That Jucy Lucy sounds awfully good...
All that melted cheese and hamburger grease all mixed together and squirting into your mouth with each bite...
Guess I'll have to get one the next time I'm in Minneapolis.
Should we start a thread about local food color?
St. Louis has two local color foods: brain sandwiches and toasted ravioli. Brain sandwiches were big with the World War II generation. Cow brains breaded and deep fried, served on rye with mustard. There were several taverns that served them. However, the owners retired or passed away, and then Mad Cow disease finally brought it all to an end. Toasted ravioli still exists -- ravioli breaded with bread crumbs, parmesan and parsley, then deep fried.
Cincinnati, where I grew up, had three that I can think of. First, chili invented by Greek immigrants -- it's spiced up with cinnamon and unsweetened chocolate (see the Joy of Cooking for the recipe). Second, turtle soup (also spiced up with cinnamon). Third, goetta (pronounced get-ta). Oh, I almost forgot. The chili is served on top of spaghetti with small red beans, onions if you wish, and a mountain of shredded mild cheddar cheese. Skyline Chili is the most famous chili parlor. Some people like to eat leftover cold Skyline chili for breakfast instead of cold pizza. Goetta is a pull-out-all-the-stops fat fest. Sounds gross but it's unbelievably good. It's a take-off on Pennsylvania Dutch Scrapple, except that it's made with pinhead oats (a.k.a. steel cut oats). Here's the deal. It's not kosher. Put a 4-pound pork shoulder roast (a.k.a. a callie) and about a pound of beef short ribs in a stock pot with almost enough water to cover and a big quartered onion or two. Simmer that several hours until the meat is falling off the bones. Discard the bones. Put the meat, fat and onion through a grinder and then dump it back into that greasy water. It should have a good half inch of grease floating on top if not more. Then add a pound or so of pin head oats, and cook over low heat until the oats are done and it gets thick. (Gotta be pin head or steel cut oats, not Quaker rolled oats, which would simply turn into a pot of goop. John McCann's steel cut oats work best. $6 for a can, but worth every cent. Also good simply as a hot cereal. Bob's Red Mill steel cut oats will also do). Anyway...Then season with LOTS of salt, pepper, MSG, and, if you want, sage. You want it to taste very spicy. Pour that into a loaf pan and refrigerate overnight. Next morning it will be set. Then slice it and fry it. You have to fry it slowly a good 10 minutes or more on each side until it gets really brown and crispy. It tastes best when you fry it in a cast iron skillet. It's awesome stuff. Once I was making it when the HVAC service man came. After awhile, he came in the kitchen and said, "You know, I don't know what you're cooking in that stock pot, but it sure smells awfully good." I explained. The enthusiasm drained from his face. He said, "Oh my god! That's a heart attack waiting to happen!" Well, you just make a batch once a year, enjoy a couple slices of it, share the rest with friends or family, and that's it.
