geography is the general terroir. Although terroir is in wide use in refer- ence to wines, it also applies to any food. Terroir accounts for the differences in flavor between mild orange blossom honey from Arizona, aromatic and pear-like tupelo honey from Florida, amber-colored and medium-flavored clover honey from Iowa and dark and slightly sulfurous sunflower honey originating in South Dakota. “When you eat honey that local bees
make, you’re eating an easily digestible, raw food full of enzymes, pollen, vitamins, proteins and minerals from the region,” says Tony Schwager of Anthony’s Beehive, in Lawrence, Kansas. Bees forage for nectar in nearby blossoms and then do all the processing in the hive. The result is a regional food yield- ing more than 300 varieties across the United States.
Even Vermont maple syrup can register
the flavor changes from terroir, according to Amy Trubek, assistant professor of nutri- tion and food sciences at The University of Vermont and author of The Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey Into Terroir. Trubek is participating in an ongoing study of the character of small-batch maple syrups. “Like Burgundy wines or Savoie cheeses, the terroir of maple syrups matters,” she says. For example, maple syrup—a whole food made only from the sap that rises in the tree only after a long, cold winter—can taste dif- ferent depending on whether the maple tree grows in areas rich in limestone (giving flavor notes of caramel, vanilla and bitter almond) or schist (where minerals yield a slightly moldy note), giving it a unique taste of place. Wild Bounty
Before European settlement here, Native American tribes were often identified—and strengthened physically and spiritually—by the regional foods they ate, whether gath-
“In this wine, you can taste
the magical place where our children, Hailey and Loren, grew up. Aromas of blackberries and bay leaves, like those that grow along the spring-fed creek with subtle notes of tobac- co, smoke and earth, dance in the background, derived from the soil itself.”
~ Janet Trefethen, of Trefethen Family Vineyards, in Napa, California, about its HaLo cabernet sauvignon.
ered by hunting or fishing in the wild or raised themselves. Early visiting explorers and natural- ists noted such delicacies as wild strawberries growing along the New Hampshire shoreline, native persimmons in Virginia and beach plums on Cape Cod. In Early American Gardens: For Meate or
Medicine, gardener and author Ann Leighton chronicles which plants were native to New Eng- land and which ones the 17th-century colonists brought or had sent from England. The resulting cuisine evolved into a fusion of English recipes with New World ingredients. Through many generations, regional cuisines
developed along the Eastern seaboard, often featur- ing maple syrup, cranberries, wild blackberries, corn, pumpkins, Carolina gold rice, cod, clams, blue crab, shad and shrimp. Grafting new and old world plants produced the happy accidents of the Bartlett pear, Concord grape and Newtown Pippin apple. What grew in these innovative gardens natu- rally began to grace American tables. “Native corn became a truly American
food,” observes Lenore Greenstein, a food and nutrition journalist who has taught at several U.S. universities. “The corn of the settlers, however, was not the sweet corn we know today, but the field corn used to feed livestock and make corn meal, syrup and starches. Sweet corn was unknown until 1779, yet by 1850 it had replaced field corn on American tables.” Ethnic Traditions
Beyond the land itself, regional foods continue to be influenced by the transportation routes followed in early trading ventures; the ways of the English home- land were soon joined by those of African slaves. Greenstein relates that New Orleans’ famous gumbo comes from the African ngombo, for okra, its principal ingredient. The thick stew gets some of its distinctive flavor and smooth texture from gumbo file powder made of dried, wild sassafras leaves. In other parts of the South, a cuisine that became known as soul food grew up around
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