page_title: Southern New England Algonquian cuisine
section_title: Regional variation
hierarchical_section_title: Southern New England Algonquian cuisine / Regional variation
caption_attribution_description: English: The Provincetown Tower as seen from the Provincetown Sand Dunes in Provincetown, Massachusetts on Cape Cod.
context_page_description: Southern New England Algonquian cuisine comprises the shared foods and preparation methods of the indigenous Algonquian peoples of the southern half of New England, which consists of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, but also included portions of coastal New Hampshire and Long Island, now part of New York, as a cultural and culinary region. The peoples of the region historically shared related languages in the Southern New England Algonquian division of the Eastern branch of Algonquian languages as well as related cultures and spiritual practices.
  Regional variations were slight, mostly based on small differences in times of abundance or availability of certain ingredients due to location and the variations in microclimate. The New England climate, with its marked seasons and long winters meant that seasonality of ingredients and preservation of foods to survive the coldest times of year when little food was available were important aspects of the cuisine.
context_section_description: The SNEA peoples shared most aspects of culture and related languages, and most distances between peoples were based on local effects of micro-climate, limiting the availability and abundance of certain foods.  What differences did exist are only known anecdotally from colonial sources, for example, the Pawtucket of what is now northeastern Massachusetts and coastal New Hampshire, despite speaking a dialect of the Massachusett language, eschewed the eating of bread and preferred eating stewed corn kernels as a side dish, scooping up bits between bites of other food.  The Pawtucket also did not thicken their stews with additions of grain and often served various meats slow-cooked and mashed together.  The Massachusett, and the Nipmuc that lived just to the west of them, were said to make bread, but unique to these regions, the bread was often enriched with mashed beans or boiled beans in larger proportions or fashioned solely from beans.  Although the addition of chestnut meal and fruits to oiled cornbread was common, the Narragansett were said to be in particular very fond of these dishes.  As a general rule, the region can be divided into four regions, mainly coastal, inland, upland and insular.
  The uplands, particularly the region of rocky hills common in the Nipmuc areas were lightly settled, having the shortest growing seasons in the cultural area and rocky, acidic soils of little fertility.  Hunting, fishing and gathering of foods were more important for sources of calories.  What this area lacked it made up for in plentiful maple syrup production—since maples did not grow as well along the warmer coastal areas, access to furs and greater abundance of large mammals such as deer, moose—which were uncommon in most other areas of southern New England and bears, highly prized for their fat stores.  
  The people of the interior generally clustered around large lakes and rivers, which provided access to water, more fertile lands for farming and fish.  Rapids and river junctions were important meeting grounds during the spawning runs, and places such as Pawtucket Falls on the Merrimack River and many others featured many tribes gathering to partake of the plentiful food resource.  Like the uplands, the interior regions were still less populated than the coastal areas, allowing for easier access to hunting and plentiful lakes, rivers and ponds for fishing or foraging freshwater shellfish.  
  Coastal areas, due to the larger population density, could not rely on hunting and foraging.  The warmer climate did allow for a longer growing season, and the flatter, less rocky and more fertile soils supported more extensive agriculture.  The most important resource were the shellfish beds, which were safer and more plentiful than freshwater shellfish, followed by the spawning runs of herring, salmon and other fish, which coastal peoples generally had first pick before the fish reached upstream areas.  Deep-sea fishing and taking or large marine mammals was done with large dugout canoes.  The warmer climate did mean that the coastal peoples did not produce a lot of maple syrup as the oceanic effects limited their growth and sap production.  Although foods were not traditionally enjoyed to the same level of sweetness as the English settlers, coastal peoples made 'Indian jams' and other preparations were often used to flavor foods in lieu of maple syrup.  People of insular areas could not rely on hunting or farming, but were marked with a greater use of marine resources.
caption: The sand dunes of Provincetown, Massachusetts.  The sandy soils did not support agriculture, forcing the former Nauset and people living on offshore islands into greater reliance on sea resources.
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