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JacquelineDempsey posted:PYF Funny Pictures is having yet another thrilled-packed goon derail about which regional-style pizza is the best ( Most sources connect this to GIs serving in Italy (who are consistently the Uncle Who Works At Nintendo in 20th Century American culinary folklore), but this is about the time when a whole shitload of regional food trends were expanding, due to changes in transportation, refrigeration, demographics, the economy, and so on. Everything from bagels to the Caesar salad were becoming nationally known around the '50s, after both being well-known regionally since the start of the 20th Century.
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Mar 18, 2020 21:34
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), but this gem got posted that I thought history-lovin' food goons would find interesting.
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Pizza was also first a food of the poor, and not exactly well-regarded. Neapolitan pizza snobbery is a pretty modern thing, brought about after pizza in general had already become popular and Americanized.
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Mar 18, 2020 21:38
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chitoryu12 posted:Pizza was also first a food of the poor, and not exactly well-regarded.
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Mar 18, 2020 22:26
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SubG posted:I think my favourite example of a historical freakout over a food item considered mundane today is from Hitchcock's 1972 film Frenzy, in which we are expected to be disgusted by that indescribably weird cocktail the margarita. Tekwila
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Mar 19, 2020 01:06
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SubG posted:Yeah pizza is one of those things like tacos or burritos where it was an absolute staple in some communities/regions before it broke out into broader mainstream. For pizza in America it was a familiar thing in most of the coastal urban centers before the Second World War (first in New York, then throughout New England, and then LA), but it wasn't until the late '50s that it really started to be a nationwide thing. Yeah, I suppose that makes sense; I grew up in upstate NY with a pretty hefty Italian population in my city so pizza joints would've been more of a normal thing . Still, with MAD's offices being in NY, it struck me as funny. I guess they were playing to the flyover states where it would've been a fad food. I just asked my husband, who was born in '70, if he remembers pizza being A Thing here in Virginia, and he said "well, I know Pizza Hut existed... oh, and there was a place downtown, and a place you could get it by the slice in [boondocks town the next county over]." So yeah, I guess I was spoiled as a kid! Also that margarita scene is droll-ly hilarious. I love how the wife just knocks that poo poo back, woman after my own heart: "welp, not letting this go to waste".
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Mar 22, 2020 01:57
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If I get a chance to pick up fresh food during this crisis, I might try to get vegetables for a Woolton Pie, albeit with seasoning.quote:1 pound Cauliflower
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Mar 22, 2020 04:44
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Woolton pie ain't bad For Celiac family sake, I use gluten-free oats and swap the traditional pie crust with mashed potatoes.
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Mar 22, 2020 06:19
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So I know most of us here know and love Jos. Townsends videos, but this one... I lost my restaurant job last week, and I just made some veggie soup for our quarantined household since that's all I can contribute without a paycheck. I said "I'mma gonna watch some Townsends to distract/cheer me up while I eat this soup". And godDAMN if my man doesn't deliver with this recent video comparing our current situation with that of the past. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGr-8P_vEZA Blessed as gently caress. I hope everyone here is doing well during this absolute shitstorm.
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Mar 22, 2020 22:48
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Bless the Nutmeg Bender. Every time a new video from them pops up in my feed, it's a must watch.
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Mar 23, 2020 08:01
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I did make the Eisenhower soup, but I'm not sure I can say it's a very similar recipe, since I replaced all the root vegetables with rutabaga and the pearl onions with chopped onions. Pretty good, though. Idunno if the rutabaga made it slightly sweet or if that was the tomatoes.
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Mar 23, 2020 14:41
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The lovely channel on youtube for Great Depression Cooking with Clara (RIP) has a recipe for pizza - I gather her family was Italian, but they had pizza in the 20's. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAa4-cctmDk
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Mar 24, 2020 23:56
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Lombardi's was selling pies in New York in 1905, and there's plenty of accounts of Italian immigrants and their "tomato pies" from the 1860s and onward.
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Mar 24, 2020 23:59
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There's an account from something like 1903 that I've read of Italians at a street festival selling "hot pizzarelli." It was known by people living near Italians but regarded as a uniquely Italian food until the 1950s.
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Mar 25, 2020 00:22
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"Tomato pie" still shows up on menus in Philly. It sounded completely disgusting to me until I realized it's just flatbread with sauce on it.
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Mar 25, 2020 14:49
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Tomato pie is also a thing a thing, at least in the south. Put a bunch of sliced tomatoes in a pie shell with maybe some onions, herbs and bacon, top with cheese and/or mayo or white sauce. I've never made one, but I have had it and it's pretty good. Calling it a tomato tart might be better marketing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_tomato_pie
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Mar 25, 2020 17:37
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That sugared, green tomato pie sounds really good. Like a rhubarb pie. Sort of sweet and sour.
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Mar 25, 2020 18:09
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Halloween Jack posted:"Tomato pie" still shows up on menus in Philly. It sounded completely disgusting to me until I realized it's just flatbread with sauce on it.
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Mar 27, 2020 16:56
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Reading the first tweet I assumed his method was "lol i swabbed an egyptian pot and mixed it with some flour" but he was really quite careful. The full thread is worth the read! I was a little concerned with the 30 minute autoclave step, wondering if it would cook the flour too much and change something important, but it all seems to have turned out well in the end.
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Mar 30, 2020 20:01
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Thanks to a Cracked article I learned today that FDR ate miserably during WW2. Apparently their cook, Mrs. Nesbitt, was simply awful at it, turning out dishes like plain spaghetti with boiled carrots, 'Bobotree Salad'---cold rice and bananas mashed with curry powder, in a dressing of French dressing and Worchestershire sauce, and mashed potatoes with prunes in them.
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Mar 31, 2020 22:36
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I always feel like I should stick up for maligned foods but I'm sorry, prunes taste like an attic.
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Mar 31, 2020 23:14
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angerbeet posted:I always feel like I should stick up for maligned foods but I'm sorry, prunes taste like an attic.  prunes are great.
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Mar 31, 2020 23:33
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Astrofig posted:--cold rice and bananas mashed with curry powder, What the gently caress? Why would you ever do this?
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Mar 31, 2020 23:38
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Ugly In The Morning posted:What the gently caress? Why would you ever do this? And plain spaghetti is just a plate of clinical depression.
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Apr 1, 2020 00:19
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I thought sweet and sour sauce was white people sweet and sour sauce.
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Apr 1, 2020 00:26
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Halloween Jack posted:I thought sweet and sour sauce was white people sweet and sour sauce. But yeah the super sugary version is mostly an American Chinese takeaway thing, but sweet and sour sauce more broadly isn't just that stuff. E.g. sweet and sour pork is something you'll find all over the place in Hong Kong, and the sauce is (typically) more vinegary than the American takeaway version, and frequently has distinct fruit notes, hawthorne (which has a sort of super-tart apple flavour) being a common one.
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Apr 1, 2020 00:40
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Halloween Jack posted:I thought sweet and sour sauce was white people sweet and sour sauce. Surprisingly, no. The sweet and sour pork I would get in Chengdu tasted 100% exactly like American Chinese food, even had the same unnatural nuclear color. I would get it and a similarly American tasting broccoli thing when I had an American Chinese nostalgia moment. That or some chao mian at the noodle place.  There are also a lot of Chinese sauces that fall into the general category of sweet and sour of course, but this one is what you're thinking of in the US as sweet and sour. American Chinese isn't all American, there were a number of times I'd get something in China and it was closer than you'd think. Especially in Hong Kong.
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Apr 2, 2020 01:25
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Grand Fromage posted:Surprisingly, no. The sweet and sour pork I would get in Chengdu tasted 100% exactly like American Chinese food, even had the same unnatural nuclear color. I would get it and a similarly American tasting broccoli thing when I had an American Chinese nostalgia moment. That or some chao mian at the noodle place. When I was in college there was a Thai place next to campus that did sweet and sour that had cukes and tomatoes and vinegar and I liked it pretty well. And because I hadn't had a lot of Thai at that point I thought that that was just what Thai sweet and sour was like. Then I tried ordering it from another Thai place and got the glow-in-the-dark ketchup-sugar-vinegar stuff. The owners of both places were from southern Thailand and both of them swore blind that that's the way everybody made it where they came from.
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Apr 2, 2020 02:08
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There was a hole-in-the-wall Chinese place in Ann Arbor, the kind with very American dishes and pages of menu items in handwritten Chinese taped to the walls like an afterthought. Their sweet-and-sour was absolutely ketchup-based, with crinkle-cut carrots and, oddly enough, jicama. It was delicious and I miss it.
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Apr 2, 2020 02:20
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The one on south u? They closed permanently a year ago.
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Apr 2, 2020 16:30
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augias posted:The one on south u? They closed permanently a year ago. 
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Apr 3, 2020 02:03
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I like prunes but why would you put them in white potato? They would be nice over a sweet potato casserole sort of thing, with roasted nuts and such. Look, you can get as saucey and fancy as you want with pasta, but ultimately nothing beats cramming handfulls of buttered salted noodles in your face for pure carb heaven.
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Apr 3, 2020 04:19
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I'll always argue that my carb load of choice is a pile of steamed rice. Doesn't matter what kind, all of them are good. Furikake a plus but not required.
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Apr 3, 2020 10:14
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I'm still kind of baffled by most Asian carryout style places because I've never familiarized myself with the most common dishes and what they mean. Is kung pao style good? If it's good with chicken is it good with shrimp? gently caress, I can't remember. I'm trying to figure out what vegetables come with it and if they're overcooked.
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Apr 3, 2020 14:25
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm still kind of baffled by most Asian carryout style places because I've never familiarized myself with the most common dishes and what they mean. Is kung pao style good? If it's good with chicken is it good with shrimp? gently caress, I can't remember. I'm trying to figure out what vegetables come with it and if they're overcooked. Kung Pao anything is good, yo. All the variants, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt-pyFj2t2g
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Apr 3, 2020 15:53
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Grand Fromage posted:American Chinese isn't all American, there were a number of times I'd get something in China and it was closer than you'd think. Especially in Hong Kong. I mean, I'd assume what you're getting there is more like British Chinese, which is similar but different (you generally won't find General Tsos over here, for example).
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Apr 3, 2020 16:53
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm still kind of baffled by most Asian carryout style places because I've never familiarized myself with the most common dishes and what they mean. Is kung pao style good? If it's good with chicken is it good with shrimp? gently caress, I can't remember. I'm trying to figure out what vegetables come with it and if they're overcooked. My husband and I used to live in an area with 4-5 takeout Chinese places, plus Thai, Vietnamese, Korean... man I miss that city. Anyways, we had a similar problem. We could not only not remember things like if Hunan beef was spicier than Mala beef, but which places did a familiar dish like lo mein better and which ones sucked for that. We ended up starting a notebook, and every time we ordered we'd write down what we got and where we got it from. Then we'd put down a little note, just a few words like "good, really hot" or "yech, gummy" or "BEST HOT & SOUR EVER!!!" Next time craved Asian takeout, we'd consult The Book. Also it had a handy pocket inside where we kept all the menus so we never had to go hunting for them. It's a bit nerdy, but Chinese takeout is Serious Business. 
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Apr 3, 2020 20:17
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feedmegin posted:I mean, I'd assume what you're getting there is more like British Chinese, which is similar but different (you generally won't find General Tsos over here, for example). American Chinese is based on Cantonese food, so the resemblance is stronger anywhere Guangdongish. Hong Kong is the only Cantonese food city I've been to so that's my example. General Tso's, despite being super popular in the US and the first name anyone picks for American Chinese food, is naturally not from the US at all but invented by a Hunanese chef in Taiwan who worked for Chiang Kai-shek.
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Apr 4, 2020 02:11
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Grand Fromage posted:General Tso's, despite being super popular in the US and the first name anyone picks for American Chinese food, is naturally not from the US at all but invented by a Hunanese chef in Taiwan who worked for Chiang Kai-shek. I mean I think the Peng Chang Kuei theory (he's the chef you're describing) is probably the most plausible of the competing origin stories, but at the very least if he's the one who first put something called General Tso's on a menu he was probably basing it on a similar recipe, and it is almost certainly true that his dish was not quite what we know the dish as today.
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Apr 4, 2020 02:46
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Aunt Beth posted:It's very much a Utica NY-area thing too. It's so good. Also, steamed hams.
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Apr 5, 2020 14:41
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