Favorite regional meat(s)?

[French G.]

Does your area have any commercial meat products that are not widely known, but should be? I always like to get into regional cuisine, especially if it involves fried meat.

Locally it's Virginia, so we do ham. I am most partial to Turner ham of Fulks Run, VA. Of course many other regions do ham, but so far, not impressed. Got some Missouri ham, it was okay, but not enough to be fistfuls neighbor.

Scrapple is likewise big in the hills here, but I think that is all over the Midwest too.

From other areas, I got on a Taylor ham, or pork roll, kick. I like down market poor people meats a lot and I can find it in a store here. Really good breakfast sandwich.  One I cannot find is Arkansas bacon. Thinking of mail order, or possibly mail ordering anything else someone thinks up.

[charby]

Scrapple, not so much in Iowa.

Ring bologna is big in Iowa, especially Dutch style, which uses cornmeal for filler. Several lockers throughout the state make it.

Probably in 2nd place in Brats behind Wisconsin, once again every locker has there own style. Everything kicks Johnsonville's ass.

Also pork tenderloin, one that is cut thick, hammered out to the size of a dinner plate, breaded and deep fried. Served on a white bun with ketchup, mustard, pickle and onion. This would be a restaurant type item, do no confuse with a pork fritter.

Bacon was cool here, way before everywhere else.

[Ben]

Tri-tip is a CA Central Coast and Central Valley thing. There's an ongoing argument whether it started in Santa Maria or Oakland. I side with Santa Maria since it's cowboy country. Everytime I was ever at a big event at Vandenberg AFB that involved DC big wigs, the Air Force guys would always hire the Santa Maria tri-tip guys (VAFB abuts Santa Maria) to show up with the big ass wood grill on the trailer, a few cows worth of meat, and about a barrel of salsa.  

I use tri-tip a lot when I do steak and eggs for breakfast.

http://www.qn4ubbqhouse.com/index.php/welcome/173-the-history-of-tri-tip.html

[just Warren]

Second tri-tip though there's nothing really special about it. It's not worth making a special effort to get some.

[French G.]

Dunno, I have driven a long way to Virginia City to get a tri tip sandwich.

Ring bologna, escaped Germans? I am pretty familiar since I spent a lot of my misspent youth in central Pennsylvania where it is quite popular. Nowadays I just wait for someone to bring deer bologna to work.

[charby]

Dunno, I have driven a long way to Virginia City to get a tri tip sandwich.

Ring bologna, escaped Germans? I am pretty familiar since I spent a lot of my misspent youth in central Pennsylvania where it is quite popular. Nowadays I just wait for someone to bring deer bologna to work.

My favorite is the original.

http://www.ulrichsmeatmarket.com/buy_online/?ulrichs_genuine_pella_bologna&show=category&productCategoryID=6598&productCategoryIDs=6585,6598

[mtnbkr]

Salty country hame from NC or VA.
Dry Sausage from Eastern NC.
Eastern NC BBQ (chopped pork with vinegar-based sauce).

Scrapple is not one I ate growing up, but I like it all the same after being introduced to it in my late 20s.

I get my dry sausage and country ham from Nahunta in NC.

Chris

[K Frame]

Sweet Lebanon Bologna from Pennsylvania.

[French G.]

Salty country hame from NC or VA.
Dry Sausage from Eastern NC.
Eastern NC BBQ (chopped pork with vinegar-based sauce).

Scrapple is not one I ate growing up, but I like it all the same after being introduced to it in my late 20s.

I get my dry sausage and country ham from Nahunta in NC.

Chris

BBQ could make the great cornbread war of 2015 look like a skirmish. I prefer the carolina style myself but the popularity explosion hasn't done us many favors. Cook the meat right, give me sauce on the side and skip all the presentation sideshow.

[RoadKingLarry]

Around here it's meat.
Any kind of meat, so long as it's meat and while beef and pork are forever king around here goat has made some inroads.
Grilled, pan fried, deep fired, broiled, smoked, BBQ'd, sausaged...yup, Okies will eat it.

[mtnbkr]

BBQ could make the great cornbread war of 2015 look like a skirmish. I prefer the carolina style myself but the popularity explosion hasn't done us many favors. Cook the meat right, give me sauce on the side and skip all the presentation sideshow.

Yup.  I'm not as serious about it as I was at one point.  I generally like any BBQ with the exception of chicken and anything heavily sauced with thick sugary sauces.  If the sauce hides the meat physically and flavor-wise, it's no good.

Otherwise, I like and eat it all even though, in my mind, BBQ will always be slow cooked pork with vinegar sauce.

Chris

[mtnbkr]

goat has made some inroads.

Goat is good.  I've liked it every time I've had the opportunity to try it.

Chris

[makattak]

Also pork tenderloin, one that is cut thick, hammered out to the size of a dinner plate, breaded and deep fried. Served on a white bun with ketchup, mustard, pickle and onion. This would be a restaurant type item, do no confuse with a pork fritter.

Fried Pork Tenderloin, about the only food I miss from the Midwest. You simply cannot get it in Virginia (unless you make it yourself.)

[Ben]

Also pork tenderloin, one that is cut thick, hammered out to the size of a dinner plate, breaded and deep fried. Served on a white bun with ketchup, mustard, pickle and onion. This would be a restaurant type item, do no confuse with a pork fritter.

That sounds similar to schnitzel. Does it have roots in the kraut community out there? Though we just pound the pork down a little bit to maybe double the size, and don't do the bread and condiments. Though I have been known to Americanize mine with apple sauce (Homer!).

[T.O.M.]

Growing up in Cincinnati in a German family, we had goetta.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goetta

It's a German sausage, a mix of pork (sometimes beef) with steel-cut oats, onion, and spices.  Typically served at breakfast, pan fried.

[charby]

That sounds similar to schnitzel. Does it have roots in the kraut community out there? Though we just pound the pork down a little bit to maybe double the size, and don't do the bread and condiments. Though I have been known to Americanize mine with apple sauce (Homer!).

Yes source is schnitzel. Midwest was settled by a shitload of Germans and Dutch.

[K Frame]

Oddly enough, Pennsylvania, or Germansylvania as it really should be known, doesn't really do the fried pork tenderloin.

[charby]

Oddly enough, Pennsylvania, or Germansylvania as it really should be known, doesn't really do the fried pork tenderloin.

It is kind of odd that the other Germn states don't have it. It's really an Iowa, Illinois, Indiana thing, with each state having a slight difference on size and how the sandwich is dressed.

It's even regionally in Iowa. Where I grew up, SE Iowa, you ordered a pork tenderloin at a restaurant it was the friend pounded breaded tenderloin. Where I live now NC Iowa, you as asked if you want grilled or fried tenderloin, where as the grilled is a more popular option.

[French G.]

Growing up in Cincinnati in a German family, we had goetta.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goetta

It's a German sausage, a mix of pork (sometimes beef) with steel-cut oats, onion, and spices.  Typically served at breakfast, pan fried.

Pretty neat, I am sure I'd love it. Reading an Ohio thing got me thinking on this, I had never heard of " city chicken" but now I want some. A regional relic of the past when veal was cheaper than chicken. Now chicken is the trash cheap meat and veal is rare due to selective artificial breeding that no longer produces unwanted males in a dairy operation.

[K Frame]

It is kind of odd that the other Germn states don't have it. It's really an Iowa, Illinois, Indiana thing, with each state having a slight difference on size and how the sandwich is dressed.

It's even regionally in Iowa. Where I grew up, SE Iowa, you ordered a pork tenderloin at a restaurant it was the friend pounded breaded tenderloin. Where I live now NC Iowa, you as asked if you want grilled or fried tenderloin, where as the grilled is a more popular option.

We do have something similar in Pennsylvania... the grilled pork chop sandwich. Occasionally I've seen pan fried pork chop sandwiches. I'm really wondering if it had anything to do with industrial hog farming, of which there is very little in Pennsylvania.

[charby]

We do have something similar in Pennsylvania... the grilled pork chop sandwich. Occasionally I've seen pan fried pork chop sandwiches. I'm really wondering if it had anything to do with industrial hog farming, of which there is very little in Pennsylvania.

it's been around longer than the modern industrial hog farming, which is really a 1970's thing.

[K Frame]

it's been around longer than the modern industrial hog farming, which is really a 1970's thing.

Yes, I know it's been a thing for a long time. The difference is that hog farms were never really a thing in Pennsylvania like dairy and chicken farms were.

Everyone had some pigs, and they primarily supplied the family's winter meat needs. That's very different from the kind of dedicated, single critter farms that grew up in the midwest starting after the civil war.

By industrial farms, I mean farms that are primarily dedicated to one type of production. Dairy farms are industrial farms, and in both dairy and hog farming, it goes back a LOT longer than the 1970s.

[charby]

Yes, I know it's been a thing for a long time. The difference is that hog farms were never really a thing in Pennsylvania like dairy and chicken farms were.

Everyone had some pigs, and they primarily supplied the family's winter meat needs. That's very different from the kind of dedicated, single critter farms that grew up in the midwest starting after the civil war.

By industrial farms, I mean farms that are primarily dedicated to one type of production. Dairy farms are industrial farms, and in both dairy and hog farming, it goes back a LOT longer than the 1970s.

Farms in the Midwest were still pretty diversified until the mid 1960s. Yes we had dedicated dairy farms on the outskirts of the cities/towns, but most farms had a mix of grain and forage, along with 1-3 (beef, pork, lambs) types of livestock for market. Most poultry and eggs for on farm consumption. We did have some that had larger pork production, but you're looking at sales of 2-10 animals at a time to the local auction or meat packers buying station. My mom grew up on a pig farm like that, I think my grandfather may of had a total of 100 hogs at any given time on their 160 acre farm, pasture farrowing, sty fattening, with most of the feed grown on the farm.

I do get what you are saying, but up until the 1960s, animals was a way to store grain on the farm. Easier to put a 100 bu of corn into animals as feed and move it to market then try to sell the grain on the open market. Lending and US Ag policy changed, along with better hybrids, consolidation of packers, end of the industrial worker unions in the packing houses and now we have what we go for Ag. Money has moved from many people and becoming concentrated in a much smaller group.

Also could be Iowa was settled a lot later than the other German areas in the US and pork is quicker and cheaper to raise than beef, and the new German immigrants found pork loin to be similar in texture as the veal used in the old country.

Sorry for the rant, just pissy how government policy (Earl Butz) really screwed up Ag in the Midwest.

[K Frame]

Dude. Hormel.

By the early 1900s Hormel was processing thousands of pigs a year that were raised on dozens of dedicated farms in the midwest.

Other industry processors, such as Swift and Armor, were emulating Hormel to a smaller scale with hogs, but to a far larger degree with beef.

Industrial meat farming in the midwest goes back far earlier than you're giving it credit.

[lupinus]

Dude. Hormel.

By the early 1900s Hormel was processing thousands of pigs a year that were raised on dozens of dedicated farms in the midwest.

Other industry processors, such as Swift and Armor, were emulating Hormel to a smaller scale with hogs, but to a far larger degree with beef.

Industrial meat farming in the midwest goes back far earlier than you're giving it credit.

Oh come now, all them cowboys and cattle drives and stuff fit right in during the sixties...

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