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USA (national)

Texas State Pastry:

Photo of a large homemade sopaipilla pastry
Photo of extra large homemade sopaipilla pastry - photo © Jorge Jorquera on
Flickr - noncommercial use permitted with attribution / no derivative works

Sopaipilla

Sopaipilla was recognized as an official state pastry of Texas between 2003 and 2005 (along with strudel, a German pastry). Sopaipilla means "honey cake" in spanish - a crisp, puffy, deep-fried pastry thought to originate in Albuquerque, New Mexico over 300 years ago.

Sopaipilla is a staple on Mexican-American menus and a favorite dessert in the Southwest, usually served as a sweet (dusted with powdered sugar or with spiced honey or other sweet syrup) - but can also be filled with Tex-Mex ingredients like refried beans. A good sopaipilla is supposed to resemble a puffed-up pillow; if cut into a round shape, it's called a "buneulo."

Photo of a platter of sopaipilla pastry
Platter of sopaipillas - public domain photo on Wikipedia

Navajo Fry Bread

One of the foods many people today connect with the Navajo American Indian is fry bread. Native Americans in most areas traditionally ground corn/maize into flour for tortillas and other breadstuffs - baked, dried, fried and cooked on griddles. Native leavening agents were wood ash, lime, lye, and sourdough. Nut oils and animal fat were used to cook some of these corn-based foods.

Recipes for "traditional" Navajo Fry Bread (or Indian Fry Bread, Squaw Bread) call for ingredients (wheat flour & baking powder) and cooking utensils (frying pans, iron cauldrons) that were not traditionally used by Native Americans, but introduced to this continent by European explorers and pioneer families.

Deep fried doughs flavored with honey, nuts and spices were also enjoyed in ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt. In many places they were called "fritters." European and American cookbooks from all time periods abound with recipes for fried breadstuffs.

 

Source:
Food Timeline: History of Mexican and Tex Mex Foods
Links:
American Food and Agricultural Symbols
American Food Holidays
 

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Texas Symbols:

 
air force - tie
artist - bird
bread - cooking  
dinosaur - dog  
dish - snack
fabric - tartan
folk dance
fish - insect
flag - pledge
flower - plant
fruit - nut
gem - stone
hall of fame
instrument
 
 

 
mammal 1-2-3  
metal - molecule
name - nickname
pastry 1 2
pepper 1-2
plays - railroad
reptile - shell
seal - motto - quarter
ship - tall ship
shrub 1-2
song 1-2
sport - vehicle
tree -grass -soil
vegetable


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