The Last Course

This is my very last entry, the last you will read  from me, the icing on the cake.
I will tell you in a few minutes what my point is over this whole blog,  about the reason why I wrote the blog about  food, and about American desserts.
I cooked through every region of the U.S. and told you its history.
Seven regions, The West Coast, the Middle Atlantic Coast, The Midwest, The South, The Mountain Sates, The Southwest and The West Coast. Seven regions, seven different influences, climates, and seven different cultures.
The U.S. is one country, but as big as Europe, and you can even say it is like Europe. Every state is like a country in Europe and has different influences, culture, accents, climate, and a different history. Not one state is like another state. They might all speak English and they might have similarities, but each of them is different ans special in its one way.
You might think now, "What is her point?" I will tell you. My point is that you can't name a specific meal, or a specific way people are, or how the landscape is, because, as I have tried to tell you many times here, every state is different, like a whole new country. That was why I cooked through every region of the U.S. and told its story. My point is that you have so many possibilities here, I am not saying that the "American Dream" is reality, there are many poor people in the U.S., and I am not saying that the U.S. is perfect. No country is, but I think it's worth it to travel to the U.S. You have so many possibilities here, you can go to the desert, snow and ice, hot sun and beach, or to the evergreen state where it rains so much. 
The reason why I wrote about food is because eating food is what everyone is doing (if they have food), all around the world. The way poeple eat and cook their food shows us a part of them and their country's history. How they live, where the typical meals came from, what is eaten a lot in this region or counrty, and why it is eaten there. And most importantly, how the country became what it is today.
Now to my dessert part.
American desserts are described as easy cake and cookie recepies that everyone can cook, either grandma or children, and that brings the family and friends together, baking cookies or cakes.

I made peanut butter layered cookie bars.  They are like a strange cake, but they taste delicious.  A popular myth held by many Americans is that peanut butter was invented by George Washington Carver in 1915. He did invent over 300 uses for peanuts, but peanut butter was not one of them, as it had already been invented before. 

So, the icing on the cake is that I have enjoyed eating my way around the U.S. and hope that you have enjoyed it too! 

Spare Ribs

Today I will introduce you to Spare Ribs.
Spareribs are cured pork chops. 
They weren't invented in the U.S. I know you will say now, "Are you serious?"  And my answer is, "I'm totally serious!" It was a surprise for me too, believe me. Guess from which country they come now? No, not England because the word Spare Ribs is English. They came from Germany. Yes, you heard me right, from Germany. The reason they have the name Spare Ribs is because in Germany they were called Ribbenspeer (which means rib spear), and the people from England who brought it from Germany to England (and later to the U.S.) just left the word as it was and spoke it English- Rib Spare-which later became Spare Ribs. So actually it would have to be a typical German food, but it isn't, everyone just knows it as THE typical U.S.  American barbecue food.
Whenever someone talks about Spare Ribs, and that they come from the US, start shouting: "Wait, I know it better!" and tell where they really came from, because you do know it better! Well, if you are very shy I guess you don't have to shout, but at least you can smile to yourself and think , "Your story is wrong man, I know it better." I think I would rather do the second alternative, but the first one sounds very fun, doesn't it? And you would have something to talk about!
But anyway, I made Spare Ribs at home, of course, but I forgot to take a picture of it , so I took a picture from the internet to show you what it looks like. Here it is:

Spare Ribs

Doesn't it look yummy?
I think it does!



...And don't forget to correct people if they say it wrong!

Chicken Wings

Hey,
Today I'm going to show you the chicken wings.They don't have a great or interesting history, it's more of a story where something is invented by a kind of a coincidence. 
Anyway, the whole story began in 1964 in Buffalo, NY. The owner of the  "Anchor Bar", Theresa Belissmo, was surrounded  by a horde of hungry boys. According to the legend, she had already used all the good parts of the chicken, so now she had to invent something for the left over parts of the chicken, the chicken wings. She fried them in oil, dipped them in a butter-Tabasco sauce, and served them with vegetable sticks and a blue cheese sauce to take the acidity away . That's the whole story.
I think it's very funny that they began like that. I mean she invented it by accident , and today we all know and love chicken wings, so be thankful to the horde of boys, because without them we wouldn't have chicken wings today, of course we also have to be thankful for Teresa Belissmo.
Of course I tried to make chicken wings too, but- I'm really sorry for what I did- because I didn't buy  chicken wings, I bought chicken pieces without bones, because the chicken wings cost more and have less meat. I know it doesn't matter for many people but it did for me, so I didn't buy chicken wings.
So I didn't really make "chicken wings", I made chicken with the chicken wings recipe, with vegetables and blue cheese sauce. It was yummy, but I don't think it was suuuper extra delicious like the original ones, which isn' t really possible because I didn't know at this time what they would taste like, and they are really, really good. 

Chicken Wings

Hamburger

Hey readers,
As you can see I cooked through every region of the US. After that I cooked, baked or made meals that you know everywhere in the US, like burgers, chicken wings, and spare ribs.
So, at first I am going to introduce you to the famous burger. Everyone knows it, fast food shops like Mc Donald's  sell them every day . There are different burgers like the normal hamburger, or  chicken burgers, cheeseburgers, vegetarian burgers, and many more. Everyone knows it, but where does it come from, how does it get its name?
First of all, let's see what a burger has to have to be one. A burger is an open-faced sandwich with meat, usually it's beef, and some kind of sauce, like ketchup in it. It is not clear where the burger comes from, but one that for sure is that the word hamburger doesn't come from the English word ham.
There are two theories of the burger's history. The first theory is that it comes from Germany, from Hamburg.  It was a round sandwich with roast beef and roast sausage and came with the German settlers to America. In the middle twenties its name changed from hamburger to burger.
Another theory is that it came from a fair in Erie County, near by Hamburg (Buffalo, state NY). The Mencher brother had a hot pork diner there and when they hadn't enough meat they started to experiment with beef, and created the hamburger and called it after their village Hamburg.
And now you can choose which one you will believe. I think they could both be true.
When I made the burger my thought was that it isn't  enough for everyone ( I had one burger for each person). I made two kinds of burgers, a small one and a big one. I had a big burger, and let me tell you, one burger for each person WAS enough!!!! I was so satisfied after just ONE burger.  When you eat a burger at Mc Donald's  you have to eat 2 to be satisfied (I heard some people can eat 4, but I'm super thin and I can eat just 2 or 3, I don t know I actually never tried). And of course they tasted super delicious, much better than from Mc Donald's. That was my burger, I made the meat so big that I could hardly eat it, because the big ones had two pieces of meat in it AND bacon. I can recommend it to you to make it yourself because of three reasons. First, it tastes better when you do it yourself, second you can control what you want to put on your burger and mix whatever you like, third, you know if there is real meat on your burger and not just pureéd rest of whatever they put in there! I don t want to judge you, I eat at fast food shops too, but after I heard that they chop so much of the rain forest to have free places to feed the cows that become beef , I started  to eat at Mc Donald's just when I had to, and mostly no meat.  So my advice for you, (you don't have to follow it of course, just a suggestion!) try to  think about what you eat, or what you THINK you eat!!!

Day Seven- New England

Hey

The first thanks giving by Jean Leom Germe Ferris

It´s me. Today we are in New England, which  includes the states Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts,Vermont and Rhode Island. New England was populated in the 17th century by Puritans  from England who couldn´t practice their religion there, so they sailed with the "Mayflower" (their ship) to Holland, Amsterdam and tried to live there for a few Years. But they din´t like the way the Dutch lived and decided to live in a free, new world. In 1620 they sailed with 102 men on the ship "Mayflower" to America  TZheir intention was to land in Virginia, but because of autumn storms they landed in today's Plymouth, which they set up after they landed.
  Before they went on land they made the famous "Mayflower contract". The Mayflower contract says that every man can choose their own political beliefs and have rights, the first democracy in America had begun.  The pilgrims were not the first settlers in America, but they are important for the American history because they celebrated the first Thanksgiving in America. And that happened because the Puritans didn´t know how to grow food at first and many of them died in the winter from strange illnesses and starvation. They would have all died if the Native Americans hadn't helped them. They showed the Puritans what they can eat and how to grow food. As a thank you, the Puritans celebrated Thanksgiving with the Native Americans, inviting them to a huge potluck. So you see, the Americans didn't kill the Native Americans from the start, but when in 1626 more Puritans came, the killing stared. The Puritans saw the Native Americans as devils and the townships sold premiums to people who killed Native Americans.
In New England were also the witch-huntings, where women who knew how to use medicine were burned. The most "witches" died in Salem.

Boston Tea Party

Another important event for American history is the " Boston Tea Party". "America" had to follow, at this time still, the British rules and belonged to England. England decided to trade in America too and made very high taxes on tea and other imports, so the "Americans" started to smuggle less expensive tea from Holland. When England sent again expensive tea from England, the Boston people, dressed as Naitve Americans threw 342 boxes of tea into the sea at night. That was the beginning of the War of Independence, that's why New England is sometimes called the birth place of America.

But enough of that, even though it's ( in my opinion) very interesting. Let´s talk about eating again. Specialties from New England are clam chowder, baked beans, thanksgiving turkey, lobster and cakes like pumpkin pie, brownies, American apple pie, and chocolate chip cookies. Because no one of my family (including me) eats clams, and I didn t want to cook baked beans, and it isn't Thanksgiving now, I didn't make any of these things. And lobster is too expensive (around 60 euro=$83), and I don't know where to get it here in Germany, so I made corn soup which they do in  Main.  As a cake I made apple pie, because I LOVE it. Both was very delicious.


Apple Pie



Day Six-Middle Atlantic coast

 Hey everybody, Every time  I want to write "everybody" or "everyone" I forget an "e" and I write "evrybody", that's weird. But back to the main theme, today we are in the Mid-Atlantic which includes the states New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the District of Columbia.  The capital of the USA, Washington D.C. (District of Coumbia) is in the Mid-Atlantic. Washington D.C. doesn't belong to any of the states because it's the capital. It's named after the first president of America, George Washington.  Washington D.C. is the seat of the government and the White House, where President Obama, the first African-American president of the US, lives during his term (as have almost all his predecessors), seen in the picture on the left.  Next to the White House is the Washington Monument, the biggest obelisk of the world. It's built on top of a hill,  and in a big water basin (reflecting pool) on the hill you can see its mirror image. The Washigton Monument was put in on the fourth of July in 1848 and was designed by Robert Mill. Robert Mill had won the designer challenge for the Washigton Monument, but in his proposal there was, around the obelisk, a columned hall with statues of George Washington and other heroes of the War of Independence. But there wasn´t enough money to build it, so they just buildt the obelisk. Because of a stone from Pope Pius IX and the ensuing fight about it , they interupted  the building activity in 1858. A few years after the civil war (1879 ),  they resumed building it and ended in 1884 . So you see, the Washigton Monument has a looong history. That, and because it interested me, I told you about it. As you can see America makes big things, sometimes taking a long time and with many interruptions, but in the end it´s perfect.  Á propos  perfect, on this day I made Spaghetti with dried tomatoes. My mum's birthday was on this day and she had three recipes and could choose one of them and she chose this one. But they don´t eat just Spaghetti there, of course. the Mid-Atlantic enjoys the most different cultures since the 17th century. The Dutch brought wafles and pan cakes, the Norwegian fish recipes and the Italian pizza and pasta.  But that isn´t even everything. In NY, for example, is a China Town and it has chinese cuisine.  There is also a Little Italy......the cuisine of Pennsylvania has influences from the German speaking minority, they eat there many vegetables, soups, stews, and meat dishes.  New Jersey is known for its vegetables, and above all of course the famous Jersey tomatoes.    

Spaghetti with dried tomatoes and parmesian

 
But for a birthday you always have to make a cake. Well my mum made brownies for her friends in her office and for our family, so I made peanut ice cream, because it goes perfectly with brownies. It was a weird taste but I liked the ice cream.

brownies and in the background peanut ice cream

Day Five-The Midwest

Hey everybody,

Al Capone

Chicago by night

Today is the fifth day of cooking through America, and I'll tell you about the Midwest. The Midwest includes the states of Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri. There doesn't seem to be a universal division of the country into regions, so you might find another arrangement of the Midwest and the other regions on other sites. Chicago, Illinois, is the third largest city in the US after New York and Los Angeles, and some believe it to be culturally and commercially the most meaningful metropolis in the Midwest. The food has influences from Northern Europe and Scandinavia, and when you visit Michigan you might feel as if you were in Holland because celery and tulip fields are quite common. The names Zelland or Harlem are a testimonial of the settlers. I think you may have heard of Chicago's major gangster boss Al Capone, who was responsible for a daily production of 80,000 l of moonshine during the prohibition.

beefsteak with corn and potatoes

Today I cooked two things, but the first can we only eat tomorrow because it's not ready yet. The first thing was peanut butter ice-cream, but it's still in the freezer. The second was beefsteak with baked potatoes and corn-on-the-cob.  Well it should have been corn-on-the-cob, but my mum couldn't find them anywhere so I used corn from the jar and put it in the sauce. But everything tasted pretty good anyway, nearly everything does if I may say so, maybe my family wasn't of the same opinion, but they're all polite anyway and have been supportive of my cooking. I didn't really like the steaks, they were rather tough, but the rest was great.

Day Four-The South

Hey everybody,

slaves  harvesting cotton

Guess what, it's me again.Today is my fourth day of cooking through America and we are in the South.When I speak of the South,  I mean the states Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama. The South has strong influences in its food from the days of slavery in the 18th century.Soul food, cajun food, tex-mex cuisine and the creole cuisine are specifics of the South cuisine. For everyone who does not know what soul food or anything of this is , here is a little explanation for you: soul food is the name for the traditional cuisine of the African-American in America, especially in the South. Because the food for the slaves was of bad quality in the time of slavery, they made  it with much sugar and oil to advance the taste.Often they use spices like cayenne pepper, nutmeg, pimento, cinnamon and thyme. Canjun food is the cuisine of the french immigrants in the South. Typical ingredients include shrimps, oysters, and strange things like alligators and frog legs are eaten too. Tex mex food is a composition off  Texan and Mexican food, often very hot and spicy. The creole cuisine is similar with the cajun cuisine, but the creole cuisine is more oriented in the classic french style of cooking.
(I tried to copy the code of the video in my blog but it did not work, so I ll just put the link of the video in here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DK_s60YclE)
For everyone who has seen the video I put in, when I see this,  I want to be there and eat everything. It looks so good, a little bit unhealthy maybe because of the immense amounts of oil but, yummy and when I saw this cake everything was forgotten..

plantage pancake

red rice with chorizos

Maybe you want to know what I cooked. Even if you don't want to know it,  I will tell you. In the afternoon I made plantage pancakes with much sugar. And for dinner I made red rice, rice with tomatoes and chorizos, a very delicate kind of sausage. I wouldn´t recommend the pancakes I made because they had so many eggs inside that they just tasted like eggs, and I couldn't taste the sugar inside them!! Of course I put much sugar on them but there HAS to be sugar inside!

Day Three-Mountain states

Hey everybody,
It's me again. Today we are in the Mountain states and I cooked salmon with lime sauce, a special recipe found in this high country even though the salmon and limes did not originate here.

Natural Bridges National Monument

The Great Plains

The Mountain states are Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada. The Rocky Mountains are a range that stretches through America and into Canada. The Rocky Mountain states have very famous historical sites, like the many National Parks in nearly every state, and the Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah or the Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.

Mount Rushmore Monument

This reminds me of one of the most famous monuments, Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, which of course is not one of the mountain states, but it is where the four American presidents  George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln (from left to right) are carved in stone.  This monument was begun in 1930 by John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum.  Maybe you know it from movies like "Mars Attacks!", or "Head of State", not that I know these movies, I just read that they remove the heads of the 4 presidents in "Mars Attack!" and put alien heads in their place. That sounds just strange and stupid,  I mean imagine if you were an alien, why would you go to earth to put some alien heads in stone??? They must have better things to do, like killing people like they do in many alien movies.

I´m sorry, I just had to say that, but back to the main theme, I was writing about the Mountain states and the food there. In the Mountain states venison and elk are often eaten. I cooked fish because it's forbidden here to go hunting in the woods, and besides I don't want to hunt, sorry everyone maybe another time. Also very popular are salmon and trout.

This time when I cooked nothing bad happened like on "Day Two" with the doughnuts, and it tasted really good.  The only bad thing was that we had three salmon filets, one for each person, and I ate a half in the beginning, and later when I wanted the other half my father had already eaten it, and I only had mashed potatoes with sauce which was soooo good, -yummy- and no fish.

On the right of the plate is some salad I made and on the left mashed potatoes.

Day Two -Southwest

Hey everyone,
It's me again. Today I'll show you the Southwest and a very common dish, "chili con carne" , and something you can find everywhere in the USA, even in Germany it's common, the doughnut.

The Southwest includes the 3 (red framed) states Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico and has a lot of Mexican influences in the food and way of life, which you can see in many Mexican dishes with beans, the staple food in Texas. The Southwest has the most popular cuisine of America with its chilis, salsas, tortillas, tacos and juicy steaks...I'd better stop with these delicious sounding meals or I'll start getting hungry and dinner time is over...

The Big Bend National Park

The Big Bend in Texas National Park is very famous, and has these     beautiful, red, strangely formed stones that look like giants had played with LEGOS or something. You can see it yourself here, I'm sorry that I can't put this video on my blog but here is the link:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_KSWvnl8gk .  I would like to see this cactus (0:58 in the video) doesn't it look amazing? I want to have one in my room but it's too small, I think.


But my Southwestern cooking actually started yesterday when I made the dough for the doughnuts. And there I had a little faux pas.  First, I didn't read the recipe thoroughly enough and mixed 180ml milk and 60ml water, so I had instead 60ml milk and 180ml water, so READ THE RECIPE CAREFULLY!!! Then I tried to pour the water away and I put more milk inside, but it wasn't enough which I recognized the next day. Second,  when I had put the dough in a bowl amd closed it with the lid I had to wait a few hours so I watched TV. But suddenly it made a "bang" and the bowl was on the ground, I had forgotten the yeast that pushed up the lid of the bowl. Then I didn't close the lid and after some time the dough was all over the place ... look for yourself. I made a picture, it was funny actually because I had too much dough anyway...
In the night I put the bowl ouside so it couldn't happen again, and guess what it DID happen again ...Third, I had to put sooooo much flour in it because I wasn't able to work with it, it was too runny.

Doughnuts in the pan...

But apart from  that I hadn't had any problems. Okay, just a little one, I made so much dough that I had around 42 Doughnuts today and we were 5 people to eat it and we still have a box full of them, but I must say they taste very good and  guess what,  I'm eating one right now, yes at 12:00 a.m., but I'm on vacation right now, so it's okay.

.. and the finished ones.

After I made the doughnuts I made chili con carne. For everyone who doesn't know it, chilli con carne is a stew with beef, beans, corn and lots of chili. While I cooked it I had no accidents, which surprised me a lot and it was fast, less than two hours. I know it does not look that delicious but you can't picture it,  it is just unique and pictures don't do it justice. But it was very tasty and a little bit hot, but I think people in Texas eat it hotter. So I'm going to bed now because I need to sleep so that I can cook tomorrow,  good night everyone...

Day One-The West coast

Hey everyone,
Today was my first day of  "COOKING THROUGH AMERICA". I will cook from West to East to show you how America cooks in every region and tell a little bit about their history.
So my first meal is from the West coast, it's called "Californian pizza", pizza with mushrooms and onions. I know it doesn't sound very hard to cook, it actually wasn't, but I wanted to start with something easy and I can't cook a live lobster or something, because it is impossible to get that here in a little village.

Hawaii

But back to the historical part of the West coast . The West coast includes the 5 (red framed) states Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska and Hawaii,  but the last two states, Alaska and Hawaii, don't really belong to the West coast because they aren't connected directly to the other three.The West coast includes the famous Olympic National Park in Washington, the popular Hawaiian Islands, the Golden Gate Bridge in Californian,and  the Crater-Lake-Park in Oregon.  The West coast was populated in the end of the 19th century, it was the last part of the USA that was populated. The majority came to California because of the gold fever, which began at the end of the slavery, so there aren't many colored people, and southern California is populated by many Mexican people. The California cuisine is known as a combination of American, European, and Chinese food. Because of the moderate climate, fruits and vegetables grow very well. Hawaii has many exotic influences and is known for the frequent use of coconut.

Olympic National Park

Golden Gate Bridge

Crater-Lake-Park

So now you know a little bit about the history of the West coast, but I didn't say anything about how my pizza tasted. Are you interested to know how it tasted and what it looked like?? (I use the past tense because right now there is just a little piece left of the pizza. No, the dogs didn't eat it, thank God,  my family and I did).  Okay, I will show you what it looked like,  and can tell you that my pizza tasted very good and everyone liked it. The photos are just to show that I really did cook:

Before baking...

...after baking