Heritage Foods
Many of New England’s culinary traditions trace their origins to Colonial times, when European settlers’ own food sensibilities became mixed with what they learned from native peoples about preparing the bounty harvested from land and sea. As you travel through the New England states, you’ll have abundant opportunities to taste history. Here is an introduction to the region’s distinctive flavors and original dishes, and how they came to be.
SPOTLIGHT ON: MAPLE SYRUP
A genuinely indigenous food, maple syrup was first produced by Native Americans, who marked the harvest with a “sugar moon” celebration of the last full moon before spring. Made by tapping maple trees and evaporating the collected sap to create a concentrated liquid, real maple syrup is today a breakfast staple used to top pancakes and waffles. It has also found more creative uses recently, including as an ingredient for cocktails.
Sugarhouses—many of them small-scale, family-run operations—produce maple syrup in every New England state, with Vermont being the biggest producer not only in this region, but in the entire nation. However, the differences in maple syrup vary less by geography than by grade: Golden, Amber, Dark, or Very Dark (the darker the syrup, the stronger the maple flavor). Just don’t confuse any of these with the artificially flavored and colored “pancake syrup” sold in supermarkets. No self-respecting New England breakfast spot would dream of serving anything but the real thing.
The sap harvest in March and April is the time to visit if you’re hoping to see a sugarhouse in action, with the maple associations in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut hosting special events and tours.
SPOTLIGHT ON: LOBSTER ROLLS
Found on restaurant menus in every New England state, the lobster roll traces its origins back at least to the 1920s. As the story goes, it was at a Milford, Connecticut, eatery called Perry’s that a customer’s request for a “hot lobster sandwich” first led to the happy marriage of lobster meat, melted butter, and a grilled bun. Yes, that’s correct: The original lobster roll was a hot sandwich, the kind you can still devour at Connecticut eateries like Abbott’s Lobster in the Rough in Norwich. Many lobster roll fans, however, recognize only the more common version: served cold in a mayonnaise salad.
While the hot-versus-cold debate rages on, a good place to hunt for your own perfect lobster roll is Maine, New England’s undisputed king of lobster. There, the search might lead you to a casual, seaside shack like McLoons in South Thomaston, or to a national-award-winning downtown restaurant like Eventide Oyster Co. in Portland. Bon appétit!
SPOTLIGHT ON: REGIONAL SPECIALTIES
The signature flavors of New England aren’t limited to maple syrup and lobster rolls. Some foods that started out as regional specialties, such as Boston baked beans and New England clam chowder, can now be found from coast to coast and even beyond America’s borders. Others remain local delicacies that you’ll likely find only when visiting a particular state, region, city, or community.
Maine
Several U.S. states claim to be the birthplace of the whoopie pie, but only Maine has designated this soft sandwich cookie as the “official state treat.” Labadie’s Bakery in Lewiston has been making whoopie pies since 1925, and Maine holds the record for the largest one ever made, weighing in at more than 1,000 pounds (454kg). On the other hand, there’s no question that Needhams are a Maine original: These potato-and-coconut snack cakes covered in dark chocolate have been famed as the state’s unusual “potato candy” for more than 150 years.
Northern Maine’s French-Canadian immigrants are largely responsible for ployes, grilled buckwheat pancakes that are used in place of bread at every meal, not just breakfast. One of Maine’s top-selling spirits, meanwhile, isn’t a backwoods bourbon or whiskey but rather Allen’s Coffee Brandy, which gained popularity among fishermen as a 60-proof jolt for their morning coffee.
Vermont
Although soft-serve ice cream is a widely available sweet treat, the Green Mountain State is the only place in New England where you can easily find the maple creemee, a type of soft-serve ice cream that marries real maple syrup with the sweet cream produced by Vermont’s ubiquitous dairy farms.
Switchel—a mix of maple syrup, apple cider vinegar, ginger, and molasses—was the “energy drink” of 18th-century New England farmers, sometimes enhanced with lemon juice and even oatmeal in Vermont. The Vermont Switchel Co. produces and bottles the drink using an old family recipe for this traditional “haymaker’s punch.”
Massachusetts
Practically every shore town in America serves fried clams, but only Massachusetts can claim to be the birthplace of this classic seafood treat. Battered and deep-fried clams were first dished out in 1916 from a North Shore concession stand called Woodman’s of Essex, and today, descendants of fried-clam inventor Lawrence “Chubby” Woodman still prepare and fry clams the same way he did more than a century ago.
A staple from the mid-18th century onward, Boston baked beans (navy beans slow-cooked in molasses and flavored with salt pork or bacon) are so widely known that they’ve earned the city one of its most enduring nicknames: Beantown. But did you know the Boston suburb of Somerville is where Marshmallow Fluff was invented in 1917? Most notably, that gooey concoction also gave rise to another New England delicacy, the Fluffernutter sandwich.
Rhode Island
Narragansett white flint corn, native to Rhode Island, is the secret to Rhode Island’s famous johnnycakes, which are flat, grilled corn pancakes that European settlers first learned to make from indigenous peoples (the name is said to derive from “journey cake,” as the pancakes were originally a traveler’s food). Another staple food for Rhode Island’s indigenous peoples was a clam called the quahog, which is key ingredient in stuffies (stuffed clams), sometimes mixed with spicy Portuguese sausage.
Any argument about the superiority of creamy clam chowder (“New England–style”) over tomato-based clam chowder (“Manhattan-style”) overlooks a third, excellent variation on this bivalve-based soup. Rhode Island clam chowder has a clear broth and is closer to a fish stew than either of its rivals.
Finally, two sweet sensations have made their name in Rhode Island: coffee milk, which is like chocolate milk but made with a coffee-flavored sweet syrup, and Del’s Lemonade, an Italian-inspired frozen mix of crushed ice, sugar, and lemons that’s been sold in Rhode Island since the 1940s.
Connecticut
After southern Italian immigrants to the Connecticut city of New Haven began baking coal-fired pies that were crisper, thinner, and more topped-to-the-edges than the traditional Neapolitan pizza they’d known back home, New Haven–style pizza (or “apizza”) was born. Almost a century later, fans still debate the supremacy of the two original eateries—Sally’s and Frank Pepe’s—but locals also savor the pies at places like Modern and BAR.
While in New Haven, you’ll also want to visit Louis’ Lunch, birthplace of the hamburger. (Study up before you go, as this is not your typical burger joint, and you dare not ask for ketchup.) Burger connoisseurs will want to taste-test another Connecticut creations: the steamed cheeseburger, or “cheeseburg,” which began in the early-20th-century food carts that sold steamed cheese sandwiches to factory workers, and later added ground beef patties. This gooey regional treat is found mostly around the town of Meriden, at places like Ted’s Restaurant.
New Hampshire
The apple cider doughnut was invented in the 1950s by the Doughnut Corporation of America, a New York City baking conglomerate, but many believe that this treat reached an art form in New Hampshire, where pairing a warm cider doughnut with fresh-pressed apple cider is a fall harvest tradition. See for yourself at places like Applecrest Farm Orchards in Hampton Falls and White Mountain Cider Co. in Glen, where you can wash down fresh-baked doughnuts with a distinctly refreshing cider slush.
