Food

Early America

As more temperate climates evolved, desert cultures began to form in the southwestern region of North America, where people searched the wild land for seeds, grains, nuts, roots, and anything else edible. More eastward in the country, inhabitants gathered assorted nuts, fruits, berries, and animals from the abundant forests and prepared them with local herbs and leaves for seasoning. Those close to water or on the sea collected fish, mollusks, clams, and other shellfish, which they dried to feed their tribes through cold weather.

In time the stability and security of agriculture emerged. Close examination of evidence in caves and early grave sites reveals that regional foods were carried and used from place to place. Variety was endless, just as the foods available in America have endless variants today. Centuries passed, and the cultivation of staples such as corn, squash, and beans began to spread over the continent. In Bat Cave, New Mexico, tiny cobs of corn (called maize) were found and thought to have been there since around 3600 b.c.e. Millennia later, at the time Columbus and other Europeans arrived, blue, red, and black corn was being cultivated all over North America.

Early settlers, in both northern and southern colonies along the eastern seaboard, learned to survive on new, unfamiliar foods. Two universes of culinary ingredients, British and Native American, were combined to provide survival. There were no stores of wheat or oats, so the early colonists learned to pound corn, mix it with water, and cook it until a meal called “samp” (a name coined after a Narragansett word) was produced. In the decades that followed, cattle were brought from Britain, and butter and milk supplemented [Page 894]the simple corn porridge. The result was one of the first cross-ethnic foods in America—a mix of English and Native American products. Soon the newcomers learned to grow corn, find wild game, and grow a variety of squash and beans. Over those first centuries, the British arrivals learned to work the land and in time grew grains, vegetables, a variety of fruits, and other familiar foodstuffs from their homeland. They gathered native fruits and berries and learned methods of preparation and preservation from the Native American inhabitants.

International Influences

By the mid-1700s, there were scattered settlements of people from Europe, and along with them came their culinary traditions. Though not as numerous as British immigrants, there were Irish, Scandinavians, Spanish, French, Germans, Italians, Africans, and Asians present in North America in the earliest centuries. Ethnic enclaves were established, and traditional foods were both treasured and shared. The first Africans came to these shores in 1565 when they helped establish a colony in St. Augustine, Florida. The first Africans to arrive in the English North American colonies came in 1619 and brought with them memories of the tastes and flavors of Africa, such as okra, yams, plantains, millet, and aromatic spices. They adapted what they could find in the Americas to suit their culinary needs, but over the next centuries those foods were also brought to America.

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