When the original colonists from Britain settled in this new land called America, they brought along their music. This included traditional English, Scotch and Irish dance melodies, folk songs and ballads. As the colonies grew, the population diversified, and many other types of music were imported and absorbed into the culture of this new country called the United States of America.
Rural Folk Music became "Country Music"
In the Isolated rural communities of the Southeastern and Midwestern states, many residents preserved their own local derivations of the Scotch-Irish based music. They called it "folk music", "hillbilly music" or simply "country music". This rustic music was a favorite form of entertainment at rural festivals and local barn dances. Each region independently developed its own unique style. It has always remained exclusively white folks music. Very few Afro-Americans perform or listen to country music.
The early twentieth century brought an innovation called radio that radically changed the nature of country music in the USA. Southern radio stations soon learned that their rural audiences preferred listening to local performers playing their own local music. They began broadcasting country music programs. For the first time, rural residents from across the land heard the different styles of folk music popular in various regions of the country.
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Monday, November 10, 2008
Cooking in the USA
We are a nation of immigrants. Only our Native American bothers and sisters can claim this land as their ancestral home. The rest of us came to this land, or our parents before us came here, from many other places. The United States of America is often called "the melting pot of the world".
Our cooking is as diverse as our population. The USA cooking pot contains a blend of cuisines from many countries. We sometimes use the term "American cooking" to loosely define a collection of traditional dishes that have gained popularity across the USA.
American Cooking is hard to define
Few people in the US could agree on which foods are traditional American cooking. Certain simple dishes like roast beef, fried chicken, grilled steak, stuffed turkey, meatloaf, baked potato, yams, corn on the cob, potato salad, apple pie, clam chowder, hamburgers, hotdogs and hot wings would normally be included on most lists of American cooking. Many restaurants and bars in the US serve hot wings or Nachos as snack food. Try them both, but order mild seasoning the first time unless you are accustomed to eating burning coals.
Contrary to popular belief, we folks in the USA do not eat fast food every day. We often eat real food in sit-down restaurants, and we sometimes even prepare home-cooked meals. You will certainly find plenty of fast food establishments and chain restaurants in our country. They are convenient places where you can find a consistent quality of food in clean surroundings with good service. I prefer to explore the local establishments where I can sample a variety of dishes from the regional cuisine.
Regional Cooking is easier to define
The cuisine in different parts of our country developed independently. Each regional style of cooking was influenced by the nationality of the colonists that settled in the area and by the types of ingredients locally available. When traveling across the USA, you might enjoy sampling the special dishes popular in each region. Here are brief descriptions of some regional US cuisine.
New England style cooking
The northeastern part of the USA, known as the New England states, are renowned for their hearty dishes imported by British colonists and for their cold-water seafood harvested by the local fishing fleet. This is the land of Brunswick stew, Yankee pot roast and Boston baked beans. Be sure to try the New England Clam Chowder, which is now popular all states and the Maine lobster, usually available in most fine restaurants. When visiting New England, especially the coastal cities like Boston or Providence, sample the seafood.
Southern cooking and Soul Food
The cuisine of the southeastern states is labeled "southern cooking" or more elaborately, "down home southern cooking". It is characterized by wholesome farm-style cooking with plenty of deep fried foods, heavy sauces and sweet desserts. Elvis Pressley loved southern cooking and it certainly reflected in his growing waistline. Deep-fried chicken is commonly known as southern-fried chicken. Chicken-fried steak is a deep-fried beef cutlet. Both are often served with a thick white sauce known as home-style gravy.
Southerners love barbeque, but unlike westerners, they do not favor sweet tomato-based sauces. Eastern barbeque most often means pork; especially pork ribs, well spiced or marinated and slowly cooked over glowing coals. Greens, black-eyed peas and corn bread are common side dishes. Pecan pie, peach cobbler, banana pudding and sweet potato pie are some favorite desserts.
Soul food is the Afro-American version of southern cooking. It includes the same dishes but prepared with the intensity and love of an African-American mother feeding her family. It is southern cooking with soul.
Roast Turkey
New Orleans Cajun cooking
Although in the heart of the south, New Orleans has a distinctly European culture with its own unique cuisine. This city at the mouth of the great Mississippi River was greatly influenced by Spanish and French colonists and by the many African immigrants. It developed some of the finest cuisine in the USA.
The Creole and Cajun cuisine in New Orleans is a wonderful mixture of Spanish and French cooking spiced with African and West Indian flavors. Blackened fish or steaks are grilled with coatings of pepper and hot spices. Jambalaya and Gumbo are wonderfully flavored stews of meats, sausage and seafood. A lot of the Cajun cooking is highly spiced with hot pepper and chili, but not all the dishes are fiery. Traditional Spanish and French cooking and local variations of them are available in many fine restaurants throughout the city.
Southwestern and Tex-Mex cooking
The cuisine in the southwestern states has been greatly influenced by Native Americans and by early Spanish settlers especially via our Mexican neighbors. It is more than just cowboy food and not quite the same as authentic Mexican food. Southwestern cuisine includes a great variety of dishes prepared with local ingredients and liberally sprinkled with Mexican spices. Southwestern restaurants create some interesting variations of familiar dishes by the creative use of unfamiliar ingredients and exotic spices.
Tex-Mex is a variant of southwestern cooking that is most popular in Texas and along the Mexican border. It includes barbeque and chili. These cowboy inspired dishes are so popular in the southwest and across the USA, that many places have annual chili festivals and barbeque cook offs with prizes for the best recipes. It is also the home of salsa, nachos, tacos and burritos.
California CuisineCalifornia is blessed with a bountiful supply of fresh fruits, vegetables and sea foods in all seasons. It has a diverse ethnic population. Californians have developed a refreshingly healthy cuisine that utilizes fresh ingredients flavored with unusual combinations of spices. Fresh green salads topped with avocados and citrus fruits may be served with Asian spiced peanut sauce. Fish can be lightly grilled in salsa and served with Chinese vegetables and Native American fry bread. Almost any combination of ethnic food styles can be combined in California cooking. This is the home of avant-garde, experimental cuisine.
Our cooking is as diverse as our population. The USA cooking pot contains a blend of cuisines from many countries. We sometimes use the term "American cooking" to loosely define a collection of traditional dishes that have gained popularity across the USA.
American Cooking is hard to define
Few people in the US could agree on which foods are traditional American cooking. Certain simple dishes like roast beef, fried chicken, grilled steak, stuffed turkey, meatloaf, baked potato, yams, corn on the cob, potato salad, apple pie, clam chowder, hamburgers, hotdogs and hot wings would normally be included on most lists of American cooking. Many restaurants and bars in the US serve hot wings or Nachos as snack food. Try them both, but order mild seasoning the first time unless you are accustomed to eating burning coals.
Contrary to popular belief, we folks in the USA do not eat fast food every day. We often eat real food in sit-down restaurants, and we sometimes even prepare home-cooked meals. You will certainly find plenty of fast food establishments and chain restaurants in our country. They are convenient places where you can find a consistent quality of food in clean surroundings with good service. I prefer to explore the local establishments where I can sample a variety of dishes from the regional cuisine.
Regional Cooking is easier to define
The cuisine in different parts of our country developed independently. Each regional style of cooking was influenced by the nationality of the colonists that settled in the area and by the types of ingredients locally available. When traveling across the USA, you might enjoy sampling the special dishes popular in each region. Here are brief descriptions of some regional US cuisine.
New England style cooking
The northeastern part of the USA, known as the New England states, are renowned for their hearty dishes imported by British colonists and for their cold-water seafood harvested by the local fishing fleet. This is the land of Brunswick stew, Yankee pot roast and Boston baked beans. Be sure to try the New England Clam Chowder, which is now popular all states and the Maine lobster, usually available in most fine restaurants. When visiting New England, especially the coastal cities like Boston or Providence, sample the seafood.
Southern cooking and Soul Food
The cuisine of the southeastern states is labeled "southern cooking" or more elaborately, "down home southern cooking". It is characterized by wholesome farm-style cooking with plenty of deep fried foods, heavy sauces and sweet desserts. Elvis Pressley loved southern cooking and it certainly reflected in his growing waistline. Deep-fried chicken is commonly known as southern-fried chicken. Chicken-fried steak is a deep-fried beef cutlet. Both are often served with a thick white sauce known as home-style gravy.
Southerners love barbeque, but unlike westerners, they do not favor sweet tomato-based sauces. Eastern barbeque most often means pork; especially pork ribs, well spiced or marinated and slowly cooked over glowing coals. Greens, black-eyed peas and corn bread are common side dishes. Pecan pie, peach cobbler, banana pudding and sweet potato pie are some favorite desserts.
Soul food is the Afro-American version of southern cooking. It includes the same dishes but prepared with the intensity and love of an African-American mother feeding her family. It is southern cooking with soul.
Roast Turkey
New Orleans Cajun cooking
Although in the heart of the south, New Orleans has a distinctly European culture with its own unique cuisine. This city at the mouth of the great Mississippi River was greatly influenced by Spanish and French colonists and by the many African immigrants. It developed some of the finest cuisine in the USA.
The Creole and Cajun cuisine in New Orleans is a wonderful mixture of Spanish and French cooking spiced with African and West Indian flavors. Blackened fish or steaks are grilled with coatings of pepper and hot spices. Jambalaya and Gumbo are wonderfully flavored stews of meats, sausage and seafood. A lot of the Cajun cooking is highly spiced with hot pepper and chili, but not all the dishes are fiery. Traditional Spanish and French cooking and local variations of them are available in many fine restaurants throughout the city.
Southwestern and Tex-Mex cooking
The cuisine in the southwestern states has been greatly influenced by Native Americans and by early Spanish settlers especially via our Mexican neighbors. It is more than just cowboy food and not quite the same as authentic Mexican food. Southwestern cuisine includes a great variety of dishes prepared with local ingredients and liberally sprinkled with Mexican spices. Southwestern restaurants create some interesting variations of familiar dishes by the creative use of unfamiliar ingredients and exotic spices.
Tex-Mex is a variant of southwestern cooking that is most popular in Texas and along the Mexican border. It includes barbeque and chili. These cowboy inspired dishes are so popular in the southwest and across the USA, that many places have annual chili festivals and barbeque cook offs with prizes for the best recipes. It is also the home of salsa, nachos, tacos and burritos.
California CuisineCalifornia is blessed with a bountiful supply of fresh fruits, vegetables and sea foods in all seasons. It has a diverse ethnic population. Californians have developed a refreshingly healthy cuisine that utilizes fresh ingredients flavored with unusual combinations of spices. Fresh green salads topped with avocados and citrus fruits may be served with Asian spiced peanut sauce. Fish can be lightly grilled in salsa and served with Chinese vegetables and Native American fry bread. Almost any combination of ethnic food styles can be combined in California cooking. This is the home of avant-garde, experimental cuisine.
The cowboy's life and work
Cattle often wander many miles over the open range in search of food, so the cattle owners used "branding" or burning marks into the hide of each cow to identify their property. Each ranch had its own distinctive brand. Some brands were simply the owner's initials like the "JT" brand. Other ranchers placed a line (usually called a bar) under their initials like the BQ, which became known as the famous "Bar B Q" brand. A letter tilted to one side was known as "lazy", so a tilted J became the "Lazy J" brand. A curved line under the letter was called "rocking", so a T over a curved line became the rocking T brand. The ranchers jealously guarded their proprietary brands and men were sometimes shot or hanged for stealing cattle and altering the brands.
Most of the year, the cattle wandered over the open rangeland and required little care. Each spring, after the cows gave birth, it was necessary to find all the new calves (called dogies) while they were still with their mothers, and to brand each of them to establish their proper ownership. During this "spring roundup", many cowboys searched the open range on horseback for mother cows with new calves and herded them all into temporary branding pens. The cowboys then roped each calf, quickly applied the ranch brand and released it back to its mother.
The big cattle drives are gone
During the mid-nineteenth century, very few railroads extended into the western territories, and none reached the open rangelands. At least once a year, the cowhands on a ranch rounded up all of the cattle ready for market and herded them over mountains and across deserts to the nearest railroad terminal. Saint Louis, Kansas City, Abilene and Dodge City were some of the famous railheads for cattle shipment. The "cattle drive" was often a long strenuous journey, that lasted many weeks and employed dozens of cowboys along with a "chuck wagon" or mobile kitchen. Sometimes, the cowhands drove several thousand cattle hundreds of miles to the railhead.
By the early twentieth century, railroads extended into even the remotest areas of the west and the open rangeland was divided into private parcels of land. Today, four-wheel-drive vehicles have replaced most of the cowboy horses, and cattle drives are done with eighteen-wheel trucks. There are still a few working cowboys out west, but not nearly as many. Unlike the rhinestone cowboys, working cowboys usually wear plain work jeans, a beat-up pair of work boots and a dusty, well-worn, ten-gallon hat.
Most of the year, the cattle wandered over the open rangeland and required little care. Each spring, after the cows gave birth, it was necessary to find all the new calves (called dogies) while they were still with their mothers, and to brand each of them to establish their proper ownership. During this "spring roundup", many cowboys searched the open range on horseback for mother cows with new calves and herded them all into temporary branding pens. The cowboys then roped each calf, quickly applied the ranch brand and released it back to its mother.
The big cattle drives are gone
During the mid-nineteenth century, very few railroads extended into the western territories, and none reached the open rangelands. At least once a year, the cowhands on a ranch rounded up all of the cattle ready for market and herded them over mountains and across deserts to the nearest railroad terminal. Saint Louis, Kansas City, Abilene and Dodge City were some of the famous railheads for cattle shipment. The "cattle drive" was often a long strenuous journey, that lasted many weeks and employed dozens of cowboys along with a "chuck wagon" or mobile kitchen. Sometimes, the cowhands drove several thousand cattle hundreds of miles to the railhead.
By the early twentieth century, railroads extended into even the remotest areas of the west and the open rangeland was divided into private parcels of land. Today, four-wheel-drive vehicles have replaced most of the cowboy horses, and cattle drives are done with eighteen-wheel trucks. There are still a few working cowboys out west, but not nearly as many. Unlike the rhinestone cowboys, working cowboys usually wear plain work jeans, a beat-up pair of work boots and a dusty, well-worn, ten-gallon hat.
Rhinestone Cowboys
You can see "rhinestone cowboys" all over the southwestern part of the USA, and you even find a few in the north and the east. They wear designer blue jeans and embroidered cowboy shirts with pearl buttons and rhinestone studs. Most of all, they wear $600-a-pair snakeskin or alligator boots and expensive "ten gallon" Stetson hats. You find them in restaurants, casinos, shopping malls and grocery stores. They get their name from the cheap rhinestone jewelry encrusting their fancy clothes.
Rhinestone Cowgirl
Most of them have never seen a real cow except at the local rodeo and have never ridden a horse. But, they listen to country western music, and dance the Texas two-step. Many of them hang around the local saloon or pool hall. They love to wear expensive cowboy clothes.
During the last century, there were lots of cowboys on the open range
Cowboys were an integral part of the American West for only a brief period. Spanish settlers in California and Mexico established the first "ranchos" in the Southwest during the early 19th century and employed "vaqueros" to handle their cattle herds. In the middle of that century, large numbers of European-Americans and freed African-American slaves from the eastern part of the US immigrated to the Midwest and southwest in search of free or inexpensive land. At that time, the great "cattle ranches" of the West were established and the American cowboys proliferated. By the early twentieth century, modern technology had made most of the cowboy's work obsolete.
The marginal lands of the southwest do not receive enough rainfall to support forests or farming. Instead, they support thousands of square miles of grass and low vegetation with some smaller varieties of trees. It is ideal for cattle herding, but many acres of land are necessary to support each cow. In the early eighteenth century, most of the grassland in Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona and other southwestern states was declared "open range" which meant cattle were permitted to "range" or roam over vast areas. Cowboys were the herders that tended to these widely dispersed cattle.
Working Cowboy
Rhinestone Cowgirl
Most of them have never seen a real cow except at the local rodeo and have never ridden a horse. But, they listen to country western music, and dance the Texas two-step. Many of them hang around the local saloon or pool hall. They love to wear expensive cowboy clothes.
During the last century, there were lots of cowboys on the open range
Cowboys were an integral part of the American West for only a brief period. Spanish settlers in California and Mexico established the first "ranchos" in the Southwest during the early 19th century and employed "vaqueros" to handle their cattle herds. In the middle of that century, large numbers of European-Americans and freed African-American slaves from the eastern part of the US immigrated to the Midwest and southwest in search of free or inexpensive land. At that time, the great "cattle ranches" of the West were established and the American cowboys proliferated. By the early twentieth century, modern technology had made most of the cowboy's work obsolete.
The marginal lands of the southwest do not receive enough rainfall to support forests or farming. Instead, they support thousands of square miles of grass and low vegetation with some smaller varieties of trees. It is ideal for cattle herding, but many acres of land are necessary to support each cow. In the early eighteenth century, most of the grassland in Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona and other southwestern states was declared "open range" which meant cattle were permitted to "range" or roam over vast areas. Cowboys were the herders that tended to these widely dispersed cattle.
Working Cowboy
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