American Cooking: The Northwest [antikvár]

I of the Pioneers T ±he This region of North America actually encompasses a whole succession of Northwest frontiers, old and new, ranging all the way from Wisconsin to Alaska. Each older frontier, in turn, relinquished its claim to the title as pioneers probed farther and farther beyond settled places, following routes like the Oregon Trail across mountains and plains in a restless search for a better life. -he region encompassed by this book is enormous and varied. It is edged on the east by Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Its western boundary runs from Oregon through Washington and British Columbia to Alaska. And in between lie the mountain states of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, the plains states of Nebraska and North and South Dakota, and Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Yukon Territory in Canada. How can the food of so sprawling and diverse a territory be the subject of a single volume.' The answer lies in the region's newness. Less than 150 years ago most of Northwestern North America was wilderness; much of it still is. The frontier past seems very much alive here; many are the residents whose grandparents or great-grandparents were pioneers, and the legacy of the pioneers ties the region together. Though the face of Northwestern North America has been greatly altered over the past century, with prairies, plains and valleys turned into ranches, farms and orchards, the feel and the psychology of the frontier still prevail in these quiet places. Breakfast, for example, continues to be a big meal in many households, as if a long day on the trail stretched ahead. It may consist of a heaping platter of fried eggs and ham and hashed brown potatoes, splintery crisp around the edges, or stacks of pancakes in one of their many variations—buttermilk, buckwheat, whole wheat—topped off with plenty of toast, jam and strong black coffee. Along with the forthright patterns of meals many of the old attitudes toward food survive. Gimcracks are abhorred; a dish must speak plainly and its appeal must be honest—but