Ancestry Magazine

The earliest inhabitants of America ate what was available. That may have been an impromptu meal of wild greens or a slice of pemmican carefully stored away months before in anticipation of lean times. Today, we still eat what’s available. That may be an expensive salad of baby greens or a can of soup purchased months ago discovered in the back of the cupboard.

It comes as no surprise that we eat a huge variety of foods, but it’s interesting to note that we do so in spite of coming from a strong tradition of clinging to familiar foods. Our ancestors who came here, whether they were looking for opportunity, freedom, or something else entirely, had one thing in common—culinary conservatism. They knew what they liked and weren’t too willing to change the one thing that could quickly transport them to memories of home.

How we managed to overcome our conservative palates and make America a place where you can taste your way through a dozen different cuisines at almost any restaurant makes for a fascinating journey through time, gastronomy, and, of course, our nation’s immigrant history.

The Land of Plenty

America wasn’t really much of a “New World” when the Pilgrims arrived in November of 1621—humans had been here for millennia as hunter/gatherers living off the land. Corn, beans, and squash were dietary staples for virtually all indigenous people of North America. Meat was deer, supplemented with rabbit, squirrel, dog, bear, buffalo, and even prairie dog.

The growing season was longer in the more temperate regions, but even in colder areas, fruits, berries, and other crops flourished. Wild grains and rice were gathered and cultivated, and the oceans, lakes, and rivers provided plenty of fish. Foods and preparation methods of America’s natives were remarkably similar throughout North America, regardless of region.

This is where we started.

The English

Then the English arrived, fully intending to re-create English society on the coast of Massachusetts, say Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald, authors of America’s Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking.

“The Pilgrims wanted to reproduce what they were familiar with, so they brought with them wheat, rye, and barley grains as well as fruit seeds,” says Fitzgerald. “It was a way of asserting their intention of setting up their existing way of life here.”

They had a tough row to hoe. The soil wasn’t amenable to their grain crops, and none of the Pilgrims were really farmers. The group arrived at the beginning of the harsh New England winter—not an auspicious time to start anything, much less a whole new society.

What did the Pilgrims do? They took dietary tips from America’s natives. It wasn’t something the Pilgrims wanted to do; their attitude toward the American Indians was that these people were savages, littler higher on the social ladder than animals. But they simply had no choice.

Even harder to accept for America’s early settlers was that those savages prepared their food in ways that were very similar to their own.

“The Native American way of cooking was very similar to that of the English in that both relied heavily upon one pot meals that could be easily set to cook over an open fire,” says Stavely. “Similarities like that threatened to humanize the native, thus making it more difficult [for the settlers] to justify stealing their land.”

In the end, the Pilgrims reluctantly incorporated native foods into their diet. Over the years, those early dishes evolved to include foods we associate today with traditional New England fare. Baked beans and succotash, although they’ve undergone some changes—most notably the addition of molasses to the former and elimination of meat from the latter—comprised the daily meals of both the earliest settlers and their Native American counterparts. Pumpkin, a staple in the native diet, was adapted by the English to substitute for the lack of quince and apples and probably became the first American pie. Donna Gabaccia, author of We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans, says this is one of the first examples of fusion in American cuisines.

“Pumpkin pie was a fusion of a New World crop and a technique of cooking used in another country,” says Gabaccia. “It’s a classic example of an early combination of available ingredients and cultural preparation methods.”

African

By the late 1600s, English settlers were bringing African slaves to America in significant numbers, and the ships that carried those slaves also brought foods that were indigenous to the African nations: peppers, okra, peanuts, and black-eyed peas, as well as sesame seeds, watermelon, and yams.

In the South, especially among the wealthier land owners, female slaves did most of the cooking, leaving their indelible stamp on Southern cuisine.

“Slaves didn’t eat as well as the masters, but in addition to their rations they were often allowed to have gardens and catch fish,” says food historian and author Loretta Ichord. “They were very creative with the ingredients they did have and created most of what we think of as traditional Southern food.”

The list of African culinary influences in Southern cooking is long: barbecue, bacon, hush puppies, corn breads, fried foods, greens, and sweet potatoes are just a few. It was soul food, although it wasn’t called such until the 1960s. The term, Ichord notes, refers not so much to specific foods but to the way sharing food together at the end of a long day of forced labor filled the souls of these displaced people.

French

While the French were among America’s earliest explorers, they didn’t settle here in large numbers like the English did. That may be the reason that the cuisines associated with these settlers—Creole and Cajun—still tend to be so closely associated with the regions in which they originated.

Elizabeth Williams, president of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, says Creoles came from France when Louisiana was a French colony. “They came to colonize but were still connected to France, and they brought their French culinary heritage with them,” says Williams. The cuisine of the Creole people is elaborate, featuring multiple courses each with definite French influences, but also taking from the home cuisines of the other settlers of Louisiana’s coast, including its Spanish and African settlers.

Creole food shouldn’t be confused with neighboring Cajun food, although, speculates Williams, around the time of the Louisiana Exposition in 1984, the two cuisines were mistakenly lumped together. Cajuns were Catholic Acadians fleeing persecution by the French and English. They settled and raised large families inland—Lafayette, Louisiana, initially—living as hunter/gatherers. Cajun foods reflect this heritage. Main dishes are often created in a single pot; peppers, onion, and celery, all plentiful in the region, serve as the base or accompaniment of most dishes. Rice, also native to the area, stretched meals and helped feed the region’s traditionally large families. And ingredients such as crawfish still show how the area’s people relied on available resources for sustenance.

Mexican

While the English and French were settling the East Coast and Southern regions of the United States, Spanish and Mexican settlers were calling the Southwest and the Pacific “home.”

“The Spanish missionaries who came and built missions in the 16th century came up from Mexico,” says Ichord. “So the Spanish influence is really the Mexican influence.”

Corn had long been a staple of the Mexican diet, processed primarily into d and still use today as a bread product. Little was wasted—even the corn husks were utilized as wrappings for savory beef, pork, and bean tamales.

Like many foods, Mexican cuisine evolved in America to suit the tastes of people who were not Mexican but were interested in trying different ethnic cuisines. In Mexico, varied and spicy chilies and complex sauces are still common. Americans have simplified the sauces, toned down the spice, and fused traditional Mexican food with regional preferences and cooking techniques, thus bringing fajitas and tacos to just about every table.

German and Eastern European

Like the earliest English settlers, many eastern European immigrants arrived in America determined to hold on to whatever they could of their heritage. Often, the only way to do so was through the foods they ate. Sometimes, religious dietary rules necessitated a rigid adherence to traditional cuisines, such as kosher laws for Jews. In other cases, Gabaccia notes, retaining their home cuisine stemmed more from a desire to control at least one aspect of their lives during a time of intense change.

Change, however, was inevitable, and humans are naturally adventurous, particularly when it comes to eating.

“Immigrants were curious and creative and so were those who were sharing space with them,” says Gabaccia. “It’s hard to prevent yourself from responding to something that looks and smells good when it’s right next to you.”

As immigrants spread over America, the various cuisines of Europe, often modified by generations of cooks, became common to our dinner tables. Many of the foods Europeans ate in the Old Country had similar ingredients, although their preparation varied from culture to culture. For example, cabbage, potatoes, sauerkraut, and dumplings in various forms were common to cuisines throughout central and eastern Europe. Once in America, those cuisines became ingrained in American culture—even today when we think of traditional American food, it’s actually the Germans we should thank. The evolution of various German dishes has given us meatloaf, hamburgers, hot dogs, and potato salad—staples of cold nights, drive-ins, and picnic lunches.

American

Today, we’re a society on the move, and thanks to improvements in preserving and shipping foods and ingredients, we no longer have to yearn for the meals of our childhoods—we can get those foods right in our neighborhoods. Look at the menu of any casual, sit-down restaurant and you’ll find food that represents an Americanized version of almost every cuisine. By contrast, go to any other country, says Ichord, and you’ll typically find only the cuisine that’s unique to that country. There just really aren’t many cross-cultural choices abroad.

So what kind of food is cooking in the melting pot? Just like it’s always been, American food is whatever’s handy. It’s what brings back good memories, gives us a reason to share with others, and provides a welcoming feeling of comfort when we need it most. And today that magic combination helps make American food just about anything we want it to be.

Kelly Burgess is a Pittsburgh-based freelance writer with an interest in both food and history. She can be reached at kburgess@zoominternet.net.