The huge range of American cuisine comprises recipes from Europe, Africa, Asia, as well as native dishes, and it varies widely from one State to the next. What you’ll find in Washington is South-eastern cuisine: the oldest in the US. Many recipes come from the Native American tribes, and date back 400 years.
The American Indian cooking tradition is most evident in the dishes made with maize flour, typical of the Indian tribes. The flour is used to make a typical bread, polenta, and for Grits, a soup the Indian chiefs used during celebrations. Above all, we have the Native Americans to thank for the most characteristically Yankee tradition of them all: the Barbecue, the method for slow-cooking and smoking meat over hot coals. The very name derives from an Indian word, Baribicu, meaning hole of fire.
The black community has also made a significant contribution to American cuisine: everyday Southern food is also known as Soul food, by analogy with Soul, black music par excellence.
African American slaves used to cook for the wealthy, and often continued to do so after they were freed, so they kept or modified many dishes, as well as introducing their own. The recipe for one of the most widely served American dishes, Fried Chicken, rolled first in breadcrumbs and spices, was imported from West Africa by black people.
The cuisine of South-eastern USA features many humble dishes of black origin, such as pig’s trotters, tripe, boiled beans or roast pork cheek, although it is mostly a mix of different cooking traditions.
This is evident in the specialties served at New Year: pork shin served with Hoppin John, that is, rice and black-eyed beans, of African origin, together with roast onions and cornbread. Here in the US, beans and pork bring good luck.
An interesting fact: It was from the Native Americans that the Europeans also learned to cook the famous potatoes.
….Enjoy your meal.
