American food

I remember when visiting the US as a kid, there were some immediate differences in the the kind of food that was available and in some cases how they were prepared. Keep in mind this was New Jersey in the 1970s, so forgive me if this doesn't pertain to your particular neck-of-the-woods.

One of the first things I noticed was that pizza, or 'tomato pie' as my relatives called it, had sparse toppings. A pepperoni pizza in Canada (at least in the town I had been living in) had a lot of pepperoni. In fact, it was unlikely that you would be able to cut a bite sized piece of a pepperoni pizza without getting a lot of the meat. Whereas in New Jersey, a pepperoni tomato pie meant you got a few little rounds of the stuff tossed onto what was basically a cheese pizza with a fair bit of sauce. It was a culture shock, but I have to give them credit, they used the sauce and cheese as the anchor of the pie. There was plenty of it (not like today's chain pizza joints) and it tasted real good.

The next thing was an evil product called Steak-Umm. I think my cousins lived off this stuff because they offered to make it whenever I came over. They seemed amused that I had never seen Steak-umms before (they never were sold in Canada). Steak-umm make these (processed) frozen steak slices that you make a traditional Philly Cheesesteak sandwich with. The problem is they are very greasy - or at least they were the way my cousins prepared them. I often felt or became sick to my stomach after eating them, but man oh man they were some tasty.

Then there was pork roll. It's no surprise that we enjoyed it while staying with relatives in Trenton New Jersey, because that's where it comes from. You're not likely to find it outside of Jersey or maybe New York City, amongst the Jersey types. I suppose the closest thing to it in Canada would be bologna, but trying to call it bologna would be a disservice. This stuff sold in a wide sausage shape packaged in a cloth bag. My grandmother would slice it and fry it up in a pan. It was quite delicious and although fried bologna comes close, there's just no comparing pork roll.

Another anomaly was Smucker's Goober grape. It's basically peanut butter and jelly in the same jar. Striped. Vertically. You see, not only do I find this pre-packaged arrangement odd and suited only for the lazy PBJ crowd, it doesn't give me precise control over the peanut butter to jelly ratio. This is very important to a PBJ connoisseur. With the Goober product, you could be getting too much jelly, or not being able to distribute the jelly properly across the entire surface of the bread - it's just untenable.

Anyway, I encourage my readers to contribute their own stories of food adventures in places they have visited or perhaps you have food that nobody else does.