Pittsburgh food words: stacked sandwiches, pierogies and haluski

Pittsburgh has its own vocabulary of food, shaped by the steel mills, the immigrant neighborhoods and the church kitchens that fed them. If you read a menu here, you will meet words that are not used elsewhere. Here are the main ones, where the stories come from and how to order.

What is a Pittsburgh stacked sandwich?

The sandwich puts the fries and coleslaw inside the bread, along with grilled meat and cheese. A Strip District sandwich shop is credited with the style. The story goes that its founder set up a cart and then a counter to feed produce truckers and overnight workers, and the sandwich was a whole meal in one hand. The tale that the trucker needed one free hand for the wheel is widely repeated, and it is a legend as much as history. Today the style is copied by many Pittsburgh restaurants, and a sandwich with fries inside is a normal order.

What is a Pittsburgh salad?

A Pittsburgh salad is a green salad topped with a pile of French fries, plus a grilled meat such as steak or chicken and cheese. It is the same habit as the sandwich: fries go on almost everything in Pittsburgh. If you want the dressing separate or the fries on the side, ask. Portions are large, and many people share.

What are pierogies?

Pierogies are filled dumplings that came to the region with Polish, Slovak and Ukrainian immigrants who worked in the mills. Fillings include potato and cheese, sauerkraut, cabbage, mushroom and, in some places, meat or fruit. They are boiled and often fried in butter with onions. Church groups sell them by the dozen, and many Pittsburgh parishes make them for Lent, with sales that draw lines. A restaurant version may come with sour cream or fried onions. Pierogies are also part of the city's sports culture, as a race of costumed pierogi takes place at the baseball stadium.

What is haluski?

Haluski is a dish of egg noodles or dumplings cooked with cabbage and butter, sometimes with bacon or onions. It is a comfort food from Central and Eastern European kitchens and is common in church dinners and diners. It is vegetarian without the bacon, but ask whether the dish is cooked in meat fat.

What is chipped ham?

Chipped ham, sometimes called chipped chopped ham, is a thinly shaved deli ham. It is a Pittsburgh-area lunch sandwich, often served on a soft roll with barbecue sauce or mustard. The origin is local lore, and details differ from shop to shop.

What other Pittsburgh words and dishes will you meet?

You may see "yinz," the local second-person plural, on shirts and signs. A "gumband" is a rubber band. Cookie tables, large displays of homemade cookies at weddings, are a regional tradition. Fish sandwiches are common on Fridays in Lent, when Catholic parishes hold fish fries that welcome the public. Wedding soup, an Italian-American soup with small meatballs and greens, is a standard at red-sauce restaurants. Many Pittsburghers also eat kielbasa, kolaches and nut rolls at holidays.

How do you order these dishes?

Ask what a dish includes, since portion sizes can be large. Order one to share when you are not sure. Ask for fries on the side or on the sandwich according to your preference. For pierogies, ask whether they are boiled or fried, and which fillings are available. Locals are glad to explain, and staff in neighborhood restaurants often enjoy a question.

What about dietary needs?

Many of these dishes contain wheat, dairy and meat, and fried foods share oil. Vegetarian options exist, such as potato and cheese pierogies, but may be cooked with butter or bacon fat. Vegans can ask for a plain salad, and gluten-free guests may find that the sandwich and the pierogies are not options. Tell the server at the start of the meal, and ask about the kitchen.

Where should you try these dishes? Church fish fries and pierogi sales are open to the public, and they are a direct way to taste the tradition. Look for notices in parish bulletins, on community boards and on social pages, usually in the weeks of Lent and before Christmas and Easter. Diners and corner taverns serve haluski and chipped ham, and the Strip District has sandwich counters that serve the fries-inside style. A farmers market or a festival such as Little Italy Days adds more choice. Bring cash for church sales, since many volunteers take only cash.

Visitors often ask which dish to try first if they have only one meal. A reasonable answer is a sandwich from the Strip District for the story, a plate of pierogies for the tradition, and a cookie from a bakery to take home. If your time allows, add a bowl of wedding soup at an Italian restaurant in Bloomfield. None of these needs a reservation, and all can be done in a day with a bus pass. Ask the people around you what they eat at home: Pittsburghers are proud of their food and usually have a favorite corner place to recommend.

How do you remember the Pittsburgh dishes you want to eat again?

Words like haluski and chipped ham are easy to forget and hard to spell when a friend asks what you ate. Mosey is a food app for finding, rating and sharing places to eat, and it rates by the dish, so the stacked sandwich, the pierogies and the Pittsburgh salad each go on record under their own name.

Tag a rating with what made it good, such as Good Portions, and build a list called "Pittsburgh firsts" that visiting friends can open from an invite link. Follow someone who grew up here and their ratings become a local's tour.

Rate your first pierogi in the Mosey app and tell the next visitor what to order.

More guides to read next:

• Pittsburgh food guide: the Strip District and Lawrenceville
• Late-night food in Pittsburgh: where to eat after midnight
• Pittsburgh Lenten fish fry guide: how to find and order one

More in the US food guides and the ranked lists of places.