To many Americans who consider flavors just outside their zip codes as unfamiliar as those found halfway around the world, marinades offer easy-to-swallow points of entry. Regional American cuisine, notes Stephen Giunta, CMC, culinary director, Cargill Meat Solutions, Wichita, KS, is a whole new way of engaging with food. “I think there’s a real movement right now to go back to honest, authentic, recognizable food and bring it back in a refreshed, modern approach,” he says.
As Pamela Marcus, marketing specialist, FONA International Inc., Geneva, IL, says: “Regional favorites with flair are popping up in a variety of restaurants, from quick-service to fine-dining.”
Notes Albert Musca, corporate chef, Red Arrow Products Company, Manitowoc, WI: “Most regional cuisines offer comfort to individuals. We all need some comfort these days, and a popular way is to eat foods familiar, craved and comforting.”
All over the map
Predicting which regions will catch consumers’ attention is as hard as reading their palates. “Certainly, the cuisines of California, Cajun/Creole country, Tex-Mex, Southwestern, Chicago, and Italian Americans have had the best longevity,” Musca says.
Regional flavors are far from static, suggests Jordan Greenstein, brand manager, Cattlemen’s, French’s Flavor Ingredients, Springfield, MO. “Regional flavors and styles are constantly evolving as people move from place to place, bringing a new set of ideas, styles and taste preferences from other regions, combining them to adapt a given regional style to be uniquely theirs. Everyone has a chicken sandwich, but calling out the traditional flavors, woods, cooking techniques and preparation techniques used in creating it, suddenly it becomes something that carries the traditional, authentic, evolved, inspired or fused flavors of a specific region with it and delivers something special to the customer.”
In the South, influences from Africa, indigenous American cultures and Spain have shaped the cuisine, Giunta says, and over the years it’s distilled into a flavor profile that, he says, “loves spice and loves sharp flavors, but that has to balance them with something sweet.” Definitive Southeastern marinades and sauces will include honey and mustard, he says, and notes that you see a lot of buttermilk-soaked fried chicken in the region, too. He’d include buttermilk in a marinade since “it tenderizes meat, and it actually has viscosity, so the coating’s going to thicken and adhere to the product.”
Another region Giunta’s watching is the Southwest, where tomatillos, avocado, cilantro, lime and ingredients associated with Mexico show up. A marinade of onion purée with a little bit of garlic and cilantro is “beautiful for fish,” he says. “Hot sauce is huge in the region,” and they make a point of calling out use of varietal chiles: serrano, Anaheim or New Mexico. “They do use a lot of ancho chile, as well,” he says, “a beautiful pepper for the traditional red sauce they use in the area.”
In the Intermountain West, ranching and hunting flavor the cuisine. Wyoming, Montana and Colorado game needs its assertive flavor toned down, notes Guinta, and marinades help. “You get a wild duck, and you really need a strong marinade there,” he says, noting marinades with red wine and vinegar work well with mountain cuisine. For ranched lamb, garlic and herbs are the go-to marinade elements, he explains: “They’ll use rosemary and sage, because those plants are hardy in the mountain region. And smoke flavor, as well—they use liquid smoke in the mountain region, or different smoking woods, like pecan.”