regional food

[Kathleen E. Miller]

Kettle Corn is widespread - county fair type food - now available from your
microwave. I've found it in NJ - VA -TX and IN, but my parents (both 63 and
from NJ) had never heard of it until I brought some home last summer.
Bought it from a native American in a little tent right in front of the
H.E.B (that's a grocery store) in Georgetown, TX. Have a friend from MA
who'd never heard of it either. It's made in a big black kettle and I think
all that's different about it is that it's sugared instead of salted. Very
addictive stuff.

Blooming Onion, I remember in the early 1990's, while I was in college in
TX, Chili's and Outback Steakhouse were in a legal battle over the
"blooming onion." Outback still calls their's that - making me think that
Chili's must have lost that battle. (BTW - I was given one of those
blooming onion machines for Christmas about four years back. Think it's
simply called the "onion machine." It's still like-new -in the never-opened
box - so I can easily check it out).

Katy Miller
NY Times



At 11:01 AM 3/28/02 -0800, you wrote:
>On Thu, 28 Mar 2002, James A. Landau wrote:
> >
> > "blackened" and possibly other terms from Cajun cuisine, which may have
> > become widespread in the last 20 years
>
>Was this invented by Paul Prudhomme or did he just popularize it?
>
> >
> > Now for some local food items:
> > on the island next south from Atlantic City).  Also a type of popcorn
> called
> > "kettle corn", but my daughter can't remember what's in it.
>
>I've seen this recently in Washington (last 3 or 4 years, I guess) as a
>franchise business.
> >
>
> > a traveling carnival (I'm not sure of the name, but it may be G. S. Cole
> > Shows) has a refreshment stand which sells a "blooming onion", which is
> a way
> > of quick-frying an entire onion.  The top of the onion is cut into a petal
> > shape, hence "blooming", but I haven't been to that carnival in years and
> > don't remember anything else about the dish.
>
>At some point within the last 5-6 years, I saw a TV add for a product
>called an "onion bloomer" which allowed one to cut a onion correctly so
>that it could be deep fried into a "blooming onion".
>Haven't heard the term recently, however.
>
>allen
>maberry at u.washington.edu