We just polished off a pound of stone crab claws as an appetizer. Stone crabs are mainly a Florida thing, and they’re seasonal. You can probably find them some places beyond Florida, but here we can just buy them in most markets during season.
Grouper is another somewhat local fish, although you can find them throughout the Gulf of Mexico and in the Caribbean, maybe other places as well. They’ve been over fished here recently and have become expensive. This has inspired a lot of places to use substitutes but charge grouper prices.
I’ve been thinking about this as we’ve recently been watching episodes of The Wire, a series set in Baltimore, over the past several months. It drives me crazy when they eat pit beef, blue crabs, crab cakes and even lake trout sandwiches.
Tell me about good to eat stuff from your area that is not easy to find once you venture away.
Discounting the South as a whole, the only regional specialty I can think of off the top of my head is made in Lynchburg. That is readily available elsewhere, though.
In Chicago, Italian beef sandwiches, jibaritos (think of a cheesesteak served on fried plantains instead of bread), shrimp de jonghe, chicken vesuvio, deep-dish pizza, cracker crust pizza cut into squares, Vienna Beef or Chicago Red Hots hot dogs, Maxwell Street Polish sausage, and mother-in-law sandwiches (corn roll tamale and chili on a bun).
Here in the mid-South, we have chess pie. I’ve never seen it anywhere outside of a 200 mile radius of Nashville. The southeast as a whole has sweet potato pie. That’s how you tell the natives from the transplants at Kroger around the holidays…sweet potato or pumpkin.
And then there’s the stuff Aesiron is speaking of…the stuff from Tullahoma is better.
Sticking with Shibboleth and Florida there, and getting a bit more regional… Mullet is also an old time fish delicacy and export on Florida’s West Coast. Not quite as popular as in the past. I had a chance to try it on the Best Southern Cracker Buffet in the World, but sadly passed it up… I ate the catfish instead. Definitely have to give it a go if I get the chance again. It was basically fried whole, much like catfish with the same cornmeal breading.
In the Great Black Swamp we have Beer Battered Lake Erie Perch and Walleye (Pickerel), usually served pretty traditionally with lemon and/or Tartar Sauce.
We used to get smoked mullet more when I was a kid. It’s still what you’ll get in fish spread if you’re down here on vacation. A friend insists that PJ’s fish spread is the best. I think Frenchy’s also does a decent job with it.
Not a big fan of mullet on the one time I had it (at Ron Clarks Sanitary Fish Market or something–famous place on the NC coast). I’m a big fish fan, but the mullet’s fishiness was overpowering, like chewing the rotten board of a pier.
I’ve had chess pie in Chapel Hill and in Asheville, but you’re right that it’s rare.
The local specialty that I’ve gotten into lately is pimiento cheese. I thought it was revolting while I grew up, but learned recently that you can make it delicious by:
Not buying it from the tub at the grocery store;
Using sharp cheese;
Cutting down on the mayo; and
Adding flavorful stuff like cayenne and garlic etc.
I saw these for the first time up in Appleton, WI a couple weeks ago. If they’re the same, they’re breaded deep-fried balls of sauerkraut, about the size and appearance of hushpuppies.
