Shrimp or prawn cocktail is a seafood dish consisting of cooked prawns served in a glass with cocktail sauce. The dish has vague origins, but most people claim that it was invented by a 19th-century miner from California who first used oysters in a glass with a sauce, but the Golden Gate Hotel in Las Vegas was the first to offer a 50-cent shrimp cocktail in 1959. It was served in a tulip glass with cocktail sauce. The cocktail sauce usually consists of ketchup and horseradish or ketchup and mayonnaise. This iconic dish was especially popular from the 1960s to the 1980s.
Wisconsin's messy contribution to the world of burgers is called butter burger. For some, butter burger is authentic when the ground meat is combined with butter. For others, it's when the bun is buttered, toasted, and topped with some more butter before serving. The only thing that everyone can agree on is that there must be enough butter to drip off the meat, which will usually form a small pool of butter on one's plate. A theory says that the name comes from a place called Solly's in Glendale, Wisconsin, operating since 1936, where the butter is added to the meat that is, again, fried in butter, and served with a side of stewed onions. A mainstay of greasy diners throughout Wisconsin, butter burger may not be good for one's health, but it will certainly satiate one's hunger.
The most popular food of the Southern cuisine, fried chicken is the theme of many arguments where everyone involved seems to have a favorite, be it what their mothers used to make, a cult roadside eatery, or a bygone restaurant. However, it is universally agreed that the meat must be moist, succulent, and tender, coated with a crunchy, golden-brown crust. It all started during the colonization period, when Scottish immigrants settled in the South, bringing their fried chicken recipes along. The African slaves then introduced new seasonings and spices, and the dish quickly gained popularity. Typical seasonings include salt, pepper, and hot chiles, and the pieces of meat should be edible by hand so that the consumer can bite both the crust and the meat at the same time. The birds must be fresh and smaller in size, as the meat will be much more tender and the proportion of crust to meat will be perfectly balanced. Once the chicken parts are hot, crispy, and ready to be consumed, they are traditionally accompanied by buttered biscuits, Southern potato salad, mashed potatoes, or cream gravy on the side.
Invented at the same time in 1980 by Ed LaDou and the chefs at the famous restaurant Chez Panisse, this type of pizza is characterized by combining New York and Italian thin crust with unique and unusual topping combinations. The crust is light, airy, and tender, while the toppings range from chicken and shrimps to peanut sauce, barbecue sauce, goat cheese, and pineapples. California-style pizza should be paired with beer or white wines, including the sparkling varieties.
As decadently dark, sinful, and tempting as its name implies, devil's food cake was invented in the early 1900s as an antipode to the already famed angel food cake. It emerged at a time when baking chocolate and unsweetened cocoa powder became readily available and affordable, and has been an all-time favorite ever since. Among a number of other chocolate-battered cakes, the first recipes actually dubbed devil's food appeared in 1902, one published in Mrs. Rorer's New Cook Book, and the other in The New Dixie Receipt Book in which it was slyly subtitled "Fit for Angels". By the 1950s, Devil's food had become one of the most popular Betty Crocker cake mix flavors, and today it even has its own national holiday celebrated annually on May 19th. Devilishly delicious, this classic American dessert is made with copious amounts of dark chocolate and features a rich, velvety buttercream frosting which makes its seductive lusciousness pretty hard to resist. Devil's food cake remains an ultimate indulgence for any occasion, be it a dinner party, birthday celebration, or simply a perfect ending to a family meal.
Fajitas is a popular Tex-Mex dish made from marinated, grilled skirt steak that is served in a wheat flour tortilla. The earliest printed mention of the word fajita referring to food appeared in 1971, and ten years later it had become one of the most popular dishes of Tex-Mex cuisine. The word fajita is derived from the Spanish faja, meaning girdle or strip, referring to a cheap cut of beef covering the diaphragm that was considered somewhat undesirable by many locals. In the 1930s, Mexican ranch workers used to tenderize the skirt steak by pounding and marinating it in lime juice before cooking it over an open fire and serving the meat in a wheat tortilla along with numerous condiments. Today, fajitas can be filled with grilled chicken, shrimp, and even vegetables, because the more popular the dish became, the less likely it was to be made with skirt steak. Typical condiments include ingredients such as lettuce, sour cream, cheese, tomatoes, or guacamole.
American pancakes are made from a thick batter consisting of eggs, flour, milk, and baking powder. Additionally, fruit such as apples, strawberries, and blueberries can also be added to the batter, along with buttermilk or chocolate chips. When served, they are usually stacked on top of each other, then topped with a variety of ingredients such as butter, maple syrup, fruit jam, honey, whipped cream, or peanut butter. American pancakes are often served for breakfast in the United States of America and Canada, and are sometimes accompanied by fried eggs, bacon, or sausages. In America, there are a few varieties of pancakes, and the most popular ones are johnnycakes (made from fried cornmeal) and silver dollar pancakes (smaller than regular pancakes). Originally, pancakes were symbolic of the sun and played a key role in the early religious rituals of the Native Americans, who first made them from ground cornmeal that was then cooked on hot rocks.
Deviled eggs typically consist of shelled and halved hard-boiled eggs that have had their boiled yolks removed and blended with ingredients such as mayonnaise, mustard, pickle relish, and seasonings into a smooth paste, which is then added back to the cavities of the egg whites. This all-time favorite is usually finished with paprika on top, and it is typically enjoyed chilled either as an appetizer or a side. Often mistakenly considered an American culinary contribution, the first versions of this simple gourmet delicacy are believed to have been invented in ancient Rome. From there, the dish has spread throughout Europe first, and then all over the world, yielding endless interpretations in different countries and resulting in the numerous variations known today. Interestingly, the word deviled in the name of this dish derives from the terms devil and devilling, both of which were used as culinary terms in Great Britain in the late 18th and early 19th century to refer to food that contains hot ingredients, is highly seasoned or spicy. Deviled eggs are a staple at parties, potluck gatherings, and picnics, and these days they’re often enhanced with a wide range of additions such as pickles, kimchi paste, dill, vinegar, chili powder, sriracha hot sauce, bacon, caviar, or crab meat.
What started as a simple fisherman's dish made with shrimp cooked in bacon grease, then served over creamy grits is today a cult Southern dish due to the fact that Craig Claiborne mentioned it in the New York Times in 1985, after he tried the dish at Crook's Corner, a restaurant in North Carolina. That version of shrimp and grits was made by a chef called Bill Neal, who also added mushrooms, bacon, and cheddar cheese into the dish. Today, there are numerous variations of the dish found throughout the South, with added hot spices, barbecue sauces, tomatoes, and fried eggs. The dish is so popular that each September, there is the annual Shrimp & Grits Festival held on Jekyll Island in Georgia.
Chicken tenders is a dish of breaded and fried strips of chicken coming from the pectoralis minor, located underneath the chicken breast. The meat is more tender, and when properly prepared, it should be moist and more tender than chicken fingers, which are made from chicken breast. Once coated in breadcrumbs, the tenders are deep-fried in hot oil. They can be served as an appetizer, side dish, or main course, and common accompaniments include dips such as mayonnaise, ketchup, ranch, honey mustard, and barbecue sauce. Chicken tenders are often served with french fries and coleslaw on the side. Interestingly, a restaurant called Puritan Backroom in Manchester, New Hampshire claims that they invented the chicken tenders.
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