When chef Rick Bayless opened Chicago’s Zinfandel three years ago, his efforts were roundly criticized and applauded. The concept — to create a restaurant that showcased the diversity and richness of America’s cuisine — fit with emerging trends in the country. But the concept was never the problem.

"Most people loved the idea behind the restaurant, but they didn’t understand how the concept would be executed," says Bayless. "Soon after we opened, we had a man in our bar [who was upset] because he couldn’t get his scotch. Well, we had made a decision to discover and feature the small distillers and wineries in this country. His scotch didn’t come from this country, so we didn’t stock it."

Today, Zinfandel’s clientele knows to expect an honest rendering of a different American regional cuisine each month of the year. August might feature "Kailua Pig with Hoisin Glaze," traditional "Ahi Poke" and other Hawaiian soul-food favorites. In the fall, Zinfandel moves to the Midwest. And in December, the cuisine of the Pennsylvania Dutch takes its place alongside other American regional cuisines.

"Since we opened three years ago...regional cooking has become more accepted here in Chicago," says Bayless. "And all across the country, I see more restaurants popping up with a strong flair for one region or another."

Bayless isn’t the only one exploring the culinary riches of our homeland; there are regional restaurants popping up across the country. From the more traditional regional cuisines of the Southwest and New Orleans to the fast-rising Pacific Northwest and the newly emerging sub-regions of Florida’s Panhandle, American regional cooking is coming out of a long slumber. But as Bayless learned, acceptance hasn’t been easy or immediate. An understanding of the cuisines and the implications of regional trends on the nation’s culinary consciousness has been even slower.

A new appreciation for "home" cooking

For almost the entire history of this country, American cooking has been ignored at home and ridiculed abroad. There are a number of different reasons for the slight, but the cumulative result is that American cuisine and fine cuisine are still seen by many diners as mutually exclusive.

Originally, much of the criticism directed at the American culinary scene came from foreign chefs. "Twenty years ago, American chefs were laughed at," says Emeril Lagasse, chef/owner of New Orleans’ Emeril’s and NOLA. "Chefs outside the country used to say that all we knew was macaroni-and-cheese and hamburgers."

Unfortunately, culinary professionals at home bought into the criticisms. "In the 1970s and early 1980s, people were very much fixed on French as the best cuisine, the highest cuisine, and critics everywhere said there is no such thing as American cooking," says Tim Ryan, senior vice president of The Culinary Institute of America (CIA). "And many people believed it. As recently as the early ’80s, it was still revolutionary to say there was an American cuisine."

While professionals shoulder a good part of the responsibility for American cuisine’s low esteem and respect, the expectations and limitations of the dining public compounded the problem. "In the ’60s and early ’70s, there was an insecurity on the part of the American public," says Keith Keogh, president of the California Culinary Academy and manager of the U.S. culinary team. "When you went out, you ate French. It was all ‘Crepes Suzette’ and ‘Cherries Jubilee,’ and everybody was having Blue Nun."

Even after culinary professionals at home and abroad began to recognize American cuisine, public reticence continued to hamper acceptance of indigenous cuisines. Even today, French restaurants epitomize culinary "class" to a major portion of the American dining public — and where French left off, Italian has taken over as the arbiter of high cuisine.

"It’s still hard to get Americans to take their regional cooking seriously," says Bayless. "When people think about eating American cooking, they think about eating it in a diner or in a joint. People think of American cooking as 1950s diner food. You don’t think about eating in a high-style dining room with nice service."

In recent years, that has started to change. Chefs and food professionals have made it their business to showcase American cooking. Many, like Keogh, believe "Paul Prudhomme started the new trend in regional cuisines with Cajun." Prudhomme taught diners there was nothing wrong with paying a premium for fine American cuisine. To chefs, Prudhomme’s Acadian cuisine at Commander’s Palace in New Orleans was a wake-up call to take advantage of product in your own backyard.

"That was a seminal moment in regional cooking," says Mark Miller, chef/owner of Santa Fe’s Coyote Cafe and Red Sage in Washington DC. "When chefs recognized that we have great products in America, that’s when [American] regional cuisine really started to take off."

Backyard bonanza

If recognition of indigenous ingredients was one of the first steps toward rediscovering American regional cuisines, there were a number of other steps in the process. "There are four components of the cuisine of any nation," says the CIA’s Tim Ryan. "Indigenous ingredients, regional preferences, ethnic influences, and historical currents and traditions...Those are the powerful forces in a cuisine’s evolution."

After chefs and consumers recognized the wealth of indigenous ingredients in the country, they started to go back, fill in the gaps and learn the culinary history surrounding those ingredients. But history and ingredients weren’t enough to revive regional cuisine.

"We were already rediscovering ingredients in 1970, but you couldn’t put beans on a plate and charge someone $50 back then," says Mark Miller. "They didn’t want to see black beans on their plate."

The real breakthrough came with the growing sophistication of the dining public in this country. "It’s amazing," says Miller. "In just one generation, the country matured." This maturation, or sophistication, can be seen in eating patterns throughout the country. At one time, Chinese cuisine was the same everywhere in the country. Now, consumers clamor for Hunan, Szechuan, Canton and Mandarin variations. Generic Italian-American cooking has given way to Northern Italian, Southern Italian, Tuscan, even Florentine cooking. "You can even look at Julia Child," says Miller. "She’s not working with French chefs anymore. She’s working with Americans."

"We’re very clearly sophisticated enough, now, in the United States, to know that there is a lot more out there," says Bayless. "Chefs are now looking for ingredients that weren’t out there for easy consumption even 10 years ago."

Consumers are also finally accepting, and even seeking out, the culinary history and traditions that have lain dormant for hundreds of years.

Regional ramblings

Regional cooking is traditionally the cooking of the farm or the home. It is the cooking that developed from a close affiliation with the land, the seasonal products and the cultural influences brought to those products by the immigrants that settled the land.

When the Acadians migrated to New Orleans and found crawfish, Cajun cuisine developed. When the Basques brought their traditions of sheep herding to the soil of Idaho and came across potatoes, a cuisine started to grow. And while there was always differentiation in a dish from farm to farm, home to home, the basic ingredients remained the same. No matter where you went in the South, groundnut soup was made with peanuts, oysters and hot peppers. Connecticut chowder always had stewed tomatoes and cod or haddock.

Those regional dishes were a type of folk art, the cooking of a community or a people. While each dish might bear the cook’s signature — a little onion in the soup here or beef stock substituted for oyster liquor there — an outsider usually wasn’t able to discern the subtle differences.

But the regional trend sweeping the country isn’t rooted in a rediscovery of folk cooking. Today’s consumers are looking for food with a recognizable signature. A mole at Miller’s Coyote Cafe bears an unmistakable taste. And you won’t find Lagasse’s gumbo in any farm kitchen or house in Louisiana.

Today’s regional cooking "memorializes traditional techniques and tastes," says Miller. "It takes folk cooking and uses it as a template, and today’s regional chefs create from within that template. And there’s lots of room to move around within that."

This modern incarnation of regional cuisine — traditional techniques combined with modern aesthetics — offers rich culinary rewards, but it also creates a lot of confusion in defining regional cuisine and complicates efforts to draw a line between contemporary and regional.

Yet, there is a difference between the two, and regional chefs are quick to point it out. "Regional food can be contemporary," says Emeril Lagasse. "In most cases, regional food needs to be contemporary if you want to fill your seats. Take a look at my food. It’s modern, but my foundation is solid Creole and Cajun cooking. I never disrespect the tradition of Creole cooking and its influences."

On the other hand, taking traditional ingredients and having some fun with them might be exciting, but it’s definitely not regional cooking.

The American evolution

Although it may be possible to trace the recent trend in regional cuisine back to Paul Prudhomme, it’s much harder to divine the future. In the past year, there has been a pronounced move to smaller subregions.

Much as the dining public demanded more distinct cuisines from specific areas of China, today’s regional diners are asking for foods focused on smaller, more distinct areas and made with greater integrity. To meet those demands, chefs are specializing in the low-country cuisine of coastal South Carolina, rediscovering the terrapin soup and stuffed ham of Maryland’s Eastern shore, and investigating the cuisines of Florida’s Cracker Islands.

At the same time, the big regional cuisines — Cajun and Creole, Southwestern and Southern — continue to gain in popularity and acceptance. Other hot new regions include Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest. But the foods of those regions are not centuries-old relics. They are vibrant cuisines undergoing constant evolution and change.

"Food is constant evolution," says Keith Keogh. "We’ve just started to rediscover our regional foods, and we’re learning so much right now. And as more products and ingredients are defined and rediscovered... those flavors get laced into the foods we already know. The best part is that regional cuisine will never reach its fullest enunciation. New immigrants and new generations will always rediscover and renew American cuisine. And that’s what makes it so exciting."

Back to top