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You know what's weird? Regional foods. Especially things that seriously should not be regional because wtf.
Like, I understand about Moxie soda being regional, because it has a very distinctive flavor that people either love or hate. There is no "meh" about Moxie. People don't say, "Okay, I guess I'll have a Moxie, then," when it turns out that a restaurant doesn't have their first choice of soda. I can appreciate that it wouldn't catch on on a national level. It used to be wider spread, but now it's just a Maine product.
But things that should not be regional:
* Italian sandwiches. People, it is cheese, ham, pickles, onions, olives, tomatoes, and green peppers, with salt, pepper, and oil on top. (NOT lettuce. Add lettuce to your Italian and it is no longer an Italian.) This is not exactly a sandwich filled with mystical ingredients that are hard to find outside of New England. Apparently, however, you can't get the right kind of rolls to make them with. I don't. Get it. It's like a hot dog roll, but bigger! How hard is that?
* Red hot dogs. I mean bright red. Dyed. They are more savory than brown hot dog and the skin snaps when you bite into them. Surely bright red hot dogs are not too weird for the general populace. They are, however, manufactured exclusively by a regional meat company, Jordan's. Perhaps the mystery only goes as far as Jordan's holding the patent.
* And the one that inspired this post, that I just found about yesterday: whoopie pies. WHAT THE HELL. Wiki tells me that these have at least spread out to a certain extent and can occasionally be found in restaurants (which, a whoopie pie is not a restaurant dessert, I am sorry), BUT STILL. I don't even like whoopie pies very much and I am appalled. A whoopie pie is two round pieces of (usually) chocolate cakelike pastry held together with a whole bunch of frosting. (I've never been much for frosting. Yeah, I know, shut up.) How is this not a national treasure?
I am curious to hear from people outside New England, about their regional foods or if they have found the stuff I am talking about in their area. Or if it's just called something different.
Like, I understand about Moxie soda being regional, because it has a very distinctive flavor that people either love or hate. There is no "meh" about Moxie. People don't say, "Okay, I guess I'll have a Moxie, then," when it turns out that a restaurant doesn't have their first choice of soda. I can appreciate that it wouldn't catch on on a national level. It used to be wider spread, but now it's just a Maine product.
But things that should not be regional:
* Italian sandwiches. People, it is cheese, ham, pickles, onions, olives, tomatoes, and green peppers, with salt, pepper, and oil on top. (NOT lettuce. Add lettuce to your Italian and it is no longer an Italian.) This is not exactly a sandwich filled with mystical ingredients that are hard to find outside of New England. Apparently, however, you can't get the right kind of rolls to make them with. I don't. Get it. It's like a hot dog roll, but bigger! How hard is that?
* Red hot dogs. I mean bright red. Dyed. They are more savory than brown hot dog and the skin snaps when you bite into them. Surely bright red hot dogs are not too weird for the general populace. They are, however, manufactured exclusively by a regional meat company, Jordan's. Perhaps the mystery only goes as far as Jordan's holding the patent.
* And the one that inspired this post, that I just found about yesterday: whoopie pies. WHAT THE HELL. Wiki tells me that these have at least spread out to a certain extent and can occasionally be found in restaurants (which, a whoopie pie is not a restaurant dessert, I am sorry), BUT STILL. I don't even like whoopie pies very much and I am appalled. A whoopie pie is two round pieces of (usually) chocolate cakelike pastry held together with a whole bunch of frosting. (I've never been much for frosting. Yeah, I know, shut up.) How is this not a national treasure?
I am curious to hear from people outside New England, about their regional foods or if they have found the stuff I am talking about in their area. Or if it's just called something different.
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From:
Maryland:
- National Bohemian beer. It's disgusting, but people of my grandparents' generation love it.
- Silver Queen corn, native to the Eastern Shore. Delishus, especially when served with blue crabs. Which are steamed with beer and cider vinegar, never ever boiled, and seasoned with ground mustard and Old Bay.
- Berger cookies. Holy shit, they are the best things ever and even though like you, I'm not a huge fan of frosting, words cannot express how much I love them. Imagine lovely soft vanilla cookies with AN ENTIRE INCH OF HOMEMADE FUDGE FROSTING ON TOP. They're just amazing.
- Stewart's root beer. It's like crack in a bottle, and nobody doesn't like it. Unless you don't like root beer in general - in which case they also make cream soda, orange soda, grape soda, and key lime soda.
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From:
Re: Maryland:
We have Stewart's! We also have Captain Eli's, which I like way better - they use an old-fashioned root beer recipe that tastes almost nothing like modern root beer and is SO fucking good - but I'll take Stewart's over a national brand any day.
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threadjacking, but that's really really funny.
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I have not yet eaten the Twinkies.
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Del's Frozen Lemonade: Seriously it's like snow with pieces of lemon in it. It's so freaking good.
Coffee Milk: It's like milk but with coffee syrup instead of chocolate syrup like you'd see with chocolate milk. Not my favoritest thing but it's pretty good.
Clamcakes: Seriously, why these things have not caught on elsewhere is beyond me. It's basically like fried dough with chopped clams in them. Sooo good.
Stuffies: Basically clams with mixture of peppers, onions, breadstuff, some other ish...but it's really good and it's served in a quahog shell.
Quahogs: Giant fucking clams. That's all I got about this. They're good like other clams.
Linguicia: Portugese sausage. Especially good w/ eggs. YUMMY.
New York Systems: Seriously, how can people NOT hear of this. They're also called Hot Wieners (http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u187/starryrose1956/hot_wieners.jpg). It's basically a red hot dog with meatsauce, onions, mustard and celery salt. Seriously I can down like 3 of these in one sitting. Though I usually skip the onions part.
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Do not eat the Twinkie. Blech. There are so many better snack foods from Hostess besides the Twinkie.
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and this:
BREAD PUDDING. I bought this today.
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And I'm pretty sure I've had something that might've been a whoopie pie? Or something similar.
Oh, maybe paczki!
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Also, Del's is the best thing ever.
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Oh, fear not. I actually asked for them to see if they'd go off at all. After two years sitting at the back of my food cupboard, NADA. I think they may be indestructible. If I eat them and get zapped by an X-ray, do I gain special powers?
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It is very possible.
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Okay, Moxie is foul, though.
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". . . sort of pinkish brown?"
We are going to have to agree to disagree on Moxie, though. I love it. My grandfather got me started on it when I was little. :D
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