11 Michigan Foods and Drinks Out-of-Staters Have Never Heard Of

Try describing a favorite Michigan treat to someone from out of state, and watch their confused look.

Michiganders grow up with local foods and drinks that don’t always travel past the state line.

Here are some favorites your out-of-state friends are missing.

1. Cudighi

Travel Marquette says cudighi originated in northern Italy, but today you’ll find it mostly in the Upper Peninsula, especially in Marquette County.

Italian immigrants initially sold the sausage in northern Michigan in 1936.

Tino’s Bar and Pizza describes its version as an Italian sausage patty on a bun with pizza sauce, onion and mozzarella.

It’s pizza on a bun.

2. Boston Cooler

If you order a Boston Cooler in Detroit, you’ll get Vernors ginger ale with vanilla ice cream.

It’s dessert you drink.

Detroit public radio (WDET) says the name’s history dates back at least as early as 1889, and the earliest print appearance it found was in a Sunday edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Detroit then turned the drink into a summertime staple.

Vernors copyrighted the term in 1967 for a ginger-ale flavored ice-cream bar.

3. Bumpy Cake

Bumpy Cake began in 1913, when founder Fred Sanders created it at the Sanders chocolate shop in Detroit, according to Taste of Home.

It started out as the Sanders Devil’s Food Buttercream Cake.

Customers nicknamed it for the bumps, and Sanders changed the name to match.

The cake has fudge-covered buttercream bumps, and it’s been called a giant Hostess cupcake in sheet-cake form.

4. Trenary Toast

MyNorth traces Trenary Toast to Trenary Home Bakery, which Finnish immigrant Jorma Syrannen started in a small logging town in 1928.

You dunk a slice in milk or a warm cup of coffee.

The bakery became known for korppu, a twice-baked sweet bread coated in cinnamon and sugar.

5. Faygo Rock & Rye

Faygo Rock & Rye is a vanilla-cream soda with a hit of semi-tart cherry flavor.

You can thank the Feigenson brothers, who started a Detroit bottling business in November 1907 that later became Faygo.

The Detroit Historical Society lists Rock & Rye among the flavors that remain Detroit favorites.

Atlas Obscura says the name may be a cheeky nod to a cocktail of the same name that had suddenly become illegal.

It’s soda, not a cocktail.

6. Flint-Style Coney

A Flint-style coney starts with a hot dog from Koegel's, a German meatpacking company that started in Flint in 1916, made to cook on the grill longer.

Flint Original opened in 1919.

A Genesee County Historical Society history says the original coney sauce blended beef heart and kidney with beef, using beef suet as a base.

According to Flint Beat's coverage of a 2023 Flint coney event, Koegel's sells those Coney Franks only to coney restaurants in Michigan.

You can't buy them in grocery stores.

7. Superman Ice Cream

Detroit public radio describes Superman ice cream as a red, yellow and blue scoop.

A Wyandotte ice cream parlor owner says you can find the flavor only in Michigan and a few select places in the Midwest.

The earliest mention found of a three-flavor ice cream called Superman is a 1941 newspaper ad from Lancaster, Wisconsin.

The origin stays unclear.

8. Towne Club Pop

Towne Club pop is a Michigan soda brand that Harold Samhat founded in 1959, according to Michigan Public.

He built the business around retail pop shops.

A Towne Club national accounts manager said the brand ran around 50 to 60 of those shops at its height, and carried 30 to 40 flavors in glass bottles.

9. Olive Burger

If you order an olive burger, many people outside Lansing look puzzled.

Lansing's version started at Weston's Kewpee Sandwich Shop, according to the State News, Michigan State University's student newspaper.

Gladys and William Weston opened the shop in the 1920s, and Gladys created the olive burger.

Weston's version uses a mayonnaise-based sauce with green olives.

Lansing's first Olive Burger Week was set for January 23 to 31, 2026.

It gets a week.

10. Smoked Chub

Interlochen Public Radio reported in 2009 that smoked chub was the smoked fish of choice at local retailers until the mid-1990s.

Chubs made up 90 percent of the smoked fish sold at Monte's Original Smoke House in Frankfort.

The number of chubs had fallen more than 99 percent in 20 years.

In 2013, the station profiled the Chubby Mary at The Cove restaurant, a Bloody Mary with smoked chub in it.

Almost no chubs were for sale anymore.

11. Thimbleberry Jam

American Spoon makes Wild Thimbleberry Jam from berries that a handful of families in the Keweenaw Peninsula supply, UPword reported in 2012.

If you open a jar, you'll find a taste reminiscent of currants and raspberries.