The sweet white garlic sauce is definitely a Halifax thing, and nearly impossible to find outside of Nova Scotia. shudder
From what I’ve been told, it all started at King of Donair in Halifax, where the Lebanese owners concocted the goopy white stuff. The rest is history… Haligonians love them some sweet donair sauce and will show signs of withdrawal when they go without their donair fix for long periods of time, the rest of the Canada never quite figured out the appeal.
Of the things I miss about Hali, the donair is not one of them. The eccles cakes from Larkin’s bakery, on the other hand, were a thing of beauty.
I’m going to nominate sautéed reindeer (I’m probably hundreds of miles away from the closest reindeer herd, but it’s not as if you can expect foodie business travellers to go for a twelve-hour train journey if they hanker for a taste of Rudolf and friends, when all they’ve got is a free afternoon. So reindeer has become a national Finnish speciality, never mind that most of the population live out their daily lives without ever seeing one.)
The entire raison d’etre for this dish is that you’re pretending to be in a rather more primitive state than a modern kitchen, with only a frozen round of reindeer, a trusty knife and a frying pan at hand. All you can manage is scraping off thin slices of meat that you put into the pan. When browned, add water or beer and a bit of cream. And voilà, you get something that looks like döner kebab in a thin, pale brown sauce, traditionally served with mashed potatoes and lingonberry jam. I don’t know if I’m being influenced by fifteen years of vegetarianism, but I like to handle reindeer meat a little more respectfully than carving it into shoe leather.
I don’t say this within earshot of too many people, but both Pat’s and Gino’s are both overrated cheese steaks in my opinion. Especially Pat’s…over-cooked single slab of tasteless chipsteak with florescent yellow cheese-like substance slapped on it. Both are sloppy and unimpressive. There are plenty of wonderful steak shops that give you tastier chopped juicy chipsteak and actual italian rolls…not those spongy abominations from Amaroso’s. The only time I ever go to either of those places is when I have a car-full of drunk friends from out of town that insist on going there after the bars close. (oh and I take mine wit and provalone)
Also another local item that is fast become a nation-wide scourge, Yeungling Lager. What an absolute crapfest that one is. I think most people order it because it’s easy and everywhere and you only have to ask for a lager and the bartender knows what you’re talking about.
Rocky mountain oysters–
AKA cross-sections of breaded, deep fried bull testicles.
Supposed to be a Colorado specialty, and I believe it was on the menu when the Summit of the 8 dined at one of our famous local restaurant (The Fort)
They have very, very little flavor or texture–imagine…I dunno–a texture similar to fois gras and a flavor like slightly beef-y mozzarella cheese. Frankly if you remove the stringy nature of the it, they’re essentially deep-fried mozzarella. Which is ok, I suppose. But you’d expect breaded, deep-fried bull-testicle cross sections to be…exotic.
We tend to have gyros here in the States, which is the Greek cousin of the Turkish doner kebab. They are very similar but not really the same. I prefer the Greek version, which seems even less healthy than the Turkish variety.
Yeah, another vote for grits, and for hush puppies.
Cole Slaw is nasty, it’s even worse when you put in Barbecue, which comes best from Arkansas of course.
How about chocolate gravy, I had never even heard of it until I moved to North Arkansas. Nasty, nasty nasty. Hot, lumpy chocolate pudding on my biscuits? No way.
Agreed–and if you want that taste, you gotta go for yellow grits, which IMO are far tastier than white grits.
I guess, but even good hushpuppis are IMO inferior to good steak fries, and I’d always prefer the latter to the former.
Maybe that’s the thing: I love pecans, think they’re the pinnacle of nutdom. Pecan pie is almost always insufficiently nutty and far too gooey. Occasionally it’s made with bourbon and molasses and just a little corn syrup, and then it’s fine eating.
Two additional Chicago ones come to mind, Jays chips, which are just run of the mill potato chips and Eli’s cheesecake, which is a fine cheesecake if you like your cheesecake to be made with cream cheese instead of, yanno, real cheese like sweetened ricotta or mascarpone.
I actually don’t care for it so I don’t have a recipe. Hopefully someone that does will post a good one, but in the meantime, the kind with ricotta is often called “Italian style cheesecake” if you decide to google it.
Agreed a thousand times. As you know, I’m not native Buffalo, but my grandparents are, and I’ve been there enough to know that the Anchor Bar’s wings suck. Duff’s all the way! Of course, Duff’s weck isn’t great, but you can’t win 'em all.
And add me to the list of people who thinks that Beef on Weck is better than wings anyway. I like wings, but I never crave them like I do the weck, and sadly, there’s only one place I can get weck here, and then only on Thursdays.
The “real” Chicago cheesecake that I’ve had (from Pompei, among others) has always been unpleasantly mealy in texture. Got a better example or is that the way it’s supposed to be?
A cream cheese cheesecake made in a water bath will have an incredibly smooth texture, like creme brulee. Ricotta cheesecakes will never have that texture: they’re a different animal.
Call me crazy, but I actually prefer the texture of the Jello Mix cheesecake filling. I like it a lot better than the “cakier” texture of “high quality” cheesecake. The frozen ones are awesome (frozen or thawed!)
There’s also a Polish-style cheesecake that sounds similar. It looks like this and is made with bialy ser (lit., “white cheese”) which is a fresh cheese similar to farmer’s cheese or fresh ricotta. I actually prefer the creamier American cream cheese style of cheesecake, although both have their place. Both are made with “real” cheese, but they’re going for two different effects.
I personally think that anything with sweetened cheese (cheesecake, cannoli, etc) is questionable, at best. I’ll EAT cheesecake and cannoli, but I always have this deep-seated suspicion of them. Cheese is a savory. Making it sweet just feels wrong. I don’t even eat cottage cheese with fruit (and supervenusfreak makes fun of me for this)…only salt, pepper, maybe some vinegar to add a little bite. Sometimes just plain.
Cheese should really not be a dessert ingredient in my world…
Weird. I love cheese in desserts. My latest favorite treat is Norwegian gjetost cheese (it’s sort of like cheese made from caramel) on slices of tart apple.
Mediocre cheesecake is pretty bad–it’s not like mediocre pizza which is still awesome. But good cheesecake is sublime.
