A plain Puritan people with a plain Puritan ethic brought a plain Puritan aesthetic to the shores of New England. Like much American cooking , New England has produced a local cuisine that exercises frugality and simplicity in the face of seemingly unending abundance of the New World. Native Americans also had an influence on colonial cuisine, both in the ingredients they introduced, such as corn, beans, and maple sugars, and the methods they used. Pigs thrive in most every condition, and the harsh New England winters made no exception.
Salt pork seems the one ingredient that no recipe lacks.
For many years, New England was the launching site for migrations into uncharted country, and her tastes traveled as far as the Pacific Northwest, where you can still get a blueberry cobbler made from an old Maine recipe. Stewed in a hundred and one variations, Succotash became a beloved staple of the diet. Baked beans, too, combine beans and salt pork, and there are great debates over the proportions between the two. Or, the beans are cooked in a brick oven. While simple, New England cooking at its best creates that full-bodied honesty that comes from the combination of bounty and basics.