What is the Colorado state food?

Answer 1

Colorado

Colorado does not have an "official" state food. The only edible state symbol is the trout. The primary commodities are beef and lamb. Which means? This state a challenging one for a food report, especially if you have to make something simple and easy for class.

About food in Colorado's pioneer-days

"Life in the early settlements of Colorado was rather primitive...Customers paid for their purchases in pinches of gold dust...Potatoes cost $15 a bushel and oysters were $16 a gallon...Some prospectors soon discovered that a good crop of grain and a few bushels of apples brought in more gold than agonizing hours of panning and digging. By the 1890s Colorado farms produced more income than the mines. Sugar beets...became a particularly profitable crop. The sugar-beet industry commenced in Colorado after a French-designed sugar-manufacturing plant, which was brought to America by the Mormons, failed to work in Utah. The soil and climate of Colorado proved to be good for sugar beets, and the plant was moved to Colorado..."Ranching began in Western Colorado in the 1870s and boomed in the 1880s...Beef is raised in many areas of the state...Colorado is famous for its Mountain lamb and it is number one in the nation in lamb production ...In pioneer days "eating out" did not mean going to a restaurant. Rather, it meant that the women prepared food to be carried outdoors and eaten on a table made from planks laid across two saw-horses..."Eating out" kept the house cool. When women settlers arrived in Colorado, they could not figure out how to make a good cake. The high altitude of the mountains prevented cakes from rising properly...high altitude baking was born...Many a Colorado cowboy had his own special biscuit mix. before stargin out on the range, he would mix together flour, salt, and leavening in a sack and tie the sack to his saddle. At mealtime he took some of the mixture, added water to achieve the right consistency, and drop the biscuit dough into a skillet greased with lard or bacon drippings...In the 1890s Russians from the Volga region came to Colorado to become sugar beet farmers. They brought with them recipes for their favorite foods, such as sausages encased in rich dough; a sponge cake made with lemon; cucumber salad with sour cream; Piroshki, meat baked in small turnovers or tarts; and Golbutzi, cabbage leaves stuffed with a mixture of meat, rice, and sour cream...Mexicans came later to work on the railroads...adding their spicy dishes...Pollo con Mole...Tamale Pie...and Flan. It is said theat the Chinese cooks working on the transcontinental railraod...invented the Denver sandwishch...It was simply Chinese Egg Fu Yung prepared with green peppers, onions, and usually chopped ham. The cooked omelet was put between two pices of bread and eaten as a sandwich."

---Taste of the States: A Food History of America, Hilde Gabriel Lee [Howell Press:Charlottesville VA] 1992 (p. 219-221)

Traditional Colorado foods?

This menu was constructed by Patsy Shole, Assistant Professor of Home Management at Colorado State College, Fort Collins:A Menu of Typical Colorado Foods

Rocky Ford melon

Puree of mile-high peas

Choice of

Fort Collins roast leg of lamb with mint jelly

Fried mountain turkey with cranberry jelly

Colorado Rocky Mountain rainbow trout wtih hollandaise suce

San Luis Valley Burbank puff potatoes Larimer County buttered peas

Fresh savory mushrooms Heart of Colorado pascal celery

Pikes Peak hot rolls Sweet Colorado State College butter

North Park iceberg lettuce with roquefort cheese dressing

Loveland early Richmond chrry pie

Palisade peach ice cream

Coffee."

---New York World's Fair Cook Book: The American Kitchen, Crosby Gaige [Doubleday, Doran:New York] 1939 (p. 185)

The culinary history of Colorado is an eclectic mix of ethnic and cultural traditions. If you to include information about food in your state report, you can select foods from a variety of cultures/time periods. All you need to do is explain how the food/recipe fits into Colorado history. You can choose from:

1. Pioneers/Soldiers provisions: The Fort

   (replica restaurant dedicated to serving historic Colorado food) has sample menus.

2. Goldminer provisions (Lead, Cripple Creek--more stew & biscuits, tinned oysters for the rich)
3. Historic recipes published in Colorado newspapers (1859-1923)...search all, term: recipe
4. 19th century resorts: Hotel de Paris (Georgetown) & The Broadmoor (Colorado Springs)
5. Denver sandwich (known in Colorado as the western sandwich)
6. Colorado menus (1890s-1960s)

Manufactured foods

Did you know shredded wheat was invented in Colorado? Henry Perky invented a machine to produce America's first shredded wheat in his downtown Denver factory. Jolly Rancher candies were invented in Golden, Colorado (yes, by real ranchers). The American sugar beet industry has ties to Denver. Charles Boettcher and John F. Campion left the faltering silver city of Leadville for Denver, where they founded the Great Western Sugar Company to grow sugar beets. Stearns-Roger, a major engineering firm, switched from building smelters to erecting sugar beet factories.

Recommended reading: Colroado Industries of the Past/William L. Reich [flour mills, breweries, ice, food canning & sugar beets]

Top crops (make a food with one of these ingredients) According the US Dept. Of Agriculture, Colorado's largest crops (2002) are potatoes, followed by pinto beans and light red kidney beans.

Need to make something for class?

"Trappers Fruit

To make about 5 cups

3 cups (about 12 ounces) coarsley chopped dried apples

1 cup canned pureed pumpkin

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup roasted sunflower seeds

1/2 cup seedless raisins

1/4 teaspoon coriander seeds

1 teaspoon salt

1 quart water

Combine the [ingredients] and water in a heavy 3 to 4 quart casserole and mix well. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce the heat to low, cover tightly and simmer for about 1 1/2 hours, or until the apples are tender. Check the pan occasionally and, if the fruit seems dry, add more water 1/4 cup at a time. Transfer the fruit to a bowl and cool to room temperature before serving. Trappers' fruit, so called because it was easy for Colorado fur trappers on the mid-19th Century to prepare, is served as an accompaniment to roasted and broiled meats."

---American Cooking: The Great West , Jonathan Norton Leonard [Time-Life Books:New York] 1971 (p. 84)

"Muffin Cakes (Colorado)

yolks 8 eggs

2/3 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup milk

1 1/2 cups flour (sifted twice)

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Beat the yolks until they are thick and lemon colored; add the sugar gradually, beating all the time. Add the butter, creamed until soft and fluffy, then add flour and vanilla, and last of all the baking-powder. Grease muffin-pans and dredge them with flour; then invert the pans and tap the bottoms lightly so that no loose flour remains. Put a very little of the batter in each muffin pan, as it rises considerably. Bake in fairly hot oven until brown. Serve the same day as baked. These cakes will fall a little when taken from the oven, which is as it should be."

---The National Cookbook: A Kitchen Americana, Sheila Hibben [Harper & Brothers:New York] 1932 (p. 392-3)

[NOTE: Ms. Hibben's book is well regarded by food historians as accurate. She does not, however, provide notes as to how the recipes she selects connect with the designated state. Baking powder was a favorite ingredient in 19th century Western states, when yeast was sometimes hard to come by.]

"Ranch-style Pan Bread

Cast-iron frying pans were used on the frontier for making all manner of breads, including this one, a quick, easy baking powder bread with a light, cakey texture

Serves 9

2 cups siftged all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons vegetable shortening

1 1/4 cups milk

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Combine the ingredients in a food processor, being careful not to overmix. The dough will be quite sticky. Bake in a greased 9-inch square iron skillet for 25 to 30 minutes, or until dark golden brown. Trust your eyes to tell you when this bread is done, not the clock. For a crustier bread, bake ranch style, spread thinly in a 9- by 12-inch greased iron skillet and baked until dark golden brown. NOTE: For more authentic, traditional flavor, use lard or bacon fat instead of vegetable shortening. Bake ranch style."

---The Fort Cookbook: New Foods of the Old West from the Famous Denver Restaurant, Samuel P. Arnold [Harper Collins:New York]1997 (p. 21)

[NOTE: This book contains dozens of traditional and locally inspired recipes. The author's notes help you understand the connection to Colorado. Your local public librarian will be happy to help you obtain a copy. Selected recipes online.]

Answer 2

Colorado state food is Sabian's Mom's poonrocky mountain oysters