whats your favorite ethnic cuisines and whats the least liked ethnic cuisines?

[jamespowers]

I have sampled food from all over this planet and find best to try it and then ask what it is.
I find it funny that folks say they like Chinese,(in China they just call it food) there are 84 diffident ethnic groups in China, all of their cooking is diffident and a far cry form the take out many have access to.

There are that many ethnic groups there but their food is more or less divided by area. You can get cantonese food, hunan, szechuan etc, etc. Different areas have different food qualities. Szechuan food is could well be ethnic food for someone in Canton.

 

[laotou]

There are that many ethnic groups there but their food is more or less divided by area. You can get cantonese food, hunan, szechuan etc, etc. Different areas have different food qualities. Szechuan food is could well be ethnic food for someone in Canton.

True that, in China when you go for "
Chinese" you have many choices.

 

[Edward]

OUUUUUCCCCCCCCHHHHHHH!!!.

Game to Edward.

Jeez, that one hurt.

In 2007, I made my New Year's Resolution to not eat at McDonald's for a year. I knew I could keep it. I did until Summer 2008 when I had breakfast I didn't eat a burger there until say 2011.

Ouch.

lol Glad that was taken in the spirit intended! I've eaten there myself on rare occasions (sometimes you just want junk with no nutritional value...), but there's a lot better out there for sure. Actually I've had some great food in the US. One of my favourites was in Boston (wish I could remember the name... it was nominally a seafood place, but I stuck with the red meat. Back in 02, the Cambridge area, just round the corner from the Marriott...). It's the portions I found hard to get to grips with. I'd be the size of a house if I lived over there!

Wait...McDonald's.. that's
Scottish food, right?

Heh. Not deep-fried enough.

I have sampled food from all over this planet and find best to try it and then ask what it is.
I find it funny that folks say they like Chinese,(in China they just call it food) there are 84 diffident ethnic groups in China, all of their cooking is diffident and a far cry form the take out many have access to.

From what I gather much American-Chinese food is (as with, to be relatively topical, "Irish" corned beef and cabbage) really of American origin. Typical the world over to see food being reinterpreted for a localised audience. Really fascinating seeing Indian Chinese food... Egg-fried rice anywhere is an odd one to the Chinese - to them, that's what you do with yesterday's boiled rice, to use up he leftovers. One of my favourite "Chinese" dishes growing up I've never been able to find outside Northern Ireland! Chinatown in London has loads of very authentic food. Big country, China, with many different food cultues as you say. Beijing has just about everything. Most of the Chinese we have here in the UK is based on Cantonese cookery, at least in my experience. What's also fun is going to a "Western Restaurant" in China and seeing the process in reverse. I've had some really nice food in one of those in the hotel we're based in when I work there, a true Chinese place. The burger, well... you'd think someone who'd never had one went on holiday, discovered them, then came back to China and described it to a friend who was a chef, who then made it. The same thing, but just identifiably that bit... different. Nice, but you can see how it has been adapted to local tastes and ingredients.

 

[jamespowers]

True that, in China when you go for "
Chinese" you have many choices.

Lots of choices---and good ones too. There are some "restaurants" over there that are so exclusive and off the beaten path that you have to literally know someone to get in---and even then it sure isn't cheap.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Ah, yes, the joys of General Tzo's chicken. Tzo was a real person, apparently, though whether he was a gastronome is … unknown.

From what I gather much American-Chinese food is (as with, to be relatively topical, "Irish" corned beef and cabbage) really of American origin.

McDonald's is far too good to be Scottish. For true Scottish food, it must be nutritionally negative; none of your mere neutral for us. Anything green must be viewed with suspicion. how on earth can you maintain chlorophyll in the absence of sunlight? I detect the workings of the devil!

 

[jamespowers]

Ah, yes, the joys of General Tzo's chicken. Tzo was a real person, apparently, though whether he was a gastronome is … unknown.

General Tso Tsung-tang. His living relatives have never heard of the dish.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That most noble of treats, the Scotch Egg, scoffs at your derision.

Nature's Most Perfect Food.

 

[vitanola]

Ha, well... all that seafood is to me is a hair-trigger for my gag reflex. I've had some good meals in the US, of course, but then I honestly can't recall ever being anywhere where it was impossible to find a decent local meal. Even... [shudder]... Liverpool.



'My dad can beat up your dad'.

Well, who am I to argue with the nation that gave the world...... McDonalds. (Works both ways, no?)



I'm sure he had some great stories about the dentistry here too.



So essentially they've imported cuisine from all over the world and made it their own? I remember being somewhere else that did that, though they seemed less keen to acknowledge a lot of its roots. Can't for the life of me remember where that was....

Well, you surely must admit that British Cuisine has changed tremendously in the past two generations. I personally assume that 1940 has not happened yet, and so I know nothing of this mysterious "Mac Donalds" whereof you speak.

On a more serious note, my personal (terribly limited) experience wit British cookery has not been particularly fine. My dear departed grandfather took me along on a three-month European tour in 1974. After Spain, Italy, Greece, Jugoslavia, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia and Germany, our dining in the British Isles was, well, distinctly-er-anticlimactic. My grandfather commented that he had thought that the food would have improved since 1919, and was disappointed that apparently had not. This was at the Savoy!

To reiterate, one must admit that the past two generations have brought about an absolute revolution in British cookery, but I dare not recognize it, for then I'd have to acknowledge the ""Burger King", "Mountain Dew", and High Fructose Corn Syrup.

 

[Two Types]

I think that when the British gave the world industrialisation, we had to sacrifice something. That something was cuisine.

But British cuisine has changed a lot in recent years - and improved. But there has also been a renaissance is British cuisine through the rediscovery of many lesser known regional dishes (all hail the Bedford Clanger). My favourite food in all the world is incredibly basic: the cheese sandwich. The British make great bread (as should every nation - although I will excuse Germany from this part of the discussion) and an amazing range of cheese. We also make great pickle. So some nice soft, very crusty bread with real butter, some of my sister's home-made pickle and some smoked applewood cheddar (maybe a warm, ripe Stilton) - that's me in culinary heaven.

Throw in a pint of warm beer and a packet of cheese and onion crisps and I'm utterly overjoyed.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Europe's capital for heart disease. Herein the reason (along with, of course, a truly astonishing capacity for booze and cigarettes):

That most noble of treats, the Scotch Egg, scoffs at your derision.

Nature's Most Perfect Food.

I will admit that Haggis is awesome. Although I disliked it as a child, probably because I was mostly exposed to the godawful chipper deep fried version, as my palate has matured I have come to recognise its wonders.

 

[rocketeer]

loves, Chili Conk, Indian, Italian meat dishes.
Hates, Just about anything with chicken in it and most Chinese. Oh yes, nearly forgot, snot in a shell, or oysters as some call them(if Spanish counts as Ethnic?)
J

 

[AmateisGal]

Europe's capital for heart disease. Herein the reason (along with, of course, a truly astonishing capacity for booze and cigarettes):
I will admit that Haggis is awesome. Although I disliked it as a child, probably because I was mostly exposed to the godawful chipper deep fried version, as my palate has matured I have come to recognise its wonders.

I read today that real Scottish haggis has been banned in the U.S. since 1971. Funny, considering we eat Rocky Mountain Oysters...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_oysters

 

[Edward]

Well, you surely must admit that British Cuisine has changed tremendously in the past two generations. I personally assume that 1940 has not happened yet, and so I know nothing of this mysterious "Mac Donalds" whereof you speak.

On a more serious note, my personal (terribly limited) experience wit British cookery has not been particularly fine. My dear departed grandfather took me along on a three-month European tour in 1974. After Spain, Italy, Greece, Jugoslavia, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia and Germany, our dining in the British Isles was, well, distinctly-er-anticlimactic. My grandfather commented that he had thought that the food would have improved since 1919, and was disappointed that apparently had not. This was at the Savoy!

To reiterate, one must admit that the past two generations have brought about an absolute revolution in British cookery, but I dare not recognize it, for then I'd have to acknowledge the ""Burger King", "Mountain Dew", and High Fructose Corn Syrup.

They keep telling me it's improved.... I don't know, I've just never had enough bad experiences to have regarded it as uniformly bad at any time period. TBH, I think the "bad food" thing isn't much more than a meme, up there with the "bad teeth" thing that they get from the US on occasion - even now. [huh]

I think that when the British gave the world industrialisation, we had to sacrifice something. That something was cuisine.

But British cuisine has changed a lot in recent years - and improved. But there has also been a renaissance is British cuisine through the rediscovery of many lesser known regional dishes (all hail the Bedford Clanger). My favourite food in all the world is incredibly basic: the cheese sandwich. The British make great bread (as should every nation - although I will excuse Germany from this part of the discussion) and an amazing range of cheese. We also make great pickle. So some nice soft, very crusty bread with real butter, some of my sister's home-made pickle and some smoked applewood cheddar (maybe a warm, ripe Stilton) - that's me in culinary heaven.

Throw in a pint of warm beer and a packet of cheese and onion crisps and I'm utterly overjoyed.

Cheese is beastly. Tis rancid milk and nothing more.

I will admit that Haggis is awesome. Although I disliked it as a child, probably because I was mostly exposed to the godawful chipper deep fried version, as my palate has matured I have come to recognise its wonders.

THere's surely no such thing as bad haggis! I had a second rate one once, but it was vegetarian.

 

[jamespowers]

THere's surely no such thing as bad haggis! I had a second rate one once, but it was vegetarian.

Now we agree on something.

 

[esteban68]

That most noble of treats, the Scotch Egg, scoffs at your derision.

Nature's Most Perfect Food.

I love these, my mother used to make them for us as children , made from sausage meat from a local butcher and free range eggs from up our garden and bread crumbs out of our bread bin(not a packet) baked in the oven and served with homemade bread and scrape, baked beans and homemade chips! absolutely awesome soul food...Ioccasionaly buy them but there never the same I am going to have to make some ...I am off next week so I will make some!!!

 

[vitanola]

They keep telling me it's improved.... I don't know, I've just never had enough bad experiences to have regarded it as uniformly bad at any time period. TBH, I think the "bad food" thing isn't much more than a meme, up there with the "bad teeth" thing that they get from the US on occasion - even now. [huh]


Cheese is beastly. Tis rancid milk and nothing more.



THere's surely no such thing as bad haggis! I had a second rate one once, but it was vegetarian.

Well, you are a bit young. I don't believe that you were here on this earth the last time I dined on terribly overdone roast beef at the Savoy.

As for the "bad teeth" meme, I suspect that it owes more to our own experience with the American Scots-Irish population. As far as I can tell, British teeth have been things of beauty since the NHS covered dental care. Dental insurance is a rarity over here in the 'states, and our working classes tend to still have unfortunate gaps in their smiles, at least in the Upper Midwest and the Deep South.

A cheese-hater?

Well, I see that we have no more to discuss.

Particularly since even in 1974 cheese was one thing that the British did wonderfully well.

 

[Edward]

Well, you are a bit young. I don't believe that you were here on this earth the last time I dined on terribly overdone roast beef at the Savoy.

As for the "bad teeth" meme, I suspect that it owes more to our own experience with the American Scots-Irish population. As far as I can tell, British teeth have been things of beauty since the NHS covered dental care. Dental insurance is a rarity over here in the 'states, and our working classes tend to still have unfortunate gaps in their smiles, at least in the Upper Midwest and the Deep South.

A cheese-hater?

Well, I see that we have no more to discuss.

Particularly since even in 1974 cheese was one thing that the British did wonderfully well.

Ha. When in 74 was that? I've been around since mid September that year.

Re the bad teeth... aha! I thought it was something to do with the way up until fairly recently the idea of putting a kid in braces was a real rarity here, only done in extreme cases, rather than as the norm, so folks over here didn't have those perfectly straight teeth as the expected norm as it appeared to be in the US. Your explanation makes a lot more sense. Sadly, with certain parties (small p, both sides of the house) determined to undermine or outright destroy the NHS in favour of something more profitable, NHS dentists are a real rarity now.... I'm lucky enough to have one of the few left, and it still cost me GBP200 for my last crown!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Cheese is beastly. Tis rancid milk and nothing more.

Pshaw. Of all the physical, emotional, and spiritual pleasures that exist in all the vast and universal experience of humanity, there is none so utterly, completely, core-of-the-soul-satisfying as a plate of good macaroni and cheese. Not even the sacred pastrami itself comes close.

 

[LizzieMaine]

As for the "bad teeth" meme, I suspect that it owes more to our own experience with the American Scots-Irish population. As far as I can tell, British teeth have been things of beauty since the NHS covered dental care. Dental insurance is a rarity over here in the 'states, and our working classes tend to still have unfortunate gaps in their smiles, at least in the Upper Midwest and the Deep South.

Not just there, but here too. Cosmetic dentistry and orthodontia were a very distinct class marker when I was growing up -- the middle class kids, and only the middle class kids, had braces, and we of the h. polloi were left to nature's mercy. Even today, you can tell a Mainer's social class the moment they open their mouths.

 

[1961MJS]

Pshaw. Of all the physical, emotional, and spiritual pleasures that exist in all the vast and universal experience of humanity, there is none so utterly, completely, core-of-the-soul-satisfying as a plate of good macaroni and cheese. Not even the sacred pastrami itself comes close.

Um, Lizzie, I suggest the Pastrami Sandwich on Rye with a nice side of Macaroni and Cheese. Dammit, now I'm hungry again.

Later