Food Thread!

[theslug]

I grilled some chicken, cut up some red onion and tomatoes, and sliced some mozzarella cheese and put a tiny bit of mayo on each piece of whole wheat bread and then put it in the oven and then ate it. It was pretty good.

[Enoch]

Speaking of pizza, I had lunch today at Matchbox. Good stuff.

[Pidesco]

The pizza we eat in the States is nothing like the pizza you would get in Italy, which is more akin to hot poop.

 

This is exactly what I was talking about. Americans have no taste in food.

[Gfted1]

The pizza we eat in the States is nothing like the pizza you would get in Italy, which is more akin to hot poop.

 

This is exactly what I was talking about. Americans have no taste in food.

 

 

Lol, I defy you to tell me a pizza with no sauce, only sliced tomato as its base, is better tasting.

[Pidesco]

Are you kidding?

[Enoch]

Honestly, I don't think it's so much that Americans have no taste as that they no time. Take a look at vacation/holiday time, per capita GDP, avg. annual work hours per worker, and other similar measures-- Americans spend so much time at work that they don't have time to cook a whole lot (or to develop those cooking skills in the first place), and often end up purchasing their meals with speed at a higher premium than taste. For good or ill, this food is what has come to represent American cooking in the minds of the rest of the world.

 

There's something to that-- culinary traditions in the Old World are defined mostly by what ingredients are cultivated locally,with techniques refined over centuries, while the story of America is the largely the story of immigrant populations who left the land and food sources that were the basis for their gustatory traditions, mostly within the last 150 years. But the immigrant-driven nature of American culture is also a strength in finding variety, and in the productive mixing of different cultures' foodways (a literal as well as figurative melting pot).

 

 

I'm not the most well-traveled person around, but still, I'd stack the cuisine that can be had in a major American city up against what you can find in just about any other major city elsewhere on the globe. Sure, you'll find better pasta in Florence, better coq au vin in Paris, and better sashimi in Tokyo, but for the whole package, give me New York.

[Pidesco]

But you'll have to spend oodles of money to do that. It has always been possible to eat good food in the States, but only in the very expensive restaurants. As an example, within walking distance of my apartment, I can get an excellent Indian full meal for 10 Euros, an excellent Neapolitan style pizza (I've only eaten better pizzas than these in Rome) for between 8 and 15 Euros, or a typical Portuguese full meal for less than 10 Euros.

[samm]

Honestly, I don't think it's so much that Americans have no taste as that they no time. Take a look at vacation/holiday time, per capita GDP, avg. annual work hours per worker, and other similar measures-- Americans spend so much time at work that they don't have time to cook a whole lot (or to develop those cooking skills in the first place), and often end up purchasing their meals with speed at a higher premium than taste. For good or ill, this food is what has come to represent American cooking in the minds of the rest of the world.

Pizza actually is one of the faster meals to prepare - and if you have no time, you buy a frozen one in a store, put it in the oven, 10mins and you have an ok meal. Funny enough that for lunch I was at Sam's Pizzaland and had a Pizza American style Wasn't bad, but there were fresh tomatoes and peperoni on it, so maybe it wasn't as American as they're called. Sauce instead of tomatoes... Maybe some mashed tomatoes as a base, yes...

 

Anyway, the nasi-goreng tasted superb, and I don't even feel overly filled. To bad they only sold ginger in bags of hundred grams, when all we need are several slices... What to do with all the left over ginger (fresh)?

[Enoch]

But you'll have to spend oodles of money to do that. It has always been possible to eat good food in the States, but only in the very expensive restaurants. As an example, within walking distance of my apartment, I can get an excellent Indian full meal for 10 Euros, an excellent Neapolitan style pizza (I've only eaten better pizzas than these in Rome) for between 8 and 15 Euros, or a typical Portuguese full meal for less than 10 Euros.

Not necessarily. Heck, the pizza I had for lunch (w/ portobella mushrooms, artichoke, and garlic) in a fairly classy downtown bistro today was $18 (about 12 Euros) for a pie big enough for 2. There are great little neighborhood restaurants all over most urban areas in America. (If you're talking great cheap eats, one area where the U.S. leaves Europe in the dust is the availability of high-quality authentic Mexican food.)

 

The area where Europe really shines, relative to the U.S., outside the big cities, where the traditional rustic preparations in small European communities totally outclass America's bland chain restaurants.

[theslug]

That's a pretty big misconception you got their Pidesco. The best food I have ever eaten in the states has been from small hole in the wall places sometimes not even near major cities. For example, there is this restaurant, classy by no means but definitely not a crap hole either, that is in this little town somewhere in the out skirts of New Jersey on the way back from my grandpa's cabin. I've eaten there only a handful of times (and probably will never enjoy it ever again considering my family sucks) but their prime rib is by far the best I have ever had and I'm a pretty big prime rib enthusiastic. Considering I live in Las Vegas, a place I would imagine is renown for having some great restaurants and chefs, and having eaten at some of the highest rated/expensive places around the city I can honestly say that their food doesn't stand up what so ever to the food at a place that is a fraction of the cost.

 

And as enoch says, yeah you can definitely get some delicious and absolutely dirt cheap genuine Mexican cuisine in most places. I'm not going to lie though when it comes to food America does kind of suck. We invented the hot dog. Sadly, I don't speak for everyone but on behalf of what should the most civilized society in the world, I'm sorry.

[Walsingham]

I agree with Sluggo. I've been to the States more times than I can recall*, and it is often the out of the way places which rock. Not always, but sometimes.

 

If you think about it how could American cuisine be anything other than superb, when it is the contact point for some many cultures and trade routes. Oh, wait, I'm forgetting how crappy English cooking can be... welll... we had teh War and rationing, so there.

 

 

 

*Damned alzheimers

[Guest The Architect]

My parents are on a overseas holiday as a celebration for their 30th anniversary, so my brother & I have been cooking dinner these days. We've made a cotoletta style parmigiana with a Calabrian style salad and wedges, we've done pork chops in a salt and pepper batter with a Calabiran style salad again, which is basically just tomatoes, red onions and a bit of basil coated in olive oil, but we do ours lukewarm, we've done a ravioli with a red sauce containing onions, mushrooms, garlic, basil, pancetta and sausage cacciatore, and we've done nachos with a sauce consisting of doritos salsa, canned tomatoes, capers, green peppers, onions, cheese and chump steak. Tonight we're just gonna order some pizza.

[Enoch]

Did some improvisational cooking last night that I feel like talking about, so I'm resurrecting this thread again.

 

Thawed some boneless chicken breasts yesterday, but wasn't sure what to do with them. Ended up roasting them thusly:

 

Made up a quick black bean salsa (1 can drained rinsed black beans, 1 can diced tomatoes (also drained), 3 cloves minced garlic, a little diced red bell pepper, a fistful of chopped fresh parsley, salt, pepper, cumin, olive oil, balsamic vinegar).

 

Mixed up about 2 tsp. Cumin with 1 tsp. kosher salt, some pepper, and some of the parsley that didn't go in the above with enough olive oil to make a paste-ish consistency. Rubbed this all over the chicken breasts.

 

The salsa went into the bottom of a pyrex baking dish, and I settled the coated chicken breasts (3 breast halves, although I probably could've fit 4) into it. Roasted at 450F for 20 minutes. Served over steamed rice with some steamed broccoli.

 

I was quite happy with how this turned out. Some self-criticism: I probably over-seasoned the chicken. Less salt & cumin with more herbs (parsley was the only fresh herb I had on-hand) and more time for the flavor to soak in before cooking probably would've been better. Other things that I could've added to the salsa: sweet corn, pitted kalamata olives, diced red or green onion.

Edited June 16, 2008 by Enoch

[Walsingham]

I have been eating crap for weeks now. Too much being away from home, and I'm beginning to regret having no damned cooker.

 

Today I ate griddled bacon, and courgettes griddled in the bacon fat on wholemeal toast.