Honestly, weird regional foods are everything that's great about America, since so many of them have their origins in immigrant communities attempting traditional/favorite dishes with different and new (and often more abundant) ingredients found in the US.
Sorry if this is already somewhere in the comments, but I only learned in recent years that the cheesy potato dish I bake twice a year for holidays is also known as Funeral Potatoes, and is possibly regional to the Midwest. It’s basically hash brown cubes baked with cheddar cheese, sour cream, cream of chicken soup, and crushed corn flakes on top. There’s no nutritional value, but the delicious taste provides holiday comfort once your racist uncle starts going at it.
It's a fine dish as long as you make your own cream of chicken soup from scratch, using chickens you raised yourself. You could make your own MSG, but I wouldn't advise it unless you happen to have an old RV way out in the desert.
". . . when I moved to southwest Ohio’s premier city for my freshman year of college." When did you live in Oxford? (Speaking of making people mad on the internet.)
I LOVE THIS SO MUCH. Americans care WAY too much about how other people eat, dress, and order their family lives as a rule, so I am ALL IN on "eat what makes you happy." Especially because my favorite thing is going to a new place and learning about their local deliciousness.
I have 3 entries: Alabama white BBQ sauce on chicken (which is having a trend moment, and everyone outside of north Alabama is doing WAY too much with what is a very simple thing). Also, slugburgers from C.F. Penn's in Decatur, AL, which are a) delicious broke-people food, b) horrific for you in the best ways, and c) one of the few things that can make my hyper-stoic beloved teary-eyed and sentimental thinking about eating with his granddaddy. Finally, for others (I cannot eat it due to allergies), Mobile offers West Indies salad to the world, which is delicious crabmeat salad served on lettuce.
Really, just come to Alabama and eat. We do a lot wrong here, but food is one thing we REALLY do well.
Updated to add my favorite part of law school at LSU: learning about chicken spaghetti and pastalaya. Chicken spaghetti in particular is just so delicious and weird and perfect.
Agree on the slugburger front; only I must insist on the Mississippi variety. I think C.F. Penn's uses beef and breadcrumbs for the patty, and the toppings are onion and mustard. The MS version is a minced pork with flour and soy meal patty topped with POM (pickles, onion, mustard). Best enjoyed with a coke (from a glass bottle, of course). It also reminds me of eating with my grandfather.
This is like old home week, especially the comment section with pizzas, shout out to Steubenville style. Skyline gets a bad reputation, sort of like White Castle.
Weird regional foods need to exist because we need to feel that sense of home. Just reading this today put me in a better mood as I look forward to going home in here a couple of weeks. And I wish there was more weird regional food instead of mono-monolopy chain food pits. And that "weird foods" had more to do with a region/culture than what can be combined together at some chef's tasting menu. We should celebrate it more beyond the eternal BBQ battles.
Small town fried chicken, generally from a gas station convenience store is divine and everyone has a place. They will throw down to say which one is supreme.
Also I just thought of one of my own that I have to throw in here: it is borderline criminal that one of Nashville's greatest cultural contributions to the world, the Goo Goo Cluster (and its superior offshoot, the Peanut Butter Goo Goo) are not available in every store in America.
Eastern Carolina pulled pork. I've been guilty of bbq purism in the past because I like it so much. I've come around on the regional thing you articulate and I think my caginess over this particular bbq is because it's hard for me to disentangle the food and the place and love for both, if that makes sense.
I think I started following you because the chili trolling was funny. Please keep that up.
My only personal aversion to the garbage plate is the macaroni salad. I’d try the traditional version of it if the opportunity presented itself but if I were to make it myself I think I’d make a simple Mac and cheese in place of the macaroni salad.
Look, I don't even like the stuff but pork roll is an objectively bad name for anything that bespeaks not a speck of uniqueness or regional specificity. Also, it clearly indicates that someone is from "just outside Philly" when in actuality they grew up in Cherry Hill. Call it Taylor Ham, it sounds nice and you can annoy people as well.
Are Coney dogs specific to Michigan? Recently, a group of friends sat in stunned silence as my wife and I described the beauty of the meat sauce—not chili!—poured over a natural casing hot dog and topped with diced onions and mustard. We even made some homemade the next day because we talked ourselves into a craving! Coney dogs are delicious, and I encourage anyone to try them should they be in southeastern Michigan for a spell.
I think they're fairly regional. When we visit my wife's family in Fort Wayne, I like going to Coney Island there; absolute classic where you can walk through the kitchen to get from the parking lot to the dining room. But that's pretty close to Michigan.
Based on what you said in today's session Scott, I think the meat sauce for a coney is probably the cousin of Cincinnati chili since it too likely came from Greek immigrants who tended to run Michigan's coney islands.
The bar and grill in my neighborhood in Columbus is owned by a guy with that diner background - and they're on the menu between the saganaki and the gyro.
Red Brick Tap and Grill - same guy owns it that owned and ran Easy Street Cafe on Thurman, before he decided to consolidate his two spots a third of a mile apart into 1.
This makes a lot of sense given that most Coney Islands in Michigan were initially operated by Greek families. Most have a significant Greek component to the menu (gyros, spinach pie, saganaki, etc.)
this is the first I've heard of Isaly's. Their website describes it as "lean" and "very hammy" and is suspiciously quiet on what's actually in it, so now I _have_ to try it.
You're Scottish, so I'm sure that you'd have an affinity for chipped chopped ham - From wiki: "Chopped ham is a mixture of ham chunks and trimmings and seasonings, ground together and then packaged into loaves. By chipping or shaving the meat loaf against a commercial meat slicer blade, the resultant thinly sliced product has a different texture and flavor compared to thickly sliced ham."
Red slaw or the Duke's mayo stuff? Slaw on barbecue is nearly ubiquitous in North Carolina, but I also discovered that there's a local cultural divide about the slaw, too.
Cincinnati chili is good, end of story!
I know a guy who just decided to move from Denver to Cincinnati specifically for the Cincinnati chili, and for no other reason!
he and I would probably be fast friends!
Honestly, weird regional foods are everything that's great about America, since so many of them have their origins in immigrant communities attempting traditional/favorite dishes with different and new (and often more abundant) ingredients found in the US.
Sorry if this is already somewhere in the comments, but I only learned in recent years that the cheesy potato dish I bake twice a year for holidays is also known as Funeral Potatoes, and is possibly regional to the Midwest. It’s basically hash brown cubes baked with cheddar cheese, sour cream, cream of chicken soup, and crushed corn flakes on top. There’s no nutritional value, but the delicious taste provides holiday comfort once your racist uncle starts going at it.
we called these "pittsburgh potatoes"
known in my family at least as "Lutheran Potatoes" since at every church potluck there'd be several of them
Had a Minnesotan buddy who brought the party potatoes to New England
I'm sorry but I just read this line to myself in my best imitation of The Hold Steady's Craig Finn and it's making me laugh really hard
I mean- he did go to BC also!
Yeah, he put 'em a hot dish and showed up to see our hoodrat friends.
Yeah, the nervous little tramps were waiting for the bars. (to be put out)
funeral potatoes!
also referred to as party potatoes
Cincinnati/Dayton/Columbus/Cleveland family all knew of this
Oh, we always called this "Cheesy Tatoes". Each of the women in my family makes it slightly differently, but they're all great in their own ways.
Funeral Potatoes is just a terrible name.
Oh agreed! They’re so delicious, and don’t deserve the association with sadness. I just call them Cheesy Potatoes™.
Cheesy Potatoes here as well, and yes, a staple of family gatherings forever and a day.
Unless you need to cheer up that glum old funeral.
It's a fine dish as long as you make your own cream of chicken soup from scratch, using chickens you raised yourself. You could make your own MSG, but I wouldn't advise it unless you happen to have an old RV way out in the desert.
Why Jucy Lucy isn't more widely available, with America's love of cheese and ground meat, entirely perplexes me.
". . . when I moved to southwest Ohio’s premier city for my freshman year of college." When did you live in Oxford? (Speaking of making people mad on the internet.)
first of all how dare you
Also, there may be a Minnesota-style barbecue, but I'm not sure how we're gonna get the sauce to stick to the lutefisk, eh.
I'm thinking some kind of sauced, shredded beef on injera and it's making me hungry
this sounds amazing
currently steaming at my desk after reading this
Shit, you mean air conditioning hasn't made it to Cincinnati either? Mark Twain was right.
madder than ever
Ew, gross!
I LOVE THIS SO MUCH. Americans care WAY too much about how other people eat, dress, and order their family lives as a rule, so I am ALL IN on "eat what makes you happy." Especially because my favorite thing is going to a new place and learning about their local deliciousness.
I have 3 entries: Alabama white BBQ sauce on chicken (which is having a trend moment, and everyone outside of north Alabama is doing WAY too much with what is a very simple thing). Also, slugburgers from C.F. Penn's in Decatur, AL, which are a) delicious broke-people food, b) horrific for you in the best ways, and c) one of the few things that can make my hyper-stoic beloved teary-eyed and sentimental thinking about eating with his granddaddy. Finally, for others (I cannot eat it due to allergies), Mobile offers West Indies salad to the world, which is delicious crabmeat salad served on lettuce.
Really, just come to Alabama and eat. We do a lot wrong here, but food is one thing we REALLY do well.
West Indies salad sounds terrific.
I miss it so much - it is delicious. Stupid adult-onset crab allergy. https://www.southernliving.com/recipes/west-indies-crab-salad-recipe
Updated to add my favorite part of law school at LSU: learning about chicken spaghetti and pastalaya. Chicken spaghetti in particular is just so delicious and weird and perfect.
Agree on the slugburger front; only I must insist on the Mississippi variety. I think C.F. Penn's uses beef and breadcrumbs for the patty, and the toppings are onion and mustard. The MS version is a minced pork with flour and soy meal patty topped with POM (pickles, onion, mustard). Best enjoyed with a coke (from a glass bottle, of course). It also reminds me of eating with my grandfather.
That sounds amazing, actually. I always thought the Penn's version would benefit from pickles. I'll have to check that out.
This is like old home week, especially the comment section with pizzas, shout out to Steubenville style. Skyline gets a bad reputation, sort of like White Castle.
Weird regional foods need to exist because we need to feel that sense of home. Just reading this today put me in a better mood as I look forward to going home in here a couple of weeks. And I wish there was more weird regional food instead of mono-monolopy chain food pits. And that "weird foods" had more to do with a region/culture than what can be combined together at some chef's tasting menu. We should celebrate it more beyond the eternal BBQ battles.
Small town fried chicken, generally from a gas station convenience store is divine and everyone has a place. They will throw down to say which one is supreme.
My beloved scrapple is truly a food I would be willing to burn a small European nation to the ground to defend
I have family who feel the same way. I don't quite get it but I respect the devotion
Also I just thought of one of my own that I have to throw in here: it is borderline criminal that one of Nashville's greatest cultural contributions to the world, the Goo Goo Cluster (and its superior offshoot, the Peanut Butter Goo Goo) are not available in every store in America.
YES. Goo Goo Clusters were everywhere in AL when i was a kid. So good.
i made my mom seek out goo goo cluster ice cream in the entire city of louisville for a birthday once. i think she found it in a basement in Shively.
Cincinnati chili is a form of gumbo
/ducks
it's been nice knowing you
Eastern Carolina pulled pork. I've been guilty of bbq purism in the past because I like it so much. I've come around on the regional thing you articulate and I think my caginess over this particular bbq is because it's hard for me to disentangle the food and the place and love for both, if that makes sense.
I think I started following you because the chili trolling was funny. Please keep that up.
The Garbage Plate of Rochester NY
My only personal aversion to the garbage plate is the macaroni salad. I’d try the traditional version of it if the opportunity presented itself but if I were to make it myself I think I’d make a simple Mac and cheese in place of the macaroni salad.
Philip, when I make them at home, I make Mac and cheese because life is meant to be cheesy.
The cause of... and solution to... all of life’s problem
Does pork roll count as regional food? Because I will defend pork roll to the death. Also scrapple is gross, sorry.
TAYLOR
HAM
oh no, it's a taylor ham person. everyone abandon the comments now
Look, I don't even like the stuff but pork roll is an objectively bad name for anything that bespeaks not a speck of uniqueness or regional specificity. Also, it clearly indicates that someone is from "just outside Philly" when in actuality they grew up in Cherry Hill. Call it Taylor Ham, it sounds nice and you can annoy people as well.
Are Coney dogs specific to Michigan? Recently, a group of friends sat in stunned silence as my wife and I described the beauty of the meat sauce—not chili!—poured over a natural casing hot dog and topped with diced onions and mustard. We even made some homemade the next day because we talked ourselves into a craving! Coney dogs are delicious, and I encourage anyone to try them should they be in southeastern Michigan for a spell.
I think they're fairly regional. When we visit my wife's family in Fort Wayne, I like going to Coney Island there; absolute classic where you can walk through the kitchen to get from the parking lot to the dining room. But that's pretty close to Michigan.
Based on what you said in today's session Scott, I think the meat sauce for a coney is probably the cousin of Cincinnati chili since it too likely came from Greek immigrants who tended to run Michigan's coney islands.
Oh yes, I agree. The sauce is very similar, at least in my experience with the NE Indiana version.
The bar and grill in my neighborhood in Columbus is owned by a guy with that diner background - and they're on the menu between the saganaki and the gyro.
What's the name of the place? For research purposes.
Red Brick Tap and Grill - same guy owns it that owned and ran Easy Street Cafe on Thurman, before he decided to consolidate his two spots a third of a mile apart into 1.
I haven't sampled them, but in upstate New York (think Binghamton), apparently diners sell a similar dish that is listed on the menu as a "Michigan."
poop you beat me to it
Fun fact: basically an identical style (thin chili sauce over a hot dog) in upstate New York is called "A Michigan." they are great.
They're everywhere in Tulsa
So, in my hometown (Erie, PA) these are called Greek dogs (or fries, or burgers, or....) and the loose chili is Greek sauce.
Discovering most people think that means tzatziki was very confusing later in life.
This makes a lot of sense given that most Coney Islands in Michigan were initially operated by Greek families. Most have a significant Greek component to the menu (gyros, spinach pie, saganaki, etc.)
The "barbecue" most likely to start a fight on the internet? "Chipped Ham Barbecue" that my Yinzer in-laws make.
And remember, if it isn't Isaly's, it isn't chipped ham.
I have had (what I assume is) something akin to this!
Related, my dad's family is from SW PA.
This is similar to what my in-laws make: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/34510/pittsburgh-chipped-ham-barbecues/
Yep! My dad makes this with leftover ham.
I love how this is somehow different than the NE PA BBQ that my family has been serving that area for nearly a century http://stookeysbarbeque.com/
Growing up in SW PA, I ate lot of the chipped ham style BBQ My wife from NE OH couldn't understand why we called it BBQ.
this is the first I've heard of Isaly's. Their website describes it as "lean" and "very hammy" and is suspiciously quiet on what's actually in it, so now I _have_ to try it.
You're Scottish, so I'm sure that you'd have an affinity for chipped chopped ham - From wiki: "Chopped ham is a mixture of ham chunks and trimmings and seasonings, ground together and then packaged into loaves. By chipping or shaving the meat loaf against a commercial meat slicer blade, the resultant thinly sliced product has a different texture and flavor compared to thickly sliced ham."
I mean it's a little short on lung or blood, but that definitely sounds right up my alley.
Some of my favorite bbq sandwiches put coleslaw on them.
Red slaw or the Duke's mayo stuff? Slaw on barbecue is nearly ubiquitous in North Carolina, but I also discovered that there's a local cultural divide about the slaw, too.
It's mayo and bbq sauce combining together into a dripping mess.