Thanksgiving : The fourth Thursday in November is one of the most significant holidays on the Us calendar. It commemorates the Pilgrim Fathers’successful harvest after the first hard winter. Although there is some racy doubt as to the historical accuracy, Thanks-giving has an affirming resonance of the original pioneering spirit. As a time to gather from all over the country or the globe, Thanksgiving is more important than Christmas for many Americans. Festive food traditionally centers around roast nutrition with chestnut stuffing gravy and cranberry sauce. winter vegetable-sprouts parsnips and potatoes-are usually served as an accompanist-mant. There is on traditional drink but dessert is al-most always pumpkin pie.
the lobster freshly caught off the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts. They are delicious boiled or steamed with melted butter, or grilled on a barbecue. Local oysters, too, are excellent, as are the haddock, sea bass, flounder, and scrod (a type of white fish, usually young cod). For dessert, as in the rest of America, fruit pies are legion, but cranberry pie is an ew England innovation. Boston cream pie is actually a sponge cake filled with custard and glazed with chocolate icing. For real local authenticity, try Indian pudding, made from cornmeal, molasses, and milk. ‘Floribbean’ is a lend Florida, Caribbean, and Latin flavors popular in Miami. When not dabbling in Floribbean, everyone eats Cuban, either carne asada (roasted pork) or picadillo (minced beef with peppers and olives), served with earthy Cuban bl CK eans and yuca, a starchy root vegetable.
Thanksgiving
Crab claws have a devoted following in Florida
New Orleans prides itself on some of the most distinctive cooking traditions in America. They certainly are evocative
of the city’s own personality– or could it be that the city derives its personality from the cuisine: rich, Latin, and icy? There are two culinary styles particular to New Orleans and Louisiana: Creole and Cajun. The Creole tradition combines a French love of intricate sauces, the Spanish penchant for mixing fish, meat, and vegetables with rice and taste for liberal seasoning with hot peppers developed West Indies and Africa. Gumbo, a West African word for okra (known elsewhere as ‘lady’s fingers’), is the basic ingredient in and the generic name for thick soups of chicken or food. Crayfish, pronounced and often spelled in Louisiana ‘crawfish,’ best served straight boiled, is a favorite springtime shellfish to which whole festivals are devoted in April or May. Oysters here are plentiful and relatively expensive, encouraging New Orleans chefs to prepare them in numerous and marvelous ways: fried or in gumbo; as oysters Rockefeller – rich as its name implies, baked with spinach and breadcrumbs; breadcrumbs; oysters Bienville, cooked in white wine with shrimp, mushrooms, and shallots; or oysters en brochette, oysters skewered
Acadian connection
Chicago’s finest, deep-dish pizza
The name cajun refers to descent-Dans of French-Canadians and is a contraction of Acadian Cajun cooking is country-style cuisine, traditionally favored among the fishermen and farmers of the bayou. Fish soups like the spicy courtboullion, spicy sausages like boudin and andouille, and world-famous jambalaya are classic Cajun dishes. Jambalaya is a paella-like dish of rice and chicken, crab, or shrimp with bits of sausage or ham, pepper, and tomato. The poor man’s version is the deliciously filling red beans ’n’ rice, which is red kidney beans and rice flavored with pork. The local variation on the all-American submarine sandwich is the ‘poor-boy’ (long) or muffuletta (round) – French bread stuffed with cold meats, oysters, or other seafood, cheese, and salad, often pepped up with spice and too big for one person to finish. Figure-conscious California is where healthy and ‘clean’ eating first became popular. Using the huge variety of locally produced ingredients, the state came up with ‘California cuisine,’ which emphasizes both freshness and simplicity and at the same time represents California’s melting-pot culture. California is also where you’ll find vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, and other special-diet menus in abundance.
The Pacific Northwest has an abundance of superb fresh ingredients, from vegetables and fruits to meat, fish, and seafood, and, in the big cities of Seattle and Portland, enough varieties of cuisines to serve them all at their best advantage. There are also wonderful ethnic influences to draw culinary inspiration from, including Europe, Canada, and the whole of the Pacific Rim. The result is fusion – a mouthwatering menu of culinary melodies with themes from Japan and Southeast Asia as well as from French Canada and the United States. What they all have in common is the light touch that allows the excellent ingredients to shine through. That and the salmon. Copper River, wood-smoked – there are more kinds of salmon here than you can shake a rod at. Be aware, though, that two varieties of the popular sockeye salmon are listed as endangered or threatened.
