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

[Widebrim]

Oh geez! We both like the same things.

Scary...

 

[Widebrim]

Widebrim what would you class as English cuisine?

Yeah, I was thinking that, too.

Can't beat a good hotpot. Given the coldness of the day, I think I'll be off home to prepare a hotpot.

Hope you gents don't feel slighted; it's just that some of the English food I've had tended to be bland, while other dishes I've refrained from contained ingredients which didn't seem to go well together. I agree with the Baron that a hotpot can really hit the spot, but black pudding is quite another matter...With the plethora of ethnic restaurants in the USA, the competition is stiff, and the English cuisine I've found here just hasn't done much for me. I suspect that were I to take a gastronomic tour of England, my opinion would change...

 

[1961MJS]

...With the plethora of ethnic restaurants in the USA, the competition is stiff, and the English cuisine I've found here just hasn't done much for me. I suspect that were I to take a gastronomic tour of England, my opinion would change...

Hiya

I'm pretty sure that there's a really good reason that Scottish, Irish, English, and German booze is SOOOO good. Gotta get prepared to eat their food. German food is somewhat better than the others, but not by much. Boiled and fried with little or no spices so let's get plowed first.

later Y'all

 

[esteban68]

Hope you gents don't feel slighted; it's just that some of the English food I've had tended to be bland, while other dishes I've refrained from contained ingredients which didn't seem to go well together. I agree with the Baron that a hotpot can really hit the spot, but black pudding is quite another matter...With the plethora of ethnic restaurants in the USA, the competition is stiff, and the English cuisine I've found here just hasn't done much for me. I suspect that were I to take a gastronomic tour of England, my opinion would change...

Not slighted at all just interested as to what people think is 'English' cuisine as to be honest I am not sure myself!
We have centuries of immigration and colonisation(for good or bad!) this has resulted in an extremely varied and rich culture and cuisine...chicken tikka masala is now seen as no 1 most commonly consumed dish in the UK!
With a plethora of cooking/baking/dining and eating programmes on tv I don't think food in the UK has ever been as good IMHO....there are many regional dishes and national ones that change from region to region.
I suppose 'the Sunday dinner' is seen as typically as an English food but even our fish and chips is in reality a French/Jewish/east european amalgamation

 

[Baron Kurtz]

English food is essentially French food without the elaborate sauces. English country food - the stews, hotpots, pies, terrines etc - are essentially identical to French country food … without the cream. French food snobbery will not admit this, but it is true. The lack of cream and extremely rich sauces is one of the reasons that while gout is still a massive issue in France (particularly southeast), it is very rarely seen in the UK today.

The Sunday dinner is, as commonly presented, without a doubt one of the worse abortions of cuisine that ever graced the earth. Awful overcooked and dry chicken or beef, with nary a drizzle of gravy (and that, made from miserable freeze-dried "essence of gravy"), with potatoes roasted in the absence of fat and straight-up overboiled carrots and peas. Even a tiny amount of effort would resurrect the British Sunday roast, but I've rarely had a good one.

Widebrim, I'm assuming you've had black pudding as part of a breakfast ensemble? Fried in lard or dripping, some white pudding (the one made with fat instead of blood), bacon, tomato, spiced sausage, baked beans - all fried - and toast with a cup of tea? If not, I can see why you wouldn't like black pudding much … everything in context! (I'm not a fan of black pudding myself)

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I'm also thinking of eel: eel pie and jellied eel.

 

[AmateisGal]

Well, it isn't my business venture so I have no ideawhat demographics and other figures he has that say it might work. I have a feeling that there might be a few women comfortable enough to go to a place like that though.
When he gets it up and running, I am sure he would invite you in.

Oh, I'm sure he'll plenty of women who will love that place. I just won't be one of them.

 

[earl]

Tend to prefer spicy/hot and/or tomato sauce-based dishes-Mexican, hot Chinese dishes, Italian, cajun-creole, etc. German, Eastern European, and Scandinavian don't do it for me. My great-grandparents may have come from Norway, but wouldn't get within 10 feet of lutefisk-really, you ever smelled it? Earl

 

[MisterCairo]

With respect to the traditional English Sunday dinner, it's not what's cooked, but HOW it's cooked. As with anything. A poorly prepared French dish will be awful. There is nothing inherently bad or wrong with good, simple food. Food doesn't magically become good because it's full of spice, tomato sauce or cheese sauce. I've had bad Indian food, bad Italian food, really bad Chinese food (mostly because most of it isn't Chinese at all) and bad "Canadian" food (define THAT!). My father trained as a chef in London, finishing his apprenticeship at the Russell hotel. He was an incredible cook, whether beef, chicken, ribs, roasts, or seafood. Trained in the classic Escoffier method, he never prepared a "French" meal in his career. It was attention to ingredients, freshness, preparation, and presentation. His roast beef could compete with any "ethnic"* dish on the planet.
It's not the origin, but the effort.

*ALL food is ethnic, but you know what I mean...

 

[sheeplady]

*ALL food is ethnic, but you know what I mean...

I think ethnic food is any food you never ate at home growing up- the type of stuff you go out for or make as a specialty dish.

For instance, I think it's strange that people mentioned "polish food" or "german food" as ethnic because that is what I grew up calling "home cooking." To me, that's just food: what you cook at home and what you eat in my house. (Granted, I realize that even "german" or "polish" food are huge categories that include lots of regional dishes.) One of my friends spent years in the middle east as a young woman. Despite being a white woman with no middle eastern blood she only cooks what I would call middle eastern dishes for her family... it's "ethnic" to me because it's different and strange (just like an Italian family or a French family's food would be) but to them it's home cooking. What I make in my own kitchen is ethnic to them.

 

[MisterCairo]

Reminds me of a line from an episode of Friends. Chandler was talking about Ross going to China to work on some archaeological dig, and how great it would be to be able to eat Chinese food every day. "Except over there, Chinese food is just "food"!"

I make this point often - there seems to be a belief that if you are in any way Anglo-Saxon/white North American, you have no ethnicity. Everyone is ethnic. All food is ethnic. Embrace it!

Now, where's my black pudding/haggis pie?????

I think ethnic food is any food you never ate at home growing up- the type of stuff you go out for or make as a specialty dish.

For instance, I think it's strange that people mentioned "polish food" or "german food" as ethnic because that is what I grew up calling "home cooking." To me, that's just food: what you cook at home and what you eat in my house. (Granted, I realize that even "german" or "polish" food are huge categories that include lots of regional dishes.) One of my friends spent years in the middle east as a young woman. Despite being a white woman with no middle eastern blood she only cooks what I would call middle eastern dishes for her family... it's "ethnic" to me because it's different and strange (just like an Italian family or a French family's food would be) but to them it's home cooking. What I make in my own kitchen is ethnic to them.

 

[Widebrim]

Widebrim, I'm assuming you've had black pudding as part of a breakfast ensemble? Fried in lard or dripping, some white pudding (the one made with fat instead of blood), bacon, tomato, spiced sausage, baked beans - all fried - and toast with a cup of tea? If not, I can see why you wouldn't like black pudding much … everything in context! (I'm not a fan of black pudding myself)

Well, Baron, if you ever make it to L.A., we must get together and have breakfast at the Cat N' Fiddle Pub & Restaurant on Sunset in Hollywood...

 

[Widebrim]

I make this point often - there seems to be a belief that if you are in any way Anglo-Saxon/white North American, you have no ethnicity. Everyone is ethnic. All food is ethnic. Embrace it!

Very true, Cairo. Here in the States, though, we've been somehow "trained" that if you're of British ancestry, you're just "American." I actually once had someone tell me I wasn't American because I'm of Greek and Italian ancestry, and despite that fact that men in my family have served in the U.S. armed forces since WWI...It's a foolish notion, but such a mindset also exists in Latin America: if you're of Spanish ancestry (or Portuguese in Brazil), you're not considered "ethnic." (A case could also be made for Italian ancestry in Argentina.) Yet as you point out, everyone is ethnic to a certain extent, and that includes the food they eat.

 

[1961MJS]

...I make this point often - there seems to be a belief that if you are in any way Anglo-Saxon/white North American, you have no ethnicity. Everyone is ethnic. All food is ethnic. Embrace it!

Now, where's my black pudding/haggis pie?????

Hi

True, and not. If you're Anglo and eating anglo food, then it's not ethnic. It IS however ethnic to Asians, Germans, Africans, and Italians... Food is your food, ethnic food is everybody else's food.

Now that everyone here in the states eats frozen crap and carry out, do we really HAVE our own food anymore?

Just another $0.02 for the pile.

 

[esteban68]

It's can be very difficult to judge food as often it is a poor representation of what it is supposed to be,having eaten Italian, French, Greek, Turkish and Spanish in their respective countries I think what you are offered even in a decent restaurant over here often falls short....especially the tapas.....black pudding once you get over the actual main ingredient is proper soul food! Jellies eels etc I believe are a Roman invention?
As for who you are and where you come from well your nationality is where you're born and you're ethnicity is you're parentage and heritage .....so to be British and possibly American with British ancestry is to be a real mix....forget knights in armour and st George (who was a Christian converted 'moor' anyway) think more of Saxon, Gaul, Frank, Scandinavian, Roman, Celt, pict, jute, Scot, etc,
etc

 

[MisterCairo]

Hi

True, and not. If you're Anglo and eating anglo food, then it's not ethnic. It IS however ethnic to Asians, Germans, Africans, and Italians... Food is your food, ethnic food is everybody else's food.

Now that everyone here in the states eats frozen crap and carry out, do we really HAVE our own food anymore?

Just another $0.02 for the pile.

I see your point, but must vigorously disagree with it! The joke from Friends is an example of your point - to each person, their "own" cuisine is simply food. I get that. My point about everyone being ethnic, or more properly, everyone HAVING an ethnicity, and thus all food being inherently ethnic, is exactly that - I have an ethnicity. The food of my background and the food of my life IS ethnic. From my perspective other types of food seem "ethnic" because they are different, but that does not alter the inherent ethnic nature of the food of my own people. I don't know if this makes any sense, but at least Widebrim gets it!

 

[LizzieMaine]

This is exactly what bothers me about the whole "ethnic" fad -- not the food, but the way in which a certain class of people fetishizes the whole idea of "ethnic." Food is food. You don't need to act like eating a chimichanga is somehow "bringing you closer to another culture," because it isn't. It might give you heartburn, but it isn't giving you the least meaningful bit of insight into the culture that created it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Hi

True, and not. If you're Anglo and eating anglo food, then it's not ethnic. It IS however ethnic to Asians, Germans, Africans, and Italians... Food is your food, ethnic food is everybody else's food.

Now that everyone here in the states eats frozen crap and carry out, do we really HAVE our own food anymore?

Just another $0.02 for the pile.

American food has always been a product of the melting pot. Pizza as it's served in any American town is American. Chop Suey and Chow Mein have never been anything but American. A bagel spread with cream cheese is American. And there's nothing on earth as American as a frankfurter. Where their root foods originated is completely irrelevant.

 

[1961MJS]

American food has always been a product of the melting pot. Pizza as it's served in any American town is American. Chop Suey and Chow Mein have never been anything but American. A bagel spread with cream cheese is American. And there's nothing on earth as American as a frankfurter. Where their root foods originated is completely irrelevant.

Agreed. Was Pizza invented here or in Sicily or Italy? I seem to recall that both Chop Suey and Chow Mein were invented here.

I did manage to eat at OKC's finest, Ted's Mexican Restaurant. The Enchilada's are great and served by what appeared to be a former member of the Swedish Bikini team. I was pretty proud of my indigestion.

Later

 

[LizzieMaine]

The basic idea of Pizza comes from Italy, but the idea of a crust with red tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni and sausage on top of it seems to be more of an American thing -- while there's a pizzeria in New York that's been in business since 1905, there's definite evidence that pizza in the style we know today was being sold in the Northeast under the name of "Italian Pie" as early as the mid-thirties, with the greatest concentration of its popularity in and around Hartford. It was being sold by the slice or by the pie in Lewiston, Maine -- a town with no discernable Italian population, but a lot of French-Canadians -- by 1937.

There's a lot of this type of assimilation in American food. One of the hallmarks of Maine cuisine is the "Italian Sandwich," which is a spongy white roll soaked in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and filled with salami, baloney, ham, American cheese, sliced pickles, black olives, and onions. It's only "Italian" by the barest association -- it was invented at the turn of the century at a lunchroom in Portland run by a guy named Amato, who was an Italian, and by extension that made his sandwich "an Italian" too -- but anywhere north of Portsmouth if you walk into a restaurant and ask for "an Italian" you will be understood.

If you use authentic Italian bread to make this sandwich, it *isn't* "an Italian," and you will be considered a pretentious outastater for claiming otherwise.