Local Foods

[blue2000]

What's wrong with the maligned raisins? They don't taste so amazingly different to sultanas, surely? I was so happy this year I found the candied apricot my recipe requires, for the first time.

They are horrible, rancid, wretched, and disturbing. Also, when bitten into they pop in a distressing way - like bugs. Soft, sour bugs  I loathe them immeasurably, and I like almost everything.

I love cooked raisins, but I have to say, this description made me howl. I'll have to think of this next time I am eating fruitcake. "Mmmm, nice and maggoty! Extra protein!"

[Faerydust]

Here in Hawaii, white rice is the standard starch. We have what we call a "plate lunch" which is a pretty standard local lunch meal consisting of a meat, one scoop of white rice and one scoop of mac salad. Common meats are hamburger steak smothered in gravy, loco moco (hamburger steak with eggs on top), teriyaki, kalua pork, or chicken katsu.

We have a large Asian poplulation, so many of our local dishes also incorporate Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino food. For example, spam musubi, which is sticky rice shaped into a rectangle with a piece of spam on top and wrapped in seaweed. Sort of like sushi.

Saimin is our local version of ramen. It usually contains kamaboko which is a type of fish cake, spam or pork, and green onion.

True Hawaiian food would be kalua pig (pork roasted in an underground oven), lau lau, and poi.

Shave ice is a really popular snack and mochi is a wonderful Japanese snack that locals love.

[lesserspotted]

I'm not sure how many people still eat this, and I've certainly never been brave enough to try them, but a traditional food from East London is jellied eels. Pie and mash is much better.

Of course, there is always the British national dish of chicken tikka masala.

[Julian]

Tasmania  has some great local produce, and some wonderful local dishes.

Curried scallop pies are to die for!  As are housecakes - a wonderfully light, cake-textured pastry shell filled with custard and topped with local raspberries or blueberries.  Yum!

We're in the height of stone fruit season here, there's a cherry orchard just down the road that sells fruit at the door.  Cherries the size of plums, sweet and delicious!  Blackberries will be ripe soon - many rural roads have blackberry brambles down the fenceline, it's common to see cars parked and people picking the berries.  And I've never had an apricot before like the ones here - we're just starting to get into apricot picking time.

I found I have a plum tree in my garden (Hah!  paddock...) but apart from a few I picked early, the possums seem to have beaten me to it.   

[bigozzy]

Tasmania  has some great local produce, and some wonderful local dishes.

Curried scallop pies are to die for!  As are housecakes - a wonderfully light, cake-textured pastry shell filled with custard and topped with local raspberries or blueberries.  Yum!

We're in the height of stone fruit season here, there's a cherry orchard just down the road that sells fruit at the door.  Cherries the size of plums, sweet and delicious!  Blackberries will be ripe soon - many rural roads have blackberry brambles down the fenceline, it's common to see cars parked and people picking the berries.  And I've never had an apricot before like the ones here - we're just starting to get into apricot picking time.

I found I have a plum tree in my garden (Hah!  paddock...) but apart from a few I picked early, the possums seem to have beaten me to it.   

Yum. Here in Scotland the two small plum trees, apple tree and pear tree in our back garden exploded with fruit this year. The branched on the plum trees were actually starting to break due to the weight of ripening plums.

I still have a freezer full of compots/pie fillings and aother treats.

[Julian]

Lucky you, no sneaky possums to nick them!     I've only ever seen one on my property, a ringtail, but he must have friends - there was a lot of plums!  I'll be buying a bird net for next year. 

I'm also keeping a watch on a few wild apple trees on the side of the road. 

Unfortunately I got in too late last winter to buy fruit trees, next winter I will make sure I get some early. 

[SamiHami]

This isn't strictly local as I know it's made in other countries, but perhaps not so much the US. I just put a fruit cake in the oven for Christmas and beyond. It's got loads of sultanas, currants, raisins, glace cherries, peel & apricots, mixed with a little cake mixture and brandy and topped with almonds. It's the most amazing cake, and if necessary will last years.

Fruitcake is somewhat... infamous in the US.  There are stories (tales, one might say) of families trading the same fruitcake around for years like a White Elephant gift.

Actually, if I got one, no matter how old it was, I would probably try it. Traditionally couples keep the top tier of their wedding cake to serve at the christening of their first child. My brother was married 13 years before they had their son, and the cake tasted great!

If you think you don't like fruit cake, you just haven't tasted mine. I will honestly say, without fear, that it is delicious.

I believe that it is traditional for couples to eat the top tier of their cake on their first wedding anniversary, not upon the birth of their first child. I've been married 23 years now and no kids, so I would never have been able to eat mine! Not that I was able to anyway...Hurricane Hugo took care of that 5 months after my wedding.

Perhaps it's a cultural difference between Australia & the US?

[Vall]

I'm really enjoying this thread.  I just wanted to say thanks for the recommendation on fruitcake.  My DH loves fruitcake and I'm thinking of ordering one for him.

[Nibsey]

This isn't strictly local as I know it's made in other countries, but perhaps not so much the US. I just put a fruit cake in the oven for Christmas and beyond. It's got loads of sultanas, currants, raisins, glace cherries, peel & apricots, mixed with a little cake mixture and brandy and topped with almonds. It's the most amazing cake, and if necessary will last years.

Fruitcake is somewhat... infamous in the US.  There are stories (tales, one might say) of families trading the same fruitcake around for years like a White Elephant gift.

Actually, if I got one, no matter how old it was, I would probably try it. Traditionally couples keep the top tier of their wedding cake to serve at the christening of their first child. My brother was married 13 years before they had their son, and the cake tasted great!

If you think you don't like fruit cake, you just haven't tasted mine. I will honestly say, without fear, that it is delicious.

I believe that it is traditional for couples to eat the top tier of their cake on their first wedding anniversary, not upon the birth of their first child. I've been married 23 years now and no kids, so I would never have been able to eat mine! Not that I was able to anyway...Hurricane Hugo took care of that 5 months after my wedding.

Perhaps it's a cultural difference between Australia & the US?

In Ireland it's traditional to serve the 1st tier for your first child christening, so it's not just in Aus.

[wx4caster]

3 specialties of Nova Scotia are:

1) Donair - originally a gyro but evolved to better suit local tastes - very greasy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donair)

2) Blueberry Grunt - a cooked/steamed (not baked) cobbler with a much cooler name

3) Rappie Pie - a casserole of grated and squeezed potatoes, deboned chicken plus the broth from stewing the chicken

[oz diva]

A branch of my plum tree did break. I netted the two other prolific branches against the possums, ats and birds. I'll make plum jam today with some of the plums I rescued. I sell it at the school fair.

[dietcokeofevil]

There are so many! And many that are just every day food that we don't even realize foreigners would consider it an unusual local food.

I just roasted a large pan of arracacha roots. It is so delicious! It is bright yellow, but it has an almost creamy texture and a nutty, slightly sweet flavour. You can boil them, puree them, fry them, roast them, make pasta, etc.



Now, on a much less healthy direction, brigadeiros. They are small sweets, very traditional in children's parties, made with condensed milk, cocoa and butter. Creamy, chocolatey and delicious. There is no way that I wait for a party to have them, so I make them at home sometimes. If they had a good deal fewer calories, I would make them a lot more often.

There are also a lot of variants: coconut and clove, coconut and prune, walnuts or a plain variety coated with sugar.

I just made 300 brigadeiros last night!   My girl scout troop is representing Brazil for our World Thinking Day event tomorrow.  They turned out pretty good.

[SamiHami]

How could I possibly have forgotten to mention that Charleston, SC has America's only commercial tea farm? It's just a very short drive from my house-maybe 30-40 minutes away. Charleston Tea Plantation is open for tours and is a great place to go for an unusual, interesting and tasty morning!

We also have Bee City, a working bee farm that produces the best honey in the world (not that I'm biased or anything).

[baglady]

I love fruit. I love cake. I do not love fruitcake. I love the sweetness and (if it's frosted) creaminess of cake. I love the sweet juiciness of fruit. The fruit in fruitcake is not juicy, so for me it just spoils the creamy sweetness of cake. I've always liked the joke about how there were four Wise Men -- the fourth was turned back because he brought the fruitcake.

In upstate New York where I live, all the diners are Greek-owned, but some of them do Greek food better than others. In New Hampshire, where I grew up, not only were the diners Greek-owned, so were many of the pizzerias. I still remember the one in Hanover where, if starving students came in late at night, they would be told, in heavily accented English: "No pizz' afta one-teddy! Col' grindah, maybe!"

("Grinder" being north-of-Boston speak for what is known elsewhere as a sub, hero or hoagie.)