopped into a bookstore in a mall, looking for Canadian cookbooks. I had trouble finding any.

Most of what I found were from American Chefs.

Maybe I just stepped into the wrong place. Who Knows???

What would some of your Cookbook recommendations be for good regional type fare?

Oh, by the way.....I could use a Raisin Butter Tarte from Tim Hortons about now!!!

Chef Nosko
A Fresh Endeavor
Boston, MA