As American as Oxtail Stew: Creative American Foods

Creative American Foods

As an avid foodie, one of my favorite things to do when traveling to other countries is to experience new, unusual foods. I’ll never forget marveling over the unexpected-yet-genius idea of putting mayonnaise on my French fries, which I tried for the first time in Paris; my mother still rants about the paltry piece of meat that dared to call itself a burger when she was a broke young honeymooner in London (this was back in the seventies, and I’m told the food has improved since then). But you don’t have to travel the world to experience new taste sensations; regional specialties abound in the United States, and there are plenty of creative American foods you can sample in the States.

Take, for example, my hometown in northern California. We’re a fairly rural place, deeply influenced by our livestock industry and our patchwork heritage of gold rush multiculturalism. I can’t remember going to a fundraiser or community dinner that didn’t involve beef tri-tip, either grilled or cooked in a large metal barrel. If tri-tip was too pricy for the crowd, then chicken-in-a-barrel would suffice.

I will admit, when I first arrived here fifteen years ago, I had never heard of food cooked in a barrel – I had only heard the phrase, “Easy as shooting fish in a barrel.” Needless to say, when I heard they were taking me to a turkey-in-a-barrel dinner, my immediate assumption was that it wasn’t terribly fair to the bird.

A tendency not to waste food, coupled with deep Italian roots, has also made for some interesting gustatory combinations. I’ve eaten many a pasta dish served with a meat sauce made of oxtails, which sounds repulsive on first mention but is actually sublime when done right. Ditto to meat sauces and stews made with venison. However, my appreciation for my region’s practicality, thrift and culinary cleverness stops short of eating mountain oysters. And if you don’t know what they are, I’m not going to be the one to tell you. Trust me, it’s a kindness on my part.

This is just my corner of the country – as you move from county to county, state to state and region to region, you’re bound to find foods that are staples of that area, and are perhaps unheard of anywhere else. When people want to say something is American, they like to say, “It’s as American as apple pie.” You’ll bear with me when I admit that I can’t help but think of oxtail spaghetti sauce when I think of America. To me, it embodies thrift, practicality, creativity, a multicultural spirit and a dash of humor (you’d have to have a sense of humor to look at an oxtail and think, “That could be tasty”). In a word, it embodies all the values I like to think America can possess.

What are the foods that are particular to your region and your state? What foods do you think of when you think “America?” Leave us a note – or a recipe! – in the comments!