Post History

If you had visited a French restaurant in Boston, you would see French cooking techniques -- sautes, braises, and long-simmered soups.

If you had visited a Cantonese restaurant, you would see Cantonese techniques and vegetables and spices.

You went to New England and they cooked New England-style food: steamed, fried, and boiled. The primary additional ingredients are those which were easy to get in New England: potatoes, corn, onions, beans, carrots, apples, salt and sugar (brought up from the Caribbean in the triangle trade: tobacco, sugar, slaves).

Ginger was an expensive import. Scallions don't keep as well as white and red onions. Soy beans weren't grown there -- even now, the USA's soy crop comes from more than a thousand miles away from where you were.

If you wanted different cooking techniques, all you had to do was go to a different restaurant -- Boston, Portland, St. Johns all have many cuisine options.