Posted on 02/20/2016 3:00:30 AM PST by imardmd1
Here's the first reaction of brand new Houghton entering students being introduced to the unique foods found only in Western New York State, little delicacies that I long for, and can find nowhere else. In some cases, you will see either a strong like or a decided dislike to some of these, from natives of New York City, Maine, Canada, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Hampshire. Virginia, Texas, California, Vietnam, and Barbados.
o Cuba cheese curds -- These are fresh cheddar cheese curds washed of whey, kept from the product that is to be pressed into wheels and aged; and marketed to be eaten before even a few hours of oxidation has taken place--the sooner the squeakie! This company in Cuba, New York has been known as one of the best quality cheesemaker in the area for several decades. They have had their own retail shop there for many years.
o Sponge candy -- Nuggets of cake made with baking soda, dipped in chocolate, and bagged right away after the chocolate is hardened. Cheap, too! You can google up companies in Buffalo and Rochester that supply the product through online purchases.
o Texas Hots -- Made only in Wellsville, New York at the (Greek-owned) Texas Hots Restaurant, a favorite hangout for locals. The hot dogs are only one brand and one size, if I recall correctly Dietz and Watson, placed in a bun and covered with Texas Hot chili-based hot sauce (supposed to be secret, but I have the formula) and covered with fresh chopped onion. Very inexpensive, and I suppose thousands sold every week, week by week, year by year, since I was a kid living nearby in Angelica, seventy years ago. There used to be a sister Texas Hot over in Hornell, but I think that went out of business twenty or thirty years ago
o Stearns' Barbecued Chicken and Stuffing -- Actually, the Stearns farm was/is a poultry breeder, selling fresh chicken halves crate-packed in ice.
The typical barbeque pits are about a yard deep, fired with charcoal, and the chicken halves laid on H-shaped frames screened with wire mesh, laid across the tops of the sheet steel side panesl, which are about a yard apart. The halves are sauced with dishmops soaked in buckets of the Cornell formula barbecue sauce, featuring mainly vegetable oil, vinegar, salt, poultry seasoning, and white pepper. The halves are rotated about 45 minutes, constantly being turned and sauced and turned, over and over, for about half an hour; then "dried out" for the last. The chicken is approaching the finish when the leg starts to rotate freely in its socket. When just the force of lifting causes the wing to separate from the body, the cooking is done. Then the halves are layered in GI cans used only for this process, the layers being separated with aluminum foil. These cans can be transported thirty or forty miles, with the thermal mass maintaining the temperature to be still hot at the end where they are to be served, and the chicken almost falling apart of itself.
The common formula was developed at Cornell University back in the last century, and released free to the public. You can find it on line. Jud Stearns' place was in Tinkertown, a 'suburb' of a hundred yards or so on the half-mile stretch between Alfred and Alfred Station, where the fire company I joined made its money by barbecuing hundreds and hundreds of chicken halves for the summer outing of clubs, and company picnics, and wedding feasts, two or three hundred at a a time. There is no better chicken anywhere. Absolutely. And for some reason (maybe the labor) nobody seems to want to take the pains commercially. What a crying shame!
o Salt Rising Bread -- I don't know where the name comes from, but the bread is not raised using salt. And there is no such thing as "salt-rising yeast." whatever others say. The rising agent comes from the aerobic fermentation of a slice of potato in its liquor, and it is quite smelly. I have the recipe from my Aunt Marian (if I can find it), and my cousin Gloria has made this kind of bread commercially in one of the Olean bakeries go. If I've got this wrong, dear Gloria will correct me, and right smartly, too. But the very best I ever had came from a little bakery in Belfast, New York, half-way between Belmont and Houghton. Dad and I used to drive over from Angelica over Transit Bridge to get it, back about 1944. I can still smell it. When toasted, it gives off a smell about like being in a cow barn at milking time; and with freshly made butter, and my eyes closed as I munched it, I thought I was in heaven. Believe it or not. Some people don't like the smell. Mostly such are just city people. That's Southern Tier for you.
o Salt Potatoes -- That's what they are, salt potatoes--walnut-sized young 'taters, freshly dug, washed and boiled in salt water, then eaten with some fresh butter melted on them. But what these Houghton freshmen missed was the time of year of having them served , nestled in just-picked, shelled, and creamed peas! Oh, my! One or twice in a year . . . not in the fall when the freshmen roll into Houghton from all over the world.
o Beef on Weck -- A great big hind leg of cow, lean and gently roasted to a juicy, tender turn, just starting to lose the blood-red, then cooled and sliced into heaps and heaps of paper-thin Arby-style beef, gently stacked inside just-warmed Kummelweck seeded Kaiser rolls, soaked with juice, and topped with fresh-ground horse-radish. You noticed the boy from New York City, and the fellow from Barbados coughing and snorting after their first bite? That's the horseradish, fella, the good kind, of which just a pinch will make you gasp for breath. A true Buffalo sandwich, and the closer to North Tonawanda, the better.
See their thumbs up in unison? That's real food from Western New York, from the upper reaches of Appalachia, where men are men, women are feminine, kids are not a nuisance, and the word black (as in blaack coffee) has two a's.
"Yup. Jest give me a greyut beeahg playut ahv peeyahs en' beeyans ayund tayuhters weth sum hayum. An' blayahk kawffee, too, ayuh?"
That's it, folks!
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Marshall Green, Producer/Derek Brooker, Video Caneraman and editor
Shot at Houghton College
That's the first time I have seen someone put it that way. My maternal grandfather's family emigrated to Iowa in the 1850's from Erie County, and everything I have been told about them made them sound like stereotypical "hillbillies." Grandma was not very complimentary of Grandpa's family, and considered them to be a pack of backwoods hicks. . . this despite the fact that she herself was born on a somewhat remote farm in north-central Iowa and only left it after she got married.
Mr. niteowl77
Yup. Jest give me a greyut beeahg playut ahv peeyahs en’ beeyans ayund tayuhters weth sum hayum. An’ blayahk kawffee, too, ayuh?
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Looks like somebody got a copy of Hillary’s western New York campaign speech.
There's a reason the Appalachian Trail runs all the way to Maine.
I’ve had beef on weck. It’s pretty tasty.
I second beef on weck which I’ve eaten in Buffalo.
I just think "upstate" rather than "western" when I think of "mountain" New York; mental block of some sort.
Mr. niteowl77
Most of New York is unknown to the general reader.
Back in the mid-90s, my husband was considering going to graduate school in “upstate” New York. He phoned the university and asked, “What are you near?” “Canada,” the admissions rep replied. “Does it ever stop snowing?” “Not during the school year.”
He went to University of Tennessee instead.
That is excellent...thanks for your valuable knowledge on this - made my day, that’s for sure. I would love to try that Texas Hot-chili based sauce if would care to share the secret.
I’m from the other end of the Appalachians...Higdon, Alabama - settled by mother’s family.
I know a couple of ex-military who said that they had moments of sheer panic when they faced the possibility of PCS-ing to Ft. Drum. They all made it sound like a colder, snowier version of Hell, but I don't think any of them ever actually set foot in the place.
Mr. niteowl77
LOL! When I was a typist for the Army Corps of Engineers, I typed endless building specs for Fort Drum. I understand there’s extremely interesting Revolutionary War archaeology there.
YUMMM - Beef on weck,
SALT RISING BREAD (toast it - Heaven)
Texas Hots - now THAT’S a memory. My 92 y/o mother lives right outside of Wellsville, we go there often, in fact,, my mom & dad used to “date” there. That’s how old the place is.
By the way, the Houghton College area is gorgeous, spring, summer & fall !
Now I have a hankerin’ for some salt rising toast smothered with real butter. Buy it along the road from the Amish on the road out of Friendship.
And at Texas Hots in Wellsville they still have the old jukeboxes at each table. At least they did a couple years ago.
And some White Cheddar Cuba Cheese.
We’ll have it all in July!
I’m glad the title said, “WESTERN New York” and not “Upstate”.
I did recognize the hot dog brand Dietz & Watson since their natural casing, still connected, dogs are sold in the local BJ’s. To my taste they are identical to the Frankfurter Wurst sausages sold by the vendors in Germany. Steamed and served with a hard roll and dab of good mustard ... ausgezeichnet!
No Rev War stuff at Fort Drum but 10 miles west at Sacketts Harbor there is a ton of fantastic War of 1812 stuff. Many incredible military relics were dug there over the years but I think the military sites are part of a state park now.
I’m not a fan of cheese or cheese curds but all those other items sound great to me.
Hmm. I must be remembering something about a different New York site.
Folks from Buffalo and the rest of Western New York take beef on weck (salty kimmelweck roll) and sponge candy so much for granted it is a shock when they go elsewhere and find out it is unavailable and unknown.
For the rest of the world, Buffalo wings are what is most identified with Buffalo, but to us beef on weck is probably more “Buffalo” than even wings. Every body has their favorite vendor, and the amount of horseradish varies with taste, but there is nothing more satisfying especially if the roll is really fresh.
Sponge candy did not really get its due in this video. The pleasure of sponge candy is not merely its heavenly, chocolatey taste. When you break through the chocolate to the interior it literally melts in your mouth and collapses into a beautiful treat. The interior is not really a wafer, or even wafer-like, although that is not a bad description for someone who has never had it before. A gift of sponge candy is always welcome.
I have never heard of the BBQ chicken in this video. I think by a huge margin folks from western NY would say Chiavetta’s BBQ chicken is the best known. DELICIOUS! Chiavetta’s is identified with summer in WNY. You find it at festivals (Erie County Fair) and church picnics everywhere, and it is unique, juicy and tasty.
Two other points. First, chicken wings found in the rest of the country 90% of the time are terrible. They just do not get it right. Wings are actually hard to get “just right” and even in WNY some places do not do a good job, but most do.
Second, I have lived in NYC and Boston and the pizza in those places do not approach the pizza made all over WNY. As usual, some WNY places are better (or much better) than others (Leonardi’s is heavenly) but the pizza in Buffalo and WNY is in a superior class of its own.
It was amazing to me that folks in NYC and Boston would settle for really mediocre, often bland and uninspiring pizza, but they do not know better. And Chicago pizza? You gotta be kiddin me.
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