The 20 Most New Englandy Dishes
Yankee Magazine’s first food editor chose these recipes as the 20 “most typical” New England dishes back in 1939. Do her selections ring true today?
Are these the most “New Englandy” dishes of all? Yankee‘s food editor thought so back in 1939.
Photo Credit : Aimee Seavey
Imogene Woolcott was Yankee‘s first food editor and the first mass-media authority on New England cooking. Consider her the Martha Stewart of her day: She anchored daily radio broadcasts over the Yankee Network for First National Stores, wrote her monthly Yankee column, and gave lectures on home economics to women’s groups around the region. If she were alive today, I’m sure she’d have a cooking show on PBS and a blog to go with it.
Her 1939 book, The Yankee Cook Book (Amereon Ltd.), a compilation of 377 recipes collected from the Yankee archives and from cooks around the six states, was in print for decades and is still a primary source for anyone wanting to learn about our regional foodways. That same year, in a Yankee article about the book, she praised its contents as a celebration of “the finest plain cooking in the world” and listed the 20 “most typical” New England dishes.
She writes, “I am conscious of the dangers attendant on such a selection. But I am basing the popularity of these dishes on the number of recipes sent in as a result of my daily radio broadcasts over the Yankee Network in Boston. For example, I received 377 recipes for baked Indian pudding—more than for any other one dish. So, naturally, it heads the list.”
Imogene Woolcott’s 20 Most New Englandy Dishes
Baked Indian Pudding
Boston Baked Beans
Boston Brown Bread
Parker House Rolls
Clam Chowder
Photo Credit : Heath Robbins
Johnnycake
Codfish Balls
Yankee Pot Roast
New England Salt Fish Dinner (aka Cape Cod Turkey)
Split-Pea Soup
Photo Credit : Aimee Tucker
Red Flannel Hash
Fish Chowder
Apple Pandowdy
Green Tomato Pickle
Vermont Turkey
Photo Credit : Aimee Tucker
Cranberry Sauce
Pumpkin Pie
Coleslaw
Scalloped Oysters
Broiled Lobster
So what do you think, readers? Does her list stand the test of time? I can think of many dishes I’d like to add, including (Grape-nut pudding,common crackers, quahog fritters, apple pie with cheddar…).
Add your thoughts to the comments below!
This post was first published in 2014 and has been updated.
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Amy Traverso
Amy Traverso is the senior food editor at Yankee magazine and co-host of the public television series Weekends with Yankee, a coproduction with WGBH. Previously, she was food editor at Boston magazine and an associate food editor at Sunset magazine. Her work has also been published in The Boston Globe, Saveur, and Travel & Leisure, and she has appeared on Hallmark Home & Family, The Martha Stewart Show, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, and Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Amy is the author of The Apple Lover’s Cookbook, which was a finalist for the Julia Child Award for best first-time author and won an IACP Cookbook Award in the “American” category.
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