April 2016

A Regional Delicacy from Utica, New York

Unless you grew up with real home-style Italian cooking, rigatoni probably doesn’t mean much to you. For most of us, this dish remains relegated to school cafeterias and wedding buffets. But there’s a tiny region in Upstate New York where rigatoni highlights menus and carries cultural importance. Here, the pasta dish gets dressed up with peppers, mushrooms, onions, and black olives. For a handful of years, Utica even hosted an annual Riggiefest. Thousands of riggie aficiandos crowded the Utica Memorial Auditorium for a cook-off where the area’s very best Chicken Riggies were crowned. Since Teddy’s Restaurant in Rome won that distinction three years in a row, it’s largely considered to be the Utica region’s premier destination for authentic chicken (or even sausage) riggies.

Next time you find yourself passing near or through Utica, be sure to stop and taste this regional delicacy. Until then, you can share the dish with your family at home thanks to a few particularly delicious recipes available online.

A Well-Rounded Repertoire of Riggies

• This recipe without cream claims to be the original.
• Reviewers have called this “Utica” rendition “perfect.”
• This “wicked” recipe includes a lot more spicy ingredients than others.
• AllRecipes.com features not just one but two Utica Riggies recipes.