A Dictionary of American Cuisines: MidWest (In Progress)

Note: I have yet to gain a firm grasp on the different cultural regions of this region, more to come.

MIDWEST: Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri (partly), Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota

Influences: Settlers from the entire East coast and South, English, Irish, Scottish, Cornish, French, German, Swiss, Belgian, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Hungarian, Italian, Greek, Native American

Native American Tribes: Erie, Kickapoo, Shawnee, Fox and Sauk, Menominee, Miami, Ojibwe (Chippewa), Potawatomi, Illini, Winnebago, Chickasaw, Ioway, Missouri, Osage, Otoe, Quapaw, Dakota Sioux, Arapaho, Comanche, Kansa, Kiowa, Pawnee, Cheyenne, Wichita, Lakota, Missouria, Omaha, Ponca, Arikara, Nakoda, Hidatsa, Mandan

Rural Midwest

Influences: East coast and Southern, English, Irish, Cornish, Welsh, German, Belgian, Swiss, Swedish, Norwegian, Native American

Traditional Ingredients: dairy (milk, cream, cheese, sour cream, eggs), fruit (Apples, blueberries, cherries, cranberries, peaches), grains (Wheat, Rye, Barley, Wild rice, maize), lake/stream food (Perch, trout, walleye, American eel (endangered), whitefish, whitefish caviar), meats (Beef, pork, quail, turkey, silver fox rabbit (not as common anymore), chicken (buckeye (heirloom), chantecler (heirloom)), moose, lamb, mutton), seasonings (Caraway, dill, mustard seed, parsley, sage, salt, black pepper, maple syrup), vegetables (Cabbage (drumhead; first brought over in 1541 by Jacques Cartier (northern giant (heirloom))), corn, morel mushrooms, potatoes, ramps, Swedish brown bean, hutterite bean (not as common anymore), sibley squash (not as common anymore), parsnip (short and thick (heirloom; introduced in 1609)), carrots, celery, beets, turnips, rutabaga)

Dishes: Beverages: Brandy old fashioned sweet (Wisonsin), Fruit wines, Herbal Tea's (Genuine tea used to be both difficult to obtain and very expensive; many substitute brews were used by pioneers.  Among the more popular were those made from sycamore chips and red-root leaves.  In Mercer County the red-root leaves were first dried under a Dutch oven, and then pulverized by rolling between the hands.  When brewed and sweetened with honey, this was called "grub hyson."  Wheat parched and ground served for coffee.  And early settlers agreed that the "hardest difficulty of all" was to teach Yankees to drink sour milk and to use honey for butter.), Stew (popular with early Illinois settlers; consisted of a mixture of water, sugar, whiskey, allspice, and butter, served steaming hot.), Breads/Pastries/Candies/Snacks: Buckeye candy (Ohio), Cheese Kurds, Corn Sticks, Danish Kringle, Deep Fried Cheese Curds (Wisconsin specifically), Dessert bars, Fattigmand (recipe below), Flatbrod, Lefse (sometimes it is buttered, filled with white or brown sugar, and rolled cylinder-wise; sometimes it is buttered, stuffed with lutefisk, and rolled.), Sourdough Pancakes (Wisconsin; a favorite among the lumberjacks.  "The night before the pancakes are to be fried, the cook assembles his batter, using the starter as a leavening agent.  Flour and water are added, and the mixture is left near the stove to rise.  By morning it is a light and frothy mass smelling pungently of fermentation.  After reserving from the batch a starter for the next morning's pancakes, the cook adds salt, sugar, eggs, a little fat, and a pinch of soda.  He pours large spoonfuls of the batter on a huge, fire-blackened griddle, abundantly greased with smoking pork rind and very hot."), Springerle (a type of christmas cookie imprinted with with images of birds, plants, etc.), Swedish pancakes, Whole Wheat Batter Bread, Breakfast: Baked Beans, Blueberry Muffin, Hash Browns, Sticky Bun (made with mashed potato dough), Cheeses: Cheddar, Limburger, Condiments/Pickles/Relishes: Corn relish, Head cheese, Jello salads, Pickled Smelts, Sauerkraut, Entrees: Barbequed Chicken (Ohio), Beans and Salt Pork (used to be the substantialities of the menu), Beef and noodles (Indiana), Brain sandwich, Braised Quail or Squab, Chicken and Noodles (noodles are cooked in the broth that the chicken was boiled in; the dish is served on a  hot platter, with the chicken pieces and the noodles inundated by a white sauce conjured out of chicken broth, sweet cream, and a little flour), Chicken Pot Pie, Chicken with Dumplings, Chislic (North Dakota),Creamed Chipped Beef on Baked Potatoes (Ohio), Fried Brain Sandwich (originally from St. Louis and now popular in the Ohio River Valley), Frogs legs, Horseshoe, Hotdish, JohnnyMarzetti, Kidney-Veal Roast (sometimes was flavored with nasturtium seeds in the past; the kidney is placed on the veal and along with anchovies which is then rolled up and tied.  It's then browned in butter and garlic.  Applejack, cider, or wine is added along with carrots and chopped onions.  It's covered and baked for 2 to 2.5 hours.), Lamb and Pig Fries, Limburger Sandwich (Wisconsin; Limburger on rye with raw onions and brown mustard), Loose-meat sandwich (AKA maid-rites), Lutefisk (traditional winter food in Norway, Sweden, and the American upper Mid-West; Traditional for Christmas eve in the U.S.  See below for recipe.), Meatloaf, Noodle Pie (noodles are layered over pot-roast, onions, cut paper thin, sliced tomatoes seasoned with nutmeg, along with a topping of bread crumbs mixed with grated cheese), Oven-Fried Chicken, Pasty (Michigan), Pheasant with Gjetost Sauce (brown pheasants in butter and turn them, with their juices, into as tightly fitting a casserole as possible.  Sprinkle with black pepper.  Put in 375 degree F. oven for 30 minutes, then turn down to 225 degrees and add about 1/4 cup of cream to pan juices; continue cooking for an hour, remove and keep warm.  Add Gjetost (goat cheese) shavings and junipier berries to juice in casserole and stirl over med. heat to melt cheese, stir in 1/4 cup of cream, add quince, red currant, or rowanberry jelly and let it melt.  Top pheasant with this sauce.), Pierogie, Planked Trout (baked on wooden planks), Pork Cake (recipe below), Pork Chops, Pork sausages, Pork tenderloin sandwich, Pork with Sauerkraut, Pot Pie, Pot Roast, Roast Duck,  Roast beef, Roast Pheasant or Grouse, Runza Sandwich (Nebraska), Sauerbraten, Steak, Stewed Rabbit, Stuffed Moose Heart (the heart is browned in lard, stuffed with a mixture of celery, onion, canadian bacon, rye bread cubes, milk, sage, caraway seeds, dill seeds, salt and pepper, and then baked), Stuffed Veal Breast (sometimes zipped up with homemade vodka and enhanced by herbs), Summer sausage, Swedish Meatballs, Tuna-Noodle Casserole, Walleye Sandwich (thin fillets are breaded and either deep fried, grilled, or pan fried and served on a fresh french loaf or a hamburger bun with lettuce, tomato and tartar sauce), Pies/Cakes/Puddings: Apple pie, Bundt Cake (similar to some cakes in central Europe), Cherry Pie, Chocolate Beetroot Cake, Glorified Rice, Krumkake, Mush and Milk (Like corn and salt-pork, this used to be an Illinois staple all year around.), Oatmeal Cake, Persimmon pudding, Snowdon Pudding (Minnesota/Wisconsin; cut 1/2 cup of raisins in halves.  Butter a 2-qt. mold and press raisins, cut side down, into butter, making a decorative pattern.  Stir together 1 cup bread crumbs, 1 cup chopped suet, and 3 tablespoons flour; then stir in 3/4 cup of either lemon or orange marmalade, 3/4 cup light brown sugar, 6 well-beaten eggs, and grated rind of 2 lemons.  Beat well, pour into mold, and cover with wax paper and a lightly floured cloth; secure with a length of string.  Place filled mold on a wire rack in a kettle and pour in boiling water to reach three-quarters the way up the mold.  Cover and steam for 2 hours.  Meanwhile prepare lemon and wine sauce to serve with it: Put 1/2 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons cornstarch, and 1.5 cups water into the top part of a double boiler and cook over boiling water, stirring constantly for 10 minutes.  Grate half of lemon rind, then squeeze all of juice.  Remove thickened sugar mixture from heat and stir in lemon rind and juice along with 1/2 stick of butter and 1/2 cup sherry.), Sugar cream pie (Indiana), Soups/Stews: Beef Stew (Wisconsin), Beer Cheese Soup, Chicken Booyah (specific to Northeastern Wisconsin known as Walloon area; typically made in a large pot of a fire outdoors for large gatherings of people; lovingly called "Belgian Penicillin"; chicken, beef, and pork meat are added to a large pot along with onions and boiled in water, when the meat is falling off the bones, remove and set aside.  The stock is strained and set aside and the fat skimmed off.  The stock is returned to the pot along with more water and brought to a boil.  Vegetables such as carrots, onions, and potatoes are added.  When they are tender, the meat is added along with peas, celery, tomatoes, salt, and black pepper.), Duck Soup, Fruit Soup (can be concocted of almost anything in season, and they may be served hot or cold; in Minnesota in the nineteenth century, sago, a popular starch of the period, was often used as a thickener for a cinnamon-flavored black cherry soup; one recipe calls for rhubarb, strawberries, a cinnamon stick, and sugar to be simmered in enough water to cover for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the rhubarb is tender.  It is then removed from the heat and mashed through a sieve into a bowl.  Red wine and club soda are added before it is chilled.  Served with sliced strawberries on top.), Gekochte Hasen (skillet-stewed silver fox rabbit; not as common anymore; rabbit, butter, onions, parsley, bay leaf, apple cider vinegar, rhubarb wine, salt and pepper), German Chicken Stew (cut-up pieces from a fat hen are cooked in enough water to cover, along with a small onion, sliced, a carrot, a bay leaf or two, allspice berries, peppercorns, and salt.  Perhaps a half hour before the chicken is tender, a couple of cups of diced celery root is added, and finally celery and chicken are covered with their own gravy, slightly thickened, and a heavy dusting of minced parsley and paprika.), Hutterite Bean Soup, Moose Meat Stew, Rivel Soup with Corn (Indiana), Sorrel Soup (Michigan), White Bean Soup, Vegetable Dishes: Baked Beans (recipe below), Buttered beets, Coleslaw, Creamed corn, Green Beans, Green Beans and Potatoes, Jojo potatos, Mashed potatoes, Pea salad, Potato Pancakes, Potato salad, Sauteed Parsnips, Stewed tomatoes (well seasoned with butter, salt, and black pepper), Stuffed Baked Potatoes, Sweet corn (on the cob),Wild Rice Pilaf, Wilted Greens (similar to the Appalachian method under the Southern section)

Social Gathering involving Traditional Foods: Fish Boils (along the shores of the western Great Lakes; fresh caught whitefish or lake trout boiled with potatoes and served with fish steaks, cabbage slaw, homemade rye bread, cherry pie, and endless coffee.)

Recipes:

Fattigmand:

Beat 10 egg yolks and 8 egg whites with 1 cup of sugar for 20 minutes.  Add 1 cup of cream, 1.5 tablespoon of melted butter, 2 teaspoons cardamom and enough flour to roll out.  Roll thin; cut in diamonds, and fry in deep fat. 

Lutefisk:

cook dried codfish in soft water for about a week (or for a longer period if the water is hard), and the water is changed each night and morning.  Then the fish is removed and placed in a solution of lye and water (a gallon of soft water to two tablespoons full of lye), where it is cooked for another week.  It is then removed from the solution, washed and soaked in clean water for two days and nights.  Frequently, a tablespoon of slaked lime is added for bleaching.  At the end of this long period of being cook and re-soaked the fish is ready for use.  The fish is dropped into salted boiling water, where it is cooked from 15 to 20 minutes.  It is served with generous sprinklings of salt, black pepper, and hot melted butter.

Usually served with boiled or steamed potatoes, pickles, a cabbage salad (usually coleslaw), lefse, and bright dishes full of red lingonberry sauce

Nebraska Baked Beans:

Take beans and add in minced onion, salt and black pepper, mustard, vinegar, brown sugar and bacon.  Then if you make about a half gallon of baked beans, pour in a full bottle of good tomato ketchup; don't be stingy on that either.  Then bake in a slow oven, hot enough to cook but not to blister the beans, for from one to two hours as needed.  If the world will try them they will be down on Boston's forevermore.

 - J. Willis Kratzer

Pork Cake:

Mix together 1 pound of ground or finely chopped pork, 1 cup of boiling water, 1 cup molasses, 2 cups brown sugar, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 pound raisins, 1 pound chopped dates, and 1/2 pound finely chopped citron, 4 cups flour, 1 teaspoon each of cloves, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg.  Pork  must be fresh and raw; fat preferred.  Will keep two or three months if wrapped in greased paper, then in dry paper.  Don't bake too quickly. - recipe from Indiana

Menus:

A twentieth century Indiana menu for ten, recorded after a corn harvest:

"roast guinea, fried fish, roasting ears, potato salad, baked macaroni and cheese, baked beans, glazed sweet potatoes, green beans, celery, sliced onions in vinegar, sliced tomatoes red and yellow, homemade rolls with butter and blackberry jam, three kinds of cookies, pumpkin pie, milk, iced tea, coffee with endless cream and sugar."

- American Food: What We've Cooked, How We've Cooked It, and the Ways We've Eaten in America Through the Centuries

Quotes:

Old Poem about Kansas Boys

Come, all young girls, pay attention to my noise

Don't fall in love with the Kansas boys

For if you do your portion it will be

Ash-cake and antelope is all you'll see.

Old Poem about Marriage:

When I was single,

I eat biscuit and pie.

Now I am married,

It's eat cornbread or die.

Superstitions from Illinois:

1. hogs must be slaughtered at certain times of the moon or the bacon would shrink.

2. The "madstone," a small bone from the heart of a deer, was a valued antidote for hydrophobia or snake bite.

3. In eruptive fevers, especially measles, where the eruption was delayed, a tea made of sheep's dung, popularly known as "nany tea," was a household remedy.

Nebraskans Eat the Weiners:

Nebraskans eat the weiners,

And are they considered swell?

They are eaten by the millions,

That is one way you can tell.

Some fry them in a skillet,

Others boil them deep in kraut,

But the man who knows his weiners,

And what it's all about,

Is the one who builds a fire,

In the forest or a park,

Then watch them sizzle to a brown,

As the dusk turns into dark,

And as the center of attraction,

Here are solid facts we own.

For a tasty outdoor morsel

The weiner's in a class alone.

This is true in town or city,

That when folks go out to play,

Ol' Mr. Weiner goes along,

And is the hero of the day.

Then while he's turning juicy

Folks sing songs of long ago.

Like Auld Lang Syne and Old Black Joe.

We believe that if Napoleon

In retreating from the cold

Could have had Nebraska hot dogs

He would have made it to the fold.

~ Hans Christensen

Urban Midwest: Chicago, Cinncinati, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Indiannapolis, KansasCity, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Omaha, St. Louis

Influences: English, Irish, German, Polish, Hungarian, Italian, Greek

Traditional Ingredients:

Note: home of the hamburger, hotdog, and peanut butter introduced at the 1904 world's fair in St. Louis

Dishes: Breads/Pastries/Candies/Ices/Custards: Cassata cake (Cleveland), Frozen custard (Milwaukee), Opera cream chocolates (Cincinnati), Italian ice (Cleveland), Stollen, Breakfast: Scrapple (made with pork scraps and oats in Cincinnati and pork scraps with oatmeal, rice, or barley in St. Louis), Slinger (St. Louis; breakfast staples with chili, cheese, and onion), Condiments: Mayfair salad dressing (St. Louis), Zip sauce (Detroit; served on steaks), Entrees: Bratwurst, Chicken Vesuvio (Chicago), Cinncinnati chili (characteristically served over spaghetti or on hot dogs; different from most chili's in that it contains spices such as cinnamon and allspice along with cocoa), Cincinnati Ribs, Coney Island hotdogs (Detroit; Chili dogs), Deep Dish Pizza (Chicago), Dinty Moore sandwich (Detroit), Goetta (Cincinnati; sausage made from pork and oats), Goose (a 19th century recipe popular in St. Louis; sprinkled with salt and paprika, and then roasted under a coating of sour cream and  mushroom sauce seasoned with rosemary and thyme.), Goulash (a term borrowed from Austria where, it turn, it is a Teutonic spelling of the Hungarian gulyas), Gyros, Hot dog (Chicago),Italian beef (Chicago), Jibarito (Chicago), Jucy Lucy (Minneapolis and Saint Paul; Hamburger with a core of melted cheese), Kansas City Barbeque, Kielbasa, Maxwell StreetPolish Sandwich (Chicago), Omaha Barbeque, Oysters (St. Louis; when oysters and other shellfish used to come up river in barrels from New Orleans, they were sometimes dipped in an egg batter and a mixture of delicately seasoned, shredded crab meat before they were sauteed in butter and served as an after theater snack.  St. Louis hostesses used to combine oysters with sweetbreads.), Oysters and Ham Jenny Lind (St. Louis; according to the legend this was invented by a doctor at whose house the singer Jenny Lind was entertained; melt 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon bacon fat in a chafing dish over hot water.  Stir in 2 tablespoons flour to make a smooth paste.  Off the heat, add oyster liquor from 1 cup oysters and slowly stir in 1/2 cup heavy cream.  Cook for about 4 minutes while mixture thickens.  Add 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon hot red pepper sauce, 1/2 teaspoon celery salt, 1/4 teaspoon paprika, 1 cup of oysters, and 1/2 cup chopped cooked ham.  Cook until oysters plump up and curl at edges.  Stir in 2 tablespoons of either sherry, cider, or white wine, and and serve in patty shells.), Paczki (Detroit), Pierogi, Poor boy sandwich (St. Louis), Pork tenderloin sandwich (Indianapolis), Reuben sandwich (Omaha), Saginaki (Chicago), Schnitzel, Shrimp de Jonghe (Chicago), Sicilian Style Pizza, St. Louis Barbeque, St. Louis-style pizza (made with provel cheese instead of mozzerella), St. Paul sandwich, Toasted ravioli (St. Louis), Warr Shu Gai (Detroit; Almond boneless chicken), Pies/Cakes: Fruit pies (St. Louis), Gooey butter cake (St. Louis), Rich cake (St. Louis), Strawberry shortcake (Indianapolis), Soups/Stews: Beef Stew with Dill, Borscht, Chlodnik (Minnesota; cucumber and beet soup), Rabbit Stew, Vegetable Dishes: Red Cabbage (AKA kapusta czerwona; goes well with steak or game and is perfect for roast venison; shredded cabbage is sprinkled with salt and let to stand for 10 minutes.  It is drained, placed in pot and barely covered with boiling water and cooked till tender.  red wine, sugar, black pepper, and cloves are added and cooked for a couple more minutes.  The cabbage is then stirred into a brown sauce that has been made by browning butter and flour, adding some cabbage cooking liquid, and vinegar.), Stuffed Cabbage (Cleveland)

Sources: my head, American Food: What We've Cooked, How We've Cooked It, and the Ways We've Eaten in America Through the Centuries, America the Beautiful Cookbook: Authentic Recipes from the United States of America, Renewing America's Food Traditions: Saving and Savoring the Continent's Most Endangered Foods, www.wikipedia.org, www.lifeintheusa.com, http://berksweb.com/pam/, www.foodtimeline.org, www.native-languages.org/states.htm, http://www.kurtsaxon.com/foods011.htm