Eat it in what locals call ‘in the rough’ at a ‘lobster shack’, an informal shoreside restaurant. Tie on a bib, roll up your sleeves and use your fingers. Everyone does.

The Atlantic Ocean provides excellent fish, crabs, oysters and clams, which are turned into favourites such as clam chowder (a thick soup), fried clams, Rhode Island’s ‘steamers’ and clam cakes.

Cape Cod and Maine grow most of the world’s favourite berries: cranberries and blueberries. Cranberries are essential with roast turkey at Thanksgiving, the feast celebrated across the USA (late November). What could be more American than apple pie, with fruit from gnarled New England trees? Or maple syrup, the precious liquid boiled down from sap tapped from trees in March? Vermont is America’s number one producer. New Englanders are also experts on ice cream. They eat more of it than their fellow Americans, from Vermont’s world-famous Ben & Jerry’s to home-made scoops from summer-only ice cream ‘parlors’. The region’s rich milk also goes into world championship-winning cheeses.

All these fine ingredients are used by chefs in the making at New England’s two outstanding ‘cookery colleges’. The Inn at Essex, near Burlington, VT, is staffed by chefs and students from the New England Culinary Institute, while the Johnson & Wales Inn, in Seekonk, MA, is run by Rhode Island’s Johnson & Wales University students. To match all this good food, try wine from the growing number of vineyards, or one of the award-winning beers from the burgeoning micro-breweries. Cheers!