9 Foods You Must Eat In Arizona
These nine dishes reflect the diversity of the state's people and history, maybe a word with roots in Arizonan cuisine or a native ingredient unique to the United States.
1. Mescalero flour:
This food staple for American Indians is made from the dried, crushed pods of mesquite trees and has a sweet, somewhat nutty flavor. Due to its high protein content and calcium-rich composition, it is frequently referred to as a superfood. In Arizona, cooks frequently use it to experiment with baked goods, including flatbread, puff pastry, waffles, and muffins.
2. Beer from Route 66:
In Flagstaff, raise a glass of beer in honor of the famed Route 66. According to Mother Road Brewing, the "adventurousness and innovative spirit" of the route served as the basis for their selection of beers with a travel motif.
3. Chimichanga;
The chimichanga, also called a "chimi," is a sizable burrito that has been deep-fried and is topped with scoops of sour cream and guacamole. According to legend, Monica Flin, the originator of Tucson's El Charro Café, came up with the chimichanga, also known as a "thingamajig," in the early 1920s after a donkey accidentally fell into the deep fryer she was using.
4. Cook bread:
Fry bread first appeared in 1864 during the Navajos' 300-mile "Long Walk" from Arizona to a reservation in New Mexico. Due to a lack of resources, the Navajo made dough from flour, water, salt, and baking powder and fried it in fat. Since then, several tribes have modified the recipe, and the fluff bread is now frequently topped with beans, bacon, mozzarella, cilantro, tomatoes, and sour cream or used as the shell for taco fillings.
5. Medjool dates:
Except for its prominent appearance in a 2007 Western film adaptation starring Christian Bale and Russell Crowe, Yuma is barely known outside the city. In addition to generating 90% of the nation's winter greens, the western Arizona region is known as America's lettuce capital.
It is home to Medjool date groves that produce nearly 15 million pounds of sweet fruit. The date palms in Yuma make, gather, and export many dates yearly. At Martha's Gardens Date Farm, a family-run enterprise that also offers farm tours from November to April, sample the delectable, naturally sweet fruit in everything from shakes to ice cream.
6. Sonoran frankfurter:
Like deep-dish pizza in Chicago, the Sonoran hot dog is an iconic dish that visitors and residents of the Southwest love. This Sonora, Mexico, street snack gives its American equivalent a touch from south of the border. It was allegedly developed in the year the 1940s.
A split-top roll supports the hot dog called a bolillo in place of a regular bun. It is also covered in bacon and smothered in pinto beans, jalapenos, onions, tomatoes, mayonnaise, and other toppings. Visit El Guero Canelo or BK's, two local favorites that evolved from roadside kiosks into restaurant chains with several locations, to try a natural Sonoran hot dog.
7. Crisp cheese:
The cheese crisp can be compared to an open-faced quesadilla. A flour tortilla is first stretched out on a pizza pan, coated with butter, and then roasted for a short time in the oven. The tortilla is topped with cheese (and occasionally green chiles) after it has become gently crisped and is beginning to curl at the edges.
It is then placed back in the oven to melt the cheese. Again, like a pizza, it is sliced into slices and served. Since the late 1930s, the Reynoso family has been serving versions of cheese crips (and other delectable Mexican food)—using recipes created by their family's nana (grandmother).
8. Margarita with prickly pears:
Central and southern Arizona and northern Mexico are covered by the Sonoran Desert, which has a diverse environment home to numerous cactus species. The prickly pear, or nopal, is one among them. This spiny plant's flat pads blossom an edible fruit harvested and used to make prickly pear jams, jellies, and syrups.
The latter combines tequila to create a tasty, vibrant variation on the classic margarita. This iconic Arizona beverage can be found in many locations. At Sedona's Javelina Cantina, we advise trying one frozen or on the rocks and serving it with a side of chilled guacamole and homemade chips.
9. Pie:
Almost every American town, coast to coast, offers delicious slices of pie (the sugary kind, not pizza). Therefore, even though the pie at Rock Springs Café isn't a specialty of Arizona, it still deserves a spot on the list because it's beautiful. The original Rock Springs Hotel, built in the early 1900s as a temporary general store for visitors between Phoenix and Prescott, was frequented by people like Wyatt Earp and Jean Harlow.
Later, it became a café and bakery with a wide variety of cream and fruit pies available for purchase by the slice from glass cases. With its thick, shortening crust, lattice tops, and rich filling, this pie is the kind that your grandmother would leave to cool on the ledge. Without stopping for a slice, an Arizona road trip is incomplete.
Comments
Post a Comment