Kombucha!
Is Kombucha regional?
Stuffies - stuffed Quahogs and Dell’s Lemonade (Rhode Island)
Deep-fried dill pickles are something we tried recently in Chicago. They’re great if you like sour. Nice to have a dip to put them in. Sorry, we didn’t like cheese potaine with brown gravy (had this in Chicago too). We weren’t sure if those were normal regional foods but we had them offered at bars while in Chicago.
Deep fried pickles are big in the south as well.
@MaterS My favorite movie theater in MN had Chicago mix as an concession option. Noplace in Seattle does as far as I can tell. 
They could win my movie-going loyalty…
Yes, there was a lot of delicious popcorn in Chicago as well. 
My friend makes Kombucha, plus they sell it bottled at Whole Foods and other stores. She uses the fermented starter, which she puts in tea and lets it sit with a fermenting starter at room temperature in a glass jar for several weeks and she adds some fruit flavorings from fresh fruits and puts it in the fridge.
They have fried pickles at Chili’s, so pretty much nationwide at this point.
State fair cream puffs in Wisconsin. All the varieties of brats at local Wisconsin meat markets. So much local cheese.
But my heart is in my Arizona childhood. Green corn tamales, green chili burros, and cheese crisps as an appetizer. Date shakes were a local favorite as well.
However my mom went to a Germanic, maybe Pennsylvanian natural butcher in Phoenix where they made a very good scrapple, and it was one of the delights of those early years. I have never met anyone else that has tried it.
Maryland blue shell crabcakes, and Rhode Island clam cakes.
I’ve lived in 9 states, in just about every area of the country. I have my favorites from every area and while you can get brats and tacos and crab cakes in other places, they aren’t the same.
“Deep-fried dill pickles are something we tried recently in Chicago. They’re great if you like sour.”
There’s a place in the city that makes fantastic deep-fried bread-and-butter pickles. That’s more my speed.
Northern Kentucky has a barbecued mutton tradition. We tried it on a buffet…not bad.
I don’t love the white barbecue sauce at certain joints in Alabama. I just couldn’t get behind it.
Nine pages and nobody has mentioned Dungeness crab? My D and SIL brought some from the Seattle Public Market, (not the stall where they throw the fish). They walked there the morning of the flight , had the crab crated up on ice, caught light rail to the airport, and we had our Christmas present that night. It was phenomenal. The sweetest and richest ever, and my parents crabbed in season for ever so I know my Dungeness. So - where do the winter crab come from?
Switching regions, one can debate tamales. Here in Texas they are thin and mostly meaty. I have ordered them in CA, and been served a huge cylinder of masa and after I pushed that aside the filling had olives inside.
@“great lakes mom” My ex-h is from the Midwest (lower peninsula of MI). He ate scrapple. I think he found it at a butcher shop in Minneapolis.
When we’ve been to Cape Cod, we’ve had pizza with (I think it’s called) linguica on top. Liked it but have never seen it outside of New England. What is it, or do I not want to know (like you would not want to know what’s in scrapple if you don’t already)?
Linguica is Portuguese sausage, a little spicy but not as spicy as Chourico. There are a lot of Portuguese-Americans in southern coastal MA (Fall River and New Bedford especially) and in RI. Good stuff!
Isn’t the joke about all sausage that you don’t want to know how it’s made?
Linguica is a Portuguese pork sausage. It’s just sausage, nothing strange. Pork shoulder, pork fat, spices. It’s smoked. Yum.
Don’t forget Rocky Mountain oysters! (Google it)