So you’re the one that’s been keeping the Moxie corporation alive? Sick, sick, sick. SICK! Uggh. I’m getting chills just THINKING about the smell of Moxie. Horrible days of my youth when my 70 year old great uncle convinced me it was actually tonic. We all know real tonic doesn’t taste like THAT. Uggh.
Most people just describe it as “godawful malted laundry detergent.”
Just so you know. 
Dayton, Ohio area
Cassano’s Pizza
Marions Pizza
MikeSells Potato Chips
I kept hearing my mother’s voice when I was reading this thread. She ate Hot Browns at the Brown Hotel in Louisville whence they originated and claims it’s hard to find a real one anymore. These things slathered with so much cheddar cheese you can’t find the rest of it are just heresy. I think she said they had more of a white sauce originally. Who am I to argue with mom?
Somebody mentioned sorghum also I believe. We’ve still got homegrown and homemade sorghum in central Ky. I love that stuff! I use it all the time instead of molasses or brown sugar. It’s absolutely great on a smoked country ham- also local. And I although I know they’re not indigenous to this area alone, what about catfish? My favorite fish I think. We’ve also got a spoonfish that shows up a lot in local restaurants. Man, I think I’m getting hungry…
A couple of notes and a question.
Fastnacht is the correct spelling, and the name is derived from their pre-lent treat status. Fast=fast nacht=night or eve. So we get eve of the fast, aka Mardi gras.
Taylor’s Pork Roll is indeed a New Jersey native. It’s a cured dry sausage kind of like a hardened Spam. Some people like it a little too much. http://members.bellatlantic.net/~orbit/porkroll.html
Now my question. Is Spiedie pronounced ‘speedy’?
Please post them here. Not everyone goes over to that ridiculous recipe thread.
The proper spelling for the Polish sausage is kielbasa. You occasionally see “kolbassy” and other phonetic spellings, but they apply to the same sausage.
There ARE differnt grinds available in the same Polish butchers, but they sell them as {blank} kielbasa and {blank} kielbasa. I can check next time I go over to Eagle Provisions, Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn, for the proper Slavic terms. I usually just ask for “the fine grind,” as the other has huge chunks of ham and pork in it, which is a bit of a turn-off.
I grew up in Cleveland, which has many more Poles per capita than New York…there was only one grind of kielbasa around, which sorta split the difference betwen the coarse grind and the fine grind I get here.
Trips back to Ohio to see the Old Man, I end up bringing back at least five pounds from Thayer’s or the West Side Market. Nothing like garlic in the luggage rack.
I don’t know if it’s possible for a college town to have real delicacies, but here’s what we’ve got:
Chili-Cheese Fries Only the ones from Eskimo Joes count. Seasoned fries with thick cheese sauce topped with wonderous chili and onions. Heartburn and heartattack in a basket.
Hide-a-way PizzaThey tell me its been made famous by university alumni who have it shipped all over the country
and from my home town in El Dorado, Arkansas: Spudnuts: Light fluffy sugar glazed doughnut like things made from potato flour. I buy them everytime I go home for a visit. They’re still good two days later but they’re religious right off the icing tray.
Checking in from Maine. So,… lobster. Probably didn’t have to say it. I’m a finnicky eater and would rather have a nice haddock filet, most days. Besides having traveled most of the country I have lived in three parts;New England,the Midwest and the South. My first love is pizza. Sorry Boston,your good. Sorry Chicago,your good. The best pizza comes from the NYC,NJ,New Haven area.From upstate NY, those White Hots are to die for. My freezer has an appointment with some very soon. I moved to the south at 21, and as a finnicky eater I had a whole new food chain to buff against. I left with a new appetite.Gulf shrimp are the best. The flounder down there was the biggest,best and caught in the shallowest of waters. Hush puppies cooked right(never had a real one at any restraunt)could be a meal unto themselves. On a recent visit back I was asked over for dinner and what would I like. “Dry lima beans and rice!” Of course that came with southern fried chicken as a ‘side dish’. In the Midwest the most notable thing I crave is the corn. Sweet corn,never had anything as good as walking into the back yard (corn field) and picking fresh corn,shucking and dropping into a kettle of boiling water. The last Michigan town I lived in,Bronson, was a polish community and they had all their delicacies there. Can’t spell most of ‘em but they were good. Except for ‘duck blood soup’. Couldn’t get past the name. Moving back to Maine, I found corn just as good and came to the theory that the farther north you go, the sweeter the corn can be.Even further north from where I live I still get sweeter corn.Being a Maineac, I laughed when Laura had beat me to Moxie, not a fan but it is a local’delicasy’. Which takes me back to Michigan. Anyone out there familir with Vernor’s pop.
::triumphant background music swells::
Vernor’s Ginger Ale. The real stuff. Hard to find, but never to be equalled. As the Jane and Michael Stern put it (sorta), “strong, clean ginger taste with a bite like a Michigan wolverine”. It is just so, so good. Only trouble is, it completely spoils your mouth for feeble imitations.
Drooling again,
Veb
I’ve seen several posts from Upstate New Yorkers and I am astounded that not one of them has mentioned the mighty Garbage Plate!!!
The Garbage Plate, product of Nick Tahou’s (sp?) Hots, represents the pinnacle of Rochester’s dining experience. It begins with the absolute best macaroni salad sharing space on a paper plate with home fries. On top of that, add two cheeseburgers (no buns just meat and cheese). Other foods can be substituted for the burgers, such as red or white hots, eggs, fish, steak etc, but cheeseburgers are the traditional way to go. On the burgers, add yellow mustard, onions, an awesome meat-based hot sauce, and Italian bread served fresh out of a garbage bag, and you’ve got heaven on a plate.
This dish has spawned copycats in Rochester such as the Dumpster Plate at Empire Hots, and the Kitty Litter Plate at one of the “adult entertainment” joints out on Henrietta Road. None of these can touch the Garbage Plate, IMHO.
I don’t live there anymore, but if I was to do a pro/con list about moving back, Garbage Plates would be near the top.
Ah, yes Nick Tahou’s and the Garbage Plate. I lived six years in Rochester and managed to avoid Nick’s the whole time, along with the appetizingly-named piece de resistance of his establishment. I think the last time I was in town was told that he’d closed down, but I might be wrong.
South Central, eh? That must be where the Amish gangs are running amok. 
AKA, “Detroit River Water” 
But, it is the best ginger ale out there!
Houston, Texas, here. Ditto to everything. Except we shouldn’t forget hand-caught blue crabs thrown in the pot alive with some crab boil are mighty tasty!
Another vote here for Krystal. I grew up in Knoxville and have loved Krystals since I was a kid. These days, I live in Dallas and Krystals are only in the Southeast. So, when I go back for holidays and such, it’s one of the first places I head.
There was an entire thread on Buffalo cuisine a little while ago, at http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=49533
*Originally posted by delphica *
See http://www.ap.buffalo.edu/~tasman/virtual_cheektowaga_images/charlie_the_butcher.jpg .
See http://www.webersmustard.com . Apparently, it’s the best selling mustard in Upstate New York; I think French’s Mustard is the national leader.
See http://www.ap.buffalo.edu/~tasman/virtual_cheektowaga_images/butter_lamb.jpg . The butter lamb thing is popular among Polish-Americans in the Buffalo area, but people of Polish descent outside the area have never heard of the practice. I don’t know anything about the symbolism of it.
“Dum-dum-dum-dum-mi-ghty-ta-co-mi-ghty-taco-mi-ghty-ta-co”
Mighty Taco has a following in the Buffalo area that’s similar to the In and Out Burger cult in Southern California. There’s even a few Mighty Taco shrine sites out there.
Don’t forget La Nova, Leonardi’s, and any of the mom & pop places that are on every street corner in the city and in every strip mall in the 'burbs.
Buffalo style pizza is also mentioned in the aforementioned thread. Nothing quite like it – I always thought that locals could make a fortune by opening Buffalo-style pizzerias in someplace that has a lot of Buffalo expats, like North Carolina or Florida.
You also forgot loganberry juice, Catholic style spaghetti dinners and the friday night fish fry.
One thing I miss about buffalo is the high quality of the supermarkets – Tops and Wegmans are perhaps the best in the nation – and the amount of local products that you can ding there. In Denver, there’s few local food products to be had in King Soopers or Safeway, but go to any Tops, and the shelves are filled with brands that you won’t find anywhere else in the country. Buffalo’s food culture contributes to a distict, comfortable sense of place. The downside of this is that there’s little “new blood” in the area, and restaurant menus tend to be anachronistic – you can find great southern Italian food or meatloaf, but little in the way of “New American cuisine” or more obscure ethnic foods.
Dang, I forgot about Butter Lambs! Only place I found it in Syracuse was a little ethnic store (Steiger’s? now out of business) near Sacred Heart Church on W. Genessee Street (center of a large Polish population). Steiger’s was the only place to find Knorr soup, real kielbasa and lots of foods I cannot pronounce anymore. Place always smelled like garlic and spices. I miss that place.
[sidenote]
The “Rose & Crown Pub” at EPCOT used to have butter molds of Mickey Mouse instead of butter pats. We used to lop off an ear (“Mickey Van Gogh”), the arms (“Mickey de Milo”), and the head (“Mickie Antoinette”). They don’t have them anymore (wonder why?! hmmm.), but it was fun destoying a corporate icon.
[/sidenote]
And speaking of Catholic foods, how about the unblessed communion wafers with embossed pictures of the Last Supper, the Nativity, and other great Catholic hits? We had them at Christmas and Easter (along with the honey on the forehead); we used to call them ‘practice wafers’.
I can’t believe that no Texan has mentioned Blue Bell Ice Cream yet!
In addition to Blue Bell, chicken-fried steak with white cream gravy, and Tex-Mex, I’ll nominate:
Frito Pie - Fritos® corn chips covered with Wolf® Brand chili, onions, cheese, and baked until the cheese melts.
King Ranch Chicken - A casserole made of corn tortillas, chicken, mushroom soup, Rotel tomatoes, and tons of gooey cheddar cheese.
Texas Chili - Must never include beans. Never.
Kolaches - Czech pastries stuffed with sausage or fruit. (Yeah, I know. Kolaches aren’t uniquely Texan, but Central Texas has just about become the Kolache Capital of the US.)
Fletcher’s Corny Dogs - The one, the only, the original corn dog. Available only at the State Fair of Texas each October.
Eating supper tonight, got to thinking about missing Vidalia onions before. Oooh good. I lived in S.C. and there is no way they can consider them local, good lawsuits and whatnot. I can attest to eating them like an apple.
Reviewing the thread I found a few more things to give a vote for. Corn bread, done right, at home,I mean in the south,is grand.How ‘bout a little cracklin’ in it? Good again. Flymaster mentioned canned bread from Boston. Got a couple cans in my cupboard.The first time I heard of it,I asked “What?” Canned bread."What?"Bread from a can. “What?” …Good again.
And Tansu, you mentioned cottled cream and such. I lovingly refer to my mother as a ‘boat person’. Mom is a born and bred subject of the Queen, and my family grew up eating American food with a mostly English accent. A few things come to mind. Yorkshire pudding,Bovril, meat and potato pie. Which, I never heard of putting mushy peas in. And as a matter of fact never heard of mushy peas until my brother recently just handed me a box of peas from England and said, “Do this,there great!” I better try them.On my only trip over my aunt had us go to a tea on the green of this nice village. Devonshire Cream Tea is what I remember being served with scones. I have never tryed to have it again. Because the only place,I was told, you can get Devonshire cream is there. Period.I’m looking forward to my next visit if only for that.