chicken fried steak and other local favorite foods

I was watching the Travel channel's "Best Fried Foods". They were talking about chicken fried steak and white gravy like they are exotic foods. I have ate chicken fried steak and white gravy all my life.

However, I have also lived in Utah all my life, which is nowhere near the South. We never made it at home, always when we went out to restaurant. At home we frequently made biscuits with white gravy and sausage.

Is my state that weird that we have Southern food?

My next question is, what are your favorite local foods?

I grew up in North Carolina, but I didn't learn about biscuits and gravy until I got it at summer camp. Now, despite living in Canada and being vegetarian, I make my own. It's just about the same story with sweet iced tea.

A local food in Quebec that I haven't tried is poutine --- french fries with cheese curds and gravy. I know of places that use a vegetarian recipe (just because it's cheaper, according to the local poutine critic), but I just haven't gotten myself to try it. Bagels, though obviously not unique, are famously good here.

There are 2.5 Cincinnati regional food items.

Cincinnati Chili: Served up in two distinct ways...

3-ways, 4-ways, 5-ways: Bed of spaghetti topped with cincinnati style chili (not similar to tex-mex style chili like you are familiar with) and cheddar cheese. Adding beans or onions makes it a 4-way and adding both makes it a 5-way. Served with oyster crackers.



Conies (plural of coney): Hot dog with mustard, cincinnati style chili, cheddar cheese, and onions.



The other regional food item is goetta. It is a combination of ground meat and oats and formed into patties or links. Popular enough to have a local festival for it.



And the last local delicacy I only give a half a point to. The Big-Boy's in the area all serve their big-mac-like hamburgers with tartar sauce on them instead of thousand island dressing. It doesn't SOUND good but it is.

DS

Growing up in Southern Illinois I can honestly say there are no regional favorites, because we're influenced by every region.

We're, for the most part, farmers, so biscuits and gravy, sausage gravy, meat loaf, fried anything, southern iced tea are staples but, so are northern lemonade (the kind so tart your butt puckers instead of your lips), Coney Island hotdogs, Chicago, New York, Italian and Sicilian style pizzas, St Louis, Texas and Louisiana style bbq and the lists go on and on and on.

The only regional thing I can honestly say we have are pink cookies from Davis Pastry in Anna. And if you have to ask, it shows you're not a local.
(All they are are sugar cookies with pink icing, but there is something about their pink icing that makes them taste different, and I've had a lot of iced sugar cookies. Even when they change the color for special occasions (orange for Halloween, red and green for Christmas, red, white and blue for July 4th, etc) they taste different.)

I remember "secret life" on Food Network when they talked about Cincinnati chili. One of my favorite episodes.

Utah has probably only three regional foods.

Jello

Funeral Potatoes

The first two are common since Utahns typically have big families so you can serve a lot of people affordably.

Fry sauce

We also tend have a lot of those fast-food'ish tex-mex places. Their menu and decor is similar to Chipotle. You can't go to an urban area of Utah without running into a Bajio Grill, Cafe Rio, or Costa Vida. You can often find all 3 in the same quadrant.

I'm an Army Brat, so I was raised on everyone's local faves! The cuisine of my birth-state is Creole, but I've lived in Texas for nearly 30 years of my life, so I'm used to a lot of Tex-Mex and Mexican food as well.

My Mom, however, points out that until we moved away from New Orleans in 1972, she had never had a baked potato. Correction- she had never even heard of baked potatoes.

A college friend of mine confessed in the last month of our senior year that she had never had fried chicken...as a bunch of us were sitting down to a Saturday lunch at Popeye's.

Favorite local foods? Well, the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex is kind of a cosmopolitan area, so we have a little bit of everything here. However, I must confess a weakness for Fajitas & Chimichangas (of all kinds), plus cabrito (goat).

But growing up as a creole Army Brat, I learned to eat and enjoy seafood from around the world. So far, the only seafood I've had that I didn't enjoy are:

1) Sea Cucumber

2) Oysters on the half-shell

3) Tuna, unless its prepared as Sushi/sashimi.

That cincinatti chilli looks wierd...

I grew up in Minnesota, my wife in in Wisconsin. She likes cheese curds. I'd never even heard of cheese curds.

She used to think chili had macaroni noodles in it. I had to cure her of that. Now her chili's been touted as good, here in Texas.

I'd had KFC fried chicken in minnesota.

I've never heard of putting any kind of salad dressing on a burger. That's just wrong.

Dipping food in Ranch Dressing is getting popular down here (I see people do it with pizza, pizza bread). I think the wings popularity with different sauces is encouraging this.



When I moved to Texas, I hadn't heard of Chicken Fried Steak with white gravy. That stuff freaks me out. I have no doubt it's hand made and pumped out hourly by cheap illegal labor.

Speaking of baked potatoes, the coolest thing I've seen here is the Meat Potato. It may go by various names, but it's a meat potato. One of my MN buddies came down, ate it, and been missing it ever since. Apparently he found a BBQ shop in the mall of america that makes it. The order of ingredients varies, but the style most commonly served is:
1 big honkin baked potato split open
1-2 dollops of butter
1-2 scoops of chopped brisket
1-2 dollops of sour cream
generously sprinkle on shredded cheese
chives and bacon bits (real bacon) sprinkled on top

I always ask for BBQ sauce on the side, and pour that over the top.

Some places call it a Chopped Bake, BBQ Potato, whatever. Find the baked potato section in the menu, and the one with meat on it and ask for it "All the way" wich means to put all the fixins on it.

What you got is all you day's meals on 1 plate. I get that for lunch, I don't need dinner.

I've also had it with sliced sausage instead of brisket, or with the sour cream on top of the butter. I like it on top, better presentation, and less likely to melt right away.

The Rib Tickler in Tomball is where I got my first Meat Potato. That was lke 13 years ago. They just got sold, but used to be the owner's son was in the Patriots, and he catered meals when the Pats were in Houston. The walls had pictures of all the famous folk who been there, including lyle lovett (who apparently is a local, though I ain't ever seen him).

Some places got biscuits or rolls that they serve. Them are good too. Goodson's in Tomball's got real good rolls. Potatoe Patch is good. They got this Que Paso guy who walks around with a basket and he pitches them to the customers.

I've seen purists down here claim that chili ain't got beans in it, but most every place I've been there's beans in the chili. Thankfully, no bloody noodles.

I think my wife got the idea that noodles were in there because of Chili Mac, chili with macaroni. And that abomination happened because of the great northern mid-west conspiracy to add noodles to frickin everything. Most notably, the "hot dish" or "casserole". You take a baking dish (i.e. cake pan) and toss in layers of noodles or potato slices, some creamed soup of some sort, a can of corn, and then sprinkle on a ton of Wisconsin cheese, and then you bake it.

Here in Houston, there's a lot of other cultures you can get food from. But that's because they're imported cultures. Things like chicken fried steak, potatos, fried orka, BBQ, that stuff's here because it is what the locals eat. It's the local culture.

Hmm...

Freihofer's famous chocolate chip cookies. Legend claims that the bakery needed special machines to mix the batter because of how much molasses they use.

Famous Lunch, Gus's and Hot Dog Charlie hot dogs (small, 3 inch long hot dogs with goodies).

Although they have spread to many states now, Brugger's Bagels started close by and is the go-to bagel spot.

Buffalo Wings from Buffalo from the other side of the state. The rest of the country can try to recreate them... you never will.

The beloved Speedie from Binghamton/Southern Tier region. Basically slow cooked "pulled" meat (chicken, pork or beef) marinated in 'speedie sauce' and served on a roll.

Maple Syrup. The real stuff. It actually comes from trees! More of a North East thing, not just New York but there are people who swear by NY Maple vs Vermont Maple. I pity all you people who have to live with that fake Aunt Jemima-high fructose corn syrup-factory made syrup trash.

Ted's Fish Fry which originated in Troy, NY. I think fish frys are pretty common elsewhere.. basically Fish and Chips but Ted's is unique. Fried fish in a hot dog bun with secret red chili sauce.

Another Buffalo fave of mine is Weber's mustard. Yellow mustard with a horseradish kick. I put it on EVERYTHING!

Of course Saratoga was the birthplace of the potato chip but they pretty much everywhere now right?

Oh and of course the famous sliders from Jack's Drive In in Wynantskill. Greasy hamburgers with sauteed onion, mustard, ketchup and cheese if your so inclined.

Supposedly mozzarella sticks with raspberry sauce is a local thing.

Apple Cider Donuts. And heck, New York apples in general. They're just better than everyone else's apples. But nothing beats a hot apple cider donut (or two!) while picking apples at one of the many apple orchards around here.

I've never had but hear about the Garbage Plate originating from Rochester.

Beef on Weck is a upstate/western NY sandwich that is deeeeelicious. Thin slices of roast beef on a kaiser type roll and drenched in au jus sauce. Usually with horseradish.

Originally from Utica are Half Moon cookies. Also called Black and White cookies. Also tomato pies. I've never had the chance to eat one though.

Janx said:

I grew up in Minnesota, my wife in in Wisconsin. She likes cheese curds. I'd never even heard of cheese curds.

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Then you couldn't possibly have grown up in Minnesota.

Here in the Chicago area, there's a few regional staples:

• Chicago Style Pizza - The apotheosis of deep dish pizza. Traditionally made with the toppings "upside down".
• Italian Beef Sandwiches - Sliced roast beef slow cooked in an italian-seasoned beef broth. Served on an Italian roll, often with sweet or hot peppers (giardiniera), mozzarella cheese and extra broth poured over it.
• Chicago Style Hot Dogs - A hot dog on a poppy seed bun topped with mustard, chopped onion, sweet pickle relish (usually a dyed neon green variety called "Nuclear Relish"), a dill pickle spear, tomato slices or wedges, pickled sport peppers, a dash of celery salt, and cucumber slices.
• Maxwell Street Polish - A grilled polish sausage on a roll with grilled onions and yellow mustard.

Oh, and Cinicinnati Chili is delicious... We make it at home sometimes.

Pbartender said:

Then you couldn't possibly have grown up in Minnesota.

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Are you questioning my scandinavian heritage? At the next 'thing, I'll gather up my boys we'll go viking on ohio. Shoudn't take more than an hour to chop down your state.

Wisconsin is the cheese capital. Heck, they had laws saying a slice of cheese had to be served with every meal at a restaurant.

I'm sure somewhere in MN they make cheese. They do a little bit of everything there. It's a big state, so they got a lot of everything (except actual mountains or deserts). We got trees, we got lakes, we got iron ore, we probably have oil in there somewhere. Heck we even own the Mississippi.