In its early stages as a nation, America, the country, experienced a transition from a land with dormant but virtually unlimited natural resources to a world power whose productivity and abundance was only surpassed by the spirit and ingenuity of her people.

As they migrated to the American shores from all parts of the world, they brought with them traditions and talents all of which had a major impact on the by-now established "American way of life." During this process the strong and positive traditions survived while the less meaningful fell by the wayside--leaving the best each nation had to offer.

In this process of transition, food appears to be one of the last and most stubborn frontiers as we still encounter a great deal of romanticism with the classical cuisine, which is further enhanced by the relative widespread ignorance and lack of recognition as it pertains to American cooking.

As did the country and its people, today's American Cuisine had to undergo a similar melting process, which has produced some truly outstanding indigenous American specialties, which by virtue of a given name or specific flavor direction, still remind us of their former origin. American Cuisine has the tremendous advantages of allowing us to adopt the best of almost any cuisine in the world. While it is often said that the talents, dreams and accomplishments of many nationalities made this country great, why then should the same concept not apply to food'? Should we ignore the Oriental influence in the West, the Mexican flavor popular in the Southwest, the Scandinavian traditions of the Midwest, the Dutch trends found in the Pennsylvania region? Can we forget about the South American influence in the Southeast,

the Anglo-Saxon influence in New England, the classical cooking preferred in our nation's metropolitan areas or above all, the most original traditions found in the Louisiana cuisine combining the French, Creole and Cajun heritages?

The answer is obvious, as it clearly identifies an extraordinary opportunity to combine this wealth of knowledge, talents and traditions into a lasting culinary concept which will meet the contemporary needs of our society.

As recently as 1982, when the first Symposium on American Cuisine gathered food professionals from around the nation to hash out the question of American cuisine, there was controversy as to whether this young, upstart culture had a cuisine to call its own. At that time there was little agreement. Even those who believed there was a distinct American style couldn't define it.

Even today, with the explosion of American restaurants, many experts will deny the existence of distinct regional flavors. Some say the country is so young that firm styles haven't had time to develop, especially since we live in a mass society where television cameras, phone lines, and computers link every part of the world.

However, there still are regional variations that rise to the surface. Otherwise, how does one explain cheese steak sandwiches in Philadelphia, cioppino in San Francisco, chile in Cincinnati, barbecue in Kansas City, or red beans and rice in New Orleans.

If there is one ingredient that distinguishes American food from any other, it is corn. Thought to have come from Mexico, this North American product was used by Native Americans long before America was "discovered". Europeans immigrating to North America tried to grow wheat, but it languished in American soil, while corn flourished. The immigrants were soon forced to make the best of what they had and corn began to appear in every form.

Each country has a predominant grain that helps define the culture. In France it is wheat, in Japan and China it is rice, and in the United States it is corn. Just look at how it sneaks into just about everything we eat -- even candies, most of which are sweetened with corn syrup. We fry in corn oil; we thicken puddings and other foods with corn starch. The famous Kentucky bourbon is made from corn, and corn is a major ingredient in rayon. You can even find corn in the sealing glue for envelopes. Although wheat is a predominant force today, it didn't become a staple until the 1800s.

Each major region has special foods, shaped by the ethnic groups that settled the area and adapted traditional recipes to the ingredients in their new home. Obviously some regions, because several groups settled and blended together, have hazier lines of distinction. The foods of Kansas, which was a pioneer crossroads of people going west and south, are more difficult to define than those of Texas, which enjoys one predominant cultural influence --that of Mexico.

The immense importance of the interaction between ingredients and ethnic backgrounds is clearly illustrated by gumbo from Louisiana. This hearty concoction has elements of both a soup and a stew, but it's really not in either camp. A highly seasoned flour mixture, called a roux, serves as the base. Onions and herbs are added to become the background flavors for oysters, crabs, chicken, ham, veal, or shrimp in just about any combination. The name "gumbo" is probably African, the roux is French, the peppers that give the dish a spicy kick are West Indian, and the sassafras in the file is courtesy of the Choctaw Indians. This dish is a hallmark of Creole cooking, one of the three easily defined food styles that are deeply rooted in America. The others are Tex-Mex and Shaker. The lines of demarcation on the other styles that have evolved in the United States are less clear. The country is so large that in some cases it's hard to divide the regions. But if you look at the climates and the products available, the differences become crystal clear: fresh seafood in the Northwest, citrus and other fruits in the Southwest, and inland agriculture in the South and Midwest.

Some of the regions incorporate vast amounts of land and ethnic culture. However, they still give a general idea of how one area differs from the others.

The word that best defines southern cooking is hospitality. Allover the South, meals are a social event. Many would argue that the social aspects of dining are an important consideration in every culture, which is true to some

From Africa came okra, black-eyed peas, yams, collard greens, and watermelon. From South America came hot and sweet peppers, sweet and white potatoes, peanuts, and tomatoes.

Fruits consist of oranges (from Florida) and peaches (primarily from Georgia). The most popular nut is the pecan (grown allover the South). As with all the regions, there are many more products that are important --such as chicken, eggs, and honey --but we concentrate here on the products that best define the differences in the regional cooking of America.

The South is the home of Coca-Cola, which was invented as a medicinal tonic in 1886 and was sold as a soft drink just after the turn of the century. The South also gave rise to Pepsi Cola, Dr. Pepper, and Royal Crown Cola. Although southern-fried chicken is the dish most synonymous with the South, it was traditionally prepared only in the spring, so it wasn't a staple item.

Beef, the prime source of protein in the Midwest, was also out of the mainstream. Most pork products were preserved, particularly ham and bacon. In the South one is continually confronted with different kinds of ham. Every state claims to make the best. The pride of Virginia is Smithfield, made from hogs fed on peanuts. The meat is cured with salt, then smoked and aged to bring out a extent. But in the South, food and hospitality are fiercely ingrained. This attitude defines the whole social structure of the culture, and food is the center of that culture.

Recipes are handed down for generations and kept closely guarded. That is why people like Edna Lewis, author of The Taste of Country Cooking and considered the preeminent spokesperson for Southern cuisine, says the best food in the South will always be in the home, never in a restaurant.

New Orleans is an exception, however, whose restaurants match home cooking. Even by the mid-1800s, its restaurants received praise. Antoine's was started in 1840 and is one of the oldest restaurants in the United States. (Many will argue, quite justifiably, that New Orleans food hasn't survived well in the transition from Louisiana to greater America.)

The main ingredients that distinguish the South from other U.S. regions are corn, rice, pork, and surprisingly, coconut. Although this is a tropical fruit, the South was able to get it through its West Indian connections, and coconut cakes and other dishes with coconut became important. Corn is used in the South to make hoecakes, a fried griddlecake; succotash, a mixture of corn and lima beans; pone, a baked cornmeal batter; hush puppies; hominy, made by soaking corn in a lye solution; and grits, made by grinding the hominy.

From Africa came okra, black-eyed peas, yams, collard greens, and watermelon. From South America came hot and sweet peppers, sweet and white potatoes, peanuts, and tomatoes.

Fruits consist of oranges (from Florida) and peaches (primarily from Georgia). The most popular nut is the pecan (grown allover the South). As with all the regions, there are many more products that are important --such as chicken, eggs, and honey --but we concentrate here on the products that best define the differences in the regional cooking of America.

Southerners, who often equate the number of dishes with hospitality, always offer a variety of pickles and other preserved items, which are served to perk up winter meals --originally because fresh produce was as scarce then as truffles in South Carolina. Watermelon pickles, spiced with clove and cinnamon, all kinds of fruit chutneys, green tomato relish, and fruit conserves were only a few of the combinations put up for the winter. Even today, no table in the South is complete without some of these tasty morsels.

Cajun and Creole Cooking

From this southern heritage grew Creole and Cajun cooking. To trace the development of food is to trace the history of a region. In 1718, New Orleans was a French settlement. It became Spanish in 1762 then French again shortly before 1800. In 1893 it was part of the Louisiana Purchase and became American.

Not only did the French and Spanish cultures intermingle, but additional influence came from Native Americans and African slaves. African traditions of richly spiced foods were introduced by cooks in the homes of plantation owners; this contribution is still reflected in jambalaya, gumbo, and other hearty combinations. Because of the hot and humid climate, the food became spicier, which is a general pattern that occurs in all similar climates.

Even today the best Creole and Cajun cooks simmer their dishes for a long time, adding the spices in layers so there is a complexity to the food. (Newcomers often add the spices all at once, which creates an overly hot, one-dimensional effect.) Many people confuse Cajun and Creole because today the two terms are used interchangeably. Originally, however, Cajun was a name given by Native Americans to a group of mostly Acadian (French Nova Scotia) and Spanish settlers who ventured to the swampy bayou country. Creole comes from a Spanish word, and the label was given to anybody of European descent who lived in New Orleans. Generally, Cajun food is the country/bayou food characterized by dark roux (browned flour mixture), lots of animal fat, and very spicy flavors. Creole is the citified, refined version, featuring cream and butter.

Although Paul Prudhomme, owner of K-Paul's Kitchen in New Orleans, has brought blackened redfish into everyone's consciousness, the cuisine of the region is really more elegant and expansive. Blackened redfish, where the fish is covered with pungent spices and tossed in a red-hot skillet until black, is Prudhomme's solution of how to use the once-plentiful fish (it is now in short suppl~, thanks to his efforts). Now, of course, everything is blackened, including snapper, sirloin, and chicken. Generally, Creole and Cajun food is based on the browned-flour mixture, the roux, that goes into gumbos, stews, etouffe, and other popular dishes. To the typical Southern ingredients, Creole and Cajun cooks add the swamp bounty: crayfish, oysters, crabs, and shrimp. These cooks also use turtles, eels, frogs, and alligators, which are more important in Louisiana than in other parts of the South.

The most common seasoning vegetables, found in just about every dish, are onions, celery, bell peppers, green onions, and Italian flat-leaf parsley. Garlic comes in right behind. As a general departure on the corn theme, many Cajun and Creole dishes, even gumbo, are based on rice. The most famous dishes from New Orleans have rice in them, including:

Jambalaya --a rice dish that can be considered a southern version of Italian risotto. Jambalaya is a mixture of onion, garlic, green and red peppers, tomato and celery, plus a variety of meats and seafood, including ham, poultry, shrimp, and oysters.

Red beans and rice --a distinctively flavored dish (garlic, celery, onions, and ham) combining rice and red beans.

Dirty rice --a dish that got its name from the dirty-brown color provided by bits of chicken liver and gizzards that are mixed in the rice along with onions, bell peppers, and celery.

Oyster loaf --fried oysters served sandwich style on French bread with tartar sauce.

Oysters Rockefeller --a classic developed at Antoine's, which features oysters baked with a spinach and bread-crumb topping. The original recipe had no spinach, only herbs, although in myriad adaptations spinach is a key ingredient.

Pralines --a sugary confection made with caramelized sugar and pecans. This has become a standard finish to a Cajun/Creole meal. In this style of cooking, .many of the desserts are almost tooth-achingly sweet, which probably evolved as a way to clear the palate from the intensely spicy entrees.

Bread pudding --a dessert that's big allover the South. It uses left-over bread, often topped with a whiskey or rum sauce and is becoming a hallmark of American home cooking, reinterpreted in countless ways in restaurants from coast to coast.

As with the South, corn is the staple product, but here it has strong Mexican overtones. It is made into masa (a mixture of ground corn used to make tamales) and tortillas, and the kernels often are found in relishes and salsas. Chiles are the most distinctive seasoning, along with cilantro, cumin, and bell peppers.

A well-equipped Southwestern cook will have several kinds of chiles on hand to add different flavors. The fiery hot serrano adds an herbal, pungent flavor. Jalapeno has some heat and the flavor is like a bell pepper.

Poblano, a milder green pepper, is used for chile rellenos. Chiles often are used dried, which lends entirely different flavors. For example, poblano chiles are called ancho when dried and take on a leathery, tobacco quality. like the good Creole cook, a Southwestern cook will learn to layer the flavors so the heat will come in waves and not overpower the main ingredients.

The long-established cuisine of the Southwest is generically labeled Tex-Mex. It is most strongly seen along the border, but because of immigration, it moved rapidly into the interior of the Southwestern states. Some of the signature dishes include:

Burritos --soft flour tortillas rolled around beans and cheese. Tamales --a cornmeal shell filled with seasoned meats.

Refried beans --dried beans that have been cooked twice, usually

accompanied by rice which is often seasoned with chiles and tomatoes.

Tacos --fried corn tortillas filled with seasoned meat, lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese.

Chalupas (or tostadas) --flat corn tortillas topped with refried beans, meat, lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese.

Enchiladas --rolled corn tortillas stuffed with cheese or meat and topped with a spicy red sauce and cheese.

Chile con carne --a stew made with ground or shredded beef flavored with pungent chiles, cumin, onion, garlic, and other seasonings. To bean or not to bean is the controversial question. Some purists say chile should consist of beef and seasonings. Period. Others, particularly outside Texas, add beans.

Huevos Rancheros --a highly seasoned dish with two fried eggs on a tortilla, topped with salsa made with tomato, chile, onions, and bell peppers. It also is served with refried beans. Some make a similar dish, combining the same ingredients to make an omelette or scrambled eggs.

To best understand the varied flavor of the Southwest, it's helpful to look at the enchilada and see how it is translated from state to state. Each state has similarities in food, but also major differences. The true Mexican enchilada is unpalatable to most Americans. The sauce that goes over the rolled, cheese-stuffed tortilla has no flour to cut the pungent flavor of the chilest making the mixture thick and overpowering, often with a decidedly bitter edge.

Texas has translated that classic dish to a more palatable form. The cheese-stuffed tortilla is covered with a thick red sauce made from the mild poblano chiles (used to stuff chile rellenos). The sauce is then topped with Cheddar or white cheese and at times some coarsely chopped onions.

In New Mexico enchiladas often are made with blue-corn tortillas. Instead of being rolledt the tortillas may be laid flat and stacked with cheese in between. The sauce likely is made with green chiles. If meat is to go into the combination it is boiled and shredded unlike in Texas where ground beef is used in the sauce.

Arizona is the home of Sonora-style cuisine featuring oversized tortillas that may be up to a foot in diameter. Enchilada sauce is made from green chiles and often is spiked with tomatoes and even oregano.

As you might expect, Californians have taken even more liberty with the enchilada. It is often made with wheat, rather than corn, tortillas and topped with black olives, sour cream, and Monterey Jack cheese. The red, chile-based sauce on top is likely to be infused with tomato. Sometimes even bean sprouts are sprinkled on top.

It's only been in the last few years that a wider style of Southwestern cooking has evolved, using some of the familiar ingredients. The most important flavors, aside from chiles and cilantro, are tomatillo and epazotet a pungent herb with a slightly menthol flavor. It's not unusual to find innovative chefs creating such dishes as gulf red snapper with lime butter sauce and cilantro pesto, or duck and jicama salad with fried cayenne pasta and ancho chile mayonnaise. Grapefruits, limes, and other citrus grown in the Southwest are a fine counterbalance to the spicy flavors. The most distinctive vegetables that are used extensively here are squash; avocado (actually a fruit); chayote, a type of squash with translucent flesh that stays crispy; and jicama, an ugly-looking, root-like vegetable that has a flavor somewhere between apple and fresh water chestnut.

All kinds of fish, game (particularly venison), lamb, and meats are used extensively and even wild boar is beginning to show up on restaurant menus. Many types of fish, particularly snapper from the Gulf of Mexico, are used. However, if there is anyone element that separates the Southwest from the other regions, it's the love of chiles and the robust spice level. The flavors are earthy and straightforward.

Because of the long coastline and the strategic position, with Mexico to the south and the Pacific Northwest to the north, California has incorporated many influences into an ever-evolving cooking style. This emerging style first was highlighted more than fifteen years ago with the opening of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, across the bay from San Francisco. Many people will discount the legitimacy of a California style, but there are some qualities about the style that are easy to define.

Generally, the combinations make heavy use of fresh produce, creating light and bright flavors. Food is simply prepared to enhance the natural assets of the main ingredients. Sauces are rarely used. Flavor is added by herbs or compound butters. Texture is important; generally food is cooked until just done. Long-cooking techniques take a back seat to a quick sauté or grilling. Flavors of different cultures are easily combined, particularly flavors from the Southwest and Asia.

There are good reasons why the Midwest is seen as the pulse of the nation. Not only is it in the center of the country, but the people have a rugged individualism that isn't found anywhere else.

Consider the plight of the pioneer who came, after the Homestead Act in 1862, to claim 160 acres of free land. Much of what was being parceled out in the Plains states was barren. The usual form of shelter was built of bricks cut from sod, which meant the inhabitants were rained on by dry sod in the summer and drenched in mud during the rainy season and spring thaws.

Food was utilitarian. In Kansas, wheat was a rarity in the mid-1800s, and it wasn't until new, vigorous strains were developed that it could prosper. (Kansas now is the primary wheat-growing area in the world, accounting for nearly fifty percent of world production.} As in other states, corn was one of the first crops planted. It not only became the main cooking staple, but the cobs became a major form of heating fuel.

With daily life so difficult, it's little wonder that the food was pretty basic, without many flourishes. Since sugar was hard to find, pioneers used molasses. Inventive ones even used watermelon juice, boiling it down to a sweet, intense syrup.

When apples were scarce --the pioneers loved their pies --the inventive cook would make a mock apple pie with soda crackers, honey, milk (or water when dairy products were scarce), cinnamon, and nutmeg. Some even soaked potatoes in vinegar and used them for an "apple pie".

Perhaps the most popular meat of the Midwest was buffalo, which was hunted to near-extinction by the turn of the century. Today there is a mini-resurgence of farmers who are raising buffalo. Occasionally one can find buffalo steaks and burgers on trendy menus.

Actually, buffalo may gain a place in the modern diet as beef becomes less flavorful; buffalo has a beef-like flavor, though it is a bit more intense and a little sweeter with relatively little fat and gristle.

Other popular products are corn; lake fish such as catfish and perch (around the Great Lakes, trout and salmon are also common); and soy beans that were used mostly for cattle feed until a few years ago when soy-based products became popular as health foods.

Attributing specific dishes to the meat-and-potatoes Midwest is difficult because of the many ethnic influences involved. Most dishes, even today, are served without sauce and are generally plain and straightforward in seasoning. Baking, long simmering, and pan-frying are the most used techniques. Because of the vast amount of grazing land, beef is the most important protein and is served in a variety of ways, with pot roast being one of the most popular. The heartier root vegetables take the place of citrus and other warm-weather produce of the Southwest.

It's little wonder that the Midwest gave rise to the most popular American dish of all time: the hamburger. It was introduced at the World's Fair in St. Louis in 1904, and the first fast-food hamburger stand, White Castle, opened in Wichita, Kansas in 1921.

In many ways this area shares strong ties with the Midwest, but the profusion of freshwater lakes gives it a different bounty, including a wealth of fish such as rainbow trout and coho salmon.

All the states in this area, as well as the Dakotas, Montana, and the Plains states, were settled by Europeans. It was the Swiss, Germans, and Danes who started the booming dairy business in Wisconsin, and the Norwegians who brought wheat to the Dakotas. It was the Germans and the Scandinavians who gave the whole central portion of the country, including the Plains states and the Great Lakes states, its character. It is from here that the meat-and-potato culture flourished, a type of eating that still is in evidence today.

If one had the time to break down the ethnic influence state by state, the pattern would become even clearer. The similarities that exist through the region are due to ethnic influences, while the differences are due to the climate and the bounty available to the settlers.

Of all the areas, the Northwest has the largest variety of fresh fruits and vegetables; the list is endless. More than half the nation's pears and about a third of its apples come from the Pacific Northwest. The Northwest also raises 100 percent of the lentils in the United States. Hops, the key element in making beer, are a major product of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

California is the largest producer of avocados, raisins, wine, turkeys, lettuces, and the list goes on and on. There are literally thousands of products readily available.

However, this bounty is really a tribute to people's ingenuity, rather than what originally grew there. Much of the fruit industry grew out of settlers' desire to recreate what they knew. The first apple tree was brought in 1824 from London. The arid area of Southern California and the dry areas of Washington and Oregon languished until people were able to irrigate.

Although the Northwest is home to innumerable kinds of seafood, two products are unique: razor clams, which bury themselves in the sand and must be deftly cut out before they burrow deeper, and the geoduck (pronounced "gooey duck"). This strange-looking clam creature, with an elongated neck, was virtually unknown in other parts of the United States until the last few years. Generally, the tough neck is finely chopped to season chowders and stews and the tender body is sliced, pounded, and cooked (usually sauteed) after being breaded. Then of course there is the collection of less exotic clams and the wonderful bounty of shellfish (including Dungeness crab) and seafood (including salmon, of which at least five species are available in the Pacific Northwest).

However, only one oyster is native to the Northwest, the Olympia. It measures no more than one inch in diameter, but packs a wallop of seafaring flavor. But, as with the fruit crop, the Northwestern ingenuity has turned the area into a hotbed of oyster activity. The tasty Pacific oyster was brought from Japan just after the turn of the century.

Seafood was the mainstay of the Native Americans who lived in the area. More than seventy-five percent of their diet was made up of fish, seventy-five percent of which was salmon. The salmon was augmented primarily by fresh berries and seaweed as the main sources of vitamins. It was these people who developed the most significant preparation techniques of the area --the grilling, smoking, and drying of fish.

Some historians believe the traditional clambake, often associated with the New England states, was also significant in the history of the Northwest. The Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest would build large fires and heat stones. To the hot stones they would add clams, mussels, and fish, pour on hot water and cover with a mat to steam.

Early on, as corn was just beginning to be cultivated, the Pilgrims lived mainly on a seafood diet. The corn soon flourished, but wheat and rye grew fitfully, which illustrates just how important soil and climate are in shaping the basic ingredients of a cuisine.

Unlike in the South where food represented hospitality, in the New England states it represented only survival, a bodily necessity that was to be dispensed with in short order. The harsh Puritan ethic showed up in the food of the area. This belief was pervasive, even as the country became more civilized and people began to enjoy more-elaborate foods.

Coming from England, the settlers tried as hard as they could to reproduce their English diet. Without wheat flour they tried desperately to grind the corn into powder and use it for bread baking. It was a disaster. The bread didn't rise and instead formed big, doughy clumps. With no other choice, however, corn became the basis of many staple dishes such as hasty pudding, a mush made from ground cornmeal; slapjacks, pancakes made with cornmeal; johnny cakes, dry corn bread that was often taken on trips for nourishment; and hominy.

The rise of one-pot cooking (throwing everything to be cooked in one kettle) was perfected on the ships coming to the New World. This cooking method continued once the Pilgrims arrived, which accounts for the popularity of chowders and the New England boiled dinner even today. By the 1640s, the settlers had brought in cattle, providing meat, milk, and cheese. Wheat and rye took hold and were mixed with corn to produce bread. The main drink was hard cider, a potent brew made from fermented apple juice.

Although flowers in salads are now looked on as trendy, blossoms such as nasturtiums, marigolds, violets, and primroses were used extensively in salads during colonial times. As far back as 1832, Mrs. A.L. Webster in ~ Improved Housewife, wrote that garden salads should be picked early in the morning on the day they are to be served. These were served with a vinaigrette dressing often flavored with mustard. This only shows that "today's salad bar is as natural to the American style as the Western Saloon bar," according to Betty Fussell in her 1986 book, I Hear America Cooking.

Important preparations included corned beef --beef preserved in a barrel of salt --and dried codfish, which was used as seasoning and main courses.

Preserved dishes like these help to define the overall flavor of the culture. Much like the Native Americans who used sugar as a seasoning instead of salt, the colonists soon began to build on the English sweet tooth, which is reflected in the way most Americans eat today. In fact, the major differences that separate American culture from the others are the combinations of sweet, salty, and crisp. The French, for example, have no palate for this combination, preferring subtle, creamy flavors punctuated with salt.

One of the most extraordinary periods of American culinary history was born with the Shakers in the latter half of the eighteenth century. The Shakers were a group of English people who developed a religion based on celibacy and separation and equality of the sexes. To accomplish this goal they lived together in communal fashion, creating a community with distinct styles of dress, architecture, furniture, and food.

Although they flourished for less than 100 years, the Shakers established at least seventeen settlements in and around the original colonies, each planted with elaborate herb and produce gardens and equipped with well-stocked freshwater ponds.

The Shakers emphasized the use of fresh herbs and vegetables, cooked so they still crunched. One lamb-chop recipe calls for a paste made with oil, bay leaves, thyme, marjoram, parsley, dry mustard, and mint, which is spread over the meat and broiled. It's as fresh and modern as the new American style of cuisine is today, which is why more and more young chefs are looking to the Shakers for inspiration.

An astute chef can find 100-year-old recipes for raspberry vinegar, the formula for making the most intense lemon pie, or the wonderful idea of combining apples and rose water.

The Shakers always relied on fresh flavor, unencumbered by lots of sauces and complicated preparations. In many cases the foods are braised, to be savored with their natural juices. However the Shakers, who lived and cooked communally for up to 100 people, were very precise in measurements. Recipes were handed down, to be followed exactly. Shaker nursing homes and hospitals developed special diets, accompanied by fruit wines and natural medicinal elixirs.

Although the food was generally simple and straightforward, some of the combinations seem modern even today. The ever-popular black-bean soup was served in several variations in the villages, seasoned with celery, onion, beef, pork, and mustard and topped with sieved egg. Swordfish was poached and served with flour-based sauce enlivened with herbs and curry powder.

Lamb roast was flavored with ginger and hard cider. Beef pot roast was simmered in cranberry sauce, and ham croquettes were accompanied by raisin sauce.

Green beans were served in a dilled vinaigrette, sometimes combined with lettuce, onions, fresh herbs, and nasturtiums. Casserole cooking included lima beans cooked with pork chops and sour cream, and pork steak cooked with cabbage and hard cider. For a while many of the villages were vegetarian, and they perfected some wonderful recipes such as omelettes with chive flowers or apples, and asparagus custard.

Breads, whole grain and natural, were important and the Shakers were master bakers of homey cakes and pies, including such combinations as apple and cranberry, rhubarb custard, and mincemeat with pears. They enjoyed ice creams, fruit ices, and preserves, all meticulously made from scratch.

In all, what the Shakers achieved was a kind of Utopia of American cooking. They shaped the lands, grew the ingredients, and created food that supported the culture. Unfortunately, their heyday is long gone. There are only two communities left, one in New Hampshire and the other in Maine, and it's unlikely that the communities will outlive their current members.

Experts can get into serious food fights by just mentioning that the grand French cuisine was brought to France by the Italians. The culinary lineage between the two countries began to blur in the 1500s when France had two Italian queens, Catherine and Mary de Medici, who brought their cooks and their eating habits with them. Historians often argue that these women really didn't have that much influence, but many professional cooks -- Italian Giuliano Bugialli and French Madeleine Kamman among them --believe the Italians were instrumental. What happened, theorizes Kamman, is that the Italian chefs trained French chefs and the French upper classes instructed their cooks to reproduce the grand chefs' food. It's the trickle-down theory of cooking.

There are three kinds of cooking in France, all developed around the fourteenth century. The first has roots in the nobility, who hired chefs to cook elaborate meals and banquets for the ruling lords. During the revolution in 1789, when the grand houses were torn apart and members of the nobility were sent to the guillotine, the chefs packed up their pots and went to work in restaurants, creating the Grande Cuisine we know today.

Bourgeois food, the food of the wealthy middle class of that time, was developed by the woman at the head of the household who read chefs' books and told her cook (another woman) how to cook like a chef. This led to a simplification of chefs' recipes and an adaptation using the local ingredients. (Most chef-style food originated in the Ile-de-France and the Loire Valley around Paris, which is reflected in the style of food in the Grande Cuisine.)

In many cases these bourgeois families also took the simple country recipes to a grander scale. A good example is quiche Lorraine, a peasant food of bread dough, cream, eggs, and bacon. The bourgeoisie around Nancy added a pastry crust, cheese, and herbs. The variations became endless.

By the nineteenth century it was the bourgeois class that frequented the restaurants of the grand chefs of France.

The third type of food came from country folks, those who were landowners and ate good, plain food made from local ingredients. The poor tenant farmers ate mostly bread, soup, and cheese. Cheese has always been a staple in France, even among the poor.

Brie, one of the earliest cheeses, dates from about 800 (the time of Charlemagne). Most other cheeses were developed around the fourteenth century as a way of preserving milk. Even today each area is known for its own special cheese which is made nowhere else. Examples are Roquefort, Camembert, and tomme.

The first cookbook was printed around 1350, but the classic cuisine that formed the roots of modern French cuisine began at about the time of the chef La Varenne, in the seventeenth century. The fathers of the modern classic cuisine are Marie-Antoine Careme (1784-1833) and Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935). Careme laid down the law of the Grande Cuisine, which was "simplified" by Escoffier. Since then Nouvelle

Cuisine chefs have further simplified and lightened many of the flour-based sauces and lavish preparations recorded by Escoffier.

The classic cuisine of Careme and Escoffier flourished in restaurants, particularly as tourism increased, though in 1939 it was nearly wiped out by World War II. It returned in 1946 and become known as Haute Cuisine. It was during this period that the food become even richer. Take for example the loup en croute from Paul Bocuse. He places a delicate fish, topped with a creamy rich mousse of lobster, in a buttery puff pastry and serves the creation with a rich choron sauce (sauce bearnaise with tomato). This equals fat on fat on fat.

The change in French cuisine to lighter, simpler preparations came for several reasons. After 1945, the development of new laws affecting the work place made it difficult for chefs to get the kitchen help to do many of the elaborate cooking procedures. In addition, people became more diet conscious. Finally, the airplane made it possible for people to experience many cuisines and to blend flavors from different cultures. Even Paul Bocuse now uses Japanese touches in his food.

Modern a lighter version of the classic cuisine;

Nouvelle an outgrowth of the classic cuisine featuring smaller portions, lighter sauces, and spectacular presentations;

Personelle --a method now practiced by most chefs, of taking the best from all cultures and fitting it into their own personal styles.

However, all three categories have the same theme in that they are less rich, they protect the integrity of the ingredients, and they are more easily prepared than the classic cuisine.

To generalize, French cuisine is built upon dairy products, wine, wheat, and potatoes. Flavorings are subtle, coaxing out the flavor of the natural ingredients.

The French are the sauce masters of the world, and their techniques have been picked up worldwide. Much of the preparation of sauces is built upon stocks, mixtures of fish or meat bones, vegetables, and seasonings that are slowly simmered until they are reduced and intensely flavored. The blending of flour and butter to make a thickener for sauces is also a French technique, which was largely abandoned when Nouvelle Cuisine became the rage. Flour-thickened sauces have been replaced with sauces thickened with butter (as in beurre blanc}, vegetable purees, or by simple reduction.

The French also perfected the technique of deglazing the pan. After the meat is cooked, small amounts of liquid, usually wine or spirits, are poured in. The pan is scraped of all the crusty browned bits and the liquid is reduced to add intense flavors to a sauce which is then finished with butter or cream.

Generally, the French palate has little tolerance for the sweet-and-sour combination important in Chinese and, to some extent, American food.

Although the above information generally covers French cuisine, France is a land of many cuisines. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, products from some of these regional styles became so ingrained that chefs started using the names of the regions to codify a list of ingredients or preparations. For example: Basquaise means a dish flavored with peppers; Perigourdine is a dish with truffles; Lyonnaise is a dish containing onions; Provencale often means the combination of garlic, tomatoes, and olive oil, but more generally refers to replacing the butter with olive oil; and Bourguignonne means the dish contains red wine in the style of Burgundy.

This list continues throughout the regions. It's not always accurate, of course, but it does show how clearly the regional lines of distinction have developed.

Because of major climatic differences between the north and south of France, there are two completely different groups of basic ingredients. In the warm southern parts, particularly along the Mediterranean, olive oil is the principal fat and garlic is the prime flavoring. In the cooler north,

especially around Normandy and Brittany, butter is the fat of choice and onions and shallots are used for flavor. Goose fat is prominant in the western part, although butter also is used.

These areas overlap somewhat, but they have produced an immense diversity of flavors.

The final boundaries of France weren't fixed until the middle of the last century, so the regional styles don't necessarily follow political borders. The Alsace, for example, was passed back and forth from German to French hands, so the food has intriguing elements of both, with strong German leanings in the sausages, fine beer, and wine. However, in other regions you will find Arab, Italian, and Spanish influences.

The fiercely rolling hills, the picturesque architecture~ and the immaculately kept streets and homesteads in the little villages around the Alsace immediately let you know that the heart of the region is in a different culture. The attitude seems much more German than French, and that goes for the food. Many dishes are similar to the ones on the other side of the Rhine: choucroute (sauerkraut), sausages, and such specialties as rabbit served in cream and accompanied by noodles. Because of the French influence,

however, the food of the Alsace often is more subtle and varied than that of Germany.

As in Germany, beer (made in Alsace) is sometimes the beverage of choice, although the wine is world-class. The most popular varietals include Gewurztraminer and Riesling, which exquisitely match the robust nature of the food.

Another contribution of the Alsace is eau de vie (translated as water of life), a clear spirit made by distilling fruit. One of the most famous is Kirschwasser, which is used in cheese fondues popular in the area.

Pork cookery is raised to an art in the Alsace. It shows up in sausage, smoked meats, and hams. Combined with fermented cabbage flavored with juniper berries (sauerkraut), meals are heavy, rib-sticking, and utterly delicious.

From the French influence, the Alsatians have become great makers of pate, particularly the Chartres style, in which goose liver or chunks of the finest meats are sandwiched between layers of forcemeat and baked in a rich golden-pastry casing. Foie gras also is a specialty.

The best cheeses are Munster and Gerome. They are often flavored with anise and cumin, two seasonings borrowed from the German side of the culture.

The two cultures also work together to create delicious pastry. Macaroons, anise-flavored cakes, and small gingerbreads are specialties. The wonderful glazed fruit that sparkles like jewels in candy cases allover Europe is produced in great quantity in this area. Rum babas and savarins also are standard.

Neighboring Lorraine, twice the size of Alsace, has a similar cuisine. The most important culinary contribution is quiche Lorraine, th.e creamy egg pie that gets a boost of flavor from bacon. Egg dishes, including all kinds of omelettes, proliferate in the area. Madeleines, scallop-shaped spongy cake-like cookies flavored with orange-flower water, are a renowned sweet.

Many people argue that, rather than Paris, this area centered around Lyon, is the culinary center of France. The bounty available to the cook seems to support that claim. This is the home of Bresse chicken, Charolais beef, great hams, and a vast array of fruit and vegetables, thanks to the mild climate.

However, the Charolais breed is very lean and high yielding, which sometimes spells tough beef. That is the reason the area is known for long-simmering beef dishes such as beef bourguignon cooked with bacon, red wine, and mushrooms, and beef a la mode, a meat dish braised with vegetables.

Another distinctive dish in Burgundy is quenelles, the light airy dumplings used in soups or served as an appetizer with delicate sauces. Rigodon Bourguignon, or ham flan, is a dish with roots in the region. Another popular ham dish is jambon persille, a ham aspic studded with parsley.

Although red wine is the most common wine used in cooking, white wine takes on important stature in pochouse, a fish stew using the bounty of Burgundy's rivers: It consists of salmon, perch, trout, pike, and eel all simmered in white wine.

Burgundy also has a vast array of freshwater fish, baby eel, frogs, and crayfish. Many of the red-wine sauces for fish, popular in Nouvelle Cuisine, were perfected in this area.

This area borders Italy and Switzerland and includes the Savoie and the Dauphine. The Franche-Comte is influenced by the Spanish; the Savoie, which was an Italian state until 1860, is heavily tied to Italy; and the Dauphine reflects the culture of the ancient Ligurians and the Romans. However, all three are bound by the mountains, which make for a heartier, heavier cuisine.

Because of these foreign influences, this is one of the areas where corn has been used in such things as polenta (a type of cornmeal mush cooked in the Savoie) and soupe de gaudes (corn soup), a popular specialty of the Franche-Comte. Cattle are plentiful, but they are used for dairy products rather than meat. The abundance of milk is used in cheeses, in rich soups, and in all kinds of sauces. Cheese fondue, melted cheese used for dunking bread and vegetables, is associated with Switzerland, but it also is popular on the other side of the Alps in the Savoie.

Next to dairy products, potatoes are the most important ingredient in the area. They show up in just about as many dishes as do cheese and milk. One of the most famous dishes that pairs potatoes and dairy products is gratin Dauphinois, a combination of layered slices of potatoes and milk or cream perfumed with garlic. The principal Alpine cheeses are Gruyere, Emmenthal, tomme de Savoie, and reblochon which is made in hundreds of little farms tucked along the foot of the Alps.

Fish from the mountain streams and lakes are the other major product that shapes the cuisine. It is one of the few regions where the wonderful lake trout still is plentiful.

Pork is the main meat, especially air-dried hams around Chamonix, a resort area near many of the Alpine ski slopes.

Although the Dauphine is next to Provence, it is too cold for olives. It's perfect, however, for walnuts, which flavor many of the dishes.

You don't have to be an anthropologist to understand the connection between the food and the land of Provence. The sun warms the body as the food warms the soul. The air is permeated with the misty smells of lavender, rosemary, thyme, and other wild herbs. Add the salty sea breezes, and you can practically taste the famed bouillabaisse, a fish stew that has been interpreted allover the world, but never duplicated. Part of the reason it's hard to reproduce anywhere else is the ugly rascasse, also known as scorpion fish, which gives the broth a distinctive flavor. Unfortunately, even in the south of France today you can search in vain for a great bouillabaisse; much like San Francisco's famed cioppino, there are more bad preparations than good. But Provence is still the home of scores of delectable fish stews.

In many ways the flavors of the region are so different that after a culinary tour of Provence, many would wonder how it can even be connected with France. Its food resembles that of Spain and Italy, which also have Mediterranean climates, more than the food of other regions in France.

The defining flavors of the area are olive oil, garlic, and tomatoes. Olive oil is so important that milk and butter products are rarely used; cheeses, except for a few fresh-milk cheeses, playa minor role in the cuisine. Aside from the Basque, Provence is the only area in France that uses bell peppers. Hot red peppers, which would unbalance the subtle cream- and fat-based foods of the other areas, are right at home among the robust flavors of the southwest.

Add the herbs of Provence --thyme, rosemary, sage, and marjoram --and you have the basic flavors of the area. Lavender, which grows wild in the field, is used to season everything from appetizers to desserts. The acres of wild herbs also offer up another sweet by-product, honey.

The Italian influence shows up in many of the dishes, including pissaladiere, a yeast-dough crust topped with onions, olives, and anchovies that is so similar to pizza it's hard to tell the difference. Pistou sauce is really the Italian pesto sauce of basil and garlic, without the pine nuts. Other important sauces include aioli, a garlic mayonnaise, and tapenade, a spread of olives and anchovies, capers, and other ingredients.

The area is abundant in vegetables. In addition to tomatoes, there is extensive use of eggplant, zucchini, and onions. Together they comprise ratatouille. Seafoods, particularly mussels, sea urchins, and other shellfish, make up a substantial part of the diet. There are many simply prepared mussel dishes, often with red bell peppers, onions, and tomatoes.

lamb is the most important meat. When combined with lavender it provides a wonderful example of the exciting, robust, and atypical flavors found in this part of the world.

Although this area doesn't receive the same recognition as Burgundy and Bordeaux, languedoc actually is the country's leading producer of wine, generally the inexpensive vins de table used for everyday drinking. Combining a mixed influence of Italian, Spanish, and Arab, much of the food is earthy peasant fare that has escaped the Haute Cuisine movement.

The most important dish is the cassoulet, a casserole made of white beans and a number of meats, often including pork, mutton, and duck seasoned with goose fat. Here the Arab and Spanish spices often replace the French seasonings. Garlic is the main flavoring and lamb is the main meat, with pork close behind.

The entire supply of the famous marrons glace, or candied chestnuts, comes from this area. Although Gascony is known for foie gras and duck production, the species used actually originated in Toulouse and is an important commodity in the languedoc. This area is the only one to grow rice, which shows up in some of the dishes, as does a couscous-type product made of corn, attributed to the Arab influence.

The major cheese is Roquefort, a pungent blue-veined cheese with a creamy flavor from the mold penicillium glaucum roqueforti, which grows only in the chilly, damp limestone caves in the northern hills of the languedoc.

The major distinction of this area is the fat --duck or goose fat often, though not always, replaces butter and oil. This is the land of confit (a method of preserving duck in salt and cooking it in goose fat}, foie gras (duck or goose liver, fattened by force-feeding the bird with corn before slaughtering}, and Armagnac (the aged distilled spirit that is practically as famous as Cognac}.

However, the most intriguing part of the country is the small Basque area which is totally different from any other in France. The Basque country extends into Spain, where it is as far removed from Spanish food as it is from French food. No one has yet been able to determine the origins of the people. The cuisine is different and the language is not like any other in the world.

The area is blessed with both coastland and stream-covered mountains, so there's an abundance of freshwater and saltwater fish, plus rich soil for growing produce.

One of the main differences in the food is the use of both hot and sweet peppers. Though the spiciness of the food in no way resembles the fiery foods of Thailand or the southwest United States, it is still miles above the spice level of foods of the neighboring areas. Sheep are used extensively for wool, milk, and cheese. Apples are the main fruit. One of the most famous dishes is angulas a la bilbaino, baby eels fried in oil. Ttoro, a stew using small fish from the Atlantic coast, flavored with hot peppers, is the bouillabaisse of the Basque country. Piperade is a chunky tomato-based sauce seasoned with peppers, onion, and garlic and served in an egg omelette.

The Bayonne ham, a dry-cured ham rubbed with salt and red pepper, is a well-known local product, as is chocolate.

Although Anne Willan, who founded La Varenne in Paris, lumps this area together in her book French ReQional Cooking. it's really too broad a boundary. The land around Perigord uses goose and duck fat in cooking, while the area around Bordeaux and Poitou uses butter. Therefore, to clarify, we will look briefly at the different areas.

This is the land of luxury products: truffles, foie gras, wild mushrooms, and walnuts.

The native truffles make a wonderful match for the wines of Bordeaux, the neighbor to the west. These hauntingly smoky orbs, used to flavor myriad dishes, are rooted out from the base of oak trees by pigs and dogs. A specialty of late fall and winter, these truffles are preserved in Cognac for use year-round.

The goose and duck take on monumental importance in the area, giving rise to one of the most famous dishes, confit, where the meat is preserved in fat.

This fat often replaces oil and butter in dishes such as potatoes sarladaise, (fried potatoes perfumed with garlic and sometimes truffles). Margrets (duck breasts made into steaks) are sauteed or grilled just like beef and are often served with a red-wine sauce. One specialty of the area that accompanies the duck is sauce aillade, made with garlic, walnuts, and walnut oil.

Perigord is also the land of pates, often crammed with foie gras and truffles. However, in the modern cuisine the truffles often are replaced with nuts, usually hazelnuts but sometimes walnuts, a specialty of the area.

The wines of the area include Bergerac and Monbazillac, a sweet white wine much like Sauternes, that makes a silken match for the foie gras.

The main identity of Bordeaux comes from the exquisite Bordeaux and Sauternes wines. In terms of culinary identity, Bordeaux is more difficult to define. The cuisine developed around the vineyard, rather than through political or ethnic boundaries. It draws from many areas, but generally the food receives inspiration (and many products) from Gascony, Perigord, and Poitou.

There's a variety of products to fill any cook's larder, including many fish and shellfish, both freshwater and seafaring, such as oysters that are traditionally served with little sausages. Snails also are favored, often perfumed with garlic and red wine. One of the more unusual specialties, available in the spring is lamproie au sang, an eel-like lamprey cooked in it's own blood and red wine. The dish takes on a heavy, chocolate-like favor because of the blood.

This area is close to the Loire, and has a taste for hearty foods including cabbage and goat milk. One of the native dishes is tourteau fromager, a cheesecake made with fresh goat cheese. The salt-marsh lamb, whose meat takes on a salty character because of the surroundings, is a famous product. It is simply roasted with butter and a minimal amount of seasonings, but generally always garlic. Another important product is mussels; they are served in every conceivable way from creamed in soup to lightly steamed with Cognac.

Although Normandy has a reputation for butter, the finest comes from Poitou. It is the only region that has been given an appellation d'origine controlee (labeled beurre Charentes-Poitou), which in food terms is a pedigree. However, it wasn't until the last half of the 1800s that this occurred, when the region's grape vines were destroyed by the phylloxera, a small insect that attacked the root stock and killed the vines.

Author Waverly Root says in The Food of France that this heartland region is responsible for the "subtle, fine expert cooking of modern France". He also believes that by all rights it should be the capital of the country. Instead, the Loire Valley has become the land of castles, a place where many kings erected palaces from the fourteenth century on.

The cooking of this area, like the language, is the accepted French standard. The regional dishes are less distinctive because they are the food on which

the now-familiar French cuisine is based.

As in no other region, the abundant ingredients take the lead, while the

cooking techniques work to support, not mask, that bounty. The area has rightly been referred to by many experts as the "garden of France."

Rillettes, finely shredded pork cooked in lard and eaten cold spread on bread, is the most famous of the products. It goes perfectly with Vouvray, the best-known wine of the region.

A dish popular since medieval times is sang de poulet, chicken cooked in chicken blood. Prunes are put into a number of main dishes, including noisette de porc aux pruneaux, or roast pork and prunes. Many of these regional combinations make liberal use of wine in the food.

The beurre blanc, or butter sauce, used on many of the abundant fish, is actually native to Anjou, an adjoining area, but was quickly picked up in Touraine.

The cuisine bourgeoise, the hearty fare talked about earlier, flourished in this area and in the Ile-de-France (the area around Paris and relatively close to the Loire). However, the cuisine bourgeoise stuck to its roots in Touraine, while it progressed to the Grande Cuisine in Paris.

This part of the country is known for roasts, such as roast pork with prunes. In most areas the sweet and savory combination is avoided, but in Touraine, where orchards dominate the landscape, it is a well-established tradition. Because the fertile land is mostly devoted to crops, there is little room for grazing cattle, so cheese production is held to a minimum. Most cheeses are imported from other regions, usually Oleanais to the north and Anjou to the west.

This is the meat-and-potato land of France. The terrain is remote, the lifestyle arduous, and appetites humongous. The cuisine revolves around mountain hams and sausages, aged cheese, and other preserved foods typical of cultures with similar geography and climate. However, the mountains breed streams which support lots of fresh fish and wild game. Potatoes and cabbage are major vegetable products, and both appear in many dishes. A typical dish is aligot, mashed potatoes combined with garlic, tomme cheese, and cream in a

fondue-like mixture.

Cabbage is used in potee Auvergnate, a one-pot meal consisting of boiled pork shoulder, vegetables, and stuffed cabbage rolls. The meat and vegetables are served as a main course and the cabbage rolls, filled with a ground pork mixture, are placed on bread slices in a soup bowl with cooking broth.

Green lentils, lentilles de Puy, are cooked and served with sausages and salt pork, or they are used to thicken the hearty soups and stews of the area. Buckwheat is used in the bourrioles, which are much like American breakfast pancakes. They can be served as bread or layered with sugar, honey, or jam as a dessert.

Several delicious blue cheeses come from the area, including bleu d'Auvergne, a Roquefort from cow's milk, and bleu des causse, also made with cow's milk but with lighter veins and finer grain. Many other cheeses are made, the best-known (such as Cantal, a hard cheese) are made from cow's milk. Although dairy products are plentiful, the major fat is not butter, but pork lard.

Although many people pass by Brittany because the cuisine is not as elegant and refined as in other places, it has a seductive earthy tradition thanks to its Celtic ancestry. The foods are hearty and rib-sticking. The term "a la bretonne" suggests hearty fare because it generally indicates a dish accompanied by or including white beans.

Bretons, especially in the coastal regions, eat mountains of fresh shellfish, particularlyoysters (belon), mussels, scallops, and lobsters. Mackerel, an often-overlooked fish in the United States, is given culinary importance in Brittany, often marinated in white wine.

The most famous prepared dishes are crepes and galettes, which are the same pancake though galettes are sometimes a bit thicker. This area is also known for its salt-marsh lamb, which has an intense, complex, and salty flavor. It is often served with seasoned white beans.

Dairy products are a major commodity, although the milk isn't as high in butterfat as that found in Normandy. In today's cuisine, however, the main culinary contribution is beurre blanc sauce, a butter sauce made by sauteing shallots in vinegar and white wine, and then whisking in large amounts of sweet butter. This sauce has become the guiding principle for many modern sauces. Chefs will reduce all kinds of flavorings and swirl in the butter to make a sauce that's used on fish, lighter meats, and sometimes vegetables.

With dairy production so high, cheese would seem to be a natural by-product, but because the people pride themselves on being indifferent to all things French, not much is made. Pork, poultry, and garden vegetables are produced at record rates.

Normandy is a land of rolling green hills, flowering apple trees with cows lazing underneath, and quaint thatch-roofed farmhouses. Even today, as corporate life is taking over agriculture, Normandy is a land of small farms.

The famed black-and-white cows, which produce a dozen gallons of milk a day, create some of the best cream to be found, and the Normans are so enthralled with it that they put it on just about everything, from appetizers to meats, vegetables, and desserts. Their love of butter and cream also leads to rich

butter-based pastries and shortbreads.

Famous cheeses produced in the area include Camembert, a soft-ripening cheese that is rich and creamy, and livarot, an ancient tangy cheese with a creamy interior. Neufchatel, from the eastern area, is a fresher cheese sold within three weeks of production.

Apples are the other defining difference. The wine that is so important in other French regions is replaced in Normandy by Calvados, a spirit distilled from apples. In fact, Normandy is one of the few regions that doesn't produce any wine. Soft and hard cider also are important accents in cooking.

The area is teeming with seafood. Normandy lobsters are considered a delicacy, and the mussels and scallops are beautiful. However, it is the sole that has sent the most demanding of chefs, including Escoffier, to the kitchen to create dishes that live up to the delicacy of the fish. Although Dover sole is the most in demand, the area also produces lemon sole and gray sole. Sole shows up in such dishes as sole Normande, which is served with mussels and shrimp in a veloute sauce. The classic cookbooks have hundreds of ways to prepare this famous product.

Living among this abundance is the pig, which satiates the Normans' great love of sausages, hams, and organ meats such as tripe. Andouillettes -- pungent tripe sausages which experienced Francophiles often love and newcomers abhor because of the pungent, musty flavor --are popular here, usually smothered in cream.

The most famous duck dish, in an area that worships the bird, is canard Rouennaise, or duck stuffed with liver. The duck is killed by smothering so the blood doesn't escape. The bird is quickly roasted and the legs are removed and cooked further while the bones are pressed to give out the juices that are combined with red wine and Cognac to produce a rich sauce.

If the food of the Champagne area were as sparkling as the wine, it would be incredible. Instead much of the food is simple, wholesome, and borrowed from other areas. Sole, which is usually served with a wine sauce, is sometimes made with Champagne. Even lamb kidneys will get special treatment with a Champagne sauce. However, many cooking experts complain that the mystique of the Champagne is lost in cooking and adds little to the finished dish.

Andouillettes de Troyes are a specialty. The popular sausages, made from the small intestines of the pig and mixed with parts of pig, calf, or beef stomach, differ from the andouillettes of Normandy. In that area, the sausages are dry and robust, while the products from Troyes are moist. Andouilles, also popular, are similar but are made from the large intestines and are cooked, sliced, and served as a first course.

Wonderfully seasoned warm salads are another culinary delight of the area. Many are made from cabbage, one of the area's important products. Other greens are also served warm, often seasoned with bacon as in hot dandelion and bacon salad. These salads go well with Brie cheese, the most famous cheese of the area west of Champagne.

In Japanese cuisine, esthetics playas important a role as the food itself. Using a limited palette of foods --staples such as fish, rice, soybeans, and vegetables and a meager repertoire of seasonings including soy sauce, dashi (a stock), sake (rice wine), and miso (fermented soybean paste) --the Japanese use presentation to increase the appeal of the food.

For example, lacquered bowls with certain colors and graphic designs are used to enhance the appearance of plain cubes of tofu sprinkled with dried fish (bonito) flakes. 'Sappari' is the word used to describe this subtlety and fastidiousness in preparation and arrangement that help compensate for such a limited range of products.

Unlike the French and the Chinese, whose complex cuisines meld textures and flavors for an overall effect, the Japanese try to preserve the intrinsic properties of each ingredient. Each item in a bowl of clear soup --a sliver of lemon, a delicate strip of carrot, precise cubes of tofu --is relished individually. Any strong-tasting garnish is added last so its flavor will not overwhelm the others. All the seasoning and preparation methods are designed to enhance rather than mask the ingredients. The dashi broth and soy sauce are used modestly. Vegetables are lightly cooked and eaten al dente. Fish is barely cooked or not cooked at all. Chicken is still tinged with pink after cooking. Fried foods are delicate and never greasy.

Each food in a meal is designed to complement and harmonize with the seasons, a practice grounded in the ancient nature worship that has evolved into the modern-day Shinto religion. In spring a dish of raw cucumbers and fish may be presented to suggest trees, mountains, rivers, and flowers. A nightingale cake, made of pounded rice meal coated in sugar and filled with bean paste, may be roughly cut in the shape of a bird and dusted with green bean powder to look like the bird that breaks its winter silence in the early spring. At cherry-blossom time this same cake may be rolled in cherry blossoms.

Products, too, are tied to the season. May brings shincha, the tea of the first and most-prized harvest. Summer brings ayu, a small freshwater fish. Midsummer brings eels and cold foods such as tofu cakes sprinkled with bonito flakes, iced buckwheat noodles, and cold tea made of barley.

The Tea Ceremony. Probably the best example of the honoring of the seasons is the tea ceremony. Some of the best food is prepared for this ceremony. The tradition stems from the Zen Buddhist monks of the thirteenth century and is based upon the harmony between host and guest, between the meal and the seasons, between the food and its containers, and between one food and another.

The tea ceremony can last four hours, with the host arranging various objects around the tea kettle. The tea leaves are prepared in a prescribed way. A late-spring menu might consist of rice in a black lacquer bowl; miso soup, (a clear broth with white tofu and bits of fish paste); broiled porgy (a type of fish) in a pottery bowl; bamboo shoots and fuki (a Japanese vegetable) in an antique china bowl; clear kelp broth; lima beans with shrimp; and yuto (a soup made of burned rice and served from a red lacquered pitcher).

It is surmised the early Japanese came from northern Asia and developed a worship of nature using rice offerings to trees and other vegetation. One of the most important deities was the food goddess Ukemochi-no-kami. Harvest festivals were, and still are, observed.

The first contacts with the outside world were in the sixth and seventh centuries, with interaction with the Chinese in the eighth century. The Chinese are credited with bringing soybeans to Japan, plus teas and ideas on presentations of food. The Portuguese, who arrived in the sixteenth century, introduced recipes for deep-fat frying that survive today in the form of tempura. The American influence after World War II is seen primarily in ice cream, toast, and fried eggs.

The predominant technique is nimono, or simmering. There are at least fifteen divisions of this method, broken down by the type of seasoning liquid used. For example kara-ni is food simmered in an equal mixture of soy sauce and sake. Nitsuke is food simmered in sake, mirin (or sugar), and soy sauce.

The most common stock is dashi, made of kelp, dried bonito flakes, and water. The common seasonings in order of importance are sake, mirin, salt, soy sauce, and miso.

Another method is nabemono, one-pot cooking, in which ingredients are cut up and placed in front of the diners who plunge the meat and vegetables into a pot of hot broth, cook them briefly, and then season with dipping sauces. The best example is sukiyaki.

Steaming is an important technique, and there are two main types: mushi,

in which food is suspended over boiling water and then seasoned with salt and dipped in a soy-based dipping sauce; and chawan mushi, in which foods are mixed with an egg custard, ladled into cups and steamed, then served without a dipping sauce.

Mushiyake combines the elements of steaming and grilling. The food is either wrapped in foil or put in an unglazed casserole and placed over hot coals; the steam comes from the moisture in the food. One category in this technique is horoku, in which salt is placed in the bottom of the casserole dish and the dish is heated to a high temperature. The hot salt causes the moisture to turn to steam which cooks the food.

Frying, or agemono, is the glory of Japanese food. This method, which includes both deep- and pan-frying, is designed to be light and non greasy. Special blends of oils are used, but never animal fat. Egg, ice-cold water, and flour are mixed together and the food is dipped into the cold batter then plunged into hot oil. The shock of the cold batter hitting the oil causes the batter to puff.

Salting is another important technique, and there are several variations. Sometimes delicate fish are steeped in salted water, or the fish may be paper salted. In paper salting, the fish is placed on a layer of paper, another layer of paper is put on top and salt is placed on the paper. The salt in the paper then soaks through to the fish.

Grilling is done frequently, and the timing and amount of heat are important. The secret is to grill the food to a point at which the heat crisps the outside but barely reaches the center of the food.

Further diversity in the food is added by intricate cutting techniques that add texture, flavor, and exotic appearance.

Fish. The thousands of shallow inlets and bays in Japan produce a wealth of fish. Tuna is popular for sashimi and sushi (balls of vinegared rice formed around chunks of fish or vegetables and encased in seaweed). The fish is eaten scrupulously fresh and sometimes live. Odori is the practice of popping live fish, usually shrimp, into the mouth and eating them.

The most respected fish product is katsuo-bushi, the dried strips of mackerel bonito, grated and used as seasoning.

Sea vegetables like kelp are also used extensively.

Soybeans. From the soybean come several of the most important foodstuffs of Japan. It's the basis for miso, the fermented bean paste that is indispensable in breakfast soups and marinades; for tofu, a custard-like soybean cake that finds its way into most preparations; and for soy sauce, which is the major flavoring.

Rice. This is a rival staple to the soybean, and it is more important in Japan than wheat is in the West. It is a part of just about every meal.

The best rice is shinmai, the new rice from the first harvest. Typical rice is of the short-grain variety with a firm texture. Glutinous rice, which is sticky and finds its way into sweets, also is used.

Other Important Ingredients. These include:

The traditional formula for a Japanese meal consists of soup followed by three main dishes, referred to as "soup and three." This quartet has been elaborated to include an appetizer, clear soup, and sashimi, followed by the three main courses which are followed by the "end" which includes rice, pickles, sometimes soup, tea, and fruit.

Within this basic structure, main courses are served consecutively according to method of preparation. Grilled dishes are served first, followed by steamed ones, and then simmered foods. The typical dinner would begin with soup, followed by a fresh uncooked food like sashimi then a grilled dish, a simmered dish, and fried foods if there are any.

Breakfast could include a sour pickled plum, rice sprinkled with dried bonito, and a clear soup. lunch might be a rice preparation mixed with something like dried bonito flakes and a clear soup, or vegetables sprinkled with sesame seeds.

No meal ;s complete without soup, either the clear or the thick variety. Clear soups are made with stocks. Thick soups resemble simmered foods and are made from dash; stock and miso.

Sweets are not served at the end of the meal, but usually with tea or as snacks. These are as limited as the rest of the culinary palette. Popular items are mochi (glutinous rice mixed with sugar and other ingredients}, pastes, and jellies. Steamed buns with sweet bean-paste filling also are served, as are slightly sweet rice crackers.

Next to French, Chinese is generally considered to be the greatest cuisine on earth. As Westerners begin to learn more about the ingenious use of food products, the techniques, and the long history, many are convinced it is the undisputed winner.

The list of valuable food products early Chinese cooks gave to the world

is almost endless. Rice, first cultivated at the mouth of the Yangtze River in Neolithic times, is the most important. The domestic pig, considered by many to be the world's most versatile meat {it's the only meat that's regularly used to season other meat) was first bred in the same time period.

The Europeans didn't even start using the pig until several hundred years ago. Instead they were eating the less useful boar. The domestication of the pig allowed the Chinese to be the first to cure ham and bacon, two products not generally associated with Chinese food.

The familiar white farm duck can also be traced to the Chinese, and eggs from these ducks were the first domestically produced. The Chinese were among the earliest users of chicken, originally a Southeast Asian jungle bird.

When it comes to the argument of who invented pasta, the Italians or the Chinese, the literature points to the Chinese. Noodle-making recipes from China date to before 100 A.D., more than 1,000 years before they were documented in Italy.

As with other cultures, China is a continent of cuisines. The climatic changes, from the subarctic Mongolia to the tropical Canton, account for a wide range of styles. While we generally consider rice the staple grain, the people in the north use wheat, including leavened breads, pasta, and meat-filled pastries and buns.

Generally, the main cooking techniques include roasting, braising, simmering, steaming, frying, stir-frying, and some baking, although most cooking is done on top of the stove. Oven roasting of ducks, geese, pork, and other meats is fairly common, and some breads are still baked in North China. Much of the

cooking is done with oils, mostly soy and peanut, and some animal fat such as lard.

Stir-frying, the technique most often associated with Chinese food, is common in restaurants because it is quick, but it doesn't really typify Chinese cooking. By Chinese standards, it's a recent technique and is

probably employed no more than twenty percent of the time.

Dairy products are rarely used. In fact, many Chinese get nauseated at the smell and sight of aromatic cheese or things dripping in butter. Soybean milk and bean curd {tofu) are used instead.

Throughout the country, soybeans, fermented and aged like wine, are also used in sauces and pastes as a traditional seasoning. In the north, dark soy sauce with a deep caramel color is regularly used. In the south, both light and dark are used. The dark is used to flavor heavier meats and the light is added to soups, vegetables, and dipping sauces.

In no other cuisine is texture as important; that is the reason the Chinese chef is so precise and dexterous with the cleaver. In some dishes everything is cut into identical match-stick shreds so that the feel of the various flavors is the same. The laborious effort the Chinese endure to prepare the practically tasteless bird's nest, shark's fin, and jellyfish is for the texture, not taste. The flavor is generally given by what surrounds these items, usually a rich stock, but the feel is a prized element. Hand-chopped meat is highly regarded, while the machine-ground is considered sloppy and mediocre. In Asia, guests are served bean sprouts only if the heads and tiny roots are removed. The famous Peking duck is judged on the crispiness of the golden skin.

Whether in restaurants or in the home, Chinese food is served off a communal platter. Cooks generally plan one dish per guest, and it is shared byall. If last-minute guests arrive, another dish is prepared, rather than increasing the amount for the dishes already planned.

Rarely is meat carved at the table, and knives are not brought to the table. Instead chopsticks are used to pick up a large piece and take a bite.

The Chinese have fewer food taboos than any other culture. For example, the Chinese enjoy and have recipes for every part of the pig including the snout, tail, all the innards, and blood. In Canton there are restaurants that serve nothing but snakes. Beef, with some exceptions, is not eaten very much because cattle take up valuable land to graze. Except in the north, lamb is not highly favored.

Americans generally like boneless pieces of meat, but in China bones are preferred because the people consider the tastiest morsels to be found around the bone. True Chinese eaters will leave the bones looking as if they're ready to be displayed in a museum.

Regional food in China can be broken down in many ways. Most scholars believe there are at least nine distinct areas, but for a basic overview, they can be broken down into four major regions.

The center of southern cooking is around the city of Canton, now called Guangzhou. This area is also the homeland of the largest number of people who immigrated to the United States, so it is this food, in its bastardized form, that Americans know.

The good Canton cook places special emphasis on lightness and freshness. Seafood, for example, isn't just fresh, it's alive. Entrances to Cantonese restaurants in Hong Kong (where the cooking is practiced to perfection} look like aquariums. Live whole fish, clams, shrimp, and crabs are delivered continuously so they don't flounder in the water more than a few hours. A live fish is rushed to the table so the guest can see how lively it is, and then quickly taken to the kitchen where it will be steamed with scallions, fresh ginger, and maybe a little light soy sauce and wine. The "fresh" fish served at the best French restaurants in both France and New York are considered over the hill by the Chinese.

Fruit and vegetable markets are set up twice a day, right after the produce is picked and delivered. Produce picked in the morning is considered too old for the evening meal. The Canton cook perfected the art of lightly cooking vegetables, and great care goes into constructing a vegetable dish.

A typical Cantonese meal might include whole steamed fish or cracked crab with ginger; fresh vegetables with fresh fungi in a sauce with a touch of finely grated coconut; a whole, poached fresh-killed chicken, cooked so the bone marrow still is red and the meat is pink, and served with chopped ginger, scallion, white pepper, and a sesame-oil dipping sauce; and fruit of the season.

Squab, duck, and geese, roasted and seasoned with five-spice powder, also are popular. And rice is a staple in cooking. The Cantonese are especially fond of such delicacies as shark's fin, bird's nest, sea cucumbers, frogs, turtles, and exotic game such as cranes and eagles. Each season brings new exotics such as just-hatched rice birds in the fall and snakes in the spring.

Dim sum, the assorted meats, seafood, and vegetable-stuffed pastries wheeled around on carts, is strictly Cantonese. The tea houses that specialize in these appetizers are destinations where business often is conducted.

Also in the south are Hakka people (meaning "guest" or "foreigner" in Cantonese}, who immigrated to south China several centuries ago from the barren reaches of the north. These people work in the fields, not unlike the migrant laborers in the United States, and their cooking is built around the less desirable portions such as fish lips, chicken blood, and spinal-column marrow. Hakka restaurants make their own tofu, considered the best in China. The most popular specialty is chicken buried in rock salt and baked in a wok on top of the stove.

Next to Cantonese and Mandarin, people in the United States are most familiar with cooking of this area --Sichuan, Hunan, and Yunnan. The Sichuan province has more than lOO-million people who were separated from the rest of China by impervious mountain ranges. Because of the geography, Sichuan was subtly influenced by India and the Middle East. For example, a kind of walnut halvah is popular here, and the kiwi, formerly called the Chinese gooseberry, is native to Sichuan.

Sichuan cooking gets distinctive flavors from chile peppers and various pastes. Sometimes three or more flavors are used in the same dish to give a multilevel effect. Ginger is a major seasoning and so is garlic. The Sichuan peppercorn, fagara, is one of China's most ancient spices along with cassia, which is sold as cinnamon in America.

The best-known dishes include tea-smoked duck and smoked pork belly with leeks. The Sichuan crispy-skin duck, perfumed with anise and cinnamon, is one of the world's greatest duck dishes. Because of the Middle Eastern influence, lamb is sometimes cooked. From India, the people of Sichuan got the idea to lace sweets with rose petals.

In addition to the spicy, home-style cooking, Sichuan Province has an elaborate banquet cuisine, a court cuisine that was transferred centuries ago by political exiles from the north. Instead of spiciness, the hallmark of these banquets is elaborate presentation. Pandas are made from minced fish with fine black sea moss for fur. Goldfish are made from forcemeat with egg-yolk scales and Napa-cabbage tails; the fish swim around the pool of sauce as the bowl is slightly jiggled during presentation.

Although restaurants in the United States often promote food from the Hunan province, it really isn't a distinct cuisine, but an offshoot of Sichuan. However, Yunnan Province, also in west China, is distinguished for making some of the world's greatest hams. Since these aren't readily available in the United States, many restaurants substitute Smithfield ham from Virginia, the closest approximation to the real thing.

The main difference between the cuisines of northern and southern China

is the starch; in the north, wheat is used instead of rice. This area has various breads and rolls, both leavened and unleavened. One of the most popular is a bun with a hint of sesame oil and a sesame-seed topping. Wheat flour also is used to make pot stickers, pan-browned steamed dumplings stuffed with chopped pork, Napa cabbage, and other ingredients. Although pot stickers are served in many dim sum houses, they are really northern fare.

Other specialties include the tortilla-shaped Peking pancake served with Peking duck and mu shu pork {a mixture of egg, bamboo shoots, tree ear fungus, pork, and dried day lily buds that is stir-fried and served wrapped in the pancakes).

Hearty braised dishes, such as pork and turnips, typify northern cooking, as do rich soups such as hot and sour which gets the heat from white pepper and the sour from vinegar.

Peking duck is more than a dish, it's an elaborate procedure. The ducks are raised specifically for this dish. During the last few weeks, they are force-fed and then slaughtered by making a small hole in the neck. After cleaning and feathering, a tube is inserted into the neck and the duck is blown up like a balloon, causing the skin to pull away from the flesh. The duck is then scalded in a solution of malt sugar and vinegar and hung to dry overnight. The next day it is roasted in a tandoor-like, mud-lined oven.

Typically, this duck is served in three to ten courses during a meal. For example, the crackling skin is served with thin pancakes, scallions, and

sweetened bean sauce. For less-formal occasions, the meat also is served with this course. For formal occasions, the meat is reserved for two separate stir-fry dishes. The meal ends with soup made from the carcass. Other dishes may include the giblets, tongue, feet, and brains.

Noodles, made from wheat flour and hand-shaped, also are important. Theyare served with such toppings as chopped duck with ginger, garlic tangerine peel, and soy sauce. The world's first spaghetti {still eaten today, often to celebrate birthdays), is la jiang mein, a fresh. noodle dish with a topping of pork, bean sauce, and sesame oil. In addition, pickling vegetables is a high art in northern China.

A Mongol influence is seen the northern Chinese hot-pot dishes, a fondue-like meal consisting of meat and vegetables cooked in an aromatic broth. The thin slices of meat, usually lamb, are placed in the simmering liquid in the Mongolian hot-pot. Then the meat is dipped in a sauce each person makes individually consisting of bean sauce, sesame-seed paste, soy sauce, vinegar, chile oil, chopped garlic, and fresh coriander. At the end of the meal the broth is consumed. Similar Mongolian influences are seen in the barbecue, where a cast-iron grate is heated and covered with thin pieces of lamb.

Some people argue that Shanghai is the most sophisticated and well-defined area. In many ways some of the techniques and tastes bear a faint resemblance to those in France. Just about all dishes have a splash of Shaoxing wine, a Sherry-like rice wine. Wine also shows up in the proliferation of drunken shrimp and chicken dishes and in the freshwater crab, which are pickled alive in the wine and served like sashimi. The crabs also are steamed and served with a vinegar-ginger dipping sauce.

Braised casseroles include duck browned with small onions before being braised in wine with a dash of dark soy sauce and rock sugar. At the end the liquid is reduced to a glaze. Whole pork shoulders are cooked in a similar manner.

Where a Cantonese cook would be content to steam a whole fish with a little ginger and scallions, the Shanghai cook adds a sauce of mushrooms, bamboo shoots, ginger, fresh coriander, and a dash of wine.

Ham also is produced in this area. Often it is finely minced and used like salt as a seasoning for vegetable dishes. Freshly rendered chicken fat is used like butter to cook vegetables or to drizzle over the vegetables before serving.

In other preparations, vegetables are lightly parboiled, dipped in cold water, drained, and tossed with a light seasoning of sesame oil, vinegar, and light soy sauce, much like a western salad.

The purple-black seaweed nori, which comes in sheets and is used to wrap Japanese sushi, is eaten in eastern China, either sliced in soups or to separate layers of lightly salted fresh fish.

The east coast of China is the home of some wonderful vinegars. The most famous is the aged black vinegar from Zhejiang Province that has a flavor somewhat like balsamic vinegar.

Eastern Chinese favor the short-grained rice eaten by the Japanese, and the breads favored in the north. All these combine to make their food the most varied of the regions.

Italian food has undergone an interesting transition in the United States. Our first exposure was pizza and spaghetti drowned in tomato sauce, products attributed to the large migrations from Naples and other areas in southern Italy. In the sixties, as a passion for everything French set in, the food of northern Italy, based more on butter than olive oil, became stylish, leaving the gutsy, homey food of the south to languish.

Now the pendulum is swinging back, but this time Americans are beginning to understand the diversity and forward flavors of first-rate Italian food.

The debate will no doubt rage endlessly between the French and Italians as to who is responsible for the greatest cuisine in the western world. The French say theirs is the best. The Italians claim that the French learned what they know from Catherine de Medici who packed up her pans and took along her cooks when she left Florence to become the queen of France in the sixteenth

century.

However, the Italian cuisine of today hasn't evolved in nearly as complex a style as the French. The food is based on fresh products and straightforward flavors. There are no complex fumets, meat glazes, or fonds de cuisine to complicate Italian sauces. The foundations of the sauces tend to be olive oil, wine, and broth seasoned with bread crumbs, cheese, tomato puree, or pounded herbs, as in pesto. Cream, eggs, and butter are rarely used to thicken sauces, except for some preparations in the north.

The two major divisions in the style of food are caused by climate and geography. Mountains separate the fertile northern plains, watered by the Po River, from the mountainous arid south. Crops that can't stand frost won't survive in the northern plain chilled by blasts of frosty air from the Alps to the north; therefore, no lemons, oranges, or olives are grown here. However, cows are a big agricultural commodity, so butter replaces olive oil as the main fat and flavoring.

The climate to the south of the northern plain is more a function of elevation --the higher one goes the colder it gets. While some of the mountains in the south are the coldest spots in the country, for the most part the climate is arid. The mild winter in the Tuscan and Roman areas provides an abundance of rosemary, sage, grapes, and olives. The coastal areas have hot climates, much like Greece and southern Spain, so oranges, lemons, sugar cane, dates, figs, and pomegranates flourish.

With the major distinctions between the north and south in mind, here is a broad overview of the foods that define the cuisine.

Fruits and Vegetables. Italy has a long growing season for fruits and vegetables because of the temperate Mediterranean climate and the fertile soil. Most preparations take advantage of this bounty, which includes tomatoes, eggplant, squash, beans, apples, olives, herbs, onions, artichokes, spinach, broccoli, fennel, white truffles, oranges, lemons, and figs. It's interesting to note that potatoes aren't much favored and are often replaced by pasta. Contrary to popular opinion, garlic isn't used all that much. The few garlic-spiked dishes include Neapolitan tomato sauce, fish soups, spaghetti with oil and garlic, and bagna cauda, Piedmont's garlic and olive oil dip for vegetables and pesto.

Cooking techniques are designed to enhance rather than mask the quality of the produce. Vegetables are simply sauteed, baked, stuffed with simple fillings, or dusted with a light sprinkling of cheese.

Pasta. This is the primary ingredient that defines Italian cuisine. Spaghetti and macaroni made from water and durum wheat are more commonly found in the south and egg-based flat noodles are found in the north. However, improved transportation and the migration of people from the impoverished south to the more fertile north have fostered more uniform eating habits, and both pastas are now eaten allover the country.

The pasta comes in all sizes and shapes: amorini, little cupids; agnolotti, little fat lambs; cannelloni, big pipes; farfalle, butterflies; and many others. The sauces for these unusual shapes are tailored to the pastas. For example shell-shaped pasta is served with meat sauces so particles of meat will become trapped in the indentations. The delicate strands in angel hair pasta are designed for more delicate sauces.

Although grains are used on other forms, they are minor players when compared to pasta. Polenta, a kind of cornmeal mush, is important in the north. Gnocchi, a thick doughy pasta made with potato, wheat flour, or farina, is eaten some, as is rice, used most often in risotto.

Olive 011. Although this is traditionally credited to the south, olive oil now is used extensively throughout Italy.

Heat. With a few exceptions such as Tuscan beef, prosciutto, and Roman roast pig, meat isn't a major part of the Italian diet. Generally it's used as flavoring for sauces and stuffings. Sausages are used, but not nearly as extensively as in Germany. Game is an important staple of some of the mountainous areas, and is usually roasted or cooked in stews.

Cheeses. Elizabeth David, a British food writer who has a large following all over the world, claims that Italian food uses cheese excessively. That, of course, depends on one's ethnic orientation. Cheese often is sprinkled on vegetables, pizzas, pastas, and soups to garnish and add flavor. It's an important ingredient in stuffings and sauces, and it is enjoyed on its own.

The three principal cheeses are: Parmigiano Reggiano, which is a hard, aged cheese that is grated and sprinkled over almost everything; mozzarella, most associated with southern Italy and often made with buffalo milk; and ricotta, a soft sheep-milk cheese used in pasta dishes (especially lasagna) and desserts.

Other familiar cheeses include pecorino Romano, a sharp, dry sheep cheese from Sardinia; taleggio, a cream cheese made from cow's milk; fontina, a creamy Gruyere-style cheese made in Piedmont; provolone, a strong-flavored cheese that is somewhat soft and often is carved into different shapes; asiago, a strong cheese of Veneto; gorgonzola, a sharp, veined blue cheese; and bel paese, a soft cheese made in Lombardy that has become immensely popular since it first hit the market in the 1920s.

fish and Shellfish. Although fish is important throughout Italy, it takes on primary importance along the coast. Venice, on the Adriatic, is famous for scampi, skate, sardines, and sole, among others.

Genoa, on the Ligurian coast, has mussels, sea-dates (a small shellfish), sea-truffles, sea-snails, and other Mediterranean fish. Sardinia has octopus, clams, sardines, mullets, lobster, and tuna.

Throughout southern Italy anchovies are a popular flavoring used in sauces, salads, and stuffings.

Herbs and Spices. The herb most associated with Italian food is basil, used whole in salads or mixed with oil, garlic, Parmesan cheese, and pine nuts in pesto. Other important flavors are wild marjoram (in Neapolitan pizza), sage, mint (Roman and Florentine cooking), rosemary (Roman), fennel, bay leaves, oregano, and parsley. Because of the important spice trade of Venice and Genoa, myriad sweet spices repeatedly show up in Italian food. Popular ones include nutmeg for spinach and ricotta dishes, cloves, cinnamon, vanilla, and saffron.

Frozen Desserts. Both gelati, a rich milk-based ice cream, and granita, a light fruit ice, are wildly popular throughout the country. Many will argue that Italian ice cream is the best in the world.

The Techniques. The methods used in Italian cooking are relatively simple and straightforward, mainly sauteing, frying, baking, and some stewing in mountain areas. Italians have very few long-simmering meals laced with complex sauces. The exception is osso-bucco, veal shanks cooked in a hearty tomato-based sauce for several hours.

Meal Structure. Pastas are usually the first course, often alternated with broth or risotto. The second course generally is meat or fish, often followed by a vegetable or salad. Dessert is usually fruit. The antipasto, a collection of small piquant nibbles such as sausage, olives, anchovies, ham, small artichokes, coppa, prosciutto, and fried small fish, often comes before the first course.

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

The well-documented culinary history of Italy makes it a good candidate for tracing modern food back through the centuries. Today's Italian food, for example, still shows traces of the Etruscans who lived in the country hundreds of years before Christ. The millet mush served at the time is directly related to the modern polenta made with corn. Other staples of the time were cottage cheese and wine.

By the third century B.C., Romans dominated the peninsula except in the extreme north, and trade routes were established until the barbarians invaded in the third century A.D. From these routes to the East came many spices and herbs, apricots, peaches and melons, (both from Persia), and dates (from Africa). The Italians also ate native foods such as cabbage, greens, and fava beans. Literature shows that the people of the period enjoyed a highly sophisticated diet, and one of the first cookbooks is ascribed to Apicius in the first century A.D. Lavish feasts and banquets were popular during that time. Emperor Maximinius reportedly consumed forty pounds of meat a day and washed it down with forty quarts of wine.

However, this excess ended when the barbarians from the north conquered Rome. Most of the trade routes were destroyed. Some the Roman dishes, such as gnocchi, survived to modern times. Another popular dish of the Romans is garum, a condiment according to one description, made from entrails of small fish left to dry in the sun. Later it is flavored with vinegar, oil and pepper.

In the ninth century, the Arabs invaded southern Europe, including Sicily and southern Italy, where they stayed for about two centuries. They brought with them many desserts: ice cream, sherbet, honey, almond paste, and sugar.

In the eleventh century, the Crusades brought back sugar, which hadn't yet been cultivated in the south. The warriors also brought apricots, spices, lemons, buckwheat, and other items that had been eaten at the time of the Roman empire but disappeared after the disruption of the trade routes.

By the thirteenth century, the groundwork for the modern Italian cuisine was mostly laid. Cookbooks of that period had recipes for vermicelli and tortelli. (These were the first published references to pasta in Italy, but the use of pasta is documented much earlier in China.) Venice became the center of the spice trade from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, and such flavors as pepper, clove, and cinnamon were added to the cuisine.

The fourteenth century produced a cookbook by Platina, De Honesta VoluDtate ac Valetudine, ("Concerning Honest Pleasure and Well-Being"), with recipes close to modern tastes. For example the book suggests lemon, orange, and wine combinations instead of mounds of spices dumped in and onto food. One dish spotlighted in the book was prosciutto with figs or melons. Cooking schools flourished in Florence during the sixteenth century. Catherine de Medici went to the French court, along with her cooks and pastry chefs. With the introduction of foodstuffs from the New World such as tomato, pimiento (red pepper), potato, corn, and green beans, among others, the eating habits of the Italians were largely formed.

A closer look at the regions gives an even better view of the food and the differences between the north and south.

Neither north nor south, Rome is in the region of Latium. Long a crossroads, Rome today boasts food that is hearty, robust, and eclectic. A favorite preparation is roast suckling pig, stuffed with herbs and roasted whole alla Romana. Other typical dishes are gnocchi; cannelloni, pasta rolls stuffed with meat; fettuccine al burron, ribbon-like egg pasta with butter and Parmesan cheese; spaghetti carbonara, pasta in an egg sauce flavored with salted pork belly; saltimbocca, ham on slices of veal flavored with sage, sauteed in butter, and braised in white wine; stracciatella, a batter of eggs, flour, and grated Parmesan cheese poured into a boiling broth; and carciofi alla giuda, artichokes deep-fried in olive oil.

The surrounding areas produce broccoli, tomatoes, onions, and beans, while Latium contributes spiny lobsters. Umbria produces lots of pork, sausages, and smoked meats. Black truffles come from the Tiber River Valley, which rounds out the distinct flavors of the region.

Considered the heartland of Italy, this area between Rome and Genoa is a mixture of rolling hills, fertile valleys, and rivers. Tuscany is known mainly for three foods: beef, beans, and Chianti wine. It is the home of one of the oldest and heaviest breeds of cattle, the Chianina. These sturdy cattle produce excellent beef which the Tuscans roast with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Beans conspire with lots of other foods in a multitude of Tuscan dishes: zuppa di fagioli, bean soup; riso e fagioli, rice and beans; fagioli toscanelli con tonno, beans with tuna fish; and many more.

The wine of the area is some of the best, hearty and earthy like the food. Today many wineries are experimenting with French varietals such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay.

• BOLOGNA AND EHILIA-ROHAGNA

This land, which runs east and west along the Apennines, is half mountainous and half fertile plains. The main city is Bologna, where the food is rich and heavy. This district is one of the most fertile, with large crops of wheat, maize, sugar beets, and tomatoes. The quality and production of cattle rival Tuscany. Olive oil, butter, and pork lard are all used in cooking.

Principal foods include both egg-based pasta and water and durum-wheat pasta,

Parmesan cheese from the Parma district, and lots of processed pork such as prosciutto di Parma.

Pasta is almost always served with a ragu, a thick sauce of onions, celery, butter, and tomatoes. The most important pastas include tagliatelle, supposedly made in the fashion of the flaxen hair of Lucrezia Borgia; tortellini stuffed with all kinds of fillings; and lasagna, layers of pasta, cheese, and tomato sauce.

Parmesan cheese is sprinkled on just about everything. Prosciutto di Parma, a pale-red ham made from the boned hind legs of the pig, is a specialty that is processed and dried for about six months in the open air.

On the coast in Ferrara, lagoons house a bounty of fish, such as eels. It's good land for vegetables and fruits, particularly apples.

• VENICE AND THE NORTHEAST

This area encompasses Veneto, Alto-Adige, and Friuli-Venezia-Giulia. However, only Venice represents Italian cooking since Alto-Adige, late of the Austro-Hungarian empire, has basically Germanic food, and Friuli-Venezia- Giulia has a Balkanized cuisine, a mix of Austrian, Hungarian, Slavic, and Balkan foods.

Venice, on the Adriatic coast, is known for fish and rice dishes, as rice grows very well in the inland areas. Typical Venetian dishes are scampi; shrimp, rice, and tender young peas {ris e bisi}; sole with herb sauce; and sardines with lemon juice.

With its Mediterranean climate, the ligurian coast around Genoa is an herb and vegetable paradise, particularly suited for basil. This area lays claim to pesto, which is added to all manner of foods including minestrone soup.

Ravioli is a local dish that can be stuffed with all kinds of things such as calf's brains and sweetbreads. The vegetable tart is another specialty.