Did and Didn't

[HudsonHawk]

To bring the thread back to the Era (sorry, Hudson) I've certainly seen lots of wartime recipes for "lesser cuts" of meat, including brains and tripe.

Don't apologize to me, I'm not the one complaining about other peoples' discussion.

But to this point...while I didn't grow up in "the" era, I did grow up on the poorer side of life. Meat, period, was a rarity, and it was always a "lesser" cut when we did have it, though brains and tripe were never on the menu. My understanding is this was common amongst my ilk back in the day as well. I still get funny looks about not eating meat at every meal. For example, this most recent New Year's Day, we invited over another neighbor couple, and I fixed the traditional NYD dinner...black eyed peas, greens, and cornbread. When I explained what we were having, one of them said "but what's the main dish". I said "what do you mean...this is dinner." They looked very confused. Until they ate my mustard greens.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It became trendy in the postwar era to refer to tripe, heart, brains, and such as "variety meats." Prewar they were more often known as "offal."

I *loved* heart meat as a kid -- it was my absolute favorite sandwich filling, and I used to terrify the other kids at school by mentioning I'd had a calf's heart for lunch.

As for other poor-people's food, we often ate lobster and clams -- because lobster was cheap for locals, and we could dig the clams ourselves. I never fail to snicker when I see some boob tourist paying twenty dollars for a "Down East Lobster Roll," which is about a dollar's worth of lobster meat mixed with ten cents worth of mayonnaise.

 

[2jakes]

You fine people have obviously never sampled the delights of St. Louis style pizza. In comparison, Papa John's and Pizza Hut are manna from heaven. St. Louis style pizza is essentially Elmer's Glue and Ketchup on a Saltines Cracker, underbaked and then left out in the rain for a half hour.

Katie's Pizza on Manchester Rd.
I remember the pasta...:essen: yummy



btw: LizzieMaine, 900 miles south of St. Louis, I grew up eating "menudo".
I didn't know until years later what it was...:eusa_doh:

 

[Nobert]

No fitted sheets? What did they do, just fold them under like a half-wrapped gift?

 

[LizzieMaine]

No fitted sheets? What did they do, just fold them under like a half-wrapped gift?

Hospital corners. Very easy to do, and if you do it right, very secure. I don't own any fitted sheets, because they wear out faster than flat ones, and I never have any problems with the bed coming apart.

 

[2jakes]

Hospital corners. Very easy to do, and if you do it right, very secure. I don't own any fitted sheets, because they wear out faster than flat ones, and I never have any problems with the bed coming apart.

In military at basic camp. I was taught how to make the bunk bed in a certain way.
I'm wondering if this is the same as "hospital corners"...[huh]

 

[Edward]

Guys, guys.

Deep dish/Chicago style = Neapolitan pizza

thin crust/NYC style = Sicilian pizza

With that said, one wonders: do Italians argue over which is the better pizza?

The Italians I know simply laugh at the part of the world that limit their notion of Italian food to pizza, and carry on enjoying the much better stuff America ignores.

Likely there are differences in pizza, and many other types of food, based on from which part of Italy - or China, or India, or Germany, or.... - people migrated to the US, and also on how they (had to) adapt their cuisine to sell to the local market. I've seen it with a few types. The real Chinese food I encounter in China has significant differences to the way I've found it in London, Bangalore, and even Belfast. Many US Chinese dishes bear little resemblance to what is actually eaten in China, though that in turn is changing in some of the more heavily touristed areas. In Northern Ireland there's a variant of Chinese sauce called "Peking Sauce" or "Capital Sauce". Find it in any Chinese takeaway in the SixCounties.... and nowhere else in the world. There's been a big ethincially Chinese community in NI since the early Sixties (third biggest community in the statelet, next only to the Obvious Two), so plenty of time to develop it's own localised culinary revisions.

My other half is a big fan of the Food Network channel, an d one this they show endlessly is a show called Diners, DriveIns and Dives. The presenter is a bit grating, and it can sometimes suffer from the 'made by and for people with ADHD' effect that hits some US television, but the places he visists are fascinating. Small, family-run businesses, no chains, cooking stuff the way the family has been for a century, with clear influence from family roots and/or what was once the local immigrant culture, be that German, Italian, Chinese, Swedish, Irish.... You don't see these sorts of little places to the same extrent in the UK. Partly, it's just a much smaller geographical area, I'm sure, though it's certainly the case that it's never as cheap to eat out - at least not varied and healthily - to the same extent as in the US. Meat is nowhere near as cheap here is probably part of it. Still, the show is fascinating and probably a lot of the places visited would be of interest to Loungers.

Papa John's is awful. I mean really awful. It's far worse than Dominos

I hear that a lot from folks in the US. Over here, PJ's is far superior to any of the other takeout places. Dominos is about the level of McDonalds, or lower - and probably less nutritious. Still, they do gived NHS staff 50% off, so fair play to them.

 

[St. Louis]

... and that reminds me of "short-sheeting," a trick I enjoyed playing on my brothers much to my mother's intense irritation. I think in the Era they called it an "apple-pie bed."

 

[dh66]

Don't apologize to me, I'm not the one complaining about other peoples' discussion.

But to this point...while I didn't grow up in "the" era, I did grow up on the poorer side of life. Meat, period, was a rarity, and it was always a "lesser" cut when we did have it, though brains and tripe were never on the menu. My understanding is this was common amongst my ilk back in the day as well. I still get funny looks about not eating meat at every meal. For example, this most recent New Year's Day, we invited over another neighbor couple, and I fixed the traditional NYD dinner...black eyed peas, greens, and cornbread. When I explained what we were having, one of them said "but what's the main dish". I said "what do you mean...this is dinner." They looked very confused. Until they ate my mustard greens.

That was our NYD dinner, as well, and the way I grew up eating. Usually there would be a chicken or a roast for Sunday dinner, and some nights during the week there might be something involving hamburger meat like spaghetti, but more often than not it was just vegetables, especially during summertime when there was plenty in the garden. During the winter months what had been canned or frozen was often supplemented with stuff like spam or corned beef hash in the can, even fried balogna.
Home canning seems to pretty much be a dying art these days, but I imagine back in 'the era' it was way more commonplace.

 

[2jakes]

... and that reminds me of "short-sheeting," a trick I enjoyed playing on my brothers much to my mother's intense irritation. I think in the Era they called it an "apple-pie bed."

I never heard of that before so I looked it up .

"I'll do it. Sounds like a new thrill."
Flying Down to Rio

(soory couldn't help it )

 

[sheeplady]

Even if you had tasty animals running around in the coop or the front 40 you didn't grow up eating meat everyday; an animal unless it is sick and dying is worth more alive or sold than on the dinner table. You might have eggs almost everyday in season, or milk in season, but meat wasn't an everyday thing, yet alone a every meal thing for farming families.

People don't seem to understand today that there are plenty of protein sources other than the two or four legged variety. "Meatless Monday" I think has its advantages in teaching people that you don't have to consume meat everyday.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The real Chinese food I encounter in China has significant differences to the way I've found it in London, Bangalore, and even Belfast. Many US Chinese dishes bear little resemblance to what is actually eaten in China, though that in turn is changing in some of the more heavily touristed areas.

Most of what Americans think of as "Chinese food" was invented around the turn of the century by Chinese-American immigrants, which was as close as any of it got to the real China.

Prewar, "Chinese food" was the most common ethnic food, and consisted largely of chop suey and chow mein, both of them strictly American in origin. It wasn't until after the war that the Polynesian influences started to show up in "Chinese restaurants" as part of the tiki fad, and it wasn't until the seventies that things like "General Tso's Chicken" -- another strictly American invention -- took over from chow mein and chop suey as the most popular "Chinese" dishes.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Even if you had tasty animals running around in the coop or the front 40 you didn't grow up eating meat everyday; an animal unless it is sick and dying is worth more alive or sold than on the dinner table. You might have eggs almost everyday in season, or milk in season, but meat wasn't an everyday thing, yet alone a every meal thing for farming families.

People don't seem to understand today that there are plenty of protein sources other than the two or four legged variety. "Meatless Monday" I think has its advantages in teaching people that you don't have to consume meat everyday.

When you live near the water, you eat fish. It doesn't matter if you like fish or not, you eat fish -- fried fish, baked fish, poached fish, fish chowder, fish cakes, fish fish fish. And when we weren't eating fish we were eating shellfish. Meat -- usually pork or hamburger, never steak -- was a treat. I don't remember ever having a steak until I was in my twenties.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Even if you had tasty animals running around in the coop or the front 40 you didn't grow up eating meat everyday; an animal unless it is sick and dying is worth more alive or sold than on the dinner table. You might have eggs almost everyday in season, or milk in season, but meat wasn't an everyday thing, yet alone a every meal thing for farming families.

People don't seem to understand today that there are plenty of protein sources other than the two or four legged variety. "Meatless Monday" I think has its advantages in teaching people that you don't have to consume meat everyday.

It probably depends on the type of animal and where they're raised. Out here in beef country, ranchers ate/eat beef pretty much every day because 1) one animal can provide much more than few meals, 2) it's not really cost effective to sell the animal then turn around and purchase that which the animal would have already provided you, and 3) beef was/is comparatively cheap and abundant. It's kind of like Lizzie and her lobsters.

 

[sheeplady]

It probably depends on the type of animal and where they're raised. Out here in beef country, ranchers ate/eat beef pretty much every day because 1) one animal can provide much more than few meals, 2) it's not really cost effective to sell the animal then turn around and purchase that which the animal would have already provided you, and 3) beef was/is comparatively cheap and abundant. It's kind of like Lizzie and her lobsters.

That's much different than where I grew up. There was a lot of ground up dairy cows, but it certainly wasn't every day, as you only ate what you couldn't sell. If you could get the dairy cow on the truck, you tended to try to get it on the truck. The vegetables in the garden and your larder were much cheaper than forgoing the profit you could make from selling said cow, as long as it could walk on the truck. And if you had extra eggs beyond your orders, they were free.

Now, I've eaten plenty of animals that didn't "walk on the truck," sheep and chickens too old to sell that no longer produced (hamburger and soup), and plenty of non-sellable meats in my life (organ meats, meat that didn't pass inspection and got sent back), but it was rare to eat good meat that could have been sold. I think I probably ate more venison than lamb growing up, despite us selling a couple hundred market lambs every year. If my parents had been such poor farmers that they had animals dying every month that they couldn't get on the truck before they couldn't walk, I doubt they'd have made it as farmers in the environment I grew up in. (I grew up in the great farm depression of the 1980s, and we needed every penny.)

I think the first time I ever had store bought meat was when I was 12 and went to a friend who had pork chops for dinner. (I didn't like them.) I think the first time I had store bought meat in my parents house was when I brought home a turkey to eat for Thanksgiving when I was in college that I bought off a farmer I knew where I was living.

 

[HudsonHawk]

That's much different than where I grew up. There was a lot of ground up dairy cows, but it certainly wasn't every day, as you only ate what you couldn't sell. If you could get the dairy cow on the truck, you tended to try to get it on the truck. The vegetables in the garden and your larder were much cheaper than forgoing the profit you could make from selling said cow, as long as it could walk on the truck. And if you had extra eggs beyond your orders, they were free.

Dairy cows were probably different because they have value as something *other* than meat. Beef cattle...that's the only value they have, and eating them is seen sort of like growing and eating your own vegetables (which is very difficult to do in a lot of places).

 

[Harp]

I thought they went in big for brains in St. Louis. Is there such a thing as Brain Pizza?

In Hong Kong monkey brain is offered, baked or fried.

 

[Panadora]

It's worse than that! Much worse :cry:

If you think simply eating monkey brains is strange, I wonder how you feel about eating them while the poor monkey is still alive.

This is a popular practice in southern China, where some restaurants have specially designed tables to allow monkeys to be restrained and their skulls opened - the monkeys are first drugged with morphine and the skull then opened and the brain eaten directly. Sometimes monkey brains eaters use the top of the skull as a bowl where they mix the brains with alcohol.

These people actually eat the monkey, literally alive! How cruel can human being actually be?!

Imagine someone immobilizing you, and having your head opened and ... You do not want this happen to you – the same goes for the animals.

And there is a video, on this... This video is disturbing, if you think you have weak heart, do not watch it.

[video=youtube;twO3LW8RmuQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twO3LW8RmuQ[/video]

There is a (Chinese) saying (direct translation),

No matter what creature, as long as the creature's back facing the sky, is eatable...

https://www.causes.com/causes/636172-eating-monkey-brains/about

 

[ChiTownScion]

Most of what Americans think of as "Chinese food" was invented around the turn of the century by Chinese-American immigrants, which was as close as any of it got to the real China.

Prewar, "Chinese food" was the most common ethnic food, and consisted largely of chop suey and chow mein, both of them strictly American in origin. It wasn't until after the war that the Polynesian influences started to show up in "Chinese restaurants" as part of the tiki fad, and it wasn't until the seventies that things like "General Tso's Chicken" -- another strictly American invention -- took over from chow mein and chop suey as the most popular "Chinese" dishes.

The "Great Leap Forward" (pun intended) in Chinese food in the US came after Nixon visited China in 1972. Mandarin and Szechwan restaurants began to pop up everywhere, and the Americanized cuisine you spoke of (often mislabeled as Cantonese at the time) became passe'.

In a similar vein: we befriended a really nice couple from mainland China about a decade ago, and they took us out to a place owned by a friend of theirs. We ordered what they suggested, a dish that wasn't on the English language menu, in order to try something "authentic." We were served a stew-type dish that our friends raved about : personally, I was not impressed. Putting it as diplomatically as I can here: the worst meal that I was ever served in Ireland was worth at least two Michelin stars compared to what I ate that night.

 

[jamespowers]

The "Great Leap Forward" (pun intended) in Chinese food in the US came after Nixon visited China in 1972. Mandarin and Szechwan restaurants began to pop up everywhere, and the Americanized cuisine you spoke of (often mislabeled as Cantonese at the time) became passe'.

In a similar vein: we befriended a really nice couple from mainland China about a decade ago, and they took us out to a place owned by a friend of theirs. We ordered what they suggested, a dish that wasn't on the English language menu, in order to try something "authentic." We were served a stew-type dish that our friends raved about : personally, I was not impressed. Putting it as diplomatically as I can here: the worst meal that I was ever served in Ireland was worth at least two Michelin stars compared to what I ate that night.

And you learned something that day. "Authentic" is not synonymous with "good."