Regional foods...

recoveringenabler

Well-Known Member
Staff member
When I was a teenager, growing up in New York, we would hit White Castle late at night, after a game, or a party.....we would get a whole bag of them.....I could eat LOTS......man they were good. We called them Belly Bombs.

We finally got a Dunkin Donuts here in Northern California......I missed them...my brother and I used to get a dozen to go of our faves and by the time we got home, we'd have eaten them ALL!! Those chocolate ones with the custard filling.....OMG!
 

pigless in VA

Well-Known Member
Maple syrup everything here. I even have friends who make maple syrup cotton candy - fantastic!

We also have a trout hatchery, and that fresh trout cannot be beat. There's a special, seasoned flour that we use to cook it which I buy at the hardware store.

A lot of farmers raise beef and pork. Some make honey, and many people make homemade jams, jellies, and apple butter.

Superb apple cider. If you're lucky, they will give you some of the fresh apple juice.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
When I lived in Northern WI, dirt-cheap wild rice, neighbors giving "the widow in 412" venison and the occasional pheasant during hunting season. Maple syrup, also quite inexpensive. Brats and cheese-curds of course, Walleye fries and boils.

Here in Milwaukee, Brats and cheese curds (deep fried, which I don't like). Usinger's is in Milwaukee, and they make a lot more than just bratwurst. Very good bacon, for example. Lake perch and walleye, though both are very expensive these days. Pork of various kinds. "I didn't know you could deep fry THAT!" Bad fusion food. Sushi I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. (or a 5'6" Ashkenazi)
 

Littleboylost

Long road but the path ahead holds hope.
Maple syrup everything here. I even have friends who make maple syrup cotton candy - fantastic!

We also have a trout hatchery, and that fresh trout cannot be beat. There's a special, seasoned flour that we use to cook it which I buy at the hardware store.

A lot of farmers raise beef and pork. Some make honey, and many people make homemade jams, jellies, and apple butter.

Superb apple cider. If you're lucky, they will give you some of the fresh apple juice.
Is nothing sacred to Canada any more lol. Maple Syrup is ours I tell you ours. Lol ;)
 

pigless in VA

Well-Known Member
No, it is NOT. We are the southernmost county which produces maple syrup. We have no other claim to fame, so you will have to share syrup with us. SO is planning to tap our trees next year. :p
 

Lil

Well-Known Member
I really, really want to tap some trees! But none of our trees are the right type.

They don't have to be Maple you know. In addition to Maples of various varieties, you can tap Boxelder, various Walnuts, Birches, Hickories, Sycamore and Ironwood (whatever that is). Sadly, on our 17 acres, we have pretty much got just Oak and very little else. I'd love to find a lot of Sycamore. It's supposed to taste like butterscotch!
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Birch syrup supposedly tastes sort of like wintergreen. It's also loaded with salicylates (think aspirin, like willow) and more for medicinal uses. Sycamores, unfortunately, have become quite rare in many areas.

The house we had in the Chicago burbs when I was a teen had a huge sycamore in the front lawn. We adored "her" and deep watered her several times a year her roots out of our drains, and fed her using the same methods. She was at least 200 years old according to the arborist who helped us care for her.

I literally cried when the guy who bought the house after my dad died cut that grand old lady down because "damned tree was messing up the sewer and we weren't getting any sun on the lawn."
 

Lil

Well-Known Member
I literally cried when the guy who bought the house after my dad died cut that grand old lady down because "damned tree was messing up the sewer and we weren't getting any sun on the lawn."

I know how you feel. We have a street here that is one of the oldest in town and lined with big, fancy, sadly less than pristinely kept, houses - big Victorians and such, and lined with giant trees, sycamores, gum, oak, etc. The city has taken nearly every tree out in the last few months - thank God saving one lone, huge sycamore. I nearly cried. I know they did it because they were tearing up the sidewalks and city sewer systems...it was hard to walk the sidewalks were so buckled and broken. They're putting in lovely new sidewalks and benches and such...but personally I'd rather they'd have figured out a way to engineer around the trees! What once looked like a beautiful, old neighborhood of stately buildings now looks like a bare street of poorly maintained old houses.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
I know how you feel. We have a street here that is one of the oldest in town and lined with big, fancy, sadly less than pristinely kept, houses - big Victorians and such, and lined with giant trees, sycamores, gum, oak, etc. The city has taken nearly every tree out in the last few months - thank God saving one lone, huge sycamore. I nearly cried. I know they did it because they were tearing up the sidewalks and city sewer systems...it was hard to walk the sidewalks were so buckled and broken. They're putting in lovely new sidewalks and benches and such...but personally I'd rather they'd have figured out a way to engineer around the trees! What once looked like a beautiful, old neighborhood of stately buildings now looks like a bare street of poorly maintained old houses.
I'm old enough to remember the stately old elms that lined the street I lived on in Chicago, and to remember them all becoming sick and dying, and then being cut down when Dutch Elm Disease hit. The street was like a tunnel covered over by trees and lit by sun filtering through leaves (and smog). They replaced the old elms with spindly little maples, which eventually became larger trees, but it was never the same. The apartment buildings fell into disrepair (they were pretty bad while I lived there. It was a poor, immigrant neighborhood.) Now, the neighborhood is gentrified. The old tenements have have been gutted, walls knocked out between apartments, and made into condos. 300+K would set one up nicely. But it'll never replace those glorious old elms planted in the early days of the city.
 
Top