Virginia is known for good food, but much of it is generically Southern and not specific to Virginia. We already made ham biscuits for Tennessee so a Virginia ham wasn't our first choice. We ended up making Brunswick Stew, which Virginians claim was invented in Brunswick County, VA. Georgians claim it comes from Brunswick, GA, but at least for our state cooking project, we're going with the VA story :-).
There are many, many variations of Brunswick Stew. Traditionalists claim that it was originally made with squirrel meat. We like our squirrels though (and would probably get in trouble for killing them), so we went with the modern day common approach for Virginia, which means we made it with chicken. Other than meat, the stew generally has lima beans, corn, tomatoes, and frequently okra. Our recipe also added ham. We did leave out the okra since only one of us is a fan. It's not really stew weather here in July, but we enjoyed it. The youngest of us also liked it cold for lunch - kind of a vegetable chicken salad.
New Hampshire is just not known for its food. I asked multiple people who live there for suggestions and they all came up empty. Fortunately, New Hampshire has designated pumpkin as its state fruit. That, plus the fact that it was a woman from New Hampshire that lobbied to make Thanksgiving a national holiday, led us to make pumpkin pie. Also a bit odd for July, but really good served cold!
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