Pennsylvania Food & Traditional Cuisine

Pennsylvania has three distinct food cultures and they barely overlap.

Philadelphia has the best-known: the cheesesteak, the hoagie, the soft pretzel and water ice, plus a serious modern restaurant scene and an Italian market that has traded since the 1880s.

Pennsylvania Dutch country cooks a German farm cuisine of preserved meats, sweet-and-sour vegetables and dense pies. Pittsburgh and the mill towns eat Eastern European — pierogi, kielbasa and haluski — alongside a sandwich that puts the chips inside.

Cheesesteak

Thin-sliced beef and melted cheese on a long roll. Ordering is its own ritual — cheese choice and "wit" or "witout" onions — and the rivalry between the famous stands is largely for visitors.

Primanti sandwich

A Pittsburgh institution: meat, cheese, coleslaw and chips all inside the bread, designed to be eaten one-handed by a lorry driver.

Soft pretzel

Sold from carts and bakeries all over the southeast, eaten with mustard, and quite unlike the mall version.

Scrapple

Pork scraps and cornmeal set in a loaf, sliced and fried crisp. A Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast staple that outsiders approach cautiously and often convert to.

Shoofly pie

Molasses and crumb pie, very sweet, and the signature dessert of the Dutch country.

Pierogi

Filled dumplings, boiled then fried in butter and onion, and a genuine staple of the western mill towns.

Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia has traded since 1893 under a former train shed, with Pennsylvania Dutch stalls alongside everything else — the single best introduction to the state's food.

The Italian Market in South Philadelphia is the oldest continuously operating outdoor market in the country, and still a working shopping street rather than a display.

Lancaster County holds farmers' markets several days a week, and the ones aimed at locals rather than coaches are the ones worth finding.

In the west, the mill-town church festivals and pierogi sales are a real and seasonal part of the food calendar.

Pennsylvania has a larger wine industry than most people expect, with two main growing areas and a long history — it was among the first colonies to attempt viticulture.

The Lake Erie shore in the northwest is the state's biggest growing region, where the lake moderates the climate and extends the season; it is the country's largest grower of native American juice grapes and increasingly makes good Riesling and Chardonnay.

The Lehigh Valley in the east works cool-climate varieties and hybrids, with some serious sparkling wine.

Distilling and brewing are older traditions still. The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 was a tax revolt by western Pennsylvania rye distillers, and the state now has a strong craft brewing scene.