From lobster rolls and clam chowder to cider donuts and maple creemees, these are some of the foods that make New England taste like New England.

New England has never needed fancy food trends to eat well. For generations, the region’s food has been shaped by the Atlantic, family farms, maple sugarhouses, roadside stands, neighborhood bakeries, old diners, clam shacks, orchards, and recipes that somehow survive despite nobody in the family remembering exactly where they came from. Some are famous. Some are wonderfully weird. And some will start an argument the moment you suggest there’s a “right” way to make them. That’s part of the fun.

So whether you’ve lived here your entire life or you’re planning your first New England road trip, here are 10 New England foods we think everyone should try at least once.

1. 🦞 Lobster Roll

There was really no other place to start. A New England lobster roll is beautifully simple: fresh lobster meat piled into a grilled, split-top roll. From there, however, New England stops agreeing about anything. In Maine and elsewhere around the region, you’ll commonly find lobster lightly dressed with mayonnaise, while the Connecticut-style version is traditionally served warm with melted butter. We’re not choosing sides. Actually, that’s a lie. Everyone eventually chooses sides.

The DOOZY Take: Try both. This is important research.

2. 🥣 New England Clam Chowder

Thick, creamy and loaded with clams and potatoes, New England clam chowder is pure coastal comfort food. You’ll find versions throughout the region, from neighborhood restaurants to seaside clam shacks, and everybody seems to have an opinion about how thick chowder should be. Serve it with oyster crackers and you’ve got one of the most recognizable tastes of New England. And no, we’re not getting into the New England-versus-Manhattan chowder argument today. We have families we’d like to keep together.

3. 🍩 Apple Cider Donuts

Few foods announce fall in New England quite like a warm cider donut. They’re especially good when you’re standing at an orchard or cider mill on a chilly October afternoon with foliage everywhere and absolutely no intention of eating only one. Cider in the batter gives the donuts their distinctive flavor, while cinnamon sugar handles the rest of the important work.

Best experienced: Fresh. Warm. Preferably at a New England orchard or cider mill.

4. 🍁 Maple Creemee

If you’re in Vermont, don’t call it soft serve. It’s a creemee.

And while you’ll find different flavors, maple is the New England experience. Made with real maple syrup or maple flavoring depending on the stand, a maple creemee is creamy, sweet and somehow tastes even better when purchased from a tiny roadside stand in Vermont. For maximum New England points, get it with maple sprinkles or a maple crunch coating. Then attempt to eat it before it melts down your arm.

5. 🫘 Boston Baked Beans

There’s a reason Boston picked up the nickname Beantown, even if plenty of Bostonians would happily retire the term. Traditional Boston baked beans are slowly cooked with molasses and salt pork or bacon, creating that distinctive sweet-and-savory flavor. They aren’t flashy. They aren’t Instagram food. They’re just old-fashioned New England comfort food that has been hanging around for centuries while the rest of us keep inventing increasingly complicated ways to make dinner.

6. 🥪 Fluffernutter

Peanut butter.

Marshmallow Fluff.

White bread.

That’s it.

And somehow Massachusetts looked at those three things and said, “We have a sandwich.”

The Fluffernutter is sweet, sticky, nostalgic and very New England. Marshmallow Fluff itself has deep Massachusetts roots, helping turn this wonderfully questionable lunch decision into a regional icon. Is it healthy? We’re discussing marshmallow spread between slices of bread. Let’s maintain reasonable expectations.

The DOOZY Take: Absolutely worth trying once. Possibly while you’re still young enough for your metabolism to forgive you.

7. 🥧 Whoopie Pie

Two soft chocolate cakes with a creamy filling sandwiched between them. Cookie? Cake? Pie? Nobody really knows, and frankly it doesn’t matter. Whoopie pies have long been associated with New England, particularly Maine, where they have achieved near-official-food status. You’ll find traditional chocolate versions along with pumpkin, maple, red velvet and enough modern variations to make the original whoopie pie wonder what happened to society. Start with the classic.

8. 🦪 Fried Clams

If you’ve only eaten fried clam strips, New England would like a conversation with you. Traditional whole-belly fried clams are lightly battered and fried, producing a briny, crispy bite that’s completely different from the frozen strips found on countless restaurant menus. They’re particularly associated with the North Shore of Massachusetts, where summer trips to old-school clam shacks are practically a regional ritual. Add fries, tartar sauce and a picnic table near the water. That’s summer in New England.

9. 🌭 A New England Hot Dog in a Split-Top Roll

Sometimes it’s the bread that makes the food. The classic New England-style hot dog bun is sliced vertically across the top rather than along the side, leaving flat surfaces that can be buttered and grilled. That same design is one reason it works so beautifully for lobster rolls. Drop in a grilled hot dog, add your preferred toppings and you’ve got one of those deceptively simple regional foods that people don’t fully appreciate until they move somewhere that doesn’t have the right buns. Then suddenly bread geometry becomes emotionally important.

10. 🫐 Wild Maine Blueberry Pie

Cultivated blueberries are good. Tiny wild Maine blueberries are something else. Their concentrated sweet-tart flavor makes them perfect for pies, muffins, pancakes and pretty much anything else that can legally contain blueberries. But a slice of wild Maine blueberry pie, preferably still slightly warm and accompanied by vanilla ice cream, deserves a place on any New England food bucket list. It’s simple, regional and ridiculously good.

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🍁 More Than Just Food

The best thing about these foods isn’t simply how they taste. They’re connected to places and experiences. The lobster roll from a roadside seafood shack. The cider donut you eat while wandering through an orchard. The maple creemee after a summer drive through Vermont. The fried clams eaten at a picnic table near the ocean. The blueberry pie from a little Maine bakery you didn’t know existed until you drove past it. That’s what makes exploring New England through food so much fun. Sometimes the meal becomes the destination. And sometimes you remember the place because of what you ate there.

🍴 What’s Missing From Our List?

Now comes the dangerous part. We want New Englanders to judge us.

What food absolutely belongs on this list that we left off? Should coffee milk represent Rhode Island?

Does New Haven-style apizza deserve a spot? What about brown bread, johnnycakes, steamers, baked Indian pudding, red snappers, American chop suey, or a proper New England boiled dinner?

And perhaps more importantly:

Which food on our list are you kicking out to make room for it?

Tell us your pick and where in New England you’ve found the best version.

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ALL OF NEW ENGLAND

There’s New England… Then There’s All of New England.

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