They can have my lutefisk when they pry it out of my cold, dead fingers.
When I was growing up in Michigan, I always thought you were officially “up north” when all the deer crossing and cattle crossing signs started to sport bullet holes.
Ya know you’re up north when…
When complete strangers don’t talk to you when you’re waiting in line.
Oh hey, that’s not true, Southern traditions aren’t very big up north. And everybody but the Amish wave when passing on rural roads too.
I know I’m up north when …
I get odd looks from folks hearing me talk until someone says-
Where the @#% are you from?
Yeah, but I have friends from Appalachia they get that from both sides of the M-D. 
I can’t stand driving that area. There are sections of highway I will go out of my way to avoid. 95 from DC to Richmond, 75 from Detroit to Cinncinatti being two of the most infamous.
Here in southwest Michigan “up north” means the northern lower penninsula. It can also mean the upper penninsula but people will qualify “up north” with “to the yewPEE”.
The emphasis is always on the “P”.
“Hey, we’re goin’ up north.”
“Where to?”
“Petosky”
“Hey, we’re goin’ to the yewPEE.”
“Hey, we’re goin’ up north to the yewPEE”
Sometimes people might skip “yewPEE” and state, “Headin’ up to the Keweenaw” or “Up to Pictured Rocks”.
Some people, who think they’re better than the rest of us, will say,
“I’m going up north”
“Oh? Traverse City?”
“Nope, up to the yewPEE.”
These kind of people are smug and think they’ve pulled a fast one because they didn’t specify yewPEE up front. You can see it in their smirk. They’re the kind that give tourists a bad name.
I know I am in north Texas after driving all day , and I reach Dallas.
I know I am far north when I can go to a ‘‘White Castle’’, and get a bag of bite size burgers with five holes in the meat. Or at the grocery store buy a gallon of root beer, and a five gallon can of potato chips. 
Man, Dallas isn’t even close to the lefse/poutine boarder. Heck, they probably make their hotdish spicy down there.
Ah, hotdish…when my wife and I were dating, I was invited over for hotdish one evening. I was expecting something spicy, but instead it was a casserole. Hotdish is definitely a sign of being up north…no one I know south of Iowa uses the term hotdish.
Eric
This was the extent of my mother’s culinary abilities, except for hard boiled eggs and boiled potatoes. Just about every hotdish had green beans and tater tots. I took over the cooking when I was ten just as a matter of survival. One of my brothers still goes green around the gills when he sees canned green beans. One of my sisters would mash her tater tots down flat on the plate to make it appear she had eaten some, she hasn’t recovered from that either. Me, I always say a little cream of mushroom or cream of celery soup makes everything taste better.
Dude. You’re still in the South, and blessed. Here in the Twin Cities (well, east Lake Street, anyway) yer sliders are this: buns made of bad-quality “bread” with no patty as such, but instead a thin paté-like smear of something that offhandedly suggests the concept of meat at its most vague. There IS no patty. Whatever it is, it is best described as perhaps a sort of condiment. I am not exaggerating.
Use to make chicken on top of white rice with that. We have migrated to chicken on wild rice using mushrooms and a bit of sour cream. Great for cold days.
One of our neighbors is from the Fox River Valley in Wisconsin. We were invited over for dinner one day when her Mother was visiting. Her Mother made ‘chili.’ The ‘chili’ was made using exactly four ingredients, ground beef, elbow macaroni, canned tomatoes, and salt. 
And the dark reality of real down-home Northern cuisine is revealed, encapsulated in that. My parents, bless them, would have just as erroneously called it “goulash”. Beans would have made it “chili”. Gritty, no?
At least in the urban areas we can go to, say, “Thai” restaurants. Some of them use ketchup. Sigh.
goulash it was…
Ma was soooo happy when they put taters in a box 
I find it hard to believe they didn’t use black pepper. Most folks in Oshkosh, at least, know it ain’t chili until you add black pepper. Those folks must be from out Omro way.
Reminds me of something I had up here. The hosts used summer sausage instead of beef.
Hmm. Must’ve been a non-Scando in the woodpile.
They are from Kaukauna, actually. The cook made a comment that pepper could be added by the diners to their tastes. It had been omitted because our neighbor’s Father did not like things “too spicy.” Mind you, I’m not proclaiming any sort of culinary hegemony here. Ample numbers of good Asian or African restaurants are of no help when what you really want are cheese curds fresh enough that folk twenty feet away can hear the squeak. 
One other thing occurred at that dinner that might be a way to know you’re up north. Her parents remarked that it was odd that none of our local restaurants listed the length of their salad bars on their exterior signage or Yellow Pages ads.