Theme: American foods

Biscuits 'n' gravy

American biscuits are more akin to European scones.
Courtesy @joefoodie/Creative Commons/Flickr
An irresistible Southern favorite, biscuits and gravy would be a cliche if they weren't so darned delicious.
The biscuits are traditionally made with butter or lard and buttermilk; the milk (or "sawmill" or country) gravy with meat drippings and (usually) chunks of good fresh pork sausage and black pepper. Cheap and requiring only widely available ingredients, a meal of biscuits and gravy was a filling way for slaves and sharecroppers to face a hard day in the fields.
"The Southern way with gravies was born of privation. When folks are poor, they make do. Which means folks make gravy," says The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook. The soul, you might say, of soul food.
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Smithfield ham

Legend has it that the first sale of Smithfield Ham occured in 1779.
Paul Morigi/Getty Images North America/Getty Images for Smithfield
"Ham, history, and hospitality." That's the motto of Smithfield, Virginia, the Smithfield of Smithfield Virginia ham. Notice "ham" comes before history, which really says something considering this hamlet of 8,100 was first colonized in 1634.
Epicenter of curing and production of a head-spinning number of hogs, Smithfield comes by the title Ham Capital of the World honestly: lots of ham is called Virginia, but there's only one Smithfield, as defined by a 1926 law that says it must be processed within the city limits.
The original country-style American ham was dry cured for preservation; salty and hard, it could keep until soaked in water (to remove the salt and reconstitute) before cooking. The deliciously authentic cured Virginia country ham happens to have been the favorite of that famous Virginian, Thomas Jefferson.


Chicken fried steak

How do you make steak even tastier? Pan fry it in bread crumbs, of course.
Courtesy kennejima/Creative Commons/Flickr
A guilty pleasure if there ever was one, chicken fried steak was born to go with American food classics like mashed potatoes and black-eyed peas.
A slab of tenderized steak breaded in seasoned flour and pan fried, it's kin to the Weiner Schnitzel brought to Texas by Austrian and German immigrants, who adapted their veal recipe to use the bountiful beef found in Texas.
Lamesa, on the cattle-ranching South Texas plains, claims to be the birthplace of the dish, but John "White Gravy" Neutzling of Lone Star State cowboy town of Bandera insisted he invented it. Do you care, or do you just want to ladle on that peppery white gravy and dig in?
Wild Alaska salmon
Salmon is delicious and nutritious -- what more could you want?
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America/Getty Images
Guys risk life and limb fishing for this delish superfood.
Unlike Atlantic salmon, which is 99.8% farmed, Alaska salmon is wild, which means the fish live free and eat clean -- all the better to glaze with Dijon mustard or real maple syrup. Alaska salmon season coincides with their return to spawning streams (guided by an amazing sense of smell to the exact spot where they were born).
Worry not: before fishing season, state biologists ensure that plenty of salmon have already passed upstream to lay eggs. But let's get to that cedar plank, the preferred method of cooking for the many Pacific Northwest Indian tribes whose mythologies and diets include salmon.
Use red cedar (it has no preservatives), and cook slow, for that rich, smoky flavor. Barring that, there's always lox and bagels.