the great American steakhouse companion: tender spinach wilted and folded into a dense, nutmeg-scented cream sauce (thick, barely pourable, rich enough to stand beside the heaviest cut of beef) a French-derived preparation that became one of the most recognisable expressions of American restaurant cooking
Origin: The Colonial Atlantic Seaboard — Virginia and New England, North America
From the journey of Spinach.
Creamed spinach occupies a curious position in American culinary culture: it is simultaneously one of the most obviously derived dishes in the American repertoire (a clear descendant of the French 'à la Florentine' tradition that came to the American table through the French-influenced cooking of the eastern seaboard) and one of the most stubbornly, unapologetically American preparations in any American steakhouse menu. The dish became canonical through the great New York steakhouses of the 19th and early 20th centuries (Peter Luger, Keens, Gallagher's), where creamed spinach appeared as the quintessential companion to dry-aged prime beef, providing the one element of the meal that was not the steak: a dense, sweet, cream-enriched green that cut through the iron and fat of the beef and anchored the plate. The American creamed spinach is denser and more emphatically seasoned than its French antecedent, the French épinards à la crème: where the French version tends toward a more delicate béchamel or crème fraîche base, the American steakhouse version typically uses cream reduced to near-solidity, with a more assertive garlic note and a higher ratio of cream to spinach. It is a dish that does not disguise its richness. The nutmeg is inherited directly from the French-Italian tradition of seasoning spinach preparations, and it is the one spice that appears in virtually every version of the dish across its geographic spread. Creamed spinach's cultural moment arrived, in a different register, with the character Popeye the Sailor, created by E. C. Segar in 1929 and given an almost religious dedication to tinned spinach as the source of sudden strength. The Popeye phenomenon and the steakhouse tradition represent two very different American relationships with the leaf, but together they gave spinach a place in the American popular imagination that no other leafy vegetable has ever approached.
The steakhouse versions at establishments such as Peter Luger and Ruth's Chris use cream reduced to extreme density, producing a creamed spinach that is almost scoopable with a knife — very thick, very rich, and entirely without apology. For a slightly lighter version closer to the French épinards à la crème, reduce the cream less aggressively and finish with a spoonful of crème fraîche rather than the grated cheese. Creamed spinach is one of the few vegetable dishes that freezes well: freeze in portions, defrost overnight in the refrigerator, and reheat gently in a pan, adding a splash of cream if necessary. The dish is also excellent served as a filling for baked potatoes, as a base for baked eggs (a steakhouse Florentine), or folded through pasta for a quick weeknight supper.
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