There should be (or may already be but I’ve never run across it) a reference guide to all the brands that are ubiquitous in one part of the country and virtually unknown anywhere else. This is so I don’t feel left out when people from South Carolina start talking about Duke’s Mayonnaise (I think that’s what it’s called) and I made the rash assumption that it was probably no better or worse than Cain’s, upon which remark I was soundly thrashed (soundly is one of the worst kinds of thrashing). But it was all for the good, because now I know that Duke’s Mayonnaise is what Heaven is paved with.
Anyone recommend a good resource of this kind? Of course, there are brands that are semi-regional, in that they have one product, like Necco Wafers, that are sold everywhere but people in Seattle probably never had a Sky Bar. And there’s no reason they should. (This was before Necco got sold, and their wafers discontinued; now they make them in Mexico, for whoever may miss them.) (And there’s a storefront business in Sudbury that makes Sky Bars. Which were never all that special.) (What I meant to say was, Heaven is made of Sky Bars covered with Duke’s Mayonnaise.)
Speaking of Chicago, theres a brand that’s huge here. Vienna. They make beef, sausages, pickles, hot dog fixins, that kind of stuff.
What about you’s elsewhere? Do you have the Vienna? If not, put Vienna in the Big Book Of Regional Brands.
Never heard of Vienna brand here in the Massachusetts. Regional brands can be very regional indeed. Go to Maine and you might as well be in Transylvania.
Up here, Freihofer’s is a big name for chocolate chip cookies. They made other baked goods, but Entenmann’s bought them out and everything uses their brand except for the cookies.
I think there is no book of big, regional brands because it would have to be updated every doggone month. The mustard I love, used to be from a single farm in Wisconsin, which expanded to include other farms and they built themselves a processing center and then a much bigger reputation regionally. Now it’s owned by a Pennsylvania farming company that appears to have the corner on the horseradish market but it’s still produced in Eau Claire, WI.
Regionally, Old Dutch potato chips out of St. Paul and its sister company out of Winnipeg make the best potato chips IMO.
There’s a hot dog restaurant, Skip’s, in Avondale Estates, Georgia, that uses Vienna dogs. But Skip’s intentionally brands themselves as a “Chicago dog” restaurant - Cubs, Bears, Bulls, and White Sox pennants, caricatures of Black Hawks greats, pictures of Burnham Harbor and the city skyline on the wall, that sort of thing.
Whenever Mrs. SMV and I go to North Carolina, I stock up on Mrs. Fearnow’s Brunswick Stew. I can occasionally find it in Kroger here in Atlanta, but I’ve never seen it anywhere else.
I though Vienna sausages sounded familiar so I checked the website for a Northeastern supermarket. A couple of brands sell Vienna sausages in a can. So there at least, it’s a type rather than a brand.
Chicago Vienna dogs are all beef, and kind of small, but yummy. (Small for a hot dog, not small like the canned vienna sausages.) They make an excellent dill chip pickle, and I rarely use “excellent” to describe a pickle. Also, your typical Chicago style beef for the typical Chicago beef sandwich.
I know what you’re talking about - my Dad used to eat “Vy-EENA sausages”, as his family pronounced them; they’d come out of the little can a disgusting pale pink, covered in gelatin - just nasty.
But the ones he ate were made by Armour or Libby. I don’t think they’re related to the Vienna brand hot dogs about which @bobot was speaking.