The Great Lakes

The five lakes, Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario, form the largest body of fresh water on the continent, and the cooking of their shores begins with what the water and the glaciated land around it would give. The Anishinaabe, including the Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi, and the Haudenosaunee to the east, fished these waters and kept the wild rice, maple and corn economies of the region long before settlers arrived. Later cooks added the habits of the European peoples who settled the ports and farmlands, and the fish of the lakes entered the American repertory through them.

The fish are the centre of the matter. Lake whitefish, Coregonus clupeaformis, is the great table fish of the upper lakes: its flesh is white, fine in flake and mild, and it is cooked simply, broiled, baked or fried, or smoked over hardwood until it takes a deep gold colour. Lake trout, Salvelinus namaycush, is fatter and stronger in flavour and suits the smoker and the grill. Yellow perch, Perca flavescens, and walleye, Sander vitreus, are the fish of the fry pan, taken as small fillets, dredged in seasoned flour or crumbs and fried in butter or lard until the crust is crisp and the flesh barely set. In these fish the cook's work is restraint, because the quality of cold, fresh freshwater fish is lost by anything heavy. Beard's American Cookery treats the freshwater fish of the country as a group to be handled with the plainest methods, and the advice transfers directly to the lakes: cook the fish while it is very fresh, do not overcook it, and let butter, lemon and a little parsley or a crisp coating do the rest. The same principle governs the fish boil of the Door Peninsula in Wisconsin, in which whitefish steaks are cooked with small potatoes and onions in heavily salted water, and the pot is made to boil over at the end to carry off the fish oils. That ritual belongs to the Scandinavian settlers of the peninsula and is served with melted butter and lemon. The land behind the lakes supplied the rest of the table. Dairying in Wisconsin and Michigan produced butter and the cheeses on which the region's reputation rests, and the orchards of the lake shores, tempered by the water, gave apples, cherries and grapes. Michigan's tart Montmorency cherry, Prunus cerasus, is dried, baked into pies and cooked with game and pork. Wild rice, Zizania palustris, the grain of the northern lakes, is harvested by the Ojibwe and other Native nations from canoes in shallow water, and it remains a dish of the Minnesota and Wisconsin table, cooked in broths, in stuffings and with mushrooms. Immigration gave the region its character in the cities. German, Polish, Scandinavian, Czech and Finnish cooks brought sausage, smoked fish, rye bread, cabbage, pastry and the pasty, the Cornish miners' pie that the Finns and others carried into the copper and iron country of the Upper Peninsula, filled with beef, potato, onion and rutabaga. These foods were made from the cheap and abundant produce of the region and have lasted because they suit the climate of long winters. No protected or registered name of origin attaches to the fish or dishes of the lakes as such, and the region's standing rests on practice rather than designation. The cook who works here is asked to know the fish, to buy it at its freshest and to leave it largely alone.

The flavour of the lakes is clean, cold and mild: the white flesh of whitefish and perch, the richer oil of lake trout, and the faint sweetness of walleye. They are best set against butter, lemon, dill, rye and smoke, and against the sharpness of tart cherries and apples. Wild rice adds a nutty, slightly smoky depth that suits fish, game and mushrooms alike.