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Regionalism isn't what it once was. I'd never heard of Rolling Rock Beer till I lived in Ohio. It was a local brand from Pennsylvania in those days. But now I could get it at my local drug store here, 2000 miles from PA, if I wanted it.
Where I grew up in St. Louis, there were a variety of names we heard for flavored carbonated water; soda, pop, soda pop, Coke. We knew people from different places said different things to mean the same thing. But we understood them all. On my first family trip to California we found out not everybody understood. We stopped at cafe in Barstow in the desert, which was then a much smaller and nicer place, than it is now. It was blazing hot, of course. But we had our first air-conditioned car. Somewhat in honor of my parents' first trip across the desert during the war, when no one had AC, we stopped for cool drinks. My father asked what kind of soda they had. The waitress curtly replied, "We didn't have any sodas." 'What do you have to drink,' asked father somewhat chastened. "Coke, Pepsi, 7-up, Root Beer..." dutifully replied the waitress. My whole family was too stunned to laugh at the waitress who didn't know the difference between an ice cream soda and a plain soda. So we all warily ordered our favorite, hoping that the waitress wasn't insane, and would suddenly snap there wasn't any Pepsi after all. When she went to get our drinks there was a lively discussion among the family on how to communicate with these strange natives we'd found in the Far West. (When I was driving to Tahoe last year, I found the same building in Barstow where that cafe was in 1960. It was no longer a restaurant, and of course the main highway has by-passed the whole area of town.)
A lot of the regional terminology has faded away just as many regional brands have grown or faded away. But not all. Here in Phoenix they call barbecued pork ribs, "St. Louis Style ribs." Anyone from St. Louis knows that you can get good ribs there. But St Louis isn't famous for pork ribs. Chicago or Kansas City may be known for their ribs, but not St. Louis. Barbecued chicken or pork steaks, sure, but not ribs. So the first reaction of St. Louis natives to St. Louis Style ribs is "What the heck is that?" There are also Country Style ribs here, which aren't ribs at all, but poorer cuts of pork roast cut into individual rib-sized chunks.
In the parts of Ohio I knew, every knows what Cincinnati Chilli is. Basically it's chilli served with spaghetti and a wide variety of toppings. When I tried to describe it, people in St. Louis immediately would exclaim, "Oh, it's chilli-mac!" "Um, well. Not exactly." Chilli-mac is a fairly set, unimaginative dish, where as Cincinnati Chilli is a whole class of imaginative dishes. No one understood.
In St. Louis every Chinese restaurant had Crab Rangoon, a generously sized fried won ton with a mild cheesy filling instead of meat. Here, nobody ever heard of them. A few Chinese places in Phoenix have 'crab puffs,' but they are a pale imitation. Have you ever heard of Crab Rangoon?
Do you have any regional food terms that others have trouble with or that make you laugh?
Where I grew up in St. Louis, there were a variety of names we heard for flavored carbonated water; soda, pop, soda pop, Coke. We knew people from different places said different things to mean the same thing. But we understood them all. On my first family trip to California we found out not everybody understood. We stopped at cafe in Barstow in the desert, which was then a much smaller and nicer place, than it is now. It was blazing hot, of course. But we had our first air-conditioned car. Somewhat in honor of my parents' first trip across the desert during the war, when no one had AC, we stopped for cool drinks. My father asked what kind of soda they had. The waitress curtly replied, "We didn't have any sodas." 'What do you have to drink,' asked father somewhat chastened. "Coke, Pepsi, 7-up, Root Beer..." dutifully replied the waitress. My whole family was too stunned to laugh at the waitress who didn't know the difference between an ice cream soda and a plain soda. So we all warily ordered our favorite, hoping that the waitress wasn't insane, and would suddenly snap there wasn't any Pepsi after all. When she went to get our drinks there was a lively discussion among the family on how to communicate with these strange natives we'd found in the Far West. (When I was driving to Tahoe last year, I found the same building in Barstow where that cafe was in 1960. It was no longer a restaurant, and of course the main highway has by-passed the whole area of town.)
A lot of the regional terminology has faded away just as many regional brands have grown or faded away. But not all. Here in Phoenix they call barbecued pork ribs, "St. Louis Style ribs." Anyone from St. Louis knows that you can get good ribs there. But St Louis isn't famous for pork ribs. Chicago or Kansas City may be known for their ribs, but not St. Louis. Barbecued chicken or pork steaks, sure, but not ribs. So the first reaction of St. Louis natives to St. Louis Style ribs is "What the heck is that?" There are also Country Style ribs here, which aren't ribs at all, but poorer cuts of pork roast cut into individual rib-sized chunks.
In the parts of Ohio I knew, every knows what Cincinnati Chilli is. Basically it's chilli served with spaghetti and a wide variety of toppings. When I tried to describe it, people in St. Louis immediately would exclaim, "Oh, it's chilli-mac!" "Um, well. Not exactly." Chilli-mac is a fairly set, unimaginative dish, where as Cincinnati Chilli is a whole class of imaginative dishes. No one understood.
In St. Louis every Chinese restaurant had Crab Rangoon, a generously sized fried won ton with a mild cheesy filling instead of meat. Here, nobody ever heard of them. A few Chinese places in Phoenix have 'crab puffs,' but they are a pale imitation. Have you ever heard of Crab Rangoon?
Do you have any regional food terms that others have trouble with or that make you laugh?
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A post on words reminded me - you might be entertained by this page:
http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/essential.html
It's pretty good even for an ignoramus like me.
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A lot that's painfully true in that!
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The homogenization of our country is a sad thing. But, then there is barbeque. I was listening to an NPR program yesterday focusing on food. The hostess said something about putting someone from NC, Memphis and Kansas City in the same room to argue about BBQ. To me, Memphis BBQ is truly awful stuff. I'm sure most folks here would have the same opinion about NC BBQ. I've never had Kansas City BBQ, but from descriptions, I think I'd like it better than Memphis.
BTW, I never got Cincinnati chili. But then Cleveland is the home of pierogis. There is no better comfort food, particularly the potato and cheese variety smothered in butter and onions. I asked for them in Poland and got the sort of sneer I would give someone who asked for ribs in NC. (Ribs are poor folks food--the wealthier folks got the better parts of the pigs and left the less meaty, more fatty parts to the help.)
Rolling Rock suddenly got famous. I'm not sure how or why.
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She made fantastic borscht as well.
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Dukhobors! That's neat! Did you know the Tolstoy gave the proceeds of one of novels to help them get to Canada?
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NC BBQ is sweet and succulent. The vinegar sauce is a wonderful contrast to the sweetness of the pork.
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I think pork better with vinegar sauces, beef better with slight tomato based sauce. Neither should overwhelm the meat I think, which is sadly too often the case.
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But - people are still tribal in nature. We flock to those who have similar backgrounds, ethnicity, etc to us and we tend to talk like them. It's why when you visit NYC - you will find people who lived their entire lives in NYC - yet speak with a thick Chinese, Russian, German, or Irish accent. Why? They've never left the group of people who speak that way and speak in Chinese or Russian at home, with their friends, and everywhere they can. So culture doesn't get as homogenized as one may think. Certain aspects of it do - sure. But people are stubborn and like what is familar.
I often think of it as two cultural layers - pop culture on the top - or what we see in the media, then the ethinic/regional culture underneath.
What we show the world and what we keep to ourselves.
Regarding Crab Ragoon - I've found it here and in KC.
Rolling Rock? Was very popular in Colorado - the cheap beer alternative to Coors, which everyone hated on principal. Rolling Rock was considered hip and foreign. A great underground alternative. Harder to find. Less available. They basically taste the same - but we hated Coors because well we lived in Colorado and Coors was located there and a huge nasty corporation. It was political.
Memphis Barbecue vs. Kansas City - I've heard of it as the contest of dry barbecue vs. wet. Prefer wet myself. Dry is a completely different process also I've been told a little sweeter - I think they use brown sugar.
Course I lived in KC for 17 years, so I'm slightly biased. Once you've had Arthur Bryant's - you tend to be picky about BBQ.
Like it or not - people are tribal, I think. We defend our tribe, homeland, how we were brought up - no matter up.
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St. Louis likes to lord over Kansas City about most things. But St. Louisans know the BBQ is better in KC!
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Wasn't fond of either to be honest. Both were very watery.
Now can't drink either - so doesn't matter. LOL!
What I can drink? New Grist - made from brown rice and sorghum is actually much better. Reminds me a lot of Corona and Sam Adams Summer Brew - the one's that were hot in the 90's.
KC has and always will be a cattle town. Hub of the West or so they say.
And it does have the best steaks and BBQ's. St. Louis can't compare. Hee.
But I don't think it tries in that regard - the South does - Memphis/Tennesee, Mississippi and Louisana like to think they have better BBQ - always seen it as more a war between Southern and Northern tastes or the whole dry vs. wet debate.
(Yes, I used to watch the Food Channel and clocked far too many hours of it for my own good - that's how I know this stuff. Whether it is true or not? Shrug.)
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At the Gathering I brought over that very Canadian dessert Nanaimo bars - but it was very traumatizing because the teens at my local grocery store had never heard of it! It's more a western Canada thing but Nanaimo bars are pretty much everywhere, at least I thought so. I was going to get butter tarts as well, since I don't think they're big in the States, but I think everyone was sugared up enough.
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I'm sure I heard of Nanaimo bars long before I knew what they were. But maybe I heard of them when we were visiting western Canada.
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My fav's
From what my family has said, the TBBQ isn't as good as it used to be so I'm not sure.
I have ordered their Christmas fruitcakes too for delivery, which are amazing.
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Will have to ask the Chinese Americans around me at work. Two are Chinese restaurant experts. I know I've never seen it in China Town.
Note - a lot of Americans don't realize there are as many varieties of Chinese cuisine as there are American.
Hong Kong - has tomato sauce in practically everything for example.
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Isn't ketchup derived from a chinese sauce?
St. Louis doesn't have a Chinatown, but every Chinese restaurant there, big or small had Crab Rangoon before there were any Chinese restaurant chains in town.
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Yes, I think ketchup did derive from Chinese tomato sauce - which is sweeter than Italian and a different texture. The Chinese appear to be more into *texture* than taste and will mix things Westerners wouldn't dream of together - such as huge balls of tapioca in a liguid tea - called bubble teas. Never saw this in the midwest - only in Chinatown in NYC, course KC was too small to really have a Chinatown to speak of.
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I'm guessing one wouldn't see it much outside the mid-atlantic.
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My favorite spaghetti topping was chili.
When I went away to college I didn't have too much trouble with substituting 'soda' for 'pop' but my roommate from Boston called it 'tonic' which seemed very strange. Although, thinking about it, it's actually pretty accurate since soft drinks as we know them developed from the carbonated 'imitation' mineral waters commonly taken as tonics way beck when.
Not only do we have Crab Rangoon, we also have War Sue Gai, which can bring a wrinkled brow to many a Chinese restaurateur in other places.
And last, but certainly not least: White Castle.
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I'm from California, and I'd never had crab rangoon 'til I moved (back) to Chicago for grad school. (I'd avoided them as an undergrad because I was a vegetarian.) I've since eaten them in CT, and interviewed various native midwesterner friends (Ohio, Missouri) who are familiar with them. They're still unknown by that name to my CA friends and family - though, as Deeva points out, one can find variations.
Rolling Rock beer has experienced a bit of a popularity surge recently as, I've read (and heard), part of a larger backlash against the monolithic American beer companies like Coors, MGD, and Bud. Younger people, uninterested in drinking beer that's advertised as crassly as those I mentioned above, have been turning to the older brands they recognize from their youth - the stuff they remember their grandparents drinking, or remember from family reunions. So beers like Pabst Blue Ribbon, Hamm's, and Rolling Rock have become more popular recently.
You may recall a recentish advertising campaign for one of MGD's line: the tv spots were narrated by a soothing female voice, who introduced herself at the end of the ad as "the girl in the moon," a reference to the icon on the label. The ads themselves were images of people sitting around enjoying beer and good company, rather than the usual tits-and-ass/drink this beer and busty women will have sex with you!
My understanding is that this particular campaign was an effort by Miller to capitalize on the brand-exhaustion that was driving people over to beers like Rolling Rock.
A food-regionalism that doesn't seem to translate well outside its region is the "Chicago-style pizza." In Chicago, of course, Chicago-style pizza is a deep-dish pie, where the sauce and toppings become fillings and are then themselves topped with cheese and more sauce. Lots of non-Chicago pizza places have a deep-dish pizza that is relatively Chicago-like, but also a "Chicago-style" pizza that is... not. I haven't yet found a commonality between various non-Chicago Chicago-style pizzas besides the name. The worst offender is, not surprisingly, Domino's in London: Chicago-style pizza is thin-crust with some cheese and sauce! Maybe even a meatball!
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We ought to do post-and-replies on the best pizza, sometime. I bet we'd get a lot of variety!
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I'm a PBR woman myself, though the family stories all revolve around Coors; when my mother's parents moved to CA, in the '50s, all the Ohio reletives would drive across to visit and spend 6-8 weeks in CA, drinking Coors (because they couldn't get it in Ohio) and playing Euchre!
Happily, few enough things change that my mom and her sisters and I all sit around and play Euchre and drink beer at family reunions, too.
I'd be fascinated by a pizza post!