13 Upstate Food Icons That Are Hard to Find Outside of NYS

Upstate New York has many popular regional food favorites. Some are even micro-regional favorites. But all of the foods on this list, although beloved in Upstate New York, are almost impossible to find once you leave the friendly confines of the Empire State.

Sponge Candy (Buffalo) and Michigan Hot Dogs (Plattsburg) are two examples of food items that are micro-regionally popular. In this case just in the two mentioned cities. Garbage Plates and Pink Striped Cookies, too. Other items, like Mozzarella Sticks and Raspberry Sauce can be found at several locations in Upstate as a menu appetizer. Chicken Riggies can now be found in Italian restaurants across the region, having grown in popularity out from the Utica/Rome area where they got their start. Still, trying to find these, or any of the other items on this list, anywhere else in the country is a near impossible task!

Did You Know This?? 13 Upstate Food Favorites You Can't Buy Outside of New York State

Upstate New York is the home to many fantastic food favorites. Mention sponge candy to somebody 100 miles outside Buffalo and you are probably going to get a blank stare. Mention a Michigan hot dog to anybody not from around Plattsburgh. Same stare. So here is a list of 13 regional food icons that you cannot buy outside of the empire State.

I will add this asterisk. You certainly can buy some of these items online, like the Saratoga Peppermint Pigs. Perhaps the Stix and Sauce item is known by another name somewhere in the country. Salt potatoes may have gravitated elsewhere but if so nobody knows where they started. And Grandma Brown's Baked Beans (God rest her soul). Well, you can buy that sweet lady's baked beans on eBay (check out that expiration date; she hasn't manufactured them since the pandemic). But for the most part you would have to walk into a store or restaurant in Upstate New York to enjoy these "regional" fan favorite foods.

Gallery Credit: Chuck D'Imperio