All these American ingredients confuse me...

[mirandalea]

Okay, I have to weigh in on the whole food thing. I LOVE food. lol This has been one of the most educating threads I've ever read. I'm a Kansan, so I don't know if we have anything that's really "regional."

My dad came from a huge family, so they ate things that were cheap and easy. Ten kids (mostly boys) = Fifty pounds of potatoes per week. Minimum. Every meal had potatoes. We don't consider them a vegetable, they are their own food group. Baked, fried, mashed, scalloped, etc. One of my dad's favorite meals is fried macaroni and creamed corn. You boil the macaroni until it's tender, then fry it in butter, and smother it with creamed corn. And of course, it has to be accompanied by fried potatoes with lots of onions. Hope you like starch! lol But it's delicious.

As for french fries (or chips, or whatever) they can be smothered with any number of things. I tend to think ketchup is boring, unless you add a few drops of Tobasco. I like them with sour cream, mayo, mustard and ketchup mixed together, or dipped in soft serve ice cream. That last one is not a Kansas thing, because everyone thinks I'm wierd for it, especially my husband. (Though I totally caught him doing it the other day!! I'm a bad influence.)

It seems like people in the midwest are simply enthralled with ranch dressing. They put it on everything! Personally, I hate the stuff. I LOVE bleu cheese dressing, though. The chunkier the better.

One more thing, and I know I'll take a lot of crap for it from the southerners, but I HATE sweettea! I think it tastes like three-day-old, watered-down, fizzless soda. (BTW most folks around here call that pop. I'm just a little wierd.)

So that's my 2 cents. Oh, yeah. I was never that bothered by spray butter. It's used and tastes just like melted margarine or butter (depending on brand name), it just doesn't solidify. I guess we Americans are just too lazy to wait for the real stuff to melt.

[Imdee]

My dad is from OK.  Nine kids, 8 boys 1 girl.  As far as the biscuits and gravy,  it's generally a breakfast thing.  Although in our family, we put the gravy on our eggs.  This works best with scrambled eggs, fried eggs can be kind of gross with gravy on them.  I watched my cousin put ketchup on her biscuits and gravy and stir it up until it was pink.  It probably tasted pretty good, but I couldn't even look at it.  My favorite disgusting breakfast is called coffee pie.  You break up biscuits into a bowl, put butter and sugar over them and then pour coffee over it.  It works best with canned biscuits, homemade ones are too light and fluffy, and will turn into mush.  Oh, and being from CA, I envy being able to get sweet tea in restaurants.  I drink sweet tea at home, but when you get tea out, it comes unsweetened and the sugar never disolves in it. 

[popartlover09]

yes the scrambled eggs on top, how could i forget that? lol actually it tastes freakin good when u mix it w/ bacon eggs and maybe a lil jelly, i love it it has  nice texture, idk i have seen bisquits and gravy come w/ stuff like porkchops and rice for dinner, its common, they serve it in my school cafeteria even (only a nastier version) yea ranch is an obsession in the south 2,and ive seen people dip fries in softserve b4, ive tried it its not that bad really,
ahh sweet tea how i love it lol, but i llike mine really freakin strong though w/ lots of sugar

[Neveth]

Chiming in here!! I'm a Texas native and I figured I'd chime in with my family's favorite Texas Home cookin foods

Green Bean Casserole - Green Beans, cream of mushroom soup, and for texture French's Fried Onions. I've never liked it, but the rest of my family raves about it.

Anyone else know about Jello Salad? Eeeeeeeeeeeek 

Never been a fan of the typical southern foods, myself. However, I cannot refuse good barbecue (pulled/chopped beef for prefrence) or the flakier type of biscuts. I LIVE off of Tex-Mex practically. There's a taqureia not far from my apartment and we hit it up at least once a week for fresh flour tortillas, and occassionally fresh homade salsa. Mmmmm.

And a native Texan's take on Sweet Tea is EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEWWWWW. You crazy south-eastern people! It's forever depressing to me that 3/4 of the places here in Dallas either don't serve unsweet tea anymore, or I have to specify. Proper Iced tea is with a slice of lemon (or lime) and (if you're not me and actually LIKE sweet things) maybe some sugar. But I have like an anti-sweet-tooth. Sweet tea makes me feel like I'm going to gag from the sticky sickly sweetness of it.

[popartlover09]

ah yes...green bean casserole, ive seen it b4, a must at all family reunions or hoilidays, personally i cant stand the stuff, i hate green beans...

jello salad, im somewhat familiar w/ it, what is it excatly, sounds good...

tex mex, delicious, i love the stuff and cant really get enough, no where around here to get the decent kind...

so who here has heard of ambrosia salad, a very nice neon pink dessert type thing also found at family outting, ewww doesnt begin to describe...

alright im going to admit a lil sin of mine, i hate fried chicken, all southerners are now cringing to the osund of it, just to greasy and w/ all the lil bones.. eww... although im a hypocrite i kno, i love fried chicken stripssss, like chickfillayish kinda

k im done haha

[lbdancer123]

my mom's recipe for  jello salad is very interesting... it's usually lime and lemon jello mixed with assorted fruit bits like grapes and apple.  most of the time, there's also celery and other savory ingredients. not my idea of delicious.

[lupinbunny]

okay. to chime in, i'm australian. and you know what i made last night. this was the first time in my 21 years that i have tasted it - CORNBREAD! i was SO excited. being a student, i'm embarassed to admit i actually daved my pennies to buy the polenta (cornmeal).

it was great! i served it with braised fennel and red cabbage... so not so southern, but i thought they went together. and we're having leftover tonight with vege stroganoff.

[leaguegirl]

Tennessee gal here. Speaking of bisquits and gravy. When I was a kid, for a special breakfast treat, we would have bisquits and chocolate gravy. Yummy. It is a basic milk gravy with cocoa and sugar.

[craft-matic]

Hey Kansas Miranda, I'm from Nebraska.  The fries in ice cream thing?  More regional than you think!  Everyone in my high school did that, but it was specific to Wendy's fries dipped in Frosty.  SOOOOOOOOOO good.

Here's another midwestern thing: cream cheese on pizza.  Think it's crazy if you want, but until you taste it, you don't know the heavenliness of it.  Just dot a little on, on top of the sauce, under the mozzarella.  It's gets all melty and creamy and yummy.

Also, frogeye salad:  prepare fruit jello, any flavor, but especially strawberry or lemon.  before it sets, fold in a container of cool whip.  Stir in prepared tapioca pearls.  Add crushed pineapple and halved maraschino cherries.  Refrigerate until the potluck starts.  Or forego the jello, and just stir tapioca into cool whip and add the fruit.  Mmmm, tasty.  Transfats are soooo good.  Drat a world in which Cool Whip is BAD for you!  Oh, the humanity!

Other so-bad-but-so-good foods from my childhood: 

Pigs-in-a-blanket.  With lil smokies in pillsbury biscuit dough, naturally. 

Crescent-roll pizzas, or english muffin pizzas.  On those nights when the only thing to eat in the house was the stick of pepperoni my father had inexplicably picked up at the gas station on the way home, a can of tomato paste, and some crescent rolls left over from thanksgiving.

Tuna bake with potato chip topping.  Or any other bake from the Better Homes and Garden cookbook, the bible of my mother's kitchen. 



Lupinbunny: Congrats on the cornbread.  There is no finer thing than cornbread, except possibly cornmeal biscuits.  Or spoon bread, which is still cornbread, but more souffle-like.  Did you eat it smothered in butter and honey?  Cause that's really the only way to have it, hot with butter and honey.  If you still have leftovers, give it a shot. 

[TheBon]

Hey Kansas Miranda, I'm from Nebraska.  The fries in ice cream thing?  More regional than you think!  Everyone in my high school did that, but it was specific to Wendy's fries dipped in Frosty.  SOOOOOOOOOO good.

It's not so regional. We did it growing up in Maine, and my fiance who has lived in Oregon all his life has also done it for ages.

Also, tons of pizza places across the country also make pizzas with cream cheese on them, I never had it until moving to Oregon though.

Food is definitely becoming less regional as people move further from their childhood homes. It's interesting to note how often I see things like ambrosia salad show up and how at a party four people from different parts of the country noted that they had always seen it growing up. It's interesting to watch.