What are your local delicacies?

Steak:
not-cooked to perfection. Medium rare is a good way to have it, from the 6 oz to the 64 oz, you can get any cut you like.

Brisket:
cooked so it falls into long, tender slices

Chicken Fried Steak:
Defines the meaning of life for y’all who were unsure.

Green Chile Enchiladas:
if you haven’t had them, I’m truly sorry.

Gulf Coast Shrimp:
I’ve lived on other coasts. I don’t even try to eat the shrimp THERE.

Redfish:
on the barbeque, lemon and pepper. As good as fresh Alaskan salmon over the fire on the banks of the river. Except here, no bears to contend with. :slight_smile:

Salsa:
This ain’t made in New York City. San Antonio, Pace is good. Homemade fresh from the stuff in your garden is beyond description good.

Oranges:
grown in the Refugio and other valleys

And here in Dallas, everything else, from every corner of the world (even some of the really SMALL corners) is readily available, at some restaurant, winery, bakery, brewery, or distillery nearby, if not within the DFW area itself.

It’s expensive to live here, but you get what you pay for. Or is that you are what you eat? :wink:

Restaurant owner/chef Charlie Palmer printed a number of recipes for Super Bowl meals in last Wednesday’s NY Daily News, including a marinade for spiedies. It looked great to me, so here 'tis. Upstate New Yorkers, discuss!

for 1 1/2 to 2 pounds boneless chicken, beef, lamb, or pork, cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes…

2 cups dry white wine
1/4 cup sherry vinegar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup minced shallots
1 tblsp minced garlic
1 tblsp minced fresh parsley
2 bay leaves, crumbled
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp dried oregano
salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste

Marinate meat in the above for at least four hours, then skewer and grill for about 8 minutes, turning frequently.

Uke:

White wine? Shallots? Sounds like upper-crusty spiedies to me! And they never mention hoe its served – spiedies are NEVER served on the skewer. I’ve always had them scraped off the skewer onto a bun.

Apparently there used to be a spiedie place in Melrose, Massachusetts (where I lived for a few years). I saw the place on an old “downtown business” map, but nobody remembered it, or could trell me anything about it. It’s the only spiedie place I’ve ever seen that wasn’t within 100 miles of Binghamton. They probably went out of business because nobody in Melrose knew what the hell a “spiedie” was.

  1. Poutine. A wonderful concoction of french fries covered in gravy and cheese curds (chunks of cheese that look like very coarse cottage cheese; they melt on your fries and string like mozza). Instant artery-hardening. I love it.

  2. Smoked meat. Must be eaten at Schwartz’s on St-Laurent St if at all possible.

  3. The only bagels worthy of the name in the Western Hemisphere. I’m sorry, everywhere else I’ve been or eaten bagels from they think a bagel is a donut made of bread. You want the ones from St-Viateur Bagels or Fairmount Bagels in Park Extension.

  4. Pets de soeurs. I have never eaten this pastry (a kind of meringue) but it deserves its place if only because of its name, which means “nuns’ farts”.

Well, Palmer’s a lace-curtain type…the Manhattan restaurants he owns are Aureole, Metrazur, Lenox Grill, and Alva. He says to serve these either on the skewer or in a pita. I would be much more likely to use a good Kaiser roll, as everyone’s recommended. I’ve seen NYC grill-carts selling small spiedies, which they usually call “souvlaki,” though it isn’t…the vendors yank the meat off the skewer onto HOT DOG rolls.

re: your earlier post about the probable Greek origin of the spiedie. Here’s what I use when I marinate a butterflied leg of lamb for the grill (it’s a legacy of my Greek mother-in-law):

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice (red wine vinegar may be substituted)
1 medium onion, sliced thin
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 tsp. dried oregano
2 bay leaves, crumbled
1 tsp. Kosher salt
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Well, we make bourbon here, but unfortunately we ship a lot of it elsewhere. :slight_smile:

The three unique Kentucky delicacies I can think of are:

Ale-8 One. It’s a sweet, perfectly spiced ginger ale made down in Winchester. It’s the house wine around here. Mixes beautifully with bourbon, too.

Western KY Barbecue. Don’t think I’m trying to disparage Memphis or Kansas City, as they are the barbecue Meccas, but I do love W. KY BBQ. Sliced or chopped mutton (or pork, if you must) in a sweet, vinegary sauce, served with dill pickles, red sweet onions, and a slice of white bread. The epicenter of this dish is Owensboro (my girlfriend’s hometown), where Moonlite BBQ made it famous but gets its ass kicked by Old Hickory BBQ. Fortunately for us, we do have Billy’s Bar-B-Q here in town to tide us over between trips.

Burgoo. (Be careful to accent the first syllable, lest you look like a tourist.) It’s a stew, usually made with mutton, also made famous around Owensboro and at the Keeneland Race Course here in Lexington. Quite tasty stuff.

Dr. J

HOW DARE YOU CLAIM Bratwurst!!! Everyone knows Wisconsin has Claim to the Brats!!!

Cheescurds… Cheese…Linenkugels.

Nobody beats Wisconsin for cheese curds. However, you have to go to a cheese factory to get proper curds, for they must be eaten just out of the vat and still warm. ::slobber::

We go to Dairy State Cheese (outside of Wisconsin Rapids) or Mullins Cheese (not too far from Stevens Point).

Once the curds are hours and miles away from there, they’re just…cheese.

Mm, only another eleven months until my annual lutefisk-feed.

Lutefisk, the bestest foodstuff EVER:

Hack the fish into strips about six inches long. Soak the strip in fresh water for four days. Mix two tablespoons of lye in a gallon of water, add to the fish-pot. Soak for another four days. Soak for four more days in fresh water, changing water daily.

Tie the soaked fish in cheesecloth. Toss in boiling water for ten minutes, or until the fish turns rubbery and nauseating. Drain, debone, devour.

Any midwest dopers are cordially invited to the Christmas 2001 lutefisk-fest.

Leyden Cheese

This is from this site: http://www.wgx.com/cheesenet/wci/wci_l

This link will take you to the Bavarian Inn’s Cheese Shop page; they have a phone number you can call. It doesn’t list the types of cheese they have though.
http://www.bavarianinn.com/shopping.sht#cheese

igourmet also sells a 1 lb thing of Leyden for $6.99. Here’s the link: http://www.igourmet.com/shoppe.asp?cat=1&subcat=Holland

A vintage apple is a type of apple (McIntosh, Gala are types) that is greater than 50 years old. A lot of the apples you find in the stores today are specifically bred for keeping quality (they don’t go bad as fast), size, resistence to disease, and other marketable and grower-oriented traits. This isn’t necessarily bad, but usually those traits come at the sacrifice of something else, usually taste. Some of the older apples have exquisite taste, but because they don’t keep well, are not resistent to apple disease such as fire blight and therefore cannot be grown economically in quantity, you won’t see them on the store shelves. I can dig up the link to a vintage apple nursery that I’ve got around here somewhere if anyone is interested.

Aghris, re: herring. I guess that’s what comes from us being Finnish! :smiley:

Ooooh, everything sounds so good. I’m starving.
The Spiedies sound great!

JBirdman12, yes, good old Natty Bo! Good Cheap Beer!

MotorGirl, your Half-Moon cookies sound like my Berger Cookies, only bigger. I like the double frosting idea. Ours are just chocolate, but it’s thick and rich and incredibly fudgy.

Jadis, we get the Martin’s Pototo bread and rolls here in Maryland.

TVeblen, crab lovers are welcome anytime, but now is not really crab season. (It is oyster season, though!)
Wait till June. And we don’t bury the shells. I save the top half (the red part) and make ornaments out of them. I paint them to look like Santa and then sell some and give some as gifts at Christmas.

How could I forget good ol’ New York Cheesecake?

Also, New York Steak is a bit of fiction. I have yet to see a restaurant here label boneless top loin steak “New York Steak”

Ukelele Ike, would you take the culinary advice of someone who would marry R. Crumb? Just to remind you, there’s a little town in Northern California called San Francisco. I hear there are a couple of good restaurants there.
Here in San Diego we can get just about anything fresh, but local favorites include:

Fish Tacos–fried fish bits with shredded cabbage in some kind of creamy dressing, fresh salsa and a squeeze of lime on a corn tortilla.

Baja-style lobster–Broiled pacific lobster (not as good as Maine lobster, but still very nice) with refried beans and fresh tortillas on the side.

Fresh tuna any way you like, from sushi to Portuguese-style home-canned with garlic and oil.

Okay, okay, I’m guilty of engaging in hyperbole. That’s always the most fun part of the great East Coast/West Coast Squabble, anyway.

I looooove fish tacos! The Jamisons’ wonderful BORDER COOKBOOK gives a southern California recipe that calls for grilled garlicky fish and a simple lime juice-dressed chopped salad of Romaine and plum tomato. They also mention a fried catfish version from Texas border country that’s sauced with a remoulade.

peepthis, actually, the first White Castle opened up in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921. So it’s a Kansas thing.

Jeannie, although I’m a native Chicagoan, I’m going to have to defer to Kvallulf on this one - Brats are Wisconsin “Food of the Gods”. That ain’t a Chicago thing.

And whoever mentioned Green River soda, DAMN YOU! Now my weekend is going to involve a long ass drive from the Northwest suburbs to get some for SBSunday. Thanks a BUNCH! My kid will probably name his first born after ya, though. :smiley:

For the Texas Poster:

Don’t forget the white gravy, it may not be “unique” but it is a necessity!

Fish tacos are divine! Love 'em!

Lobster. Give me a one and a half from right off the boat, thanks much.

Native shrimp- they’re small, sweet, and divine with light batter. My favorite.

Steamers. They absolutely have to be cooked right, though- a steamer is a delicate food.

Fish chowder- if you’re going to make it, do it with lots of fresh haddock and use real milk. It’s the best stuff ever.

Cheese Nirvana! Thanks, BunnyGirl!

Of course, you are correct, Bunny. I hope I didn’t do injury to your fine Yooper sensibilities. :wink: