As a vegan I have no interest in defending my country's cuisine, except to say it is no worse than any other [ and pretty much the same as any NW European cookery ]; however, the trouble with rubbishing any country's food is that it parochially presupposes whatever muck you eat ---- and crap you grew up with in particular --- is the universal norm, whether it's crickets' legs, mare's milk or whatever it is Americans eat.
potato, pasta, bread, then eel pudding nonco's fleet is conquering Europe with food...
Nonco? wrong base sir.... Nonco's fleet is right in the 225 error ward. just head straight from insanity boulevard, and then goes left to fucked-up alley. you'll find the ward or even some shipgirl from Nonco's fleet around FUBAR plaza. you can't miss it.
...the trouble with rubbishing any country's food is that it parochially presupposes whatever muck you eat ---- and crap you grew up with in particular --- is the universal norm...
Look, I'm not gonna say the American diet is good, but it's not British, and that makes it inherently better.
As a vegan I have no interest in defending my country's cuisine, except to say it is no worse than any other [ and pretty much the same as any NW European cookery ]; however, the trouble with rubbishing any country's food is that it parochially presupposes whatever muck you eat ---- and crap you grew up with in particular --- is the universal norm, whether it's crickets' legs, mare's milk or whatever it is Americans eat.
I think it's more accurate to say that if you go back a few hundred years to before the Industrial Revolution, people had to be willing to find a way to eat and/or preserve damn near anything edible that was within reach, because they frequently went through times of famine. This is why the Japanese, for example, will eat practically anything you can dredge out of the sea. They're on an island, so outside of rice and a few pickled vegetables, their source of food is whatever the hell happens to land in a fisherman's net, so they're going to make the most out of every part of the buffalo of the sea.
Surstromming was made because salt was rare and expensive in Scandinavia, so they experimented to see just how little salt they could get away with to create a fish that only half-rotted. It's not because Sweedes love rotting fish that much, they just learned to live with it because it was literally the only food they'd have left at times. Lutefisk is another way of preserving fish, but with lye, so you don't have to use up any salt.
It's also the case that people don't start associating "foreign foods" with what most people would readily eat, such as yakisoba, they go for the stuff like chilled fish semen.
Chicken pot pie and shepherd's pie are things most people would eat, but that doesn't have the shock value of stargazie pie, so guess which one is "British Food" when comparing foods like this?
So far as "what Americans eat", it's basically everything, since we're a country made up of immigrants that all brought their own food traditions with them that hasn't had much time to develop our own totally unique traditions distinct enough not to be confused for what we're borrowing. When foods from one culture become Americanized, only Americans and the culture it came from recognize it. Someone mentioned in one of these comics before about how 'Italian food' is Americanized Italian food.
Instead, it's either going for the stuff made explicitly for shock value, like fried butter, or it's the mass-marketed lowest-common-denominator food, like McDonalds. I remember hearing complaints about how "Americans have children's tastes", but that was from people who were only considering the Happy Meal the only kind of "American food".
The thing most unique to America are the cooking traditions from Native Americans (barbecue, cornbread, practically anything with corn or turkey or other indigenous foodstuffs), and the fact that Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" put a food sanitation scare into Americans, causing a fairly long-lasting bias towards having "sterile" foods, which is why so many foods tended to be extremely processed to the point that it isn't identifiable as once being a living creature. This has only recently been hit by an "Organic" food backlash, but stuff like Wonder Bread and plastic-wrapped cheese still weird a lot of Europeans out.
I think it's more accurate to say that if you go back a few hundred years to before the Industrial Revolution, people had to be willing to find a way to eat and/or preserve damn near anything edible that was within reach, because they frequently went through times of famine. This is why the Japanese, for example, will eat practically anything you can dredge out of the sea. They're on an island, so outside of rice and a few pickled vegetables, their source of food is whatever the hell happens to land in a fisherman's net, so they're going to make the most out of every part of the buffalo of the sea.
Surstromming was made because salt was rare and expensive in Scandinavia, so they experimented to see just how little salt they could get away with to create a fish that only half-rotted. It's not because Sweedes love rotting fish that much, they just learned to live with it because it was literally the only food they'd have left at times. Lutefisk is another way of preserving fish, but with lye, so you don't have to use up any salt.
It's also the case that people don't start associating "foreign foods" with what most people would readily eat, such as yakisoba, they go for the stuff like chilled fish semen.
Chicken pot pie and shepherd's pie are things most people would eat, but that doesn't have the shock value of stargazie pie, so guess which one is "British Food" when comparing foods like this?
So far as "what Americans eat", it's basically everything, since we're a country made up of immigrants that all brought their own food traditions with them that hasn't had much time to develop our own totally unique traditions distinct enough not to be confused for what we're borrowing. When foods from one culture become Americanized, only Americans and the culture it came from recognize it. Someone mentioned in one of these comics before "about how 'Italian food' is Americanized Italian food.":https://www.amazon.com/How-Italian-Food-Conquered-World/dp/0230104398
Instead, it's either going for the stuff made explicitly for shock value, like fried butter, or it's the mass-marketed lowest-common-denominator food, like McDonalds. I remember hearing complaints about how "Americans have children's tastes", but that was from people who were only considering the Happy Meal the only kind of "American food".
The thing most unique to America are the cooking traditions from Native Americans (barbecue, cornbread, practically anything with corn or turkey or other indigenous foodstuffs), and the fact that Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" put a food sanitation scare into Americans, causing a fairly long-lasting bias towards having "sterile" foods, which is why so many foods tended to be extremely processed to the point that it isn't identifiable as once being a living creature. This has only recently been hit by an "Organic" food backlash, but stuff like Wonder Bread and plastic-wrapped cheese still weird a lot of Europeans out.
Though really, do Brit tinned eels contain a strong taste or somefin? I remember a skubdivision about marmite but never tinned and jellied eel
The eels are nice. The jelly, on the other hand, is pretty much aspic, so the mouthfeel may turn off people who are not familiar with cold savory jellies (goes double if you don't eat meat/fish cold).
So is chicken and broccoli and even oyster sauce. Most of your typical strip mall mom-and-pop Chinese restaurants are pretty much all Americanized Chinese foods. (And that's not even counting the fact that they seemingly ALL sell fried chicken in addition to the things that can at least claim hybrid Chinese heritage.)
Most authentic Chinese food tends to be vegetable-heavy and steamed, but American Chinese tends to be all stir-fried meats with some vegetables thrown in.
In one of the fancier sit-down Chinese restaurants in my area, they have a page on the menu for "Grandmother's home-style cooking" authentic Chinese foods. (Which we always have a chuckle at, because it's nothing like the stuff OUR grandmothers would make.) It's stuff like leek and pork intenstines or hunan-style flounder or something.
So is chicken and broccoli and even oyster sauce. Most of your typical strip mall mom-and-pop Chinese restaurants are pretty much all Americanized Chinese foods. (And that's not even counting the fact that they seemingly ALL sell fried chicken in addition to the things that can at least claim hybrid Chinese heritage.)
Oyster sauce is Chinese. Or Cantonese, to be exact, but currently it's pretty much used all over China and in overseas Chinese communities everywhere.
Broccoli stir-fried with chicken is also done in Chinese cooking (home cooking and restaurants). Just... not as ubiquitous as it is in American Chinese restaurants.
NWSiaCB said:
Most authentic Chinese food tends to be vegetable-heavy and steamed, but American Chinese tends to be all stir-fried meats with some vegetables thrown in.
...not really. It depends on where in China you're looking at (or for overseas Chinese, which part of China their ancestors came from). Traditional 'agricultural peasant' food will be veggie-heavy, but celebratory dishes are meat (and/or seafood) heavy. Even 'port laborer food' is meat and oil heavy.
And of course, in modern days, people eat a lot of meat (even the not so rich), because of well-established supply chains and a rising standard of living.
A significant portion of Chinese dishes involve steaming (especially in Cantonese cuisine), but roasting, braising, stir-frying, deep-frying, shallow-frying and boiling are also frequently used techniques.
Oyster sauce is Chinese. Or Cantonese, to be exact, but currently it's pretty much used all over China and in overseas Chinese communities everywhere.
Broccoli stir-fried with chicken is also done in Chinese cooking (home cooking and restaurants). Just... not as ubiquitous as it is in American Chinese restaurants.
...not really. It depends on where in China you're looking at (or for overseas Chinese, which part of China their ancestors came from). Traditional 'agricultural peasant' food will be veggie-heavy, but celebratory dishes are meat (and/or seafood) heavy. Even 'port laborer food' is meat and oil heavy.
And of course, in modern days, people eat a lot of meat (even the not so rich), because of well-established supply chains and a rising standard of living.
A significant portion of Chinese dishes involve steaming (especially in Cantonese cuisine), but roasting, braising, stir-frying, deep-frying, shallow-frying and boiling are also frequently used techniques.
Yes, they eat that now, but that's only after it was imported back to China, though. Broccoli and carrots aren't native to China, for a start so that's one thing that was imported back to China after the Americanized Chinese versions were invented. (Or you could say, lots of Chinese people eat "American"* food...) (*Actually Chinese immigrants adapting Chinese food to American ingredients or American tastes when selling to non-Chinese.)
I was pretty sure it was oyster sauce that was invented during the Gold Rush era by boiling down soup, but maybe it was another sauce, because Wikipedia does say that was made in China. I'm having trouble Googling which sauce it was, though.
Yes, they eat that now, but that's only after it was imported back to China, though. Broccoli and carrots aren‘t native to China, for a so that's one thing that was imported back to China after the Americanized Chinese versions were invented. (Or you could say, lots of Chinese people eat American food...)
By that standard, you might as well say that any potato-based dish isn't German or English or French (or European) because the potato isn't native to Europe. And that bangers and mash, Bratkartoffeln and Gratin de pommes are Peruvian dishes and all those Europeans (and Americans) are eating Peruvian food.
Broccoli was brought into China in the 19th century, likely via the port in Shanghai (it was initially grown only around Shanghai and Tianjin). Where it was first imported from, I can't find out, but likely somewhere closer than America.
Carrots were imported back in the 13th century, way before they were even introduced in most places in Europe (and the Americas and Japan).
Admittedly, I'm referring to Chinese sources for this, which... do not cite their sources well. And the links are a pain to follow for people who value their privacy (need to sign up, need your phone number to sign up, won't accept most e-mails, blocks you entirely if you are on a proxy or VPN, etc. Oh gawd, the Great Firewall of China now applies both ways).
So is chicken and broccoli and even oyster sauce. Most of your typical strip mall mom-and-pop Chinese restaurants are pretty much all Americanized Chinese foods. (And that's not even counting the fact that they seemingly ALL sell fried chicken in addition to the things that can at least claim hybrid Chinese heritage.)
Most authentic Chinese food tends to be vegetable-heavy and steamed, but American Chinese tends to be all stir-fried meats with some vegetables thrown in.
In one of the fancier sit-down Chinese restaurants in my area, they have a page on the menu for "Grandmother's home-style cooking" authentic Chinese foods. (Which we always have a chuckle at, because it's nothing like the stuff OUR grandmothers would make.) It's stuff like leek and pork intenstines or hunan-style flounder or something.
Chop suey as a meal originated in San Francisco. Fortune Cookies are so American that they are marketed in China as "authentic American fortune cookies!"
Chop suey as a meal originated in San Francisco. Fortune Cookies are so American that they are marketed in China as "authentic American fortune cookies!"
Fortune cookies were invented by a Japanese restaurant owner, even; it became Chinese because of anti-Japanese sentiment in California during WWII.
I think it's more accurate to say that if you go back a few hundred years to before the Industrial Revolution, people had to be willing to find a way to eat and/or preserve damn near anything edible that was within reach, because they frequently went through times of famine. This is why the Japanese, for example, will eat practically anything you can dredge out of the sea. They're on an island, so outside of rice and a few pickled vegetables, their source of food is whatever the hell happens to land in a fisherman's net, so they're going to make the most out of every part of the buffalo of the sea.
Surstromming was made because salt was rare and expensive in Scandinavia, so they experimented to see just how little salt they could get away with to create a fish that only half-rotted. It's not because Sweedes love rotting fish that much, they just learned to live with it because it was literally the only food they'd have left at times. Lutefisk is another way of preserving fish, but with lye, so you don't have to use up any salt.
In a similar fashion, I'm sure that many of the more... notable cultural delicacies have similar origins - namely, someone had nothing left to eat but food that had apparently gone bad, ate it, and didn't die. Indeed, while looking up Natto on wikipedia, it has an origin story of just that sort:
There is also the story about Minamoto no Yoshiie, who was on a campaign in northeastern Japan between 1086 AD and 1088 AD, when one day, they were attacked while boiling soybeans for their horses. They hurriedly packed up the beans, and did not open the straw bags until a few days later, by which time the beans had fermented. The soldiers ate it anyway, and liked the taste, so they offered some to Yoshiie, who also liked the taste.
Jellied Eels
This flavour...
That's right...
I am Nelso-Oh dear...All right!
European Water Princess!Taste your homeland...Welp, one more go then.Wub❤MRGHF!Come back to us, Nelson!and remember who you are!sblub!BLOOOORGGHHH!Ugh, it's nasty!The purification failed.