13 Upstate New York Sayings That Baffle Everyone Outside the State
Think you know how Upstate New York talks?
Prove it.
From the Thruway to the North Country, Upstaters toss around words that stop a visitor cold on the first try.
These are the Upstate New York sayings that baffle other Americans.
1. Garbage Plate
Order a garbage plate in Rochester, and you get a glorious mess on one plate.
Home fries and macaroni salad form the base.
Then come two cheeseburgers or hot dogs, a ladle of meat hot sauce, mustard, and diced onions on top.
It sounds like a dare.
Nick Tahou Hots made it famous, and Rochester locals eat one after midnight without blinking.
Ask for “a plate” anywhere in the city, and everyone knows exactly what you mean.
2. Grabbing a Pop
Ask an Upstate New Yorker for a soda, and you might get a blank look.
Up here, it’s pop.
From Buffalo to Watertown, the fizzy stuff in the can is pop, nothing else.
Say soda, and everyone knows you’re not local.
Ask for a pop downstate in the city, though, and you’ll get the blank look right back.
3. Ordering a Michigan
In the North Country near Plattsburgh, a Michigan has nothing to do with the state next door.
It’s a hot dog.
You get a steamed frank on a bun buried under a spiced meat sauce, with chopped onions tucked under the dog or piled on top.
Confused yet?
Plattsburgh and the state of Michigan both claim the sauce, and Upstaters near the border will argue about it all night.
4. Beef on Weck
Buffalo’s answer to the roast beef sandwich is beef on weck.
The weck is a kummelweck roll, crusted with coarse salt and caraway seeds.
Pile on rare roast beef and sharp horseradish.
The salt does the work.
Order it outside Western New York, and you’ll get a puzzled stare.
5. Spiedies
Down in Binghamton, summer smells like spiedies on the grill.
A spiedie is cubes of marinated chicken or pork, skewered and grilled, then slid off into a slice of soft Italian bread.
Simple and perfect.
Italian immigrants brought them over a century ago.
Binghamton throws a whole Spiedie Fest and Balloon Rally for them each summer, and outsiders still show up asking how to say the word.
6. Salt Potatoes
A Central New York cookout isn’t complete without salt potatoes.
These are little white potatoes boiled in heavily salted water until the skins go tender and crackly.
You drown them in melted butter.
Salt water. On purpose.
Irish salt workers in 1800s Syracuse started it, and now every summer barbecue in the region carries a pot.
A local company still boxes the potatoes with the salt included.
7. White Hots
Rochester grills a hot dog most of the country has never seen: The white hot.
It’s a pale sausage of pork, beef, and veal, uncured and unsmoked.
No red dye, no smoke.
Zweigle’s built its name on them.
Bite into a Rochester white hot at a summer cookout, and a visitor will ask why the hot dog looks so pale.
Psst! How much do you know about Upstate New York? Take our quiz and see how many you can get right.
Quiz
Upstate New York Trivia
Answer these questions on Upstate New York, from Jell-O to lake-effect snow. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?
The wiggly dessert Jell-O was invented in which Upstate New York village?
8. Chicken Riggies
Utica claims a pasta dish outsiders have never heard of: Chicken riggies.
Riggies means rigatoni.
You toss the tubes with chicken, hot and sweet peppers, and a spicy tomato-cream sauce.
It's a Utica staple.
Every fundraiser and family party in the Mohawk Valley serves a tray, and nobody outside town can guess what "riggies" means.
9. Half-Moon
Ask for a half-moon around Utica or Albany, and you'll get a cakey cookie, not a black-and-white.
The two aren't the same, and Upstaters will correct you.
A half-moon is soft and cakey, frosted half chocolate and half vanilla.
Fighting words.
Call it a black-and-white cookie up here, and someone will set you straight fast.
10. Sponge Candy
Buffalo's favorite candy is sponge candy, and it stumps everyone else.
Picture a crunchy, honeycombed toffee center dipped in chocolate.
It melts on your tongue.
Light as foam.
Western New York candy shops sell it by the box around the holidays, and transplants have no idea what to ask for.
11. North Country
Say you're headed to the North Country, and an Upstater knows exactly where you mean.
Everyone else pictures Santa.
The North Country is the wide stretch north of Saratoga, up around the Adirondacks to the Canadian border.
Cabins, cold lakes, and long drives.
To a downstater, though, "upstate" starts at Yonkers, so the map argument never ends.
12. Thruway
Upstate New Yorkers plan whole trips around the Thruway.
That's the New York State Thruway, the toll superhighway running across the state.
It runs clear from the New York City line up to Buffalo.
Locals just say "the Thruway" and name an exit number.
Exit 24. Everybody knows.
Tell an outsider to get off at the next Thruway exit, and they'll wonder which of the country's thousand highways you mean.
13. Tag Sale
In parts of Upstate New York, you don't hold a garage sale. You hold a tag sale.
Same driveway, same old lamps, different name.
The tags are the point.
You wander the neighborhood on a Saturday morning hunting for a bargain in someone's driveway.
Say "tag sale" outside New York and New England, and people picture a store clearing its racks instead.
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New Yorkers move through the day with habits the other forty-nine states would never sign off on.
Some look rude to a visitor, but most just shave off a few precious seconds.
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The parking ticket waited under the wiper all morning, and the day had barely started.
Rent due, toll paid, tax withheld: New Yorkers know the feeling by heart.
