“Local” foods that international friends don’t understand!

Really interesting thread.
Clooty puddings used to be really popular in North East England too.
Scottish Tablet- mmmmmmm one of tbe best things to eat when we visit- unfortunately too much sugar.

JoDavo66 wrote: »

goal06082021 wrote: »

Apple pie and cheddar cheese is definitely not country-wide, I always thought of that as a Vermont thing specifically though? Maybe just the first person to tell me about it was a Vermonter.

My Dad always had cheddar cheese with apple pie- he said it was a Yorkshire thing (UK). I don't know about that as I've never seen it in Yorkshire! He always used to say (& apologies if this no longer politically correct), "Apple pie without cheese, is like a kiss without a squeeze"!

Love it!

American poet Eugene Field: "But I, when I undress me / Each night, upon my knees / Will ask the Lord to bless me / With apple pie and cheese.” (From the last link below, which also mentions the kiss and squeeze saying, AND which traces the apple pie and cheese thing to Yorkshire, so there's some support for your dad.)

https://www.southernliving.com/desserts/pies/apple-pie-with-cheese

This piece says it came from England (doesn't identify any particular region) and then went to New England and the Midwest.

Here's an article on it: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-jul-22-fo-5854-story.html

"One of the most beloved American dessert traditions is warm apple pie with a big wedge of sharp Cheddar. There are restaurants that even bake a slice of cheese onto the crust, so you’re guaranteed your serving of cheese with your pie.

Europeans are often astonished by the whole idea of cheese with pie. It seems to them that we’ve fused the dessert course with the cheese course, two separate parts of the meal in Europe.

How did we start doing this? The history is a little obscure. The practice is rarely mentioned in cookbooks until about 1950.

The major 19th century American cookbooks certainly don’t mention it, though memoirs of life in the upper Midwest indicate that cheese was already a regular accompaniment to warm apple pie there before the turn of the century. The upper Midwest is major dairy country, of course, and it’s still where the custom is liveliest...."

On the controversy within the US: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cheese-apple-pie

"Though fans of apple pie with cheese exist everywhere, they seem to be concentrated in the American Midwest, New England, and parts of Canada and Britain. Vermont even has a 1999 law on the books requiring that proprietors of apple pie make a “good faith effort” to serve it with ice cream, cold milk, or “a slice of cheddar cheese weighing a minimum of 1/2 ounce.” In some circles, apple pie with cheese is tradition.

So where does this come from? And why, especially in the United States, do some people expect apple pie with cheese, while others have never even heard of the concept?

The idea appears to have originated in England, where all sorts of fillings were added to pies. At some point, the 17th-century trend of adding dairy-based sauces to pies morphed into a tradition of topping them with cheese. For instance, in Yorkshire, apple pie was served with Wensleydale, which is likely how the phrase “an apple pie without the cheese is like a kiss without the squeeze” began. (Though it is in dispute whether the phrase originated in the United States or England, it caught on in both places in the 19th century, suggesting a kind of cultural collaboration between the two.)

According to The Mystic Seaport Cookbook: 350 Years of New England Cooking, New England settlers brought the idea behind these Yorkshire pies with them, but instead of Wensleydale, they began using cheddar.

Why cheese? At the time, apple pies were quite bland: prior to the creation of the Red Delicious apple in the late 19th century, few apples tasted sweet. Cheese offered a readily available supplement. After all, in an era before the ubiquity of freezers, the most popular pie topping today—ice cream—was out of the question.

Places in the United States with heavy concentrations of dairy farms therefore became centers of the cheese-on-apple-pie craze. These included New England, Pennsylvania, and especially the Midwest—largely the regions where cheddar cheese apple pie is popular today...."

Kendal Mint Cake - anyone tried that? Ugh! complete & utter sugar overload, flavoured with mint essence, for hiking up Three Peaks in Ribblesdale!

I’m half Finnish and my mum loves this yogurt like food called viili. Whenever we visit Finland she buys tons of it. I don’t particularly like it although I tried it years ago. I do love pulla though. Every Christmas I make a few loaves. It’s basically a braided dessert bread with raw sugar and slivered almonds on top. Yum! 😊

Kupla71 wrote: »

I’m half Finnish and my mum loves this yogurt like food called viili. Whenever we visit Finland she buys tons of it. I don’t particularly like it although I tried it years ago. I do love pulla though. Every Christmas I make a few loaves. It’s basically a braided dessert bread with raw sugar and slivered almonds on top. Yum! 😊

Hmm, I didn't think of viili! I'm not a huge fan either, the consistency is a bit too slimy.

Kupla71 wrote: »

Poutine! For those outside of Canada or who don’t know it’s French fries, gravy and cheese curds. A tasty satisfying indulgence. I don’t know if it has spread to the rest of the world yet. I haven’t had it for years but I’m getting a craving for it just about now! 😃

I second the poutine. My kids asked for it in a small diner in Florida once whole on vacation, and were met with a blank stare. After a quick consult with the cook, they made an approximation with cheddar, fries and gravy. No cheese curds. You can now order it there! At our local fry place (in Ontario, Canada) you can get regular poutine, chili poutine, butter chicken poutine and extra bacon poutine.

I’ll have to try some of these other types of pulla. I seem to remember my mum talking about pulla baked into balls but never tried it that way. Almond paste sounds yummy! 😊

Our school had something we fondly called Congobons, but only because the person who typed the menu always spelled cocoa bars wrong. This was dark ages, before spellcheck was even a gleam.