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.
- New York pizza
- Hoppin’ John
- New Mexico green chile
- Homemade buttermilk biscuits
- Tasso
- Whole Maine lobster (can anyone actually eat a whole Maine lobster? Those things are huge.)
- Calabash-style shrimp and hushpuppies
- Kansas City barbecue ribs
- Hot glazed Krispy Kreme (my sister and I got them for free when we bought coffee! That was a happy moment).
- San Diego fish tacos
- Cheese curds
- Key lime pie
- Philly cheese steak
- 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)
- Lowcountry boil
- Huckleberry pie
- New England clam chowder
- Boiled peanuts
- Buffalo burger
- Eggs Benedict
- Pastrami on rye
- Corned beef and cabbage (does a Reuben count?)
- Pancakes with maple syrup
- Everything bagel with cream cheese and tomato
- Thin Mints (preferably frozen)
- Frito pie
- Potato knish with mustard
- Silver Queen corn on the cob
- Soft pretzel from a street cart
- Fresh-picked blueberries
- Sourwood honey
- State fair funnel cake
- Chesapeake crab cakes
- Candied yams
- Oyster dressing
- Snow cone or snowball
- Wild Alaskan salmon (not absolutely sure I’ve eaten this one)
- Sautéed morels
- Persimmon pudding
- General Tso’s Chicken
- Frozen custard
- Italian sausage with peppers and onions on a hoagie bun
- Chili dog
- Buffalo wings with blue cheese
- Spam musubi
- Saltwater taffy
- Fluffernutter sandwich on Wonder Bread
- Black and white cookie
- Frybread
- BLT with thick-cut applewood bacon
- Baked beans
- Pumpkin pie
- Collards with vinegar and Tabasco
- Tex-Mex fajitas with skirt steak and sautéed peppers
- Fried green tomatoes
- Succotash
- Shrimp and grits
- Hot water cornbread
- Barbecue chicken pizza with red onions
- Chicken fried steak
- Carnitas burrito
- Apple butter
- Geoduck
- Soft-serve ice cream cone dipped in chocolate shell (especially Dairy Queen)
- Pecan pie
- Catfish supper at a church or fire station
- Oysters Rockefeller
- Homemade cranberry sauce
- Pimiento cheese
- MoonPie washed down with R.C. Cola (I don’t know if I’d even want to eat this)
- Pickled watermelon rind
- Cracker Jacks at the ball game
- Smithfield ham
- Meatloaf and mashed potato blue plate special at diner
- Chicken and waffles
- Po’Boy
- Green bean casserole with French’s fried onions
- Stuffed sopaipillas
- Turducken
- Shad roe on toast
- Sweet potato casserole with or without marshmallows
- Cioppino
- New York cheesecake
- Pan-fried river trout
- Jambalaya
- North Carolina pig pickin’
- California rolls
- Burgoo
- Penuche fudge
- Fried peanut butter and banana sandwich (the Elvis)
- Scrapple or livermush
- Elk medallions in red wine reduction
- Muscadine grapes
- Cheeseburger at backyard barbecue
- Open-face turkey sandwich
- Chicago deep dish pizza
- Cobb salad
- Peach pie a la mode
- Macaroni and cheese with Tillamook sharp cheddar
- 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 
).
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?
All dressed up for Halloween
As promised, here are some pictures of mine and J’s Halloween costumes. I’ll go first, although you won’t recognize who I’m supposed to be unless you’re familiar with Nordic children’s literature.
If you do happen to know Muumi (the Moomins)and his group of friends, then hopefully you can tell that I was dressed up as Little My (Väike My in Estonian and Pikku Myy in Finnish).
And then there was J.
He decided pretty quickly that he wanted to be a zombie, and he wanted to use real blood in his costume (and of course I mean pig’s blood, NOT human). It was surprisingly difficult to find, and although he was finally able to locate some– begging a free bag from the butchers at the central market– he realized that it might not be safe to put on his face. So, relax– that stuff all over his face is NOT real blood (he used it to create the brownish stains on his shirt). Creating fake blood took some problem-solving skills, since every single fake blood recipe we found on the internet called for food coloring. Guess what they don’t carry in Rimi, our neighborhood grocery store? That’s right. So there I was in the store on Halloween, trying to think of a substitute, something else that could dye things red. I ended up grabbing the reddest thing I could think of– marinated beets.
Blood-making station
The “recipe” J ended up using borrowed components from a few different ones we’d read on the net. He started with dark syrup and beet juice, but it was too pink, so I suggested cocoa powder to help get a browner tone. A little bit of cornstarch was thrown in as thickener, and voila– gross, sticky, convincing, and totally edible (albeit funny-tasting) fake blood.
Halloween at our place
Like I mentioned last year, Halloween is not a big deal in Estonia. But we still like it, so this year we figured we could make Halloween happen by having it at our apartment. It was fairly last-minute– we sent the invitation out less than a week before– but I think we pulled it off very nicely .
J took care of decorations. I love the fact that even though he didn’t have the experience of carving a jack’o'lantern until he was 25 years old, he still really wanted to do it this year. He got two small pumpkins from the central market in Tallinn, and carved one in the same style as he did his first-ever pumpkin:
and one with a slight variation:
I love the fangs! I think they look very spider-esque. And the red smeared all over is red candle wax, which added a particularly creepy touch.
I, of course, was in charge of food. I decided to try my hand at these vampire cookies from Baking Bites. Not only were they fun to make, but they also tasted amazing– a basic butter cookie surrounding a pocket of raspberry jam. Luckily our guests liked them too .
For the rest of the food, I kept it pretty simple. I put out some veggies and dip with creepy carrots “fingers” emerging from it, mozzarella-olive “eyeballs”, candy corn (which my mother sent to me again this year– thank you ema!!!), orange slices, guacamole, and some little “dirt cups”.
We lit some candles, turned off the lights, played some scary movies in the background (well, not that scary– the ones we ended up watching in their entirety were Scream and Shaun of the Dead), and that was it– the makings of a casual, fun Halloween party for grownups (or, you know, grownups who still like to dress up in costumes once a year). I’ll share pictures of our costumes tomorrow!
Farm-fresh eggs (plus a monster egg)
At the end of July we scored some lovely free eggs. A friend from the States and her sisters were staying in an apartment in Tallinn owned by their great-uncle, who also has a farm where he spends most of the summer. When the girls were having their good-bye party, they complained that their uncle had just brought them ANOTHER bunch of eggs from the farm. They were leaving the next day and weren’t going to be able to use them. “We have SO MANY,” they said. “Maybe we should make people take them home after the party.” My ears perked up. Free eggs? Seriously? I’m all over that. So when J and I were leaving, they handed us a flat of 30 brown-shelled eggs. Excellent!
It wasn’t until we got home and I got a closer look at them that I realized the eggs were huge! And in the middle of the flat was one extra-huge egg! Here it is next to one of the other eggs.
I realize now that this picture doesn’t entirely explain how huge it is, since the rest of the eggs were probably extra-large by grocery store standards. I should have posed it next to one of our medium-sized grocery store eggs. Perhaps this picture of the egg in my hand will express it better:
It fills up my whole hand! It was as long as my palm is wide. One of the eggs didn’t survive the walk home, which is why the monster egg is covered in yolk. Gross, I know… I should have washed it. But these pictures were taken around 1:30 am after we’d been at a party, so what can you expect? 
Unfortunately I didn’t have any more opportunities to photograph Monster Egg, as he was cooked that night and consumed as a post-party snack.
The eggs were everything I’d hoped they would be, with deep orange yolks, so much more colorful and flavorful than our regular eggs. I was happy to use the abundance of eggs as an excuse to do a lot of baking, and I swear even my chocolate chip cookie dough was more golden than usual from the egg yolks. We just finished them up last week. A big thank-you to our friends (and their great-uncle) for letting us bring home these “treats” from their party. Things like this– when people share the apples from the tree in their yard, the honey from their parents’ bees, or eggs from the chickens on their farm– that remind me, once again, why I love living in Estonia.
Pelmeni revisited
The last time I wrote about pelmeni, the little Russian stuffed dumplings, was quite some time ago. As stated before, I usually only eat them every once in a while, but this summer I’ve once again had an overdose.
I already knew that my sister was a fan (I can’t remember when I first introduced them to her– maybe Christmas 2007?), so we kept the freezer stocked with them during the four-week period in which she crashed on our couch. My big brother, who was visiting Estonia for the first time in 11 years, also discovered the salty, chewy, meaty wonder that is pelmeni, and ate them quite often. And, I must admit, so did I.
Pelmeni at home? Yup. (Not to worry– they made it into the pan eventually.)
Need a snack to go with that beer? How about some pelmeni?
Late night during the beer festival Õllesummer… I think some pelmeni would hit the spot.
Now I have to say, I experience a lot of supermarket envy living in Estonia. I read tons of blogs written by people who can buy adobo chilis or cashew butter or creme fraiche just around the corner, while I couldn’t find those things here if my life depended on it. Oh, how I yearn for an American grocery store sometimes. But now, with the pelmeni, it’s finally my turn to gloat! As his trip was winding down, my brother was eating pelmeni at every opportunity and saying, “I really hope I can find these somewhere in the States…” And I was all, “Mwahaha, I can go into even the crappiest grocery store here and find at least seven different brands and varieties of pelmeni staring back at me from the freezer case! So there!” OK, maybe I didn’t say that, but I was thinking it. Finally, something I can get that they can’t! (Kohukesed, of course, also fall under this category).
But seriously, it is just nice to know that there are still things that are unique and regional in this world, and that my friends and family in the States, before long, will hopefully think, “It’s been a while since I had pelmeni or a kohuke– time to go to Estonia again.”
