US Recipes and Cookbooks

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• Just like the state of Hawaii itself, Hawaiian cuisine combines Polynesian and Western traditions. Additionally, Hawaii has many links with Asia and a large Asian population, and thus Hawaiian cuisine includes many recipes adapted from Asian cuisine.
  
  
• The first Europeans to settle in New Orleans and what is today the state of Louisiana, were of French origin. Thus Cajun and Creole cuisine has been greatly influenced by French cuisine's traditions, although of course using American ingredients.
  
  
• New England cuisine is known for excellent seafood, particularly lobsters.
  
  
• Puerto Rico is a Caribbean island group that was ruled by Spain for hundreds of years before being acquired by the United States during the Spanish-American war. Puerto Rican cuisine thus combines traditions from Spanish cuisine with ideas from Caribbean cuisine.
  
  
• The Southwestern part of the United States was once ruled by Mexico, amd even today still has many links with that country. Southwestern cuisine thus includes many items inspired by Mexican cuisine.

• Chicago-style pizza - A deep-dish variety of pizza, originally from Chicago.
  
  
• Chili con carne - A spicy stew made from meat (usually beef) and chile peppers. Some recipes also add other ingredients such as beans, onions, and tomatoes, although there are also people who adamantly say the recipe should not include such ingredients.
  
  
• Clam chowder - A soup, created using a milk base, and containing clams, flour, onions, potato, and bacon or salted pork. There are two main versions of this recipe:
  • The recipe traditionally made in New England, sometimes known as "New England clam chowder" or "Boston clam chowder", does not contain tomatoes.
  • The recipe traditionally made in New York City, sometimes known as "Manhattan clam chowder", which does contain tomatoes.
  
  
  
• Club Sandwich - A sandwich made using three layers of toasted bread, between which are two layers of fillings. One layer of filling contains chicken or turkey breast meat. The other layer of filling contains bacon, lettuce and tomato slices. Variations of the recipe sometimes add extra ingredients such as cooked egg or sliced of cheese.
  
  
• Congealed salad - A salad made from flavored gelatin into which are embedded fruit or vegetables such as grated carrots. Sometimes other ingredients such as cream cheese, marshmellows, nuts, or pretzels may be added instead.
  
  
• Corn dog - A fast-food snack, traditionally eaten at fairs and other events. It is a hot dog, covered in cornmeal batter, and then deep-fried or baked. Corndogs are usually served on wooden sticks, and are usually eaten with ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, or a relish.
  
  
  
• Eggs Benedict - Half an English muffin topped with bacon or ham, poached eggs, and Hollandaise sauce.
  
  
• Fried chicken - Chicken coated in seasoned flour and then deep-fried. Fried chicken is particularly associated with Southern cuisine and with Soul Food.
  
  
• Grits - One of Southern cuisine's most famous dishes. It is a porridge made from maize, and made be eaten either for breakfast or a side-dish with another meal.
  
  
• Gumbo - A soup originally from Cajun and Creole cuisine. It has subsequently become widely popular along the whole coast of the Gulf Mexico, and has also been adopted by many Soul Food eateries and restaurants. The soup is made from meat or fish stock and containing bell peppers, celery and onion. Dried ground sassafras leaves ("filé powder), okra, or roux (wheat flour and fat) are used to thicken the soup, and other ingredients usually include assorted assorted meat, smoked pork or sausage, and shellfish.
  
  
  
• Jambalaya - Cajun and Creole cuisine's adaptation of the Spanish recipe, paella. It is a rice dish flavored with tomato and containing local meat, seafood and vegetables.
  
  
  
• Johnny cakes - Fried pancakes made from cornmeal.
  
  
• Key lime pie - This is a traditional dessert originally from the Florida keys. The dish is made from condensed milk rather than fresh milk, because in the days before refridgeration, it was hard or impossible to obtain fresh milk in the Florida Keys. Key limes, which are small limes native to the Florida Keys, are also essential to the dish. The key limes, sweetened condensed milk, and egg yolks, are all prepared in a pie crust, and additionally egg whites are also often used to make a meringue topping.
  
  
  
• Laulau - A modern adaptation of a traditional recipe of Hawaiian cuisine, and usually served macaroni or rice salad. Laulau is made from salted butterfish and meat (beef, chicken or pork), all placed inside a taro leaf.
  
  
• New York-style pizza - A style of pizza originally from New York (and still popular in that city). The pizza is made into large very thin wide slices, which are folded in half when eaten.
  
  
• Poke - A salad made according to a Hawaiian recipe. The salad contains raw fish, fly fish roe ("tobiko"), tofu, onions, scallions and tomatoes. It is lavored using chillis or red pepper, sea salt, sesame oil and soy sauce.
  
  
• Pumpkin pie - A pie containing a pumpkin-based custard. The pie is particularly associated with Halloween, and is also popular at Christmas and Thanksgiving. Spices such as cinnamon, cloves and ginger are used from flavoring, and it is often served accompanied by whipped cream.
  
  
  
• Spam teriyaki - A favorite of Hawaiian cuisine, made using Spam (the canned meat product made by the Hormel Food Corporation). The dish is made using Japanese cuisine's teriyaki style of cooking (cooking meat in a sweet soy sauce, known as "teriyaki sauce").
  
  
• Shrimp Creole - A Creole recipe, made from shrimps in a peppery sauce containing using tomatoes, celery, onion, and bell peppers. Shrimp Creole is normally served over rice.
  
  
• Succotash - A dish with its origins in native American cuisine, Succotash is made from butter beans, corn, and tomatoes, which are cooked together in butter.
  
  
  
• Tacos - A U-shaped crispy corn tortilla stuffed with various fillings. Typical fillings include ground beef, cheese, lettuce, sour cream, and tomatoes.
  
  
• Waldorf salad - A world famous salad named after the Waldorf Hotel (the forerunner of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel) in New York, where the salad was invented. The salad is made from apple, celery and walnuts, all in a mayonnaise sauce.

Cooking USA: 50 Favorite Recipes from Across America By John Margolies Chronicle Books Hardcover (128 pages) List Price: $14.95* Lowest New Price: $6.00* Lowest Used Price: $1.24* *(As of 10:08 Pacific 12 Mar 2010 More Info) Click Here Product Description: What's more American than fried chicken and apple pie? Join Georgia Orcutt and John Margolies on a cross-country culinary journey to find all the delicious possibilities. Cooking USA spans the 50 states, offering 50 recipes guaranteed to stir up as much nostalgia as fabulous food. Louisiana Chicken Gumbo, Maryland Crab Cakes, Washington Apple Dumplings -- each state offers its own scrumptious slice of America. Full of fun facts (Who knew Delaware was home to the world's largest frying pan? Or that Oregon is the number one blackberry producer in the U.S.?) plus colorful artwork reminiscent of small-town life of yesteryear, this collection of regional flavors truly celebrates the tastes of the States.

Blue Ribbon USA: Prizewinning Recipes from State and County Fairs By Georgia Orcutt Chronicle Books Hardcover (128 pages) List Price: $16.95* Lowest New Price: $1.67* Lowest Used Price: $0.79* Usually ships in 24 hours* *(As of 10:08 Pacific 12 Mar 2010 More Info) Click Here Product Description: Everyone loves a winner. These prize-winning recipes from state and county fairs across the country bring together the best in American cooking and it's not all apple pie. Mary's Sticky Biscuits won at the Alabama National Fair; Cool Fruit Strata won at the Iowa State Fair (which draws more than a million visitors!); and in California, the winner of 600 blue ribbons took home another for her unique Salsa Jam. Facts about the fairs plus colorful ephemera bring memories of cotton candy, corn dogs, and funnel cake. There are even tips on how to garner your very own blue ribbon.

BBQ USA: 425 Fiery Recipes from All Across America By Steven Raichlen Workman Publishing Company Paperback (784 pages) List Price: $21.95* Lowest New Price: $10.93* Lowest Used Price: $5.00* Usually ships in 24 hours* *(As of 10:08 Pacific 12 Mar 2010 More Info) Click Here Product Description: Steven Raichlen, a national barbecue treasure and author of The Barbecue! Bible, How to Grill, and other books in the Barbecue! Bible series, embarks on a quest to find the soul of American barbecue, from barbecue-belt classics-Lone Star Brisket, Lexington Pulled Pork, K.C. Pepper Rub, Tennessee Mop Sauce-to the grilling genius of backyards, tailgate parties, competitions, and local restaurants. In 450 recipes covering every state as well as Canada and Puerto Rico, BBQ USA celebrates the best of regional live-fire cooking. Finger-lickin' or highfalutin; smoked, rubbed, mopped, or pulled; cooked in minutes or slaved over all through the night, American barbecue is where fire meets obsession. There's grill-crazy California, where everything gets fired up - dates, Caesar salad, lamb shanks, mussels. Latin-influenced Florida, with its Chimichurri Game Hens and Mojo-Marinated Pork on Sugar Cane. Maple syrup flavors the grilled fare of Vermont; Wisconsin throws its kielbasa over the coals; Georgia barbecues Vidalias; and Hawaii makes its pineapples sing. Accompanying the recipes are hundreds of tips, techniques, sidebars, and pit stops. It's a coast-to-coast extravaganza, from soup (grilled, chilled, and served in shooters) to nuts (yes, barbecued peanuts, from Kentucky).

Taste of America: Favorite Recipes from Across the USA By Betty Evans Gulf Publishing Hardcover (90 pages) List Price: $15.95* Lowest New Price: $5.86* Lowest Used Price: $5.84* *(As of 10:08 Pacific 12 Mar 2010 More Info) Click Here Product Description: With recipes gathered from sea to shining sea, no other cookbook and no other country offers such a wide array of tempting foods in such a beautiful package.

Favorite Dessert Recipes From Cookin' USA By Merle Ellis Cookin' USA Spiral-bound Lowest Used Price: $12.79* *(As of 10:08 Pacific 12 Mar 2010 More Info) Click Here

Eating With America's Elite, Favorite Recipes of USA Athletes By Katherine Curry Quinlan Press, Inc. Spiral-bound (109 pages) List Price: $14.95* Lowest New Price: $13.25* Lowest Used Price: $8.99* *(As of 10:08 Pacific 12 Mar 2010 More Info) Click Here

Real Barbecue: The Classic Barbecue Guide to the Best Joints Across the USA --- with Recipes, Porklore, and More! By Vince Staten Globe Pequot Paperback (336 pages) List Price: $16.95* Lowest New Price: $6.51* Lowest Used Price: $5.96* Usually ships in 24 hours* *(As of 10:08 Pacific 12 Mar 2010 More Info) Click Here Product Description: Two decades after barbecue kingpins Vince Staten and Greg Johnson published their ode to the top 100 barbecue joints around the United States, they have logged thousands more miles—and at least as many rib racks—in their quest to monitor, taste, and even create the very best. Part travel guide, part recipe book, REAL BARBECUE is really a celebration of a way of life, peppered with such sage advice as, “A man that won't sleep with his meat don't care about his barbecue” (Early Scott). This update of the classic has a completely new design with photos, trivia, detailed locations of great eating joints coast to coast, sidebars about sauces and sides, columns about cook pits and shack architecture, sections devoted to Texas ribs, Cowboy-que, lowcountry pulled pig, California-que-zeen, and real-man reviews of rib joints such as Allen & Sons in Pittsboro and Vince Staten’s Old Time Barbecue in Prospect (he put his money where his mouth is). Secret recipes and mail-order finds are also included. This is your guide to the best barbecue across America, often identified only by a thick black column of smoke in the distance. A syndicated columnist and author of ten books, including Kentucky Curiosities(Globe Pequot Press), Vince Staten has appeared on such media as "Late Night with David Letterman," "Dateline NBC," "Today on NBC," and NPR's "Morning Edition." His varied career encompasses writing, lecturing, teaching, and co-owning Vince Staten's Old Time Barbecue in downtown Prospect, Kentucky. Greg Johnson is the Features Editor for The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky. "This book is to barbecue what Rand-McNally is to maps."—Playboy magazine "What Masters and Johnson did for sex, Staten and Johnson do for barbecue."—Willard Scott "This is a helluva readable book...There's as much flavor in the writing as in the Rev. Noble Harris' sauce at House of Prayer Bar-B-Que in Fort Lauderdale...Toss this on the dash and hit the road."—Gannett News Service

American Classics: More Than 300 Exhaustively Tested Recipes For America's Favorite Dishes Boston Common Press Hardcover (432 pages) List Price: $29.95* Lowest New Price: $15.25* Lowest Used Price: $3.18* *(As of 10:08 Pacific 12 Mar 2010 More Info) Click Here Product Description: Classic recipes from American home cooking–tested and refurbished in the Cook's Illustrated test kitchen. Over the years, many classic American recipes have fallen into disrepair, barely recognizable shambles of their former selves. So if you want a recipe for cornbread, cheesesteak sandwiches, frosted layer cakes, hermit cookies, green bean casserole, or macaroni and cheese that tastes at least as good as you remember, where would you find it? Well, now you can turn to American Classics from the editors of Cook's Illustrated. This 448-page cookbook provides 335 recipes covering the wide range of American cooking. Choose from favorite regional dishes such as Boston baked beans, Chicago deep-dish pizza, and New Orleans' legendary red beans and rice. Beloved family fare, such as chicken pot pie, corned beef and cabbage, turkey Tetrazzini, ham roast, stuffed peppers, fried onion rings, pecan bars, and coconut cream pie are also included. Timeless restaurant dishes, such as Parker House rolls, Waldorf salad, and bananas Foster, have been updated and streamlined. And because our editors have tested each recipe dozens of times, they are about as close to foolproof as any recipe can get. This in-depth volume provides answers as well as recipes. How do you keep lemon meringue pie from weeping? Can you capture the flavors of a real clambake on top of the stove? Which brand of frozen blueberries tastes better than fresh? How do you cook smothered pork chops so they are tender, not tough? American Classics also contains more than 200 illustrations that show you how to shave meat for cheesesteak sandwiches, shape crescent rolls, shred cabbage, and frost cakes. Dozens of no-nonsense equipment ratings and taste tests of supermarket foods are also included. Find out which food processor does the best job of kneading bread dough and why all cheese graters are not the same.

Cooking Around the Country with Kids: USA Regional Recipes and Fun Activities By Amy Houts Snaptail Press Perfect Paperback (272 pages) List Price: $19.95* Lowest New Price: $16.96* Lowest Used Price: $16.56* Usually ships in 24 hours* *(As of 10:08 Pacific 12 Mar 2010 More Info) Click Here Product Description: This cookbook helps children learn about the cultural food differences that make up our great country. It introduces the concept of cultural diversity in a way that captures the child's interest and helps in the understanding of how different cultures came to co-exist yet continue to celebrate their uniqueness. This USA-themed cookbook encourages children to re-engage with the history of the United States through food and fun activities.