High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The cuisine of the Thirteen Colonies includes the foods, eating habits, and cooking methods of the British colonies in North America before the establishment of the United States in the 1770s and 1780s. It was derived from familiar traditions from the colonists’ home countries in the British Isles and particularly England. Many agricultural items came to the New World through trade with England and the West Indies. Certain familiar items grew better in the New World than others, and this led to a dependence on imports which drove the daily lives of the colonists. However, the colonial diet was increasingly supplemented by new animal and plant foods indigenous to the New World.