I didn’t realize until I move to Chicago that both of these were regional. I understand that the horseshoe is rare, but the fact that I can’t get a tenderloin sandwich anywhere is a damn shame. I always get one whenever I’m back in Central Illinois. (Also, my parents noted that after living in Chicago for so long, I now say “tenderloin sandwich” instead of just “tenderloin.”)
You can buy pork tenderloin sandwiches in northern IA. I think they pound them flatter than they do in Ohio, though.
a street cooked hotdog…usually wrapped in bacon with a ton of onions on it is often called an LA dog. I assume it rose to prominence in Los Angeles.
If you’re up north, you can actually find a decent one at the Silo in Lake Bluff. It’s rather puzzling to me that the breaded pork tenderloin sandwich never really made it here. Seems right up a Chicagoan’s alley. (Although you can get versions of them at some Polish bars. I know Karolinka Club near Midway on Central has a pork tenderloin sandwich on their bar menu, but I haven’t tried it yet.)
I’m from SE Ohio and lots of people look at me weird when I say I miss chicken/beef and noodles over mashed potatoes. Like so. What can I say? I’m German!
Southeastern US – black-eyed peas for luck on New Year’s Day
I’m from Georgia, Atlanta to be specific, and the first things that come to mind are fried green tomatoes and sweet iced tea. However, when I go online, I find that Georgian cuisine includes such delicacies as Ajapsandali, Kartopili Kvartskhit and Mokharshuli Gotchi!
My mother never made any of those dishes. I am quite confused.
Don’t forget the turnip or collard greens! 
Yes, lots of fried green tomatoes in Alabama too.
Your mama didn’t make you chakhokhbili and lobio growing up? You’re missing out! 
(But seriously, chakhokhbili is pretty awesome, as is Georgian food in general.)
I’m a Kansan, and I love goetta! I was introduced to it in Ohio though. I tried to make it once and it didn’t turn out so well, so I may try ordering it from Glier’s someday.
Yeah, I get funny looks too when I mention that (north central Indiana Amish country). I also didn’t realize that the breaded tenderloin was regional until I moved off.
The one I popped in to mention is sugar cream pie. Sugar cream pie - Wikipedia It was never one of my favorites, but sold out on a daily basis in the restraunts where I worked growing up. Outside of that area, you don’t hear much about it.
Yeah. After big events in L.A., bacon wrapped hot dogs are a tradition. Add some green peppers wit the onions.
Another one that seems local to the Houston area is the kolache, a kind of roll, slightly sweet, wrapped around a sausage or filled with something sweet–like jelly donut filling. All the donut shops around town, and there are a lot of them, also sell kolaches.
Apparently they are an Eastern European thing. My sister-in-law, who’s family had always cooked them, was surprised to learn they were common around here.
In West Virginia, we have Pepperoni Rolls. All it is is pepperoni baked into a soft roll. Yummy, yummy.
My father used to make us eat that on New Year’s Day. We were in West Texas, but he was from California and his people from New York, so that might be more widespread. I never did like black-eyed peas though. Had to choke them down. Not a good start to the year.
Chicken-fried steak is something I have to give Texas credit for. It’s just plain good eatin’. The wife loved it when I took her there and she tried it.
South central MN has a pocket of eastern European immigrant communities and Montgomery, MN celebrates Kolachke Days annually. Here they are stuffed with dried apricots or poppy seeds. An acquired taste, I think. I find them rather dry.
My husband remembers that celebration well as it is the time he ended up wearing a Polish sausage necklace. He was still in college and driving a soda pop truck on weekends. Delivering to the town during the parade. Some drunk guy riding on a float was waving the string of sausages above his head and accidently let go.
Come to MN where drunk Czechs fling food! Whee.
Owensboro, Kentucky is known for its mutton barbecue.
Hardly local to Houston; they’re a Czech pastry, and are common all over Texas where there are Czech communities, including places like Caldwell, Snook, College Station, West and Ennis, and really most of Central Texas.
Also, the stew known as burgoo is another regional dish popular in that area, although it exists in other places in the US. I don’t think I’ve seen mutton barbecue outside of Western Kentucky and the very southern tip of Indiana (Evansville).
Eat the tenderloin sandwich for the entree, but you have to eat sugar cream pie for dessert in Hoosierland.