Modern Forage: East North Central (rural, non-MSA)
Two clusters anchor here: the rural Indiana Hoosier-Quaker baking tradition (Sugar Cream Pie at Mrs. Wick's of Winchester; Persimmon Pudding at Mitchell's Persimmon Festival since 1947) and the Upper Peninsula's Cornish, Finnish, and Italian copper-mine immigrant foodways across Marquette, Houghton, Trenary, and the Keweenaw.
This post collects the East North Central dishes whose canonical anchors sit outside any metropolitan area: rural Indiana for Sugar Cream Pie and Persimmon Pudding, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for Cudighi, the UP Pasty, and the Finnish UP foodways ecosystem.
The Upper Peninsula entries cluster geographically (the Marquette / Houghton / Iron Mountain / Ironwood corridor) and culturally (Cornish, Finnish, and Italian copper-mine immigrant communities). Sugar Cream Pie traces to Quaker farms along Indiana’s eastern border (Winchester area). Persimmon Pudding lives in Mitchell, IN and the surrounding southern-Indiana hill country.
This list is almost certainly incomplete; the rural East North Central holds further hyper-local dishes that have not yet surfaced in the survey.
A note on the Where-to-eat blocks. Every entry below carries a list of restaurants and, where available, star ratings as of the date this post was published. These are a snapshot. Restaurants close, change ownership, drift in quality, raise prices, lose key staff. The author will not commit to maintaining the listings in real time. Expect a periodic refresh rather than a live database. Treat the ratings as “good enough at the time” rather than current truth, and verify hours and addresses before driving anywhere.
Sugar Cream Pie — Winchester, IN / Indiana (statewide)
No eggs. Just cream, sugar, flour, butter, vanilla, and nutmeg on top. Custard-like filling in flaky crust. Indiana’s unofficial state pie, traceable to Quaker farms along Indiana’s eastern border (Richmond, Winchester, Portland, New Castle areas) between 1810 and 1825. Mrs. Wick’s Pie Shop in Winchester is the canonical commercial source. Indiana Senate Resolution 59 (January 23, 2009) named it the unofficial state pie. Hoosier Pie Trail guides visitors to the best versions across the state.
Sources: Food Network; everafterinthewoods (2025); Chef Standards (2025); Indiana Senate Resolution 59 (2009); Tasting Table on the history. Five+ sources.
Where to eat: Mrs. Wick’s Pies, 100 N Cherry St, Winchester (the canonical commercial source; whole pies, slices, and shipping). Wick’s Pies factory (Winchester production tour and retail). Mama Bear’s Bakery, 6505 N Ferguson St, Indianapolis (highly regarded Indianapolis-area version). Most Indiana diners and church suppers have one. The Hoosier Pie Trail maps the rest.
Persimmon Pudding — Mitchell, IN (Southern Indiana)
Dense, cake-like dessert made from wild American persimmon pulp (not Japanese persimmons), cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar. “More of a very moist cake than a creamy pudding.” Mitchell, IN (Lawrence County, non-CBSA) hosts the annual Persimmon Festival (since 1947). Persimmons must be perfectly ripe, after first frost.
Sources: Food Network; everafterinthewoods (2025); Chef Standards (2025). Four+ sources.
Where to eat: Persimmon Festival, Mitchell, IN (last full week of September; since 1947; the festival is the canonical experience and includes the Persimmon Pudding Contest with multi-generational family recipes). Lawrence County Persimmon Pudding home stands and the Mitchell town square during festival week. Off-season, persimmon pudding is primarily home cooking; Story Inn in Brown County and a handful of southern Indiana diners serve it seasonally after first frost.
Cudighi — Upper Peninsula (Marquette area)
A spiced Italian sausage sandwich seasoned with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and wine, served on a long roll with pizza sauce and mozzarella. Brought by Italian immigrants to the UP’s mining communities in the 1930s. The name is believed to derive from a southern Italian dialect word. Found almost exclusively in and around Marquette, with deli and pizzeria coverage extending to Ishpeming and Negaunee. Atlas Obscura describes it as a sausage that “survived” in one of America’s most geographically isolated regions.
Sources: Mashed; Atlas Obscura (referenced); multiple UP food roundups.
Where to eat: Lawry’s Pasty Shop, 2164 US-41, Marquette, MI (4.6 stars, 652 reviews; “best cudighi ever” per reviews; also famous for pasties). Vango’s Pizza, 927 N 3rd St, Marquette (4.6 stars, 1,719 reviews). Ralph’s Italian Deli, Ishpeming (4.6 stars; cudighi sandwiches by the pound at the deli counter).
UP Michigan Pasty — Upper Peninsula, MI
Pattern: Mining Corridors.
A D-shaped handheld meat pie of beef, potato, onion, and rutabaga in a sturdy shortcrust pastry, eaten out of hand. Brought by Cornish tin miners (“Cousin Jacks”) who came to work UP copper mines in the mid-1800s. Miners’ wives scratched initials into the crust so husbands could identify their own in the dim mines, and the crimped edge served as a disposable handle for men with dirty hands. Finnish and Italian immigrants adopted the tradition and added their own touches (Finns favored more rutabaga; Italians introduced a pastry-style crust). Governor George Romney declared May 24 Michigan Pasty Day in 1968. The rutabaga question is a litmus test: purists insist a pasty without rutabaga is “just an inferior pot pie.” Carrots are tolerated in the eastern UP but suspect in the Copper Country. The condiment war is equally fierce: western UP purists eat with ketchup or plain, dismissing gravy as “a lower Michigan deal” invented to mask dry, bad pasties made near the Mackinac Bridge. Pasty shops dot every UP town from St. Ignace to Ironwood. The dish is the unofficial state food of the UP, functioning as regional identity marker, fundraiser staple (churches and school groups sell them), and tourist draw. Functionally unknown in Lower Michigan outside transplant communities, and rarely seen in the rest of the country. Related to but independently evolved from the Butte, MT pasty tradition, which shares Cornish origins but developed separately in a different mining community.
Sources: Newcity Resto (2023, detailed cultural essay); Hour Detroit (2016, with multiple named shop owners); NBC Montana (2025, MSU Prof. Mary Murphy); Lehto’s Pasties / mynorth.com (2020, with owner Bill Lehto); thepastyguy.com; Foodie With Family (with multi-generational Cornish family source). Six+ independent sources.
Where to eat: Iron Town Pasties, 801 N Teal Lake Ave, Negaunee, MI (4.7 stars, 435 reviews; vegan and GF options alongside traditional). Lehto’s Pasties, 1983 US-2, St. Ignace (4.7 stars, 1,071 reviews; since 1947; a must-stop crossing the Mackinac Bridge). Muldoons Pasties, 1246 M-28, Munising (4.6 stars, 1,443 reviews). Lawry’s Pasty Shop, 2164 US-41, Marquette (4.6 stars, 652 reviews; family-run since 1946; also serves cudighi).
Finnish UP Foodways — Keweenaw Peninsula / Western UP
More people of Finnish descent live in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula than anywhere outside Finland. Finnish immigrants came to work the copper mines alongside the Cornish and Italians, and their food traditions embedded so deeply that Finnish items are now standard grocery store stock across the UP, invisible to locals and baffling to visitors. Key items: Pannukakku (Finnish oven pancake) is a custard-like baked pancake served in squares with raspberry sauce or thimbleberry jam, nothing like an American pancake. Suomi Home Bakery in Houghton is the temple: bilingual Finnish-English menu, nisu (cardamom sweet bread) French toast, and pannukakku as the star. Juustoa (leipäjuusto, “bread cheese”) is a baked Finnish cheese that squeaks when you bite it. U.P. Foods in Lake Linden is the only licensed producer in Michigan. It’s in every UP grocery store. Trenary Toast (korppu) is Finnish-style dried cinnamon toast made by Trenary Home Bakery since 1928 in the town of Trenary (pop ~400). One bakery, one recipe, nearly 100 years. You buy it at gas stations across the UP or order it shipped. You dunk it in coffee. Thimbleberry jam is made from a wild berry that grows only in the northernmost UP and Lake Superior region. The berry is too fragile to farm commercially, so it’s hand-harvested. The Jampot, a bakery run by monks at a Ukrainian Catholic monastery on the Keweenaw Peninsula, is the most famous producer. The Jam Lady in Eagle River sells it from a room attached to her house on the honor system. Saunamakkara (sauna sausage) is a ring bologna traditionally cooked in a sauna. It’s in UP grocery stores next to the juustoa. The Finnish UP food ecosystem parallels the Dearborn Arab-American foodways entry: not a single named dish but an entire parallel food infrastructure rooted in one immigrant community, operating at a density that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the US.
Sources: Wikipedia (Cuisine of Michigan, detailed Finnish food inventory); Roadfood (Suomi Home Bakery review); The Daily Beast (2024, “Welcome to Yooperland, A Little Slice of Finland”); Farm Flavor (2024, U.P. Foods/juustoa production); Road Trip Owl (2026, UP food guide); multiple UP food blogs with multi-generational Finnish family sources. Six+ independent sources.
Where to eat: Suomi Home Bakery & Restaurant, 54 Huron St, Houghton, MI (4.8 stars, 1,572 reviews; pannukakku, nisu French toast, Finnish sausage). The Jampot, 6500 M-26, Eagle Harbor, MI (4.7 stars, 1,242 reviews; thimbleberry jam, baked goods, run by Ukrainian Catholic monks). Trenary Home Bakery, Trenary, MI (4.6 stars; buy the cinnamon toast at local gas stations or order online). U.P. Foods, Lake Linden, MI (the only licensed juustoa producer in the state; available at every UP grocery).
More from the series
Browse the rest of the Modern Forage survey.
Research & primary sources
Methodology, validation logs, and the entries that didn’t make this post are in the modern_forage/ on GitHub. Every entry here passed a 2+ independent-source check; the citations under each dish list them.