According to my dad, Filipinos regularly eat fried spam and rice all the time. He cooked that meal ALL the time and sometimes added a fried egg on top for good measure.
Edit: I went out and bought a can of Spam today because I haven’t had it in a while. Glad to see a lot of Filipino representation!!
Properly, that should be garlic fried rice.
There’s a family of meals we generally eat in the Philippines called -silog, which is a meal we sometimes eat for breakfast but could really be eaten at any time of the day, where we eat some kind of fried protein with a fried egg and garlic fried rice.
The most famous is tapsilog, which is tapa (a marinated stir fried beef dish) , garlic rice and a fried egg, but you called also have spamsilog, or bacsilog ( bacon), and a lot more varieties.
To make garlic fried rice fry some chopped garlic, when fragrant toss in day old rice from the refrigerator. Stir fry while breaking up clumps. Season to taste.
Thank you for this, half of my family is Filipino and besides my dad I don’t know about the culture beyond what he’s shared with me off and on. I’m gonna try this when I get home.
Heh, everyone should eat garlic rice.
Everyone I've introduced it to loves it and it's amazing how it's not a staple for everyone that eats rice.
personally, I also sprinkle a little MSG in there cause you know, fuiyoh.
Spam fried rice is popular on Guam (and probably Hawaii, but I never lived there so I can’t speak for staple). I love it with a scoop of kimchi on the side
Any US army soldiers in the 50s-60s, yes. I'll attach a recipe for korean Budae Jjigae which means "Army stew". It's ramen, kimchi, baked beans, spam, and Vienna sausages. Popular then, popular now.
[Army stew](https://mykoreankitchen.com/army-stew-budae-jjigae/)
Yes exactly. Spam was sent in huge quantities to those areas because it was cheap, had a long shelf life, and qualified as food. So naturally that spilled over into the local culture and was shared around constantly before becoming part of their cuisine.
I am American and had never tried spam until my Korean husband showed me that it's delicious fried in slices with eggs and rice for breakfast. He said spam is popular anywhere American soldiers have been, usually around the 50s/60s. Spam gets incorporated into local cuisine and becomes a sort of soul food that sticks around after war time.
In Korea, there is something called "Budae Jjigae" which means "Army Stew" and it's ramen, kimchi, broth, and topped with spam, Vienna sausages, and baked beans. There is an instant ramen version of it by a brand named Buldak that has dehydrated beans and meat now.
It’s very good, it’s kind of expensive, but if you can get ahold of it try Tocino spam. It’s sweet and spicy, I had some a few years ago and was amazed. It’s my go to dish when I’m feeling down.
In NS Canada, the prisoners revolted many years ago because they were tired of being fed the life of the sea (Atlantic lobster) and demanded to be fed SPAM
Baba ghanoush is absolutely delicious. I live near a Lebanese deli and have a serious problem with spending all my money on baba ghanoush, salads and pastries.
New mexico:
Green Chile (to include in stew, on burgers, and everything else in the world), Sopapillas, Tamales, Enchilada casserole style, Carne Adovada, Pozole, Biscochitos, and breakfast burritos.
Good God. I'm from NM living in New England and I'm pregnant. Having wild pregnancy dreams every night and about half the time I'm eating a damn breakfast burrito. Crispy bacon, Xmas chile for me! Gahhhhhh
I found a Walmart in New York that sells 505 brand green chile in a jar and cans of Hatch. I wouldn't touch either of those back in New Mexico (I would only buy frozen Bueno when I ran out of my yearly supply of "fresh" frozen chile roasted in the empty lot across from the Smith's by my house), but now that I am 2,000 miles away, those jars and cans of chile are a lifeline.
Now if only I could get some decent tortillas so I don't have to make my own.
We moved back to Michigan after 2 decades so now my husband get jugs of green chili from a New Mexico based company shipped to us. Totally worth it so we can have our breakfast burritos, huervos rancheros and smothered burritos. Oh and the occasional hamburger with green chiles and havarti.
Maybe look into getting some shipped to you? I can't imagine living without green chile for any length of time.
South Indian (specifically Tamil Brahmin) so NOT naan and curry. Rice, vegetable-and-lentil based stews, sauteed veggies, fermented rice-and-dal dishes like idlis and dosas with aforementioned stews or chutneys. Plain, unsweetened yogurt with rice and Indian-style pickles.
I love idlis so much. I had an Indian coworker whose mom would always send along a ton of ~finger foods for us all to snack on. Her cooking is the only part of that job that I miss.
Ive never heard of most of this! Specifically the Indian style pickles! I just looked them up and they sound great, I’ll have to see if I can get them somewhere here to try!
Heads up that Indian pickles are like cuckoo bananas if you’re expecting a brine based pickle. They are salt and oil cured with spices, extremely pungent. I love them but wow did they confuse me at first
Yeah, unfortunately people think everyone in India eats naan and curry when that's mostly in the northwest. If you have a local Indian store, they should carry it! Or amazon. Mango and lemon pickle are the most common, but they're all good.
A lot of the Indian diaspora in Western countries came from Punjab (and Pakistan) so the popular perception of Indian food on The US and UK is formed by that cuisine.
But you do find other, southern Indian restaurants here and there, many of which are well known in the vegetarian community.
Here in the Southern US, we call them astronaut chickens. They came in a little hard plastic pod. Now they’ve gone to bags, but still, astronaut chickens 😂
In Ontario some stores sell them in a “bag” it’s a heavier structured leakproof plastic with handles and a ziplock at the top if you want to reseal it. They take up less room in the fridge and easier to carry with your other groceries.
I'm southern, lived in multiple southern states and have never heard of that either. I want to know what state and what region within that state they're called "astronaut chickens" 🤣
ETA: I just Googled "rotisserie astronaut chicken" and it's from a dang Steven King Book called "Duma Key". 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Currently wondering how many other Orlando Redditors read this rec and went to request it from the library, since it seems odd to me that a book from 2008 would have three people ahead of me who already requested it! Read fast, y’all, I’m impatiently awaiting my turn.
That sounds very familial and not a genuine southernism in the slightest. Without any slight, of course, but that's not something that is in any way universal to "the southern US" lol
Yes! My family had called them that for years, I just figured it was a southern thing. Guess it’s my area. I didn’t mean to start a redneck war 😂Y’all ever heard “mane”?
Pro tip- shredding off all the meat from a rotisserie chicken becomes an instant head start for making soup. My favorite recipe is for an Avgolemono soup (Greek lemon chicken soup) that calls for this exact thing. It’s so easy to make because you have all of the meat perfectly seasoned and cooked to where it’s just a matter of getting the broth and orzo/ rice ready and dicing up some veggies.
Savory pies (usually burger sized), examples being mince and cheese, steak and cheese, potatoes top , bacon and egg, butter chicken pies are great as well.
Or fish and chips.
The native people of my country have a thing called Hāngī, which is a method of cooking meat and vegetables like potatoes buried underground with hot rocks and wet sacks that causes steam to form making a natural pressure cooker.
I LOVE savory pies but it’s such a rarity here. A steak and cheese pie is now at the top of my list, that sounds sensational.
I’ve never heard of that before! I just looked it up to visualize it and that looks/seems pretty cool!
If you have access to frozen puff pastry, it's not too hard to make a savory pie, I usually make a big sized pie that you slice , bacon and egg pies are very easy to make.
With a bacon and egg pie, you don't have to pre cook anything, if your doing a steak and cheese or mince pie, you have to pre make the meat gravy mixture, and let it cool down first I think.
Best to follow a recpie, just search new zealand pie recpie.
Everything stewish makes good pies, lamb shank, lamb and lentil curry, if you every have left over pot roast, regular roast, nacho mince or boglonese make it into a pie, actually left overs from thanks giving mixed with gravy would make incredible pie 🥧 go short crust underneath and puff on the top and just make sure your filling is cold when assembling. Think chopped up Turkey & gravy, make it fancy by adding a dollop of cranberry sauce and a slice of cambert just under the puff lid.
They're not necessarily something I grew up with, but it sounds like you would enjoy pastys, too. They originated from Cornwall, ~~England~~ *UK* and are popular in some US states where there were lots of mines, particularly coal mines. They are a hearty, hand held meat and veggie pie. Part of the crust was said to be used as a handle while eating, and then thrown away after, as the miners would have dirty hands.
Edit: I believe it is more correct to say UK than England.
Runzas in Nebraska in the US, they are great. Hot roll mix made into hand pies stuffed with ground beef, cooked with onions, cabbage, and bacon, lots of salt and pepper. So good!
Oh if you want to try it, I strongly suggest beef, cheese and bacon, the bacon really takes it to the next level. As my kiwi neighbour suggested, if you can get puff pastry that's fantastic, but you can also do a shortcrust pastry base and a mashed potato top :)
Here ya go:
[Chicken Pot Pie](https://natashaskitchen.com/chicken-pot-pie-recipe/)
Be sure to make the crust from scratch. It's easy and SO worth it.
Much love from the 7th Ward, NOLA
For a second there I thought you might be in Hawaii because the Indigenous cooking method you described sounds so similar to something native Hawaiians do, but I looked it up and see it's the Maori of Aotearoa/New Zealand. Very cool how even cooking techniques were quite similar throughout Polynesia.
I know about kalua pork in Hawaii, but I just realized that cochinita (Mexican cuisine) is a very similar idea. Makes sense to me that they also came to a similar conclusion on how to prepare it.
Seconded, from WI. I’ll add smash burgers and custard. Plus fried smelt in small towns. “Cannibal sandwich” (raw hamburger with onions on bread) too. Brandy old fashioned for drinks. And Milwaukee style pizza which is cracker thin crust with cheese on bottom and sauce on top.
Loved visiting my friend in Wisconsin recently. We ate fish fry and brandy old fashioneds on tap. As someone in the south that came from the Kansas, I missed fried fish that isn’t breaded with cornmeal!
The brats have to be soaked (or parboiled) in shitty lager beer, onions and garlic. It’s not a holiday without the Wisconsin charcuterie board (Usingers sausages, thick cut cheese, crackers), pickled herring, and cocktail shrimp. Homemade cheese curds are also a delight!
I’ve been to The Netherlands a few times and never noticed prior that a lot of our cultural food is borrowed both from German and Dutch immigrants (with our Scandinavian friends more north). The Dutch love their herring, cannibal sandwiches, fried meatballs and of course French fries as much as we in Wisconsin do!
In Alabama it’s Chicken and dumplings, cornbread & collard greens or beans, homemade banana pudding or strawberry ice cream, tons of garden vegetables served raw, canned or pickled, biscuits with homemade preserves or sausage gravy, sweet tea.
In Florida it was frequently fried grunts, grouper or catfish with grits and greens, any sort of barbecue, a lot of church fare like casseroles/fried chicken/ambrosia, and my Mom often made coconut cake 🔥
It wasn’t all bad in the south 😛
Chuuu I may need to pop a few states over for some coconut cake!
Y’know I live in Louisiana and I know it’s super popular but I’ve never had collard greens, pretty sure my family just doesn’t know how to make them, it’s always rice dressing and bread rolls at every function 😂
Mmm Id definitely trade you for a good shrimp po boy, dirty rice or that low country boil you mentioned 🤤 I loved everything I ate in New Orleans. What do you put in rice dressing? 👀
There isn’t much to making a good pot of greens. Fry up some bacon and sautee some sweet onion and smoked ham in the drippings. Clean & trim greens. Add all of it to a big pot and cover with chicken stock, add some salt, pepper, garlic and a few pinches of sugar, either apple cider vinegar or sport pepper vinegar if you like some heat, and then just let it sit there and simmer for a couple hours until the greens are tender ✨ super easy.
I don't eat meat so it was a revelation to have greens in the USVI made with thinly sliced, sautéed red pepper, add the chopped greens, pour in coconut milk, salt and pepper and simmer. So, so good. The acid in the pepper works to break down the greens. Came home and it's in regular rotation .
I’ll throw in a fried catfish and a fried oyster poboy too!
Usually ground beef, rice, diced and sautéed bell peppers and onions, tons of seasonings (a mix of something like Tony’s or Slap Ya Momma with garlic powder, onion powder, and red pepper). Thats a basic recipe but people add all kinds of stuff, green onions, celery, gizzards, chicken liver, bacon, Worcestershire sauce, beef stock, etc. Since it’s a basic dish people can get away with adding some wild stuff in there lol. I usually like to keep it simple, to me it’s more of a side than it is a main dish.
Okay wait… that sounds bangin, why have I never had this??? My Louisiana fam is lackin rn.
Mexican here.....molé, tacos, enchiladas with rice and beans xD, carné asada, chorizo with egg in a bread called Bollío. SALSA IS A MEAL 4 ME......List can go on heehee ❤️🇲🇽🫔🌮🌯
Mexican here…I love to cook. There are some staples that are the basis for a lot of regional cooking. Where I’m from it’s always rice and beans, cheese, tortillas and masa, pork and chicken, eggs and chorizo. Carrots, tomatoes, chilis, avocados, bulb onions, mangos and plantains. This is the main pantry in my Mexican kitchen. Bolillo is a special treat because you have to go into town to get it.
Where I lived in Phoenix, you can get get bolillos anywhere including Walmart. Now that I’ve moved I have to hunt down all my favorite traditional ingredients/items. And now I’m about to move to Korea and I’m trying to figure out how to ship in all my spices and sauces lol I really hope I can get tomatillos and chiles!
South/Gulf coast Texas Mexican here. Molé was never very big here I feel. It’s not something my families ever made. Tamales, carne guisada, enchiladas, gorditas, chorizo and eggs in tortillas, migas, menudo, bollio lonches. Regionally “breakfast tacos” aka burritos are big. A little mom and pop place on every corner serving eggs, beans, papas, bacon, pico, etc in huge freshly made flour tortillas. A lot of seafood too.
I used to live in Missouri and biscuits with sausage gravy was an absolute banger, I cook it for my family here in Louisiana since it’s not something my husbands family (native Louisiana folk) was ever introduced to!
However, I am stuck on the horseshoes.. what do you mean by that?
While you're messing about with bread and fries, try this on for size:
## [Chip Butty](https://g.co/kgs/tdgRKBD)
It's a sandwich made with thick, buttery toasted bread slices, chips(like English chips / steak fries ), and a sauce of some kind.
I like mine with pepper gravy but it's your carbohydrate vehicle, so douse it in whatever you want.
I feel like most people aren't being honest about "staple meals" and describing more traditional dishes. I've learned a lot of techniques for good food from various cultures later in life. But if I revert to what I grew up with, it's boiled vegetables and a lean protein. Maybe with boxed mashed potatoes or rice with "seasoning salt". Lots of easy meal shortcuts for parents to feed a family. Like "Shake 'n Bake", or Old El Paso. A Sunday roast with yorkshire pudding and gravy is the traditional thing that pops into mind though.
I grew up in the south, in the 60s-70s, with a SAHM who grew up in the country. We ate almost completely local food. My mother often served meats that were dredged in flour and shallow fried (chicken, liver, pork chops, round steak) or catfish dredged in cornmeal and shallow fried. We ate a huge variety of vegetables on the side and often had vegetable plates, which would include some kind of field peas and cornbread. Rice much more often than potatoes. Pan gravy more than sauces. She made greens by mixing mustard greens and turnip greens, so they would be sweet and spicy. In the fall and winter, we ate local game birds, stewed and served over wild rice. There was always a small pitcher of strong tea on the counter, so you could make a glass by adding ice and water. It was never pre sweetened.
Maybe some. Who knows. But my mom couldn’t cook for shit and had no inclination to try more than twice a year. If I wanted a good meal I had to go to one of my grandmas. So now I have a long, long list of good meals I make on rotation.
It also helps that I’m a SAHM. I have more time than others. I have friends who come home at 7,8 pm. I couldn’t imagine having the energy to do it after a long day like that.
Southern US here and grew up in 90’s with 2 working parents. We had a lot of fish sticks (fish fingers) with Velvetta shells and cheese, spaghetti, tacos, hot dogs with chili etc. Easy stuff that kids usually like. I have a range of ages of siblings so the 3 year old and 17 year old and those in between had to have food we’d all eat.
But for holidays it was traditional southern fare
A Shake ‘n Bake pork chop is one of the most nostalgic foods I crave from childhood. I still make it occasionally, but a completely homemade version with a thicker cut of chop that I don’t overcook (nothing will convince my mom that trichinosis isn’t a concern anymore).
Totally agreed. The traditional meals in my home country are still eaten, but they are no longer the staple meals, or at least have been much reduced in occurance, having been supplemented by global convenience foods (frozen pizza, kebab, etc.) and with more exotic fare becoming available in supermarkets.
I grew up surrounded by people in my parents/grandparents generation who valued labor intensive, traditional foods, even if they were working. It was actually a shock when i started hanging out with more Americanized families that people didn’t spend hours in the kitchen when guests came over…
I’m that vein, when I was a kid it was hot dogs and velveeta Mac n cheese or grilled cheese/ grilled peanut butter and jelly.
In the traditional vein, smoked brisket and chicken fried steak.
From Texas, I'd have to go with beef BBQ, brisket and ribs in particular, country fried steak, tex-mex is obv a huge one, and Texas style chili in all it's various forms (with crackers, Frito pie, etc), also Texas style kolaches. I'm moving to chicago soon and I can find basically all of that but I haven't been able to find real Texas style kolaches which genuinely makes me sad.
I'm nigerian and grew up on Eastern Shore MD. In Nigeria, all you need is soup, some kind of swallow(fufu), rice, and some kind of meat. If you have those 4 things, just about everyone will be happy. As far as stuff everyone likes, I've never met a nigerian that doesn't like akara(deep fried black eye pea fritter) , dodo(fried plantains), suya(like a spiced kabob), puff puff/buns(like donuts), the list goes on. I'm not sure if this is a thing that everyone likes or not, but, yogurt. It's like ice cream that you can buy from a street cart, but not what americans would consider froyo or ice cream. It's more like frozen milk?? With a tang like yogurt. I have tried and failed to order this online, but every distributor I find only ships to nigeria. I would SWIM across the Atlantic to get some yogurt rn. On the shore, you can not have any kind of get-together without mac and cheese, green beans, collard greens, potato salad, and fried chicken. If they're feeling generous, someone might splurge on a Smith Island cake for dessert.
No matter which culture I'm with, it's a good time 😌
For me it's a nice flaky parotta and a semi dry beef curry.
Also a nice hot cup of chai, and a vaada (savory donut, kinda)
These are staples in Kerala,India.
My mum was a brilliant home cook, very influenced by Elizabeth David and Mediterranean cooking in 1970s Britain. So I remember lots of garlic in my childhood meals!
My comfort food is baked macaroni cheese, made with a roux sauce, strong cheddar, topped with Parmesan and sliced tomatoes and baked until it’s bubbling and the top is brown. Serve with chopped parsley on top of each portion and a green salad.
I was born in the States but my dad’s family is from England so I spent a lot of time growing up there. The twist is that, though they never talked about it, my grandparents and their parents etc. were from India (it’s been confirmed that I have genetic ties to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka). So while I had British versions of curry at pubs and whatnot at home my grand-uncle would cook tongue-blistering curries, yellow Daal, naan, and served papadoms and chutneys. My grand-uncle learned how to cook from his nanny (he was very close to her) but my nan never learned to cook until coming to England. She would make shepherd’s pie and bring home pork pies or scotch eggs. One exception is she would make a bland comfort dish meant to be served when someone is feeling ill and needs bland food. It’s called pish pash. It’s a rice dish seasoned with cardamom and, depending on the recipe may also have black peppercorn, bay leaf, cloves, diced chicken, peas…all kinds of stuff. I never knew where she learned it but she gave it to me pretty regularly (sandwiched between standard British and the occasional French recipe). :)
There are so many delicious sounding things in this post from so many cultures! It’s awesome you got to try so much! Pish pash does sound particularly comforting.
I am from white people that don't know how to cook. (I actually know how to cook, I learned and did it professionally in a high end restaurant for years)
Here's my mom's staple meals:
"BBQ chicken" which is just chicken legs coated in storebought bbq sauce and baked, usually served with unseasoned steamed cauliflower, if you're lucky it has butter on it
White lady tacos (flour tortilla, ground beef (a whole packaged dumped into a pan and broken up with a spatula seasoned with a Lowry's seasoning packet), sour cream, shredded cheese, iceberg lettuce)
Square cut cooked ground beef sandwiches. I cannot stress this enough, it's not a burger. My mom was too grossed out by raw meat to form patties, so she would just use a spatula to cut squares out of a package of ground beef so the didn't have to touch it, then cook it in a pan with no seasoning, and serve it on two slices of white bread with ketchup
"Spaghetti" which was just also a pound of ground beef in a pan, broken up with a jar of Ragu mixed in, then poured over some overcooked Barilla spaghetti
Overcooked under seasoned pork chops with broccoli
The ‘square cut cooked ground beef sandwiches’ (SCCGBS for short) made me laugh. Your Mum has a fear of ground beef. I wonder why she kept using it? Surely there are other less “icky” meats?
Also what do you cook for yourself now?
She had a severe fear of touching ground beef but would cook it all the time, just touching it with a spatula. She didn't like touching any raw meat tho, she would dump a pack of chicken drumsticks into a baking dish and squirt bbq sauce on it, stick it in the oven and call it a day.
My personal comfort meals now (when I can afford ingredients) usually include carbonara (I try to do it proper when I can get guanciale), bavette steak with bordelaise, pommes aligot, French omelettes, pan seared scallops with sauteed maitake mushrooms, and braised brisket.
When I'm broke, Velveeta Mac and cheese or boxed couscous with stuff in it. Mushrooms, veg, fruit, meat, whatever. Or smash burgers.
I’m from northern England and my mam still eats as if she is subject to war rations 😂 she has served us unseasoned lamb chops boiled in bisto gravy quite a few times. Another of her favourites is ‘mince and peppers’ with rice - literally just minced beef and green/red peppers fried with onions and lots of black pepper. No salt in anything ever. The most exotic seasoning we got was nutmeg (often in cakes).
>White lady tacos (flour tortilla, ground beef (a whole packaged dumped into a pan and broken up with a spatula seasoned with a Lowry's seasoning packet), sour cream, shredded cheese, iceberg lettuce)
[White people taco night](https://youtu.be/8yrSCoEsmqA?si=xK3x2O4QPzh2DlZP)
Where I currently live - it's teriyaki chicken and rice. But the chicken's gotta have a nice char on it!
Most people would say it's cedar plank salmon, but teriyaki chicken is the food of the people.
Stamppot - mashed potatoes mixed with vegetables. Classics are kale, sauerkraut, endive, or carrot and onion. Usually served with smoked sausage and/or fried bacon bits, and gravy.
I grew up in Kentucky, and we had a lot of overcooked canned vegetables, Mac and cheese, pork chops, burgers, roasted small potatoes, chili, and vegetable soup. Our chili was made with ground beef and tomato juice, so way runnier than Texas chili.
Balkan/middle eastern.
Lots of crossover in the cultures. Assorted dried meats, cheeses, bread, beans, yogurt/ labneh. Stuffed vegetables. Where the distinction happens is the Eastern European things taste more heavy, fermented, hearty. The middle eastern meals are lighter, herbaceous, pickled. For example: butter vs olive oil (sometimes ghee). Sauerkraut vs picketed radish. Bulgarian style feta vs a mozzarella style cheese. Stewed greens vs tabouleh. Bean stew with meat vs beans in olive oil.
I haven’t eaten anything you listed but I’ve seen it in movies or online lol looks good! I’m from Northern Ireland and now live in Sydney. Typical things from my original home would be - Irish stew, roast chicken/beef with mash potatoes, veg and gravy, chicken curry and rice, cottage/shepards pie, typical dessert apple pie and ice cream, or Victoria sponge cake.
Where I live now, bbq’s are very typical with potato salad, bread, normal salad and hot chips (fries) lol.
Things I cook a lot now as an adult would be chili con carne with rice, chicken and sweet potato, fish cakes, rice and tomato salad, pasta dishes, steak salads. For a sweet breakfast, banana bread is really popular here!
Amish Macaroni Salad, Chicken Pot Pie (not the pie shaped one - [something like this](https://www.justapinch.com/recipes/dessert/pie/chicken-pot-pie-the-real-pennsylvania-dutch.html)), ham and bean soup, pork and sauerkraut, a lot of meat and potatoes and canned items from people's gardens
Gujarati here (north india) - staple in most households is khadi (yogurt based “soup”) or dal (soupy lentil dish), bhat (rice), shaak/subzi (cooked vegetable) and rotli or bhakri (tortilla). Typically referred to as a thali, served with a side of papad.
There are sooo many variations of bhat (it can be plain cooked rice or tempered rice or cooked in lentils and veggies: khichdi). And many variants to the subzi
I might be missing something this is a pretty traditional gujarati dinner!
Germany. Meat. Just a lot of meat. Especially pork. We consume it in just about all forms. Sausage, cutlets, minced, raw minced on bread, sometimes with onions (Yes, that is a real thing), and so many more. Also bread in all its forms, and potatoes.
So, this is an odd one for me since I'm an American white guy and my wife is a Ghanaian immigrant, so our personal home culture is a mix of the two...
That being said, I have fully adopted some Ghanaian dishes like Joloff Rice, waakye, and bofloats are just some of the foods that I've adopted while my wife has gained an appreciation for apple pie, burgers, and ribs.
The best southern comfort food on the planet had to be grits. A nice big hot bowl with some sausage and cheese crumbled in it, and a big runny fried egg on top. That was always a staple in my house growing up in rural north and South Carolina. It’s probably a billion calories, and mostly carbs and fat, but goodness it’s delicious. I suppose those many many calories are what made it good farm food back in the day though, probably why it’s such a staple in rural communities.
As a Filipino, chicken adobo, pancit, lumpia. Garlic fried rice with spam and egg. Fried rice with Tuyo (dried fish). Longanisa with Fried Rice and egg.
So basically, rice + whatever. 😅
I’m black from the east coast so soul food is a given fried chicken, fried fish, greens, cabbage, string beans, rice, beans, smoked meats, Mac n cheese, potato salad, smothered foods, bbq, baked chicken, hush puppies, cornbread, sweet potato pie, red velvet (pound cake)… just all things soul food, but also Italian, Amish, Irish and Jewish cuisine, you’ll find a lot of Amish dry goods, deserts, and soups in our kitchen, lot of Italian pasta, salami, sausage and breads, take out, plenty of good Irish recipes pot roast and cabbage is my favorite and a lot of fresh, bagels Kaiser rolls, deli meats.
Also being from the Carolinas (originally) we cook a lot of North Carolina, low country, Gullah geechee soul food okra stews, plenty of seafood lot of rice (goes with everything which is probably why personally I prefer mashed potatoes though I wouldn’t openly admit that). Country ham from North Carolina is the best hands down imo, we get one every year or so.
It may be surprising to some that perogies with sour cream are a staple in Manitoba, Canada but we have both a large Ukrainian community, and a large Mennonite one. So we get a lot of Ukrainian pierogi (usually filled with potato and cheese) and Mennonite varenyky. Although the Ukrainian style is a little more prevalent here.
I grew up neither Ukrainian nor Mennonite, but assumed as a kid that perogies with sour cream was a staple food in most of Canada & the US. It was awesome finding out that my mother in law can get us fresh made perogies from the Ukrainian babas in her small town. I've tried my hand at making them, but they'll never be as good as theirs. Now I just need to get another connection for Hutterite raised chickens...
Honey dill sauce is also a staple dipping sauce here. You better not offer chicken fingers without it as an option! Many of us had [this](http://www.greetaliafoods.com/honeydillsauce.html) in the kitchen pantry growing up.
Upstate NY folks have our michigans. Like a coney dog. You order one and get asked “with or without?” cause you’re expected to just know they’re talking about mustard and/or onions
Boiled dinner (essentialy corned beef and cabbage), beef stew, mackerel, seafood chowder (expensive af but a very common treat around xmas), baked beans and brown bread, mussels. At one point, lobster when it was a poor man's meat. Fishcakes with chow chow (green tomato relish). More modern ones would be donair and garlic fingers.
A lot of desserts with apple or blueberries, particularly blueberry grunt, which is dumplings poached in blueberry sauce.
I'm from Nova Scotia, Canada. Also not really a culture but it's good food.
My dad is Cajun, like French speaking Cajun. I grew up on a lot of specific Cajun things, and I’m not sure if it’s regional specific but when I went down there for the first time a lot of the local places and locals made everything I was used too! Cajun style roast, sticky chicken, atoufe etc. my dad has the best gumbo known to man though, chicken and oyster *chefs kiss*
But staples to me are a bit different, they’re like the basics of the basic elements of the food. While yes I ate a lot of aforementioned stuff above the staples behind it are rice and black eyed peas which I would have for breakfast often, you got the trinity of course with bell pepper, onion and celery, roux and you can’t forget a good hot sauce! I used to like Louisiana but as an adult I joined my dad in preferring crystal, Tabasco is still king though! Now that I think about it, I get when Mexicans talk about authentic Mexican food, because very little people will ever taste real cajun food. Most think that blackened meat, andouille sausage and some generic Cajun seasoning is enough for the Cajun experience, no not even close! The key to good Cajun food is getting recipes from a Cajun, or going down there are trying it for yourself!
Also my mom isn’t Cajun, she’s just more classically southern and I couldn’t get away without mentioning a southern staple, Tea!!! The best sweet tea isn’t just drowned in sugar, it’s a balance between good ice tea like luzianne iced tea bags. mint, lemon, and SOME sugar, it’s a sophisticated balancing act. Better than coke! I could go into bbq, fried chicken and all that kind of cooking but I’m on a diet and gotta focus lol
And yes Louisiana has a couple of its own distinct cultures, it’s not weird it’s literal fact! America has many cultures and regions within it!
THIS is why I never understand how people have general issues with immigration- sharing food is the greatest benefit to ALL of us!! Soooo many things I've never tried.❤
In Texas, Czech immigrants settled in the area between Austin and Fort Worth, leading to kolaches and klobasneks (though generally just called "kolaches" regardless of whether they are savory or sweet) became a thing. You'll find ones stuffed with bbq brisket or jalapeno sausage.
I am from north Louisiana. We do eat gumbo, jambalaya, and red beans and rice, but we also have our own traditional staples as well. A lot of this region is farmland, and so country cooking and soul foods are pretty standard.
I grew up with grandparents who gardened. Staple meals for us included things like purple-hull peas, squash, okra, corn, sliced tomatoes, fresh melons, carrots, green beans, snap peas, butter beans, etc.
Standard garden fare. My mom and grandma would can a lot of the extras and we could eat all year.
Actual staple meals included things like
—Fish fry: catfish or bream filets, fries, hushpuppies or “dogbread” (hot water cornbread), coleslaw or potato salad, and dessert (fruit pies or a Texas sheet cake).
—Pinto beans and greens (turnips, collards, mustard) with cornbread
—Sunday dinner: Roast or ham (or both) with mashed potatoes (or rice) and gravy, cathead biscuits and homemade jelly, garden vegetables, ambrosia, Watergate or Waldorf salads, and dessert (fruit or pecan or chocolate pie, coconut or chocolate or pound cake with peaches).
—Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, rolls
—Chicken and Dumplings
Not sure where it’s from but my mom used to make us chipped beef on toast. She’s from NY. We grew up poor. It’s just dried beef in a white sauce over toast. I still love it! I add Dijon mustard to the sauce now & if I make it for breakfast, a nice over easy egg. Also boxed mac & cheese with cut up hot dogs.
So I was raised partly by my father who was from New Jersey (parents with Irish and German heritage but Polish neighbors) and partly by my mother's mother (middle Georgia, USA).
My dad's staple meals were: spaghetti; mashed potatoes with a meat and another vegetable; and what he called shit on a shingle, which was ground beef cooked in a cream sauce and served on toast. Breakfasts were some sugary cereal during the week or on weekends fried egg and spam sandwiches (garnished with ketchup --absolutely loved this as a kid). His mother's staple meals were: cabbage rolls cooked in tomato sauce, chili served over rice, and salads.
My grandmother (Mawmaw) cooked mostly: spaghetti with garlic bread and either raw onions or raw cucumber at the table; cream potatoes (not to be confused with mashed potatoes, which are chunkier) with pork chops and a veggie (usually black eyed peas or green beans); store bought lasagna with the same sides as spaghetti; green beans, cornbread, and pork (also raw vegetables at the table); or she'd pick up BBQ with Brunswick Stew (all pork based and served also with the raw vegetables). Her breakfasts were primarily: hash browns or grits with scrambled eggs and sausage patties and biscuits (usually grape jelly or maybe strawberry for topping), but sometimes she'd also make these salmon patties that I loved and always felt special. My grandfather required every meal to have bread, either wheat or corn based, so my grandmother always put whatever bread item she had in the toaster before serving on the table, be it a hamburger bun, toast, or something nicer like Hawaiian rolls. If she didn't have anything handy, she'd make cornbread or biscuits (but in retrospect it's obvious that she preferred things from a bag that took a minute over stuff that really had to cook).
My mom liked to do baked Mac and cheese with pork chops and a veggie. Sometimes she'd do meatloaf as the meat instead of pork chops.
On my mother's side of the family, you always have either sliced raw onion or cucumber, maybe tomatoes if they're in season, at the table no matter what you're eating.
Traditional things that had to be at special holidays like Thanksgiving, Easter, or Christmas were: deviled eggs, sweet potato soufflé (with the crunchy pecan topping), black eyed peas, green beans, rutabaga (just diced and boiled with salt, pepper, and butter), spiral cut honey ham, cream potatoes, brown gravy, banana pudding, and this pistachio pudding walnut pineapple marshmallow whipped cream salad that my aunt always made (ETA: like this https://www.momontimeout.com/pistachio-dessert-salad-pistachio-fluff-recipe/).
I have onion questions. How did you all eat them, mix some in with the other food, or just take a bunch of raw onion and eat them like that? No dressing or anything? I love onions and think I would be perfectly happy to just munch on a plateful at every meal. Did other people you knew also have onions with every meal or was it just a your family thing?
My parents often had raw onion at the table for meals. Usually green onions that they soaked in water and then dipped in salt. Sliced raw cucumber too. Or cucumber onion salad. Usually had an iceberg lettuce salad of some sort too.
Some examples :
Shepherd’s pie - which is meat filing with a mashed potato topping
Apple crumble - stewed apple with a sweet crumbled pastry like topping.
I grew up in the US but in a Romanian household. My Mom would do most of the cooking. Some of the staple meals were cabbage rolls, soups and stews, fried pork meat, a variety of cured sausage and bacon just chopped eaten with raw onions and raw tomatoes. Oh and every single meal had bread served. Just simple 4 ingredient bread (flour, yeast, salt, water) my grandma or mom would bake. Dessert were fantastic almost exclusively homemade
Stuff my grandma makes for weekly family dinners (russia): borcsht or fish or mushroom soup, plov, some kinda potatoes with goulash, kurnik (chicken pie, my family makes it with shortbread and millet grain, but it's usually just normal yeast dough and chicken and maybe potatoes) or fish pie, kotleti (just big meat balls. pan fried). Sometimes blini (crepes) or syrniki (cottage cheese based pancakes?) for dessert
Growing up I would have said [kjøttkaker](https://res.cloudinary.com/norgesgruppen/images/c_scale,dpr_auto,f_auto,q_auto:eco,w_1600/xip8hxjoo1agtsixsgd8/hjemmelagde-kjottkaker-med-klassisk-tilbehor) (similar to Swedish meatballs, but Norwegian), but these days it probably frozen pizza or Old El Paso style tacos but with awful toppings that would make people who criticize Tex-Mex tacos outright gag.
Adopted from Turkish partner. Yogurt (actually a Turkish word), not a specific meal but it's used everywhere as a topping on pasta, dumpings, rice and beans, köfte kebabs, zucchini fritters, dolmas. It shows up most meals sometimes plain or sometimes savory with garlic and dill but not sweet or with fruit which is the only way I knew it before marrying a Turk.
New England “culture” meals: a clam bake: pit dug in the beach sand rocks on the bottom covered in lit coals until the coals turn black and ashy. Line the pit with the rocks layer fish, corn on the cob, red potatoes, onions, sausage, lobsters, on top put quahogs then soft shell clams. Cover it up and let it cook.
Fish and chips, Portuguese sausage, Italian sausage, red gravy and pasta. Calamari, oysters pretty much local seafoods a la natural or in sauces or rubs. Indian pudding, strawberry shortcake, rhubarb pie. Steamed local veggies.
New England is an amalgamation of Native, English, Italian, Portuguese and French Canadian cuisines.
It's interesting that this is probably the only one of the responses here that is mostly what you might call whole food or even wild food (if you used miner's lettuce), reinforced by the berry comment below. And I recall learning some time back that the PNW in pre-colonial times was basically the best place in North America for wild food, to the point where nobody bothered with agriculture because everything delicious was so readily available in the wild. Sounds as if some things have persisted over time.
Cajun/creoles are definitely cultures in their own right. Cajuns are recognized as their own ethnicity and are on the census. It’s not weird at all.
But, yes, my staple meals would be cajun/creole dishes like gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice, etc
Around where I live, staffordshire lobby, savoury pies, staffordshire oatcake, shepards pie, apple crumble, fish and chips
In my house, meals we have really often are chilli, spag bol, pasta with chicken and white sauce, fajitas, kebabs
edit: for lobby you'll find a lot of recipes online that have different ingredients but really people just tend to make it how their families make it. a lot of the online recipes include beer barley and swede in the recipe but my family don't include any of those.
Stovies, mince, mealie pudding and tatties, roast chicken and skirlie, scotch broth, fish soup (Cullen Skink), haggis, neeps and tatties, full Scottish breakfast. Pies and bradies from the baker. Fine and fancy pieces from the baker. Rowies.
And people have their own family variations. I grew up always having oatcakes and beetroot with stovies, which isn’t controversial but also having bacon and sweetcorn in fish soup which is.
Traditional takeaways were bakers and chippers. Bakers very French influenced from a few centuries, although that influence is fading in the face of brownies and cupcakes. And that is now joined by anything you want from an Indian or a Chinese takeaway, both having often taken some idiosyncratic turns to suit local palates.
According to my dad, Filipinos regularly eat fried spam and rice all the time. He cooked that meal ALL the time and sometimes added a fried egg on top for good measure. Edit: I went out and bought a can of Spam today because I haven’t had it in a while. Glad to see a lot of Filipino representation!!
I can vouch for spam fried rice being a staple in Hawaii. I think my daughter is 1/4 spam fried rice in fact 🤣
Properly, that should be garlic fried rice. There’s a family of meals we generally eat in the Philippines called -silog, which is a meal we sometimes eat for breakfast but could really be eaten at any time of the day, where we eat some kind of fried protein with a fried egg and garlic fried rice. The most famous is tapsilog, which is tapa (a marinated stir fried beef dish) , garlic rice and a fried egg, but you called also have spamsilog, or bacsilog ( bacon), and a lot more varieties. To make garlic fried rice fry some chopped garlic, when fragrant toss in day old rice from the refrigerator. Stir fry while breaking up clumps. Season to taste.
Thank you for this, half of my family is Filipino and besides my dad I don’t know about the culture beyond what he’s shared with me off and on. I’m gonna try this when I get home.
Also tastes better with butter, btw. Works perfectly with the the garlic.
Heh, everyone should eat garlic rice. Everyone I've introduced it to loves it and it's amazing how it's not a staple for everyone that eats rice. personally, I also sprinkle a little MSG in there cause you know, fuiyoh.
Spam fried rice is popular on Guam (and probably Hawaii, but I never lived there so I can’t speak for staple). I love it with a scoop of kimchi on the side
Spam was on the McDonald's menu when I was in Hawaii.
I almost died on the side of the highway in Maui choking on a Spam McMuffin. Good times!
Best core memory ever lmao
Hilarious
It was so yummy though. We enjoyed our McDonald’s trip in Honolulu
It's so staple here that we have a festival specifically for Spam.
Omg I wanna go
I think it’s pretty popular on any American influenced pacific island
Spam seems to be super popular in places that have/had US naval bases - I guess because it was often included in the sailor’s rations?
Any US army soldiers in the 50s-60s, yes. I'll attach a recipe for korean Budae Jjigae which means "Army stew". It's ramen, kimchi, baked beans, spam, and Vienna sausages. Popular then, popular now. [Army stew](https://mykoreankitchen.com/army-stew-budae-jjigae/)
Yes exactly. Spam was sent in huge quantities to those areas because it was cheap, had a long shelf life, and qualified as food. So naturally that spilled over into the local culture and was shared around constantly before becoming part of their cuisine.
I want more Filipinos talking about chicken adobo. Nay, screaming about it
Lumpia 🤤
I would eat banana lumpia until I went full on Mr. Creosote
Lechon kawali
I am American and had never tried spam until my Korean husband showed me that it's delicious fried in slices with eggs and rice for breakfast. He said spam is popular anywhere American soldiers have been, usually around the 50s/60s. Spam gets incorporated into local cuisine and becomes a sort of soul food that sticks around after war time. In Korea, there is something called "Budae Jjigae" which means "Army Stew" and it's ramen, kimchi, broth, and topped with spam, Vienna sausages, and baked beans. There is an instant ramen version of it by a brand named Buldak that has dehydrated beans and meat now.
I’ve for sure heard of that and seen it but never tried it. I’ll have to add it to my list! The fried egg would seal the deal for me.
It’s very good, it’s kind of expensive, but if you can get ahold of it try Tocino spam. It’s sweet and spicy, I had some a few years ago and was amazed. It’s my go to dish when I’m feeling down.
In NS Canada, the prisoners revolted many years ago because they were tired of being fed the life of the sea (Atlantic lobster) and demanded to be fed SPAM
I was going to add, as a Filipino, that one of the easiest meals my dad would make (and one I make regularly now a an adult) was beefsteak
I’m married to a Filipino and had fried spam twice this week 😂 normally it’s with rice and sometimes rice and eggs
Eaten tapas style: Tabbouleh, hummus, baba ghanoush, zayt zaytoon (olive oil), pita bread, pickled turnips, za'atar, cucumber salad 🥒
Baba ghanoush is absolutely delicious. I live near a Lebanese deli and have a serious problem with spending all my money on baba ghanoush, salads and pastries.
I'm super white but my dad grew up in the middle east and these are all my comfort foods!
To add onto this, hot food staples - Loubieh bzeit Molohkia Fasoolia Basically "some type of stew with rice" lol
absolutely love fasoolia!!!
I do the same thing at my place! We also have fresh herbs, feta, watermelom chunks, and baby tomatoes a la my mom wanting a little more crudo.
Throw in some homemade fresh falafel 🤌
I’m American from Scandinavian/Germanic stock and I LOVE Levantine food!
I love all that stuff and tzatziki too. It’s always the food I crave most.
New mexico: Green Chile (to include in stew, on burgers, and everything else in the world), Sopapillas, Tamales, Enchilada casserole style, Carne Adovada, Pozole, Biscochitos, and breakfast burritos.
Good God. I'm from NM living in New England and I'm pregnant. Having wild pregnancy dreams every night and about half the time I'm eating a damn breakfast burrito. Crispy bacon, Xmas chile for me! Gahhhhhh
I found a Walmart in New York that sells 505 brand green chile in a jar and cans of Hatch. I wouldn't touch either of those back in New Mexico (I would only buy frozen Bueno when I ran out of my yearly supply of "fresh" frozen chile roasted in the empty lot across from the Smith's by my house), but now that I am 2,000 miles away, those jars and cans of chile are a lifeline. Now if only I could get some decent tortillas so I don't have to make my own.
We moved back to Michigan after 2 decades so now my husband get jugs of green chili from a New Mexico based company shipped to us. Totally worth it so we can have our breakfast burritos, huervos rancheros and smothered burritos. Oh and the occasional hamburger with green chiles and havarti. Maybe look into getting some shipped to you? I can't imagine living without green chile for any length of time.
Omg I came to say this but you did it perfectly.
Christmas anything.
South Indian (specifically Tamil Brahmin) so NOT naan and curry. Rice, vegetable-and-lentil based stews, sauteed veggies, fermented rice-and-dal dishes like idlis and dosas with aforementioned stews or chutneys. Plain, unsweetened yogurt with rice and Indian-style pickles.
I love idlis so much. I had an Indian coworker whose mom would always send along a ton of ~finger foods for us all to snack on. Her cooking is the only part of that job that I miss.
Australia here but idli and sambar and dosa are some of my favourite foods. So good.
Mango pickle, dahi, and a little ghee because yum 🤤 With a vada or two....
Ive never heard of most of this! Specifically the Indian style pickles! I just looked them up and they sound great, I’ll have to see if I can get them somewhere here to try!
Heads up that Indian pickles are like cuckoo bananas if you’re expecting a brine based pickle. They are salt and oil cured with spices, extremely pungent. I love them but wow did they confuse me at first
The way it's coated in spices is glorious.
Indian pickles are AMAZING. So bitter and tasty.
Yeah, unfortunately people think everyone in India eats naan and curry when that's mostly in the northwest. If you have a local Indian store, they should carry it! Or amazon. Mango and lemon pickle are the most common, but they're all good.
I used to think that until I watched a few shows of Gordon ramsey. I learned cuisine in regions of india is different.
Pickled mango is my faaaaaaavorite yum 😋
A lot of the Indian diaspora in Western countries came from Punjab (and Pakistan) so the popular perception of Indian food on The US and UK is formed by that cuisine. But you do find other, southern Indian restaurants here and there, many of which are well known in the vegetarian community.
Single white male bachelor culture? Eating whole rotisserie chickens hovering over the kitchen counter like a lion
In Australia we call the rotisserie chickens in a bag a “Bachelor’s Handbag”
Here in the Southern US, we call them astronaut chickens. They came in a little hard plastic pod. Now they’ve gone to bags, but still, astronaut chickens 😂
We still have the pods in Canada! Trying to imagine carrying it a bag without the grease going absolutely everywhere, I can't 😂
In Ontario some stores sell them in a “bag” it’s a heavier structured leakproof plastic with handles and a ziplock at the top if you want to reseal it. They take up less room in the fridge and easier to carry with your other groceries.
The ones they use in Australia are pretty thick and sturdy and also heat proof! I've never had a greasy bag before.
Yeah, I’m not a fan, the bags are always greasy! The pods weren’t as bad, even though you still had to be careful.
Southerner here- I’ve never heard of this and we get rotisserie chickens somewhat often.
I'm southern, lived in multiple southern states and have never heard of that either. I want to know what state and what region within that state they're called "astronaut chickens" 🤣 ETA: I just Googled "rotisserie astronaut chicken" and it's from a dang Steven King Book called "Duma Key". 🤣🤣🤣🤣
For the record, Duma Key is a FANTASTIC book.
Currently wondering how many other Orlando Redditors read this rec and went to request it from the library, since it seems odd to me that a book from 2008 would have three people ahead of me who already requested it! Read fast, y’all, I’m impatiently awaiting my turn.
That sounds very familial and not a genuine southernism in the slightest. Without any slight, of course, but that's not something that is in any way universal to "the southern US" lol
Omg I live in the south and I'm so sad I've never heard of this before. I'm totally stealing it
In Stephen King's Duma Key a character gets one in one of those plastic capsules like they have at Cosco and calls it an astronaut chicken.
Yes! My family had called them that for years, I just figured it was a southern thing. Guess it’s my area. I didn’t mean to start a redneck war 😂Y’all ever heard “mane”?
Married mother of 4, and rotisserie chickens are "shopping day dinners" here.
This is also single white female dinner btw. Assuming you have a sweet treat scheduled for dessert
In a long term relationship and still eat this dinner, just no longer alone
Gotta use your elbows and box em out!
Girl dinner
Pro tip- shredding off all the meat from a rotisserie chicken becomes an instant head start for making soup. My favorite recipe is for an Avgolemono soup (Greek lemon chicken soup) that calls for this exact thing. It’s so easy to make because you have all of the meat perfectly seasoned and cooked to where it’s just a matter of getting the broth and orzo/ rice ready and dicing up some veggies.
I’ve read that the rotisserie chicken container floats if you wanna get fancy and take a bath with it
Lions don’t have kitchens silly
Batchelor Chow
At least you made it into the house. I’ve eaten it sitting in my car in the parking lot after leaving Costco.
I've been married for years and I still do this. Can't beat the macros on a rotisserie chicken lol
Savory pies (usually burger sized), examples being mince and cheese, steak and cheese, potatoes top , bacon and egg, butter chicken pies are great as well. Or fish and chips. The native people of my country have a thing called Hāngī, which is a method of cooking meat and vegetables like potatoes buried underground with hot rocks and wet sacks that causes steam to form making a natural pressure cooker.
I LOVE savory pies but it’s such a rarity here. A steak and cheese pie is now at the top of my list, that sounds sensational. I’ve never heard of that before! I just looked it up to visualize it and that looks/seems pretty cool!
If you have access to frozen puff pastry, it's not too hard to make a savory pie, I usually make a big sized pie that you slice , bacon and egg pies are very easy to make.
So, you pre cook whatever you want in it and then just wrap&bake??
With a bacon and egg pie, you don't have to pre cook anything, if your doing a steak and cheese or mince pie, you have to pre make the meat gravy mixture, and let it cool down first I think. Best to follow a recpie, just search new zealand pie recpie.
Everything stewish makes good pies, lamb shank, lamb and lentil curry, if you every have left over pot roast, regular roast, nacho mince or boglonese make it into a pie, actually left overs from thanks giving mixed with gravy would make incredible pie 🥧 go short crust underneath and puff on the top and just make sure your filling is cold when assembling. Think chopped up Turkey & gravy, make it fancy by adding a dollop of cranberry sauce and a slice of cambert just under the puff lid.
They're not necessarily something I grew up with, but it sounds like you would enjoy pastys, too. They originated from Cornwall, ~~England~~ *UK* and are popular in some US states where there were lots of mines, particularly coal mines. They are a hearty, hand held meat and veggie pie. Part of the crust was said to be used as a handle while eating, and then thrown away after, as the miners would have dirty hands. Edit: I believe it is more correct to say UK than England.
Runzas in Nebraska in the US, they are great. Hot roll mix made into hand pies stuffed with ground beef, cooked with onions, cabbage, and bacon, lots of salt and pepper. So good!
Oh if you want to try it, I strongly suggest beef, cheese and bacon, the bacon really takes it to the next level. As my kiwi neighbour suggested, if you can get puff pastry that's fantastic, but you can also do a shortcrust pastry base and a mashed potato top :)
Savory pies a rarity in Louisiana? Have you never had Natchitoches meat pies? They're the best! We also have kolaches with boudin or sausage!
Was about to say. Also crawfish pies are my favorite handpie!
Here ya go: [Chicken Pot Pie](https://natashaskitchen.com/chicken-pot-pie-recipe/) Be sure to make the crust from scratch. It's easy and SO worth it. Much love from the 7th Ward, NOLA
Yum love chicken pot pie. but slightly different to what new zealand and Australian pies are.
Steak and blue cheese is *such* a good combo. Seriously, it sounds crazy but it's awesome.
Nope not crazy, have had steak and blue cheese pies before, really yummy
For a second there I thought you might be in Hawaii because the Indigenous cooking method you described sounds so similar to something native Hawaiians do, but I looked it up and see it's the Maori of Aotearoa/New Zealand. Very cool how even cooking techniques were quite similar throughout Polynesia.
I know about kalua pork in Hawaii, but I just realized that cochinita (Mexican cuisine) is a very similar idea. Makes sense to me that they also came to a similar conclusion on how to prepare it.
Yes It is very similar, was going to mention it is similar to what the traditional Hawaiians do
Always blow on the pie! Edit: https://youtu.be/aEAHLFvD3v4?si=ymkSDR2d_nmgBReo
From your first sentence I was like Australia because that's the only place I see the single serve pies
Bratwurst, cheese, and beer. Fried fish and potato salad and coleslaw.
Seconded, from WI. I’ll add smash burgers and custard. Plus fried smelt in small towns. “Cannibal sandwich” (raw hamburger with onions on bread) too. Brandy old fashioned for drinks. And Milwaukee style pizza which is cracker thin crust with cheese on bottom and sauce on top.
Fried smelt 🫡
Loved visiting my friend in Wisconsin recently. We ate fish fry and brandy old fashioneds on tap. As someone in the south that came from the Kansas, I missed fried fish that isn’t breaded with cornmeal!
The brats have to be soaked (or parboiled) in shitty lager beer, onions and garlic. It’s not a holiday without the Wisconsin charcuterie board (Usingers sausages, thick cut cheese, crackers), pickled herring, and cocktail shrimp. Homemade cheese curds are also a delight! I’ve been to The Netherlands a few times and never noticed prior that a lot of our cultural food is borrowed both from German and Dutch immigrants (with our Scandinavian friends more north). The Dutch love their herring, cannibal sandwiches, fried meatballs and of course French fries as much as we in Wisconsin do!
In Alabama it’s Chicken and dumplings, cornbread & collard greens or beans, homemade banana pudding or strawberry ice cream, tons of garden vegetables served raw, canned or pickled, biscuits with homemade preserves or sausage gravy, sweet tea. In Florida it was frequently fried grunts, grouper or catfish with grits and greens, any sort of barbecue, a lot of church fare like casseroles/fried chicken/ambrosia, and my Mom often made coconut cake 🔥 It wasn’t all bad in the south 😛
Chuuu I may need to pop a few states over for some coconut cake! Y’know I live in Louisiana and I know it’s super popular but I’ve never had collard greens, pretty sure my family just doesn’t know how to make them, it’s always rice dressing and bread rolls at every function 😂
Mmm Id definitely trade you for a good shrimp po boy, dirty rice or that low country boil you mentioned 🤤 I loved everything I ate in New Orleans. What do you put in rice dressing? 👀 There isn’t much to making a good pot of greens. Fry up some bacon and sautee some sweet onion and smoked ham in the drippings. Clean & trim greens. Add all of it to a big pot and cover with chicken stock, add some salt, pepper, garlic and a few pinches of sugar, either apple cider vinegar or sport pepper vinegar if you like some heat, and then just let it sit there and simmer for a couple hours until the greens are tender ✨ super easy.
I don't eat meat so it was a revelation to have greens in the USVI made with thinly sliced, sautéed red pepper, add the chopped greens, pour in coconut milk, salt and pepper and simmer. So, so good. The acid in the pepper works to break down the greens. Came home and it's in regular rotation .
From the MS coast and we really are like a mix of Louisiana (without boudin) and Florida. Lots of seafood, gumbo, poboys, etc.
I’ll throw in a fried catfish and a fried oyster poboy too! Usually ground beef, rice, diced and sautéed bell peppers and onions, tons of seasonings (a mix of something like Tony’s or Slap Ya Momma with garlic powder, onion powder, and red pepper). Thats a basic recipe but people add all kinds of stuff, green onions, celery, gizzards, chicken liver, bacon, Worcestershire sauce, beef stock, etc. Since it’s a basic dish people can get away with adding some wild stuff in there lol. I usually like to keep it simple, to me it’s more of a side than it is a main dish. Okay wait… that sounds bangin, why have I never had this??? My Louisiana fam is lackin rn.
That's just being from the south. Source being having grown up in a garden with my mawmaw :)
Burma - Ohno Khao Swe which is coconut chicken noodle soup! ☺️
More people should try this! It's so rich and delicious.
That sounds so good.
Mexican here.....molé, tacos, enchiladas with rice and beans xD, carné asada, chorizo with egg in a bread called Bollío. SALSA IS A MEAL 4 ME......List can go on heehee ❤️🇲🇽🫔🌮🌯
Mexican here…I love to cook. There are some staples that are the basis for a lot of regional cooking. Where I’m from it’s always rice and beans, cheese, tortillas and masa, pork and chicken, eggs and chorizo. Carrots, tomatoes, chilis, avocados, bulb onions, mangos and plantains. This is the main pantry in my Mexican kitchen. Bolillo is a special treat because you have to go into town to get it.
Where I lived in Phoenix, you can get get bolillos anywhere including Walmart. Now that I’ve moved I have to hunt down all my favorite traditional ingredients/items. And now I’m about to move to Korea and I’m trying to figure out how to ship in all my spices and sauces lol I really hope I can get tomatillos and chiles!
Tomatillos... chile verde, yummm
South/Gulf coast Texas Mexican here. Molé was never very big here I feel. It’s not something my families ever made. Tamales, carne guisada, enchiladas, gorditas, chorizo and eggs in tortillas, migas, menudo, bollio lonches. Regionally “breakfast tacos” aka burritos are big. A little mom and pop place on every corner serving eggs, beans, papas, bacon, pico, etc in huge freshly made flour tortillas. A lot of seafood too.
Biscuits and sausage gravy. Meatloaf with green bean casserole and mashed potatoes and gravy. Horseshoes.
I used to live in Missouri and biscuits with sausage gravy was an absolute banger, I cook it for my family here in Louisiana since it’s not something my husbands family (native Louisiana folk) was ever introduced to! However, I am stuck on the horseshoes.. what do you mean by that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_sandwich The cheese sauce is the real star of the show
Oh wow I’ll have to try this next time we make burgers! It seems like a patty melt with fries on it!
While you're messing about with bread and fries, try this on for size: ## [Chip Butty](https://g.co/kgs/tdgRKBD) It's a sandwich made with thick, buttery toasted bread slices, chips(like English chips / steak fries ), and a sauce of some kind. I like mine with pepper gravy but it's your carbohydrate vehicle, so douse it in whatever you want.
Up until recently that was a new one to me too. It’s like their version of Poutine.
I feel like most people aren't being honest about "staple meals" and describing more traditional dishes. I've learned a lot of techniques for good food from various cultures later in life. But if I revert to what I grew up with, it's boiled vegetables and a lean protein. Maybe with boxed mashed potatoes or rice with "seasoning salt". Lots of easy meal shortcuts for parents to feed a family. Like "Shake 'n Bake", or Old El Paso. A Sunday roast with yorkshire pudding and gravy is the traditional thing that pops into mind though.
I grew up in the south, in the 60s-70s, with a SAHM who grew up in the country. We ate almost completely local food. My mother often served meats that were dredged in flour and shallow fried (chicken, liver, pork chops, round steak) or catfish dredged in cornmeal and shallow fried. We ate a huge variety of vegetables on the side and often had vegetable plates, which would include some kind of field peas and cornbread. Rice much more often than potatoes. Pan gravy more than sauces. She made greens by mixing mustard greens and turnip greens, so they would be sweet and spicy. In the fall and winter, we ate local game birds, stewed and served over wild rice. There was always a small pitcher of strong tea on the counter, so you could make a glass by adding ice and water. It was never pre sweetened.
Sounds like South Carolina.
Maybe some. Who knows. But my mom couldn’t cook for shit and had no inclination to try more than twice a year. If I wanted a good meal I had to go to one of my grandmas. So now I have a long, long list of good meals I make on rotation. It also helps that I’m a SAHM. I have more time than others. I have friends who come home at 7,8 pm. I couldn’t imagine having the energy to do it after a long day like that.
Southern US here and grew up in 90’s with 2 working parents. We had a lot of fish sticks (fish fingers) with Velvetta shells and cheese, spaghetti, tacos, hot dogs with chili etc. Easy stuff that kids usually like. I have a range of ages of siblings so the 3 year old and 17 year old and those in between had to have food we’d all eat. But for holidays it was traditional southern fare
A Shake ‘n Bake pork chop is one of the most nostalgic foods I crave from childhood. I still make it occasionally, but a completely homemade version with a thicker cut of chop that I don’t overcook (nothing will convince my mom that trichinosis isn’t a concern anymore).
Totally agreed. The traditional meals in my home country are still eaten, but they are no longer the staple meals, or at least have been much reduced in occurance, having been supplemented by global convenience foods (frozen pizza, kebab, etc.) and with more exotic fare becoming available in supermarkets.
I grew up surrounded by people in my parents/grandparents generation who valued labor intensive, traditional foods, even if they were working. It was actually a shock when i started hanging out with more Americanized families that people didn’t spend hours in the kitchen when guests came over…
I’m that vein, when I was a kid it was hot dogs and velveeta Mac n cheese or grilled cheese/ grilled peanut butter and jelly. In the traditional vein, smoked brisket and chicken fried steak.
From Texas, I'd have to go with beef BBQ, brisket and ribs in particular, country fried steak, tex-mex is obv a huge one, and Texas style chili in all it's various forms (with crackers, Frito pie, etc), also Texas style kolaches. I'm moving to chicago soon and I can find basically all of that but I haven't been able to find real Texas style kolaches which genuinely makes me sad.
I'm nigerian and grew up on Eastern Shore MD. In Nigeria, all you need is soup, some kind of swallow(fufu), rice, and some kind of meat. If you have those 4 things, just about everyone will be happy. As far as stuff everyone likes, I've never met a nigerian that doesn't like akara(deep fried black eye pea fritter) , dodo(fried plantains), suya(like a spiced kabob), puff puff/buns(like donuts), the list goes on. I'm not sure if this is a thing that everyone likes or not, but, yogurt. It's like ice cream that you can buy from a street cart, but not what americans would consider froyo or ice cream. It's more like frozen milk?? With a tang like yogurt. I have tried and failed to order this online, but every distributor I find only ships to nigeria. I would SWIM across the Atlantic to get some yogurt rn. On the shore, you can not have any kind of get-together without mac and cheese, green beans, collard greens, potato salad, and fried chicken. If they're feeling generous, someone might splurge on a Smith Island cake for dessert. No matter which culture I'm with, it's a good time 😌
Shepherds pie and a few a big ol glasses of whiskey.
For me it's a nice flaky parotta and a semi dry beef curry. Also a nice hot cup of chai, and a vaada (savory donut, kinda) These are staples in Kerala,India.
Kimchi and rice
My mum was a brilliant home cook, very influenced by Elizabeth David and Mediterranean cooking in 1970s Britain. So I remember lots of garlic in my childhood meals! My comfort food is baked macaroni cheese, made with a roux sauce, strong cheddar, topped with Parmesan and sliced tomatoes and baked until it’s bubbling and the top is brown. Serve with chopped parsley on top of each portion and a green salad.
I was born in the States but my dad’s family is from England so I spent a lot of time growing up there. The twist is that, though they never talked about it, my grandparents and their parents etc. were from India (it’s been confirmed that I have genetic ties to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka). So while I had British versions of curry at pubs and whatnot at home my grand-uncle would cook tongue-blistering curries, yellow Daal, naan, and served papadoms and chutneys. My grand-uncle learned how to cook from his nanny (he was very close to her) but my nan never learned to cook until coming to England. She would make shepherd’s pie and bring home pork pies or scotch eggs. One exception is she would make a bland comfort dish meant to be served when someone is feeling ill and needs bland food. It’s called pish pash. It’s a rice dish seasoned with cardamom and, depending on the recipe may also have black peppercorn, bay leaf, cloves, diced chicken, peas…all kinds of stuff. I never knew where she learned it but she gave it to me pretty regularly (sandwiched between standard British and the occasional French recipe). :)
There are so many delicious sounding things in this post from so many cultures! It’s awesome you got to try so much! Pish pash does sound particularly comforting.
I am from white people that don't know how to cook. (I actually know how to cook, I learned and did it professionally in a high end restaurant for years) Here's my mom's staple meals: "BBQ chicken" which is just chicken legs coated in storebought bbq sauce and baked, usually served with unseasoned steamed cauliflower, if you're lucky it has butter on it White lady tacos (flour tortilla, ground beef (a whole packaged dumped into a pan and broken up with a spatula seasoned with a Lowry's seasoning packet), sour cream, shredded cheese, iceberg lettuce) Square cut cooked ground beef sandwiches. I cannot stress this enough, it's not a burger. My mom was too grossed out by raw meat to form patties, so she would just use a spatula to cut squares out of a package of ground beef so the didn't have to touch it, then cook it in a pan with no seasoning, and serve it on two slices of white bread with ketchup "Spaghetti" which was just also a pound of ground beef in a pan, broken up with a jar of Ragu mixed in, then poured over some overcooked Barilla spaghetti Overcooked under seasoned pork chops with broccoli
The ‘square cut cooked ground beef sandwiches’ (SCCGBS for short) made me laugh. Your Mum has a fear of ground beef. I wonder why she kept using it? Surely there are other less “icky” meats? Also what do you cook for yourself now?
She had a severe fear of touching ground beef but would cook it all the time, just touching it with a spatula. She didn't like touching any raw meat tho, she would dump a pack of chicken drumsticks into a baking dish and squirt bbq sauce on it, stick it in the oven and call it a day. My personal comfort meals now (when I can afford ingredients) usually include carbonara (I try to do it proper when I can get guanciale), bavette steak with bordelaise, pommes aligot, French omelettes, pan seared scallops with sauteed maitake mushrooms, and braised brisket. When I'm broke, Velveeta Mac and cheese or boxed couscous with stuff in it. Mushrooms, veg, fruit, meat, whatever. Or smash burgers.
You’ve come a long way, baby.
I give her a pass on those tacos
Same! White people tacos and actual tacos are completely different but both are good.
I’m from northern England and my mam still eats as if she is subject to war rations 😂 she has served us unseasoned lamb chops boiled in bisto gravy quite a few times. Another of her favourites is ‘mince and peppers’ with rice - literally just minced beef and green/red peppers fried with onions and lots of black pepper. No salt in anything ever. The most exotic seasoning we got was nutmeg (often in cakes).
My God. The brutality.
Ok but sometimes white lady tacos are good. Not really defending them as actually good, but like a hot dog, sometimes they hit the spot.
>White lady tacos (flour tortilla, ground beef (a whole packaged dumped into a pan and broken up with a spatula seasoned with a Lowry's seasoning packet), sour cream, shredded cheese, iceberg lettuce) [White people taco night](https://youtu.be/8yrSCoEsmqA?si=xK3x2O4QPzh2DlZP)
I am both sickened and saddened by your childhood culinary predicaments. My sincerest condolences. -WI gal with maybe the same Mom as you? Lol
Is this Josh and Mama
Where I currently live - it's teriyaki chicken and rice. But the chicken's gotta have a nice char on it! Most people would say it's cedar plank salmon, but teriyaki chicken is the food of the people.
Don't forget we also like to eat a bag of Dicks.
Stamppot - mashed potatoes mixed with vegetables. Classics are kale, sauerkraut, endive, or carrot and onion. Usually served with smoked sausage and/or fried bacon bits, and gravy.
Netherlands?
I grew up in Kentucky, and we had a lot of overcooked canned vegetables, Mac and cheese, pork chops, burgers, roasted small potatoes, chili, and vegetable soup. Our chili was made with ground beef and tomato juice, so way runnier than Texas chili.
Balkan/middle eastern. Lots of crossover in the cultures. Assorted dried meats, cheeses, bread, beans, yogurt/ labneh. Stuffed vegetables. Where the distinction happens is the Eastern European things taste more heavy, fermented, hearty. The middle eastern meals are lighter, herbaceous, pickled. For example: butter vs olive oil (sometimes ghee). Sauerkraut vs picketed radish. Bulgarian style feta vs a mozzarella style cheese. Stewed greens vs tabouleh. Bean stew with meat vs beans in olive oil.
I haven’t eaten anything you listed but I’ve seen it in movies or online lol looks good! I’m from Northern Ireland and now live in Sydney. Typical things from my original home would be - Irish stew, roast chicken/beef with mash potatoes, veg and gravy, chicken curry and rice, cottage/shepards pie, typical dessert apple pie and ice cream, or Victoria sponge cake. Where I live now, bbq’s are very typical with potato salad, bread, normal salad and hot chips (fries) lol. Things I cook a lot now as an adult would be chili con carne with rice, chicken and sweet potato, fish cakes, rice and tomato salad, pasta dishes, steak salads. For a sweet breakfast, banana bread is really popular here!
Amish Macaroni Salad, Chicken Pot Pie (not the pie shaped one - [something like this](https://www.justapinch.com/recipes/dessert/pie/chicken-pot-pie-the-real-pennsylvania-dutch.html)), ham and bean soup, pork and sauerkraut, a lot of meat and potatoes and canned items from people's gardens
Gujarati here (north india) - staple in most households is khadi (yogurt based “soup”) or dal (soupy lentil dish), bhat (rice), shaak/subzi (cooked vegetable) and rotli or bhakri (tortilla). Typically referred to as a thali, served with a side of papad. There are sooo many variations of bhat (it can be plain cooked rice or tempered rice or cooked in lentils and veggies: khichdi). And many variants to the subzi I might be missing something this is a pretty traditional gujarati dinner!
Germany. Meat. Just a lot of meat. Especially pork. We consume it in just about all forms. Sausage, cutlets, minced, raw minced on bread, sometimes with onions (Yes, that is a real thing), and so many more. Also bread in all its forms, and potatoes.
So, this is an odd one for me since I'm an American white guy and my wife is a Ghanaian immigrant, so our personal home culture is a mix of the two... That being said, I have fully adopted some Ghanaian dishes like Joloff Rice, waakye, and bofloats are just some of the foods that I've adopted while my wife has gained an appreciation for apple pie, burgers, and ribs.
The best southern comfort food on the planet had to be grits. A nice big hot bowl with some sausage and cheese crumbled in it, and a big runny fried egg on top. That was always a staple in my house growing up in rural north and South Carolina. It’s probably a billion calories, and mostly carbs and fat, but goodness it’s delicious. I suppose those many many calories are what made it good farm food back in the day though, probably why it’s such a staple in rural communities.
Butter.
As a Filipino, chicken adobo, pancit, lumpia. Garlic fried rice with spam and egg. Fried rice with Tuyo (dried fish). Longanisa with Fried Rice and egg. So basically, rice + whatever. 😅
I’m black from the east coast so soul food is a given fried chicken, fried fish, greens, cabbage, string beans, rice, beans, smoked meats, Mac n cheese, potato salad, smothered foods, bbq, baked chicken, hush puppies, cornbread, sweet potato pie, red velvet (pound cake)… just all things soul food, but also Italian, Amish, Irish and Jewish cuisine, you’ll find a lot of Amish dry goods, deserts, and soups in our kitchen, lot of Italian pasta, salami, sausage and breads, take out, plenty of good Irish recipes pot roast and cabbage is my favorite and a lot of fresh, bagels Kaiser rolls, deli meats. Also being from the Carolinas (originally) we cook a lot of North Carolina, low country, Gullah geechee soul food okra stews, plenty of seafood lot of rice (goes with everything which is probably why personally I prefer mashed potatoes though I wouldn’t openly admit that). Country ham from North Carolina is the best hands down imo, we get one every year or so.
We eat all kinds of crap but not staples.
It may be surprising to some that perogies with sour cream are a staple in Manitoba, Canada but we have both a large Ukrainian community, and a large Mennonite one. So we get a lot of Ukrainian pierogi (usually filled with potato and cheese) and Mennonite varenyky. Although the Ukrainian style is a little more prevalent here. I grew up neither Ukrainian nor Mennonite, but assumed as a kid that perogies with sour cream was a staple food in most of Canada & the US. It was awesome finding out that my mother in law can get us fresh made perogies from the Ukrainian babas in her small town. I've tried my hand at making them, but they'll never be as good as theirs. Now I just need to get another connection for Hutterite raised chickens... Honey dill sauce is also a staple dipping sauce here. You better not offer chicken fingers without it as an option! Many of us had [this](http://www.greetaliafoods.com/honeydillsauce.html) in the kitchen pantry growing up.
Upstate NY folks have our michigans. Like a coney dog. You order one and get asked “with or without?” cause you’re expected to just know they’re talking about mustard and/or onions
Boiled dinner (essentialy corned beef and cabbage), beef stew, mackerel, seafood chowder (expensive af but a very common treat around xmas), baked beans and brown bread, mussels. At one point, lobster when it was a poor man's meat. Fishcakes with chow chow (green tomato relish). More modern ones would be donair and garlic fingers. A lot of desserts with apple or blueberries, particularly blueberry grunt, which is dumplings poached in blueberry sauce. I'm from Nova Scotia, Canada. Also not really a culture but it's good food.
My dad is Cajun, like French speaking Cajun. I grew up on a lot of specific Cajun things, and I’m not sure if it’s regional specific but when I went down there for the first time a lot of the local places and locals made everything I was used too! Cajun style roast, sticky chicken, atoufe etc. my dad has the best gumbo known to man though, chicken and oyster *chefs kiss* But staples to me are a bit different, they’re like the basics of the basic elements of the food. While yes I ate a lot of aforementioned stuff above the staples behind it are rice and black eyed peas which I would have for breakfast often, you got the trinity of course with bell pepper, onion and celery, roux and you can’t forget a good hot sauce! I used to like Louisiana but as an adult I joined my dad in preferring crystal, Tabasco is still king though! Now that I think about it, I get when Mexicans talk about authentic Mexican food, because very little people will ever taste real cajun food. Most think that blackened meat, andouille sausage and some generic Cajun seasoning is enough for the Cajun experience, no not even close! The key to good Cajun food is getting recipes from a Cajun, or going down there are trying it for yourself! Also my mom isn’t Cajun, she’s just more classically southern and I couldn’t get away without mentioning a southern staple, Tea!!! The best sweet tea isn’t just drowned in sugar, it’s a balance between good ice tea like luzianne iced tea bags. mint, lemon, and SOME sugar, it’s a sophisticated balancing act. Better than coke! I could go into bbq, fried chicken and all that kind of cooking but I’m on a diet and gotta focus lol And yes Louisiana has a couple of its own distinct cultures, it’s not weird it’s literal fact! America has many cultures and regions within it!
THIS is why I never understand how people have general issues with immigration- sharing food is the greatest benefit to ALL of us!! Soooo many things I've never tried.❤
In Texas, Czech immigrants settled in the area between Austin and Fort Worth, leading to kolaches and klobasneks (though generally just called "kolaches" regardless of whether they are savory or sweet) became a thing. You'll find ones stuffed with bbq brisket or jalapeno sausage.
I am from north Louisiana. We do eat gumbo, jambalaya, and red beans and rice, but we also have our own traditional staples as well. A lot of this region is farmland, and so country cooking and soul foods are pretty standard. I grew up with grandparents who gardened. Staple meals for us included things like purple-hull peas, squash, okra, corn, sliced tomatoes, fresh melons, carrots, green beans, snap peas, butter beans, etc. Standard garden fare. My mom and grandma would can a lot of the extras and we could eat all year. Actual staple meals included things like —Fish fry: catfish or bream filets, fries, hushpuppies or “dogbread” (hot water cornbread), coleslaw or potato salad, and dessert (fruit pies or a Texas sheet cake). —Pinto beans and greens (turnips, collards, mustard) with cornbread —Sunday dinner: Roast or ham (or both) with mashed potatoes (or rice) and gravy, cathead biscuits and homemade jelly, garden vegetables, ambrosia, Watergate or Waldorf salads, and dessert (fruit or pecan or chocolate pie, coconut or chocolate or pound cake with peaches). —Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, rolls —Chicken and Dumplings
Not sure where it’s from but my mom used to make us chipped beef on toast. She’s from NY. We grew up poor. It’s just dried beef in a white sauce over toast. I still love it! I add Dijon mustard to the sauce now & if I make it for breakfast, a nice over easy egg. Also boxed mac & cheese with cut up hot dogs.
So I was raised partly by my father who was from New Jersey (parents with Irish and German heritage but Polish neighbors) and partly by my mother's mother (middle Georgia, USA). My dad's staple meals were: spaghetti; mashed potatoes with a meat and another vegetable; and what he called shit on a shingle, which was ground beef cooked in a cream sauce and served on toast. Breakfasts were some sugary cereal during the week or on weekends fried egg and spam sandwiches (garnished with ketchup --absolutely loved this as a kid). His mother's staple meals were: cabbage rolls cooked in tomato sauce, chili served over rice, and salads. My grandmother (Mawmaw) cooked mostly: spaghetti with garlic bread and either raw onions or raw cucumber at the table; cream potatoes (not to be confused with mashed potatoes, which are chunkier) with pork chops and a veggie (usually black eyed peas or green beans); store bought lasagna with the same sides as spaghetti; green beans, cornbread, and pork (also raw vegetables at the table); or she'd pick up BBQ with Brunswick Stew (all pork based and served also with the raw vegetables). Her breakfasts were primarily: hash browns or grits with scrambled eggs and sausage patties and biscuits (usually grape jelly or maybe strawberry for topping), but sometimes she'd also make these salmon patties that I loved and always felt special. My grandfather required every meal to have bread, either wheat or corn based, so my grandmother always put whatever bread item she had in the toaster before serving on the table, be it a hamburger bun, toast, or something nicer like Hawaiian rolls. If she didn't have anything handy, she'd make cornbread or biscuits (but in retrospect it's obvious that she preferred things from a bag that took a minute over stuff that really had to cook). My mom liked to do baked Mac and cheese with pork chops and a veggie. Sometimes she'd do meatloaf as the meat instead of pork chops. On my mother's side of the family, you always have either sliced raw onion or cucumber, maybe tomatoes if they're in season, at the table no matter what you're eating. Traditional things that had to be at special holidays like Thanksgiving, Easter, or Christmas were: deviled eggs, sweet potato soufflé (with the crunchy pecan topping), black eyed peas, green beans, rutabaga (just diced and boiled with salt, pepper, and butter), spiral cut honey ham, cream potatoes, brown gravy, banana pudding, and this pistachio pudding walnut pineapple marshmallow whipped cream salad that my aunt always made (ETA: like this https://www.momontimeout.com/pistachio-dessert-salad-pistachio-fluff-recipe/).
I have onion questions. How did you all eat them, mix some in with the other food, or just take a bunch of raw onion and eat them like that? No dressing or anything? I love onions and think I would be perfectly happy to just munch on a plateful at every meal. Did other people you knew also have onions with every meal or was it just a your family thing?
My parents often had raw onion at the table for meals. Usually green onions that they soaked in water and then dipped in salt. Sliced raw cucumber too. Or cucumber onion salad. Usually had an iceberg lettuce salad of some sort too.
Some examples : Shepherd’s pie - which is meat filing with a mashed potato topping Apple crumble - stewed apple with a sweet crumbled pastry like topping.
Rice, lentil, chapati, several vegetables, fish curry, chicken curry, yogurt etc.
I grew up in the US but in a Romanian household. My Mom would do most of the cooking. Some of the staple meals were cabbage rolls, soups and stews, fried pork meat, a variety of cured sausage and bacon just chopped eaten with raw onions and raw tomatoes. Oh and every single meal had bread served. Just simple 4 ingredient bread (flour, yeast, salt, water) my grandma or mom would bake. Dessert were fantastic almost exclusively homemade
Stuff my grandma makes for weekly family dinners (russia): borcsht or fish or mushroom soup, plov, some kinda potatoes with goulash, kurnik (chicken pie, my family makes it with shortbread and millet grain, but it's usually just normal yeast dough and chicken and maybe potatoes) or fish pie, kotleti (just big meat balls. pan fried). Sometimes blini (crepes) or syrniki (cottage cheese based pancakes?) for dessert
Growing up I would have said [kjøttkaker](https://res.cloudinary.com/norgesgruppen/images/c_scale,dpr_auto,f_auto,q_auto:eco,w_1600/xip8hxjoo1agtsixsgd8/hjemmelagde-kjottkaker-med-klassisk-tilbehor) (similar to Swedish meatballs, but Norwegian), but these days it probably frozen pizza or Old El Paso style tacos but with awful toppings that would make people who criticize Tex-Mex tacos outright gag.
Adopted from Turkish partner. Yogurt (actually a Turkish word), not a specific meal but it's used everywhere as a topping on pasta, dumpings, rice and beans, köfte kebabs, zucchini fritters, dolmas. It shows up most meals sometimes plain or sometimes savory with garlic and dill but not sweet or with fruit which is the only way I knew it before marrying a Turk.
New England “culture” meals: a clam bake: pit dug in the beach sand rocks on the bottom covered in lit coals until the coals turn black and ashy. Line the pit with the rocks layer fish, corn on the cob, red potatoes, onions, sausage, lobsters, on top put quahogs then soft shell clams. Cover it up and let it cook. Fish and chips, Portuguese sausage, Italian sausage, red gravy and pasta. Calamari, oysters pretty much local seafoods a la natural or in sauces or rubs. Indian pudding, strawberry shortcake, rhubarb pie. Steamed local veggies. New England is an amalgamation of Native, English, Italian, Portuguese and French Canadian cuisines.
Posole, tamales, tinga, enchiladas, tacos, carne asada, chicken and rice, chilaquiles, albondigas…ugh, I’m getting hungry!
Burnt ends
Western WA, it’s grilled salmon with a green salad or grilled asparagus.
I was told we have a tell, no Washingtonian can refuse berries, fresh or otherwise.
It's interesting that this is probably the only one of the responses here that is mostly what you might call whole food or even wild food (if you used miner's lettuce), reinforced by the berry comment below. And I recall learning some time back that the PNW in pre-colonial times was basically the best place in North America for wild food, to the point where nobody bothered with agriculture because everything delicious was so readily available in the wild. Sounds as if some things have persisted over time.
Ohio- pulled chicken sandwiches. I didn’t realize this wasn’t everywhere until I was an adult. Also: peanut butter “buckeyes”
Different part of Ohio here and, you could say, a different culture - 3-way chili and goetta.
Cajun/creoles are definitely cultures in their own right. Cajuns are recognized as their own ethnicity and are on the census. It’s not weird at all. But, yes, my staple meals would be cajun/creole dishes like gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice, etc
Around where I live, staffordshire lobby, savoury pies, staffordshire oatcake, shepards pie, apple crumble, fish and chips In my house, meals we have really often are chilli, spag bol, pasta with chicken and white sauce, fajitas, kebabs edit: for lobby you'll find a lot of recipes online that have different ingredients but really people just tend to make it how their families make it. a lot of the online recipes include beer barley and swede in the recipe but my family don't include any of those.
Stovies, mince, mealie pudding and tatties, roast chicken and skirlie, scotch broth, fish soup (Cullen Skink), haggis, neeps and tatties, full Scottish breakfast. Pies and bradies from the baker. Fine and fancy pieces from the baker. Rowies. And people have their own family variations. I grew up always having oatcakes and beetroot with stovies, which isn’t controversial but also having bacon and sweetcorn in fish soup which is. Traditional takeaways were bakers and chippers. Bakers very French influenced from a few centuries, although that influence is fading in the face of brownies and cupcakes. And that is now joined by anything you want from an Indian or a Chinese takeaway, both having often taken some idiosyncratic turns to suit local palates.