Regional foods

Dan Wallach was recently near me and we met up. Initially, we were going to grab breakfast somewhere, but that ended up being impossible, which was too bad, as I was going to take him to a local place (Big Ed's) that served great local food breakfast.

Anyway, I mentioned to him that they had brains and roe, but that I usually got the country ham. But he had no idea what country ham was, something I hadn't considered. (For the record, it's a dry, salt-cured ham. Very salty -- you have to soak it in water before cooking it, and even then there's still a lot of salt left in it. Same thing as a Virginia ham.)

Here in North Carolina, we also have our own peculiar brand of barbecue. (Actually three, usually pulled pork with either a somewhat spicy vinegar-based ``sauce'', a tomato-based sauce, or a mustard-based sauce.)

What other regional foods are out there that we've never heard of? (And I think we've covered the barbecue issue before, really.)

Another thing that I think is a regional peculiarity is that a real Southern breakfast (although you seldom see it anymore outside Big Ed's) is served with a tomato slice, like in England. No Heinz baked beans, though.

Did breakfast tacos start out as a regional thing somewhere? I don't recall them in Arizona when I grew up and certainly not in New England in the 90's. Now they seem to be everywhere I go...

What exactly is a breakfast taco? Here in california we've had breakfast burritos for years, but I've never seen a breakfast taco.

Matthew

It's hard to know what stuff is regional, as it's just "normal" here! I know iced tea is particular to the south. Are Fajitas a well-known food outside of Texas?

Like a soft taco but usually with eggs, cheese, and meat, sometimes black beans, too. These aren't a burrito because it uses taco sized tortillas

On this topic somewhat, we have an exchange student from Russia staying with us for the year. It’s been great fun introducing her to all sorts of new foods she’s never had before (her eyes bulged when we fried a Turkey this weekend).

I asked her if she’d ever had a hamburger before and she said “yes”, but after some questioning I realized she’d only ever had McDonalds. That very night I grilled up some real hamburgers and she couldn’t believe the difference.

Well, since I've been travelling between Williamsburg and northern Virginia for over four years now, I've noticed regional differences between even these seemingly proximate locales. But that's probably because northern Virginia is like a different state.

The biggest difference comes at breakfast (my favorite meal by far). Anything past about 50 miles south of Washington DC is grits country. I hate grits. Every time my family and friends go out to a restaurant for breakfast in Williamsburg, they're shocked when everyone at the table asks for hash browns instead of grits. Can't stand em.

I'm sure there are more examples, but I can't think of any right now. I haven't had the money to eat out recently

This is what I gathered on the breakfast burrito/taco issue...

If it's wrapped in a flour tortilla, it's technically a breakfast burrito.

If it's wrapped in anything else, it's called a breakfast taco.

This is the trend I've noticed. I think, generally, if you get breakfast from a tex/mex or new mexican place then they're most likely going to call it a breakfast burrito. But, if it comes from more of a Mexican cuisine place that serves tapas, etc... then it's most likely going to be called a breakfast taco.

In NM if it's a breakfast burrito, then it has green/red chile in it. Anything else just isn't right.

- trs

Are Fajitas a well-known food outside of Texas?

I would imagine Fajitas are nown pretty much anywhere there's a Chili's. Which is pretty much everywhere - except for Montana for some reason.

- trs

We used to get "bologna boats" served for lunch in North GA.... A slice of bologna with an icecream scoop of mashed potatoes on top and then topped with a slice of velveta...

Heat just enough to melt the velveeta and enjoy!

Uh. What's brains and roe? We've got a thing called roe over here and it's like a fish egg cake

Well, roe is as you described, and brains is calf brains. Boiled, then fried, IIRC.

Honestly, I've never ordered this, and I've seldom seen anyone else do so, so I don't really know the presentation. The roe may be loose instead of in a cake, and I don't really know how the brains are prepared or presented.

ew

- trs

except for Montana for some reason

true, ive never seen a chilis in montana and i lived there for 21 years. but i do think my mom made the best fajitas ive ever tasted. in great falls theres a place called 'jakers' that makes really good fajitas as well.

i would try brains. im willing to try any food at least once.
kangaroo steaks are awesome

In Maine we used to pick "fiddlesticks" behind our house and have them as a vegetable. They are a type of fern that grow near water and curl up to look like the head of a violin. You clean them by wacking them against your finger and making them uncurl momentarily, releasing the gunk inside, then boil them and serve with butter. I don't know where else they grow, but I've never heard of anyone else eating them outside of Maine.

Those would be young fiddlehead ferns, and they're a great spring dish. I've had them many times in NH, VT & upstate NY. I've never heard them called fiddlesticks before.

-Zeke

Burritos are traditionally made with a larger, flour torilla and are rolled. Traditional Mexican burritos don't use rice that is appearently an American addition.

Tacos are traditionally made with a smaller corn torilla and are simply folded in half. In Mexico tacos almost always the meat is beef.

According to a Mexican collegue of mine, the important disctinction is the rolled, round shape versus just folding the torilla in half. Everything else gets into the grey areas.

One of the regional specialties is the Baja style "fish taco", typically a white fish quickly deep-fried (like tempura) with cabbage and a white sauce. grilled fish is also used on occasion, and one bar around here serves a fantastic taco with grilled shark.



--Nathan

Here's another regional food: scrapple. A Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast sausage made from ground pork and grain, cooked in a loaf shape and then stored. Cut into slices and toss in a cast iron frying pan for a while on each side. In the Philadelphia/Southern New Jersey area frequently topped off with ketchup.

--Nathan

Actually, I've never heard of them being called fiddlesticks either. I think that I got a few past memories confused . They are fiddleheads.

boudin, crawfish, and po boys.

I'm a born and raised Philadelphian, so I must chime in here and say that scrapple is the absolute worst "food" you can ever imagine eating. Even if you don't think of where the stuff comes from (think about the root of the word "scrapple" and imagine where "scraps" of pork come from) the stuff is just terrible, ketchup or not. There's probably a reason the Philly cheesesteak and the Philly soft pretzel have migrated elsewhere, but scrapple hasn't really caught on anywhere else...

and nothing beats a bowl of grits loaded with cheese, tony's creole seasoning, and tabasco sauce.

boudin, crawfish, and po boys

Amen. Nothing better than a dripping roast beef po-boy. Dressed. Although a french fry po-boy comes in second. I assume you've seen the "you know you're from New Orleans" list.

mmmm cheese...
mmmm seasoning...
mmmm tabasco...
ewww grits!

Reminds me, I'm due for another Cheerwine trip...

Oh for the love of god....somebody kill this thread now.

Scrapple, breakfast burritos, poboys, crawfish, cheesesteaks...

Guess how many of those things you can get in France? I won't even get into what I actually got when I ordered andouilette sausage thinking it was in some way related to andouie sausage.

As far as scrapple goes, maybe it is an acquired taste but we use to make our own when I was kid. Its one of the tastes from my childhood that I crave on a regular basis.

I'll throw in decent gravy & biscuits as regional favorite that doesn't travel well. Pizza is another one that I'm amazed by. How one locale can elevate it to a culinary art form and in another, its cardboard with cheese.

Another for the New Orleans list, Cajun Eggnog Daquiris.

Oh well lunch time....I feel I will be disappointed.

For those of a sensitive stomach stop reading now.

In scotland the land of the fryer you can buy certain things that boggle the imagination.

The deep fryed pizza which is a nasty frozen pizza and it is deep fryed letting the bottom absord all the oil and lard etc.

Another chip shop special is the deep fryed mars bar which is a mars bar which is battered and then deep fryed. Scarely enough invented about 10 minutes drive from where i live.

A pie roll which is a scotch pie inside a bread roll.

And they wonder why the scots have a higher heart disease rate then anywhere else.

Ah, yes, but on the other hand: Haggis and Neeps, and that sausage meat and fruit pudding at breakfast, together with Clooty Dumplings - nothing wrong with that lot.

Scrapple, breakfast burritos, poboys, crawfish, cheesesteaks...

Guess how many of those things you can get in France?

You are trolling, right? I mean, saucisse seche, Livarot cheese, cassoulet, rillettes, pave d'ane, confit de canard, bouillabaisse... guess how many of those things you can get in England?

Oh well lunch time....I feel I will be disappointed.

Are you sure you're in France?

Peter

are you sure you are in France?

Yep, he is... but he's american...

cheers, Thomas

guess how many of those things you can get in England?

Degustation de fruits de mer,
Stop it, I won't get to France for at least six months!
-and how can the lowliest chef in any corner of France get his steak just like that: a pointe, when the average British establishment is only in the business of drumming up work for the dentist! - are they on a fee!

Moose Nose.

'nuff said.

Edit: There's something just not right about my avatar and this post!

-and how can the lowliest chef in any corner of France get his steak just like that: a pointe, when the average British establishment is only in the business of drumming up work for the dentist! - are they on a fee!

I suspect it's not the chefs but the butchers...

Peter

Moose nose

...with a generous side of poutine!

-Zeke

No, not a troll at all and I am in France, Pau to be precise. Unfortunately most of my exposure to French food has been in hotel restaurants which may not be the best sampling of French food. I will say the magret de canard is damn good.

My point was more that now that I'm where I can't get the things that were common in other locations, that's the food I want. I'm sure when I'm off to my next job, I'll miss the coffee and the pastries.

As Speedy pointed out, I'm an american in country for about a year. Maybe I'm just going to the wrong places and eating the wrong things. Please enlighten me if you have a recommendation in Paris or the South of France.

Alvin

Best meal I had last time round, was the restaurant to the left of the facade on the other side of the street from the Gare Du Nord, I can't find the bill, as I speak - we had a fair wait for Eurostar and got stuck into the gourmet meal - it may just have been greed having three bowls of "soupe de poisson", but I had to finish the tureen: If you're a boarding school boy, you learn never to leave any food - the trio of sorbets was just pure indulgence: We slept the whole way to Waterloo!

N.B. Avoid the meals on the Bateau Mouche, I think gourmet means something different when you're on water!!

Good Grief, I just became an "Old Hand", that'll do me for the day, I'm off to the pub!

Please enlighten me if you have a recommendation in Paris or the South of France.

I don't know Paris well, but in a previous job a company I was doing some work for took me to a place called Les Sans-Culottes, 27 rue de Lappe, in the 11eme near the site of the Bastille. I had duck-breast and raspberry vinegar salad and it was superb.

You're dead right, though, that finding the good non-touristy places to eat in a big city you don't know is always difficult.

Looking at Pau on the map, wouldn't it have all sorts of exciting Basque and Catalan cookery going on?

Peter

Here in North Carolina, we also have our own peculiar brand of barbecue.

Dangit! The thing I miss the most from North Carolina (aside from Bojangles, trees, the beach, and my beloved Tarheels) is the BBQ. People out here in Colorado freak out when I tell them I put coleslaw on my BBQ sandwich. They do have a Red, Hot, And Blue in Colorado Springs, though.

Another regional food from the South is fried bologna sandwiches. Good stuff!!

Reminds me, I'm due for another Cheerwine trip.

Mmm.. Cheerwine. My NC roots are calling. My sister-in-law (also from NC) took it back to Chicago by the case whenever she visited home.

-jk

Oh yeah, my wife keeps getting odd looks when she asks for slaw on her hot dogs. Is that a NC thing, too?

I have family members that do that but we're all from the New York metro area. Aside from them, I have never seen people eat hot dogs that way, so I'm not sure where they got the idea from.

Blenheim Ginger Ale... Mmmmm. One of my favorite things about South Carolina. I also learned to love grits while I was there. My favorite way to eat grits was with butter, salt, crumbled bacon, and cheddar cheese. The odd thing about them is the number of ways people eat grits. I've heard of sugar and jelly; salt and butter; with red eye gravy; and with a tomato slice.

Cel-Ray Celery Soda. It's not bad.

The odd thing about them is the number of ways people eat grits. I've heard of sugar and jelly; salt and butter; with red eye gravy; and with a tomato slice.

Perhaps this should be a Big Hint that grits themselves are completely without taste and are merely a way to eat cheese and seasonings (or whatever) without feeling guilty about just eating cheese with seasonings on it...? Much like those expensive jars of Italian artichokes in basil and olive oil are just an excuse for eating lots of olive oil with basil in?

Peter

I can't believe no one's mentioned "Lutefisk" yet...

Ahh yes, my favorite egg/potato/bacon taco, the ideal start to the day.

Should I rather worthlesly point out that for those on the west side of the Atlantic, a "Mars bar" is a "Milky Way".
Don't even get started that a UK "Milky Way" is a "Muskateer" or a "Bounty" is an "Almond Joy" or "Mound".

I can't believe no one's mentioned "Lutefisk" yet...

Or, the horror, "surströmming"... (fermented herring)

/Michael

And we probably don't have any Icelanders to mention hakarl.

Thanks for the tip. I'm back in Paris this weekend. I'll look it up.

I haven't encountered any Catalan food but it does have Basque influences. I'm planning to move here in January so I'll have a chance to explore more. Right now its 12 hr days at the client site and then another couple hours for dinner at the hotel. Not much time to sample.

Thanks, I'll give it a go the next time that I'm heading through Gare du Nord. Maybe in a couple of weeks.

So grits are just a medium for conveyance of other evils?

My parents have a damn good butcher close to them i sadly have not found a good one up here yet.

For a computer based forum these food threads get damn big very quick

Rocky Mountain Oysters

Haven't tried them yet. I'll let someone else post what they are...

I think we've all seen Fear Factor enough times to know.

I think we've all seen Fear Factor enough times to know.

Ahh, didn't know that show featured them. It's been something I have known about for a long time.

I only just noticed this thread, yet it's probably one of my favorite topics. *sigh*

When I first showed up in Houston, I quickly fell in love with all the Cajun regional foods, most notably boiled crawfish, but also things like fried oyster po-boys, chicken and sausage gumbo, turducken, etc, etc. I also fell in love with all the weird Central and South American oddities that can be found here: Cuban and Argentinian empanadas (fried dumplings with all manner of stuffings, comparable to what might show up in crepes), El Salvadoran pupusas (thick corn tortillas, grilled, sliced in half, stuffed with various bits and pieces, then covered in cole slaw), and just about anything with fried sweet plantains.

I guess the only difference between "regional" and "ethnic" food is how widely it's spread from its home. You can now get sushi anywhere, but you'll have a harder time finding cooked, marinated sauerkraut dishes outside of the right parts of Germany or France.

Regional drinks are just as fascinating. Iced tea, in Texas, is always served without sugar. In pretty much everywhere else in the South, it's loaded with sugar unless you specifically ask for it to be otherwise. I've always been a fan of Dr. Brown's Cream Soda, but it's tough to find outside of New York unless you've got a Jewish deli nearby. Ditto for a chocolate egg cream (which is just seltzer and chocolate syrup, maybe with milk -- no idea how "egg" got into the name).

I love some of the Mexican drinks. Tamarindo soda has a nice flavor, although I've never gotten into horchata (a rice-based drink). Micheladas (beer + lime juice + hot sauce) are one of my favorites, although sometimes you stumble into some confused soul of a bartender who puts V-8 juice in their michelada. I'm sorry, but celery and beer are two flavors that just don't belong together. There's also a Mexican variation on hot chocolate called atole. It's made with corn flour masa, chocolate, brown sugar, and anise. It's thick and filling stuff but very tasty.

but you'll have a harder time finding cooked, marinated sauerkraut dishes outside of the right parts of Germany or France

If you're ever in central British Columbia be sure to check out Weezie's Borscht Hut, just a few km's north of Trail for some damn fine 'kraut.

-Zeke

Oh, go on, for all of us not in the know on the other side of the water, what Rocky Mountain Oysters? (I'll probalby regret asking this....)

BTW, Scrapple sounds very similar to a local dish here (the Netherlands, in the south) called "Balkenbrij". It's actually very good but I can see it may be an aquired taste...

<sits back and waits, knowing the answer full well, but wanting to see the reaction>

Aw man. I looked it up and I wish I hadn't now!

Eughh, gross!

Didn't have the patience to wait for a reply here so looked it up as well.

I'll have snails in France anyday!

I thought horchata (sp?) was almond based?

-brendan

Turns out, we're both right. Based on at least one recipe I could find, horchata is made from rice, almond (either extract or slices), cinnamon, water, sugar, and vanilla.

Iced tea, in Texas, is always served without sugar. In pretty much everywhere else in the South, it's loaded with sugar unless you specifically ask for it to be otherwise.

In fact, it's not surprising to find unsweetened iced tea unavailable.

I've always been a fan of Dr. Brown's Cream Soda, but it's tough to find outside of New York unless you've got a Jewish deli nearby.

That's weird. Dr. Brown's is in most grocery stores here, albeit certainly not on the levels of Coke. Maybe it's because of the relatively large number of New Yorkers from IBM that moved down here years ago.