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"We eat simply but we eat well" is an old Yankee saying, and traditional New England cooking bears it out. Hearty fare, simply prepared, has been the style since Colonial times. To this day most of New England's best dishes are based on its native foods: corn, beans, berries and, of course, seafood. New England's lobsters, clams, scallops and salt-water fish are nationally acclaimed. The great New England specialty is the clambake, which is not so much a dish as a celebration. In the traditional clambake, clams, lobsters, corn and sometimes chicken are steamed ceremonially on hot rocks in a covered pit, with plenty of seaweed.
Stews and chowders abound in this corner of the world. Corn Chowder is a traditional dish with many versions. The essential ingredients are green corn kernels, milk or cream, potatoes, onions and salt pork. New England Clam Chowder is a favorite and is made from quahogs, potatoes, bacon, onion and cream. Joe Booker Stew makes a robust meal of beef simmered with rutabagas, potatoes and carrots, and topped with parsley-flavored dumplings. Today no one recollects who Joe Booker was, but a steamy bowl of his namesake stew is still favored on a cold winter's night. These savory dishes may be accompanied by piping hot corn bread, Parker House rolls, named for the famous hotel where they originated, or Anadama Bread. Stories about the origin of this bread are many, but one of the more plausible concerns Anna, a fine but temperamental cook. She left her husband and he had to make her bread recipe himself, muttering all the while "Anna, damn her."
The New England Boiled Dinner was developed by colonists' wives who had to cook over wood fires and usually in one pot. It traditionally consists of boiled carrots, onionspotatoes, turnips, beets and cabbage arranged around a centerpiece of corned beef. In coastal areas, a variation to this dish, sometimes known as Cape Cod Turkey, consists of salt cod with cream sauce surrounded with rutabagas, carrots, potatoes, beets and fried salt pork. Thrifty cooks concocted Red Flannel Hash by chopping the leftovers of the boiled dinner and pan-frying them.
Other traditional favorites from colonial times are Boston Baked Beans (this hearty dish could be made a day ahead, which was favored by those whose religion restricted work on the Sabbath); Succotash, a hearty dish of corn and beans; and Indian Pudding, a concoction of cornmeal, molasses, butter and spices. Cranberries, almost a symbol of New England cuisine, are found in juices, pies, muffins, breads, jellies, relishes and many luscious desserts.
In the mountain states of New England, familiar regional fare often gets an unusual twist. Vermont Chicken Pie is covered with an array of baking powder biscuits, and is served with maple-sweetened, creamed winter squash. A most distinctive element of New England mountain cooking is maple sugar. Maple sugar or syrup is great in frostings, candies and sauces for pouring on pudding, and, of course, pancakes. A favorite Vermont dessert is Maple Sugar Pie, and Maple Nog is a bracing beverage of milk, maple syrup, tea and cinnamon served in mugs.
Other New England desserts include Fried Pies, a super-rich pastry turnover filled with cinnamon-fllavored applesauce, deeply fried until golden brown; Apple Pan Dowdy, stewed apples with crust on top (traditionally the top crust is "dowdied" or cut up before serving); and Blueberry Grunt, and old-fashioned fruit dessert made from boiling the berries and dropping spoonfuls of biscuit dough into them.
THE FLAVORS OF AMERICA
By Mary Eccher
page 2 of 13
NEW ENGLAND
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