Zompist Bboard Again

Everything that sucks in Brtain is basically a cottage core reboot of something that sucks worse in America. Deep fried Mars bars? Child, try deep fried butter.

Americans have a tendency to make foods from other cultures suck.
Italian Pizza > American Pizza
Japanese Sushi > American Sushi
No wonder they demand authentic cuisine. Not that we Australians are any better.

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 7:52 pm Americans have a tendency to make foods from other cultures suck.
Italian Pizza > American Pizza
Japanese Sushi > American Sushi
No wonder they demand authentic cuisine. Not that we Australians are any better.

Just because American food tends to be inauthentic doesn't mean it isn't better than much of, say, British food (not to say that there isn't American food that just plain sucks, such as Hershey chocolate - but even then one can get much better chocolate in America if you don't buy it from the checkout aisle display).

Sure american chinese food is better than say british cuisine in the sense it isn't vomit inducing. But i'm sure real chinese food is better (not that i've ever had it). Anyways i got 2 american reciped to try (Gumbo and Cioppino) problem is both are made with seafood so my family cannot eat them (or at least my mom). I think the Cioppino would be good to make for Christmas since that's an excuse to make a dish with that much seafood.

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 9:36 pm Sure american chinese food is better than say british cuisine in the sense it isn't vomit inducing.

I've had a lot of British cuisine, and never vomitted from it.

Are you sure you just didn't go to bad...greasy spoons, i believe is the correct term?

But i'm sure real chinese food is better

I think the obvious question here is Why do you assume its better? Both were originally made by Chinese people, so that can't be it; both are currently made by people who aren't always of Chinese descent, so that can't be it.

keenir wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 1:54 am

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 9:36 pm Sure american chinese food is better than say british cuisine in the sense it isn't vomit inducing.

I've had a lot of British cuisine, and never vomitted from it.

Are you sure you just didn't go to bad...greasy spoons, i believe is the correct term?

For me being near say a meat pie or english ham makes me feel queezy and i have vomited on occasions when feeling queasy. Something like Prosciutto (which is italian ham) doesn't induce this feeling. My assumption that most other cuisine is better derives from assumption of course something like Ukhas doesn't make me want to vomit.

keenir wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 1:54 am

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 9:36 pm But i'm sure real chinese food is better

I think the obvious question here is Why do you assume its better? Both were originally made by Chinese people, so that can't be it; both are currently made by people who aren't always of Chinese descent, so that can't be it.

Experience with Japanse and Italian Cuisine.

American restaurant fare is really pretty good! I've learned to stick to breakfast and Indian cuisine while in Britain. (Indian restaurants are orders of magnitude better in Britain than they are in France, really.)

I can't comment on French food in the US except that you seem to pay four times the price you'd pay over here.

Over here, a good Chinese restaurant is one where you don't understand the menu and the customers are shouting in Mandarin.

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 2:49 am

keenir wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 1:54 am

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 9:36 pm Sure american chinese food is better than say british cuisine in the sense it isn't vomit inducing.

I've had a lot of British cuisine, and never vomitted from it.

Are you sure you just didn't go to bad...greasy spoons, i believe is the correct term?

For me being near say a meat pie or english ham makes me feel queezy and i have vomited on occasions when feeling queasy. Something like Prosciutto (which is italian ham)

no, thats bacon with a thick layer of fat.

you may want to see a doctor about the queasiness...and also inform your local(?) restaurant sanitary boards. so I'll ask again if you just had bad food.

doesn't induce this feeling. My assumption that most other cuisine is better derives from assumption of course something like Ukhas doesn't make me want to vomit.

never heard of ukhas.

keenir wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 1:54 am

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 9:36 pm But i'm sure real chinese food is better

I think the obvious question here is Why do you assume its better? Both were originally made by Chinese people, so that can't be it; both are currently made by people who aren't always of Chinese descent, so that can't be it.

Experience with Japanse and Italian Cuisine.

Can you elaborate? I mean, I've vomitted after eating a pizza wrong, but I don't blame the entire cuisine.

also, you didn't really answer the question; what "experience" did Japanese and Italian cuisines did you have and what did they teach you? can non-Italians make Italian food? can non-Japanese people make Japanese food? (and if the answer is No, why were you checking the racial backgrounds of the chefs making your food?)

keenir wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 3:59 am

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 2:49 am
For me being near say a meat pie or english ham makes me feel queezy and i have vomited on occasions when feeling queasy. Something like Prosciutto (which is italian ham)

no, thats bacon with a thick layer of fat.

you may want to see a doctor about the queasiness...and also inform your local(?) restaurant sanitary boards. so I'll ask again if you just had bad food.

Prosciutto is ham it just looks like bacon. You generally eat it raw through cooked Prosciutto Crudo also exists not that you can get it here outside of uberauthentic stores in metropolises.

keenir wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 1:54 am

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 2:49 am
Experience with Japanse and Italian Cuisine.

Can you elaborate? I mean, I've vomitted after eating a pizza wrong, but I don't blame the entire cuisine.

also, you didn't really answer the question; what "experience" did Japanese and Italian cuisines did you have and what did they teach you? can non-Italians make Italian food? can non-Japanese people make Japanese food? (and if the answer is No, why were you checking the racial backgrounds of the chefs making your food?)

I don't know whether the "Authentic" italian cuisine i've eaten is made by italians (i think one place i got pizza from is made by a german guy since he owns a german restaurant on the side). But when i try pizza from say dominoes or even worse pizza hut it's significantly worse (but at a cheaper price point) and i don't think a new york style pizza would be any better than say a cheese pizza from there since it looks the same (maybe the sauce is better i dunno but it defintely has the detestable slightly cheesy mozzarella you see on american pizza) (also when i asked my mum she said the pizza in america is no better than the fast food stuff you see over here). Plus pasta i've tried in Italian Restaurants is better than the stuff we make at home (through i detest minced meat so haven't eaten spaghetti bolognaise since i was young). And a california roll or "katsu chicken and avocado" is worse than any real sushi through i've seen both being made by the same kinds of people except the former originates in america and the latter in japan. Granted i'm doubtful raw fish on rice counts as real cuisine (but it is delicious if i am in the right mood) but the cooked sushi is really good and that comes with Japanese sauces and stuff like ramen and kaarage chicken is good. Japanese Curry is worse than any Thai or Indian curry but it does come from English Curry.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 3:50 am American restaurant fare is really pretty good! I've learned to stick to breakfast and Indian cuisine while in Britain. (Indian restaurants are orders of magnitude better in Britain than they are in France, really.)

I can't comment on French food in the US except that you seem to pay four times the price you'd pay over here.

Over here, a good Chinese restaurant is one where you don't understand the menu and the customers are shouting in Mandarin.

A lot of breakfasts here our French. Granted i'm pretty sure you can find good deserts and beverages all over the world. And i need to eat at a proper french restaurant (i've got one picked out i want to try the fish, duck or bouillabaise) which i will be going to whenever i convince my mother to redeem my missed birthday outing (from covid). It's expensive presumably i can get the same type of food in france for cheaper price as here it costs the same as a slightly upscale Australian restaurant. I presume modern American fare is good but that derives a lot from say French Cuisine just like it does in Australia.

Indian Restaurants are better than the spice mixes we make at home but they're usually to sweet (which may be a feature of them trying to adapt to western tastes) the best indian food i had eaten was a salmon curry (which i don't think features in traditional indian cuisine) since it avoided the pitfalls of being to sweet. The Thai i have had was better.

Growing up, I was happy to accept that America is just the place where good taste goes to die. Then I did some traveling, and discovered that literally everyone is living in glass houses. Italians put ketchup in their pasta; Japanese put mayonaise on their sushi; Indian grandmas the world over use curry sauce from a jar. I'm convinced America's reputation for being a terrible place for food is simply because our whole thing is exporting only the most miserable parts of our culture, like Budweiser, Doritos, and the private ownership of the means of production. If you want to, you can get amazing food in any city in America.

Also, the best pizza I've had in my life, better than anywhere in Europe, was in Korea, a country where most pizzarias serve corn and pickles. You just never can tell.

Gratuitous whinging, because you know your girl: French food is overrated. We all think it's great because a) having a French chef was how English prats outpratted other prats for centuries, and b) the French invented some labor-intensive cooking techniques like laminated dough that allow foods to represent sunk resources, another selling point for insufferable prats. When you really reduce it to its basic elements, French cooking is just "sautee stuff in butter and add a reduction." Wow, mind blown, France.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 6:39 am Gratuitous whinging, because you know your girl: French food is overrated. We all think it's great because a) having a French chef was how English prats outpratted other prats for centuries, and b) the French invented some labor-intensive cooking techniques like laminated dough that allow foods to represent sunk resources, another selling point for insufferable prats. When you really reduce it to its basic elements, French cooking is just "sautee stuff in butter and add a reduction." Wow, mind blown, France.

That's unfair. Sometimes we sautee stuff in olive oil instead.

French cuisine comes down to two elements. a) having lunch for five hours straight talking about food throughout is somehow a normal thing to do b) we have several ecological regions so you get a fair bit of variation.

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 5:05 am

keenir wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 3:59 am you may want to see a doctor about the queasiness...and also inform your local(?) restaurant sanitary boards. so I'll ask again if you just had bad food.

Prosciutto is ham it just looks like bacon.

actual Italians and Italian-Americans call it bacon, and one would think that if anyone knows what it is, they would.

I don't know whether the "Authentic" italian cuisine i've eaten is made by italians (i think one place i got pizza from is made by a german guy since he owns a german restaurant on the side). But when i try pizza from say dominoes or even worse pizza hut it's significantly worse

worse than...what? pizza bought at a fast-food joint in Italy? pizza from an expensive US restaurant?

(maybe the sauce is better i dunno but it defintely has the detestable slightly cheesy mozzarella you see on american pizza) (also when i asked my mum she said the pizza in america is no better than the fast food stuff you see over here). Plus pasta i've tried in Italian Restaurants is better than the stuff we make at home

hm, so you like food made by people whose job is to cook, more than homemade meals. thats normal for most things for all of us.

Granted i'm doubtful raw fish on rice counts as real cuisine

...which is even more reason why I'd like for you to define "real" cuisine. as thus far, "real cuisine" seems to be "anything i like", while everything you dislike is not "real cuisine."

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 5:05 am i try pizza from say dominoes or even worse pizza hut

I think I've found your mistake.

Pizza is not exactly a gourmet experience-- it's popular precisely because it's hard to mess up, and reliably delivers a gut punch of oil and carbs. But even fast food has to be done in the right way. For example, the best gyros I've ever had was in Greece, not because only Greeks can make gyros, but because it was being constantly cut-- if a gyros place isn't constantly selling, the meat dries out. And probably it was real lamb-- a lot of the inauthenticity problem is just bad local substitutions, and often the real stuff is available these days.

Anecdotally the 2 countries with the highest per capita concentration of Mcdonalds are France and Japan.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 6:39 am Gratuitous whinging, because you know your girl: French food is overrated. We all think it's great because a) having a French chef was how English prats outpratted other prats for centuries, and b) the French invented some labor-intensive cooking techniques like laminated dough that allow foods to represent sunk resources, another selling point for insufferable prats. When you really reduce it to its basic elements, French cooking is just "sautee stuff in butter and add a reduction." Wow, mind blown, France.

Yeah but is it the best example of sauteeing stuff in butter and adding a reduction? Kinda like how Thai cuisine is the best example of cuisine which uses lots of spices and has sweet elements in savoury dishes or Japanese cuisine is the best example of Umami and deep frying stuff.

keenir wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 7:36 am ...which is even more reason why I'd like for you to define "real" cuisine. as thus far, "real cuisine" seems to be "anything i like", while everything you dislike is not "real cuisine."

Not real cuisine equals unrefined or lacking expression so usually just one ingredient or in this case one ingredient with a foil (rice). Just like how i don't count mangos (delicious) and steamed salmon (delicious) but count something like Fish and Chips or a Burger (both not particularly good) as real cuisine. Also i excluded desserts since a) i eat mostly savoury foods and b) british desserts tend to be quite nice see apple pie.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 7:43 am I think I've found your mistake.

Pizza is not exactly a gourmet experience-- it's popular precisely because it's hard to mess up, and reliably delivers a gut punch of oil and carbs. But even fast food has to be done in the right way. For example, the best gyros I've ever had was in Greece, not because only Greeks can make gyros, but because it was being constantly cut-- if a gyros place isn't constantly selling, the meat dries out. And probably it was real lamb-- a lot of the inauthenticity problem is just bad local substitutions, and often the real stuff is available these days.

I've had really good pizza which was pretty good better than the stuff i get at most places. And it's expensive more so than curry or stir fry or anything from any "modern australian" place i visit. I've never been to any haute places and the closest i've been to one serves the higher end version of modern australian (with lots of french sensibilities). Anyways how much does any given countries haute cuisine originate from their own countries cuisine is a question i'd like to ask because from what i know top British chefs cook French or Italian food at least when presenting recipes to the public. The fine dining place my mother picked out serves something which is perhaps Australian food but it's not anything the average Aussie would eat. So is Mirazon recognisable from Bouillabaise and Coq Au Vin? Does Central really serve something close to authentic Peruvian cuisine? Did El Bulli or any of the other prestigous Spanish restaurants serve something close more homely spanish fare? Does The White Rabbit serve something perceivably Slavic? Is Noma and other Nynorsk cuisine really like something which Swedes or Norweigans would eat? People have referred to high cuisine as "Not Real Cuisine" before btw but i'm interested in whether it really could be considered that. Also Pizza isn't particularly oily.

Prosciutto is, quite litterally, Italian for 'ham'. You may be thinking of pancetta, which is bacon, basically.

Prosciutto can be anything from horrendous to excellent. Look out for DOP (Denominazione di Origine Protetta); prosciutto di Parma or di San Daniele is really, really good. (It's pretty expensive, too, unfortunately.)

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 7:43 am But even fast food has to be done in the right way. For example, the best gyros I've ever had was in Greece, not because only Greeks can make gyros, but because it was being constantly cut-- if a gyros place isn't constantly selling, the meat dries out. And probably it was real lamb-- a lot of the inauthenticity problem is just bad local substitutions, and often the real stuff is available these days.

Actually, to quote the wiki:

Wikipedia wrote: Gyros—in some regions, chiefly North America, anglicized as a gyro[2][3][4] (/ˈjɪəroʊ, ˈdʒɪər-, ˈdʒaɪr-/; Greek: γύρος, romanized: yíros/gyros, lit. 'turn', pronounced [ˈʝiros])—is a food item of Greek origin[5] made from meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie and served wrapped or stuffed in pita bread, along with ingredients such as tomato, onion, fried potatoes, and tzatziki. In Greece, it is normally made with pork[6] or sometimes with chicken, whilst beef and lamb are also used in other countries.

Emphasis mine.

Been thinking over your prior posts, and I think you might simply have a sensitive stomach -- which isn't a bad thing. I have one too, though mine keeps me from eating fruits, jello, and more than two pizzas' worth of dairy per day.

Yours seems to be intolerant of thinly-chopped/diced meats, as well as certain cheeses.

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 8:43 amYeah but is it the best example of sauteeing stuff in butter and adding a reduction? Kinda like how Thai cuisine is the best example of cuisine which uses lots of spices and has sweet elements in savoury dishes

you're thinking of Turkish and Indian dishes.

or Japanese cuisine is the best example of Umami and deep frying stuff.

you seem to be confusing Japan with Scotland and the American Deep South.

keenir wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 7:36 am ...which is even more reason why I'd like for you to define "real" cuisine. as thus far, "real cuisine" seems to be "anything i like", while everything you dislike is not "real cuisine."

Not real cuisine equals unrefined or lacking expression

expression?? and what do you mean by "unrefined"? most people don't say a burger is refined, but you do.

so usually just one ingredient or in this case one ingredient with a foil (rice). Just like how i don't count mangos (delicious) and steamed salmon (delicious)

but now you're showing your hand: you claim sushi can't be a cuisine because it only has two ingredients...yet you think the reason mangos aren't a cuisine is because its one ingredient. A mango is a food. Sushi is a particular way of preparing food.


also, as I learned it, a cuisine is not a single meal or a single component of a meal...it is an array of meals and cooking styles.

but count something like Fish and Chips or a Burger (both not particularly good) as real cuisine

so are you saying these are real food? is that what you mean?

. Also i excluded desserts since a) i eat mostly savoury foods and b) british desserts tend to be quite nice see apple pie.

hmm...so, if you didn't exclude desserts, you wouldn't be able to slam British food as being horrible...thats what you seem to be saying.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 8:55 am Prosciutto is, quite litterally, Italian for 'ham'. You may be thinking of pancetta, which is bacon, basically.

I fear my brain has been conflating them in my memories...that and I swear there was a tv chef who would say "get your prosciutto ouf of your fridge, and slice the pancetta" (or vice versa) with only one meat on the table being prepared."


apologies to the both of you for my err. (gaff?)

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 9:36 pmSure american chinese food is better than say british cuisine in the sense it isn't vomit inducing. But i'm sure real chinese food is better (not that i've ever had it).

I've eaten bad Chinese food in China that was on a par with bad Chinese food in the USA. (I once walked out of a restaurant our tour guide had chosen for us for exactly this reason.) I've also had amazing Chinese food in both places--the main difference being that I paid considerably more for those dishes in the USA than I did in China. The striking difference to me between dining both places wasn't the quality but the selection: Naturally, the restaurants in China offered a slew of dishes which (for various reasons) you can't find in the USA.

Ares Land wrote:Over here, a good Chinese restaurant is one where you don't understand the menu and the customers are shouting in Mandarin.

That may be true in France. Here it depends what you like. I'm not a fan of traditional Cantonese-American food (which at this point is a century-and-a-half old--older than many "traditional" dishes served in China), but I have friends who are. They'd probably be disappointed with the food at your shouty-Mandarin restaurant.

Cuisine is really, like keenir said, an array of cooking styles, techniques, and the use of the ingredients you have available. Look at the different cuisines along the Mediterranean: many of the ingredients are similar, but the techniques for preparing them, how ingredients are paired with/against each other, the spices used... all very different. I mean, look at the different varieties of cured hams (jamón, jambon sec, prosciutto crudo, pršut...), all with quite similar ingredients but all with different flavors. (Now I'm hungry.) In terms of cuisine, some of the most eye-opening experiences I had were my month in South Korea and my trip to India: they really were different ways of pairing foods and combining (sometimes unique) ingredients that really made me interested in both, and both really showed that spice does not equal spicy (and that spicy things can be more flavor than just "please kill me now"). Ever since Korea, I've had quite a taste for Korean food and often try making it (lots of guides online!).

But also bear in mind that things are/need to be adapted to the countries they move to if they want to survive. If Indian restaurants here served food at "Indian-level spicy", many Europeans would run away screaming into the night. I've had very good Indian food in Europe (and especially in the UK), but it's definitely not the same as I had in India (and also more expensive).

Ares Land wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 7:05 am French cuisine comes down to two elements. a) having lunch for five hours straight talking about food throughout is somehow a normal thing to do b) we have several ecological regions so you get a fair bit of variation.

This sounds very accurate, especially the long lunches (which I appreciated). And there's quite some nice variation in French ingredients: one of my favorite things in Metz was the one open-air market where you could buy anything and everything. To be honest, I never went to French restaurants outside of France, though that's partly because I can do a lot of the cooking myself (béarnaise is really not that hard to make; only difficulties are locating some of the French cheeses) and "French restaurant" often is a byword for paying out the nose in the US. I do miss having good, reasonably priced Mexican restaurants nearby, though...


That said, the thing I appreciated most in the UK about food was the array of ingredients I had available when I lived there, and all reasonably priced. And it feels like I also had an extremely good selection in Luxembourg and France, and at least in the Netherlands it's quite good (though I preferred Luxembourg and France). To get the same variety in the US as I have on this side of the Atlantic, I did typically have to travel quite far and pay quite a bit... granted, Cleveland (OH) was great in terms of ingredient accessibility, like for some of the French cheeses I missed, but I had to pay quite a bit for them (USD per pound was what I'd pay EUR per kilo).

keenir wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 10:17 am

Ares Land wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 8:55 am Prosciutto is, quite litterally, Italian for 'ham'. You may be thinking of pancetta, which is bacon, basically.

I fear my brain has been conflating them in my memories...that and I swear there was a tv chef who would say "get your prosciutto ouf of your fridge, and slice the pancetta" (or vice versa) with only one meat on the table being prepared."


apologies to the both of you for my err. (gaff?)

And pancetta is bacon from pork belly. You also have guanciale, which is from pork jowl and generally very fatty (but the good stuff for making carbonara).