Foods That Are Native to New England

[slbunge]

The thread started by elrap about Rhode Island Calamari got me thinking about dishes that are native to New England. A few that I can think of include:

Fried Clams: I'm not sure who was the first to batter and fry these tasty little creatures but I'm guessing it was folks in New England (as opposed to Long Island or New Jersey).

Indian Pudding: warm dessert of cornmeal and milk with cinnamon, ginger, and plenty of dark molasses.

Boston Cream Pie: not a pie at all, of course.

Lobster Roll: the best $20 sandwich you can buy.

Johnny Cakes: I have seen plenty of recipes but still have never seen these on a menu. Partly because I haven't spent nearly enough time in Rhode Island. (Recommendation please! Chris?)

These are only ones that roll right off the tip of my tongue. What other foodstuffs, popular or not-so-popular, are native to this part of the country?

[mizducky]

Maple syrup, and various derivatives thereof (maple sugar, candy, etc.). Yum.

Okay -- not a dish in itself, as such. Unless one is given to sneaking a swig straight from the bottle. (Hmmmm ... no confessions here ... )

Edited April 11, 2005 by mizducky (log)

[Holly Moore]

Woodman's claims to have first subjected the lowly clam to batter, breading and hot oil.

Parker House dinner rolls from the Parker House hotel.

Perhaps baked beans. Maybe chowder?

and, of course, the Dunkin' Donut Munchkin.

[Susan G]

Cranberries!

Blueberries?

Cod (which is why the Vikings, Irish and English came in this direction in the first place).

Tomatoes and corn (OK, not, strictly speaking, native to *only* New England, but the jumping-off place from where they were exported back to the Old Country).

Edited April 11, 2005 by Susan G (log)

[scordelia]

Cranberries!

Blueberries?

Cod  (which is why the Vikings, Irish and English came in this direction in the first place).

Tomatoes and corn (OK, not, strictly speaking, native to *only* New England, but the jumping-off place from where they were exported back to the Old Country).

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Don't forget potatoes and peanuts and sugar cane as important New World contributions.

[scordelia]

Johnny Cakes: I have seen plenty of recipes but still have never seen these on a menu.    Partly because I haven't spent nearly enough time in Rhode Island. 

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If you are roaming through Kentucky (which people do not realize how old it is) you can stop at the Beaumont Inn in Harrodsburg (near Lexington) for a breakfast of Johnny cakes, butter syrup and real country ham. This is the only place I have seen them as a regular menu item.

[ludja]

A New England (Mass/Boston) traditional pie I became aware of thru egullet is Marlbourough Pie. A custard pie made with applesauce and sometimes flavored with sherry. I missed making it this year but am eager to try it next fall. recipe

Definately fish, shellfish, corn and chicken chowders and also stuffed clams (stuffies in Rhode Island). Clambake!. Salt Cod Cakes.

A dish I recnetly made for a small Easter dinner but which I have read was traditional at Fourth of July a while back is poached salmon with egg sauce. (The sauce has fish stock and juices, cream, parsley, butter and cream and chopped hard boiled eggs). It was very nice!

New England Boiled Dinner and Red Flannel Hash. New England is the birthplace of many of the classic diner dishes.

Succotash, baked beans, Harvard Beets.

Cider Doughnuts, Blueberry Pie and pancakes, pumpkin pie, cranberry nut bread and relish... And fruit grunts, fools, flummeries, slumps, crisps..., gingerbread and ginger cookies.

Some of the more regional jams and jellies: beach plum, rose hip and Concord Grape...

Oh, there's lots more...

[elrap]

I was born in Connecticut, but lived in Los Angeles for 12 years. When we moved back (to NE Massachusetts), one of the things that struck me most was the proliferation of packaged, marinated steak tips at specialty butchers. This is more of a Mass than a CT thing; when I visit my relatives in the NH area I don't see the same crazy varieties (Hawaiian! Lemon Pepper! Teriyaki! Cheese and Garlic!).

On the other hand, one thing I always loved (& still do) in CT is the sausage and/or spinach bread that is often sold whole on its own, or by the slice in pizza shops, where it can be made from the ingredients at hand. If you've not seen it, it's just an Italian-sized bread dough rolled around a generous filling. Gotta make me some of that. . .

L. Rap

[WHS]

Mustard pickle? Moxie? Pilot crackers?

[Chris Amirault]

Fried Clams:  I'm not sure who was the first to batter and fry these tasty little creatures but I'm guessing it was folks in New England (as opposed to Long Island or New Jersey).

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I believe that it was Woodman's in Gloucester, Mass. So says just about everyone round these parts, including my grandfather (no longer with us), who fished cod out of Gloucester for forty years from a berth down the street. (Oops -- I see that Holly already said this. Sorry....)

Johnny Cakes: I have seen plenty of recipes but still have never seen these on a menu.    Partly because I haven't spent nearly enough time in Rhode Island.  (Recommendation please!  Chris?)

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Different styles abound. I'm partial to the sweeter ones at J. P. Spoonem's (terrible name, I know) on Broad St. in Cranston (just south of Providence and a few blocks from our house). Jigger's Diner on Main St in East Greenwich has pretty good ones, too, less sweet and more toothy.

As for recipes, I think that (as with many other things) John Thorne's chapter on corn meal in Simple Cooking is definitive.

A very important thing to add: the Rhode Island staple, the New York System weiner: bun, chili sauce, mustard, celery salt, minced onions, and a wee little weiner. One of the best things you can put in your mouth for consumption; one of the worst things to have put in your mouth after consumption.

Erp.

[edited to add the hallowed weiner and to acknowledge Holly -- ca]

Edited April 13, 2005 by chrisamirault (log)

[pam claughton]

I think baked stuffed lobster is probably a native new england dish. When it's split and filled with buttery crumbs and chunks of seafood, either crab, scallops, shrimp, or just more lobster....

It's about time for me to have one soon.

:)

[pam claughton]

Cranberry Orange Nut Bread....or any kind of cranberry bread. We've always had this around the holidays, and I made it years ago in Florida for Thanksgiving. I had just graduated college and we had a collection of students over who weren't able to head home. None of them had ever heard of cranberry nut bread, and thought it was quite bizarre...until they tasted it.

:) Pam

[HungryChris]

How about great big bowl of 'steamers' or a 'regular grinder'. Either of those will pretty much bring me home from wherever I am.

Cheers,

HC

[WHS]

"tonic" instead of "soda"

[mizducky]

Cranberry Orange Nut Bread....or any kind of cranberry bread.  We've always had this around the holidays, and I made it years ago in Florida for Thanksgiving. I had just graduated college and we had a collection of students over who weren't able to head home. None of them had ever heard of cranberry nut bread, and thought it was quite bizarre...until they tasted it.

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Ooooh! Forgot about the cranberry bread.

Speaking of breads, I see nobody's mentioned Boston Brown Bread yet.

I also seem to recall that the play "The Belle of Amherst" included a bit in which Emily Dickinson gave a recipe for something called "black cake" that would make enough to feed a small army. I dunno anything else about the history of this recipe except that it's apparently an authentic recipe for which Dickinson was known; especially in the context of that play, it felt way New England-y.

Here's a link to a version of the recipe cut down a bit and adapted to modern kitchens.

[Ellie]

Someone probably mentioned these but I missed it --

New England Boiled Dinner

and

Baked Beans

[Jason Perlow]

How about Autocrat Coffee Syrup?

[HungryChris]

How about Autocrat Coffee Syrup?

That thought occurred to me as well, but I wasn't really sure it was just a NE thing.

I was never much of a 'user', but those advertisements were ubiquitous (like Bosco) in my more formative years. My parents were of the volition that coffee was just not for kids so the only times I had it was at the homes of my friends with more liberal thinking parents. I did like a good 'coffee milk' at those haunts, though. There was a bird version of Mr. Peanut in the adds, wasn't there?

[Tonyy13]

Mustard pickle? Moxie? Pilot crackers?

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<-------- Native Mainer here who went to college in RI..... Man, I miss Moxie, I am feening (sp?) for it as we speak.... we really need a droolling smiley....

I have a few more:

Drop biscuits

Pizza Bread in RI

Humpty Dumpty Potato Chips (ME)

I don't know if this is a New England thing, but I have never seen Teenie Weenie Drinks in any of the supermarkets down here in the south, but I might be wrong.....

Oh man, I am getting hungry.....

[johnnyd]

Speaking of breads, I see nobody's mentioned Boston Brown Bread yet.

Ain't that the stuff that comes in a can? Ayuh!

[HungryChris]

"tonic" instead of "soda"

How about a cabinet, and does the name Salty Brine do anything for you?

[Holly Moore]

They're brands unique to New England, and I think distinctive: Old Settler Bread and Cain's Riviera Salad Dressing. I believe Old Settler bread is still available, but I just checked the Cain's site and saw no mention of Riviera Dressing.

Clam Fritters.

[mizducky]

Speaking of breads, I see nobody's mentioned Boston Brown Bread yet.

Ain't that the stuff that comes in a can? Ayuh!

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"Boston Brown Bread: Is a traditional American bread made from mixed grains, usually a blend of rye and wheat flour with cornmeal, buttermilk and molasses. Raises with bicarbonate of soda, the mixture is placed in a tall cylindrical mould and steamed, not dry baked in the normal way. The Puritan community of New England served this bread on the sabbath with Boston baked beans." (source of quote)

Yeah, you can buy the bread in a can ... and somewhat ironically, many current recipes suggest using a clean empty coffee can or similar as the mold since not too many people own the kind of mold originally used for it. But I suspect the bought-in-a-can bread stacks up to the home-made version about as well as canned baked beans compares to their from-scratch version.

Edited April 14, 2005 by mizducky (log)

[LindaK]

"tonic" instead of "soda"

How about ...a 'regular grinder'. Either of those will pretty much bring me home from wherever I am.

Both of these posts remind me of a surreal experience not long after arriving at college (Syracuse NY) from small town MA. After several hours of hunching over books in the library, I wandered unsuccessfully in search of some water--and finally inquired at the info desk after the location of a "bubbler." Blank stares. After a few exchanges, I resorted to sign language to make myself understood. Finally a light bulb went off over someone's head and with appropriate hand gestures she blurted out "aah..a WATER FOUNTAIN!!" Grinder, tonic, packie...too many examples of a different language in such a small geographic area...

More on topic, I have fond memories of the delicious homemade birch beer that an uncle of mine made every spring, as well as the mass-produced cream soda that I adored as a kid (odd, since other carbonated beverages were 'tonic'). Other childhood favorites that seemed peculiar to New England once I left the area--anything with salt cod especially--now I know to be derivative of varous european culinary traditions.

[scordelia]

Humpty Dumpty Potato Chips (ME)

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Oh, I miss those from when I lived in Maine! My favorites were the clam and sourcream chips!