Food You Cannot Get, Easily Or At All

How odd that you mention Ithaca and Moosewood. I was just fondly recalling some meals there. I haven't been to Ithaca in a few years, but, the best lobster bisque I ever had was there. A peculiar place for it, but, it's true.

Doo-dads

I do miss Viennetta. I used to buy it in the 90s.

Isn't there still a selection of viennese ice cream cakes available?

Fresh figs, the fruit that looks like a scrotum on the outside and a sea anemone inside.

korean food. I live in a part of town with everything, fancy cheese shops, viveros with live animals, vietnamese cafes and italian bakeries. But korean food is nowhere near me by fifteen miles or so. pity that

Lots of fresh figs in the market these days....

Ideal Peanut Butter Bars - the world's most perfect trashy cookie. They've been gone for years.

I am having trouble finding medjool dates. Sam's Club used to sell 3 lb. tubs of pitted, sweet California medjools.

They are no longer carried by my store.

Now all I can find dinky 14 oz. bags of SunSweet dates at my grocery.

No turkish or north african food shop around?

Cannoli - I had my first one from an Italian bakery in Boston. I went back every day of that trip. It's a good thing I can't find them in Houston, or I'd end up starring in a Datalounge thread about housebound 800 lb men.

Callard & Bowser's Butterscotch. It isn't made anymore. They gave the manufacturing space in the factory to their Altoids line.

Crab Devonshire. A Pittsburgh delicacy that hasn't been made in decades, featuring crab, bacon, toast, and mornay sauce. You can get it with turkey, but it's not as good; it's not even a good way to eat turkey.

R9, you can get all the wonderful, fresh dates you could want at Hadley's in Cabazon off interstate 10 on the way to Palm Springs. (Or order them shipped from there if you're out-of-state.) And try a date shake for a treat. One more off-ramp beyond Hadley's are the famous giant dinosaurs featured in PeeWee's Big Adventure.

Smoked cod bellies. Incredibly good, and incredibly bad for you. They over-fished the cod in the North Atlantic and it became unavailable by the 90's. I really miss it. Supposedly you can get it today, its made using sable, but it's like $40 a pound and doesn't taste the same.

I could never eat dates. They look too much like the Palmetto bugs aka huge, flying roaches that fly around down here. Blech!

I used to think dates were boogers my German sheperds made.

I live in Santa Barbara, CA, and you can’t get a fucking egg cream ANYWHERE. Even in LA, 90 miles south, they’re hard to find. I finally resorted to making my own, and they’re delicious. I was even able to locate New York-produced Fox’s U-Bet chocolate syrup locally at the pricey Gelson’s supermarket chain. Not the same as ordering an egg cream at Canter's, but at least I know how to do it. My friends find it amazing that this backslid-Episcopalian, native Southern California ex-surfer dude can whomp up an egg cream that any NYC Jewish deli would be proud of.

Deep-fried sea scallops from Cape Cod. They're now more expensive than lobster but man, one of life's great pleasures. Also, white haddock, inch -thick served as fish-n-chips.

D'Angelo's Subs

New Orleans beignets with French coffee.

I could never deep-fry a scallop.

R17, anyone can make an eggcream. They're not complicated.

R20--It's not that they're complicated, but you've got to get the proportions right or it's just....off. Making an egg cream may appear simple, but they're easier to fuck up than you might imagine.

Well, I get it right R21, and if I can, it's not that hard, because I'm no good with preparing most drinks & cooking. and such.

I would kill for a Fishamajig or a sausage, egg, and cheese croissant from Dunkin Donuts.

Honorable mention: clam cakes, apple cider donuts, Del's lemonade, Gaspar's linguica and chorizo, proper malasadas, tuna or lobster roll in a grilled, buttery, split-top bun.

Jamaican patty no bodegas around me for hundreds of miles.

I want to try an In and Out burger or a Whataburger. Those California burgers supposedly are very good. I want to try Publix supermarket fried chicken or one of their sandwiches but they are only in Florida.

R3, take a flight to the UK. Never stopped selling it here and available everywhere.

R18 That was my choice as well! I didn't realize how lucky I was when I lived in N.O. and could buzz over to CDM whenever i felt like it. it's still the best cafe au lait in this country.

Kellogg's Concentrate Cereal. The little, gold-foil wrapped box of breakfast goodness that the company stopped making it (late 70s or early 80s?). Voted No. 9 in "the greatest all-time breakfast cereal" poll. And even after being gone for 35 years there's a Facebook page set up trying to get the company to bring it back.

Here in Barcelona it is impossible to find decent mexican or chinese food.

Looks like Concentrate was too good a cereal.

I miss Arabic food in Kuwait and the UAE (and I love burritos, found "Mission" burritos in SF to be all kinds of overrated -- and they seem to be getting smaller and more expensive).

I miss good pizza, good Greek food, good bakeries, good bagels

What cannot be found in Cali: Viennese-style bakery selling true Kaiser rolls, twin rolls, horseshoe rolls - heavenly crust outside, sinful cloudy softness inside. Want!

Thanks for the tip about Hadley's, r13.

The site doesn't say whether their dates are pitted – – surely they are – – but do you know for sure?

You can get them pitted, but it's not usually worth the extra cost. My mom used to pit them and replace the pit with a walnut for a holiday treat. Or cut up dates and add to cooked oatmeal for a hot breakfast to die for.

Hadley's sells Honeyball dates—big, soft, puffy dates that melt in your mouth—at their store. So good, you'll cry real tears…

How does Hadley's compare with Shields Date Farm?

I would kill for a jug of Federweisser, the new wine made from the fall harvest and only available for a few weeks. I used to drink it by the liter, and I can't find it anywhere in the USA

OP, I'm sobbing into the burlap sack I wear as a shirt over your plight.

Whataburger is not the best burger in Texas. It's the best fast-food burger. We pass by McDonald's and BK for a dependably decent burger at Whataburger.

Sharks fin soup

R17, a surfer who makes good egg creams is nearly the perfect man. Are you single?

Pepper Steak grinders from Three Aces Pizza

in Italy, the place where Viennetta was born, it's seen as a very white trash dessert

You won't like my answer, but it's to die for.

[quote]Whataburger is not the best burger in Texas. It's the best fast-food burger. We pass by McDonald's and BK for a dependably decent burger at Whataburger.

What is a "fast-food burger"?

Any decent Chinese

Same here, r46

-- in LA

Dreamland BBQ ribs, Birmingham, AL. Grayson's smoked turkey and BBQ, Clarence, LA. I'm in a BBQ wasteland, also known as NC.

Natchitoches meat pies, New Orleans muffulettas, really good fish & chips. I miss Arthur Treacher's.

Cambells Scotch Broth and HoJo's chicken croquettes. How I miss my old comfort foods.

If you are a devoted fan of Rendezvous Ribs in Memphis, they have a website where you can receive them the next day via FedEx.

It's called HogsFly

Hey R41 — R17 here. I’m kinda taken (I think). My main dude doesn’t like egg creams at all, however, so if he and I ever split up, it would be nice to know there’s someone else who’d appreciate my culinary talents.

Did someone say that can't get cannoli in Houston? That can't possibly be true. If so, that's a really sad statement about Houston.

That's like saying you can't find chocolate cake.

The beer garden at Ben's Tuneup and all it has to offer, food, craft beers and a fun time. Love this place. Asheville, NC.

Houston has Italian restaurants, where I could probably find cannoli. However, it's not the kind of thing you can pick up at the bakery.

R50 I have always wanted to try the ribs, but they are so expensive via delivery as compared to in the restaurant. I would expect to pay a decent markup, but two racks in the Memphis location is approx $38, but they're $100 by FedEx. I don't think I can justify that for 20 bones.

r55 -- Get 8 racks for dirt cheap.

Get some friends to go in with you.

R54 - that's just depressing. But I'm sure there's some good Mexican food in Houston.

Guess you'll have to make do with Arthur Bryant's. Get rubs and the sauce and make your own.

Baskin-Robbins Winter White Chocolate ice cream.

More food obsession for the fatties

I almost forgot: Blue Bell white chocolate almond ice cream. I'm no ice cream fiend, but I loved that stuff.

LOL R60 I was waiting for a "you type fat comment"

Toasted Ravioli from St. Louis. And Steak N Shake steakburgers

I am in a small town that does not know how to make pizzas. I was craving one so I bought one of their crappy pizzas and now I am up with a stomach ache from it in the middle of the night.

Decent Mexican food.

R47, if you're claiming that you can't get "decent Chinese" in LA, then you don't know good Chinese food. The San Gabriel Valley has the best Chinese food in the nation. Where are you from?

R3 - I'd forgotten all about Viennetta. It really was quite good for a mass produced product from a massive consumer packaged goods conglomerate. Shame they don't bring it back as a seasonal item. You know, "McRib" it.

R66 - Assume R47 is referring to Central LA or the city of LA where, let's face it, good Chinese, let alone great Chinese is surprisingly hard to find. Yeah, there is amazing Chinese food in SGV, but that's not really LA proper.

I was born in the UK and go back every few years, but I miss pork pies. Oh, and the really delicious sliced deli tongue you could get in most grocery stores. You can find tongue in Jewish delis here in California, but it's nowhere nearly as flavorful as the stuff you get in England. My mum tells me that it's because of the type of cows and/or Ox used in the UK.

I know British people love pork pies, but I tried one and I don't get it. I guess you have to grow up with it...

Irish brain stew, a Texas delicacy.

The other thread reminded me that there's no Scandinavian food around here! I love Scandinavian food!

And I just got back from Maine, and now I realize that the nearest source of really good fish chowder is 3,000 miles away. I'll have to learn to make the stuff myself.

R59

Are you not near a Baskin-Robbins? 'Cuz they show Winter White Chocolate as being one of their current flavors.

I'm still missing my Baskin-Robbins fave, Pink Grapefruit Ice. They gave that up years ago.

R17 Regarding your hunt for an Egg Cream, if you ever go from Santa Barbara to Ventura, you might want to stop in at the Busy Bee Cafe, located on Main Street in the old downtown section. I have never had one there, but Egg Cream is still on their menu. Cheers!

Busy Bee Cafe

478 E. Main St.,

Ventura, CA

(805) 643-4864

busybeecafe.biz

OP, where are you? Do they have any local foods you think you'll crave when you're thousands of miles away from there? And what does it take to get a craving for the bland dishes of Moosewood, formulated in an age before vegetarians had learned about spices or seasonings? Surely you can reproduce their dullness with one of the Moosewood cookbooks.

Fried Clams from Provincetown MA, they use the whole clam and are delish!

I miss Whataburger. They had them in the east coast for awhile. I guess the thinner California style burgers are just not popular here. I prefer them to the pub style burgers that are more prevalent here.

R59 I loved pink grapefruit sorbet as well.

The best Chinese food is in Blaine, Missouri

I bought a stool there.

[quote]Crab Devonshire. A Pittsburgh delicacy that hasn't been made in decades, featuring crab, bacon, toast, and mornay sauce. You can get it with turkey, but it's not as good

Add a tomato to the turkey version and you have what they call a Hot Brown in Kentucky. They're amazing when done right.

Oh, Veselka, my favorite East Village sobering up place to be! I'm part Slovak, so it's total comfort food. It is definitely hard to find great pierogie's and I know if I ever had brought my grandmother there, she would have said that the dough was too thick. My hands have been slapped hard for over working the dough. The food masters in my family learned to roll an almost translucent dough that barely contain the filling. I get it, but can't do it.

Jamaican meat patties to whomever wrote that? I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out. Some of the best I've had are by a Mom and Pop frozen food business in White Plains. I found them at that first big convenience/gas station on the Hutchinson Parkway. the Mobil with that fake ass cell phone tower/tree.

Whatever this is called. I want one.

Sicilian breakfast. Granita & brioche.

Silver Star Cheese Ravioli!