• For more information on how to avoid pop-up ads and still support SkiTalk click HERE.

Regional food terms that non-locals don't understand

VickieH

Contrarian
Skier
Joined
Nov 13, 2015
Posts
1,928
Location
Denver area
I discovered iced tea in the south is always sweetened. You must explicitly order unsweetened if that's what you want.
Yep. Driving from Virginia to Florida last year, I stopped at convenience stores to get a bottle of Pure Leaf Unsweetened tea. Halfway through NC, my choices became Sweet and Extra Sweet.
 

Philpug

Notorious P.U.G.
Admin
SkiTalk Tester
Joined
Nov 1, 2015
Posts
42,624
Location
Reno, eNVy
Great website. It does show eastern Pennsylvania (i.e., my original home) as being solidly in the "soda" category, which is wrong. "coke" is the term du jour. I dutifully submitted my info.

Oh really? I've only ever heard soda here in eastern PA since I've lived here. Not sure I've heard anyone around here call it coke, either down here in Philly or when we've been up in the Poconos or Lehigh Valley area.

Maybe it was my block... I grew up near Reading, Pennsylvania. We definitely used "coke" as the generic term in the '70s.
Thats the problem...Reading is NOT Eastern PA, it is central Pa.
 

cantunamunch

Meh
Skier
Joined
Nov 17, 2015
Posts
21,897
Location
Behavioral sink
Not according to a lot of online links and some cooking shows i've watched. Though admittedly info seems to be all over the map.

Case in point, the two recipes on this page, one for polenta and one for grits, both just specify "cornmeal"...

https://www.foodnetwork.com/shows/good-eats/episodes/true-grits.

That's just modern distinction sloppiness and deliberate 'simplification'.

Apply the same process (by way of lasagna) and you'd conclude that there is no difference between cottage cheese and ricotta.


Easy way to remember it:

Polenta diet -> endemic pellagra -> native vampire legends
Hominy diet -> no pellagra -> imported vampire legends
 
Last edited:

Marker

Making fresh tracks
Skier
Joined
Oct 16, 2017
Posts
2,351
Location
Kennett Square, PA & Killington, VT
Not according to a lot of online links and some cooking shows i've watched. Though admittedly info seems to be all over the map.

Case in point, the two recipes on this page, one for polenta and one for grits, both just specify "cornmeal"...

https://www.foodnetwork.com/shows/good-eats/episodes/true-grits

and apparently some hominy is just white corn and isn't treated with anything.
Modern methods of food processing may have made real hominy an archaic foodstuff, but the logic behind it made sense for native Americans and Mexicans to preserve corn in its dried state and then easily process it into a soft edible form using clay pots and stone tools.
 

AmyPJ

Skiing the powder
SkiTalk Tester
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
7,835
Location
Ogden, UT
It is just a starch. A bland vehicle to transport the actual flavor of the "real" food. Like rice, pasta, couscous, mash potato, etc. Every culture has something similar.

The issue with some of the trendy restaurants is that they have a tendency to under cook the grits. They often try to create something "new & improved". Grits like most common starches are peasant food. It is often the least expensive and most plentiful part of the meal. Most cultures have perfected they way they prepare the starch component of their meals. Some of these new chefs are trying to reinventing the wheel. Often with less than impressive results.



Don't tell me. You live in Utah. :D
No secret there! I've lived in a lot of places over the years, and none of them really stood out to me as having "odd" food, well, except maybe Cincinnati chili. Until here.

I love the "bland vehicle to transport the real food" descriptor. We use that in my family a lot. Makes me want to cook up some grits or polenta!
 

CalG

Out on the slopes
Pass Pulled
Joined
Feb 5, 2017
Posts
1,962
Location
Vt
No, polenta is ground corn meal, normally coarser than American corn meal, while grits are ground dried hominy, which is dried corn kernels processed with lime (calcium carbonate). Mexicans make hominy to soften the corn kernels and shed the skins, then grind them into masa to make tortillas and tamales. For some reason, Americans got the idea to redry the hominy and then grind it into grits, which are then rehydrated while cooking them to make a porridge. Go figure. But I also like both grits and polenta.

Lots of Hominy is processed with LYE as opposed to lime.

Faster acting, but takes careful "washing".

A quote from the net
"
Hominy is a food made from kernels of corn. The kernels are soaked in an alkali solution of either lime (the mineral, not the fruit) or lye, which is a process called nixtamalization. The corrosive nature of the solution removes the hull and germ of the corn and causes the grain itself to puff up to about twice its normal size."

end quote.

Yummm!
 

Tony S

I have a confusion to make ...
Skier
Team Gathermeister
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Nov 14, 2015
Posts
12,620
Location
Maine
@David Chaus , it's "knish," not "kinish," right? Knishes are from Brooklyn; kinishes are from Scotland.
 

SKI-3PO

Making fresh tracks
Skier
Team Gathermeister
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
1,653
Location
PA
pat-s-king-of-steaks.jpg
Remember the “wit” is not “with” for the cheese, it’s “with” for the onions.
 

Tony S

I have a confusion to make ...
Skier
Team Gathermeister
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Nov 14, 2015
Posts
12,620
Location
Maine
Remember the “wit” is not “with” for the cheese, it’s “with” for the onions.

Apparently Philly is more parochial, in its way, than the most black-fly-bitten hamlet in backwoods Maine.
 

David Chaus

Beyond Help
Skier
Team Gathermeister
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
5,529
Location
Stanwood, WA
@David Chaus , it's "knish," not "kinish," right? Knishes are from Brooklyn; kinishes are from Scotland.
I believe you are correct, though Knishes didn’t originate in Brooklyn, it’s an Ashkenazi Jewish thing from Eastern Europe. Not everything originated in the Holy Land of Brooklyn.
 
Last edited:

BC.

NEPA ShopRat/Skier
Skier
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Aug 27, 2017
Posts
2,035
Location
Lake Wallenpaupack, PA
With all the time we have been spending in Burlington (UVM)...we have found that “Creamies” are just what we call in PA “soft serve” ice cream....When I saw all the signs for “Creamies” this summer/fall, I was like, what the heck are they?....then when we got some....it was just soft serve ice cream....(which I like)...so it was good, but when in VT, we’ll call them “Creamies”.
 

Sponsor

Staff online

  • Dwight
    Practitioner of skiing, solid and liquid
Top