Local food oddities
skibum609
Massachusetts
We went out for ice cream at Kimball's dairy. I had a very unique flavor of ice cream which I have never seen outside of New England and only 2-3 places still make it: Orange-pineapple. It screams New England lol. What is your local food oddity?
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San Antonio also has a thing for incorporating hot Cheetos into a lot of stuff. Hot Cheetos nachos are a staple. I believe there’s a bunch of restaurants that were offering hot Cheeto options too (hot Cheeto crusted sushi, in burgers, etc) but I haven’t been around to notice if that kept going or was a fad that died.
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In Lubbock TX, every Mexican restaurant for whatever reason had to have seasoned salt chips as opposed to regular chips.
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Minneapolis MN has the Juicy Lucy (cheese is prepared inside the patty)
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WI has cheese curds.
I nevet heard of a juicy lucy until I saw one closed and shuttered in Ft. Myers adter moving here. I need to try making that at home.
The oddest thing I can think of down here is conch fritters. Giant fried sea snails. I couldn't choke it down the one time I tried it. In Chicago, it was foie gras, which is animal cruelty and should have remained outlawed. In New Orleans.. crawfish. Mudbugs. A hell of a lot of work for very little food, which tastes like mud and is poisoned by all the toxic discharges drom as far north as Minnesota.
https://www.buckeyechocolate.com/Milk-Ch…
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/life/f…
https://www.hourdetroit.com/community/mu…
Haha! A Minnesota based chef on Top Chef made one on there and then I found out about the huge debate over its origin. 😂
I actually must say I prefer a regular cheeseburger, because Juicy Lucy's are so damn messy. But it was inventive. They had trended over here to metro Detroit but the time I learned from Top Chef guy that it was a MN thing.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/201…
And while I *would* mention BBQ in Texas, I feel like there’s lots of areas where it’s really good too and idk why Texas is especially known for it?
Tucson has the Sonoran dog
El Paso has Chico’s tacos
Long Island has All American Burger
You guys, we've mentioned some local popular stuff, but nothing seems super out there except the foreign stuff that's been mentioned. I mean, there's always Balut... but it's not like that's popular here.
I guess it's cool that Michigan and (metro)Detroit specifically have their own things. I was the Saganaki queen when I worked at the Coney, I switched from night shift to morning shift and all the morning girls were bitches about it --- especially if it was busy. I lit all their saganakis for them. When I started stripping at Bouzouki in Greektown, customers could order saganaki from the neighboring restaurant and the bartenders would be too scared to light it and serve it already lit. The "opa!" lighting is half the appeal, I started volunteering to do it for the bartenders during slow day shifts a couple times. And I did, to perfection, even while drunk. *tips hat*
Nashville has hot chicken. I tried the hottest chicken at Prince's, I had a real hard time with it, I was tearing up hard but it was good. Story was Prince was cheating on his wife and for his wife to get back at him, she put the hottest sauce she could make and snuck in it is chicken. Prince thought it tasted so good the rest was history or so the legend goes.
Then there's the different BBQ styles. Texas, the Carolinas, Memphis, Kansas City etc.
As a lion I hate to see food go to waste. I believe in using all parts of the wildebeest for my enjoyment. ROAR!!!
Denver - green chili
Kansas City - burnt ends
New Orleans - muffaletta, Zaps Cajun Crawtaters
St Petersburg - smoked mullet
Nashville - Hot Chicken, Goo Goo clusters
St Louis - toasted ravioli
Tony's Clam Box in Quincy used to be great too best place on Quincy Shore Drive. I imagine it still is, but i haven't been there in a long time.
Whenever I feel like cooking up a good breakfast I fry up some Goetta which is similar to Scrapple but made with pinhead oats instead of cornmeal.
Several, including Tony's, which ime mentioned. It was fun grabbing a box of whole fried clams and then munching while walking on the boardwalk. But where I grew up they were widely available in every restaurant that served seafood (which was a lot of them), including dive bars near the water. Shit we even had whole in the wall breakfast/lunch places that used to put them on the specials board about once a week.
Honorable mentions to two Connecticut restaurants, Westfair Fish & Chips in Westport and the USS Chowder Pot in Branford. Best two New England seafood joints in the state hands down. Unlike MA, CT is much more limited in its whole belly clam offerings, but both places do them and lots of other good seafood.
Deli in New England - S&S Deli and Restaurant in Inman Sq, Cambridge MA. Now this is Ski's topic and something tells me Cambridge is dead to Ski!
Best Cheesesteak in New England (IMO) is offered by Victoria's Sub Shop (Hingham MA).
Best pizza of my youth was offered by Christo's (Brockton), which closed about 4 years ago.77
Another fave from was an my youth A&W Drive Up for a Rootbeer Float.
Cheesesteak -Victoria's (Hingham, MA)
Even small hole in the wall pizza joints take great pride in the quality of their food. Then there are the bar pizzas served by so many places that are out of this world. Don't even get me started on places like Denneno's in Stoughton.
Then there are the breakfast restaurants that make the food served in most diners and chain joints look like the dogshit that it is. Joesph's Too in Waltham is just one example of many.
Then there are the mega Chinese restaurants that take the cuisine to a whole new level, from Chinatown in Boston to huge Americanized restaurants in the burbs with night time lounge entertainment.
And the seafood, good Lord. There is a reason why one won't find a Red Lobster anywhere in MA - they just can't compete with the good stuff served out of every luncheonette, bar and shack anywhere near the water, along with the shit ton of nicer seafood restaurants, many of which cook it up the day it is caught.
Man I could go on. There is a shit ton I hate about MA, but the culinary scene cannot be beaten anywhere. I have criss-crossed the country countless times and lived in several regions for long stretches, but I am lucky if I can find anything even remotely close to as good in any of those categories.
Unique Cape Cod/Outer Cape experience: The Beachcomber at Cahoon Hollow beach. Great beach, food, music, vibe; still essentially the exact same as it was 45 years ago. Wellfleet is still old time Cape.
I'm a Michigander and YESSSS. They used to be available as a lunch option when I was in high school (we had like 4 to 5 different lunch options every day) ate them every day my junior year. Still was in perfect shape lol.
I know Jersey has disco fries named after John Travolta wannabes stumblin into diners after clubbing in the 70’s. Cheese Fries with chicken gravy.
New Mexico has a green chili obsession they put it on like everything.
I gotta agree with you 100% about seafood in MA. When I was a kid my parents used to take us on vacation every year to Cape Cod and/or Martha's Vineyard. Throughout my life I've been to Boston maybe a dozen times. Holy shit the seafood joints are off the hook. It's like you can't make a bad decision with restaurant choice. Maryland has some pretty good spots too, but no comparison to MA. By the way (as you know) Manhattan chowder is like taking a can of Campbell's tomato soup and throwing some dishwater and chopped clams in it. Bleahhhhh.
kolachi - that's the Czech version
kolachi - Slovak version here: https://buttermaidbakery.com/
Butter Maid Bakery is a 5th generation small family owned and operated bakery. Our products have been handmade the old-fashioned way with simple ingredients - just like Mom & Grandma baked - for over 150 years. Our history dates back to our first bakery in Ohio in 1903, and our 1800s bakery in the old country. We've been shipping kolachi and other baked goods to all 50 states & Military addresses since 2006, from our bakery right here in Youngstown, Ohio. When you order from our kitchen, we're going to treat you like you're here for Sunday dinner.
Same region - Old Frothingslosh - the pale stale ale with the foam on the bottom
Fresh baked bagels and caraway rye bread plus lean corned beef. Add mustard and a kosher dill slice, a meal. Disappearing Jewish delis a crime.
One item got us all. It looked like brown excelsior, that stuff you use to line Easter baskets, and that was the lie we all believed. Turned out one of our number had brought it back from a trip to Hong Kong. It was pork floss, an edible used to flavor broths.