What foods are considered a delicacy in your area?

[Trevorum]

Here in Austin, this is the week of Green Chile Festival!

 

[VinceC]

Here in the Philadelphia area it's cheese steaks, hoagies, and that Pennsylvania Dutch special, scrapple! Ah scrapple, everything but the oink!

[Gonzo1]

As I'm originally from Chicago, it's the Chicago Style Hotdog, everything, fries and an Italian Beefsandwich to top it off. I'm going "home" for Labor Day, I'll be stokin' up, I can feel the aorta plug forming now. Mmmm!

 

In Gainesville, GA it's fried chicken. It's actually illegal to eat fried chicken in Gainesville with a knife and fork.

 

Mater (Tomato) sandwiches are a big hit too.

 

(This message has been edited by Gonzo1)

[GernBlansten]

Colorado has become the land of franchise restaurants.

 

I guess the only thing native here in the high country is Elk Jerky. Pretty good and always plentiful around camp.

[hot_foot_eagle]

In West Tennessee, dry pulled pork BBQ is big (beef is for steaks and hamburgers). BBQ pork ribs are very good also.

 

Nothing beats a local fish fry - castfish and crappie are king. There's nothing better than a plate full of cholesterol-laden fish, fries, and hush puppies when it's almost too hot to eat it.

 

Wild game of all sorts is good as well. A nearby fire department used to have "road kill suppers" where every sort of wild game imaginable was served. Good stuff when done right.

 

Sweet tea is the drink of choice, though I still haven't managed to develop a taste for it. Don't bother asking for hot tea around here, people just look at you funny.

 

I'd love to have a Chicago style dog about now (even though it's time for breakfast as I write this). I haven't had one in several years.

 

[PeteM]

UUUmmmmmm Berger Cookies and Coffee.

 

That is just about perfect. Even BP would approve

 

You can order them from here:

 

http://www.bergercookies.com/order.html

 

Pete

[Gunny2862]

Where I'm at now you can get something called Cashew Chicken - I know you're thinking,"We have that.".

 

Well, the Cashew Chicken here starts with rough cubed tenderloins, breaded and fried, served on a bed of rice with a brown oyster sauce and garnished with green onion and cashews. It's really very good and I haven't encountered it anywhere more than 50 miles from where it claims it started, Springfield, MO.

 

I really miss Cuban sandwiches and Tampa style crab cakes and there was a place on the docks between Tampa and Brandon that made some "Miss Lucy Potatoes". They went out of business when the patriarch died but my mouth still waters when I think of their menu... Man, It's still three hours to lunch.

[ScoutNut]

Chicago -

 

RIBS!

Italian Ice

Polish with hot peppers

PIZZA!

Lake Salmon

Fresh caught Smelt!

[DanKroh]

Never had fried dough before moving to the Boston area, but I don't know if it is specific to here. From my college days in Cambridge, I remember Buzzy's Roast Beef, and Toscanini's ice cream.

 

But I am more fond of the delicacies from my childhood in south-central PA... funnel cakes and shoo-fly pie....mmm, feel that diabetic coma coming on. Gotta love a pie where the main ingredients are molasses and brown sugar.

[John-in-KC]

KANSAS CITY:

 

BARBECUE: You ain't got barbecue. WE GOT BARBECUE. You don't believe, well, then it's time to get out the Whup---.

 

FRIED CHICKEN. You ain't had fried chicken til you had STROUDS FRIED CHICKEN

 

'Nuff said.

[epalmer84]

Here in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia:

 

* Virginia country-cured ham (different from sugar-cured)

* Virginia peanuts, esp. Virginia Diner brand

* Biscuits and sausage gravy with chow-chow

* Tenderloin and gravy

* Red-eye gravy and grits

* Country fried steak with white gravy

* Turkey with dressing (we don't stuff)

* Deep-fried turkey

* Fried chicken

* Green beans with chopped onion

* Black eyed peas

* Oyster stew with crackers (the oyster shell is the state shell)

* Brunswick stew, made in a cast-iron kettle by churches in the fall and sold by the jar; from Brunswick County, Virginia (no matter what Brunswick, Georgia claims); you can get it store-bought under the Mrs. Fearnow's brand

* Pinto beans, with ketchup and chow-chow

* Tomatoes, esp. Amish heirloom varieties

* Cornbread

* Spoonbread

* Corn pudding

* Virginia apples

* Apple butter

* Apple dumplings

* Apple cider

* Apple pie, deep dish with cheddar cheese

* Pumpkin pie

* Kettle corn, made in cast iron kettles- a revived recipe from the 1700s

* Funnel cake

* Lime pickles

* German pickles

* Iced tea

* Milk (state beverage)

 

Ed

[OldGreyEagle]

Growing up around Chicago, you werent eating until you got a Portillo's hot dog and ate it along Irving Park and watched the planes take off and land at O'hare. Pizza at Giordano's is good, but Nancy's Stuffed is the King.

 

In the Lehigh Valley, Pa I am partial to fastnaughts, Pierogies and Kielbasa, which was also quite god in Chicago as long as that reddish colored stuff isnt called kielbasa. Favorite all time was my grandmothers Czarnina served on Christmas Day from the duck who had lived on the back porch since Thanksgiving

[Spiney Norman]

"Here in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia:

 

* Virginia country-cured ham (different from sugar-cured)

* Virginia peanuts, esp. Virginia Diner brand

* Biscuits and sausage gravy with chow-chow

* Tenderloin and gravy

* Red-eye gravy and grits

* Country fried steak with white gravy

* Turkey with dressing (we don't stuff)

* Deep-fried turkey

* Fried chicken

* Green beans with chopped onion

* Black eyed peas

* Oyster stew with crackers (the oyster shell is the state shell)

* Brunswick stew, made in a cast-iron kettle by churches in the fall and sold by the jar; from Brunswick County, Virginia (no matter what Brunswick, Georgia claims); you can get it store-bought under the Mrs. Fearnow's brand

* Pinto beans, with ketchup and chow-chow

* Tomatoes, esp. Amish heirloom varieties

* Cornbread

* Spoonbread

* Corn pudding

* Virginia apples

* Apple butter

* Apple dumplings

* Apple cider

* Apple pie, deep dish with cheddar cheese

* Pumpkin pie

* Kettle corn, made in cast iron kettles- a revived recipe from the 1700s

* Funnel cake

* Lime pickles

* German pickles

* Iced tea

* Milk (state beverage)"

 

Ed,

Do you normally eat this all at one sitting or could you consume this meal over the course of a month or two?

 

Ken

 

[John-in-KC]

Back in the days when Railroads had their own passenger service, and Railroading MB was cool, various Dining Car and Hotel Departments had a recipe to prepare various Viriginia country cured hams for the table. I like this one:

 

Tools: Skillet and 9 x 13 pan

 

Ingredients:

1 Pint milk

2 oz maple syrup

 

(both of those are more or less)

 

Mix the milk and the syrup together.

 

Soak ham slices in the milk/syrup mix, the longer the better (I do it overnight).

(Soaking leaches the salt out).

 

Cook on a hot griddle/pan with just a little fat. Do not overcook.

 

Serve with pancakes or eggs.

 

My recipe comes from the Union Pacific, but there are others...

 

Good stuff,

[packsaddle]

The true authority has not yet written in this thread. Chefy, where are you?

 

Anyway, I go with grits (done correctly), perhaps Charleston's shrimp and grits, or a low country boil.

For breakfast there's red eye gravy and cat head biscuits.

 

If I'm in the right place I ask for the gumbo, and in a couple of other places I ask for the clam chowder.

 

They make a rather large hamburger at Sioux Sundries in Harrison, NB.

On the McKenzie river a smaller burger is called the Monster Burger (after Bill Bixby ate there once). A little further upstream you can get good food at the Rustic Skillet also pie....

I really like almost any fruit (especially berry) pie in the Pacific Northwest - it really is the only true element of cuisine they have perfected.

 

Hotdogs must, absolutely must, be Kosher and off the street in Manhattan. With mustard! not that red vegetable substitute that the Reagan administration tried to feed our children for lunch at school.

 

If I'm in the Charlotte Harbor area, I'll eat fried mullet and grits every meal (no, it's not the same as mullet anywhere else).

But...as I think I might have mentioned a long time ago, assuming I avoid that warmer clime that Rooster7 always suspected I'd suffer,

my concept of heaven is (looking through the gates as I approach) a large KFC flanked on one side by a Krispy Kreme Donuts shop and a Dairy Queen on the other, all with all-you-can-eat signs. Yum, time for dinner.