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American cuisine
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New England
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New England
thumb|New England clam chowder
New England cuisine traces its roots to English cuisine and the Native American cuisine of the Abenaki, Narragansett, Niantic, Wabanaki, Wampanoag, and other native peoples. It also includes influences from French, Italian, and Portuguese cuisine, among others. It is characterized by the extensive use of potatoes, beans, dairy products and seafood. Corn, historically the main crop grown by Native American tribes in New England, continues to be grown in all New England states. It is traditionally used in hasty pudding, cornbread and corn chowder. Three prominent foodstuffs native to New England are maple syrup, cranberries and blueberries. Maine is the only state with a commercial wild blueberry industry, with 105 million pounds harvested in 2021.
Initial European colonists came from East Anglia in England. East Anglian cookery included dishes like suet puddings, soda breads, and a few shellfish delicacies, and would have been quite simple in contrast to the dishes prepared in contemporary London. Most of this cuisine was one-pot cookery, which developed into such dishes as succotash, chowder, baked beans, and others.
The most popular starches in New England cuisine include potatoes and cornmeal, and a few native breads like Anadama bread, johnnycakes, bulkie rolls, Parker House rolls, popovers, ployes, and New England brown bread. Because of the influence of New Englander health reformers, the most well known of whom is Sylvester Graham, this region is fairly conservative with its spices, but typical spices include nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice, especially in desserts, and for savory foods, thyme, black pepper, sea salt, and sage. Typical condiments include maple syrup, grown from the native sugar maple, molasses, and cranberry sauce.
The fruits of the region include the Vitis labrusca grapes used in grape juice made by companies such as Welch's, along with jelly, Kosher wine by companies like Mogen David and Manischewitz along with other wineries that make higher quality wines. Though not anywhere near as productive a region as the top three apple-producing regions, apples have been a staple of New England foodways since at least the 1640s, and it is here that a very high amount of heirloom varieties are found, many of them gaining renewed interest as part of locavore movements and the re-emergence of cider as a beverage of choice. Apples from New England would include varieties imported from their earliest in Europe and a few natives, like Baldwin, Lady, Mother, Pomme Grise, Porter, Roxbury Russet, Rhode Island Greening, Sops of Wine, Hightop Sweet, Peck's Pleasant, Titus Pippin, Westfield-Seek-No-Further, and Duchess of Oldenburg. Beach plums a small native species with fruits the size of a pinball, are sought after in summer to make into a jam. Cranberries are another fruit indigenous to the region, often collected in autumn in huge flooded bogs. Thereafter they are juiced so they can be drunk fresh for breakfast, or dried and incorporated into salads and quickbreads.
Winter squashes like pumpkin and butternut squashes have been a staple for generations owing to their ability to keep for long periods over icy New England winters and being an excellent source of beta carotene; in summer, they are replaced with pattypan and zucchini, the latter brought to the region by immigrants from Southern Italy a century ago. Blueberries are a very common summertime treat owing to them being an important crop, and find their way into muffins, pies and pancakes.
Historically New England and the other original 13 colonies were major producers of hard cider and the only reason why this changed were that immigrants from Western and Central Europe preferred beer, especially lagers, to apple based alcohol. In more recent years cider has made a roaring comeback nationwide, with New England being the first to break out of the box and with many pomologists scouring the woods for abandoned apple trees and heirloom varieties to add to the cider press. Angry Orchard is a local commercial brand that began in New Hampshire but has since skyrocketed in sales, with other large marques following suit around the land.
thumb|left|Whoopie pies
Typical favorite desserts are quite diverse, and encompass hasty pudding, blueberry pie, whoopie pies, Boston cream pie, pumpkin pie, Joe Frogger cookies, hand-crafted ice cream, Hermit cookies, and the chocolate chip cookie, invented in Massachusetts in the 1930s.
New England is noted for having a heavy emphasis on seafood, a legacy inherited from coastal tribes like the Wampanoag and Narragansett, who equally used the rich fishing banks offshore for sustenance. Favorite fish include cod, salmon, winter flounder, haddock, striped bass, pollock, hake, bluefish, and, in southern New England, tautog. All of these are prepared numerous ways, such as frying cod for fish fingers, grilling bluefish over hot coals for summertime, smoking salmon or serving a whole poached one chilled for feasts with a dill sauce, or, on cold winter nights, serving haddock baked in casserole dish with a creamy sauce and crumbled breadcrumbs as a top so it forms a crust. Clam cakes, a savory fritter based on chopped clams, are a specialty of Rhode Island. Also, a hard shell clam is unique to Rhode Island called the Quahoag which is used in clear chowders. Farther inland, brook trout, largemouth bass, and herring are sought after, especially in the rivers and icy finger lakes in upper New England where New Englanders will fly fish for them in summertime.
Meat is present though not as prominent, and typically is either stewed in dishes like Yankee pot roast and New England boiled dinner or braised, as in a picnic ham; these dishes suit the weather better as summers are humid and hot but winters are raw and cold, getting below 0 °C for most of the winter and only just above it by March. The roasting of whole turkeys began here as a centerpiece for large American banquets, and like all other East Coast tribes, the Native American tribes of New England prized wild turkeys as a source of sustenance and later Anglophone settlers were enamored of cooking them using methods they knew from Europe: often that meant trussing the bird and spinning it on a string or spit roasting. Today turkey meat is a key ingredient in soups, and also a favorite in several sandwiches like the Pilgrim. For lunch, hot roast beef is sometimes chopped finely into small pieces and put on a roll with salami and American or provolone cheese to make a steak bomb. Bacon is often maple cured, and often bacon or salt pork drippings are an ingredient in corn chowder, a cousin of clam chowder. Veal consumption was prevalent in the North Atlantic States prior to World War II.
A variety of linguiça is favored as a breakfast food, introduced by Portuguese fishermen and Brazilian immigrants. Dairy farming and its resultant products figure strongly on the ingredient list, and homemade ice cream is a summertime staple of the region: it was a small seasonal roadside stand in Vermont that eventually became the internationally famous Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Vermont is known for producing farmhouse style cheeses, especially a type of cheddar. The recipe goes all the way back to colonial times when English settlers brought the recipe with them from England and found the rocky landscape eminently suitable to making the cheese. Today Vermont has more artisanal cheese makers per capita than any other state, and diversity is such that interest in goat's milk cheeses has become prominent.
thumb|A New England clambake
Crustaceans and mollusks are also an essential ingredient in the regional cookery. Maine and Massachusetts, in more recent years, have taken to harvesting peekytoe crab and Jonah crab and making crab bisques, based on cream with 35% milkfat, and crabcakes out of them: often these were overlooked as bycatch of lobster pots by fishermen of the region, but in the past 30 years their popularity has firmly established them as a staple. They even appear on the menu as far south as to be out of the region in New York, where they are sold to four star restaurants in the form of cocktail claws. Whelks are eaten in salad, and lobster, which is indigenous to the coastal waters of the region and are a feature of many dishes, baked, boiled, roasted, and steamed, or simply eaten as a sandwich, chilled with mayonnaise and chopped celery in Maine and Massachusetts, or slathered with melted butter on Long Island and in Connecticut. Shellfish of all sorts are part of the diet, and shellfish of the coastal regions include little neck clams, sea scallops, blue mussels, oysters, soft shell clams, and razor shell clams. Much of this shellfish contributes to New England tradition, the clambake. The clambake as known today is a colonial interpretation of an American Indian tradition.
In summer, oysters and clams are dipped in batter and fried, often served in a basket with french fries, or commonly on a wheaten bun as a clam roll. Oysters are otherwise eaten chilled on a bed of crushed ice on the half shell with mignonette sauce, and are often branded on where they were harvested. Large quahogs are stuffed with breadcrumbs and seasoning and baked in their shells, and smaller ones often find their way into clam chowder. Other preparations include clams casino, clams on the half shell served stuffed with herbs like oregano and streaky bacon.
Southern New England, particularly along the coast, shares many specialties with the Mid-Atlantic, including especially dishes from Jewish and Italian-American cuisine. There is a so-called pizza belt which stretches from New Haven, Connecticut southward through New York, New Jersey, and into Maryland. Coastal Connecticut is known for distinctive kinds of pizza, locally called apizza (pronounced locally as abeetz), which differ in their thin and slightly blackened texture and in their toppings (such as clams) from those of the regions of the pizza belt further south.
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American cuisine
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Delaware Valley and Mid-Atlantic
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Delaware Valley and Mid-Atlantic
thumb|New York strip steak topped with mushrooms and onions
The mid-Atlantic states comprise the states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Northern Maryland. The oldest major settlement in this area of the country is found in the most populous city in the nation, New York, founded in 1625 by the Dutch. Today, it is a major cultural capital of the United States.
The influences on cuisine in this region are extremely eclectic, as it has been, and continues to be, a gateway for international culture as well as a gateway for new immigrants. Going back to colonial times, each new group has left their mark on homegrown cuisine and in turn the cities in this region disperse trends to the wider United States. In addition, cities like New York and Philadelphia have had the past influence of Dutch, Italian, German, Irish, British, and Jewish cuisines, and that continues to this day. Baltimore has become the crossroads between North and South, a distinction it has held since the end of the Civil War.
A global power city, New York is well known for its diverse and cosmopolitan dining scene. Its restaurants compete fiercely for good reviews in the Food and Dining section of The New York Times, online guides, and Zagat's, the last of which is widely considered the premier American dining guide, published yearly and headquartered in New York.
thumb|New York–style cheesecake with strawberries. Other variations include blueberry or raspberry sauce.
Many of the more complicated dishes with rich ingredients like Lobster Newberg, waldorf salad, vichyssoise, eggs benedict, and the New York strip steak were born out of a need to entertain and impress the well-to-do in expensive bygone restaurants like Delmonico's and still standing establishments like the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Modern commercial American cream cheese was developed in 1872.
Since the first reference to an alcoholic mixed drink called a cocktail comes from New York State in 1803, it is not a surprise that there have been many cocktails invented in New York and the surrounding environs. Even today New York bars are noted for being highly influential in making national trends. Cosmopolitans, Long Island iced teas, Manhattans, Rob Roys, Tom Collins, Aviations, and Greyhounds were all invented in New York bars, and the gin martini was popularized in New York in speakeasies during the 1920s, as evidenced by its appearance in the works of New Yorker and American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Like its neighbor Philadelphia, many rare and unusual liquors and liqueurs often find their way into a mixologist's cupboard or restaurant wine list.
New York State is the third most productive area in the country for wine grapes, just behind California and Washington. It has AVA's near the Finger Lakes, the Catskills, and Long Island, and in the Hudson Valley has the second-most productive area in the country for growing apples, making it a center for hard cider production, just like New England. Pennsylvania has been growing rye since Germans began to emigrate to the area at the end of the 17th century and required a grain they knew from Germany. Therefore, overall it is not unusual to find New York grown Gewürtztraminer and Riesling, Pennsylvania rye whiskey, or marques of locally produced ciders like Original Sin on the same menu.
thumb|Philadelphia cheesesteak with Cheez Whiz
Since their formative years, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore have welcomed immigrants of every kind to their shores, and all three have been an important gateway through which new citizens to the general United States arrive. Traditionally natives have eaten cheek to jowl with newcomers for centuries as the newcomers would open new restaurants and small businesses and all the different groups would interact.
Even in colonial days this region was a very diverse mosaic of peoples, as settlers from Switzerland, Wales, England, Ulster, Wallonia, Holland, Gelderland, the British Channel Islands, and Sweden sought their fortune in this region. This is very evident in many signature dishes and local foods, all of which have evolved to become American dishes in their own right.
The original Dutch settlers of New York brought recipes they knew and understood from the Netherlands and their mark on local cuisine is still apparent today: in many quarters of New York their version of apple pie with a streusel top is still baked. In the colony of New Amsterdam, their predilection for waffles in time evolved into the American national recipe and forms part of a New York brunch. They also made coleslaw, originally a Dutch salad, but today accented with the later 18th-century introduction of mayonnaise.
The doughnut began its life originally as a New York pastry that arrived in the 18th century as the Dutch olykoek, with later additions from other nations of Europe like the Italian zeppole, the Jewish/Polish pączki, and the German Berliner arriving in the 19th century to complete the variety found in modern doughnuts today.See entries for oliebol and oliekoek in
left|thumb|Crab cake, popular in Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey, is often served on a roll.
Crab cakes were once a kind of English croquette, but over time as spices have been added they and the Maryland crab feast became two of Baltimore's signature dishes. Fishing for blue crab is a favorite summer pastime in the waters off Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware where they may grace the table at summer picnics.
Other mainstays of the region have been present since the early years of American history, like oysters from Cape May, the Chesapeake Bay, and Long Island, and lobster and tuna from the coastal waters found in New York and New Jersey. Philadelphia Pepper Pot, a tripe stew, was originally a British dish but today is a classic of home cooking in Pennsylvania alongside bookbinder soup, a type of turtle soup.
In the winter, New York pushcarts sell roasted chestnuts, a delicacy dating back to English Christmas traditions, and it was in New York and Pennsylvania that the earliest Christmas cookies were introduced: Germans introduced crunchy molasses-based gingerbread and sugar cookies in Pennsylvania, and the Dutch introduced cinnamon-based cookies, all of which have become part of the traditional Christmas meal.
Scrapple was originally a type of savory pudding that early Pennsylvania Germans made to preserve the offal of a pig slaughter. The Philadelphia soft pretzel was originally brought to Eastern Pennsylvania in the early 18th century, and later, 19th-century immigrants sold them to the masses from pushcarts to make them the city's best-known bread product, having evolved into its own unique recipe.
thumb|New York–style pizza is the pizza eaten in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
After the 1820s, new groups began to arrive and the character of the region began to change. There had been some Irish from Ulster prior to 1820, however largely they had been Protestants with somewhat different culture and (often) a different language than the explosion of emigrants that came to Castle Garden and Locust Point in Baltimore in their masses starting in the 1840s.
The Irish arrived in America in a rather woeful state, as Ireland at the time was often plagued by some of the worst poverty in Europe and often heavy disenfranchisement among the masses. Many of them arrived barely alive having ridden coffin ships to the New World, very sick with typhus and gaunt from prolonged starvation.
In addition, they were the first to face challenges other groups did not have: they were the first large wave of Catholics. They faced prejudice for their faith and the cities of Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore were not always set up for their needs.
For example, Catholic bishops in the U.S. mandated until the 1960s that all Catholics were forbidden from eating red meat on Fridays and during Lent, and attending Mass sometimes conflicted with work as produce and meat markets would be open on high holy days; this was difficult for Irishmen supporting families since many worked as laborers.
Unsurprisingly, many Irishmen also found their fortunes working as longshoremen, which would have given their families access to fish and shellfish whenever a fisherman made berth, which was frequent on the busy docks of Baltimore and New York.
Though there had been some activity in Baltimore in founding a see earlier by the Carrolls, the Irish were the first major wave of Catholic worship in this region, and that meant bishops and cardinals sending away to Europe for wine. Wine, with water, is consecrated as part of the Catholic Mass.
Taverns had existed prior to their emigration to America in the region, though the Irish brought their particular brand of pub culture and founded some of the first saloons and bars that served Dublin style stout and red ale; they brought with them the knowledge of single-malt style whiskey and sold it.
The Irish were the first immigrant group to arrive in this region in massive millions, and these immigrants also founded some of the earliest saloons and bars in this region, of which McSorley's is a still operating example.
thumb|Philadelphia-style soft pretzel
It was also in this region that the Irish introduced something that today is a very important festival in American culture that involves a large amount of food, drink, and merry making: Halloween. In England and Wales, where prior immigrants had come from, the feast of All Hallows Eve had died out in the Reformation, dismissed as superstition and excess having nothing to do with the Bible and often replaced with the festival of Guy Fawkes Night. Other immigrant groups like the Germans preferred to celebrate October 31 as Reformation Day, and after the American Revolution all of the above were less and less eager to celebrate the legacy of an English festival given they had fought against Great Britain for their independence.
The Catholicism of the Irish demanded attendance at church on November 1 and charity and deeds, not just faith, as a cornerstone of dogma, and many of their older traditions survived the Reformation and traveled with them. Naturally, they went door-to-door to collect victuals for masked parties as well as gave them out, like nuts to roast on the fire, whiskey, beer, or cider, and barmbracks; they also bobbed for apples and made dumb cakes. Later in the century they were joined by Scots going guising, children going door-to-door to ask for sweets and treats in costume.
From the Mid-Atlantic this trend spread to be nationwide and evolved into American children trick-or-treating on October 31 wearing costumes and their older counterparts having wild costume parties with various foods and drinks such as caramel apples, candy apples, dirt cakes, punch, cocktails, cider (both alcoholic and non,) pumpkin pie, candy corn, chocolate turtles, peanut brittle, taffy, tipsy cake, and copious buckets full of candy; children carving jack-o-lanterns and eating squash derived foods derive from Halloween's heritage as a harvest festival and from Irish and Scottish traditions of carving turnips and eating root vegetables at this time of year.
Bobbing for apples has survived to the present day as a Halloween party classic game, as has a variation on the parlor game of trying to grab an apple hanging from the ceiling blindfolded: it has evolved into trying to catch a donut in one's teeth.
Immigrants from Southern Europe, namely Sicily, Campania, Lazio, and Calabria, appeared between 1880 and 1960 in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Eastern Maryland hoping to escape the extreme poverty and corruption endemic to Italy.
Typically none of them spoke English, but rather dialects of Italian and had a culture that was more closely tied to the village they were born in than the high culture only accessible to those who could afford it at this time; many could not read or write in any language.
They were employed in manual labor or factory work but it is because of them that dishes like spaghetti with meatballs, New York–style pizza, calzones, and baked ziti exist, and Americans of today are very familiar with semolina based pasta noodles.
Their native cuisine had less of an emphasis on meat, as evidenced by dishes they introduced like pasta e fagioli and minestrone, but the dishes they created in America often piled it on as a sign of wealth and newfound prosperity since for the first time even cheap cuts of it were affordable. The American recipe for lasagna is proof of this, as mostly it is derived from the Neapolitan version of the dish with large amounts of meat and cheese.
thumb|left|Carts selling frankfurters, the predecessor to hotdogs, in New York circa 1906. The price is listed as "3 cents each or 2 for 5 cents".
New York–style hot dogs came about with German-speaking emigrants from Austria and Germany, particularly with the frankfurter sausage and the smaller wiener sausage; Jews would also contribute here by introducing the kosher version of these sausages, made of beef rather than pork. Today, the New York–style hot dog with sauerkraut, mustard, and the optional cucumber pickle relish is such a part of the local fabric, that it is one of the favorite comestibles of New York and both the pork and the beef versions are beloved. Hot dogs are a typical street food sold year round in all but the most inclement weather from thousands of pushcarts.
As with all other stadiums in Major League Baseball they are an essential for New York Yankees and the New York Mets games though it is the local style of preparation that predominates without exception.
Hot dogs are also the focus of a televised eating contest on the Fourth of July in Coney Island, at Nathan's Famous, one of the earliest hot dog stands opened in the United States in 1916 by Nathan Handwerker. Handwerker was a Jewish man who emigrated from what is now Ukraine in 1912 and whose influence is felt today around the world.
Coney Island is most famous for being a traditional boardwalk amusement park and the site of the world's first rollercoaster, a precursor of modern theme parks. Hot dogs are a staple of amusement parks 100 years later.
A summertime treat, Italian ice, began its life as a sweeter adaptation of the Sicilian granita that was strictly lemon-flavored and brought to New York and Philadelphia. Its Hispanic counterpart, piragua, is a common shaved-ice treat brought to New York by Puerto Ricans in the 1930s. Unlike the original dish which included flavors like tamarind, mango, coconut, piragua is evolving to include flavors like grape and cherry, fruits which are impossible to grow in the tropical Puerto Rican climate and get exported back to the island from New York.
Taylor Ham, a meat delicacy of New Jersey, first appeared around the time of the Civil War and today is often served for breakfast with eggs and cheese on a kaiser roll, a variant of a roll brought to the area by Austrians in the second half of the 19th century, now commonly used for sandwiches at lunchtime, often topped with poppyseeds. This breakfast meat is generally known as pork roll in southern New Jersey and Philadelphia, and Taylor Ham in northern New Jersey.
thumb|Nighthawks, a painting of a diner, one type of eatery still common in the Mid-Atlantic. Each state of the region has its own signatures, and the range extends from the Canadian border in the North to Delaware Bay in the South.
Other dishes came about during the early 20th century and have much to do with delicatessen fare, set up largely by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who came to America incredibly poor, often illiterate in any other language but Yiddish, and often banished from mainstream society in their place of origin for centuries. Most often they were completely unable to partake in the outdoor food markets that the general population utilized as most of the food for sale was not kosher.
The influence of European Jewry before their destruction in the Holocaust on modern mid-Atlantic cooking remains strong and reinforced by their many descendants in the region. These currently form the largest concentration of Jews outside Tel Aviv and are very integrated into the local mainstream of New York in particular.
American-style pickles, now a common addition to hamburgers and sandwiches, were brought by Polish Jews, and Austro-Hungarian Jews brought a recipe for almond horns that now is a common regional cookie, diverting from the original recipe in dipping the ends in dark chocolate.
New York–style cheesecake has copious amounts of cream and eggs because animal rennet is not kosher and so could not be sold to a large number of the deli's clientele.
New York inherited its bagels and bialys from Jews, as well as Challah bread. Pastrami first entered the country via Romanian Jews, and is a feature of many sandwiches, often eaten on marble rye, a bread that was born in the mid-Atlantic.
Whitefish salad, lox, and matzoh ball soup are now standard fare made to order at local diners and delicatessens, but started their life as foods that made up a strict dietary code. Rugelach cookies and hamentashen are sweet staples still sold to the general public, but came to New York over a century ago with Ashkenazi Jews along with Jewish rye.
thumb|220px|Buffalo wings with blue cheese dressing, served with lager beer
Many of their dishes passed into the mainstream enough that they became standard fare in diners by the end of the 20th century, a type of restaurant that is now the most common in the region, and the subject matter of the artist Edward Hopper.
In the past this sort of establishment was the haven of the short-order cook grilling or frying simple foods for the working man. Today typical service includes staples from this large region like beef on weck, Manhattan clam chowder, the club sandwich, Buffalo wings, Philadelphia cheesesteak, the black and white cookie, shoofly pie, snapper soup, Smith Island cake, blackout cake, grape pie, milkshakes, and the egg cream, a vanilla or chocolate fountain drink with a frothy top and fizzy taste.
As in Hopper's painting from 1942, many of these businesses are open 24 hours a day.
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American cuisine
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Midwest
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Midwest
This region today comprises the states near the Great Lakes and also the Great Plains; much of it is prairie with very flat terrain. Winters are bitterly cold, windy, and wet.
Midwestern cuisine today is a very eclectic and odd mix and match of foodways, covering everything from Kansas City–style barbecue to the Chicago-style hot dog, though many of its classics are very simple, hearty fare.
This region was mostly untouched by European and American settlers until after the American Revolutionary War, and excepting Missouri and the heavily forested states near the Great Lakes, was mainly populated by nomadic tribes like the Sioux, Osage, Arapaho, and Cheyenne. As with most other American Indian tribes, these tribes consumed the Three Sisters of beans, maize, and squash, but also for thousands of years followed the herds of bison, hunting them on foot and later on horseback, typically using bow and arrow. There are buffalo jumps dating back nearly 10,000 years and several photographs and written accounts of trappers and homesteaders attesting to their dependence on the buffalo and to a lesser degree elk.
After nearly wiping out elk and bison, this region has taken to raising bison alongside cattle for their meat and at an enormous profit, making them into burgers and steaks.
Often that means harsh blizzards especially near the Great Lakes where Arctic winds blow off of Canada, where ice on rivers and lakes freezes thick enough for ice hockey, and for ice fishing for pike, walleye and panfish to be ubiquitous. In Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, they often become part of the local fish fry.
thumb|Persimmon pudding
The primary meats here are beef and poultry, since the Midwest has been raising turkeys, chickens, and geese for over 150 years. Chickens have been common for so long that the Midwest has several native breeds that are prized for both backyard farming and for farmer's markets, such as the Buckeye and Wyandotte. One, Billina, appears as a character in the second book of the Oz series by L. Frank Baum.
Favorite fruits of the region include some native plants inherited from Native American tribes like the pawpaw, and American persimmons are also highly favored.
As in the American South, pawpaws are the region's largest native fruit, about the size of a mango, often found growing wild come September; they are made into preserves and cakes and command quite a price at farmer's markets in Chicago.
The American persimmon is often smaller than its Japanese cousin, about the size of a small plum, but in the Midwest and parts of the East it is the main ingredient in the steamed persimmon pudding, topped with crème anglaise.
Other crops inherited from the Native Americans include wild rice, which grows on the banks of lakes and is a local favorite for fancy meals and today often used in stuffing for Thanksgiving.
Typical fruits of the region are cold-weather crops. Once it was thought that its winters were too harsh for apples, but a breeder in Minnesota produced the Wealthy apple and it became the third-most productive region for apple growing in the country, with local varieties comprising Wolf River, Enterprise, Melrose, Paula Red, Rome Beauty, Honeycrisp, and the Red Delicious.
Cherries are important to Michigan and Wisconsin grows many cranberries, a legacy of early-19th-century emigration of New England farmers. Crabapple jelly is a favorite condiment of the region.
The influence of German, Scandinavian, and Slavic peoples on the northern portion of the region is very strong; many emigrated to Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois in the 19th century to take advantage of jobs in the meatpacking business as well as being homesteaders and tradesmen.
Bratwurst is a very common sausage eaten at tailgate parties for the Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, or Detroit Lions, often served boiled in lager beer with sauerkraut, different from many of the recipes currently found in Germany.
Polish sausage, in particular a locally invented type of kielbasa, is essential for sporting events in Chicago: Chicago today has approximately 200,000 Polish speakers and has had a similar population for over 100 years.
When Poles came to Chicago and surrounding cities from Europe, they brought with them long ropes of kielbasa, cabbage rolls, and pierogi. Poles that left Poland after the fall of the Berlin Wall and descendants of earlier immigrants still make them, and they remain common in local diners and delis.
Today alongside the pierogi, the sausage is served on a long roll with mustard like a hot dog or as a Maxwell Street Polish, a sandwich with caramelized onions. In Cleveland, the same sausage is served in the form of the Polish boy, a sandwich made of french fries, spicy barbecue sauce, and coleslaw.
Unlike cities in the East where the hot dog alone is traditional, fans of the Cleveland Guardians, Detroit Tigers, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, and Milwaukee Brewers favor two or three different kinds of sausage sold in the pushcarts outside the stadium.
The hot dogs themselves tend to follow the Chicago style, with mustard and pickled vegetables.
In Cincinnati, where the Cincinnati Reds play, there is a competitor in Cincinnati chili. Invented by Macedonian immigrants, it includes spaghetti as its base, chili with a Mediterranean-inspired spice mix, and cheddar cheese; the chili itself is often a topping for local hot dogs at games.
In the Midwest and especially Minnesota, the tradition of the church potluck is a gathering where local foods reign, and has been since the era of the frontier; pioneers often needed to pool resources to have a celebration in the 19th century and that simply never changed.
Nowhere is this more clear than with the hotdish, a type of casserole believed to have derived from a Norwegian recipe, it is usually topped with potatoes or tater tots. Next to the hotdish at potlucks usually glorified rice is found, a kind of rice pudding mixed with crushed pineapple and maraschino cherries. Next to that is the booyah, a thick soup made of meat, vegetables, and seasonings that is meant to simmer on the stove for up to two days.
Lefse, traditionally a Scandinavian flatbread, has been handed down to descendants for over a hundred years and is common on the table. Behind that is venison, a popular meat around the Great Lakes and often eaten as steaks, sandwiches, and crown roasts for special events. Within Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Dakotas, tiger meat, a dish similar to steak tartare, is common.
Last on the table are the dessert bars and brownies, created originally in 1898 in Chicago, now a global food and international favorite.
thumb|Booyah, a popular chunky stew of the Midwest that is often served to large numbers of people
Further south, barbecue has its own style in places in Kansas City and St. Louis different from the South and American West. Kansas City and St. Louis were and are important hubs for the railroad that connected the plains with the Great Lakes and cities farther east, like Philadelphia.
At the turn of the 19th century, the St. Louis area, Omaha, and Kansas City had huge stockyards, waystations for cattle and pigs on their way east to the cities of the coast and north to the Great Lakes. They all had large growing immigrant and migrant populations from Europe and the South respectively, so the region has developed unique styles of barbecue.
St. Louis–style barbecue favors a heavy emphasis on a sticky sweet barbecue sauce. Its standbys include the pork steak, a cut taken from the shoulder of the pig, grilled then slowly stewed in a pan over charcoal; crispy snoots, a cut from the cheek and nose of the pig that is fried up like cracklins and eaten dipped in sauce; pork spare ribs; and a mix of either beer-boiled bratwurst or grilled Italian sausage, flavored with fennel.
Dessert is usually something like gooey butter cake, invented in the city in the 1930s.
Kansas City–style barbecue uses several different kinds of meat, more than most styles of American barbecue—turkey, mutton, pork, and beef to name a few—but is distinct from St. Louis in that the barbecue sauce adds molasses in with the tomato-based recipe and typically has a more tart taste.
Traditionally, Kansas City uses a low-and-slow method of smoking the meat in addition to just stewing it in the sauce. It also favors using hickory wood for smoking and continual watering or layering of the sauce while cooking to form a glaze; with burnt ends this step is necessary to create the "bark" or charred outer layer of the brisket.
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American cuisine
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Southern United States
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Southern United States
thumb|right|Chicken and waffles
thumb|right|Nashville hot chicken with potato salad
thumb|Sweet tea
When referring to the American South as a region, typically it should indicate Southern Maryland and the states that were once part of the Old Confederacy, with the dividing line between the East and West jackknifing about 100 miles west of Dallas, Texas, and mostly south of the old Mason–Dixon line. Cities found in this area include New Orleans, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Memphis, Charleston, and Charlotte with Houston, Texas being the largest. The Florida Panhandle is usually considered part of the South, but the Florida peninsula (especially its lower half) is not.
These states are much more closely tied to each other and have been part of U.S. territory for much longer than states much farther west than East Texas, and in the case of food, the influences and cooking styles are strictly separated as the terrain begins to change to prairie and desert from bayou and hardwood forest.
thumb|left|Peach cobbler is a popular Southern dessert.
This section of the country has some of the oldest known U.S. foodways, with some recipes almost 400 years old.
Native American influences are still quite visible in the use of cornmeal as an essential staple and found in the Southern predilection for hunting wild game, in particular wild turkey, deer, woodcock, and various kinds of waterfowl; for example, coastal North Carolina is a place where hunters will seek tundra swan as a part of Christmas dinner; the original English and Scottish settlers would have rejoiced at this revelation since such was banned among the commoner class in what is now the United Kingdom, and naturally, their descendants have not forgotten.
Native Americans also consumed turtles and catfish, specifically the snapping turtle, the alligator snapping turtle, and blue catfish. Catfish are often caught with one's bare hands, gutted, breaded, and fried to make a Southern variation on English fish and chips and turtles are turned into stews and soups.
Native American tribes of the region such as the Cherokee or Choctaw often cultivated or gathered local plants like pawpaw, maypop and several sorts of squashes and corn as food. They also used spicebush and sassafras as spices, and the aforementioned fruits are still cultivated as food in the South.
Maize is to this day found in dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner in the form of grits, hoecakes, baked cornbread, and spoonbread, and nuts like the hickory, black walnut and pecan are commonly included in desserts and pastries as varied as mince pies, pecan pie, pecan rolls and honey buns (both are types of sticky bun), and quick breads, which were themselves invented in the South during the American Civil War.
Peaches have been grown in this region since the 17th century and are a staple crop as well as a favorite fruit, with peach cobbler being a signature dessert.
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American cuisine
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Early history
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Early history
European influence began soon after the settlement of Jamestown in 1607 and the earliest recipes emerged by the end of the 17th century. Specific influences from Europe were quite varied, and they remain traditional and essential to the modern cookery overall.
German speakers often settled in the Piedmont on small farms from the coast, and invented an American delicacy that is now nationally beloved, apple butter, based on their recipe for apfelkraut, and later they introduced red cabbage and rye.
From the British Isles, an enormous amount of influence was bestowed upon the South, specifically foodways from 17th- and 18th-century Ulster, the borderlands between England and Scotland, the Scottish Highlands, portions of Wales, the West Midlands, the West Country, Black Country and Southern England. Settlers bound for America fled the tumult of the Civil War, Ulster and the Highland Clearances.
Often ships' manifests show their belongings nearly always included cookpots or bakestones and seed stock for plants like peaches, plums, and apples to grow orchards which they planted in their hundreds. Each group brought foods and ideas from their respective regions.
Settlers from Ireland and Scotland were well known for creating peatreak and poitín, strong hard liquor based on fermenting potatoes or barley. In time they came up with a method for distilling a corn mash with added sugar and aging in charred barrels made of select hardwoods, which created a whiskey with a high proof. This gave birth to American whiskey and Kentucky bourbon, and its cousins moonshine and Everclear.
Closer to the coast, 18th-century recipes for English trifle turned into tipsy cakes, replacing the sherry with whiskey and their recipe for pound cake, brought to the South around the same time, still works with American baking units: one pound sugar, one pound eggs, one pound butter, one pound flour.
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American cuisine
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Common features
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Common features
thumb|left|Biscuits and gravy
Pork is the popular choice in 80% of Southern style barbecue and features in other preparations like sausages and sandwiches. For most Southerners in the antebellum period, corn and pork were staples of the diet. Country sausage is an ingredient in the Southern breakfast dish of biscuits and gravy. Country ham is often served for breakfast and cured with salt or sugar and hickory-smoked.
Accompanying many meals is the southern style fluffy biscuit, where the leavening agent is baking powder and often includes buttermilk, and for breakfast they often accompany country ham, grits, and scrambled eggs.
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American cuisine
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Desserts
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Desserts
thumb|right|Sweet potato pie
Desserts in the South tend to be quite rich and very much a legacy of entertaining to impress guests, since a Southern housewife was (and to a degree still is) expected to show her hospitality by laying out as impressive a banquet as she is able to manage.
Desserts are vast and encompass Lane cake, sweet potato pie, peach cobbler, pecan pie, hummingbird cake, Jefferson Davis pie, peanut brittle, coconut cake, apple fritters, peanut cookies, Moravian spice cookies, chess pie, doberge cake, Lady Baltimore cake, bourbon balls, and caramel cake.
thumb|left|Red velvet cake
American-style sponge cakes tend to be the rule rather than the exception as is American buttercream, a place where Southern baking intersects with the rest of the United States. Nuts like pecan and hickory tend to be revered as garnishes for these desserts, and they make their way into local bakeries as fillings for chocolates.
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American cuisine
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Cajun and Creole cuisine of Louisiana
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Cajun and Creole cuisine of Louisiana
thumbnail|Shrimp gumbo is a popular Cajun and Creole dish.
In Louisiana, cooking methods have more in common with rustic French cuisines of the 17th and 18th century than anything ever found at the French court in Versailles or the bistros of 19th- and 20th-century Paris; this is especially true of Cajun cuisine.
Cajun French is more closely related to dialects spoken in Northern Maine, New Brunswick, and to a lesser degree Haiti than anything spoken in modern France, and likewise their terminology, methodology, and culture concerning food is much more closely related to the styles of these former French colonies even today.
Unlike other areas of the South, Cajuns were and still are largely Catholics and thus much of what they eat is seasonal; for example pork is an important component of the Cajun boucherie (a large community event where the hog is butchered, prepared with a fiery spice mix, and eaten snout to tail) but it is never consumed in the five weeks of Lent, when such would be forbidden.
Cajun cuisine tends to focus on what is locally available, historically because Cajuns were often poor, illiterate, independent farmers and not plantation owners but today it is because such is deeply imbedded in local culture.
Boudin is a type of sausage found only in this area of the country, and it is often by far more spicy than anything found in France or Belgium. Chaudin is unique to the area, and the method of cooking is comparable to the Scottish dish haggis: the stuffing includes onions, rice, bell peppers, spices, and pork sewn up in the stomach of a pig, and served in slices piping hot.
Crawfish are a staple of the Cajun grandmother's cookpot, as they are abundant in the bayous of Southern Louisiana and a main source of livelihood, as are blue crabs, shrimp, corn on the cob, and red potatoes, since these are the basic ingredients of the Louisiana crawfish boil.
thumb|left|Dishes typical of Louisiana Creole cuisine
New Orleans has been the capital of Creole culture since before Louisiana was a state. This culture is that of the colonial French and Spanish that evolved in the city of New Orleans, which was and still is quite distinct from the rural culture of Cajuns and dovetails with what would have been eaten in antebellum Louisiana plantation culture long ago.
Cooking to impress and show one's wealth was a staple of Creole culture, which often mixed French, Spanish, Italian, German, African, Caribbean and Native American cooking methods, producing rich dishes like oysters bienville, pompano en papillote, and even the muffaletta sandwich.
However, Louisiana Creole cuisine tends to diverge from the original ideas brought to the region in ingredients: profiteroles, for example, use a near identical choux pastry to that which is found in modern Paris but often use vanilla or chocolate ice cream rather than custard as the filling, pralines nearly always use pecan and not almonds, and bananas foster came about when New Orleans was a key port for the import of bananas from the Caribbean Sea.
Gumbos tend to be thickened with okra, or the leaves of the sassafrass tree. Andouille is often used, but not the andouille currently known in France, since French andouille uses tripe whereas Louisiana andouille is made from a Boston butt, usually inflected with pepper flakes, and smoked for hours over pecan wood.
Other ingredients that are native to Louisiana and not found in the cuisine of modern France would include rice, which has been a staple of both Creole and Cajun cooking for generations, and sugarcane, which has been grown in Louisiana since the early 1800s.
thumbnail|The maypop plant
Ground cayenne pepper is a key spice of the region, as is the meat of the American alligator, something settlers learned from the Choctaws and Houma. The maypop plant has been a favorite of Southerners for 350 years; it gives its name to the Ocoee River in Tennessee, a legacy of the Cherokees, and in Southern Louisiana it is known as liane de grenade, indicating its consumption by Cajuns. It is a close relative of the commercial passionfruit, similar in size, and is a common plant growing in gardens all over the South as a source of fresh summertime fruit.
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American cuisine
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African American influences
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African American influences
West African influences came with enslaved peoples from Ghana, Benin, Mali, Congo, Angola, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and other portions of the Gold Coast, and the mark Africans and their descendants, the African Americans, have made on Southern food is strong today and an essential addition to the Southern table.
Crops like okra, sorghum, sesame seeds, eggplant, and many different kinds of melons were brought with them from West Africa along with the incredibly important introduction of rice to the Carolinas and later to Texas and Louisiana, whence it became a staple grain of that region and still remains a staple in those areas today, found in dishes like Hoppin John, purloo, and Charleston red rice.
Like the poorer indentured servants that came to the South, slaves often got the leftovers of what was slaughtered for the consumption of the master of the plantation and so many recipes had to be adapted for offal, like pig's ears and fatback though other methods encouraged low and slow methods of cooking to tenderize the tougher cuts of meat, like braising, smoking, and pit roasting, the last of which was a method known to West Africans in the preparation of roasting goat.
Peanut soup is one of the oldest known recipes brought to Virginia by Africans and over time, through their descendants, it has become creamier and milder tasting than the original.
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American cuisine
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Florida cuisine
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Florida cuisine
Certain portions of the South often have their own distinct subtypes of cuisine owing to local history and landscape. Floridian cuisine, for example, has a distinct way of cooking that includes different ingredients, especially south of Tampa and Orlando.
Spain had control of the state until the early 19th century and used the southern tip as an outpost to guard the Spanish Main beginning in the 1500s, but Florida kept and still maintains ties with the Caribbean Sea, including the Bahamas, Haiti, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica.
South of Tampa, there are and have been for a long time many speakers of Caribbean Spanish, Haitian French, Jamaican Patois, and Haitian Creole and each Caribbean culture has a strong hold on cooking methods and spices in Florida. In turn, each mixes and matches with the foodways of the Seminole tribe and Anglophone settlers. Thus, for almost 200 years, Floridian cooking has had a more tropical flavor than any other Southern state.
Allspice, a spice originally from Jamaica, is an ingredient found in spice mixes in summer barbecues along with ginger, garlic, scotch bonnet peppers, sea salt, and nutmeg; in Floridian cooking this is often a variant of Jamaican jerk spice. Coconuts are grown in the areas surrounding Miami and are shipped in daily through its port for consumption of the milk, meat, and water of the coconut.
Bananas are not just the yellow Cavendish variety found in supermarkets across America: in Florida they are available as bananitos, colorados, plátanos, and maduros. The first of these is a tiny miniature banana only about 4–5 inches (10–13 cm) in length and it is sweet. The second has a red peel and an apple-like aftertaste, and the third and fourth are used as a starch on nearly every Caribbean island as a side dish, baked or fried: all of the above are a staple of Florida outdoor markets when in season and all have been grown in the Caribbean for almost 400 years.
Mangoes are grown as a backyard plant in Southern Florida and otherwise are a favorite treat coming in many different shapes in sizes from Nam Doc Mai, brought to Florida after the Vietnam War, to Madame Francis, a mango from Haiti. Sweetsop and soursop are popular around Miami, but nearly unheard of in other areas of the South.
Citrus is a major crop of Florida, and features at many breakfast tables and many markets, with the height of the season near the first week of January. Hamlin oranges are the main cultivar planted, and from this crop the rest of the United States and to a lesser extent Europe gets orange juice. Other plantings include grapefruits, tangerines, clementines, limes, and even a few more rare ones, like Cara Cara navel oranges, tangelos, and the Jamaican Ugli fruit. Tomatoes, bell peppers, habanero peppers, and figs, especially taken from the Florida strangler fig, complete the produce menu.
Blue crab, conch, Florida stone crab, red drum, dorado, and marlins tend to be local favorite ingredients. Dairy is available in this region, but it is less emphasized due to the year round warmth.
thumb|left|Key lime pie
Traditional key lime pie, a dessert from the islands off the coast of Miami, is made with condensed milk to form the custard with the eye wateringly tart limes native to the Florida Keys in part because milk would spoil in an age before refrigeration.
Pork in this region tends to be roasted in methods similar to those found in Puerto Rico and Cuba, owing to mass emigration from those countries in the 20th century, especially in the counties surrounding Miami.
Orange blossom honey is a specialty of the state, and is widely available in farmer's markets. Caribbean lobster is a favorite special meal eagerly sought after by Floridians as it is found as far north as Fort Myers: spear diving and collecting them from reefs in the Florida Keys and near rocky shoals is a common practice of local scuba divers.
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American cuisine
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Other small game
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Other small game
Ptarmigan, grouse, crow, blackbirds, dove, duck and other game fowl are consumed in the United States. In the American state of Arkansas, beaver tail stew is consumed in Cotton town. Squirrel, raccoon, possum, bear, muskrat, chipmunk, skunk, groundhog, pheasant, armadillo and rabbit are also consumed in the United States.
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American cuisine
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Cuisine in the West
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Cuisine in the West
Cooking in the American West gets its influence from Native American and Hispanophone cultures, as well as later settlers that came in the 19th century: Texas, for example, has some influence from Germany in its choice of barbecue by using sausages.
Another instance can be found in the Northwestern region, which encompasses Oregon, Washington, and Northern California. All of the aforementioned rely on local seafood and a few classics of their own.
In New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, West Texas, and Southern California, Mexican flavors and influences are extremely common, especially from the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Baja California, and Sonora.
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American cuisine
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Northwest
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Northwest
thumb|Cioppino
The Pacific Northwest as a region includes Alaska and the state of Washington near the Canada-US border and terminates near Sacramento, California and the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California, and for culinary purposes includes the historic influence of the Monterey Bay area. Here, the terrain is mostly temperate rainforest on the coast mixed with pine forest as one approaches the Canada-US border inland.
One of the core favorite foodstuffs is Pacific salmon, native to many of the larger rivers of the area and often smoked or grilled on cedar planks. In Alaska, wild game like ptarmigan and moose meat feature extensively since much of the state is wilderness.
Fresh fish like steelhead trout, Pacific cod, Pacific halibut, and pollock are fished for extensively and feature on the menu of many restaurants, as do a plethora of fresh berries and vegetables, like Cameo apples from Washington state, the headquarters of the U.S. apple industry, cherries from Oregon, blackberries, and marionberries, a feature of many pies. Hazelnuts are grown extensively in this region and are a feature of baking, such as in chocolate hazelnut pie, an Oregon favorite, and Almond Roca is a local candy.
Like its counterpart on the opposite coast to the East, there is a grand variety of shellfish in this region. Geoducks are a native species of giant clam that have incredibly long necks; they are eaten by the bucketful and shipped to Asia for millions of dollars as they are believed to be an aphrodisiac. Gaper clams are a favorite food, often grilled or steamed in a sauce.
Native California abalone is protected as a food source, and a traditional foodway predating settlement by whites, today featuring heavily in the cooking of fine restaurants as well as in home cooking, in mirin-flavored soups (the influence of Japanese cooking is strong in the region) noodle dishes and on the barbecue.
Native Olympia oysters are served on the half shell as well as the Kumamoto oyster, introduced by Japanese immigrants and a staple at dinner as an appetizer.
California mussels are a delicacy of the region, and have been a feature of the cooking for generations. There is evidence that Native American tribes consumed them up and down the California coast for centuries.
Crabs are a delicacy, and included in this are Alaskan king crab, red crab, yellow crab, and Dungeness crab. Californian and Oregonian sportsmen pursue the last three extensively using hoop nets, and prepare them in a multitude of ways.
Alaskan king crab, able to grow as large as 10 kg, is often served steamed for a whole table with lemon-butter sauce or put in chunks of salad with avocado, and native crabs are the base of dishes like the California roll, cioppino, a tomato-based fisherman's stew, and Crab Louie, another kind of salad native to San Francisco.
Favorite grains are mainly wheat, and the region is known for sourdough bread. Cheeses of the region include Humboldt Fog, Monterey Jack, Cougar Gold and Teleme.Davies, S. (2010). The Guide to West Coast Cheese: More than 300 Cheeses Handcrafted in California, Oregon, and Washington. Timber Press
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American cuisine
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Southwest and Southern California
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Southwest and Southern California
thumb|Mixed beef and chicken fajita ingredients, served on a hot iron skillet
The states of the Four Corners (Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah) plus Nevada, Southern California, and West Texas make up a large chunk of the United States.
There is a distinct Hispanic accent to the cookery here, with each having cultural capitals in Albuquerque, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Santa Fe, San Diego, and Tucson.
For centuries, prior to California's statehood in the 1850s, it was part of the Spanish Empire, namely Alta California (modern California), Santa Fe de Nuevo México (modern New Mexico), and Tejas (modern Texas). Today it is home of a large population of Native Americans, Hispanos, descendants of the American frontier, Asian Americans, and immigrants from Mexico and Latin America.
California, New Mexico, and Texas continue to hold their unique identities which is reflected in their distinct regional cuisines, the multiple cuisines of California, New Mexican cuisine, Texan cuisine, and Tex-Mex. Spanish is a commonly spoken secondary language here; the state of New Mexico has its own distinct dialect.
With the exception of Southern California, the signature meat is beef, since this is one of the two regions in which cowboys lived and modern cattle ranchers still eke out their living today. High-quality beefstock is a feature that has been present in the region for more than 200 years and the many cuts of beef are unique to the United States. These cuts of meat are different from the related Mexican cuisine over the border in that certain kind of offal, like lengua (tongue), cabeza (head), and tripas (tripe) are considered less desirable and are thus less emphasized. Typical cuts would include the ribs, brisket, sirloin, flank steak, skirt steak, and t-bone.
thumb|Chili con carne, a typical Tex-Mex dish with garnishes and tortilla chips
Historically, Spanish settlers that came to the region found it completely unsuitable to the mining operations that much older settlements in Mexico had to offer as their technology was not advanced enough to extract the silver that would later be found. They had no knowledge of the gold in California, which would not be found until 1848, and knew even less about the silver in Nevada, undiscovered until after the Civil War.
Instead, in order to make the pueblos prosper, they adapted the old rancho system of places like Andalusia in Spain and brought the earliest beefstock, among these were breeds that would go feral and become the Texas longhorn, and Navajo-Churro sheep, still used as breeding stock because they are easy to keep and well adapted to the extremely arid and hot climate, where temperatures easily exceed 38 °C.
Later, cowboys learned from their management practices, many of which still stand today, like the practical management of stock on horseback using the Western saddle.
thumb|Biscochitos, the state cookie of New Mexico
Likewise, settlers learned the cooking methods of those who came before and local tribes as well, for example, portions of Arizona and New Mexico still use the aforementioned beehive shaped clay contraption called an horno, an outdoor wood-fired oven both Native American tribes like the Navajo and Spaniards used for roasting meat, maize, and baking bread.Green, Rayna (1999). The British Museum Encyclopedia of Native North America. London: British Museum Press. p. 4. .
Meats that see frequent use are elk meat, a favorite in crown roasts and burgers, and nearer the Mexican border rattlesnake, often skinned and stewed.
The taste for alcohol tends toward light and clean flavors found in tequila, a staple of this region since the days of the Wild West and a staple in the bartender's arsenal for cocktails, especially in Las Vegas. In Utah, a state heavily populated by Mormons, alcohol is frowned upon by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but still available in area bars in Salt Lake City, mainly consumed by the populations of Catholics and other Protestant denominations living there.
Introduction of agriculture was limited prior to the 20th century and the development of better irrigation techniques, but included the addition of peaches, a crop still celebrated by Native American tribes like the Havasupai, and oranges. Today in Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico the favored orange today is the Moro blood orange, which often finds its way into the local cuisine, like cakes and marmalade.
Pine nuts are a particular regional specialty and feature often in fine dining and cookies; in Nevada the Native American tribes that live there are by treaty given rights to exclusive harvest, and in New Mexico they reserve usage of the term piñon for certain species of indigenous pine nuts.
From Native Americans, Westerners learned the practice of eating cactus fruit from the myriad species of opuntia that occupy the Chihuahuan, Sonoran, and Mojave desert lands. In California, Spanish missionaries brought with them the mission fig, and today this fruit is a delicacy.
thumb|left|upright|New Mexico green chile is a staple of New Mexican cuisine.
Cuisine in this region tends to have certain key ingredients: tomatoes, onions, black beans, pinto beans, rice, bell peppers, chile peppers, and cheese, in particular Monterey Jack, invented to the north in the Central Coast area of California in the 19th century and itself often further altered into pepper Jack where spicy jalapeño peppers are incorporated into the cheese to create a smoky taste.
Chili peppers play an important role in the cuisine, with a few native to the region. This is especially true with the region's distinct New Mexico chile pepper, still grown by Hispanos of New Mexico and Puebloans the most sought after of which come from the Hatch valley, Albuquerque's Central Rio Grande, Chimayo, and Pueblos.
In New Mexico, chile is eaten on a variety of foods, such as the green chile cheeseburger, made popular by fast food chains such as Blake's Lotaburger. Indeed, even national fast food chains operating in the state, such as McDonald's, offer locally grown chile on many of their menu items.
In the 20th century a few more recent additions have arrived like the poblano pepper, rocoto pepper, ghost pepper, thai chili pepper, and Korean pepper, the last three especially when discussing Southern California and its large population from East and South Asia.
Cornbread is consumed, however the recipe differs from ones in the East in that the batter is cooked in a cast-iron skillet.
Outdoor cooking is popular and still utilizes an old method settlers brought from the East with them, in which a cast-iron Dutch oven is covered with the coals of the fire and stacked or hung from a tripod: this is different from the earthenware pots of Mexico.
Tortillas are still made the traditional way here and form an important component of the spicy breakfast burrito, which contains ham, eggs, and salsa or pico de gallo. They are also used for regular burritos, which contains any combination of marinated meats, vegetables, and piquant chilis; smothered burritos, often both containing and topped with New Mexico chile sauces; quesadillas, a much loved grilled dish where cheese and other ingredients are stuffed between two tortillas and served by the slice; and steak fajitas, where sliced skirt steak sizzles in a skillet with caramelized onions.
thumb|left|Nachos with cheese
Unlike Mexico, tortillas of this region also may incorporate vegetables like spinach into the flatbread dough to make wraps, which were invented in Southern California. Food here tends to use pungent spices and condiments, typically chili verde sauce, various kinds of hot sauce, sriracha sauce, chili powder, cayenne pepper, white pepper, cumin, paprika, onion powder, thyme and black pepper. Nowhere is this fiery mix of spice more evident than in the dishes chili con carne, a meaty stew, and cowboy beans, both of which are a feature of regional cookoffs.
Southern California has several additions like five spice powder, rosemary, curry powder, kimchi, and lemongrass, with many of these brought by recent immigration to the region and often a feature of Southern California's fusion cuisine, popular in fine dining.
In Texas, the local barbecue is often entirely made up of beef brisket or large rib racks, where the meat is seasoned with a spice rub and cooked over coals of mesquite. In other portions of the state they smoke the meat and peppery sausages over high heat using pecan, apple, and oak wood and serve it with a side of pickled vegetables, a legacy of German and Czech settlers of the late 1800s.
California is home to Santa Maria–style barbecue, where the spices involved generally are black pepper, paprika, and garlic salt, and grill over the coals of coast live oak.
thumb|A chimichanga
Native American additions may include Navajo frybread and corn on the cob, often roasted on the grill in its husk. A typical accompaniment or appetizer of all these states is the tortilla chip, which sometimes includes cornmeal from cultivars of corn that are blue or red in addition to the standard yellow of sweetcorn, and is served with salsa of varying hotness.
Tortilla chips also are an ingredient in the Tex Mex dish nachos, where these chips are loaded with any combination of ground beef, melted Monterey Jack, cheddar, or Colby cheese, guacamole, sour cream, and salsa, and Texas usually prefers a version of potato salad as a side dish.
For alcohol, a key ingredient is tequila: this spirit has been made on both sides of the US-Mexican border for generations, and in modern cuisine it is a must-have in a bartender's arsenal as well as an addition to dishes for sauteeing.
Southern California is focused more towards the coast and has had more contact with immigration from the West Pacific and Baja California, in addition to having the international city of Los Angeles as its capital. Here, the prime mode of transportation is by car.
Drive through fast food was invented in this area, but so was the concept of the gourmet burger movement, giving birth to chains like In-N-Out Burger, with many variations of burgers including chili, multiple patties, avocado, special sauces, and Angus or wagyu beef. Common accompaniments include thick milkshakes in various flavors like mint, chocolate, peanut butter, vanilla, strawberry, and mango.
Smoothies are a common breakfast item made with fresh fruit juice, yogurt, and crushed ice. Agua fresca, a drink originated by Mexican immigrants, is a common hot-weather beverage sold in many supermarkets and at mom and pop stands, available in citrus, watermelon, and strawberry flavors; the California version usually served chilled without grain in it.
thumbnail|Machaca with pork, eggs, and potatoes wrapped in a tortilla, served with salsa
The weather in Southern California is such that the temperature rarely drops below in winter, thus, sun-loving crops like pistachios, kiwifruit, avocadoes, strawberries, and tomatoes are staple crops of the region, the last often dried in the sun and a feature of salads and sandwiches.
Olive oil is a staple cooking oil of the region and has been since the days of Junípero Serra; today the mission olive is a common tree growing in a Southern Californian's back garden. As a crop olives are increasingly a signature of the region along with Valencia oranges and Meyer lemons.
Soybeans, bok choy, Japanese persimmon, thai basil, Napa cabbage, nori, mandarin oranges, water chestnuts, and mung beans are other crops brought to the region from East Asia and are common additions to salads as the emphasis on fresh produce in both Southern and Northern California is strong.
Other vegetables and herbs have a distinct Mediterranean flavor which would include oregano, basil, summer squash, eggplant, and broccoli, with all of the above extensively available at farmers' markets all around Southern California.
Naturally, salads native to Southern California tend to be hearty affairs, like Cobb salad and Chinese chicken salad, and dressings like green goddess and ranch are a staple.
California-style pizza tends to have disparate ingredients with an emphasis on vegetables, with any combination of chili oil, prawns, eggs, chicken, shiitake mushrooms, olives, bell pepper, goat cheese, and feta cheese. Peanut noodles tend to include a sweet dressing with lo mein noodles and chopped peanuts.
Fresh fish and shellfish in Southern California tends to be expensive in restaurants, but every year since the end of WWII, the Pismo clam festival has taken place where the local population takes a large species of clam and bakes, stuffs, and roasts it as it is a regional delicacy.
Fishing for pacific species of octopus and the Humboldt squid are common, and both are a feature of East Asian and other L.A. fish markets. Lingcod is a coveted regional fish that is often caught in the autumn off the coast of San Diego and in the Channel Islands and often served baked. California sheephead are often grilled and are much sought after by spear fishermen and the immigrant Chinese population, in which case it is basket steamed.
Most revered of all in recent years is the California spiny lobster, a beast that can grow to 44 lb, and is a delicacy that now rivals the fishery for Dungeness crab in its importance.
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American cuisine
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Pacific and Hawaiian cuisine
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Pacific and Hawaiian cuisine
thumb|Lomi-lomi salmon
Hawaii is often considered to be one of the most culturally diverse U.S. states, as well as being the only state with an Asian-majority population and one of the few places where United States territory extends into the tropics. As a result, Hawaiian cuisine borrows elements of a variety of cuisines, particularly those of Asian and Pacific-rim cultures, as well as traditional native Hawaiian and a few additions from the American mainland.
American influence in the last 150 years has brought cattle, goats, and sheep to the islands, introducing cheese, butter, and yogurt products, as well as crops like red cabbage.
Major Asian and Polynesian influences on modern Hawaiian cuisine are from Japan, Korea, Vietnam, China (especially near the Pearl River delta,) Samoa, and the Philippines. From Japan, the concept of serving raw fish as a meal with rice was introduced, as was soft tofu, setting the stage for the popular dish called poke.
From Korea, immigrants to Hawaii brought a love of spicy garlic marinades for meat and kimchi. From China, their version of char siu baau became modern manapua, a type of steamed pork bun with a spicy filling.
Filipinos brought vinegar, bagoong, and lumpia, and during the 20th century immigrants from American Samoa brought the open pit fire umu and the Vietnamese introduced lemongrass and fish sauce.
Each East Asian culture brought several different kinds of noodles, including udon, ramen, mei fun, and pho, and today these are common lunchtime meals.
Much of this cuisine mixes and melts into traditions like the lu'au, whose traditional elaborate fare was once the prerogative of kings and queens but is today the subject of parties for both tourists and also private parties for the ‘ohana (meaning family and close friends.)
Traditionally, women and men ate separately under the Hawaiian kapu system, a system of religious beliefs that honored the Hawaiian gods similar to the Maori tapu system, though in this case had some specific prohibitions towards females eating things like coconut, pork, turtle meat, and bananas as these were considered parts of the male gods. Punishment for violation could be severe, as a woman might endanger a man's mana, or soul, by eating with him or otherwise by eating the forbidden food because doing so dishonored the male gods.
As the system broke down after 1810, introductions of foods from laborers on plantations began to be included at feasts and much cross pollination occurred, where Asian foodstuffs mixed with Polynesian foodstuffs like breadfruit, kukui nuts, and purple sweet potatoes.
Some notable Hawaiian fare includes seared ahi tuna, opakapaka (snapper) with passionfruit, Hawaiian island-raised lamb, beef and meat products, Hawaiian plate lunch, and Molokai shrimp. Seafood traditionally is caught fresh in Hawaiian waters, and particular delicacies are ula poni, papaikualoa, ‘opihi, and ‘opihi malihini, better known as Hawaiian spiny lobster, Kona crab, Hawaiian limpet, and abalone, the last brought over with Japanese immigrants.
Some cuisine also incorporates a broad variety of produce and locally grown agricultural products, including tomatoes, sweet Maui onions, taro, and macadamia nuts. Tropical fruits also play an important role in the cuisine as a flavoring in cocktails and in desserts, including local cultivars of bananas, sweetsop, mangoes, lychee, coconuts, papayas, and lilikoi (passionfruit). Pineapples have been an island staple since the 19th century and figure into many marinades and drinks.
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American cuisine
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Common dishes found on a regional level
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Common dishes found on a regional level
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American cuisine
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Ethnicity-specific and immigrant influence
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Ethnicity-specific and immigrant influence
thumb|Fried fish and french fries in San Diego, California
The influence of ethnicity-specific cuisines like Italian cuisine and Mexican cuisine was present in the United States by World War I. There are recipes for Chilean meat pies, chicken chop suey, chow mein, Mexican pork pastries and Italian meatballs going back to at least the 1930s, but many of the recipes were Anglicized and they appeared relatively infrequently compared to Northern European recipes.Sherrie A. Inness, Dinner roles: American women and culinary culture. p. 89
19th-century cookbooks bear evidence of diverse influences with some including recipes like Indian pickle, Italian pork and various curries. 19th-century literature shows knowledge of Jewish, Russian, Italian, Chinese and Greek-American cuisines, and foreign cookbooks continued to grow more detailed through World War I including recipes like Peruvian chicken, Mexican enchiladas, Chilean corn pudding and Hindustan chicken curry.Sherrie A. Inness, Dinner roles: American women and culinary culture. p. 92
Louise Rice, author of Dainty Dishes from Foreign Lands describes the recipes in her book as "not wholly vegetarian" though noting at the time of publication in 1911 that most of the recipes would likely be new to average American cooks and likely contain higher proportions of vegetables to meat. She includes Italian pasta recipes like macaroni in milk, soups and polentas and German recipes like liver dumplings called Leberknödel and a variation of Sauerbraten.Louise Rice, Dainty Dishes From Foreign Lands, p.7-34
The demand for ethnic foods in the United States reflects the nation's changing diversity as well as its development over time. According to the National Restaurant Association, (par. 6). Restaurant industry sales are expected to reach a record high of $476 billion in 2005, an increase of 4.9 percent over 2004... Driven by consumer demand, the ethnic food market reached record sales in 2002, and has emerged as the fastest growing category in the food and beverage product sector, according to USBX Advisory Services. Minorities in the U.S. spend a combined $142 billion on food and by 2010, America's ethnic population is expected to grow by 40 percent.
left|thumb|250px|Korean tacos from the "Seoul on Wheels" truck in San Francisco
A movement began during the 1980s among popular leading chefs to reclaim America's ethnic foods within its regional traditions, where these trends originated. One of the earliest was Paul Prudhomme, who in 1984 began the introduction of his influential cookbook, Paul Prodhomme's Louisiana Kitchen, by describing the over 200-year history of Creole and Cajun cooking; he aims to "preserve and expand the Louisiana tradition." n.p. Prodhomme's success quickly inspired other chefs. Norman Van Aken embraced a Floridian type cuisine fused with many ethnic and globalized elements in his Feast of Sunlight cookbook in 1988. California became swept up in the movement, then seemingly started to lead the trend itself, in, for example, the popular restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley.
Examples of the Chez Panisse phenomenon, chefs who embraced a new globalized cuisine, were celebrity chefs like Jeremiah Tower and Wolfgang Puck, both former colleagues at the restaurant. Puck went on to describe his belief in contemporary, new style American cuisine in the introduction to The Wolfgang Puck Cookbook:
Another major breakthrough, whose originators were once thought to be crazy, is the mixing of ethnic cuisines. It is not at all uncommon to find raw fish listed next to tortillas on the same menu. Ethnic crossovers also occur when distinct elements meet in a single recipe. This country is, after all, a huge melting pot. Why should its cooking not illustrate the American transformation of diversity into unity? n.p.
Puck's former colleague, Jeremiah Tower became synonymous with California Cuisine and the overall American culinary revolution. Meanwhile, the restaurant that inspired both Puck and Tower became a distinguished establishment, popularizing its so called "mantra" in its book by Paul Bertolli and owner Alice Waters, Chez Panisse Cooking, in 1988. Published well after the restaurants' founding in 1971, this new cookbook from the restaurant seemed to perfect the idea and philosophy that had developed over the years. The book embraced America's natural bounty, specifically that of California, while containing recipes that reflected Bertoli and Waters' appreciation of both northern Italian and French style foods.
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American cuisine
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Early ethnic influences
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Early ethnic influences
thumb|Adaptation of Mexican food tailored for the mainstream American market usually is different from Mexican food typically served in Mexico.
While the earliest cuisine of the United States was influenced by Native Americans, the thirteen colonies, or the antebellum South, the overall culture of the nation, its gastronomy and the growing culinary arts became ever more influenced by its changing ethnic mix and immigrant patterns from the 18th and 19th centuries unto the present. Some of the ethnic groups that continued to influence the cuisine were here in prior years; others arrived more numerously during "The Great Transatlantic Migration" (of 1870–1914) or other mass migrations.
Some of the ethnic influences could be found across the nation after the American Civil War and into the continental expansion for most of the 19th century. Ethnic influences already in the nation at that time would include the following groups and their respective cuisines:
Select nationalities of Europe and the respective developments from early modern European cuisine of the colonial age:
British-Americans and on-going developments in New England cuisine, the national traditions founded in the cuisine of the original thirteen colonies, The Cuisine of the Southern United States, and many aspects of other regional cuisine.
Spanish Americans and early modern Spanish cuisine, as well as Basque-Americans and Basque cuisine.
Early German-American or Pennsylvania Dutch and Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine
French Americans and their New World regional identities such as:
Acadian
Cajun and Cajun cuisine
Louisiana Creole and Louisiana Creole cuisine. Louisiana Creole (also called French Créole) refers to native-born people of the New Orleans area who are descended from the Colonial French and Spanish settlers of Colonial French Louisiana, before it became part of the United States in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase.
The various ethnicities originating from the early gastronomy and cuisines of the New World, Latin American cuisine, and North American cuisine:
Native Americans in the United States and Native American cuisine
African Americans and Soul food.
Puerto Rican cuisine
Mexican Americans and Mexican-American cuisine; as well as related regional cuisines:
Tex-Mex (regional Texas and Mexican fusion)
Some aspects of "Southwestern cuisine".
New Mexican cuisine from New Mexico and the historical region of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, and now ethnically tied to the Pueblos and Hispanos of New Mexico.
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American cuisine
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Later ethnic and immigrant influence
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Later ethnic and immigrant influence
thumb|Fortune cookies were invented in the United States and are of Japanese origin but are popular in American Chinese cuisine.
thumb|Chinese takeout
Mass migrations of immigrants to the United States came over time. Historians identify several waves of migration to the United States: one from 1815 to 1860, in which some five million English, Irish, German, Scandinavian, and others from northwestern Europe came to the United States; one from 1865 to 1890, in which some 10 million immigrants, also mainly from northwestern Europe, settled; and a third from 1890 to 1914, in which 15 million immigrants, mainly from central, eastern, and southern Europe (many Austrian, Hungarian, Turkish, Lithuanian, Russian, Jewish, Greek, Italian, and Romanian) settled in the United States.
Together with earlier arrivals to the United States (including the indigenous Native Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans, particularly in the West, Southwest, and Texas; African Americans who came to the United States in the Atlantic slave trade; and early colonial migrants from Europe), these new waves of immigrants had a profound impact on national or regional cuisine. Some of these more prominent groups include the following:
Albanian Americans—Albanian cuisine
Arab Americans, particularly Lebanese Americans (the largest ethnic Arab group in the United States)—Arab cuisine, Lebanese cuisine
Argentine Americans—Argentine cuisine
Armenian Americans—Armenian cuisine
Brazilian Americans—Brazilian cuisine
Cambodian Americans—Cambodian cuisine
Chinese Americans—American Chinese cuisine, Chinese cuisine
Colombian Americans—Colombian cuisine
Cuban Americans—Cuban cuisine
Dominican Americans—Dominican Republic cuisine
Dutch Americans—Dutch cuisine
Ethiopian Americans—Eritrean Americans: Ethiopian cuisine, Eritrean cuisine in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Denver, New York
Filipino Americans—Filipino cuisine, Filipino-American cuisine
French Americans—French cuisine
German Americans—German cuisine (the Pennsylvania Dutch, although descended from Germans, arrived earlier than the bulk of German migrants and have distinct culinary traditions)
Greek Americans—Greek-American cuisine, Greek cuisine, Mediterranean cuisine
Guatemalan Americans—Guatemalan cuisine
Haitian Americans—Haitian cuisine
Honduran Americans—Honduran cuisine
Hungarian Americans—Hungarian cuisine
Indian Americans—Indian cuisine
Irish Americans—Irish cuisine
Italian Americans—Italian-American cuisine, Italian cuisine
Japanese Americans—Japanese cuisine, with influences on the Hawaiian cuisine
Jewish Americans—Jewish cuisine, with particular influence on New York City cuisine
Korean Americans—Korean cuisine
Lithuanian Americans—Lithuanian cuisine, Midwest
Nicaraguan American—Nicaraguan cuisine
Nigerian Americans—Nigerian cuisine
Pakistani Americans—Pakistani cuisine
Peruvian Americans—Peruvian cuisine
Polish Americans—Polish cuisine, with particular impact on Midwest
Polynesian Americans—Hawaiian cuisine
Portuguese Americans—Portuguese cuisine
Romanian Americans—Romanian cuisine
Russian Americans—Russian cuisine, with particular impact on Midwest
Salvadoran Americans—Salvadoran cuisine
Scottish Americans—Scottish cuisine
Spanish Americans—Spanish cuisine
Thai Americans—Thai cuisine
Turkish Americans—Turkish cuisine, Balkan cuisine
Venezuelan Americans—Venezuelan cuisine
Vietnamese Americans—Vietnamese cuisine
West Indian Americans—Caribbean cuisine, Jamaican cuisine, Trinidad and Tobago cuisine, Barbadian cuisine, Bahamian cuisine
Italian, Mexican and Chinese (Cantonese) cuisines have indeed joined the mainstream. These three cuisines have become so ingrained in the American culture that they are no longer foreign to the American palate. According to the study, more than nine out of 10 consumers are familiar with and have tried these foods, and about half report eating them frequently. The research also indicates that Italian, Mexican and Chinese (Cantonese) have become so adapted to such an extent that "authenticity" is no longer a concern to customers.Hensley, Sue, National Restaurant Association.Article/ News Release, "International Cuisine Reaches America's Main Street," 10 August 2000.
Contributions from these ethnic foods have become as common as traditional "American" fares such as hot dogs, hamburgers, beef steak, which are derived from German cuisine, (chicken-fried steak, for example, is a variation on German schnitzel), cherry pie, Coca-Cola, milkshakes, fried chicken (Fried chicken is of English, Scottish, and African influence), Pepsi, Dr Pepper and so on. Nowadays, Americans also have a ubiquitous consumption of foods like pizza and pasta, tacos and burritos to "General Tso's chicken" and fortune cookies. Fascination with these and other ethnic foods may also vary with region.
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American cuisine
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Other popular foods
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Other popular foods
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American cuisine
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Fast food
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Fast food
The United States has a large fast food industry. Major American fast food chains include McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Domino's, Pizza Hut, KFC, Popeyes, Subway, Taco Bell, Arby's, Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts, White Castle, In-N-Out Burger, Sonic Drive-In, Chick-fil-A, Church's Chicken, and Raising Cane's, among numerous other multinational, national, regional, and local chains. Traditional American fast food items are hamburgers, french fries, breaded chicken, and pizza, though several chains also offer items from different cuisines modified for American palates, such as tacos, pasta, and stir-fry. Many American fast food chains have expanded abroad to other countries, typically offering standard American fare alongside items adapted to appeal to regional tastes within their markets.
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American cuisine
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Desserts
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Desserts
thumb|Banana pudding
A classic American dessert is apple pie. Some other famous American desserts are banana split, Boston cream pie, key lime pie, and bananas foster. Other famous American desserts are chocolate chip cookies, pecan pie, carrot cake, banana pudding, S'more, black and white cookies, pumpkin pie, coconut cake, funnel cake, brownies and red velvet cake.
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American cuisine
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Influential figures and American cuisine on television
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Influential figures and American cuisine on television
American chefs have been influential both in the food industry and in popular culture. Some important 19th-century American chefs include Charles Ranhofer of Delmonico's Restaurant in New York, and Bob Payton, who is credited with bringing American-style pizza to the UK. Later, chefs Charles Scotto, Louis Pacquet, John Massironi were founded the American Culinary Federation in 1930, taking after similar organizations across Europe. In the 1940s, Chef James Beard hosted the first nationally televised cooking show I Love to Eat. His name is also carried by the foundation and prestigious cooking award recognizing excellence in the American cooking community. Since Beard, many chefs and cooking personalities have taken to television, and the success of the Cooking Channel and Food Network have contributed to the popularity of American cuisine. In 1946, the Culinary Institute of America was founded by Katharine Angel and Frances Roth. This would become the United States' most prestigious culinary school, where many of the most talented American chefs would study prior to successful careers. The American Culinary community has grown due to both restaurants and media, through the work of many talented chefs.
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American cuisine
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Influential figures
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Influential figures
thumb|Thomas Keller at The French Laundry
thumb|Culinary Institute of America
Notable American restaurant chefs include Samin Nosrat (Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat), Thomas Keller (The French Laundry), Charlie Trotter (Trotter's), Grant Achatz (Alinea), Alfred Portale (Portale), Paul Prudhomme (K-Paul's), Paul Bertolli (Oliveto), Jonathan Waxman (Barbuto), Mark Peel (Campanile), Frank Stitt (Bottega), Alice Waters (Chez Panisse), Wolfgang Puck (Spago), Patrick O'Connell (The Inn), Eric Ripert (Le Bernardin), Todd English (Olives) and Anthony Bourdain (Les Halles). Many of these chefs have received much critical acclaim, as Keller, Achatz, Ripert and O'Connell have all received three Michelin stars, the highest distinction which a restaurant can be given. Keller was given this award for The French Laundry, Achatz for Alinea, Ripert for Le Bernardin and O'Connell for The Inn at Little Washington.
Celebrity chefs have also helped to expand the culinary arts into popular culture, with chefs such as David Chang (Chef's Table), Alton Brown (Iron Chef America), Emeril Lagasse (Emeril Live), Cat Cora (Iron Chef America), Erik Davidson (Phat Erik's), Michael Symon (The Chew), Bobby Flay (Beat Bobby Flay), Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa) and Guy Fieri (Diners, Drive-ins and Dives). Many of these celebrity chefs, such as David Chang, Emeril Lagasse and Bobby Flay began their careers in restaurants before branching out into television. The shows have a wide variety of formats, including cooking competitions, such as Iron Chef, documentaries, such as Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown, shows that take a look into restaurants, as Chef's Table does, and shows that teach cooking. The success of food television specifically in the United States has helped American Cuisine grow around the world.
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American cuisine
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Regional cuisine chefs
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Regional cuisine chefs
Regional chefs are emerging as localized celebrity chefs with growing broader appeal, such as Peter Merriman (Hawaii Regional Cuisine), Roy Choi (Korean American Cuisine), Jerry Traunfeld, Alan Wong (Pacific Rim cuisine), Rick Bayless and Daniela Soto-Innes (traditional Mexican cuisine with modern interpretations), Norman Van Aken (New World Cuisine – fusion Latin, Caribbean, Asian, African and American), and Mark Miller (American Southwest cuisine).
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American cuisine
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See also
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See also
Cuisine of the Americas
Indigenous cuisine of the Americas
Soul food
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American cuisine
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Types
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Types
American wine
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American cuisine
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Regional
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Regional
Cuisine of California
Cuisine of Minnesota
Cuisine of New England
Cuisine of New York City
Cuisine of the Southern United States
Cuisine of Atlanta
Cuisine of Houston
Cuisine of Kentucky
Tex-Mex cuisine
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American cuisine
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Ethnic
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Ethnic
American Chinese cuisine
Mexican-American cuisine
Italian-American cuisine
Greek-American cuisine
Puerto Rican cuisine
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American cuisine
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Other
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Other
High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America
Cuisine of Antebellum America
List of American desserts
List of American breads
Bread in American cuisine
List of American foods
List of American regional and fusion cuisines
List of American breakfast foods
Tlingit cuisine
Cuisine of the Americas
Cuisine of the Pennsylvania Dutch
Cuisine of the Southern United States
American tea culture
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American cuisine
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References
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References
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American cuisine
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Works cited
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Works cited
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Fried, Stephen. Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West (Bantam; 2010)
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Veit, Helen Zoe. Modern Food, Moral Food: Self-Control, Science, and the Rise of Modern American Eating in the Early Twentieth Century (2013)
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American cuisine
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Further reading
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Further reading
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American cuisine
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External links
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External links
Category:Cultural history of the United States
Category:North American cuisine
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American cuisine
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Table of Content
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short description, History, Native Americans origins: American cuisine before 1600, Fish and crustaceans, Cooking methods, Colonial period, Common ingredients, Livestock and game, Fats and oils, Alcoholic drinks, Southern variations, Post-colonial cuisine, 19th-century American farmhouse, 20th century, Pre-World War I, World War II and later, Ethnic influences, New American, 21st century, Regional cuisines, Northeast, New England, Delaware Valley and Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Southern United States, Early history, Common features, Desserts, Cajun and Creole cuisine of Louisiana, African American influences, Florida cuisine, Other small game, Cuisine in the West, Northwest, Southwest and Southern California, Pacific and Hawaiian cuisine, Common dishes found on a regional level, Ethnicity-specific and immigrant influence, Early ethnic influences, Later ethnic and immigrant influence, Other popular foods, Fast food, Desserts, Influential figures and American cuisine on television, Influential figures, Regional cuisine chefs, See also, Types, Regional, Ethnic, Other, References, Works cited, Further reading, External links
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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short description
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Ahmad Shāh Massoud (2 September 19539 September 2001) was an Afghan militant leader and politician.Antonio Giustozzi, Empires of Mud (London: St. Martin's Press, 2012). ; and Marcela Grad, Massoud: An Intimate Portrait of the Legendary Afghan Leader (Webster MO: Webster University Press, 2009) . He was a guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation during the Soviet–Afghan War from 1979 to 1989. In the 1990s, he led the government's military wing against rival militia, and actively fought against the Taliban, from the time the regime rose to power in 1996, and until his assassination in 2001.
Massoud came from an ethnic Tajik of Sunni Muslim background in the Panjshir Valley in Northern Afghanistan. He began studying engineering at Polytechnical University of Kabul in the 1970s, where he became involved with religious anti-communist movements around Burhanuddin Rabbani, a leading Islamist. He participated in a failed uprising against Mohammed Daoud Khan's government. He later joined Rabbani's Jamiat-e Islami party. During the Soviet–Afghan War, his role as an insurgent leader of the Afghan mujahideen earned him the nickname "Lion of Panjshir" () among his followers. Supported by Britain's MI6 and to a lesser extent by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), he successfully resisted the Soviets from taking the Panjshir Valley. In 1992, he signed the Peshawar Accord, a peace and power-sharing agreement, in the post-communist Islamic State of Afghanistan. He was appointed the Minister of Defense as well as the government's main military commander. His militia fought to defend Kabul against militias led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and other warlords who were bombing the city, as well as later against the Taliban, who laid siege to the capital in January 1995 after the city had seen fierce fighting with at least 60,000 civilians killed.
Following the rise of the Taliban in 1996, Massoud, who rejected the Taliban's fundamentalist interpretation of Islam,Also Peter Bergen (2011), . "Mahmoud [...] espoused a more moderate form of Islamism and an orientation to the West." returned to armed opposition until he was forced to flee to Kulob, Tajikistan, strategically destroying the Salang Tunnel on his way north. He became the military and political leader of the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan or Northern Alliance, which by 2000 controlled only between 5 and 10 percent of the country. In 2001 he visited Europe and urged European Parliament leaders to pressure Pakistan on its support for the Taliban. He also asked for humanitarian aid to combat the Afghan people's gruesome conditions under the Taliban. On September 9, 2001, Massoud was injured in a suicide bombing by two al-Qaeda assassins, ordered personally by the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden himself; he lost his life while en route to a hospital across the border in Tajikistan. Two days later, the September 11 attacks occurred in the United States, which ultimately led to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) invading Afghanistan and allying with Massoud's forces. The Northern Alliance eventually won the two-month-long war in December 2001, removing the Taliban from power.
Massoud has been described as one of the greatest guerrilla leaders of the 20th century and has been compared to Josip Broz Tito, Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara.Soldiers of God by Robert D. Kaplan, 2001. Massoud was posthumously named "National Hero" by the order of President Hamid Karzai after the Taliban were ousted from power. The date of Massoud's death, September 9, was observed as a national holiday known as "Massoud Day" until the Taliban takeover in August 2021. His followers call him Amer Sāhib-e Shahīd (), which translates to "(our) martyred commander".The forgotten hero of Afghanistan Artefact Magazine A street in New Delhi was named after him in 2007. He has been posthumously honored by a plaque in France in 2021, and in the same year was awarded with the highest honor of Tajikistan.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Early life
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Early life
thumb|left|View of Panjshir Valley from Massoud's Tomb
Ahmad Shah Massoud was born in 1953 in the small village of Jangalak, Bazarak in the Panjshir Valley (now administered as part of the Panjshir Province), to a well-to-do family native to the Panjshir Valley.According to his biographer Michael Barry, his exact date of birth was not recorded (M. Barry, Massoud: de l'islamisme à la liberté, p. 56). Massoud's name at birth was 'Ahmad Shah' after King Ahamad Shah Durrani, founder of the modern, unified state of Afghanistan, later taking the name 'Massoud' as a nom de guerre in 1974 when he joined the resistance movement against the forces of Daoud Khan.Barry, Michael, Massoud: de l'islamisme à la liberté, p. 57. Massoud's father, Dost Mohammad, was a colonel in the Royal Afghan Army; his mother, Bibi Khorshid has been described as a "modern-minded" woman who taught herself to read and write determined to educate her daughters no less than her sons.
Moving along with his father's postings, the adolescent Massoud attended primary school in Afghanistan's western city of Herat before his father was dispatched to Kabul.M. Barry, Massoud, p. 57. There, Massoud was sent to the Franco-Afghan Lycée Esteqlal (lit. Independence High School) where he attained his proficiency in French. Massoud's experience at Lycée would be formative and, as he would later remark, was the happiest period of his life. At Lycée his classes were taught by French and Afghan tutors educated in France and the students donned Western jackets, neckties, trousers, skirts, scarves, and stockings. Although his knowledge of the French language would earn him greater affinity among French journalists and politicians, later conservative Islamist opponents such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Taliban would derogatorily dub him "The Frenchmen" or "The Parisian" suggestive of his sympathies to Western culture.
While at the Lycée, Massoud was described as an intellectually-gifted student, hard-working, religiously devout, and mature for his age with a particular interest in ethics, politics, universal justice. Friends and family recall an instance where Massoud, returning from school, came to the defense of a younger boy leaving the three bullies knocked-out on the pavement. More formatively, Massoud followed closely reports of the 1967 Six-Day War and the defiant statements of Arab leaders like Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. He later told researcher Peter DeNeufville that, at fourteen, the war left him determined to be a soldier and gave him a new regard for Pan-Islamism after hearing the stories told by Jordanian, Egyptian, and Syrian soldiers defending their homelands. Massoud refused repeated suggestions to apply for a scholarship to study in France expressing his desire to remain in Afghanistan and apply to the nation's military academy in Kabul.
By protest of his father and eldest brother, Massoud enrolled at Kabul Polytechnic Institute, then Kabul University's newest and most prestigious addition founded, financed, and operated by the Soviet Union. Massoud studied engineering and architecture but never attempted to learn Russian. There he found interest in politics, political Islam, and anti-Communism which often put him and his pious peers at odds with communist-inspired students. According to Soviet intelligence reports on Massoud, in 1974–75, he was trained in guerilla warfare tactics in Lebanon and Egypt where he took part in combat operations and terrorist attacks with armed Palestinian resistance groups such as the PLO.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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1975 rebellion in Panjshir
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1975 rebellion in Panjshir
In 1973, former Prime Minister Mohammed Daoud Khan was brought to power in a coup d'état backed by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, and the Republic of Afghanistan was established. These developments gave rise to an Islamist movement opposed to the increasing communist and Soviet influence over Afghanistan. During that time, while studying at Kabul University, Massoud became involved with the Muslim Youth (Sazman-i Jawanan-i Musulman), the student branch of the Jamiat-e Islami (Islamic Society), whose chairman then was the professor Burhanuddin Rabbani. Kabul University was a center for political debate and activism during that time.
Infuriated by the arrogance of his communist peers and Russian professors, a physical altercation between Massoud and his Russian professor led Massoud to walk out of the university, and shortly after, Kabul. Two days later, Massoud and a number of fellow militant students traveled to Pakistan where, goaded by another trainee of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, Massoud agreed to take part in a coup against Daoud with his forces rising up in the Panjshir and Hekmatyar's elsewhere. In July 1975, Massoud, with help from the Pakistani intelligence, led the first rebellion of Panjshir residents against the government of Daoud Khan. While the uprising in the Panjshir saw initial success, even taking the military garrison in Rokha, the promised support from Kabul never came and the rebellion was suppressed by Daoud Khan's forces sending Massoud back into Pakistan (after a day hiding in Jangalak) where he would attend a secret, paramilitary ISI training center in Cherat. Dissatisfied, Massoud left the center and returned to Peshawar where he committed himself to personal military studies. Massoud read Mao Tse-tung's writings on the Long March, of Che Guevara's career, the memoirs of General de Gaulle, General Võ Nguyên Giáp, Sun Tzu's Art of War, and an unnamed handbook on counterterrorism by an American general which Massoud called "the most instructive of all".
After this failure, a "profound and long-lasting schism" within the Islamist movement began to emerge. The Islamic Society split between supporters of the more moderate forces around Massoud and Rabbani, who led the Jamiat-i Islami, and more radical Islamist elements surrounding Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who founded the Hezb-i Islami. The conflict reached such a point that Hekmatyar reportedly tried to kill Massoud, then 22 years old.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Resistance against communism
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Resistance against communism
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Resistance against the PDPA (1978)
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Resistance against the PDPA (1978)
The government of Mohammed Daoud Khan tried to scale back the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan's influence, dismissing PDPA members from their government posts, appointing conservatives to replace them, and finally dissolved the PDPA, with the arrests of senior party members. On April 27, 1978, the PDPA and military units loyal to it killed Daoud Khan, his immediate family, and bodyguards in a violent coup, and seized control of the capital Kabul declaring the new Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA). The new communist government, led by a revolutionary council, did not enjoy the support of the masses. It implemented a doctrine hostile to political dissent, whether inside or outside the party. The PDPA started reforms along Marxist–Leninist and Soviet lines. The reforms and the PDPA's affinity to the Soviet Union were met with strong resistance by the population, especially as the government attempted to enforce its Marxist policies by arresting or executing those who resisted. Between 50,000 and 100,000 people were estimated to have been arrested and killed by communist troops in the countryside alone. Due to the repression, large parts of the country, especially the rural areas, organized into open revolt against the PDPA government. By spring 1979, unrest had reached 24 out of 28 Afghan provinces, including major urban areas. Over half of the Afghan army either deserted or joined the insurrection.
With religious elders declaring a jihad against the government, in May 1979 Massoud prepared in Peshawar to oppose the new communist government in Panjshir. Along with twenty-four of his friends, Massoud took a bus to Bajaur and, with arms-smuggling Pashtun tribesmen, marched on foot into the Panjshir Valley. Massoud's group seized control over a number of government outposts in the Valley, entered the Shomali Plain to capture Gulbahar, and cut off the Salang Highway, the main supply route between Kabul and the Soviet border raising alarm in both Kabul and Moscow which brought upon Massoud and his group a government counterattack.
Believing that an uprising against the Soviet-backed communists would be supported by the people, Massoud, on July 6, 1979, started an insurrection in the Panjshir, which initially failed. Massoud decided to avoid conventional confrontation with the larger government forces and to wage a guerrilla war. He subsequently took full control of Panjshir, pushing out Afghan communist troops. Oliver Roy writes that in the following period, Massoud's "personal prestige and the efficiency of his military organization persuaded many local commanders to come and learn from him."
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Resistance against the Soviet Union (1979–1989)
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Resistance against the Soviet Union (1979–1989)
thumb|Major resistance forces against the Soviets 1985; Army-green depicts locations of Jamiat-i Islami. Shura-e Nazar (Massoud's alliance) comprised many Jamiat positions but also those of other groups.
Following the 1979 Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, Massoud devised a strategic plan for expelling the invaders and overthrowing the communist regime. The first task was to establish a popularly based resistance force that had the loyalty of the people. The second phase was "active defense" of the Panjshir stronghold, while carrying out asymmetric warfare. In the third phase, the "strategic offensive", Massoud's forces would gain control of large parts of Northern Afghanistan. The fourth phase was the "general application" of Massoud's principles to the whole country, and the defeat of the Afghan communist government.
Massoud's mujahideen attacked the occupying Soviet forces, ambushing Soviet and Afghan communist convoys travelling through the Salang Pass, and causing fuel shortages in Kabul. The Soviets mounted a series of offensives against the Panjshir. Between 1980 and 1985, these offensives were conducted twice a year. Despite engaging more men and hardware on each occasion, the Soviets were unable to defeat Massoud's forces. In 1982, the Soviets began deploying major combat units in the Panjshir, numbering up to 30,000 men. Massoud pulled his troops back into subsidiary valleys, where they occupied fortified positions. When the Soviet columns advanced onto these positions, they fell into ambushes. When the Soviets withdrew, Afghan army garrisons took over their positions. Massoud and his mujahideen forces attacked and recaptured them one by one.Roy, p. 199.
In 1983, the Soviets offered Massoud a temporary truce, which he accepted in order to rebuild his own forces and give the civilian population a break from Soviet attacks. He put the respite to good use. In this time he created the Shura-e Nazar (Supervisory Council), which subsequently united 130 commanders from 12 Afghan provinces in their fight against the Soviet army. This council existed outside the Peshawar parties, which were prone to internecine rivalry and bickering, and served to smooth out differences between resistance groups, due to political and ethnic divisions. It was the predecessor of what could have become a unified Islamic Afghan army.Barry, Michael (2002). Massoud, de l'islamisme à la liberté, p. 216. Paris: Audibert.
Relations with the party headquarters in Peshawar were often strained, as Rabbani insisted on giving Massoud no more weapons and supplies than to other Jamiat commanders, even those who did little fighting. To compensate for this deficiency, Massoud relied on revenues drawn from exports of emeralds and lapis lazuli, that are traditionally exploited in Northern Afghanistan.
Regarding infighting among different mujahideen factions, following a Soviet truce, Massoud said in an interview:
Britain's MI6 having activated long-established networks of contacts in Pakistan were able to support Massoud, and soon became their key ally. MI6 sent an annual mission of two of their officers as well as military instructors to Massoud and his fighters. They also gave supplies to Massoud which included sniper rifles with silencers and mortars. As well as training Massoud's junior commanders, MI6 team's most important contribution was help with organisation and communication via radio equipment which was highly useful for Massoud to coordinate his forces and be warned of any impending Soviet attacks. The United States provided him with comparatively less support than other factions. Part of the reason was that it permitted its funding and arms distribution to be administered by Pakistan, which favored the rival mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In an interview, Massoud said, "We thought the CIA knew everything. But they didn't. They supported some bad people [meaning Hekmatyar]." Primary advocates for supporting Massoud were the US State Department's Edmund McWilliams and Peter Tomsen, who were on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Others included two Heritage Foundation foreign policy analysts, Michael Johns and James A. Phillips, both of whom championed Massoud as the Afghan resistance leader most worthy of U.S. support under the Reagan Doctrine.Phillips, James A. (May 18, 1992). , Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #181.Johns, Michael (January 19, 2008). "Charlie Wilson's War Was Really America's War". Thousands of foreign Islamic volunteers entered Afghanistan to fight with the mujahideen against the Soviet troops.
To organize support for the mujahideen, Massoud established an administrative system that enforced law and order (nazm) in areas under his control. The Panjshir was divided into 22 bases (qarargah) governed by a military commander and a civilian administrator, and each had a judge, a prosecutor and a public defender.Davies, L. Will; Shariat, Abdullah (2004). Fighting Masoud's War, Melbourne: Lothian, p. 200. Massoud's policies were implemented by different committees: an economic committee was charged with funding the war effort. The health committee provided health services, assisted by volunteers from foreign humanitarian non-governmental organizations, such as Aide médicale internationale. An education committee was charged with the training of the military and administrative cadre. A culture committee and a judiciary committee were also created.Barry, p. 194.
This expansion prompted Babrak Karmal to demand that the Red Army resume their offensives, in order to crush the Panjshir groups. Massoud received warning of the attack through Britain's GCHQ intelligence and he evacuated all 130,000 inhabitants from the valley into the Hindukush mountains, leaving the Soviet bombings to fall on empty ground and the Soviet battalions to face the mountains.Roy, p. 201.
With the defeat of the Soviet-Afghan attacks, Massoud carried out the next phase of his strategic plan, expanding the resistance movement and liberating the northern provinces of Afghanistan. In August 1986, he captured Farkhar in Takhar Province. In November 1986, his forces overran the headquarters of the government's 20th division at Nahrin in Baghlan Province, scoring an important victory for the resistance.Roy, p. 213. This expansion was also carried out through diplomatic means, as more mujahideen commanders were persuaded to adopt the Panjshir military system.
Despite almost constant attacks by the Red Army and the Afghan army, Massoud increased his military strength. Starting in 1980 with a force of less than 1,000 ill-equipped guerrillas, the Panjshir valley mujahideen grew to a 5,000-strong force by 1984. After expanding his influence outside the valley, Massoud increased his resistance forces to 13,000 fighters by 1989.Isby, p. 98. The junior commanders were trained by Britain's SAS as well as private military contractors, some being sent as far as Oman and even SAS training grounds in the Scottish Highlands. These forces were divided into different types of units: the locals (mahalli) were tasked with static defense of villages and fortified positions. The best of the mahalli were formed into units called grup-i zarbati (shock troops), semi-mobile groups that acted as reserve forces for the defense of several strongholds. A different type of unit was the mobile group (grup-i-mutaharek), a lightly equipped commando-like formation numbering 33 men, whose mission was to carry out hit-and-run attacks outside the Panjshir, sometimes as far as 100 km from their base. These men were professional soldiers, well-paid and trained, and, from 1983 on, they provided an effective strike force against government outposts. Uniquely among the mujahideen, these groups wore uniforms, and their use of the pakul made this headwear emblematic of the Afghan resistance.
Massoud's military organization was an effective compromise between the traditional Afghan method of warfare and the modern principles of guerrilla warfare which he had learned from the works of Mao Zedong and Che Guevara. His forces were considered the most effective of all the various Afghan resistance movements.Roy, p. 202.
The Soviet army and the Afghan communist army were mainly defeated by Massoud and his mujahideen in numerous small engagements between 1984 and 1988. After describing the Soviet Union's military engagement in Afghanistan as "a bleeding wound" in 1986, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev began a withdrawal of Soviet troops from the nation in May 1988. On February 15, 1989, in what was depicted as an improbable victory for the mujahideen, the last Soviet soldier left the nation.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Fall of the Afghan communist regime (1992)
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Fall of the Afghan communist regime (1992)
After the departure of Soviet troops in 1989, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan regime, then headed by Mohammad Najibullah, held its own against the mujahideen. Backed by a massive influx of weapons from the Soviet Union, the Afghan armed forces reached a level of performance they had never reached under direct Soviet tutelage. They maintained control over all of Afghanistan's major cities. During late 1990, helped by hundreds of mujahideen forces, Massoud targeted the Tajik Supreme Soviet, trying to oust communism from the neighboring Tajikistan to further destabilize the dying Soviet Union, which would also impact the Afghan government.Mark Curtis, Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam, Serpent's Tail (2010), p. 194 At that time, as per Asad Durrani, the director-general of the ISI during this period, Massoud's base camp was in Garam Chashma, in Pakistan.Asad Durrani, Pakistan Adrift: Navigating Troubled Waters, Hurst (2018), p. 169 By 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Afghan regime eventually began to crumble. Food and fuel shortages undermined the capacities of the government's army, and a resurgence of factionalism split the regime between Khalq and Parcham supporters.
A few days after Najibullah had lost control of the nation, his army commanders and governors arranged to turn over authority to resistance commanders and local warlords throughout the country. Joint councils (shuras) were immediately established for local government, in which civil and military officials of the former government were usually included. In many cases, prior arrangements for transferring regional and local authority had been made between foes.
Collusions between military leaders quickly brought down the Kabul government. In mid-January 1992, within three weeks of the demise of the Soviet Union, Massoud was aware of conflict within the government's northern command. General Abdul Momim, in charge of the Hairatan border crossing at the northern end of Kabul's supply highway, and other non-Pashtun generals based in Mazar-i-Sharif, feared removal by Najibullah and replacement by Pashtun officers. When the generals rebelled, Abdul Rashid Dostum, who held general rank as head of the Jowzjani militia, also based in Mazar-i-Sharif, took over.
He and Massoud reached a political agreement, together with another major militia leader, Sayyed Mansour, of the Ismaili community based in Baghlan Province. These northern allies consolidated their position in Mazar-i-Sharif on March 21. Their coalition covered nine provinces in the north and northeast. As turmoil developed within the government in Kabul, no government force stood between the northern allies and the major air force base at Bagram, some seventy kilometers north of Kabul. By mid-April 1992, the Afghan air force command at Bagram had capitulated to Massoud. On March 18, 1992, Najibullah decided to resign. On April 17, as his government fell, he tried to escape but was stopped at Kabul Airport by Dostum's forces. He took refuge at the United Nations mission, where he remained unharmed until 1996, while Massoud controlled the area surrounding the mission.
Senior communist generals and officials of the Najibullah administration acted as a transitional authority to transfer power to Ahmad Shah Massoud's alliance. The Kabul interim authority invited Massoud to enter Kabul as the new Head of State, but he held back. Massoud ordered his forces, positioned to the north of Kabul, not to enter the capital until a political solution was in place. He called on all the senior Afghan party leaders, many then based in exile in Peshawar, to work out a political settlement acceptable to all sides and parties.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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War in Afghanistan (1992–2001)
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War in Afghanistan (1992–2001)
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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War in Kabul and other parts of the country (1992–1996)
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War in Kabul and other parts of the country (1992–1996)
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Peace and power-sharing agreement (1992)
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Peace and power-sharing agreement (1992)
With United Nations support, most Afghan political parties decided to appoint a legitimate national government to succeed communist rule, through an elite settlement. While the external Afghan party leaders were residing in Peshawar, the military situation around Kabul involving the internal commanders was tense. A 1991 UN peace process brought about some negotiations, but the attempted elite settlement did not develop. In April 1992, resistance leaders in Peshawar tried to negotiate a settlement. Massoud supported the Peshawar process of establishing a broad coalition government inclusive of all resistance parties, but Hekmatyar sought to become the sole ruler of Afghanistan, stating, "In our country coalition government is impossible because, this way or another, it is going to be weak and incapable of stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan."
Massoud wrote:
All the parties had participated in the war, in jihad in Afghanistan, so they had to have their share in the government, and in the formation of the government. Afghanistan is made up of different nationalities. We were worried about a national conflict between different tribes and different nationalities. In order to give everybody their own rights and also to avoid bloodshed in Kabul, we left the word to the parties so they should decide about the country as a whole. We talked about it for a temporary stage and then after that the ground should be prepared for a general election.
A recorded radio communication between the two leaders showed the divide as Massoud asked Hekmatyar:
The Kabul regime is ready to surrender, so instead of the fighting we should gather. ... The leaders are meeting in Peshawar. ... The troops should not enter Kabul, they should enter later on as part of the government.
Hekmatyar's response:
We will march into Kabul with our naked sword. No one can stop us. ... Why should we meet the leaders?"
Massoud answered:
"It seems to me that you don't want to join the leaders in Peshawar nor stop your threat, and you are planning to enter Kabul ... in that case I must defend the people.
At that point Osama bin Laden, trying to mediate, urged Hekmatyar to "go back with your brothers" and to accept a compromise. Bin Laden reportedly "hated Ahmad Shah Massoud". Bin Laden was involved in ideological and personal disputes with Massoud and had sided with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar against Massoud in the inner-Afghan conflict since the late 1980s. But Hekmatyar refused to accept a compromise, confident that he would be able to gain sole power in Afghanistan.
On April 24, 1992, the leaders in Peshawar agreed on and signed the Peshawar Accord, establishing the post-communist Islamic State of Afghanistan – which was a stillborn 'state' with a paralyzed 'government' right from its inception, until its final succumbing in September 1996.'The Peshawar Accord, April 25, 1992'. Website photius.com. Text from 1997, purportedly sourced on The Library of Congress Country Studies (US) and CIA World Factbook. Retrieved December 22, 2017. The creation of the Islamic State was welcomed though by the General Assembly of the United Nations and the Islamic State of Afghanistan was recognized as the legitimate entity representing Afghanistan until June 2002, when its successor, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, was established under the interim government of Hamid Karzai. Under the 1992 Peshawar Accord, the Defense Ministry was given to Massoud while the Prime Ministership was given to Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar refused to sign. With the exception of Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami, all of the other Peshawar resistance parties were unified under this peace and power-sharing accord in April 1992.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Escalating war over Kabul (1992)
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Escalating war over Kabul (1992)
Although repeatedly offered the position of prime minister, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar refused to recognize the peace and power-sharing agreement. His Hezb-e Islami militia initiated a massive bombardment campaign against the Islamic State and the capital city Kabul. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar received operational, financial and military support from neighboring Pakistan. The Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University, Amin Saikal, writes in Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival that without Pakistan's support, Hekmatyar "would not have been able to target and destroy half of Kabul." Saikal states that Pakistan wanted to install a favorable regime under Hekmatyar in Kabul so that it could use Afghan territory for access to Central Asia.
Hekmatyar's rocket bombardments and the parallel escalation of violent conflict between two militias, Ittihad and Wahdat, which had entered some suburbs of Kabul, led to a breakdown in law and order. Shia Iran and Sunni Wahabbi Saudi Arabia, as competitors for regional hegemony, encouraged conflict between the Ittihad and Wahdat factions. On the one side was the Shia Hazara Hezb-i Wahdat of Abdul Ali Mazari and on the other side, the Sunni Pashtun Ittihad-i Islami of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf.
According to Human Rights Watch, Iran was strongly supporting the Hezb-i Wahdat forces, with Iranian intelligence officials providing direct orders, while Saudi Arabia supported Sayyaf and his Ittihad-i Islami faction to maximize Wahhabi influence. Kabul descended into lawlessness and chaos, as described in reports by Human Rights Watch and the Afghanistan Justice Project. Massoud's Jamiat commanders, the interim government, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) repeatedly tried to negotiate ceasefires, which broke down in only a few days. Another militia, the Junbish-i Milli of former communist general Abdul Rashid Dostum, was backed by Uzbekistan. Uzbek president Islam Karimov was keen to see Dostum controlling as much of Afghanistan as possible, especially in the north. Dostum repeatedly changed allegiances.
The Afghanistan Justice Project (AJP) says, that "while [Hekmatyar's anti-government] Hizb-i Islami is frequently named as foremost among the factions responsible for the deaths and destruction in the bombardment of Kabul, it was not the only perpetrator of these violations." According to the AJP, "the scale of the bombardment and kinds of weapons used represented disproportionate use of force" in a capital city with primarily residential areas by all the factions involved – including the government forces. Crimes were committed by individuals within the different armed factions. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar released 10,000 dangerous criminals from the main prisons into the streets of Kabul to destabilize the city and cut off Kabul from water, food and energy supplies. The Iran-controlled Wahdat of Abdul Ali Mazari, as well as the Ittihad of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf supported by Saudi Arabia, targeted civilians of the 'opposite side' in systematic atrocities. Abdul Rashid Dostum allowed crimes as a perceived payment for his troops.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Afshar operation (February 1993)
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Afshar operation (February 1993)
"The major criticism of Massoud's human rights record" is the escalation of the Afshar military operation in 1993. A report by the Afghanistan Justice Project describes Massoud as failing to prevent atrocities carried out by his forces and those of their factional ally, Ittihad-i Islami, against civilians on taking the suburb of Afshar during a military operation against an anti-state militia allied to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. They shelled residential areas in the capital city in February 1993. Critics said that Massoud should have foreseen these problems. A meeting convened by Massoud on the next day ordered a halt to killing and looting, but it failed to stop abuses. Human Rights Watch, in a report based largely on the material collected by the Afghanistan Justice Project, concurs that Massoud's Jamiat forces bear a share of the responsibility for human rights abuses throughout the war, including the indiscriminate targeting of civilians in Afshar, and that Massoud was personally implicated in some of these abuses. Roy Gutman has argued that the witness reports about Afshar cited in the AJP report implicated only the Ittihad forces, and that these had not been under Massoud's direct command.Gutman, Roy (2008): How We Missed the Story: Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban and the Hijacking of Afghanistan, Endowment of the United States Institute of Peace, 1st ed., Washington D.C., p. 222
Anthony Davis, who studied and observed Massoud's forces from 1981 to 2001, reported that during the observed period, there was "no pattern of repeated killings of enemy civilians or military prisoners" by Massoud's forces. Edward Girardet, who covered Afghanistan for over three decades, was also in Kabul during the war. He states that while Massoud was able to control most of his commanders well during the anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban resistance, he was not able to control every commander in Kabul. According to this and similar testimonies, this was due to a breakdown of law and order in Kabul and a war on multiple fronts, which they say, Massoud personally had done all in his power to prevent:
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Further war over Kabul (March–December 1993)
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Further war over Kabul (March–December 1993)
In 1993, Massoud created the Cooperative Mohammad Ghazali Culture Foundation (Bonyad-e Farhangi wa Ta'wani Mohammad-e Ghazali) to further humanitarian assistance and politically independent Afghan culture. The Ghazali Foundation provided free medical services during some days of the week to residents of Kabul who were unable to pay for medical treatment. The Ghazali Foundation's department for distribution of auxiliary goods was the first partner of the Red Cross. The Ghazali Foundation's department of family consultation was a free advisory board, which was accessible seven days a week for the indigent. Although Massoud was responsible for the financing of the foundation, he did not interfere with its cultural work. A council led the foundation and a jury, consisting of impartial university lecturers, decided on the works of artists. The Ghazali foundation enabled Afghan artists to exhibit their works at different places in Kabul, and numerous artists and authors were honoured for their works; some of them neither proponents of Massoud nor the Islamic State government.
In March 1993, Massoud resigned his government position in exchange for peace, as requested by Hekmatyar, who considered him as a personal rival. According to the Islamabad Accord, Burhanuddin Rabbani, belonging to the same party as Massoud, remained president, while Gulbuddin Hekmatyar took the long-offered position of prime minister. Two days after the Islamabad Accord went into effect, his allies in Hezb-e Wahdat renewed rocket attacks in Kabul.
Both the Wahhabi Pashtun Ittehad-i Islami of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf backed by Saudi Arabia and the Shia Hazara Hezb-e Wahdat supported by Iran remained involved in heavy fighting against each other. Hekmatyar was afraid to enter Kabul proper, and chaired only one cabinet meeting. The author Roy Gutman of the United States Institute of Peace wrote in How We Missed the Story: Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and the Hijacking of Afghanistan:
Hekmatyar had become prime minister ... But after chairing one cabinet meeting, Hekmatyar never returned to the capital, fearing, perhaps, a lynching by Kabulis infuriated over his role in destroying their city. Even his close aides were embarrassed. Hekmatyar spokesman Qutbuddin Helal was still setting up shop in the prime minister's palace when the city came under Hezb[-i Islami] rocket fire late that month. "We are here in Kabul and he is rocketing us. Now we have to leave. We can't do anything," he told Massoud aides.
Hekmatyar, who was generally opposed to coalition government and struggled for undisputed power, had conflicts with other parties over the selection of cabinet members. His forces started major attacks against Kabul for one month. The President, Burhanuddin Rabbani, was attacked when he attempted to meet Hekmatyar. Massoud resumed his responsibilities as minister of defense.
In May 1993, a new effort was made to reinstate the Islamabad Accord. In August, Massoud reached out to Hekmatyar in an attempt to broaden the government. By the end of 1993, Hekmatyar and the former communist general and militia leader, Abdul Rashid Dostum, were involved in secret negotiations encouraged by Pakistan's secret Inter-Services Intelligence, Iran's intelligence service, and Uzbekistan's Karimov administration. They planned a coup to oust the Rabbani administration and to attack Massoud in his northern areas.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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War in Kabul, Taliban arise in the south (1994)
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War in Kabul, Taliban arise in the south (1994)
In January 1994, Hekmatyar and Dostum mounted a bombardment campaign against the capital and attacked Massoud's core areas in the northeast. Amin Saikal writes, Hekmatyar had the following objectives in all his operations:
The first was to make sure that Rabbani and Massoud were not allowed to consolidate power, build a credible administration, or expand their territorial control, so that the country would remain divided into small fiefdoms, run by various Muajhideen leaders and local warlords or a council of such elements, with only some of them allied to Kabul. The second was to ensure the Rabbani government acquired no capacity to dispense patronage, and to dissuade the Kabul population from giving more than limited support to the government. The third was to make Kabul an unsafe city for representatives of the international community and to prevent the Rabbani government from attracting the international support needed to begin the post-war reconstruction of Afghanistan and generate a level of economic activity which would enhance its credibility and popularity.
By mid-1994, Hekmatyar and Dostum were on the defensive in Kabul against Islamic State forces led by Massoud. Southern Afghanistan had been neither under the control of foreign-backed militias nor of the government in Kabul, but was ruled by local Pashtun leaders, such as Gul Agha Sherzai, and their militias. In 1994, the Taliban (a movement originating from Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-run religious schools for Afghan refugees in Pakistan) also developed in Afghanistan as a politico-religious force, reportedly in opposition to the tyranny of the local governor.Matinuddin, Kamal, The Taliban Phenomenon, Afghanistan 1994–1997, Oxford University Press, (1999), pp. 25–26 When the Taliban took control of Kandahar in 1994, they forced the surrender of dozens of local Pashtun leaders who had presided over a situation of complete lawlessness and atrocities. In 1994, the Taliban took power in several provinces in southern and central Afghanistan.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Taliban siege of Kabul (1995–1996)
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Taliban siege of Kabul (1995–1996)
Hizb-i Islami had bombarded Kabul from January 1994 until February 1995 when the Taliban expelled Hizb from its Charasiab headquarters, after which the Taliban relaunched the bombardment of Kabul and started to besiege the town.'Casting Shadows: War crimes and Crimes against Humanity: 1978–2001'. Afghanistan Justice Project. 2005. o. 71.
By early 1995, Massoud initiated a nationwide political process with the goal of national consolidation and democratic elections. He arranged a conference in three parts uniting political and cultural personalities, governors, commanders, clergymen and representatives, in order to reach a lasting agreement. Massoud's favourite for candidacy to the presidency was Dr. Mohammad Yusuf, the first democratic prime minister under Zahir Shah, the former king. In the first meeting representatives from 15 different Afghan provinces met, in the second meeting there were already 25 provinces participating.
Massoud also invited the Taliban to join the peace process wanting them to be a partner in providing stability to Afghanistan during such a process. But the Taliban, which had emerged over the course of 1994 in southern Afghanistan, were already at the doors of the capital city. Against the advice of his security personnel, Massoud went to talk to some Taliban leaders in Maidan Shar, Taliban territory. The Taliban declined to join the peace process leading toward general elections. When Massoud returned to Kabul unharmed, the Taliban leader who had received him as his guest paid with his life: he was killed by other senior Taliban for failing to assassinate Massoud while the possibility had presented itself. The Taliban, placing Kabul under a two-year siege and bombardment campaign from early 1995 onward, in later years committed massacres against civilians, compared by United Nations observers to those that happened during the War in Bosnia.
Neighboring Pakistan exerted strong influence over the Taliban. A publication with the George Washington University describes: "Initially, the Pakistanis supported ... Gulbuddin Hekmatyar ... When Hekmatyar failed to deliver for Pakistan, the administration began to support a new movement of religious students known as the Taliban." Many analysts like Amin Saikal describe the Taliban as developing into a proxy force for Pakistan's regional interests. The Taliban started shelling Kabul in early 1995 but were defeated by forces of the Islamic State government under Ahmad Shah Massoud. Amnesty International, referring to the Taliban offensive, wrote in a 1995 report:
The Taliban's early victories in 1994 were followed by a series of defeats that resulted in heavy losses. The Taliban's first major offensive against the important western city of Herat, under the rule of Islamic state ally Ismail Khan, in February 1995 was defeated when Massoud airlifted 2,000 of his own core forces from Kabul to help defend Herat. Ahmed Rashid writes: "The Taliban had now been decisively pushed back on two fronts by the government and their political and military leadership was in disarray. Their image as potential peacemakers was badly dented, for in the eyes of many Afghans they had become nothing more than just another warlord party." International observers already speculated that the Taliban as a country-wide organization might have "run its course".
Mullah Omar consolidated his control of the Taliban and with foreign help rebuilt and re-equipped his forces. Pakistan increased its support to the Taliban. Its military advisers oversaw the restructuring of Taliban forces. The country provided armored pick-up trucks and other military equipment. Saudi Arabia provided the funding. Furthermore, there was a massive influx of 25,000 new Taliban fighters, many of them recruited in Pakistan. This enabled the Taliban to capture Herat to the west of Kabul in a surprise attack against the forces of Ismail Khan in September 1995. A nearly one-year siege and bombardment campaign against Kabul was again defeated by Massoud's forces.
Massoud and Rabbani meanwhile kept working on an internal Afghan peace process – successfully. By February 1996, all of Afghanistan's armed factions – except for the Taliban – had agreed to take part in the peace process and to set up a peace council to elect a new interim president. Many Pashtun areas under Taliban control had representatives also advocating for a peace agreement with the Islamic State government. But Taliban leader Mullah Omar and the Kandaharis surrounding him wanted to expand the war. At that point the Taliban leadership and their foreign supporters decided they needed to act quickly before the government could consolidate the new understanding between the parties. The Taliban moved against Jalalabad, under the control of the Pashtun Jalalabad Shura, to the east of Kabul. Part of the Jalalabad Shura was bribed with millions of dollars by the Taliban's foreign sponsors, especially Saudi Arabia, to vacate their positions. The Taliban's battle for Jalalabad was directed by Pakistani military advisers. Hundreds of Taliban crossed the Afghan-Pakistani border moving on Jalalabad from Pakistan and thereby suddenly placed to the east of Kabul. This left the capital city Kabul "wide open" to many sides as Ismail Khan had been defeated to the west, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had vacated his positions to the south and the fall and surrender of Jalalabad had suddenly opened a new front to the east.
At that point Massoud decided to conduct a strategic retreat through a northern corridor, according to Ahmed Rashid, "knowing he could not defend [Kabul] from attacks coming from all four points of the compass. Nor did he want to lose the support of Kabul's population by fighting for the city and causing more bloodshed." On September 26, 1996, as the Taliban with military support by Pakistan and financial support by Saudi Arabia prepared for another major offensive, Massoud ordered a full retreat from Kabul.Coll, Ghost Wars (New York: Penguin, 2005), 14. The Taliban marched into Kabul on September 27, 1996, and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Massoud and his troops retreated to the northeast of Afghanistan which became the base for the still internationally recognized Islamic State of Afghanistan.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Resistance against the Taliban (1996–2001)
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Resistance against the Taliban (1996–2001)
thumb|Map of the situation in Afghanistan in late 1996; Massoud (red), Dostum (green), Taliban (yellow)
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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United Front against the Taliban
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United Front against the Taliban
Ahmad Shah Massoud created the United Front (Northern Alliance) against the Taliban advance. The United Front included forces and leaders from different political backgrounds as well as from all ethnicities of Afghanistan. From the Taliban conquest in 1996 until November 2001, the United Front controlled territory in which roughly 30% of Afghanistan's population was living, in provinces such as Badakhshan, Kapisa, Takhar and parts of Parwan, Kunar, Nuristan, Laghman, Samangan, Kunduz, Ghōr and Bamyan.
Meanwhile, the Taliban imposed their repressive regime in the parts of Afghanistan under their control. Hundreds of thousands of people fled to Northern Alliance territory, Pakistan and Iran. Massoud's soldiers held some 1,200 Taliban prisoners in the Panjshir Valley, 122 of them foreign Muslims who had come to Afghanistan to fight a jihad. In 1998, after the defeat of Abdul Rashid Dostum's faction in Mazar-i-Sharif, Ahmad Shah Massoud remained the only main leader of the United Front in Afghanistan and the only leader who was able to defend vast parts of his area against the Taliban. Most major leaders including the Islamic State's President Burhanuddin Rabbani, Abdul Rashid Dostum, and others, were living in exile. During this time, commentators remarked that "The only thing standing in the way of future Taliban massacres is Ahmad Shah Massoud."
thumb|left|Map of the situation in Afghanistan August 2001 – October 2001
Massoud stated that the Taliban repeatedly offered him a position of power to make him stop his resistance. He declined, declaring the differences between their ideology and his own pro-democratic outlook on society to be insurmountable.
Massoud wanted to convince the Taliban to join a political process leading toward democratic elections in a foreseeable future. He also predicted that without assistance from Pakistan and external extremist groups, the Taliban would lose their hold on power.
In early 2001, the United Front employed a new strategy of local military pressure and global political appeals. Resentment was increasingly gathering against Taliban rule from the bottom of Afghan society including the Pashtun areas. At the same time, Massoud was very wary not to revive the failed Kabul government of the early 1990s. Already in 1999 the United Front leadership ordered the training of police forces specifically to keep order and protect the civilian population in case the United Front would be successful.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Cross-factional negotiations
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Cross-factional negotiations
thumb|Ahmad Shah Massoud (right) with Pashtun anti-Taliban leader Abdul Qadir (left) in November 2000
From 1999 onward, a renewed process was set into motion by the Tajik Ahmad Shah Massoud and the Pashtun Abdul Haq to unite all the ethnicities of Afghanistan. Massoud united the Tajiks, Hazara and Uzbeks as well as several Pashtun commanders under his United Front. Besides meeting with Pashtun tribal leaders and acting as a point of reference, Abdul Haq received increasing numbers of Pashtun Taliban themselves who were secretly approaching him. Some commanders who had worked for the Taliban military apparatus agreed to the plan to topple the Taliban regime as the Taliban lost support even among the Pashtuns. Senior diplomat and Afghanistan expert Peter Tomsen wrote that "[t]he 'Lion of Kabul' [Abdul Haq] and the 'Lion of Panjshir' [Ahmad Shah Massoud] would make a formidable anti-Taliban team if they combined forces. Haq, Massoud, and Karzai, Afghanistan's three leading moderates, could transcend the Pashtun – non-Pashtun, north-south divide." Steve Coll referred to this plan as a "grand Pashtun-Tajik alliance". The senior Hazara and Uzbek leaders took part in the process just like later Afghan president Hamid Karzai. They agreed to work under the banner of the exiled Afghan king Zahir Shah in Rome.
In November 2000, leaders from all ethnic groups were brought together in Massoud's headquarters in northern Afghanistan, travelling from other parts of Afghanistan, Europe, the United States, Pakistan and India to discuss a Loya Jirga for a settlement of Afghanistan's problems and to discuss the establishment of a post-Taliban government. In September 2001, an international official who met with representatives of the alliance remarked, "It's crazy that you have this today ... Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazara ... They were all ready to buy in to the process".
In early 2001, Ahmad Shah Massoud with leaders from all ethnicities of Afghanistan addressed the European Parliament in Brussels, asking the international community to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan. He stated that the Taliban and al-Qaeda had introduced "a very wrong perception of Islam" and that without the support of Pakistan and Bin Laden the Taliban would not be able to sustain their military campaign for up to a year. On that visit to Europe, he also warned the U.S. about Bin Laden.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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The areas of Massoud
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The areas of Massoud
Life in the areas under direct control of Massoud was different from the life in the areas under Taliban or Dostum's control. In contrast to the time of chaos in which all structures had collapsed in Kabul, Massoud was able to control most of the troops under his direct command well during the period starting in late 1996. Massoud always controlled the Panjshir, Takhar, parts of Parwan and Badakhshan during the war. Some other provinces (notably Kunduz, Baghlan, Nuristan and the north of Kabul) were captured by his forces from the Taliban and lost again from time to time as the frontlines varied.
Massoud created democratic institutions which were structured into several committees: political, health, education and economic. Still, many people came to him personally when they had a dispute or problem and asked him to solve their problems.
In September 2000, Massoud signed the Declaration of the Essential Rights of Afghan Women drafted by Afghan women. The declaration established gender equality in front of the law and the right of women to political participation, education, work, freedom of movement and speech. In the areas of Massoud, women and girls did not have to wear the Afghan burqa by law. They were allowed to work and to go to school. Although it was a time of war, girls' schools were operating in some districts. In at least two known instances, Massoud personally intervened against cases of forced marriage in favour of the women to make their own choice.
While it was Massoud's stated personal conviction that men and women are equal and should enjoy the same rights, he also had to deal with Afghan traditions which he said would need a generation or more to overcome. In his opinion, that could only be achieved through education. Author Pepe Escobar wrote in Asia Times:
Humayun Tandar, who took part as an Afghan diplomat in the 2001 International Conference on Afghanistan in Bonn, said that "strictures of language, ethnicity, region were [also] stifling for Massoud. That is why ... he wanted to create a unity which could surpass the situation in which we found ourselves and still find ourselves to this day." This applied also to strictures of religion. Jean-José Puig describes how Massoud often led prayers before a meal or at times asked his fellow Muslims to lead the prayer but also did not hesitate to ask the Jewish Princeton Professor Michael Barry or his Christian friend Jean-José Puig: "Jean-José, we believe in the same God. Please, tell us the prayer before lunch or dinner in your own language."
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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International relations
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International relations
U.S. policy regarding Massoud, the Taliban and Afghanistan remained ambiguous and differed between the various U.S. government agencies.
In 1997, U.S. State Department's Robin Raphel suggested to Massoud he should surrender to the Taliban. He soundly rejected the proposal.
At one point in the war, in 1997, two top foreign policy officials in the Clinton administration flew to northern Afghanistan in an attempt to convince Massoud not to take advantage of a strategic opportunity to make crucial gains against the Taliban.
In 1998, a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, Julie Sirrs, visited Massoud's territories privately, having previously been denied official permission to do so by her agency. She reported that Massoud had conveyed warnings about strengthened ties between the Taliban and foreign Islamist terrorists. Returning home, she was sacked from her agency for insubordination, because at that time the U.S. administration had no trust in Massoud.
In the meantime, the only collaboration between Massoud and another U.S. intelligence service, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), consisted of an effort to trace Osama bin Laden following the 1998 embassy bombings.Risen, James. State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, 2006 The U.S. and the European Union provided no support to Massoud for the fight against the Taliban.
A change of policy, lobbied for by CIA officers on the ground who had visited the area of Massoud, regarding support to Massoud, was underway in the course of 2001. According to Steve Coll's book Ghost Wars (who won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction):
U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher also recalled:
[B]etween Bush's inauguration and 9/11, I met with the new national security staff on 3 occasions, including one meeting with Condoleezza Rice to discuss Afghanistan. There were, in fact, signs noted in an overview story in The Washington Post about a month ago that some steps were being made to break away from the previous administration's Afghan policy.
CIA lawyers, working with officers in the Near East Division and Counterterrorist Center, began to draft a formal, legal presidential finding for Bush's signature authorizing a new covert action program in Afghanistan, the first in a decade that sought to influence the course of the Afghan war in favour of Massoud. This change in policy was finalized in August 2001 when it was too late.
After Pakistan had funded, directed and supported the Taliban's rise to power in Afghanistan, Massoud and the United Front received some assistance from India.Peter Pigott: The assistance provided by India was extensive, including uniforms, ordnance, mortars, small armaments, refurbished Kalashnikovs, combat and winter clothes, as well as funds. India was particularly concerned about Pakistan's Taliban strategy and the Islamic militancy in its neighborhood; it provided U.S.$70 million in aid including two Mi-17 helicopters, three additional helicopters in 2000 and US$8 million worth of high-altitude equipment in 2001.Duncan Mcleod: Also In the 1990s, India had run a field hospital at Farkor on the Tajik-Afghan border to treat wounded fighters from the then Northern Alliance that was battling the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
It was at the very same hospital that the Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Masood was pronounced dead after being assassinated just two days before the 9/11 terror strikes in 2001. Furthermore, the alliance supposedly also received minor aid from Tajikistan, Russia and Iran because of their opposition to the Taliban and the Pakistani control over the Taliban's Emirate. Their support remained limited to the most needed things. Meanwhile, Pakistan engaged up to 28,000 Pakistani nationals and regular Pakistani army troops to fight alongside the Taliban and Al Qaeda forces against Massoud.
In April 2001, the president of the European Parliament, Nicole Fontaine (who called Massoud the "pole of liberty in Afghanistan"), invited Massoud with the support of French and Belgian politicians to address the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium. In his speech, he asked for humanitarian aid for the people of Afghanistan. Massoud further went on to warn that his intelligence agents had gained limited knowledge about a large-scale terrorist attack on U.S. soil being imminent.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Assassination
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Assassination
thumb|left|Afghan National Army honouring Massoud's resistance at his tomb and memorial in September 2010
Massoud, then aged 48, was the target of an assassination plot in Khwājah Bahā ud Dīn (Khvājeh Bahāuḏḏīn), Takhar Province in northeastern Afghanistan on September 9, 2001. The attackers' names were alternately given as Dahmane Abd al-Sattar, husband of Malika El Aroud, and Bouraoui el-Ouaer; or 34-year-old Karim Touzani and 26-year-old Kacem Bakkali.Pinto, Maria do Ceu. "Islamist and Middle Eastern Terrorism: A Threat to Europe?". p. 72.
The attackers claimed to be Belgians originally from Morocco. According to Le Monde they transited through the municipality of Molenbeek.Stroobants, Jean-Pierre. "Molenbeek, la plaque tournante belge du terrorisme islamiste", Le Monde, Brussels, November 16, 2015. Retrieved on January 15, 2016. Their passports turned out to be stolen and their nationality was later determined to be Tunisian. Waiting for almost three weeks (during which they also interviewed Burhanuddin Rabbani and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf) for an interview opportunity, on September 8, 2001, an aide to Massoud recalls the would-be suicide attackers "were so worried" and threatened to leave if the interview did not happen in the next 24 hours (until September 10, 2001). They were finally granted an interview. During the interview, they set off a bomb composed of explosives hidden in the camera and in a battery-pack belt. Massoud died in a helicopter that was taking him to an Indian military field hospital at Farkhor in nearby Tajikistan. The explosion also killed Mohammed Asim Suhail, a United Front official, while Mohammad Fahim Dashty and Massoud Khalili were injured. One of the suicide attackers, Bouraoui, was killed by the explosion, while Dahmane Abd al-Sattar was captured and shot while trying to escape.
Despite initial denials by the United Front, news of Massoud's death was reported almost immediately, appearing on the BBC, and in European and North American newspapers on September 10, 2001. On September 16, the United Front officially announced that Massoud had died of injuries in the suicide attack. Massoud was buried in his home village of Bazarak in the Panjshir Valley. The funeral, although in a remote rural area, was attended by hundreds of thousands of people.
Massoud had survived assassination attempts over a period of 26 years, including attempts made by al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the Pakistani ISI and before them the Soviet KGB, the Afghan communist KHAD and Hekmatyar. The first attempt on Massoud's life was carried out by Hekmatyar and two Pakistani ISI agents in 1975 when Massoud was 22 years old. In early 2001, al-Qaeda would-be assassins were captured by Massoud's forces while trying to enter his territory.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Connection to September 11, 2001
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Connection to September 11, 2001
The assassination of Massoud is considered to have a strong connection to the September 11 attacks in 2001 on U.S. soil, which killed nearly 3,000 people. It appeared to have been the major terrorist attack which Massoud had warned against in his speech to the European Parliament several months earlier. Al-Qaeda's motive for the assassination is believed to have been to secure the Taliban's support of Osama bin Laden after the planned attacks. By eliminating Massoud, it was expected that the remaining anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan would collapse, allowing the Taliban to solidify their control over the country. Bin Laden thought that this, in turn, would make the Taliban indebted to him, and he believed their support would be crucial for his planned war against the United States.
In late 2001, a computer was seized that was stolen from an office used by al-Qaeda immediately after the fall of Kabul in November. This computer was mainly used by Aiman al-Zawahri and contained the letter with the interview request for Massoud. The two assassins had completed military training in training camps in Afghanistan at the end of 2000 and were selected for the suicide mission in the spring or early summer of the following year. The Afghan publicist Waheed Muzhda, who worked for the Taliban in the Foreign Ministry, confirmed the two assassins met with al-Qaeda officials in Kandahar and bin Laden and al-Zawahri saw them off when they left. Following the assassination, bin Laden had an emissary deliver Dahmane Abd al-Sattar's widow a letter with $500 in an envelope to settle a debt. An al-Qaeda magazine in Saudi Arabia later published a biography of Youssef al-Aayyiri, who headed al-Qaeda's operations in Saudi Arabia from 2002, which described al-Qaeda's involvement in Massoud's assassination. Osama bin Laden commissioned the assassination attempt to appease the Taliban because of the imminent terrorist attacks in the US, which would cause serious problems for the Taliban.
The Taliban denied any involvement in Massoud's assassination, and it is very unlikely that they were privy to the assassination plans. There were a few minor attacks by the Taliban after the attack, but no major offensive.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Investigative commission
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Investigative commission
In April 2003, the Karzai administration created a commission to investigate the assassination of Massoud. In 2003, French investigators and the FBI were able to trace the provenance of the camera used in the assassination, which had been stolen in France some time earlier.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Legacy
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Legacy
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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National Hero of Afghanistan
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National Hero of Afghanistan
thumb|Massoud's tomb in Panjshir, 2011.
thumb|The Massoud Circle in Kabul, 2006
Massoud was the only chief Afghan leader who never left Afghanistan in the fight against the Soviet Union and later in the fight against the Taliban Emirate. In the areas under his direct control, such as Panjshir, some parts of Parwan and Takhar, Massoud established democratic institutions. One refugee who cramped his family of 27 into an old jeep to flee from the Taliban to the area of Massoud described Massoud's territory in 1997 as "the last tolerant corner of Afghanistan".
In 2001, the Afghan interim government under president Hamid Karzai officially awarded Massoud the title of "Hero of the Afghan Nation". One analyst in 2004 said:
One man holds a greater political punch than all 18 living [Afghan] presidential candidates combined. Though already dead for three years.... Since his death on September 9, 2001 at the hands of two al Qaeda-linked Islamic radicals, Massoud has been transformed from mujahedin to national heroif not saint. Pictures of Massoud, the Afghan mujahedin who battled the Soviets, other warlords, and the Taliban for more than 20 years, vastly outnumber those of any other Afghan including those of Karzai.
Today Panjshir, the home of Massoud,
is arguably the most peaceful place in the entire country. A small US military reconstruction team is based here, but there are none of the signs of foreign occupation that exist elsewhere. Even Afghan soldiers are few and far between. Instead, the people like to boast about how they keep their own security.
The Massoud Foundation was established in 2003 to provide humanitarian assistance to Afghans through economic and social programs that include business development, reconstruction and infrastructure improvements, and education programs. It promotes justice, gender equality, fair government, and human rights.
A major road in Kabul was named Great Massoud Road.
A monument to Massoud was installed outside the US Embassy.
A street in New Delhi, India, is named after Ahmad Shah Massoud. It is the first time that such an honour has been extended to a leader from that country as part of close ties between Afghanistan and India.
Magpul Massoud was a 7.62 NATO rifle produced by Magpul which was named after himself.
The road near the Afghanistan Embassy is a "symbol of ties" that binds the two nations that have always "enjoyed excellent relations".
His friend Abdullah Abdullah said that Massoud was different from the other guerilla leaders. "He is a hero who led a clear struggle for the values of the people".
In a 2001 mourning ceremony at Moscow to honour the memory of Ahmad Shah Massoud, one-time foe Colonel Abdul Qadir stated: "Though Massoud and I used to be enemies, I am sure he deserves great respect as an outstanding military leader and, first of all, as a patriot of his country".
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Lion of Panjshir
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Lion of Panjshir
Massoud's byname, "Lion of Panjshir" (, "Shir-e-Panjshir"), earned for his role during the Soviet occupation, is a rhyming play on words in Persian, as the name of the valley means "five lions".
The Wall Street Journal referred to Massoud as "The Afghan Who Won the Cold War", referring to the global significance of the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan for the subsequent collapse of the Eastern Bloc.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Honors outside Afghanistan
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Honors outside Afghanistan
In 2007, the government of India decided to name a road in New Delhi's Chanakyapuri district after Massoud.
In February 2021, the Council of Paris in France honored Massoud by installing a plaque in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. The decision reflected Massoud's unique connections with France. In March 2021, the Mayor of Paris named a pathway in the Champs-Élysées gardens after Massoud. The ceremony was attended by Massoud's son and former president Hamid Karzai.
Civilian orders
Tajikistan: Order of Ismoili Somoni – posthumously awarded on September 2, 2021.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Views on Pakistan and potential al-Qaeda attacks
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Views on Pakistan and potential al-Qaeda attacks
thumb|Group of former Soviet military men, led by Col. Leonid Khabarov (center,) standing by Massoud's Tomb, commemorating his memory (2009)
Although Pakistan were supporting the mujahideen groups during the Soviet-Afghan War, Ahmad Shah Massoud increasingly distrusted the Pakistanis and eventually kept his distance from them. In a 1999 interview, Massoud says "They [Pakistan] are trying to turn us into a colony. Without them there would be no war".
In the spring 2001, Ahmad Shah Massoud addressed the European Parliament in Brussels, saying that Pakistan was behind the situation in Afghanistan. He also said that he believed that, without the support of Pakistan, Osama bin Laden, and Saudi Arabia, the Taliban would not be able to sustain their military campaign for up to a year. He said the Afghan population was ready to rise against them. Addressing the United States specifically, he warned that should the U.S. not work for peace in Afghanistan and put pressure on Pakistan to cease their support to the Taliban, the problems of Afghanistan would soon become the problems of the U.S. and the world.
Declassified Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) documents from November 2001 show that Massoud had gained "limited knowledge... regarding the intentions of al-Qaeda to perform a terrorist act against the U.S. on a scale larger than the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania." They noted that he warned about such attacks.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Succession and resistance to Taliban by his son
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Succession and resistance to Taliban by his son
In September 2019, his son Ahmad Massoud was declared as his successor. Following the 2021 Taliban offensive and the Fall of Kabul, Massoud allied with self-proclaimed acting president Amrullah Saleh and established the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan to the Taliban in the Panjshir Valley. Massoud called for West's support to resist the Taliban.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Personal life
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Personal life
thumb|Massoud's private vehicles, parked in Panjshir (pictured 2010)
Massoud was married to Sediqa Massoud. They had one son, Ahmad Massoud (born in 1989) and five daughters (Fatima born in 1992, Mariam born in 1993, Ayesha born in 1995, Zohra born in 1996 and Nasrine born in 1998). In 2005 Sediqa Massoud published a personal account on her life with Massoud (co-authored by two women's rights activists and friends of Sediqa Massoud, Chékéba Hachemi and ) called "Pour l'amour de Massoud" (For the love of Massoud), in which she describes a decent and loving husband.
Massoud liked reading and had a library of 3,000 books at his home in Panjshir. He used to read the works of revolutionaries Mao Zedong and Che Guevara, and was a great admirer of Charles de Gaulle, founder of the French Fifth Republic. Massoud said his favorite author was Victor Hugo and he was also a fan of classical Persian poetry, including the works of Bidel and Hafez. He was keen at playing football and chess.
Massoud's reputation for fearlessness is illustrated by a story about him told in Afghanistan, which cannot be confirmed. Once, while inspecting the front lines with a deputy, Massoud's driver had become lost and driven into the middle of a Taliban encampment. In tremendous peril, since he was recognized immediately, Massoud demanded to see the Taliban commander, making polite conversation for just long enough to bluff that he had arrived intentionally and not accidentally. The confused Taliban allowed him to leave.
Massoud's family since his death have had a great deal of prestige in the politics of Afghanistan. One of his six brothers, Ahmad Zia Massoud, was the Vice President of Afghanistan from 2004 until 2009 under the first democratically elected government of Afghanistan. Unsuccessful attempts have been made on the life of Ahmad Zia Massoud in 2004 and late 2009. The Associated Press reported that eight Afghans died in the attempt on Ahmad Zia Massoud's life. Ahmad Zia Massoud leads the National Front of Afghanistan (a United Front group). Another brother, Ahmad Wali Massoud, was Afghanistan's Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 2002 to 2006. He was a member of Abdullah Abdullah's National Coalition of Afghanistan (another United Front group).
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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In literature
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In literature
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Essay
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Essay
Sebastian Junger, one of the last Western journalists to interview Massoud in depth, featured him in an essay in his 2002 collection, Fire.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Fiction
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Fiction
Massoud is the subject of Ken Follett's 1986 novel Lie Down With Lions, about the Soviet-Afghan War.
He also is featured as a historical figure in James McGee's 1989 thriller, Crow's War.
Massoud is the subject of Olivier Weber's novel Massoud's Confession, about the Islam of Enlightenment and the need to reform religious practices.
Massoud is played by Mido Hamada in the 2006 miniseries The Path to 9/11.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Notes
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Notes
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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References
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References
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Further reading
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Further reading
Sandy Gall (2021): Afghan Napoleon: The Life of Ahmad Shah Massoud. London: Haus Publishing. ISBN 978-1-913368-22-7.
Marcela Grad (2009): Massoud: An Intimate Portrait of the Legendary Afghan Leader; Webster University Press, 310pp
Sediqa Massoud with Chékéba Hachemi and Marie-Francoise Colombani (2005): Pour l'amour de Massoud; Document XO Editions, 265pp (in French)
Amin Saikal (2006): Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival; I. B. Tauris, 352pp ("One of the "Five Best" Books on Afghanistan" – The Wall Street Journal)
Roy Gutman (2008): How We Missed the Story: Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban and the Hijacking of Afghanistan; United States Institute of Peace Press, 304pp
Coll, Steve (2004): Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 9, 2001; Penguin Press, 695pp, . (won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction)
Stephen Tanner: Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban
Christophe de Ponfilly (2001): Massoud l'Afghan; Gallimard, 437pp (in French)
Gary W. Bowersox (2004): The Gem Hunter-True Adventures of an American in Afghanistan; Geovision, Inc. (January 22, 2004), .
Olivier Weber (2001): Le Faucon afghan; Robert Laffont
Olivier Weber (2001, with Reza): Afghan eternities; Le Chene/ UNESCO
Gary C. Schroen (2005): 'First In' An Insiders Account of How The CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan; New York: Presidio Press/Ballantine Books, .
Peter Bergen: Holy War, Inc.
Ahmed Rashid: TALIBAN – The Story of the Afghan Warlords; .
A. R. Rowan: On The Trail Of A Lion: Ahmed Shah Massoud, Oil Politics and Terror
MaryAnn T. Beverly (2007): From That Flame; Kallisti Publishing
Roger Plunk: The Wandering Peacemaker
References to Massoud appear in the book "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini.
References to Massoud appear in the book "Sulla rotta dei ribelli" by Emilio Lonardo; .
Kara Kush, London: William Collins Sons and Co., Ltd., 1986. The novel Kara Kush by Idries Shah is rumored to be loosely based on the exploits of Massoud during the Afghan-Soviet War
Olivier Weber (2013): Massoud's Confession; Flammarion.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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External links
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External links
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Interviews
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Interviews
The Last Interview with Ahmad Shah Massoud Piotr Balcerowicz, early August 2001
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Obituaries and articles
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Obituaries and articles
Remembering Massoud, a fighter for peace, The New York Times, September 10, 2002
60 Years of Asian Heroes: Ahmad Shah Massoud Time, 2006
Profile: Afghanistan's 'Lion Of Panjshir' Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 5, 2006
Afghan Commander Massoud, Killed on Eve of 9/11 Attacks, is a National Hero by The LA Times, September 22, 2010
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Documentaries/Panegyrics
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Documentaries/Panegyrics
An 18-minute video, 'Starving to Death', about Massoud defending Kabul against the Taliban siege in March 1996. With horrifying pictures of civilian war victims. By Journeyman Pictures/Journeyman.tv. Retrieved on YouTube, June 27, 2018.
Reza and Olivier Weber on Massoud, National Geographic
. A portrait of Massoud by National Geographic photographer Reza Deghati, cinematographer Stephen Cocklin, and writer Sebastian Junger
[Dead link, on National Geographic:] A Film Screening and Panel Discussion Focusing on the Middle East and Afghanistan
Category:1953 births
Category:2001 deaths
Category:Afghan guerrillas
Category:Afghan guerrillas killed in action
Category:Afghan Sunni Muslims
Category:Afghan Tajik people
Category:Assassinated military personnel
Category:Deaths by suicide bomber
Category:Defence ministers of Afghanistan
Category:Guerrilla warfare theorists
Category:Military personnel killed in action
Category:Mujahideen members of the Soviet–Afghan War
Category:People killed by al-Qaeda
Category:People murdered in Afghanistan
Category:Tajik politicians
Category:Asian politicians assassinated in the 2000s
Category:Afghan politicians assassinated in the 20th century
Category:20th-century Afghan politicians
Category:Politicians assassinated in 2001
Category:Deaths by explosive device
Category:Tajik military personnel
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
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Table of Content
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short description, Early life, 1975 rebellion in Panjshir, Resistance against communism, Resistance against the PDPA (1978), Resistance against the Soviet Union (1979–1989), Fall of the Afghan communist regime (1992), War in Afghanistan (1992–2001), War in Kabul and other parts of the country (1992–1996), Peace and power-sharing agreement (1992), Escalating war over Kabul (1992), Afshar operation (February 1993), Further war over Kabul (March–December 1993), War in Kabul, Taliban arise in the south (1994), Taliban siege of Kabul (1995–1996), Resistance against the Taliban (1996–2001), United Front against the Taliban, Cross-factional negotiations, The areas of Massoud, International relations, Assassination, Connection to September 11, 2001, Investigative commission, Legacy, National Hero of Afghanistan, Lion of Panjshir, Honors outside Afghanistan, Views on Pakistan and potential al-Qaeda attacks, Succession and resistance to Taliban by his son, Personal life, In literature, Essay, Fiction, Notes, References, Further reading, External links, Interviews, Obituaries and articles, Documentaries/Panegyrics
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Atlantis
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Short description
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thumb|upright=1.6|Athanasius Kircher's map of Atlantis, placing it in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, from Mundus Subterraneus 1669, published in Amsterdam. The map is oriented with south at the top.
Atlantis () is a fictional island mentioned in Plato's works Timaeus and Critias as part of an allegory on the hubris of nations. In the story, Atlantis is described as a naval empire that ruled all Western parts of the known world, making it the literary counter-image of the Achaemenid Empire. After an ill-fated attempt to conquer "Ancient Athens," Atlantis falls out of favor with the deities and submerges into the Atlantic Ocean. Since Plato describes Athens as resembling his ideal state in the Republic, the Atlantis story is meant to bear witness to the superiority of his concept of a state.
Despite its minor importance in Plato's work, the Atlantis story has had a considerable impact on literature. The allegorical aspect of Atlantis was taken up in utopian works of several Renaissance writers, such as Francis Bacon's New Atlantis and Thomas More's Utopia. On the other hand, nineteenth-century amateur scholars misinterpreted Plato's narrative as historical tradition, most famously Ignatius L. Donnelly in his Atlantis: The Antediluvian World. Plato's vague indications of the time of the events (more than 9,000 years before his time) and the alleged location of Atlantis ("beyond the Pillars of Hercules") gave rise to much pseudoscientific speculation. As a consequence, Atlantis has become a byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations and continues to inspire contemporary fiction, from comic books to films.
While present-day philologists and classicists agree on the story's fictional nature, there is still debate on what served as its inspiration. Plato is known to have freely borrowed some of his allegories and metaphors from older traditions, as he did with the story of Gyges. This led a number of scholars to suggest possible inspiration of Atlantis from Egyptian records of the Thera eruption, the Sea Peoples invasion, or the Trojan War. Others have rejected this chain of tradition as implausible and insist that Plato created an entirely fictional account, drawing loose inspiration from contemporary events such as the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415–413 BC or the destruction of Helike in 373 BC.
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Atlantis
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Plato's dialogues
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Plato's dialogues
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Atlantis
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''Timaeus''
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Timaeus
right|thumb|upright=0.8|A fifteenth-century Latin translation of Plato's Timaeus
The only primary sources for Atlantis are Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias; all other mentions of the island are based on them. The dialogues claim to quote Solon, who visited Egypt between 590 and 580 BC; they state that he translated Egyptian records of Atlantis. Plato introduced Atlantis in Timaeus, written in 360 BC:
The four people appearing in those two dialogues are the politicians Critias and Hermocrates as well as the philosophers Socrates and Timaeus of Locri, although only Critias speaks of Atlantis. In his works Plato makes extensive use of the Socratic method in order to discuss contrary positions within the context of a supposition.
The Timaeus begins with an introduction, followed by an account of the creations and structure of the universe and ancient civilizations. In the introduction, Socrates muses about the perfect society, described in Plato's Republic (), and wonders if he and his guests might recollect a story which exemplifies such a society. Critias mentions a tale he considered to be historical, that would make the perfect example, and he then follows by describing Atlantis as is recorded in the Critias. In his account, ancient Athens seems to represent the "perfect society" and Atlantis its opponent, representing the very antithesis of the "perfect" traits described in the Republic.
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Atlantis
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''Critias''
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Critias
According to Critias, the Hellenic deities of old divided the land so that each deity might have their own lot; Poseidon was appropriately, and to his liking, bequeathed the island of Atlantis. The island was larger than Ancient Libya and Asia Minor combined, but it was later sunk by an earthquake and became an impassable mud shoal, inhibiting travel to any part of the ocean. Plato asserted that the Egyptians described Atlantis as an island consisting mostly of mountains in the northern portions and along the shore and encompassing a great plain in an oblong shape in the south "extending in one direction three thousand stadia [about 555 km; 345 mi], but across the center inland it was two thousand stadia [about 370 km; 230 mi]." Fifty stadia [9 km; 6 mi] from the coast was a mountain that was low on all sides ... broke it off all round about ... the central island itself was five stades in diameter [about 0.92 km; 0.57 mi].
In Plato's metaphorical tale, Poseidon fell in love with Cleito, the daughter of Evenor and Leucippe, who bore him five pairs of male twins. The eldest of these, Atlas, was made rightful king of the entire island and the ocean (called the Atlantic Ocean in his honor), and was given the mountain of his birth and the surrounding area as his fiefdom. Atlas's twin Gadeirus, or Eumelus in Greek, was given the extremity of the island toward the pillars of Hercules. The other four pairs of twins—Ampheres and Evaemon, Mneseus and Autochthon, Elasippus and Mestor, and Azaes and Diaprepes—were also given "rule over many men, and a large territory."
Poseidon carved the mountain where his love dwelt into a palace and enclosed it with three circular moats of increasing width, varying from one to three stadia and separated by rings of land proportional in size. The Atlanteans then built bridges northward from the mountain, making a route to the rest of the island. They dug a great canal to the sea, and alongside the bridges carved tunnels into the rings of rock so that ships could pass into the city around the mountain; they carved docks from the rock walls of the moats. Every passage to the city was guarded by gates and towers, and a wall surrounded each ring of the city. The walls were constructed of red, white, and black rock, quarried from the moats, and were covered with brass, tin, and the precious metal orichalcum, respectively.
According to Critias, 9,000 years before his lifetime a war took place between those outside the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar and those who dwelt within them. The Atlanteans had conquered the parts of Libya within the Pillars of Hercules, as far as Egypt, and the European continent as far as Tyrrhenia, and had subjected its people to slavery. The Athenians led an alliance of resistors against the Atlantean empire, and as the alliance disintegrated, prevailed alone against the empire, liberating the occupied lands.
The logographer Hellanicus of Lesbos wrote an earlier work entitled Atlantis, of which only a few fragments survive. Hellanicus' work appears to have been a genealogical one concerning the daughters of Atlas (Ἀτλαντὶς in Greek means "of Atlas"), but some authors have suggested a possible connection with Plato's island. John V. Luce notes that when Plato writes about the genealogy of Atlantis's kings, he writes in the same style as Hellanicus, suggesting a similarity between a fragment of Hellanicus's work and an account in the Critias. Rodney Castleden suggests that Plato may have borrowed his title from Hellanicus, who may have based his work on an earlier work about Atlantis.Castleden 2001, p. 164
Castleden has pointed out that Plato wrote of Atlantis in 359 BC, when he returned to Athens from Sicily. He notes a number of parallels between the physical organisation and fortifications of Syracuse and Plato's description of Atlantis.Castleden 2001, pp. 156–158. Gunnar Rudberg was the first who elaborated upon the idea that Plato's attempt to realize his political ideas in the city of Syracuse could have heavily inspired the Atlantis account.Rudberg, G. (1917/2012). Atlantis och Syrakusai, 1917; English: Atlantis and Syracuse, 2012.
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Atlantis
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Interpretations
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Interpretations
thumb|upright=1.5|A reconstruction of the Oikoumene (inhabited world), an ancient map based on Herodotus' description of the world, circa 450 BC
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Atlantis
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Ancient
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Ancient
Some ancient writers viewed Atlantis as fictional or metaphorical myth; others believed it to be real.Nesselrath, HG (2005). 'Where the Lord of the Sea Grants Passage to Sailors through the Deep-blue Mere no More: The Greeks and the Western Seas', Greece & Rome, vol. 52, pp. 153–171 [pp. 161–171]. Aristotle believed that Plato, his teacher, had invented the island to teach philosophy. The philosopher Crantor, a student of Plato's student Xenocrates, is cited often as an example of a writer who thought the story to be historical fact. His work, a commentary on Timaeus, is lost, but Proclus, a Neoplatonist of the fifth century AD, reports on it. The passage in question has been represented in the modern literature either as claiming that Crantor visited Egypt, had conversations with priests, and saw hieroglyphs confirming the story, or, as claiming that he learned about them from other visitors to Egypt.Cameron 1983, p. 83 Proclus wrote:
The next sentence is often translated "Crantor adds, that this is testified by the prophets of the Egyptians, who assert that these particulars [which are narrated by Plato] are written on pillars which are still preserved." But in the original, the sentence starts not with the name Crantor but with the ambiguous He; whether this referred to Crantor or to Plato is the subject of considerable debate. Proponents of both Atlantis as a metaphorical myth and Atlantis as history have argued that the pronoun refers to Crantor.Castleden 2001, p. 168
Alan Cameron argues that the pronoun should be interpreted as referring to Plato, and that, when Proclus writes that "we must bear in mind concerning this whole feat of the Athenians, that it is neither a mere myth nor unadorned history, although some take it as history and others as myth", he is treating "Crantor's view as mere personal opinion, nothing more; in fact he first quotes and then dismisses it as representing one of the two unacceptable extremes".
Cameron also points out that whether he refers to Plato or to Crantor, the statement does not support conclusions such as Otto Muck's "Crantor came to Sais and saw there in the temple of Neith the column, completely covered with hieroglyphs, on which the history of Atlantis was recorded. Scholars translated it for him, and he testified that their account fully agreed with Plato's account of Atlantis"Muck, Otto Heinrich, The Secret of Atlantis, Translation by Fred Bradley of Alles über Atlantis (Econ Verlag GmbH, Düsseldorf-Wien, 1976), Times Books, a division of Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co., Inc., New York or J. V. Luce's suggestion that Crantor sent "a special enquiry to Egypt" and that he may simply be referring to Plato's own claims.
Another passage from the commentary by Proclus on the Timaeus gives a description of the geography of Atlantis:
Marcellus remains unidentified.
Other ancient historians and philosophers who believed in the existence of Atlantis were Strabo and Posidonius.Strabo 2.3.6 Some have theorized that, before the sixth century BC, the "Pillars of Hercules" may have applied to mountains on either side of the Gulf of Laconia, and also may have been part of the pillar cult of the Aegean.Davis, J.L. and Cherry, J.F., (1990) "Spatial and temporal uniformitarianism in LCI: Perspectives from Kea and Melos on the prehistory of Akrotiri" in Hardy, D.A and Renfrew, A.C. (Eds)(1990) "Thera and the Aegean World III, Proceedings of the Third International Conference, Santorini, Greece, 3–9 September 1989" (Thera Foundation)Castleden, Rodney (1998), "Atlantis Destroyed" (Routledge), p6 The mountains stood at either side of the southernmost gulf in Greece, the largest in the Peloponnese, and it opens onto the Mediterranean Sea. This would have placed Atlantis in the Mediterranean, lending credence to many details in Plato's discussion.
The fourth-century historian Ammianus Marcellinus, relying on a lost work by Timagenes, a historian writing in the first century BC, writes that the Druids of Gaul said that part of the inhabitants of Gaul had migrated there from distant islands. Some have understood Ammianus's testimony as a claim that at the time of Atlantis's sinking into the sea, its inhabitants fled to western Europe; but Ammianus, in fact, says that "the Drasidae (Druids) recall that a part of the population is indigenous but others also migrated in from islands and lands beyond the Rhine" (Res Gestae 15.9), an indication that the immigrants came to Gaul from the north (Britain, the Netherlands, or Germany), not from a theorized location in the Atlantic Ocean to the south-west.Fitzpatrick-Matthews, Keith. Lost Continents: Atlantis. Instead, the Celts who dwelled along the ocean were reported to venerate twin gods, (Dioscori), who appeared to them coming from that ocean.Siculus, Didorus. Bibliotheca historica. Section 4.56.4: "And the writers even offer proofs of these things, pointing out that the Celts who dwell along the ocean venerate the Dioscori above any of the gods, since they have a tradition handed down from ancient times that these gods appeared among them coming from the ocean. Moreover, the country which skirts the ocean bears, they say, not a few names which are derived from the Argonauts and the Dioscori."
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Atlantis
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Jewish and Christian
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Jewish and Christian
During the early first century, the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo wrote about the destruction of Atlantis in his On the Eternity of the World, xxvi. 141, in a longer passage allegedly citing Aristotle's successor Theophrastus:T. Franke, Aristotle and Atlantis, 2012; pp. 131–133
The theologian Joseph Barber Lightfoot (Apostolic Fathers, 1885, II, p. 84) noted on this passage: "Clement may possibly be referring to some known, but hardly accessible land, lying without the pillars of Hercules. But more probably he contemplated some unknown land in the far west beyond the ocean, like the fabled Atlantis of Plato ..."Lightfoot, translator, The Apostolic Fathers, II, 1885, p. 84, Edited & Revised by Michael W. Holmes, 1989.
Other early Christian writers wrote about Atlantis, although they had mixed views on whether it once existed or was an untrustworthy myth of pagan origin.De Camp, LS (1954). Lost Continents: The Atlantis Theme in History, Science, and Literature. New York: Gnome Press, p. 307. Tertullian believed Atlantis was once real and wrote that in the Atlantic Ocean once existed "[the isle] that was equal in size to Libya or Asia" referring to Plato's geographical description of Atlantis. The early Christian apologist writer Arnobius also believed Atlantis once existed, but blamed its destruction on pagans.
Cosmas Indicopleustes in the sixth century wrote of Atlantis in his Christian Topography in an attempt to prove his theory that the world was flat and surrounded by water:
thumb|upright=1.7|A map showing the supposed extent of the Atlantean Empire, from Ignatius L. Donnelly's Atlantis: the Antediluvian World, 1882Donnelly, I (1882). Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, New York: Harper & Bros. Retrieved 6 November 2001, from Project Gutenberg p. 295.
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Atlantis
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Modern
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Modern
Aside from Plato's original account, modern interpretations regarding Atlantis are an amalgamation of diverse, speculative movements that began in the sixteenth century,Feder, KL. Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology, Mountain View, Mayfield 1999. when scholars began to identify Atlantis with the New World. Francisco Lopez de Gomara was the first to state that Plato was referring to America, as did Francis Bacon and Alexander von Humboldt; Janus Joannes Bircherod said in 1663 orbe novo non-novo ("the New World is not new"). Athanasius Kircher accepted Plato's account as literally true, describing Atlantis as a small continent in the Atlantic Ocean.
Contemporary perceptions of Atlantis share roots with Mayanism, which can be traced to the beginning of the Modern Age, when European imaginations were fueled by their initial encounters with the indigenous peoples of the Americas. From this era sprang apocalyptic and utopian visions that would inspire many subsequent generations of theorists.
Most of these interpretations are considered pseudohistory, pseudoscience, or pseudoarchaeology, as they have presented their works as academic or scientific, but lack the standards or criteria.
The Flemish cartographer and geographer Abraham Ortelius is believed to have been the first person to imagine that the continents were joined before drifting to their present positions. In the 1596 edition of his Thesaurus Geographicus he wrote: "Unless it be a fable, the island of Gadir or Gades will be the remaining part of the island of Atlantis or America, which was not sunk (as Plato reports in the Timaeus) so much as torn away from Europe and Africa by earthquakes and flood... The traces of the ruptures are shown by the projections of Europe and Africa and the indentations of America in the parts of the coasts of these three said lands that face each other to anyone who, using a map of the world, carefully considered them. So that anyone may say with Strabo in Book 2, that what Plato says of the island of Atlantis on the authority of Solon is not a figment."
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Atlantis
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Early influential literature
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Early influential literature
The term "utopia" (from "no place") was coined by Sir Thomas More in his sixteenth-century work of fiction Utopia. Inspired by Plato's Atlantis and travelers' accounts of the Americas, More described an imaginary land set in the New World. His idealistic vision established a connection between the Americas and utopian societies, a theme that Bacon discussed in The New Atlantis (). A character in the narrative gives a history of Atlantis that is similar to Plato's and places Atlantis in America. People had begun believing that the Mayan and Aztec ruins could possibly be the remnants of Atlantis.
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Atlantis
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Impact of Mayanism
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Impact of Mayanism
Much speculation began as to the origins of the Maya, which led to a variety of narratives and publications that tried to rationalize the discoveries within the context of the Bible and that had undertones of racism in their connections between the Old and New World. The Europeans believed the indigenous people to be inferior and incapable of building that which was now in ruins and by sharing a common history, they insinuated that another race must have been responsible.
In the middle and late nineteenth century, several renowned Mesoamerican scholars, starting with Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, and including Edward Herbert Thompson and Augustus Le Plongeon, formally proposed that Atlantis was somehow related to Mayan and Aztec culture.
The French scholar Brasseur de Bourbourg traveled extensively through Mesoamerica in the mid-1800s, and was renowned for his translations of Mayan texts, most notably the sacred book Popol Vuh, as well as a comprehensive history of the region. Soon after these publications, however, Brasseur de Bourbourg lost his academic credibility, due to his claim that the Maya peoples had descended from the Toltecs, people he believed were the surviving population of the racially superior civilization of Atlantis. His work combined with the skillful, romantic illustrations of Jean Frederic Waldeck, which visually alluded to Egypt and other aspects of the Old World, created an authoritative fantasy that excited much interest in the connections between worlds.
Inspired by Brasseur de Bourbourg's diffusion theories, the pseudoarchaeologist Augustus Le Plongeon traveled to Mesoamerica and performed some of the first excavations of many famous Mayan ruins. Le Plongeon invented narratives, such as the kingdom of Mu saga, which romantically drew connections to him, his wife Alice, and Egyptian deities Osiris and Isis, as well as to Heinrich Schliemann, who had just discovered the ancient city of Troy from Homer's epic poetry (that had been described as merely mythical). He also believed that he had found connections between the Greek and Mayan languages, which produced a narrative of the destruction of Atlantis.
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Atlantis
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Ignatius Donnelly
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Ignatius Donnelly
The 1882 publication of Atlantis: the Antediluvian World by Ignatius L. Donnelly stimulated much popular interest in Atlantis. He was greatly inspired by early works in Mayanism, and like them, attempted to establish that all known ancient civilizations were descended from Atlantis, which he saw as a technologically sophisticated, more advanced culture. Donnelly drew parallels between creation stories in the Old and New Worlds, attributing the connections to Atlantis, where he believed the Biblical Garden of Eden existed.Donnelly 1941: 192–203 As implied by the title of his book, he also believed that Atlantis was destroyed by the Great Flood mentioned in the Bible.
Donnelly is credited as the "father of the nineteenth century Atlantis revival" and is the reason the myth endures today. He unintentionally promoted an alternative method of inquiry to history and science, and the idea that myths contain hidden information that opens them to "ingenious" interpretation by people who believe they have new or special insight.Jordan, Paul (2006). "Esoteric Egypt". In Garrett G. Fagan. Archaeological Fantasies. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 23–46.
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Atlantis
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Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophists
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Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophists
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Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophists, took up Donnelly's interpretations when she wrote The Secret Doctrine (1888), which she claimed was originally dictated in Atlantis. She maintained that the Atlanteans were cultural heroes (contrary to Plato, who describes them mainly as a military threat). She believed in a form of racial evolution (as opposed to primate evolution). In her process of evolution the Atlanteans were the fourth "root race", which were succeeded by the fifth, the "Aryan race", which she identified with the modern human race.
In her book, Blavatsky reported that the civilization of Atlantis reached its peak between 1,000,000 and 900,000 years ago, but destroyed itself through internal warfare brought about by the dangerous use of psychic and supernatural powers of the inhabitants. Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy and Waldorf Schools, along with other well known Theosophists, such as Annie Besant, also wrote of cultural evolution in much the same vein. Other occultists followed the same lead, at least to the point of tracing the lineage of occult practices back to Atlantis. Among the most famous is Dion Fortune in her Esoteric Orders and Their Work.
Drawing on the ideas of Rudolf Steiner and Hanns Hörbiger, Egon Friedell started his book , and thus his historical analysis of antiquity, with the ancient culture of Atlantis. The book was published in 1940.
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Atlantis
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Nazism and occultism
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Nazism and occultism
Blavatsky was also inspired by the work of the 18th-century astronomer Jean-Sylvain Bailly, who had "Orientalized" the Atlantis myth in his mythical continent of Hyperborea, a reference to Greek myths featuring a Northern European region of the same name, home to a giant, godlike race. Dan Edelstein claims that her reshaping of this theory in The Secret Doctrine provided the Nazis with a mythological precedent and a pretext for their ideological platform and their subsequent genocide. However, Blavatsky's writings mention that the Atlantean were in fact olive-skinned peoples with Mongoloid traits who were the ancestors of modern Native Americans, Mongolians, and Malayans.Powell, The Solar System, pp. 25–26. (Ch. 36. "The second Atlantean sub-race: the Tlavatli".)Powell, The Solar System, pp. 252–263. (Ch. 39. "Ancient Peru: A Toltec remnant".)
The idea that the Atlanteans were Hyperborean, Nordic supermen who originated in the Northern Atlantic or even in the far North, was popular in the German ariosophic movement around 1900, propagated by Guido von List and others.Joscelyn Godwin, Arktos: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism, and Nazi Survival, Kempton ILL 1996, pp. 37–78. It gave its name to the Thule Gesellschaft, an antisemite Münich lodge, which preceded the German Nazi Party (see Thule). The scholars (1920) and Herman Wirth (1928) were the first to speak of a "Nordic-Atlantean" or "Aryan-Nordic" master race that spread from Atlantis over the Northern Hemisphere and beyond. The Hyperboreans were contrasted with the Jewish people. Party ideologist Alfred Rosenberg (in The Myth of the Twentieth Century, 1930) and SS-leader Heinrich Himmler made it part of the official doctrine. The idea was followed up by the adherents of Esoteric Nazism such as Julius Evola (1934) and, more recently, Miguel Serrano (1978).
The idea of Atlantis as the homeland of the Caucasian race would contradict the beliefs of older Esoteric and Theosophic groups, which taught that the Atlanteans were non-Caucasian brown-skinned peoples. Modern Esoteric groups, including the Theosophic Society, do not consider Atlantean society to have been superior or Utopian—they rather consider it a lower stage of evolution.
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Atlantis
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Edgar Cayce
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Edgar Cayce
The clairvoyant Edgar Cayce spoke frequently of Atlantis. During his "life readings", he claimed that many of his subjects were reincarnations of people who had lived there. By tapping into their collective consciousness, the "Akashic Records" (a term borrowed from Theosophy),See Tillett, Gregory John Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934), a biographical study. Ph.D. Thesis. University of Sydney, Department of Religious Studies, Sydney, 1986 – p. 985 . Cayce declared that he was able to give detailed descriptions of the lost continent. He also asserted that Atlantis would "rise" again in the 1960s (sparking much popularity of the myth in that decade) and that there is a "Hall of Records" beneath the Egyptian Sphinx which holds the historical texts of Atlantis.
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Atlantis
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Recent times
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Recent times
As continental drift became widely accepted during the 1960s, and the increased understanding of plate tectonics demonstrated the impossibility of a lost continent in the geologically recent past, most "Lost Continent" theories of Atlantis began to wane in popularity.
Plato scholar Julia Annas, Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona, had this to say on the matter:
One of the proposed explanations for the historical context of the Atlantis story is that it serves as Plato's warning to his fellow citizens against their striving for naval power.
Kenneth Feder points out that Critias's story in the Timaeus provides a major clue. In the dialogue, Critias says, referring to Socrates' hypothetical society:
Feder quotes A. E. Taylor, who wrote, "We could not be told much more plainly that the whole narrative of Solon's conversation with the priests and his intention of writing the poem about Atlantis are an invention of Plato's fancy."Feder, KL. Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology, Mountain View, Mayfield 1999, p. 164
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Atlantis
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Location hypotheses
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Location hypotheses
Since Donnelly's day, there have been dozens of locations proposed for Atlantis, to the point where the name has become a generic concept, divorced from the specifics of Plato's account. This is reflected in the fact that many proposed sites are not within the Atlantic at all. Few today are scholarly or archaeological hypotheses, while others have been made by psychic (e.g., Edgar Cayce) or other pseudoscientific means. (The Atlantis researchers Jacques Collina-Girard and Georgeos Díaz-Montexano, for instance, each claim the other's hypothesis is pseudoscience.)Collina-Girard, Jacques, L'Atlantide retrouvée: enquête scientifique autour d'un mythe (Paris: Belin – pour la science, 2009). Many of the proposed sites share some of the characteristics of the Atlantis story (water, catastrophic end, relevant time period), but none has been demonstrated to be a true historical Atlantis.
thumb|right|upright=1.15|The Santorini caldera on 24 June 2022, taken from the International Space Station. From the Minoan eruption event, and the 1964 discovery of Akrotiri on the island, this location is one of many sites purported to have been the location of Atlantis.
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Atlantis
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In or near the Mediterranean Sea
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In or near the Mediterranean Sea
Most of the historically proposed locations are in or near the Mediterranean Sea: islands such as Sardinia,Valente Poddighe, Paolo. Atlantide Sardegna: Isola dei Faraoni (Atlantis Sardinia: Island of the Pharaohs). StampacolorFrau, Sergio. Le Colonne d'Ercole. Un'inchiesta. La prima geografia. Tutt'altra storia. Nur Neon 2002 Crete, Santorini (Thera), Sicily, Cyprus, and Malta; land-based cities or states such as Troy, Tartessos, and Tantalis (in the province of Manisa, Turkey); Israel-Sinai or Canaan; and northwestern Africa, including the Richat Structure in Mauritania.
The Thera eruption, dated to the seventeenth or sixteenth century BC, caused a large tsunami that some experts hypothesize devastated the Minoan civilization on the nearby island of Crete, further leading some to believe that this may have been the catastrophe that inspired the story. In the area of the Black Sea the following locations have been proposed: Bosporus and Ancomah (a legendary place near Trabzon).
Others have noted that, before the sixth century BC, the mountains on either side of the Laconian Gulf were called the "Pillars of Hercules", and they could be the geographical location being described in ancient reports upon which Plato was basing his story. The mountains stood at either side of the southernmost gulf in Greece, the largest in the Peloponnese, and that gulf opens onto the Mediterranean Sea.
If from the beginning of discussions, misinterpretation of Gibraltar as the location rather than being at the Gulf of Laconia, would lend itself to many erroneous concepts regarding the location of Atlantis. Plato may have not been aware of the difference. The Laconian pillars open to the south toward Crete and beyond which is Egypt. The Thera eruption and the Late Bronze Age collapse affected that area and might have been the devastation to which the sources used by Plato referred. Significant events such as these would have been likely material for tales passed from one generation to another for almost a thousand years.
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Atlantis
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In the Atlantic Ocean
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In the Atlantic Ocean
thumb|The mid-atlantic ridge in the Atlantic
The location of Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean has a certain appeal given the closely related names. Popular culture often places Atlantis there, perpetuating the original Platonic setting as they understand it. The Canary Islands and Madeira Islands have been identified as a possible location, west of the Straits of Gibraltar, but in relative proximity to the Mediterranean Sea. Detailed studies of their geomorphology and geology have demonstrated, however, that they have been steadily uplifted, without any significant periods of subsidence, over the last four million years, by geologic processes such as erosional unloading, gravitational unloading, lithospheric flexure induced by adjacent islands, and volcanic underplating.Menendez, I., P.G. Silva, M. Martín-Betancor, F.J. Perez-Torrado, H. Guillou, and S. Scaillet, 2009, Fluvial dissection, isostatic uplift, and geomorphological evolution of volcanic islands (Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain) Geomorphology. v. 102, no.1, pp. 189–202.Meco J., S. Scaillet, H. Guillou, A. Lomoschitz, J.C. Carracedo, J. Ballester, J.-F. Betancort, and A. Cilleros, 2007, Evidence for long-term uplift on the Canary Islands from emergent Mio–Pliocene littoral deposits. Global and Planetary Change. v. 57, no. 3-4, pp. 222–234.
Various islands or island groups in the Atlantic were also identified as possible locations, notably the Azores. Similarly, cores of sediment covering the ocean bottom surrounding the Azores and other evidence demonstrate that it has been an undersea plateau for millions of years.Huang, T.C., N.D. Watkins, and L. Wilson, 1979, Deep-sea tephra from the Azores during the past 300,000 years: eruptive cloud height and ash volume estimates. Geological Society of America Bulletin. vol. 90, no. 2, pp. 131–133.Dennielou, B. G.A. Auffret, A. Boelaert, T. Richter, T. Garlan, and R. Kerbrat, 1999, Control of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Gulf Stream over Quaternary sedimentation on the Azores Plateau. Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, Série II. Sciences de la Terre et des Planètes. v. 328, no. 12, pp. 831–837., The area is known for its volcanism however, which is associated with rifting along the Azores triple junction. The spread of the crust along the existing faults and fractures has produced many volcanic and seismic events.Ferreira, 2005, p. 4
The area is supported by a buoyant upwelling in the deeper mantle, which some associate with an Azores hotspot.Ting Yang, et al., 2006, p. 20 Most of the volcanic activity has occurred primarily along the Terceira Rift. From the beginning of the islands' settlement, around the 15th century, there have been about 30 volcanic eruptions (terrestrial and submarine) as well as numerous, powerful earthquakes. The island of São Miguel in the Azores is the site of the Sete Cidades volcano and caldera, which are the byproducts of historical volcanic activity in the Azores.
The submerged island of Spartel near the Strait of Gibraltar has also been suggested.
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Atlantis
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In Europe
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In Europe
thumb|right|upright=1.15|A map showing the hypothetical extent of Doggerland (c. 8,000 BC), which provided a land bridge between Great Britain and continental Europe
thumb|upright=1.15|A map showing the hypothetical extent of Doggerland from now back to the Weichselian glaciation
Several hypotheses place the sunken island in northern Europe, including Doggerland in the North Sea, and Sweden (by Olof Rudbeck in Atland, 1672–1702). Doggerland, as well as Viking Bergen Island, is thought to have been flooded by a megatsunami following the Storegga Slide of c. 6100 BC. Some have proposed the Celtic Shelf as a possible location, and that there is a link to Ireland. In 2004, Swedish physiographist Ulf Erlingsson proposed that the legend of Atlantis was based on Stone Age Ireland. He later stated that he does not believe that Atlantis ever existed but maintained that his hypothesis that its description matches Ireland's geography has a 99.8% probability. The director of the National Museum of Ireland commented that there was no archaeology supporting this.
In 2011, a team, working on a documentary for the National Geographic Channel, led by Professor Richard Freund from the University of Hartford, claimed to have found possible evidence of Atlantis in southwestern Andalusia. The team identified its possible location within the marshlands of the Doñana National Park, in the area that once was the Lacus Ligustinus, between the Huelva, Cádiz, and Seville provinces, and they speculated that Atlantis had been destroyed by a tsunami, extrapolating results from a previous study by Spanish researchers, published four years earlier.
Spanish scientists have dismissed Freund's speculations, claiming that he sensationalised their work. The anthropologist Juan Villarías-Robles, who works with the Spanish National Research Council, said, "Richard Freund was a newcomer to our project and appeared to be involved in his own very controversial issue concerning King Solomon's search for ivory and gold in Tartessos, the well documented settlement in the Doñana area established in the first millennium BC", and described Freund's claims as "fanciful".
A similar theory had previously been put forward by a German researcher, Rainer W. Kühne, that is based only on satellite imagery and places Atlantis in the Marismas de Hinojos, north of the city of Cádiz. Before that, the historian Adolf Schulten had stated in the 1920s that Plato had used Tartessos as the basis for his Atlantis myth.
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Atlantis
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Other locations
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Other locations
Several writers, such as Flavio Barbiero as early as 1974, have speculated that Antarctica is the site of Atlantis. A number of claims involve the Caribbean, such as an alleged underwater formation off the Guanahacabibes Peninsula in Cuba. The adjacent Bahamas or the folkloric Bermuda Triangle have been proposed as well. Areas in the Pacific and Indian Oceans have also been proposed, including Indonesia (i.e. Sundaland).Atlantis – The Lost Continent Finally Found Santos, Arysio; Atlantis Publications, August 2005, . The stories of a lost continent off the coast of India, named "Kumari Kandam", have inspired some to draw parallels to Atlantis.
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Atlantis
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Literary interpretations
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Literary interpretations
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Atlantis
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Ancient versions
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Ancient versions
thumb|upright=0.8|A fragment of Atlantis by Hellanicus of Lesbos
In order to give his account of Atlantis verisimilitude, Plato mentions that the story was heard by Solon in Egypt, and transmitted orally over several generations through the family of Dropides, until it reached Critias, a dialogue speaker in Timaeus and Critias.Smith, O. D. (2016). "The Atlantis Story: An Authentic Oral Tradition?". Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island Cultures. 10(2): 10-17. Solon had supposedly tried to adapt the Atlantis oral tradition into a poem (that if published, was to be greater than the works of Hesiod and Homer). While it was never completed, Solon passed on the story to Dropides. Modern classicists deny the existence of Solon's Atlantis poem and the story as an oral tradition.Mauro Tulli, "The Atlantis poem in the Timaeus-Critias", in The Platonic Art of Philosophy, Cambridge University 2013, pp. 269–282
Instead, Plato is thought to be the sole inventor or fabricator.
Hellanicus of Lesbos used the word "Atlantis" as the title for a poem published before Plato,Bell, H. Idris, "Bibliography: Graeco-Roman Egypt A. Papyri (1915–1919)", The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Apr. 1920), pp. 119–146. "The following papyrus, 1359, which Grenfell and Hunt identified as also from the Catalogue, is regarded by C. Robert as part of a separate epic, which he calls Atlantis." a fragment of which may be Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 11, 1359.P.Oxy. 1359. See Carl Robert (1917): Eine epische Atlantias, Hermes, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Jul. 1917), pp. 477–79. This work only describes the Atlantides, the daughters of Atlas, and has no relation to Plato's Atlantis account.
In the new era, the third century AD Neoplatonist Zoticus wrote an epic poem based on Plato's account of Atlantis.Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, 7=35. Plato's work may already have inspired parodic imitation, however. Writing only a few decades after the Timaeus and Critias, the historian Theopompus of Chios wrote of a land beyond the ocean known as Meropis. This description was included in Book 8 of his Philippica, which contains a dialogue between Silenus and King Midas. Silenus describes the Meropids, a race of men who grow to twice normal size, and inhabit two cities on the island of Meropis: Eusebes (, "Pious-town") and Machimos (, "Fighting-town").Nesselrath, HG (1998). 'Theopomps Meropis und Platon: Nachahmung und Parodie', Göttinger Forum für Altertumswissenschaft, vol. 1, pp. 1–8.
He also reports that an army of ten million soldiers crossed the ocean to conquer Hyperborea, but abandoned this proposal when they realized that the Hyperboreans were the luckiest people on earth. Heinz-Günther Nesselrath has argued that these and other details of Silenus' story are meant as imitation and exaggeration of the Atlantis story, by parody, for the purpose of exposing Plato's ideas to ridicule.
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Atlantis
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Utopias and dystopias
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Utopias and dystopias
The creation of Utopian and dystopian fictions was renewed after the Renaissance, most notably in Francis Bacon's New Atlantis (1627), the description of an ideal society that he located off the western coast of America. Thomas Heyrick (1649–1694) followed him with "The New Atlantis" (1687), a satirical poem in three parts. His new continent of uncertain location, perhaps even a floating island either in the sea or the sky, serves as background for his exposure of what he described in a second edition as "A True Character of Popery and Jesuitism".
The title of The New Atalantis by Delarivier Manley (1709), distinguished from the two others by the single letter, is an equally dystopian work but set this time on a fictional Mediterranean island. In it sexual violence and exploitation is made a metaphor for the hypocritical behaviour of politicians in their dealings with the general public.Nováková, Soňa, pp. 121–6 "Sex and Politics: Delarivier Manley's New Atalantis" In Manley's case, the target of satire was the Whig Party, while in David Maclean Parry's The Scarlet Empire (1906) it is Socialism as practised in foundered Atlantis. It was followed in Russia by Velimir Khlebnikov's poem The Fall of Atlantis (Gibel' Atlantidy, 1912), which is set in a future rationalist dystopia that has discovered the secret of immortality and is so dedicated to progress that it has lost touch with the past. When the high priest of this ideology is tempted by a slave girl into an act of irrationality, he murders her and precipitates a second flood, above which her severed head floats vengefully among the stars.Boris Thomson, Lot's Wife and the Venus of Milo: Conflicting Attitudes to the Cultural Heritage in Modern Russia, Cambridge University 1978, pp. 77–8
A slightly later work, The Ancient of Atlantis (Boston, 1915) by Albert Armstrong Manship, expounds the Atlantean wisdom that is to redeem the earth. Its three parts consist of a verse narrative of the life and training of an Atlantean wise one, followed by his Utopian moral teachings and then a psychic drama set in modern times in which a reincarnated child embodying the lost wisdom is reborn on earth.Manship, Albert Armstrong. The ancient of Atlantis, an epic poem Sherman, French & Co. 1915.
In Hispanic eyes, Atlantis had a more intimate interpretation. The land had been a colonial power which, although it had brought civilization to ancient Europe, had also enslaved its peoples. Its tyrannical fall from grace had contributed to the fate that had overtaken it, but now its disappearance had unbalanced the world. This was the point of view of Jacint Verdaguer's vast mythological epic L'Atlantida (1877). After the sinking of the former continent, Hercules travels east across the Atlantic to found the city of Barcelona and then departs westward again to the Hesperides. The story is told by a hermit to a shipwrecked mariner, who is inspired to follow in his tracks and so "call the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old". This mariner, of course, was Christopher Columbus.Robert Hughes, Barcelona, London 1992, pp. 341–3
Verdaguer's poem was written in Catalan, but was widely translated in both Europe and Hispano-America.Isidor Cònsul, "The translations of Verdaguer". Visat. One response was the similarly entitled Argentinian Atlantida of Olegario Víctor Andrade (1881), which sees in "Enchanted Atlantis that Plato foresaw, a golden promise to the fruitful race" of Latins.Obras Poeticas, pp. 151–166; there is a translation of canto 8 by Elijah Clarence Hills The bad example of the colonising world remains, however. José Juan Tablada characterises its threat in his "De Atlántida" (1894) through the beguiling picture of the lost world populated by the underwater creatures of Classical myth, among whom is the Siren of its final stanza with
There is a similar ambivalence in Janus Djurhuus' six-stanza "Atlantis" (1917), where a celebration of the Faroese linguistic revival grants it an ancient pedigree by linking Greek to Norse legend. In the poem a female figure rising from the sea against a background of Classical palaces is recognised as a priestess of Atlantis. The poet recalls "that the Faroes lie there in the north Atlantic Ocean/ where before lay the poet-dreamt lands," but also that in Norse belief, such a figure only appears to those about to drown.
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Atlantis
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A land lost in the distance
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A land lost in the distance
thumb|A Faroe Islands postage stamp honoring Janus Djurhuus's poem "Atlantis"
The fact that Atlantis is a lost land has made of it a metaphor for something no longer attainable. For the American poet Edith Willis Linn Forbes, "The Lost Atlantis" stands for idealisation of the past; the present moment can only be treasured once that is realised. Ella Wheeler Wilcox finds the location of "The Lost Land" (1910) in one's carefree youthful past. Similarly, for the Irish poet Eavan Boland in "Atlantis, a lost sonnet" (2007), the idea was defined when "the old fable-makers searched hard for a word/ to convey that what is gone is gone forever".
For some male poets too, the idea of Atlantis is constructed from what cannot be obtained. Charles Bewley in his Newdigate Prize poem (1910) thinks it grows from dissatisfaction with one's condition,
in a dream of Atlantis.Bewley, Charles. Atlantis; The Newdigate prize poem, 1910 online. 1910, p. 11. Via ebooksread.com. Similarly for the Australian Gary Catalano in a 1982 prose poem, it is "a vision that sank under the weight of its own perfection".Gary Catalano, Heaven of Rags, Sydney 1982, Atlantis. Australian Poetry Library. W. H. Auden, however, suggests a way out of such frustration through the metaphor of journeying toward Atlantis in his poem of 1941. While travelling, he advises the one setting out, you will meet with many definitions of the goal in view, only realising at the end that the way has all the time led inward.Bonnie Costello, "Setting out for Atlantis", from Auden at Work, Palgrave Macmillan 2015, pp. 133–53
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