Massachusetts Food & Traditional Cuisine

Massachusetts eats from the Atlantic and from its immigration history in roughly equal measure.

The Yankee side is cod, clams, chowder and baked beans — the last of which gave Boston its old nickname, and which were traditionally cooked with molasses on Saturday so they could be eaten on the Sabbath without work.

The other half arrived after 1840. Boston's North End is one of the oldest continuously Italian neighbourhoods in the country, and the Portuguese communities around New Bedford and Fall River brought a cuisine that is still specific to those cities.

The state is also a leading producer of cranberries, grown in flooded bogs across the southeast.

Clam chowder in the local style, cream-based and thick — the version the state will argue about with anyone.

Boston baked beans, slow-cooked with molasses and salt pork.

Fried clams, whole-belly, invented on the North Shore at Essex.

Boston cream pie, which is a cake, and the official state dessert.

Parker House rolls, from the hotel that also produced the Boston cream pie.

Portuguese sweet bread and kale soup around New Bedford, and cannoli from the North End, where the queue outside the two competing bakeries is part of the ritual.

Boston's food culture is neighbourhood-based: the North End for Italian, the downtown Chinese blocks for a late meal, and the seafood counters at the harbour for what came in that morning.

Farmers' markets run through the warm months in most towns, and the state's farm stands sell corn, tomatoes and cranberries in season on a roadside honesty-box basis.

On the Cape, buying fish off the boat in Chatham or Provincetown is ordinary practice, and oyster farming in Wellfleet has a reputation well beyond the state.

Massachusetts is a marginal wine region, though vineyards on Martha's Vineyard and in the southeast work successfully with cold-hardy hybrids, and the coastal moderation helps more than the latitude suggests.

The state's real drinking tradition is beer. Boston has brewed commercially since the colonial period, and the modern craft scene is dense and long-established.

Cranberry production supports a small trade in fruit wines, and hard cider is made across the apple-growing centre and west.