USA: Regional specialties
While the predictable enormous steaks, burgers and piles of ribs or half a chicken, served up with salads, cooked vegetables and bread, are found everywhere, many visitors find it more rewarding to explore the diverse regional and ethnic cuisines around the country. Beef is especially prominent in the Midwest and Texas, while fish and seafood dominate the menus in Florida, Louisiana, around Chesapeake Bay and in the Pacific Northwest. Shellfish , such as the highly rated Dungeness crab - smoother and creamier than the average crab - and the Chesapeake's unique soft-shell crab, highly spiced and eaten whole, is popular too. Maine lobsters and steamers (clams), eaten alone or mixed up in a chowder, are a great reason to visit New England.Cajun food, which originated in the bayous of Louisiana as a way to use up leftovers, is centered on red beans and rice, enlivened with unusual seafood like crawfish and catfish, and always highly spiced.
Southern American cooking - also known as " soul food " - is not always easy to find outside the South, but is worth seeking out. You may not fancy eating grits (ground white corn served hot, mixed with butter) for breakfast, but full meals can be delicious, and incredibly filling. Vegetables such as collard greens, black-eyed peas , fried eggplant and okra (a principal ingredient of the Cajun gumbo) are added to staples such as fried chicken, roast beef and hogjaw - meat from the mouth of a pig. Chitterlings (or chitlins) are a delicacy prepared from the innards of a pig. Meat dishes are usually accompanied by cornbread to soak up the thick gravy poured over everything; with fried fish, you'll often get hush puppies - fried corn balls with tiny bits of chopped onion.
By contrast, California cuisine is geared toward health and aesthetics. It's basically a development of French nouvelle cuisine , utilizing the wide mix of fresh, locally available ingredients. The theory is to eat only what you need, and what your body can process. Vegetables are harvested before maturity and steamed to preserve both vitamins and flavor. Seafood comes from oyster farms and the catches of small-time anglers, and what little meat there is tends to be from animals reared on organic farms. The result is small but beautifully presented portions and high, high prices: not unusually $50 a head (or much more) for a full dinner with wine.
A spin-off from California cuisine is the so-called New New Mexican or Santa Fe-style food, again emphasizing ultrafresh and unusual ingredients, and spiced with chilis to reflect the Spanish and Mexican heritage of the Southwest desert region.
Although technically ethnic, Mexican food is so common it often seems like an indigenous cuisine, especially in southern California. In Texas, Tex-Mex food is a somewhat less spicy local version, whose distinguishing dish is beef and bean chili con carne. Day or night, this is the cheapest type of food to eat: even a full dinner with a few drinks will rarely be more than $10 anywhere except in the most upmarket establishment.
Mexican food in the States is different from that found in Mexico, making more use of fresh meats and vegetables. The essentials, however, are the same: lots of rice and pinto beans, often served refried (boiled, mashed and fried), with variations on the tortilla , a thin corndough or flour pancake that can be wrapped around food and eaten by hand (a burrito ); folded, fried and filled (a taco ); rolled, filled and baked in sauce (an enchilada ); or fried flat and topped with a stack of filling (a tostada ). Meals are usually served with complimentary nachos (chips) and a hot salsa dip. The chile relleno is a good vegetarian option - a green pepper stuffed with cheese, dipped in egg batter and fried.
Local variations in cuisine are endless. Many farming and ranching regions - Nevada in particular - have a surprising number of Basque restaurants; the Amish communities of Pennsylvania have their own traditions; and Portuguese restaurants, dating from whaling days, can be found in New England. Chinese food is everywhere and can often be as cheap as Mexican; Japanese , found especially on the coasts but increasingly in all big cities, is rather more expensive and fashionable. Italian food is popular, and specialist Italian regional cooking is catching on fast in the major cities. French food, too, is available, though usually pricey, and rarely found outside the larger cities. Thai, Korean, Indian and Indonesian food is similarly city-based, though usually cheaper.
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