Food in America The first Pilgrims showed a grim reluctance to trying anything that wasn't from their own stockpile of food, brought from England. They shunned the unfamiliar, "almost preferring to starve in the midst of plenty rather than experiment with the strange but kindly fruits of the Earth"

The Early Settlers The Pilgrims almost starved in a land of plenty. Lobster and fish were plentiful, as were wild duck, turkey, venison, wild plums, cherries and mushrooms. Clams and mussels they fed to their pigs. Naturally undadventurous, together with being inexperienced farmers, they found it difficult to survive in this new land. The native Americans meanwhile were eating potatoes, peanuts, pumpkins, squash, avocado, pineapples, chocolate, capsicums, peppers and tomatoes. Fortunately, the Indians gradually showed them how to grow and cultivate this wide variety of new foods. Green beans and strawberries were far plumper and richer than those they'd known in England. The Indians knew instinctively that a healthy body required a well balanced diet. They also were much more sophisticated farmers. Probably the single most important new food they learned to eat from the Indians was corn. The Indians also taught the new colonists interesting ways of preparing these new foods, and dishes like clam chowder, cranberry sauce, johnnycakes and baked beans.   Eating Out A new concept arrived in America in 1827 from France: the Restaurant. The Del Monico brothers opened a coffee and pastry shop in New York City. A few years later this evolved into a fine retaurant and Delmonicos introduced America to many unfamiliar foods, such as artichokes, mayonnaise, fricasseed calf's head. Inspired by Delmonico's, restaurantssprouted all over America. By 1870, New York had 5000! From earliest settlement, the main meal of the day was eaten between 2 and 4 o'clock in the afternoon. As America become more urbanised, people began to eat later, in the evening. To fill the gap between breakfast and dinner, a new and essentially American practice evolved: lunch. In 1872, Walter Scott loaded a wagon with sandwiches, boiled eggs and other foods and set up outside some offices: and so the Diner was born.   America's Contribution to Haute Cuisine Hamburger The early hamburger steak was a very different dish to the one known today - it was made from finely chopped cooked beef and was eaten cold. By 1901, the name had been shortered to hamburger, and it had evolved into a patty of ground (minced) beef and fried on a grill - but it was still not a sandwich, being eaten bare with knife and fork. It is unknown who made the first hamburger as we know it, but by 1910 the delicacy we now know and venerate was widely known and eaten throughout America. Hot Dog In the early 1900s, a popular cartoonist drew a picture of a dachsund in an elongated bun, and the name Hot Dog caught on in a big way - as did the eating of them. The Vienna Sausage, or frankfurter, had been eaten since the 1800s, but had not been eaten in buns. Ice Cream Cones Although an Italian American had invented the icecream cone earlier, at the St Louis World Fair in 1904, a waffle vendor and an ice-cream seller who were stationed near each other, realised that together they could sell their products, making them portable, and eliminating the need for dishes and spoons. And so the popularity of icecream in a cone began!

Bibliography Bryson, Bill. Made in America. (London: Secker & Warburg, 1994).