What would you serve in your AMERICAN Restaurant

Indian pudding dates to the Colonial days of America, when newly arrived Colonists at Plymouth, Massachusetts, and elsewhere sought to re-create the dishes of their homeland with the ingredients they hand available to them in the new land. Indian pudding is derived from the British hasty pudding, a dish made from wheat flour or oatmeal boiled with milk. Colonists did not yet have quantities of wheat flour, so they made their hasty pudding with cornmeal, which they had in abundance, thanks to the Native Americans, or Indians"hence the name. The Native Americans themselves enjoyed a version of this dish called supawn, a boiled cornmeal mush.

To flavor their Indian pudding, the Colonists added spices such as ginger and cinnamon, and they fortified it with eggs and butter, when available. A distinctly Yankee touch was the addition of molasses, which was a product of the local maritime trade. The Shakers made a variation of Indian pudding that replaced the molasses with maple syrup as a sweetener. For further embellishment, Colonial cooks might have added raisins into the boiled cornmeal mixture before baking, or topped the finished Indian pudding with a healthy slug of thick cream.

Philly Cheesesteak:

What about desserts?

I mean, I know there's apple pie, obviously ..... but what other dishes would be considered typical American desserts?