6 Rhode Island Foods and Drinks Locals Have to Explain to Everyone Else

Ask for a milkshake in Rhode Island, and you might get something thinner than you pictured.

A cabinet is what you wanted.

Locals are used to explaining that one, and it’s far from the only menu word that needs a translation.

Here are the Rhode Island foods and drinks locals have to explain to everyone else.

1. New York System Wieners

New York System wieners carry a name locals end up explaining to nearly every first-time visitor.

The state on the sign has nothing to do with the state on the plate.

The style traces to 1927, when Augustus Pappas, a Greek immigrant, opened one of Providence’s earliest wiener counters.

He borrowed “New York System” as a name for a fast new way to serve a hot dog.

Nobody renamed it since.

“All the way” means mustard, a spiced meat sauce, chopped onions, and celery salt piled onto the wiener, never ketchup.

Ask for a hot dog instead of a wiener, and a server will still serve you.

A Rhode Islander will correct you anyway.

2. Dynamites

Dynamites are the local answer to a sloppy joe, and almost nobody outside the state has ever heard the name.

The sandwich traces to the 1920s, when RoseAnna Thibeault sold them from a basement kitchen at Hamlet Lunch in Woonsocket.

A worsted mill nearby kept her counter busy with textile workers.

Ground beef simmers for hours with peppers, onions, and tomato until it thickens enough to hold its shape on a crusty roll.

The kick earned the name.

Early versions ran spicy enough that the nickname stuck, and nobody in Woonsocket ever bothered giving the sandwich a calmer name.

Massachusetts and Connecticut diners rarely recognize the name at all.

3. Coffee Milk

Rhode Island’s coffee milk is milk stirred with a sweetened coffee-flavored syrup, never brewed coffee, and a 1993 law made it the state’s official drink.

Kids drink it at breakfast the same way other states pour orange juice.

Their version of orange juice.

Two brands, Autocrat and Eclipse, still fill the syrup aisle at local grocery stores, the same coffee syrup that’s been on shelves for generations.

A diner counter still serves “a coffee” hot, black or with cream, in an actual cup.

“Coffee milk” arrives cold, sweet, and nothing like the name suggests.

4. Cabinets

Cabinets are the local word for a milkshake, the kind blended with actual ice cream.

Asking for a “milkshake” by name gets you something thinner almost everywhere in the state.

The name traces to a soda-fountain drink documented in Chicago trade papers as early as 1892, and Rhode Island fountains had adapted a coffee version of it by 1903.

The rest of the country moved on to “milkshake.”

The state never did.

Cross into Massachusetts, and the same ice cream drink goes by “frappe,” a word that means nothing at a Rhode Island counter.

Some local soda fountains hear “milkshake” and hand over milk and syrup with no ice cream at all.

5. Johnnycakes

Johnnycakes look like pancakes on a diner menu, and a visitor from anywhere else who orders them expecting a fluffy stack gets something denser and savory instead.

The cakes trace to Narragansett cooking, built from a corn variety locals still call white cap flint corn.

Cooks grind it fine and fry it on a griddle instead of baking it into batter with flour.

Kenyon’s Grist Mill in South Kingstown still grinds that same corn into meal, the way mills along the state’s rivers always have.

No flour, ever.

Cooks can’t even agree with each other on how thick to make one.

The state splits into a thin-and-crispy camp and a thick-and-doughy camp, with no truce in sight.

Spell it “johnnycake” or “jonnycake.”

Either way, a Rhode Islander quickly corrects any visitor who calls it a pancake.

6. Stuffies

Stuffies are the local name for a giant stuffed clam, and the word alone tells a visitor nothing until the dish lands on the table.

The clam underneath is a quahog, a hard-shell clam that grows several times the size of a littleneck, big enough that one shell holds a full portion of filling.

The meat gets chopped, mixed with seasoned breadcrumbs, and packed back into the shell before it bakes.

One shell, one serving.

Seafood counters and delis sell stuffies by the piece year-round, not just at clam shacks in summer.