100 must-eat American foods

Here’s a list of 100 must-eat American foods, which I mentioned the other day when I revisited my Omnivore’s 100 list. This list of 100 American foods one should try before they die was created by Slashfood. All the ones I have eaten before have been made bold.

  1. New York pizza
  2. Hoppin’ John
  3. New Mexico green chile
  4. Homemade buttermilk biscuits
  5. Tasso
  6. Whole Maine lobster (can anyone actually eat a whole Maine lobster? Those things are huge.)
  7. Calabash-style shrimp and hushpuppies
  8. Kansas City barbecue ribs
  9. Hot glazed Krispy Kreme (my sister and I got them for free when we bought coffee! That was a happy moment).
  10. San Diego fish tacos
  11. Cheese curds
  12. Key lime pie
  13. Philly cheese steak
  14. Memphis pork barbecue sandwich (Does this mean Memphis style or in Memphis? For all the ones that include a place name, I’m going to assume they mean the style, not that it had to be consumed in said place)
  15. Lowcountry boil
  16. Huckleberry pie
  17. New England clam chowder
  18. Boiled peanuts
  19. Buffalo burger
  20. Eggs Benedict
  21. Pastrami on rye
  22. Corned beef and cabbage (does a Reuben count?)
  23. Pancakes with maple syrup
  24. Everything bagel with cream cheese and tomato
  25. Thin Mints (preferably frozen)
  26. Frito pie
  27. Potato knish with mustard
  28. Silver Queen corn on the cob
  29. Soft pretzel from a street cart
  30. Fresh-picked blueberries
  31. Sourwood honey
  32. State fair funnel cake
  33. Chesapeake crab cakes :-)
  34. Candied yams
  35. Oyster dressing
  36. Snow cone or snowball
  37. Wild Alaskan salmon (not absolutely sure I’ve eaten this one)
  38. Sautéed morels
  39. Persimmon pudding
  40. General Tso’s Chicken
  41. Frozen custard
  42. Italian sausage with peppers and onions on a hoagie bun
  43. Chili dog
  44. Buffalo wings with blue cheese
  45. Spam musubi
  46. Saltwater taffy
  47. Fluffernutter sandwich on Wonder Bread
  48. Black and white cookie
  49. Frybread
  50. BLT with thick-cut applewood bacon
  51. Baked beans
  52. Pumpkin pie
  53. Collards with vinegar and Tabasco
  54. Tex-Mex fajitas with skirt steak and sautéed peppers
  55. Fried green tomatoes
  56. Succotash
  57. Shrimp and grits
  58. Hot water cornbread
  59. Barbecue chicken pizza with red onions
  60. Chicken fried steak
  61. Carnitas burrito
  62. Apple butter
  63. Geoduck
  64. Soft-serve ice cream cone dipped in chocolate shell (especially Dairy Queen)
  65. Pecan pie
  66. Catfish supper at a church or fire station
  67. Oysters Rockefeller
  68. Homemade cranberry sauce
  69. Pimiento cheese
  70. MoonPie washed down with R.C. Cola (I don’t know if I’d even want to eat this)
  71. Pickled watermelon rind
  72. Cracker Jacks at the ball game
  73. Smithfield ham
  74. Meatloaf and mashed potato blue plate special at diner
  75. Chicken and waffles
  76. Po’Boy
  77. Green bean casserole with French’s fried onions
  78. Stuffed sopaipillas
  79. Turducken
  80. Shad roe on toast
  81. Sweet potato casserole with or without marshmallows
  82. Cioppino
  83. New York cheesecake
  84. Pan-fried river trout
  85. Jambalaya
  86. North Carolina pig pickin’
  87. California rolls
  88. Burgoo
  89. Penuche fudge
  90. Fried peanut butter and banana sandwich (the Elvis)
  91. Scrapple or livermush
  92. Elk medallions in red wine reduction
  93. Muscadine grapes
  94. Cheeseburger at backyard barbecue
  95. Open-face turkey sandwich
  96. Chicago deep dish pizza
  97. Cobb salad
  98. Peach pie a la mode
  99. Macaroni and cheese with Tillamook sharp cheddar
  100. Root beer float

My grand total is 47, which is only slightly better than my tally for the Omnivore’s 100. A lot of the names were unfamiliar to me and I had to look them up to know what they even were. It seems to me that a large number if items on the list originate in Southern or Midwestern states, most of which I haven’t visited (I am from Maryland, which I don’t really consider the South). That seems a little unfair, but the author readily admits that it’s a very subjective list. Perhaps she herself is from the South?

I’m surprised about a few things that aren’t on here. What about a Philly cheese steak? Or scrapple? (Oops– just looked back and realized that scrapple actually IS on the list). And what about Hershey’s chocolate? Was there any candy on the list at all? There are plenty of unique regional candies. (There are two on the list– saltwater taffy and penuche fudge). Once again, a fun list but rather uneven (and lacking in my #1 American food, chocolate chip cookies :-D ).

I wonder if there’s a list like this about Estonia. If there’s not, we should make one, something like “50 Foods You Must Eat Before You Can Understand Estonians”. The first three items should be dark rye bread, sült, and  boiled Estonian potatoes with dill. What else?

Tuesday, 10 November, 2009. Tags: , . Blog Stuff, Expat. Leave a comment.

My fridge is full of cows

This morning I opened the fridge and couldn’t help but smile. I felt like I was surrounded by cows.

PB091722Moo.

PB091723Moo. (Look at how happy he is!)

PB091725Mmmooo.

PB091726

Moo.

Nothing special, but as stated, they made me smile first thing on a Monday morning. Quite an accomplishment. Well done, cows, well done.

Monday, 9 November, 2009. Tags: , . Something to Eat. Leave a comment.

Whole wheat rolls

I’m willing to bet that your home does not smell nearly as good as mine does right now. Why, you may ask, does my apartment smell so amazingly good at the moment? I’ll tell you– because J baked bread today.

The last time J’s parents came to visit, they brought along a few boxes of J’s old stuff, and one of those boxes contained this cookbook, which his parents had given him when he first moved out and was living on his own.

PB081739

Otava is the name of the publisher– it means the Big Dipper in Finnish– and suuri keittokirja means big cookbook. It is a big book, with lots of clearly-explained recipes, and J was eager to cook from it again. Today he decided he wanted to bake whole wheat rolls, or Grahamsämpylät.

PB081726-1The recipe. Did I mention it’s in Finnish?

PB081725

Estonian Graham flour (whole wheat flour).

I find the various face parts on the bag odd. The bag also has a little description of who Sylvester Graham was on the back, but it fails to mention his theory that a vegetarian diet would prevent unpure thoughts.

PB081724Dough.

PB081732Risen, unbaked, topped with poppy seeds.

PB081733Final result. Perfect chewy but light insides, a nice crust around the outside. Flavorful enough to eat on its own. Yum.

And, like I said before, the place smells heavenly. Perfect for a Sunday night. Say, honey… that big cookbook of yours has a lot of different bread recipes… how about you do this every Sunday? :-)

Sunday, 8 November, 2009. Tags: , , . Something to Eat. 3 comments.

To market, to market

Summer is obviously long gone. I mournfully packed up my summer clothes and replaced them with sweaters weeks ago, the temperatures last week made me consider getting out my long winter coat, and yesterday we got a decent amount of snow (!).

Despite having bid farewell to summer, there’s something from the summer that made me very happy and is making me happy still– namely, the fact that I made it to the market quite a bit this summer. The previous summer I didn’t go at all, as we spent half the summer traveling and the other half too exhausted to go out of our way to get seasonal produce from the market. That made me really sad. But this year I was a market-goer, which was facilitated by the fact that they opened a small marketplace right around the corner from us at the beginning of the summer. I could stop by there on my way home from work and grab whatever looked good. My first time there I impulsively bought green peas and raspberries at ridiculously low prices, not sure of what I would do with them. The next day my sister and her friend finished the camp they were attending here and came to spend the night at our place. I put them out on the table and those fresh, Estonian-grown peas and raspberries quickly became the best afternoon snack imaginable. I later got more raspberries, some of which are still in the freezer.

P7231371

And remember these strawberries, from one of our first trips to the market this year? Beautiful!

P4250539I miss them!

I also got chanterelles from the market at a very good price (although the price dropped even lower later in the season). Chanterelles are called kukeseened in Estonian, which I love– it literally means rooster mushrooms! :-) Sounds a lot less fancy than “chanterelles”, doesn’t it? Kukeseenekaste, or chanterelle sauce, is an Estonian favorite. I made some with the fresh mushrooms, then cleaned and froze the other half of my haul to use later in the winter. I love freezing things. I’m thinking of making some kind of quiche or pie with them.

P7231363

I’m so glad I rediscovered the wonder of the market this summer. Somehow it makes it a little easier to face the impending winter knowing that I filled up (and stocked my freezer) with as much fresh, beautiful local produce as the short season has to offer. As we head into the cold months of  carrots, cabbage and potatoes, hopefully those delicious berries and fresh mushrooms will keep me feeling strong, warm and healthy until next summer comes along.

Saturday, 7 November, 2009. Tags: , , , . Something to Eat. Leave a comment.

The Omnivore’s 100 revisited

It’s been over a year since I dedicated a post to the Omnivore’s 100, a list that a blogger compiled of “100 things… every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life”. At that time, I had tried 43 of the things on the list. As of right now, I’m not doing a whole lot better. I can check off spaetzle (#56), which I had at a restaurant in Tallinn this past year, and louche absinthe (#73), which I’ve actually had earlier but I didn’t check off initially because I thought it was some special kind of absinthe (when actually it’s the traditional method of preparing absinthe). And that’s it. Kinda sad. I blame it on the fact that a lot of the ethnic foods on the list aren’t available in Estonia, but there are also some things on the list, like nettle tea (#2) and blini and caviar (#72), that are readily available here, so I could seek those out at some point. I also didn’t make much of an effort to try any of the things on the list while we were in London in May– I’m sure I could’ve very easily found stuff like pho (#12) and steamed pork buns (#19) there. Oh well.

P2120355I think the list should include “an amazing chocolate chip cookie”… maybe I’ll add that to mine :-)

I’m not taking the list too seriously– I think I’ll be OK with never eating a Hostess Fruit Pie– but it is a fun source of ideas for foods I’d like to try someday. Somebody also made a version of this list made up entirely of American foods– I’ll see how I do with that one another day.

 

Friday, 6 November, 2009. Tags: , , . Something to Eat. Leave a comment.

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