Say what?? Cooking comments that baffle you

[Spice_zing]

Ever had someone make a comment about cooking that had you scratching your head? Here’s one that happened recently.

SIL stopped by as I was cooking and admired the chef’s knife I was using. I know she spends time in the kitchen so I bought a similar one for her birthday. When I later asked how she liked it, she replied, “I’m scared to use it. It’s too sharp! I might cut myself.” (Huh???)

[Spice_zing]

“You don’t have to wash organic produce. Just wipe away the dirt with a cloth. And you should NEVER wash grapes that you plan to use for wine-making. You will wash away the enzymes needed for fermentation.”

Said by a friend who grew up on a farm, is an avid gardener, and makes his own wine.

Maybe you don’t have to wash organic produce, but I do. I even wash produce from my own garden. It may look clean but the dirt left behind in the water is not something I want to eat.

My dad used to make wine and he never washed the grapes either. Maybe the fermentation process kills any harmful bacteria? If this is standard practice in the wine industry what about pesticides? Can someone shed some light on this subject?

[Sparklebright]

It takes a lot to wash yeast cells and other microrganisms off of fruit or other produce. A wash suitable to remove dirt will still leave enough to start any fermentation.
Some type of commercial "vegetable wash" might. I don't know how they work.
I make sauerkraut from plain non organic cabbage and plain iodized salt.

Fermentation will kill other micro organisms, provided the yeast cells win the war; so to speak. If some other harmful micro organism wins the war, the stuff will smell so bad you won't want to drink it--so no danger of accidentally poisoning yourself.

[Spice_zing]

That explains it Sparkle. Good to know.

[John E.]

I'm going to wash all produce, organic or otherwise. I prefer to wash off the organic fertilizer.

[staughton]

LOL!! I live near some Mennonite/Amish farms--and judging from the stench at "fertilizing time", I think that's a wise decision. I wash everything, even the stuff that says it's been washed already.

[sunshine842]

there's also bugs, and dust, and debris from around the yard, the souvenirs that birds have left....just because it's all organic doesn't mean I really want to eat it.

let's please remember that "organic" does not mean "magically free of anything harmful" -- pyrethrins are a common ingredient in many organic pesticides, but they are definitely not intended for human consumption....poison ivy, E. coli, and shit could be considered "all-natural" and "organic", too -- but that doesn't mean I care to ingest any of them if I can help it.

[jmcarthur8]

Laffin'!!!

[hill food]

and one never knows when a stray deer or bobcat may have chosen that spot to urinate...

[Spice_zing]

LOL sunshine!! You've shed a whole new light on "organic."

[gaffk]

Pre-organic days, but during the "all natural" days: mom always said all natural doesn't mean healthy--hemlock is all natural ;)

[huiray]

Well, when I was growing up my mother washed *all* greens meant to be eaten in any way uncooked (e.g. lettuce-type greens) thoroughly - that included a soaking in a tub of water into which she sprinkled potassium permanganate crystals. It was always a visual treat, staring at these leafy veggies in deep, deep purple water. Of course, a thorough repeated rinse followed that treatment. [Chicken shit and cow dung were the assumed fertilizers used by the vegetable farmers then. :-) ]

Non-leafy veggies (e.g. roots and gourds etc) meant to be cooked were still washed thoroughly but she would skip the permanganate treatment.

[sandylc]

Hi, huiray.

Interesting - what is permanganate? And where did you grow up?

[huiray]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_permanganate
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_potassiu...
SE Asia.

[kubasd]

MnO4, I think....

[huiray]

MnO4¯, actually. (anion with a single negative charge) :-)
Potassium permanganate would be KMnO4.
As a structural diagram (Mn at oxidation state 7):
(the four manganese-oxygen bonds are actually equivalent with the negative charge dispersed over the orbital clouds of the four oxygens; the diagram is a "freeze-frame" of the structure)

[kubasd]

This I know, I was just seeing if I correctly remembered the formula, lol It's been about 8 years since I had a chemistry class, so yay me! I had to brush up before my microbiology class, so maybe that's why it's in my head.

[sunshine842]

My adult ESL students led me down a merry path yesterday -- we spent a lot of time discussing the different between bake, braise, roast, broil, grill, and rotisserie -- and then onto things like the difference between boil and simmer.

They were pretty impressed that I could detail the answer...and were pretty surprised that there are that many words for different kinds of cooking in English (and some surprise at how many of them originated in French, believe it or not)

[LauraGrace]

From one teacher to another, those impromptu, I-know-they're-just-trying-to-put-off-the-boring-stuff-but-I-don't-care "lessons" are secretly my favorites. :)

I love the complexity of English in every instance but really, the sheer volume of cooking words we have boggles the mind.

[sunshine842]

there is very much a stereotype in place that the English boil everything, and that Americans eat at McDonald's --- they suspect it's not true, but they don't know what *is* true.

I secretly like the fact that not only do I cook a LOT, but that I'm good at it...a glimpse that there are good things in an English-speaking kitchen beyond boiled meat and hamburgers.

One of the guys had been fiddling with an English-language recipe, and was tripping over some of the terms.

[Elster]

I used to run a cookery club at my university. At the first session, I suggested people sort themselves out depending on which bit of the recipe (on a poster on the wall) they wanted to do. A bunch of them who chose step 1 - "Cream together butter and sugar" - just stood around for ages until I checked that they were ok, and they asked me where the cream was in the pile of ingredients. I had to explain to them that 'to cream' two things together meant to beat them until you get a fluffy goo...and yet they still did nothing. I asked them what was the matter and they say, "Well we know what we have to do now but we still need the cream!!"

[huiray]

Just curious - what was the general culinary expertise of these folks?

[Elster]

Ok, admittedly there were a lot of beginners in the group... :P I completely understand that these kinds of specific culinary terms can be hard to grasp if you're just confronted with them point blank. Though I did get a bit less patient later on in that session when I popped out to photocopy the recipe and returned to a room filled with black suffocating smoke and everyone standing around wondering when the cookies would be ready...

[huiray]

Heh.

I can see how it would be a bit trying to discover that "adults" or near-adults could be unable to grasp that the cookies were burning and that no-one had the initiative to shut off the oven and take them out! Common sense sometimes seems somewhat uncommon.

As it happens I just read this book review this afternoon... http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics...
I wonder if it might have any relevance here? :-)

[Elster]

That's definitely interesting and could well be partly the source for this...shall we say, unfamiliarity working in the kitchen ;) But actually, I think that part of it is also sadly to do with parents never showing their kids the joy of cooking for yourself rather than never making them do the cooking - I learnt to cook because when I was six onwards my mum would do all kinds of baking and cooking activities with me and it became a total treat to be allowed to cook, and then of course the pleasure was even greater when I finally became good enough to cook things on my own. I'm sure loads of people at CH learnt the same way and I can't wait to do the same for my kids, but it's a shame that not all parents seem to see the importance of this not just as a fun activity but as disguised training for life!

[danna]

I swear to you, my husband did the same thing one time when he was trying to surprise me by making a birthday cake. He said the recipe said to cream the butter and sugar, but it didn't say how much. I believe he thought the phrase "Cream butter and sugar" was simply missing a comma.

[ricepad]

Maybe they wanted the cream to make the butter to cream with the sugar....

[dave_c]

I was in a food science cooking class that was a requirement for the dietician and nutritionist program. The instructor was talking about meat and the muscles where certain cuts come from. One of the girls asked, "meat is muscle?" The instructor stated that when we eat meat we are eating muscles. Simultaneously, quite a few of the girls/women in the class let out an "Ewww!"

PS... I'm not a dietician nor am I a food scientist. The instructor allowed me to take the class because I was interested in cooking.

[KSlink]

Can someone please help me get my chin up off the floor, I think it's imbedded in the wood.....

[jmcarthur8]

That just frightens me - that people can be so unaware of what they are eating. I understand a child not knowing what meat is, but by the time one is an adult, wouldn't one have been curious enough about it to pay attention?

[linguafood]

Well, meat is also flesh, so maybe they thought they're just eating the stuff between the skin and the muscles/bones?

Dingbats.

[huiray]

Perhaps they did, but I have to say that is something that would really raise my eyebrows.

[dave_c]

"... wouldn't one have been curious enough about it to pay attention?"

Apparently not... This was a freshman level class that was a requirement for future nutritionist and dieticians. Out of a class of 200, easily, 20% of the students were seniors who avoided the class to the last few quarters before graduation.

There are people who just aren't interested in food. Another shocker! lol

[2roadsdiverge]

I remember asking this exact thing of my father when I was 10 or 11. "What part of an animal is the meat?" When my dad said "Muscle" it all made sense. I guess I never ate chicken and really thought about what I was eating.

[huiray]

OK, this one qualifies as bewildering. Very, very odd.

[caseyjo]

I brought a pie to work that was made with lard in the crust. I made a little note that said "Sorry, this pie isn't vegetarian." Someone asked how an apple pie could have meat it in, and I explained that it had lard in the crust. She asked what lard was (this seems like a perfectly reasonable question from a college-aged student), so I explained that it was rendered pork fat. She replied that, even though she was a vegetarian, lard sounded perfectly okay, and she took a slice. Now, I was happy that she enjoyed the pie, but last I checked, lard really isn't a vegetable.

Another time, a friend of mine called me to complain that the grocery store was out of hamburgers. It turns out they were out of the pre-made patties in the butcher cabinet. I suggested that she just buy ground beef, but she explained that she wouldn't be able to figure out how to turn the ground beef into patties. I know not everyone grows up cooking, but the mind really boogles.

[CanadaGirl]

We had friends over the other night for dinner. Nothing fancy, just burgers and hot dogs on the grill. I made a ranch dressing to go with a garden salad, and my friend asked for the brand so she could buy it. When I told her I made it myself, she said "I didn't know you could make salad dressing. Where do you get the ingredients?". Baffled!

[KSlink]

I gotta say, I burst out laughing at that one, best chuckle of my day!!!

[gaffk]

I'm not sure which of those two sentences is funnier--that she didn't know you could make salad dressing or that she thought the ingredients must be so exotic as to not be available at your local market.

[twyst]

I must admit, I wouldnt have a clue how to make ranch dressing from scratch! Ive only ever seen it made from the little packets of seasoning mix. (or already made of course)

Then again, I don't care for ranch dressing and dont pay it much mind.

[sunshine842]

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/...

If you're in a mood to experiment, give it a shot -- homemade is ***so*** much better.

[Jambie]

You are so right about that. I had never given much thought to ranch dressing but we went in a new family type steak house in town and the salad dressing choices were the usual suspects. I ordered the ranch and could not believe how good it was. I asked the server about it and she said "We make it fresh each day." I believe it. Unfortunately, the awesome ranch dressing wasn't enough to save them in the end but at least I learned something from them!

[kengk]

The "homemade" ranch made with the little package of hidden valley mix and your own buttermilk and mayo is about a million times better than any of the bottled ones.

[sunshine842]

and completely from scratch is better yet.

[hill food]

kengk - I echo that. sure fresh is better, but...

[dave_c]

Thanks for the recipe. I need to give it a try since there's nothing exotic or rare in the ingredients. I'm a fan of the packet mix.

[CanadaGirl]

I use a recipe, but my friend was shocked at the idea it was possible to make ANY salad dressing at home. She is one in a million though, and I mean that in every possible food way.

I HIGHLY recommend making some ranch dressing from scratch. I despise the bottles or packaged kind, but the fresh is a completely different thing; it really should have a different name! I am a fan of the ATK version.

[DGresh]

I'm mostly a vinaigrette girl but I made the ATK ranch dressing last night and you're right, it's delicious.

[mariacarmen]

i made it once for a recipe for ranch dressing mashed potatoes for thanksgiving - it was SO GOOD! http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/200...

[Sparklebright]

I'm a Ranch-on-evertthing kind of girl and make Ranch dressing at least once a week.
I was delighted to discover that I could make my own Ranch dressing.

Funny thing was that I never cared for mayo--but the recipe I use calls for mayo.
And discovering that I could make my own mayo! That was AWESOME if it meant I could make my own ranch.

And Mayo made with some bacon fat and then into Ranch--oh MY!
And the most awesome thing about making my own Ranch is that I can have my ranch WITHOUT garlic!

[John E.]

Apparently she's never been to "Hidden Valley" or met the "Green Goddess". ; )

[foiegras]

Wait'll she finds out you can make ketchup and mayonnaise ... that's gonna blow her freakin' mind.

[sunshine842]

It makes my head hurt to think where she thinks these products come from if you can't make them...

...press a button on a replicator? Gaaah.

[Midknight]

YOU CAN MAKE KETCHUP?!
lol

[sunshine842]

Three tomatoes are walkin' down the street.
Papa Tomato, Mama Tomato and Baby Tomato.
Baby Tomato starts lagging behind, and Papa Tomato gets really angry.
Goes back and squishes him and says: "Ketchup."
Ketchup.

[Midknight]

pa rum PUM!

[mariacarmen]

such a great culmination to a great scene.

[jenscats5]

I was recently looking for mustard seeds to make some refrigerator pickles. Husband asked "What are mustard seeds? And how do you make mustard anyway?"

[hill food]

I can relate, I whipped up some impromptu honey-mustard for leftover pork chops tonight, was asked "what's in this?" umm...

[sunshine842]

Both are possibly very legitimate questions -- someone liked the sauce on the chops, and asked what was in it -- they might have identified mustard, but just didn't know what else was in it....

...and asked how you make mustard isn't such a dumb question...if he'd expressed surprise that making mustard at home was possible, it would be a different thing altogether. I'm a fairly hardcore hound, and while I know the basics of what goes into mustard, there's no way I could tell someone how it's made unless I looked it up.

[foiegras]

I say plant those seeds and see what happens next. I wonder which seeds grow the squirt bottle?

[Emme]

priceless. and a little painful when i think about the number of people that must think like that... and that their vote counts equal to mine.

last year, i had a few friends over for brunch. one guy brought his new girlfriend whom the rest of us had never met. i served homemade butter, so it wasn't shaped like a stick. someone offered her the butter for her bread. she said no thank you but she didn't like whipped butter. i told her it wasn't. she questioned that only whipped butter came in tubs, not sticks. i nicely said i made it. and she cocked her head, smiled and laughed with pity. "what do you mean you made it? like a recipe for butter? the only ingredient in butter is butter." dead awkward silence...

and from my best friend in high school (when we were 16)... i made grilled onions on the barbecue. he said he didn't like em, but was willing to try them. "oh yum. they taste like onion rings! ...wait, there are *onions* in onion rings?"

[sandylc]

We are all ignorant about something. It is when we are arrogantly ignorant that I find a problem. Sounds like your guest was the second one. Too bad she didn't appreciate your beautiful cooking!

[sunshine842]

because in that butter comment -- you always try not to make somebody look like an idiot, and sometimes there's just no way to avoid it.

[Emme]

the boyfriend tactfully handled it. she didn't seem truly convinced... i never saw her again. though i secretly had hoped she went home, and the next time she ate butter, thought, 'gee this really doesn't taste as good as homemade.' and, i had planned if i did ever have her over again, i'd make sure everything on the table was homemade... particularly mayonnaise. man i'm mean sometimes.

[LauraGrace]

"Well, actually, I say 'made' but really I grew it. I've got a *beautiful* butter bush outside and it's just coming into season. I love it when those little buds come on the bush... Oh, you didn't know that's where Butter Buds came from? Yeah, it's a really versatile plant."

[sandylc]

Can you just leave them on the bush for a little bit longer in the sun to get browned butter?

[jmcarthur8]

Hubby says no, because if they stay too long on the bush, the butter-flies come and eat them all.

[foiegras]

If not the butterflies, the unicorns for sure ...

[Emme]

just be careful how long you leave them... they burn easily.

[hill food]

beurre blanc is the same process as white asparagus. you just keep heaping dirt around the tender sprouts until it's ready

[jmcarthur8]

;-)

[foiegras]

There are a lot of vegans that are gonna be sooo happy to hear about this butter bush ...

Well I guess we can assume girlfriend did not make butter in a baby food jar in kindergarten.

[Emme]

well now i realize my kindergarten sucked ;)

[fara]

oh yes, my MIL has tons of these:
-Surprised that I said she could put the frozen chicken breast directly in the tomato sauce she cooks for hours, she asked oh, is the chicken precooked?

-or when faced with something to eat on the side, it is often hilarious as she doesn't know what a balanced meal is. The other night she suggested making scrambled eggs as a side to my husband's dumplings.

[KSlink]

"Oysters don't have wings--do they???"

From a summer tourist in a restaurant that had 'oyster' in their name.....(hi Chatham!!!)

[hill food]

or the oysters one finds in the cow-raising regions (fresh water? really?)

[Tripeler]

Don't you mean those Rocky Mountain Oysters?

By the way, a Denver microbrewery announced the release of their Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout -- on April 1st, no less!

[LauraGrace]

I mean, it sounds better on a menu than "testicles." ;)

[hill food]

same fresh water streams that's used by Coors!

my first try I was game. not bad, actually good. the other roommate (3-guy dorm room) left and didn't talk to us for a few days. ehh. and yelling after him "Hey Brian! it's not like we're frying YOUR balls" somehow didn't seem to help the situation. go figure.

[foiegras]

He must've been one of those 'sensitive' men you hear about.

[elenacampana]

"Ew! I hate squid! But I LOVE calamari!" ?????

[joe777cool]

Working in the industry, I get many weird customer questions. I few from the past few months include: What does caesar dressing taste like? What is "buffalo" chicken? What is that chicken parmageeon? Kids I can understand, middle aged adults?????

I didnt have an answer for the caesar question....

[Lizard]

Well, to be honest, I'd have no idea what chicken "parmageeon" is. Chicken parmigiana, on the other hand...

The Caesar dressing question sounds fair enough given how many variations there are floating around these days. As for 'buffalo' chicken, that could well be a regional thing. And an upbringing thing. I don't think I tried buffalo chicken until I was in my twenties.

[sunshine842]

c'mon -- people in Europe know what buffalo sauce is -- you'd have to have been under a fairly big rock to have missed it in the US.

And yes, there are variations to a Caesar dressing, but I would imagine it would be phrased as "what's in YOUR Caesar dressing" as opposed to "what is it"?

[Lizard]

Erm, sorry, no. You're talking about today, these days (and even then, debates over how good is another matter). This was simply not food that we had when I was young. Now I know what it is. Now I love it it. But I learned of the delights later in life. (Same goes for corn-dogs...)

As for Caesar-- they didn't ask 'what is it', but what it tasted like. I agree it's not phrased well but it's just not baffling to me that this might be a question.

[sandylc]

Where/when did you grow up that you did not hear of corndogs? I am pretty old and grew up in a small town and can't remember ever not knowing about corndogs! I never liked them, but that's another thread!

[Lizard]

I heard of them. Didn't eat one until my twenties. Or maybe a bit younger. My friends were blown away and made a mission to watch me eat one.

I can't say whether my experience was entirely based on location(s) or family, but I do think it's funny how my comments regarding a certain foreignness of middle-American food are being taken. Meanwhile, I suspect the foods of my childhood and younger life (and later life) are the things of which foodie dreams and self-satisfaction are made. Perhaps this (among other things) is why I find crowing at a person's ignorance (not wilful) to be a pretty unsavoury pastime. But that's why I should avoid these kinds of threads...

[sandylc]

No insult was intended; in fact, I just reread my statements and still don't see it. I was just curious about what part of the country doesn't have corndogs...my apology if I phrased it poorly...

[melpy]

I too did not have a corn dog until my 20s. Not as popular where I lived and I didn't understand the concept so I never sought one out.

[sandylc]

They aren't good. But, then, I've never liked hot dogs, anyway.

[huiray]

So you've never had a hot dog - and appear not to have liked a corn dog either (of course). Yet wonder about people who have never had (or heard about) a corn dog. Fascinating. There must be a thesis in there somewhere. :-)

[sandylc]

Sorry - l left a word out! I have never LIKED hot dogs, but I have certainly had them!
And, again, you have misinterpreted many of my statements.

[huiray]

Well, when I posted above your post clearly said "I've never had hot dogs". I see that you have now CHANGED it to say "Ive never LIKED hot dogs". The meanings are different, as you responded in your subsequent post. I was responding to your post BEFORE you edited it AFTER I had responded.

[sandylc]

Yup.

[RUK]

Ohh horror, I never ate a Corn dog either!! Have never really been tempted to try one.
I probably go to chowhound hell, when I die.....

[hill food]

oh do - many confessions on various "guilty pleasure" threads.

try one that is (not go to hell) and if you're veggie there are decent versions out there.

[huiray]

I never knew what these so-called "corn dogs" were until I moved to the Mid-West USA. I had NEVER heard of them until then. You seem to think that Murcan country stuff is universal knowledge throughout the entire world, and that anyone who does not know such stuff is beyond-the-pale. Ditto that bit about "buffalo sauce" exclaimed about by sunshine below. They're both bits of Americana that one ought not to assume that the rest of the world knows about outside of the small corner of the global community that constitutes the region where "Americana" is found to operate.

[KSlink]

I never heard of corn dogs until I was probably in my 20's, and couldn't understand the appeal (or reasoning) behind them. FWIW, I'm 55 and grew up in CT.....
and nope, I still haven't had one!

[melpy]

I grew up in CT too! Ditto on the lack of corn dogs!

[DGresh]

Ditto. I'm 4 years younger than you and grew up in Jersey and went to school in the SF Bay area.

[hill food]

and now all the corn dog stands are gone in SF. miss ya' Pronto Pup.

[sandylc]

whoa!!!! Putting words in my mouth.....I'm really not that backwards or that nasty....no need to insult me, besides.

[thimes]

Sandy let this one go. You were not insulting in the least and are just the redirected target of some other issue.

[sandylc]

K - sounds about right!

[sunshine842]

While I understand that not everyone on this board (including me) is in the US or is native-born American...

...my point was that nearly anybody who's been to a casual restaurant in the US (as my European-born and European-resident friends and colleagues would seem to prove) has come in contact with buffalo sauce -- and believe it or not, buffalo sauce *does* exist outside the US.

joe777cool gives a US location -- and not a location heavily-touristed by non-Americans, by the way -- so it's a reasonable guess that he works in a US restaurant frequented primarily by non-tourists, i.e., residents, i.e., Americans.

[huiray]

Are you equating "chili sauce" or "hot sauce" with "buffalo sauce"?

I would think that "...nearly anybody who's been to a casual restaurant in the US..." would have come into contact with CHILI sauce or HOT sauce, but not specifically something called "buffalo" sauce. For that matter the sauce used to coat chicken wings to make them "buffalo wings" is simply hot/chili sauce (traditionally Frank's RedHot Sauce) plus margarine/butter. If one had said "buffalo wings" instead, or even the OP's "buffalo chicken" - which requires a mental side-step from the more accessible "wings" - then the term might be more immediately recognizable, even within the US. Even when I google for images of "buffalo sauce" there are relatively few bottles that turn up showing the word "buffalo" on the label, and most say "buffalo WING sauce", not a bare "buffalo sauce". Those that have "buffalo" as a stand-alone word show the word in small type somewhere near the bottom of the label. Even the original sauce used shows the dominant name on the label as "RedHot Wings": http://www.franksredhot.com/products/buffalo-wings-sauce

joe777cool is located in Warwick, part of metropolitan Providence, Rhode Island. I would say a fair number of tourists and visitors, both native and foreign, pass through the general area. joe777cool may even be working in a place next to Brown University, for all we know - he will have to say where himself. Even if the folks who asked about "buffalo chicken" (not "buffalo sauce") were indeed middle-aged USAmerican people who had grown up in the US, that in fact reinforces the concept that the term is NOT universally known, even within the country of its origin. You would also be saying that these USAmericans would "have to have been under a fairly big rock to have missed it in the US." as you said in your post. ;-)

ETA: BTW, there is an animal called "buffalo" - so buffalo sauce could just as easily be thought of as a sauce made from a buffalo, or a sauce meant to be used on buffalo meat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_bison
http://www.diffen.com/difference/Biso...

[joe777cool]

While I do get a fair number of tourist in my restaurant this time of year, these questions came from middle aged Americans which to me fall in the "under a fairly big rock" category.

For context, we serve buffalo wing/tenders. I was just paraphrasing his question.

[huiray]

Thanks for the additional detail. So the customer was actually asking about what "buffalo wings" or "buffalo tenders" were, rather than "buffalo chicken"? (Yes, semantics do matter) Well, it reinforces even more the notion of non-universality of the term. :-)

[sunshine842]

they didn't have buffalo sauce when I was a kid, either, but it's been around since *at least* the early 80s -- longer than a lot of folks have been on the planet. (yes, this makes me choke, too, but one could have been born in the early 80s and be over 30 by now....)

[John E.]

I don't remember Buffalo Wings in Minnesota in the 80s. I think they got their first big national attention because the Buffalo Bills were in the Superbowl 4 years in a row from 1991 - 1994.

[sunshine842]

Okay, and.....someone born in 1991 would be 20 today -- plenty old enough to know what a buffalo wing is.

[John E.]

Oh sure, I was not disputing that. I would agree however that someone in another country certainly could grow up having never been exposed to them.

[sunshine842]

see my above reply to huiray.

[John E.]

I did some traveling in eastern Europe a few years ago and I guarantee you that Buffalo sauce was not ubiquitous.

[hill food]

John E.- I remember seeing Buffalo Wings in the 80's (US) yet never related them to the NY upstate city until recent years. snd to others getting quibbly the process is as much a part as the sauce..

[Peg]

I don't have the slightest idea what 'buffalo sauce' is.
(I live in England).

[sandylc]

I live in the US and only have a slight idea of what it is. I know basically what the original buffalo wings recipe is from the Anchor Bar, and I have eaten chicken wings in bars a few times, but for the most part it's not my thing.

I'm curious to know what would be in a buffalo sauce - is it hot sauce and margarine like the Anchor, or has it evolved?

[mariacarmen]

butter, please, not margarine.

[sandylc]

I haven't knowingly consumed margarine in over thirty years, so I'm with you there. Unfortunately, there seem to be about a million people who claim that the original recipe for buffalo wings can only be made with margarine. Dumb. Oops, did I say that? I apologize in advance.

[John E.]

The original Anchor Bar buffalo wings did in fact use margarine.

Edit: I did not notice Sandy's post until after I wrote this. I too do not use margarine anymore. In fact, I don't think I ever used it as an adult. We seemed to eat it a lot as a child. I don't know why except that it was cheaper and we thought it was better healthwise.

[ricepad]

Here's how *I* make buffalo sauce, altho truthfully it's actually a buffalo gravy.

1 whole adult buffalo, cut into manageable pieces to fit into large pressure cooker (may substitute American bison if true buffalo is unavailable)
1 onion
2 carrots
2 ribs celery
3 sprigs Mexican oregano
salt and pepper to taste
200 lbs blonde roux

Put buffalo pieces in pressure cooker. Add onion, carrot, celery, and organo. Add enough water to barely cover the buffalo. Cover and lock lid, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for three hours. Cool, and strain through a 10' chinoise. Discard solids (my dog loves the scraps!), and bring the liquid to a simmer in a very large sauce pan. Add salt and pepper to taste, and thicken with the roux (I start with about 150 lbs of the roux, and adjust from there). After serving, refrigerate any leftovers.

[sandylc]

Ha! I made that last week, but I put in too much salt and had to throw it away.....:-)

Excellent job, ricepad.

[ricepad]

I did that too, but I discovered you can tame the saltiness by adding a springbok. I suppose if your butcher is out of springbok, substitute a lamb. Or course, it won't be Buffalo Sauce any longer...more of a 'Buffbok' sauce, I suppose.

[foiegras]

I'm guessing you found your giant pressure cooker under one of those really large rocks we have here in the US in abundance ;)

For oversalting, I add several pounds of potatoes, turnips or a 'gator will also do.

[joe777cool]

I was spelling parmigiana as it is usually pronounced, Im well aware how to spell it LOL. The "caesar lady" phrased it in a way that she had never had it before. Maybe I am wrong but arent buffalo wings/tenders on just about every pub/bar/casual dining menu coast to coast?

It just baffles me that someone in their late 30's early 40's could have gone that far in life without eating a caesar salad or buffalo wing.

[sunshine842]

I'm with you 100%, joe -- yes -- caesar salad and buffalo wings have been on every chain eatery menu in the country for decades...while I find it dubious that someone could make it to their 40s without having eaten it, I find it pretty incredulous that someone could have never even *heard* of it.

I suppose these are the same people who believe the world is flat and that Elvis is still alive.

I'm pretty sure that if someone had had an accent indicating that they weren't middle America, you'd have never posted the question to begin with.

[babette feasts]

There are some people who have gotten through life with limited chain eatery experience. I don't go to sports bars or chains, and was vegetarian in college and several years after, so I'm sure I've never sat and ordered a plate of hot wings. While I am familiar with the concept of hot wings and have enjoyed a few (but probably only as staff meal at work), out here in the West everyone I know calls them hot wings, not buffalo wings. If you asked me what hot wing sauce was made of, I could tell you Frank's and butter. Buffalo sauce means nothing to me. I know the world is round, but I'm not telling you where Elvis is.

[mariacarmen]

really? i've always known them as buffalo wings (lived my whole life on West Coast). not trying to be argumentative, bf, just wondering about the different experiences of us all....

[sandylc]

I've heard both terms, but I really don't eat them.....chicken wings are fine food, but the types of places that serve them aren't usually where I go...

[Lizard]

Again, the question about Caesar dressing may have nothing to do with Whether one has eaten the salad. How many bastard versions of this are floating around? They've gone rogue, and I've had some unfortunate experiences. That said, I usually avoid or ask for ingredients.

As for the others-- thanks so much for backing the claim that one can legitimately not have encountered buffalo wings/chicken/tenders until a later part of life-- and that as much as Paris is the centre of my heart, it is not all of Europe. And thanks also for those of you who note that Americana is hardly ubiquitous, even in America, although globalisation and corporatisation have gone a long way to ensure it has.

Sorry, but there are questions and stories one can tell about food encounters that are funny. Mocking people for not having encountered certain foods? Eh.

[joe777cool]

Nobody is being mocked, not at all. It is just strange that they could live 40 years and not accidentally have eaten a caesar salad or a buffalo wing. Both times it caught me off guard on how to explain what caesar dressing tastes like and what buffalo sauce is.....common knowledge - I thought anyways.

[ricepad]

This wasn't really a COOKING comment, but at a local strawberry stand, Mrs. ricepad was perusing the offerings, trying to decide exactly which flat of beautiful, freshly-picked berries would form our dessert that night. There was another customer standing next to her, doing the same thing. The other woman leaned close to Mrs. ricepad and whispered, "These look awfully seedy, don't they?"

[2roadsdiverge]

Maybe she meant "seedy" as in "run-down, decrepit, shabby, squalid" or even "sordid and disreputable"

Were they from the Tenderloin district of San Francisco? Or maybe Times Square? Imported from Bangkok, maybe?

[huiray]

Have you been to Times Square recently? (I presume you mean the one in NYC) :-)

Hmm, that word wouldn't have been the first one to spring into my mind to describe Bangkok...

[2roadsdiverge]

I have been to Times Square recently, and I know it isn't "seedy" anymore. But in my head it is still the Times Square from the 70s and 80s (do a Google search for "Times Square seedy"!) :)

And Bangkok (while a lovely city with lots of legitimate things to do) can certainly be "sordid and disreputable" as well. Or so I am told....

[huiray]

"...do a Google search for "Times Square seedy"..."
-----------
Nah, don't need to. I used to walk around there during its heyday, eyeing suspicious characters while watching where I stepped, dodging scam-artists, urinating blokes, even someone jerking off in a corner on the sidewalk once, ogling the porno parlors (they were great fun), etc etc etc. Actually, I kind of miss that old Times Square. It had so much more character.

Bangkok is a vibrant mix - of course it has "sordid & disreputable" areas but so has almost every large city. There is a great deal of "SE Asian" character, as also found in most of the cities in the region. Hmm, some might consider Amsterdam "sordid and disreputable", n'est-ce pas?

[Wahooty]

Oh, Amsterdam is absolutely a strawberry. Seedy, yet delightful.

[2roadsdiverge]

Of course Amsterdam would be considered "sordid and disreputable". It isn't about realities, it is about appearances and impressions. If I (as a single male) tell my friends that I am spending a week in Bangkok OR Amsterdam, I know what they will be thinking (which is why I say I'm going to Thailand or the Netherlands ;) Much less judgment that way).

But my point was just tossing out a couple of places that came to mind when I thought of the word "seedy" outside the context of strawberry seeds. It was meant to be funny.

[huiray]

But of course. I was yanking your chain a bit, even if I think "overgeneralizations" are subject to challenge. :-)

BTW, what were your most, uh, "interesting" encounters in the splendid old Times Square?

[2roadsdiverge]

Uh, not appropriate for a Chow board, that's for sure!

I'm headed to Tijuana to eat at Mision 19 next week. I'm wondering if the Zona Norte is worth checking out just for the reminiscing...

[KaimukiMan]

seedless watermellon, seedless oranges, seedless grapes . . . where oh where are the seedless strawberries?

[ricepad]

Bravo! Why didn't I think of that? Well done!

[Spice_zing]

Last fall I dehydrated some grapes into raisins. When I told a friend about it she said,
“I didn’t know you could make raisins from grapes.” (Say what??)

[foiegras]

Someone notify the Vatican! First water into wine, and now this!!

[sandylc]

Years ago when my son was very young and didn't have very many teeth, he made grapes from raisins. :-P

[jmcarthur8]

Um, yep. That was a startling revelation when my first son was little, too.

[huiray]

Ah - y'all mean after, uh, "processing" through a long tube?

[sandylc]

You got it.

[sandylc]

Scared me silly the first time!

[staughton]

OMG! I thought you were joking. This really happens?!? lol That's the best thing I've learned in weeks! Thanks.

[sandylc]

Great story for blackmailing the kid later!

[isisrose]

When I was seven or eight, some of my cousins came to visit. My mom made a huge summery picnic spread. However, one of my cousins was absolutely baffled by the concept of corn on the cob, because it couldn't possibly be corn. Corn comes from a can!

Also, a different cousin at the same dinner was frustrated by not being able to find the butter, when it was right in front of her. Apparently the only substance recognizable as butter comes in a squeeze bottle.

Even seven year old me was weirded out.

[CanadaGirl]

What the heck kind of "butter" comes in a squeeze bottle?!

[FrauMetzger]

I'm ashamed to admit that I know this, but Parkay used to make "butter" in a squeeze bottle. I don't know if it's still made, and I hope to never find out.

[Ditdah]

Someone still does, because I saw it this weekend on "Barbeque Pitmasters." They were cooking brisket (Wagyu beef brisket, according to the show.) One of the contestants took their brisket out with about an hour of cooking time left, picked up that yellow bottle, and squeezed margarine (as he called it) all over the brisket, then dumped sugar on top of that. ICK. This just after the judegs were discussing the fact that the beef was such a high quality that it didn't need the heavy seasonings that a standard brisket would...

[huiray]

I've never seen that kind of butter - or never noticed it before anyway.

Hmm, what became of that "wagyu" brisket? How did it turn out, what were the comments about it?

[Ditdah]

There were three teams competing. The team with the squeeze butter and sugar topping came in third place; the judges said it was tough and didn't have good flavor. (One of them described it as reminding him of a bad roast beef sandwich from the convinence store!) Overall, I think the three competitors all added much more seasonings to the brisket than they probably would have needed to, given that the meat looked better than the normal KCBS brisket.

Here's a link to a review which includes some notes about the brisket and the competitors, although it's mostly about the series itself; it's written by the guy who runs Amazingribs.com (which I've also linked to in the past week) and I trust his instincts on BBQ: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-g...

[huiray]

Thanks. Sounds like all three teams messed up by treating the brisket like any ol' brisket.

[scubadoo97]

It's known that to win with KCBS judges that you need a sweet sauce

[Ditdah]

I know, but he didn't make a sweet sauce. He used a rub before cooking, but then just put 'butter' and sugar on the brisket at one hour to go, which led to the judges complaints of the brisket not having flavor. I know at least two of the three judges for the show are KCBS competitors, because they are people I'm familiar with (Myron Mixon and Tuffy Stone) so I know they were aware of KCBS standards. All three of them said this particular brisket was not well done.

They also complained that he didn't include any burnt ends in the box, which he said was because they weren't good - they were bland and tough. So even the competitor knew the brisket wasn't flavored well.

[foiegras]

It also comes in a blue bottle, used by my local elotes vendor ... she also uses green box parmesan, which I otherwise don't eat.

[sunshine842]

the one acceptable use was to squeeze on corn at a cookout -- it's the least-sloppy option of any other butter-application method.

[hill food]

or on a camping trip (seals off bugs and IIRC it's shelf-stable-ish)

[LauraGrace]

Except for the butter-the-bread-and-then-roll-the-cob-on-it method, as is my dad's family's tradition!

[sunshine842]

admirable as that is -- the squeeze bottle doesn't require a knife or a piece of bread (or keeping the butter cold AND out of the water in the cooler)

[Becca Porter]

My sister recently cooked a nice meaty pasta sauce for some close friends from Mississippi. The wife found a bay leaf in her serving. She calmly told my sister, "it's all right....it's no big deal, we will just pick it out! Don't worry we will still eat it."

She had never seen or heard of bay leaves, and almost didn't believe it. :)

[2roadsdiverge]

HAHA, I love that the wife thought it was an accident. She had to be thinking "How would a leaf get in the sauce? Was a window open in the kitchen and one blew in?"

[huiray]

That's interesting. I went poking around the net to see what kinds of spices were used in
Mississippi food recipes and without trying hard at all found recipes (e.g. for chitlins. gumbo, etc) that do call for bay leaves. I wonder what the friend's background was?

[Becca Porter]

The canned soup and dry mix type cook, I'd guess.

[foiegras]

And anything beyond Mrs Dash qualifies as an exotic spice ...

[2roadsdiverge]

There was a great Simpson's episode where Marge is at a flea market and says "Oh, what a lively spice rack! Six spices? Amazing! Ore-uh-GAH-no? What's ore-uh-GAH-no?"

[LauraGrace]

Every time I use oregano, which is often, I hear Marge's voice in my head. "Ore-uh-GAH-no? What the..."

[FrauMetzger]

When my mom or grand mom made tomato sauce or stew, they would always say that the person who got the bay leaf in their serving would be the next to get married. My young cousins and I spent years desperately avoiding that bay leaf, or trying to sneak it into each other's bowls.

[carbondiamond]

I have two stories-the first was from a young co-worker who said he never ate meat that looked like it came from an animal. Nothing on the bone, nothing with a shape that was obviously "meat". He would throw away anything that had even a tiny piece of cartilage! Everything was bought prepackaged and processed, like chicken nuggets or hot dogs. Blech.

The other story was when I was with AmeriCorps and was working with kids in a program where we feed them a nutritious snack such as applesauce or yogurt. One day a boy said of his watermelon, "Hey, this taste like watermelon!" It turns out that he had never had actual watermelon, just watermelon flavored candy. That was just so darned sad.

[JeremyEG]

Well for real animal lovers, they can be happy knowing that animals are always treated humanely in the manufacturing of chicken nuggets and hot dogs. : )

That one is actually common I think. I have a friend who wouldn't eat a whole roast fish because she said even fish are cute animals so she liked to stick to regular food like italian sausages.

JeremyEG
HomeCookLocavore.com

[truman]

That reminds me of a woman I worked with in graduate school... she called herself a vegetarian ("I won't eat anything with a face") EXCEPT for burgers from one particular restaurant near her condo, no more than once a month. Sorry, but I'd call her a mostly-vegetarian... but no, she was adamant that she was a vegetarian because she had the no-faces rule. Sigh.

[sandylc]

Sounds like she was trying to be "cool" rather than having real reason.

[ricepad]

You could have told her that her hamburger very likely had SEVERAL faces!

[sunshine842]

..and oh, look -- there's part of one RIGHT THERE.

[seamunky]

wow, i didn't know that "no faces" qualified someone as a vegetarian. by that logic, a vegetarian could still eat clams, oysters, mussels, uni, jellyfish, and headless horsemen.

[Ditdah]

When my sister became a vegetarian, my father simply couldn't understand it. She was home for Thankgiving, and one of the changes my mom made was to have two kinds of gravy: a traditional one with the drippings from the turkey, and a veggie-broth based one. He asked sis why she couldn't have the turkey gravy, as it didn't have any chuncks of meat in it. She replied "You use the broth from a cooked animal to make it. It requires an animal to die for me. If it used to be alive, I won't eat it." His response was "well, that asparagus had to die for you, too. Why is that ok to kill?"

He wasn't trying to be a smart-ass... He wasn't rude to her, he didn't try and change her mind. He just didn't get it.

[linguafood]

Well.... he *was* right -- that asparagus did die for her.

She still a vegetarian?

[Ditdah]

No, although she was for more than 10 years. She only eats seafood that's sustainably caught/harvested, and organic chicken from some farm that friends of hers own. I guess she started eating meat again after she got pregnant, but I didn't know that. (That she was eating meat, not the pregnancy. She lives on the other side of the country from me, so we don't see each other that often.) I was at her baby shower, and saw her eating a chicken salad sandwich... I thought maybe the hormones had gotten to her!

Another comment my dad made during that Thanksgiving gravy discussion was "Well, what if the turkey was still alive, but he just sat in really, really hot water? Hot enough to change the taste of the liquid, but not hot enough to kill it?" My mom started cracking up and asked "Would YOU want to eat gravy made from turkey bath water?"

[linguafood]

That is hilarious. The turkey bath. Humane gravy -- gotta love it!

[LauraGrace]

:D

[mariacarmen]

ahhaaha - but hot enough to change the taste of the liquid would still mean a nasty burn, even if it didn't kill you!

[foiegras]

The asparagus didn't die ... the plant was merely trimmed.

I will say this about plants ... a terrible windstorm last week took out a huge pecan in my yard. I don't yet know how old it was--estimates range from 150-300 years old. I stood by the snapped-off trunk and I could feel the presence of the tree. It felt like pain, courage, nobility. I don't think plants are as insensible as most people think. There have also been some quite interesting studies done on plants that demonstrate their awareness.

[Spice_zing]

Your dad is hilarious!

[fldhkybnva]

My good friend and I often have steak and asparagus Saturdays, however he usually insists on cooking the meal. Tonight, I was given the pleasure of making the asparagus (roasted it seasoned with garlic, olive oil, pepper). In response to my question" how do you like the asparagus," he responds "I like mine better, it's coated in seasoning which covers up the asparagus because it has no taste and any taste it does have is bad so when you cook it the goal is to cover it up with seasonings."

Is it just me or does asparagus have a very distinct taste. I reassured him of this, though still baffled to hear that he shares this impression among other friends.

[huiray]

You are correct, asparagus *does* have a distinct taste. (And asparagus pee does have a distinct smell. Perhaps your friend is one of those who can't smell asparagus pee?)

Why don't you ask your friend why he still cooks asparagus if he thinks it has "no taste" or that it has such a bad taste when he does detect it that he has to camouflage it? Why not just simply stop trying to cook/eat it then? (and you can happily eat it on your own away from his company)

[fldhkybnva]

oh, he can smell the asparagus pee though doesn't seem to mind it so much.

after "discovering" his true feelings about asparagus, that was my first question. he eats it because it's one of the few vegetables that he can actually stand and i guess he'd like to get in some good green stuff

[melpy]

What exactly is coating his asparagus?

[foiegras]

Most certainly it does have a very distinct taste ...

[KSlink]

"You're making the ice cubes the wrong way!!!" Huh?

From someone who ran the tray back and forth under the faucet, never quite filling them evenly or all the way up, and splashing water everywhere...about my technique of holding the tray still at a 45 degree angle and letting gravity do the work.....

[Spice_zing]

A repair man came to service our fridge. We started talking about deep freezers and how long food will last. He said he went on a service call once where the owner admitted he ate meat he’d kept frozen for 22 YEARS!!! (And claimed it was still good.) It took all I had to control my gag reflex upon hearing that comment.

[John E.]

If the meat was vacuumed packed it's quite possible the meat was still edible.

[sunshine842]

edible, possibly.

flavorful, healthy, tender, and not freezerburned? Not likely.

Interesting to think about how much that ancient piece of meat actually cost him after he paid for the electricity to keep it frozen for a couple of decades.

[Terrieltr]

Reminds me of a story I once read about someone who worked poison control. Someone called the line to ask about some cans of beer that had been sitting in their basements for five years. "Well, it's safe to drink, but it's going to taste like five year old beer."

[John E.]

If it's vacuumed packed with the plastic tight against the meat the freezer burn might be at a minimum. Remember hearing about people eating woolly mammoth that was found frozen in the permafrost. I agree, it won't be the best meat but I bet it would be edible from a safety standpoint.

[sunshine842]

Found this -- seems there's only a few documented cases:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/r...

and somehow "the meat was well aged but still a little tough, and it gave the stew a strong Pleistocene aroma." sounds suspiciously like a euphemism for "it was tough as hell and tasted like shit"

I think I'll stick to meat purchased under the current president, thanks.

[KaimukiMan]

there you go getting all political

[John E.]

"I think I'll stick to meat purchased under the current president, thanks."

You might wish to stock up your freezer this October just to be on the safe side. ; )

[huiray]

sunshine842 lives in France. Perhaps she means the FRENCH President.

[John E.]

Then all of the meat in her freezer must be quite recent purchases. ; )

[noodlepoodle]

One fall day my friend and I were making apple pies in her kitchen. I made the pie dough and she peeled and cut up the apples. After we rolled out the dough I asked where her cinnamon was and she produced this ancient jar. It smelled stale and I would never have guessed it was ground cinnamon. She offered that she had had it for years and never discards any of her spices---she just uses more. Figure that one.

[Spice_zing]

Truly baffling. I had a similar incident with my dad. Was cleaning out his pantry and put all the expired canned goods in the trash.

"Why are you throwing that away?"
"They expired 2 yrs ago. You shouldn't eat ‘em."
“There's nothing wrong with it. That’s good food!”

And he promptly retrieved them from the trash and put them back in the pantry.

[Spice_zing]

I am lovin’ this thread! So entertaining. Many thanks to all who posted.

[Stelmaria]

"I can't afford to cook at home."

[KSlink]

Can't afford to cook at home?? That really takes the cake for me, truly dumbfounded!!!

[LauraGrace]

Here's why:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/cook_home

;)

[Spice_zing]

LOLOLOL!!! You just killed me with that comic!

[sunshine842]

oh man.

I just lost an hour cruising through all the cartoons.

[Reston]

That is hilarious.

[Scooter8]

That site is awesome. For all the tipping threads, here's this one I found while browsing the cartoons:

http://theoatmeal.com/pl/senior_year/...

[mariacarmen]

love the oatmeal.

[Spice_zing]

Unbelievable!

[Stelmaria]

Believe it or not, it came from my mother.

[twyst]

As a single guy who cooks at home a lot, I would have to agree that it is cheaper for me to eat out than it is to cook for myself. Just sayin.

[John E.]

Is it cheaper to eat 'good' food in a restaurant than to cook at home? I understand fast food for one is cheaper than cooking but I can't believe decent, nutritional food is cheaper to eat at a restaurant than to cook at home. I know a big kettle of soup can be made much cheaper than buying soup in a restaurant for example.

[twyst]

I still think its cheaper to eat the same food out than it is to make it at home if you are cooking for one. To make "fine dining" style food, its most certainly cheaper to eat it in a restaurant, mostly because of the quantities of stuff you are required to buy. Even for something homey like meatloaf and mashed potatoes, its cheaper for me to grab it a local mom and pop place than it is to cook a meatloaf and make mashed potatoes etc.

If you want to compare dissimilar items, then yes, you can eat at home for less money, but if you want the same item thats being served in a restaurant somewhere, generally its less expensive for me just to go get it already prepared.

I love to cook so dont mind the added expense, but from a monetary standpoint, I'm getting the short end of the stick most of the time.

[John E.]

I don't know where you live or what your grocery store prices are but as an example,. I could cook a steak and baked potato much cheaper than I could to go to a restaurant and pay for the same thing. (New York Strip steak at $6.99/pound and a potato at maybe $.75/pound. I can get a bag of frozen shimp 26 - 38/pound for $5 and make shrimp scampi much cheaper than even Red Lobster.

[sandylc]

twyst, but when you make meatloaf and potatoes at home, you have enough for at least 3-4 meals, which you can freeze. That makes it quite a lot cheaper per meal.

[twyst]

"twyst, but when you make meatloaf and potatoes at home, you have enough for at least 3-4 meals, which you can freeze. That makes it quite a lot cheaper per meal."

Then you get into eating food that is not as good as what you can get at a restaurant etc when you start freezing and eating leftovers. Eating "fresh food only" for one is very expensive. Im sure I COULD eat for 40-50 a week very easily if I was willing to start using frozen produce etc, but when it comes to eating fresh non processed foods, its much cheaper to go to one of my local farm to table trailer/foodtrucks here in austin and get a quality meal for 6 or 7 dollars.

[sandylc]

O.K., terminology problem here. Freezing fresh, high-quality, homemade leftovers is NOT the same as eating processed food.

[The Professor]

re: "Eating 'fresh food only' for one is very expensive"

That simply isn't true.
Especially if one knows how to shop, and how to cook.

[twyst]

"re: "Eating 'fresh food only' for one is very expensive"

That simply isn't true.
Especially if one knows how to shop, and how to cook."

I cook professionally in a kitchen that won a james beard this year, cooking is not the issue, although my standards probably cloud the issue some.

[foiegras]

I cook for myself, and rarely freeze leftovers. I don't repeat myself very frequently, and don't mind eating the meatloaf till it's gone (either lunch or dinner, not every meal) as it's really good ;) If you're comparing the cost of a single restaurant serving to cooking family-size dishes at home, then yes, the restaurant is cheaper. I consider it an advantage to have multiple servings when I finish cooking. However, if you're dead set on single servings, you can make meatloaf and mashed potatoes that way.

If I want something that has lots and lots of ingredients or is very high-end, complex, or ethnic, I'll eat out.

[sandylc]

Good sense.

[tinnywatty]

I agree with other comments - I don't know how that is possible. Even buying all my ingredients at Whole Foods, I'd save money over eating out.

[JeremyEG]

I was about to say that for higher end food it's almost certainly cheaper to eat at home that at a restaurant. I try to use very good quality ingredients at home when I can but even if I splurged on a Lobel's Prime steak or a local grass-fed piece of meat, I might end up spending $10-15 on the meat. I know of no restaurant here that offers a steak of that quality for less than $35 and many top steakhouses charge closer to $55.. The same goes for expensive cuts of fish as well.

Where are you located and which fine-dining dishes are you thinking of that are cheaper to order in restaurants than to cook at home? This could be a whole other discussion!
JeremyEG
HomeCookLocavore.com

[twyst]

Id like to get your discount. A prime steak from Lobels costs me considerably more than $10-15

http://www.lobels.com/store/item.aspx...

[JeremyEG]

You're right. We usually share a 12 oz steak or so when we have it have it at home and Lobel's can cost more than the $10-15 I quoted. Still, I can't see how a top steak for 2 at home costs more than a top steak dinner for 2 from say Peter Lugers which runs well over $100 after tax and tip. Perhaps I'm miscalculating but I don't think so.

I cook from the EMP book occasionally too and I know what you mean about high grocery bills. But since almost none of their dishes are available a la carte, it seems like one has to dine there and do the tasting which starts at $125 pp plus tax and tip. I certainly don't have the skills that the cooks at EMP have but I can make at least a layman's version of most of the dishes at home with very good ingredients for far less than the $300 minimum it takes for two people to eat there without beverages. If I could, I'd prefer to eat there but often can't afford it. I'd be surprised if cooking from the EMP book even nightly for a week would approach anywhere near the cost of dining there nightly.

JeremyEG
HomeCookLocavore.com

[KaimukiMan]

I have friends who don't eat leftovers. Mostly they were raised eating leftovers ad-nauseum, things that were not well prepared to begin with, and haphazardly tossed together to make a meal as leftovers, often as not poorly repurposed (teriyaki sauce does nothing to help a bad tuna casserole.)

If you don't eat leftovers and you don't keep food in the freezer, and you know good local 'cheap eats' kinds of places to go, it can be a toss up between going out and staying home.

But if you are on a budget, seriously NEED to keep costs down, you can always eat cheaper at home.

[twyst]

"But if you are on a budget, seriously NEED to keep costs down, you can always eat cheaper at home."

Absolutely, Im not arguing that. If pinching pennies you can certainly live on very inexpensive things from the store, Im speaking more in terms of eating very well. There are often times when Im trying a recipe from a high end cookbook and wind up spending $75-80 minimum to make a recipe because of all the random ingredients etc. I made momofuku ramen from scratch this week and it cost me $80 by the time I bought everything needed to make it and I had at least half the ingredients on hand already.

I cook from cookbooks like EMP, French Laundry, Modernist Cuisine etc. It would be a lot cheaper for me to actually go to the restaurants and eat the dishes than it is for me to recreate them at home with the extensive amount of sourcing things like that require.

[2roadsdiverge]

Not to mention the opportunity cost of your time. if you enjoy cooking, the cost of your time is low, but I don't know a lot of people who enjoy cleaning. If my time is worth $20 an hour and it takes me 30 minutes to clean up after cooking and eating dinner, that meal cost me an extra $10 on top of the ingredients and cooking time.

[sonsothunder]

Always baffled when someone sends a plate back with comments such as:
These shrimp are too shrimpy tasting..?

[sandylc]

Or my mother's variation of, "this steak tastes too beefy...."

[foiegras]

Reminds me of one I saw right here on Chowhound. Someone wanted to know how to prepare that proper roast beef like at Arby's, not the 'gamey' kind commonly obtained at the grocery store.

[sandylc]

Argh.

[LauraGrace]

*smacks forehead*

[2roadsdiverge]

And yet it is common to talk about fish being too "fishy."

[sunshine842]

and it most certainly can be....(salt cod, I'm talking to YOU)

[KaimukiMan]

lol, and shrimp that is less than fresh can be very shrimpy-but not in a good way.

[huiray]

Have you smelled poor quality Southern Chinese salted preserved/dried fish? :-)

[sunshine842]

Yep. But salt cod is far more common where I live -- and it permeates an impressively large section of the store.

[John E.]

I don't recall the exact details but several years ago I was talking with one of my SILs and she said that she has never cooked with 'real' garlic. I was not too surprised but I did ask her how she made spaghetti sauce (from a jar), chili, garlic toast, soup, shrimp scampi, etc. Her basic answer was that she uses garlic powder when she wants garlic and does not cook shrimp because she's the only one in her family that eats shrimp. I know I would not be able to cook without garlic.

[julesrules]

Oh I'm pretty sure there's no actual garlic in my MIL's kitchen. In fact, I think fresh garlic being a pantry staple in mangiacake Canadian homes is probably a fairly recent phenomenon (maybe in the last 20-30 years?).

[huiray]

Huh, I had to look up the term "mangiacake". Heh. Interesting. :-)

[Novelli]

There was a pretty recent thread created inquiring about the coloring of cheese on pizza. One of the responses was:

"Oftentimes you'll find that pizzerias will cook their pies and then only allow the residual heat of the pie to melt the mozzarella slices in place. That is what keeps them so white and milky in texture. The mozarella slices are put on the pie immediately AFTER the pie comes out of the oven."

I think I gave myself a bald spot after reading that one.

[JeremyEG]

Not a cooking comment but I made really good chopped liver for a party here. A guest of mine said 'chopped liver is one of my favorite dishes! Thank you!' She asked how I made it and I told her. 'I sauteed the chicken livers last night and then..., She cut me off and asked 'Wait are there livers in there? I always just assumed it was called 'chopped liver' but never really thought that livers were involved. It makes sense now.'
JeremyEG
HomeCookLocavore.com

[Spice_zing]

Have mercy.

[freia]

Ask people what goes in traditional mincemeat...seriously...why is it called minceMEAT, not minceFRUIT, people.

[rccola]

I was taught that mincemeat always contained meat, chopped fine with suet and dried fruits and a way to preserve meat for unrefrigerated lunches. English pemmican in a pie. Over time the meat dropped out of the recipe.

[2roadsdiverge]

I'm a little verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic. Sweetbreads are neither sweets, nor bread. Discuss!

[huiray]

Maybe she thought it was just like how a certain sweet pastry was called mincemeat pies.

[tcamp]

You should have asked if she wanted your recipe for blood sausage.

[DougRisk]

I will be in the minority on this one, but I can actually see where she is coming from. I am thinking of things like:
- Jerusalem Artichokes
- Sweetbreads
- Eggplant
- Duck Sauce
- Heck, Rocky Mountain Oysters

Sometimes, it can be a little confusing and you might assume that the name of something is not literal.

[Spice_zing]

While I would tend to agree when the person is unfamiliar with something; the fact that she said, “chopped liver is one of my favorite dishes!” is what makes her comment baffling.

[huiray]

True.

I also idly wonder how many vegans or vegetarians there are out there whose favorite coloring for, e.g, the vegan cakes they make, is cochineal...

[kubasd]

I prefer my food beetle free, thank you :-P

[foiegras]

Vegans are well used to questioning everything. I'm an omnivore and am constantly amazed to hear of the many things that contain animal byproducts. There's a sidewalk sign in my neighborhood advertising vegan haircolor!

[hill food]

oh thank god. (heh)

[dave_c]

One thing I found out that some vegans don't know is that cane sugar may be processed using animal char. Hence, becoming a non-vegan food.

[huiray]

Interesting, I didn't know about most US cane sugar being filtered through bone char. Wikipedia links to this article: http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2007issu...

[LauraGrace]

Alas, I once overheard a couple snickering in the baking aisle about how stupid it was to spend the extra money to buy sugar that was labeled "vegan" when, after all, what could possibly be non-vegan about sugar?

[DougRisk]

I didn't say she was smart (or that I am), only that I could see where she is coming from.

[julesrules]

It's funny and well-worthy of inclusion in the thread, but I can kind of see this one - in a ditzy way. Maybe she was being flattering when she said "favourite", and it's more like something she has enjoyed before but had little exposure to. I never really think too hard about the fact that pate is made from liver, even when it's called LIVER pate! Also there is the "what am I, chopped liver?" expression which could lead to some confusion that "chopped liver" is idiomatic in some way. ANYWAY... she sounds a little ditzy, but open-minded and willing to admit ignorance, which I like :)

[queueueuq]

Not technically cooking, but I was having sushi with someone who insisted on draping a slice of that pickled ginger on top of every piece. *sob* Why bother with the fish at all?

[huiray]

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/7478...

[ricepad]

When I was an itamae, I saw that every night. Those tended to be the same folks that made the shoyu/wasabi slurry.

[hill food]

call me a cretin but I like that slurry, not always but sometimes.

[huiray]

Heh. Yes, I do that slurry too - and vary the proportions depending on whether the nigirizushi had any wasabi incorporated into it at all in the first place. :-) Sometimes I don't do the slurry, just pour myself a saucer of soy sauce; at other times I do a wasabi + soy sauce (as desired) addition, separately; at other times I do the slurry...
;-)

[linguafood]

i love it, and i don't care what anyone tells me about it. fuck those sushi fascists.

[biondanonima]

Amen. I like my slice of ginger on top too. Now, if I were eating omakase at Masa, maybe I'd refrain. But otherwise, I do what I want!

[arashall]

Overheard at my local grocery store this weekend - no lie! Woman, telling the butcher that she had guests coming who only ate chicken or fish. Then the big question, "so what's pork tenderloin?" Should have seen the look on his face as he struggled for a polite answer!

[DougRisk]

Arashall, after she said she needed Chicken (or fish) she asked for Pork Tenderloin?

I am completely lost.

[melpy]

I think the woman was asking if pork tenderloin fell into either category.

[arashall]

Yep. I was too. I think she really didn't know where the "pork" tenderloin came from!

[foiegras]

I wonder if she heard 'fork-tender loin'?

[fourunder]

Who can forget...... Chicken of the Sea in a can .....

[JenJeninCT]

I have kept reptiles my entire out- of- my- parents'-house life, including iguanas, often eaten and referred to as "chicken of the tree" in South America. With the jingle of a certain tuna commercial ringing in my ears, I came up with this charming little ditty in 1985:

Ask any reptile,
You happen to see...
What's the best lizard?
Chicken of the tree!

yes, I am a huge geeky nerd :)

[babette feasts]

oh, you know, it's just like chicken tenders, but from a pig.... the other white meat...

[FrauMetzger]

This does not surprise me unfortunately. At my shop, I sell ground lamb and ground veal shaped into patties. At least once a month, I get to practice my poker face when someone asks me what the difference between them is, aren't they the same thing?

[John E.]

I did not realize how widespread that ignorance is. A couple years ago at the MN State Fair a local radio talkshow host asked a 4H kid with a lamb where on his lamb that veal comes from. Many years ago I heard a co-worker (also on the radio) ask a 12 year old 4H kid what a barrow was and the boy replied "a pig with his nuts cut off".

[rccola]

So your co-worker was ignorant or the boy was ignorant? Because a barrow is a term for a castrated male pig.

[hill food]

I don't get your point rc, the kids response was the definition.

[tinnywatty]

So what does that have to do with ignorance (the subject of John E's post)?

[greygarious]

During a political discussion on TV this week, one of the panelists apparently misunderstands what it means to refer to damage control on a recurrent problem as a "game of whack-a-mole".
He said "wa-ka-MO-lay" instead. Kudos, at any rate, for knowing the correct pronunciation of guacamole.

[sueatmo]

OK, funny.

[hill food]

I wonder, what is the color of uacamole?

[sunshine842]

I think that's the word for the guacamole that's been sitting too long and has gone that nasty shade of greyish-brown ....

[iluvcookies]

My step-mom spent over $10K re-doing the counters and appliances in her kitchen, but refuses to buy a decent pot or pan. I found a lovely All-Clad saute pan for $75 at the William Sonoma outlet, but she scoffed at it, saying "why should I spend that much on a pan?" So she uses crappy non-stick pans from Target on her $1500 stovetop.

[ragtime_6]

"I'm allergic to water." An entire magazine article devoted to a girl who was so allergic to water that her skin would erupt in redness and hives from so much as a splash of water to skin contact.

Not quite cooking-related but my eyebrows were receding into my hairline at that one.

[The Professor]

What was the magazine?
Weekly World News?
LOL.

[kathleen440]

Sadly, that is a real condition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquageni...

[discombobulated]

Was her name Elphaba?

[sunshine842]

dang, you beat me to it.

[freia]

Went to a fundraising early evening drinks thing at a very high end home in our small town. Big home, beautiful, but odd odd odd -- there were two fully equipped kitchens, almost side-by-side. One was fully equipped with more industrial equipment. Huge gas cooktop, quadruple convection ovens, two fridges, 2 separate islands along with a peninsula layout. The other was high end magazine quality with top of the line EVERYTHING, from 6 burner gas stove plus integrated grill, to the double Sub Zero fridges, integrated Miele latte machine, 2 microwaves, 2 dishwashers -- you get the picture. Fully open to the dining area. Granite, marble baking centre...fantastic kitchen. Now, I've heard of 2 kitchens in very wealthy strict kosher households, but I know this isn't the case here. Since enquiring minds wanted to know, I asked the Lady of the House. I said "you have a beautiful kitchen, but i'm wondering why you have a second one just beside the first?". And she said (and this is a quote):

Oh THIS kitchen is for show. The OTHER kitchen is for the staff.

Seriously...

[sunshine842]

I believe that that is the definition of "more money than sense"

[John E.]

Think of all the restaurant kitchens that have been shown on Diners, Drive-ins' & Dives that are not even close to being as well equipped as even one of those kitchens which you described.

[twyst]

Its actually not that uncommon in a big house, before I switched careers (I now cook professionally) I was an architect and worked on more than a couple of homes that had separate kitchens for the help and for the owners of the home. To be honest if I was just rolling in money Id probably do the same.

[freia]

I think what was shocking is that the show kitchen wasn't for use, just for show,and that all cooking was done by the staff in the "staff's kitchen".

[ragtime_6]

beautifully written post. Reading it gave me such culinary fantasies, which were quickly popped by the inane explanation on the part of the host. God forbid any guests ask her to actually COOK something, as it would no doubt necessitate a stomach pump.

[sunshine842]

and the manicure -- oh dear god, the manicure.

[hill food]

I do know someone with a kitchen the size of a tennis court (ok maybe squash is closer) and while she DOES bring in caterers for parties (and you could spit roast a goat on that equipment), the casual family snack kitchen is in the walkout basement (by the wine cellar) ehh they're all used.

but back on topic - what is that BBC cooking show satire advising to (paraphrased) 'gently humiliate the strawberries before a nice balsamic excoriation'? not the words but that sort of path.

[Jimmy_Ike]

"Posh Nosh"!

Arabella Weir & Richard E Grant - awesome, awesome stuff...

[hill food]

That's it! thanks! I found it once on youtube or hulu or something.

[Spice_zing]

Wow.

[twyst]

I've had a lady claim to be allergic to salt. I almost felt sorry for the server who brought that request into the kitchen ><

[FoodExpression]

Oh no I dont like Chinese food..Msg is very bad for you.

[dave_c]

This one I can sort of understand, but all you have to do is follow instructions.

"I'm afraid to deep fry. I might burn my house down."

[sunshine842]

for me, that only applies to deep-frying a turkey....if even the firefighters doing the demo on the morning TV program can't get it right for a live camera spot, I don't even want to try.

[JNUNZMAN]

I had a friend of mine come over for dinner with her children. I was melting butter in the microwave and her young daughter, maybe 6 or 7 years old, was looking thru the little microwave window at the butter rotating around. When my friend saw this she shrieked and put her hands over the kids eyes "Don't ever do that!!! Don't you know that it'll make you go blind?!!!!" She was dead serious. My jaw was on the floor. Mind you, this is the same person that asked us if we were getting rid of the cat when my wife gave birth. I asked why and she replied "Don't you know that the cat will smell the milk on the babies breath and smother it?!!"
You just can't make some things up!!!

[sueatmo]

Too much urban folklore? Too many crazy email posts about strange threats? Weird.

[dave_c]

Thinking of microwave and "nuking" food.

Some people believe that microwaves leave residual nuclear radiation in the food. Hence, they don't own a microwave.

[sueatmo]

You mean they think a microwave is a nuclear device?

Consumer Reports used to warn consumers about leakage from around the micro doors, but that warning has been lifted ages ago. Same with fear about getting to close to the TV.
At any rate microwave radiation is not nuclear radiation by a long shot.

[dave_c]

Yes, some people (generally elderly) believe microwaves use ionizing radiation.

[Jackie007]

We have customers where I work that don't let us scan their food because they think it makes it radioactive. These customers are also scared of the automatic doors and always use the regular pull door.

[Spice_zing]

Say what?? Truly baffling.

[Jackie007]

The one also doesn't let us touch her food. So she holds it far away and we have to attempt to read the numbers off the thing from several feet away. She likes me, so I get her a lot. I'm not even a cashier, but she'll always find a reason to get me up to a register to ring her up.

[sueatmo]

You mean they won't let you scan the code for pricing? This is truly weird. I have to ask, where do you live? Are these customers elderly or perhaps rural hippies? I am having a hard time imagining this.

[Jackie007]

Las Cruces, NM. They're not elderly or rural hippies, just crazy.

The same thing used to happen to me (with more frequency actually) when I worked at a high-end natural foods store in a wealthy town in NJ a few years back.

[sandylc]

I've working in natural foods stores and encountered this before. I have a friend who won't go near anyplace with a microwave oven in it.

[John E.]

I wonder what those customers would do if a clerk accidently pointed the scanning 'gun' in their direction?

[sandylc]

Ha! That might have been fun....

[Jackie007]

Don't give me ideas.

[tcamp]

Low budget laser tag!

[sueatmo]

These people are really mentally ill? ("crazy" isn't a figure of speech?)

OK, then I sort of get it. How do people like that function? My guess is they function poorly.

[Jackie007]

I have absolutely no idea. A couple of my friends think I'm crazy for not having a microwave, but it's not like I don't have one due to some crazy reason. It's just that in my experience, I end up just using it for popcorn. So I'm putting my limited counter space to better use.

But yeah, I have no idea how they function. We were cracking up a few weeks ago at work when a rep said we all looked like we really lived the lifestyle and none of us look like drinkers or smokers. Pretty much the entire place is all drinkers and smokers...we just happen to also eat very healthy and work out...LOL.

[Terrieltr]

How bad is it that I went "Oh, Las Cruces, that explains it." (I"m in ABQ).

[rccola]

You mean our schools are so crappy that they teach no one about radiation or physics or chemistry or...how illogical most of their thought processes are?

[John E.]

I bet she has never let her chicken handle toads because they will get warts from holding them.

[sunshine842]

and god forbid anyone consider letting their daughter swim in a public pool!

[greygarious]

A good thing, too - who wants to make their stock with warty chicken feet? ;-p

[John E.]

You know, until I read your post I did not realize my auto-correct had done this to me. I have to turn that 'feature' off....

[sunshine842]

so what did you say? I truly have no idea how I'd react to that scenario.

Part of me says I'd just skip over it.
Part of me says I'd try to tell her that it's not true.

part of me would jump over to the microwave and squash my face against the glass just before stumbling around the kitchen screaming, "I'm BLIND!!!"

[laliz]

LOLOLOL

[JNUNZMAN]

My wife and I both looked at each other and said in unison "Are you kidding?!! Why do you think that there's a window in the door???" and laughed.
We both ignored the cat sucking the breath out of the baby comment becuase we really couldn't believe that a 30 something aged person would actually believe something that stupid.
Had my wife not been there I probably would have tried the "I'm blind" and stumbled about the kitchen scenario though!!

[Isolda]

You should have told her the window was there so that you could tell when the cat was fully nuked.

We do call microwaving "nuking" in our house, though. The only fear surrounding it is the fear of getting yelled at when something explodes and the perpetrator just leaves it.

[sunshine842]

Like-like-like -- too funny!

[sueatmo]

That's not cool.

[Isolda]

I was joking. I love cats...curled up on my furniture or my lap, not as food (this being a chow site.)

[sueatmo]

Oh sorry, I was referring to the mess left behind in the microwave. That's not cool.

I like cats too.

[sunshine842]

LOLOL -- I thought you were talking about the cat itself, too.

What a warped little side thread.

[huiray]

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/techno/microwavedpet.asp
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs...

[KaimukiMan]

disturbing, deeply deeply distrubing

[RUK]

I just love it when I go to the Bagel store, and there are bins with different kinds of Bagels, all freshly and properly baked, and then there is invariably a concerned/ super picky customer asking for "well done" Bagels. The fellow behind the counter nods and picks out that one well done Bagel, with a smile no less.

[melpy]

We ask for well done bagels, if they aren't golden brown poppy seed and are white undercooked looking my father won't eat them. Generally he just points at the ones he wants. Bagels are his favorite but thu are so bad for you they are only a special treat so he if he is going to eat one it better be just they way he wants, no settling.

[fourunder]

I not only ask for well done bagels, but also the same for any crusty bread. It has to pass the visual inspection of being a darker golden brown. Having been in the restaurant and catering business, as well as retail sales of breads and bagel for special events, I can tell you there is plenty of *not properly baked* bagels and bread being supplied and sold to the public....either in the oven or before in proofing.

[RUK]

Interesting! I guess "our" bagel store sells such a nice product, asking for a well done Bagel always struck me as funny. I see your point.
Melpy, I am stumped, why are they bad for you?

[sueatmo]

Bagels are dense calorie wise, and are full of carbs. I think a "serving" is supposed to be 1/2 of a regular bagel. I confess I've never heard of a "well done bagel."

[melpy]

Very dense calorie wise and heavy on refined flour carbs. My father and I are both overweight. Plus for him a bagel means butter on one half and cream cheese on the other put together sandwich style. So in addition to te less than nutritious bagel, he is slathering it with fat. Since it is mostly carbs and not whole grain it doesn't stick with him long.

[RUK]

I see. And here I was looking for a built-in poison.....

[sandylc]

Like other foods, bagels have "grown" over the years. I make my bagels with some whole grain added to the mix and I also make them smaller - I weigh the dough portions for consistency. I like to think I'm making them just a bit healthier this way.

Yes, I bake them "well done". Underbaked goods are one of my pet peeves.

[rockycat]

We also have to ask for "well done" bagels. If not, you get what we call at home a ghost bagel - pale, soft, and squishy. All bagel stores in this area are the same in that respect. We once asked a counter person why all the bagels were so pale and underdone and the simple answer was, "That's how the customers want them. If they're crusty we can't sell them." To me, *that* is a very sad comment.

[melpy]

Those customers should stick to their grocery store prebagges commercial bagels and soft sliced bread. Pass all their crusty foods on to me!

[John E.]

My father told me about how during the depression his father would go to a bakery in NE Minneapolis, Blackies' Bakery, closed in 2007, to get old bread, rolls, and bagels. The people gave the old bakery products to my grandfather and he would feed most of it to his livestock (cow, pigs, turkeys, geese, ducks, and goats) and some of it he would bring into the house for the family. My grandfather would bring his haul home in a coffee gunnysack on the street car. My father says he never had a soft bagel until he was in his 30s. He didn't know they were not supposed to be rock hard.

[von_levi]

I had someone refuse to eat at a restaurant because the food was too flavorful and rich.

[biondanonima]

My husband once took his mother and younger (adult) siblings to the Olive Garden, and they didn't eat anything because the food was "too fancy." Wow.

[LauraGrace]

*mind boggles*

[SeefuSefirosu]

I used to work there. Nothing there is "fancy". I'm amazed.

[KaimukiMan]

seems that for many if it isn't something they can cook at home, then it's fancy. So why not stay at home? Ah well. And yes, I can cook an excellent hamburger, but still like to go out for one. Hypocrite? Moi? You becha.

[foiegras]

Hamburgers are like salsa, though ... there are so many different ones. I make both, and I also go out for both. It's about variety ... nothing hypocritical about wanting to try something different.

Btw, the blandest eater I've ever known (she had gallbladder issues) just loved the Olive Garden.

[Wahooty]

I swear the OG makes MY gallbladder act up, and I have no issues.

I'm only kind of joking. The richest bland food I have ever had.

[John E.]

I have been to the Olive Garden twice in my lifetime. Once in 1991 and again in 2004. Both times I was the guest of others. In 1991 I did not know better. In 2004 I kept my mouth shut (except while eating of course).

[linguafood]

Musta been hard to get any food in your mouth, then. Or was that your point?

[John E.]

Re-read my parenthetic remark ; ) I did not find the food to be so bad as to be inedible. Just not my thing.

[mariacarmen]

my 83 year old father now finds most food we cook for him to have "too much flavor."

[hill food]

my 78 YO mom's getting that way. I think I have her interested in Japanese (not sushi or sashimi) but more yakitori and izakaya type stuff.

[sandylc]

My 79 YO wants beef that isn't so "beefy".

[pecorino]

Weird... I thought people's sense of taste decreased as they got older. So I'd expect older folks to find food bland.

[sandylc]

It doesn't make sense, does it? The folks at my mom's senior place just want bland food and lots of sugar. Go figure.

[staughton]

I cook for my parents (89 and 90) and I blast the **** out of them with chilis and garlic among other things, and they don't seem to mind--but sugar is what they REALLY want. All Day Long. It's crazy!! As long as they eat their vegs, they can have their sugar. That generation just isn't prone to overeating.

[John E.]

I don't know if it's the generation or the age that is the reason for the lesser appetite. I'm guessing it's more likely an age related issue. I noticed the same thing with both my mother and my father.

[sandylc]

Not my mom. She starves herself and then eats GIANT portions to compensate. Can't talk sense into her.

[hill food]

mine will eat cookies waffles and ice cream all day if ya let 'em.

love 'em but they are gaining the impulse control of 3 year olds. thank god they don't drink.

[biondanonima]

My grandmother always had a sweet tooth but it got WAY worse after she hit 80 - she might eat two bites of protein and vegetables each day, and after that it was all candy, all the time. I remember one summer I was home from college and I hadn't eaten with her recently - we went to a picnic and she didn't eat a thing, claiming she wasn't hungry. When dessert rolled around, I pulled out a pie I had made - it was a ridiculous, gooey, chocolate-caramel-nut mess - and she said she'd try a small slice. Damned if she didn't eat half the pie in the next hour.

[sandylc]

My mom just wants sugar and bread (which is also just sugar, anyway), milk, and sometimes meat. Has no impulse control, either. Says she loves veg but rarely actually buys or eats them, and usually only the starchy ones. Says she loves fruit but only eats it buried in sugar.

[jmcarthur8]

You know, by the time I'm 90, I don't think a good diet is going to improve my lifespan much, so just feed me sweets and mac & cheese all day, and I'll die happy. ;-)

[CallAnyVegetable]

+1!

[Spice_zing]

A woman with rheumatoid arthritis and a host of other ailments lamented,

“I guess I’ll have to suffer thru making my special cake for next week’s church meeting.”

“Why do it if you’ll be hurting for days afterwards?”

“They expect me to.”

“They’ll understand if you can’t. Why not bring something else?”

“No, that won’t do.”

Bottom line: She gloried in being a kitchen martyr.

[Spice_zing]

Here's another one. "I make my pies so light and fluffy that I can eat the whole thing in a day."

[rccola]

To be fair to her and/or play the devil's advocate, I doubt she gloried in being a kitchen martyr. I think it's very, very hard to become disabled and a constant struggle to draw the line between giving in and can't do. If she was known for her "special" cake, she may want to keep making it even if it's painful and the pain is lasting. She may look down the road and fear the day she really won't be able to do it, the day her joints are so destroyed and fused that she really be a total cripple. We all want to have some use in this world.

[flashria]

I was in a fish and chip shop recently and the lady in front of me asked for a fishcake.

The man behind the counter said 'which one? We've these ones homemade on the premises, or these frozen catering ones.'

The lady leaned forward, pointed at the homemade ones and said 'is there real fish in that one?'

I thought, how nice, there's a discerning customer... the fish fryer said, with some pride, 'yes, there is, it's fresh cod'.

The lady said......wait for it....'well I won't have that one then' and bought two of the frozen ones!
Some people, eh?!

[Spice_zing]

Say what?? I'll take the fresh, homemade any day.

[The Professor]

Oy. Sounds like the kind of person that would drive past 4 farm stands and buy produce at a chain supermarket.
I see it all the time where I live.

[Spice_zing]

An artisan cheese-maker was explaining cheese-making to a small group of people. A lady piped up and asked, “How do they keep the milk from going bad while the cheese ages?” After a long pause and the most priceless, puzzled expression he said, “Well…sour milk and cultures is what cheese is.”

[rccola]

See, I think her question was logical. She was asking how they develop the good cheese taste without the awful bitter sour milk taste. How they get the right culture to sour the milk and solidify it into cheese. You know, the right amount of culture, right environment, etc.

That's what I'd think and I don't even think she worded it badly.

Of course, with some cheeses, the line between cheese and plain old spoiled milk seems pretty fine!

[DougRisk]

"... without the awful bitter sour milk taste"

"... plain old spoiled milk ..."

RcCola, I understand what you are saying, but, I always feel the need to point this out:

Soured Milk and Spoiled Milk are two very different things.

[rccola]

Yes, I know that. If you note, I wrote "How they get the right culture to sour the milk." It was a hasty post, fresh meat for the post police. Sorry.

[DougRisk]

*** I wrote "How they get the right culture to sour the milk." ***

And then you wrote "spoiled" milk in the next thought. I was just making sure.

[sandylc]

How about someone who LOVES cheesecake, but becomes physically ill with disgust at the very mention of cream cheese......they have no clue that there might a a contradiction at play here.....

[tinnywatty]

I don't know about this one- I enjoy cheesecake (especially the drier style) but am not really a fan of plain/straight cream cheese. And I'm fully aware that cream cheese is the main ingredient in cheesecake. There's a definite textural difference once it's baked.

[rccola]

Comment on yelp about my favorite Thai/Vietnamese: The food tastes great but no one really speaks English so I won't go again.

[sunshine842]

*facepalm*

[thimes]

Ugh. That is how you know TO go back!

[tripit]

I actually find this comment as baffling as the original. I have been to wonderful Thai restaurants with servers who spoke perfect English and awful Thai restaurants where no English was spoken.

[mariacarmen]

Oh that reminds me, one of my best friends doesn't like Vietnamese or Thai food because he thinks "it's boring next to Chinese food." !!! (and this guy only knows the most standard americanized Chinese food.)

[hill food]

wow I just felt my brain shrink a bit (which is OK given the pollen/sinus issues) and don't get me wrong as I love good Chinese, but... ok it just shrank a little more figuring this one out. best comparisons of these cuisines (related but distinct) I can come up with are architectural terms from the 15th -18th centuries. but boring?

I'm blocking this thread (if I could) words fail and I can yak away until the cows wander off out of boredom.

[Terrieltr]

How sad. I think about all the tasty things he's missing out on and pity him. Ah, well, more for me.

[mariacarmen]

and me!

[sandylc]

My mom has a warped sense of what "Chinese" food is. She thinks the gloppy, sweet, bland stuff of the American seventies is the real deal. Her favorite "Chinese" recipe is to put a pork loin in the crockpot, then add S&P, garlic powder, brown sugar, and a can of crushed pineapple to it before she cooks it all to mush.

We once got some quick takeout (I think it was Thai - it's been a while) that we told her was Asian food - to try to simplify things for her. After eating a bit, she declared that she didn't like Asian food and was going to stick to Chinese food - !

[huiray]

Have you ever brought her to a real (or as real as one can find in the USA) Chinese restaurant? Or Thai, or Vietnamese, or Korean, or Japanese?

[sandylc]

Great idea! Now that she lives closer to me, it's on my list of things to do! Have to be careful with her food allergies, though. Cinnamon is a huge one and it can be buried in all sorts of things......I might have to do some homemade stuff first. I am thinking of some simple vegetable and noodle things to start. Simple Japanese out might work, though.

[The Professor]

My ex sister-in-law once asked me, as I was preparing a fish dinner, "Is this _caught_ fish or _bought_ fish?"

It was indeed "caught" fish...caught that very morning actually , and which of course she absolutely _refused_ to eat (preferring, I suppose, a fish that had been sitting in a supermarket case for three days).

[Firenzilla]

!!!!!

[KaimukiMan]

Oahu has some shrimp farms on the North Shore. Near the farms are food trucks that sell said shrimp. Friend's mom was visiting from the midwest. Was suspicious of shrimp to start but agreed to try it - hey with enough butter and garlic....

she thought it was pretty good, until he pointed over to the pond the shrimp may have come from. she spat it out immediately "you mean its not processed or anything? they just catch them and cook them?"

[John E.]

Some people have no real concept of where their food originates or what happens to it on its way to their kitchen. I remember some of the kids' friends being amazed that we could pop popcorn on our stove and did not need to use the microwave. They had never seen it done. I asked if they had ever had popcorn at the movies. They said 'yea, but we never thought you could do that at home".

[Jackie007]

Today a customer asked me to special order him "Fresh wild local tilapia."

I live in NM.

[Christina D]

Oh. My.

[foiegras]

Amazing that someone could think processing was a good thing ...

This reminded me of one ... I was at my regular grocery store, which has a large organic produce section. This man was shopping, looked like he wasn't used to doing it ... someone had turned him loose I guess. He wanted some particular vegetable, but noticing the big Organic sign, rolled his eyes and said, I don't need 'organic' ... It was a little difficult to understand what his interpretation of organic was, but it seemed like it might mean to him 'Vegetables for p*ssies.' He can have all my share of pesticides, no problem ... eat up, buddy, you the man.

[KaimukiMan]

Not sure about things where you are foiegras, but here in Honolulu 'organic' is roughly translated as 'triple the price'. At the same time local produce is only twice as much as what is shipped in from the mainland. But I am guessing your shopper was put off by the prices more than the organic concept. I love shopping at the farmer's market here, but I know I'm going to be spending quite a bit more for MOST (not all) things than I would if I were shopping at Safeway. I'm not saying that it isn't worth it. For some people it is, for others it isn't.

[discombobulated]

What Kaimukiman said. I always avoid the organic parts of my supermarket's produce sections because organic food costs at least 50% more than non-organic, and the evidence that it's healthier than regular food is thin or nonexistent. I might buy it if the prices were identical, but they never are. So, like the man at your supermarket, I have rolled my eyes at organic food more than a few times.

[DunkTheBiscuit]

I was once next to a display of organic carrots. They were on offer and cheaper than non-organic. I was filling my trolley with them because carrot soup is a glorious thing to have tucked in the freezer.

One elderly lady picked up a bag then threw them back saying she didn't want organic, she wanted PROPER carrots.

I was O_o for a while. For the record, they were very tasty carrots and made a lovely soup. Lady missed a real treat, there.

[foiegras]

Pretty sure this guy was too clueless to check prices ... but sounds like he's missing his soulmate, who's in your grocery store ;)

Organic produce at my store is reasonably priced IMO, except for asparagus.

There are definitely studies showing significantly more antioxidants in organic produce. It seems that for most items, most people cannot detect a difference in taste.

Of course, it all depends what you're comparing. If you're comparing well-grown, small-farmer stuff that's virtually organic to certified organic, then yeah, there's not going to be much of a difference, if any. IMO, organic or virtually organic is the right thing to do, both for me and the planet.

[cosmogrrl]

Yes, this. Where I live (SF, CA), and at the places I shop, I don't see a lot of difference between the organic and non organic. But at the places i shop for produce, they have their own sources, many of which are local. The prices are higher for organic, but I don't always go for it unless the organic item is significantly nicer looking then the regular version. But I do know that it's vastly different in the rest of the country, for the most part. After living in upstate NY ofr a few years, I always feel exceedingly lucky to have the produce that I have everyday!

[Christina D]

I wonder if she mistook "organic" for "genetically modified"?

Who knows. More organic carrots for you!

[arashall]

You woman visited our home who hated cucumbers, but loved the home-made dill pickles. Insisted that pickles were made from....pickles :-) Absolutely refused to believe differently.

[scubadoo97]

<slap head>
Takes all kinds

[Wahooty]

As a kid, I loved anything salty (still do, if we're being honest). Pickles and olives were some of my favorites. After learning that pickles were pickled cucumbers, I remember asking my mom one day, "are olives pickled anything?"

[sunshine842]

We were in Provence a couple of years ago in the autumn, just as the olives were getting fully ripe - one of the guys got the idea of trying an olive off of the tree.

Oh my gosh -- I have no idea how anybody ever got the idea of putting those tannic, bitter little bombs of nasty in oil and brine to make them edible. I'm glad they did, because I *love* good olives -- but can't imagine how it happened.

[Wahooty]

As I ate my stinging nettle ravioli the other night, I thought about all of those foods that fall into the "how hungry do you have to be to figure out this was somehow edible?" category. I think anything that has to be treated with lye is a special subgroup thereof. But, like you, I am infinitely grateful that someone once took one for the team.

[hill food]

yeah really and how many foods fit THAT bill? there's probably a thread on that

[Stephanie Wong]

Artichokes & acorns are probably in that category too.

[sunshine842]

All the molluscs -- especially oysters.

Acorns I can see -- someone saw a squirrel munching one and figured it must be edible, so why not try it?

and I'm still dubious about stinging nettle -- anything that leaves me with uncomfortable, stinging welts on my skin for three days is probably not a good thing for me to try to eat. (I know others do....and I've read how heat kills the toxins, etc., etc., etc. - but I would no more eat it than go roll in a bed of it.)

[Wahooty]

The hostess at this particular wine dinner was the pastry chef for the winery - when a box of produce arrived in the kitchen, she opened it. It was unmarked, and she thought, "I wonder what these are..." so she tried one.

She said it took about a day and a half for the pain in her mouth to fade.

I, however, emerged from the pasta course unscathed. ;)

[sunshine842]

She ATE fresh stinging nettle? *shudder* I cannot imagine.

[Sparklebright]

As kids we used to call cucumber plants "pickle bushes"

[thimes]

Last thanksgiving a friend of mine (44 year old) said when watching whip cream

"what are you doing?"
"making whipped cream" (me)
"really? I had no idea you could make whipped cream at home."

The conversation continued, as I was in complete disbelief, and we ended up making butter that night as well - something 1/2 my guests had no idea you could do at home.

[Spice_zing]

Amazing how many don't know how things are made. When I told people (who cook a lot) that they could make butter from cream they refused to believe me.

[John E.]

I learned how butter is made in my kindergarten class. The teacher put cream into a quart jar with a lid and we took turns shaking it. I guess something like that is more likely to happen in rural Minnesota farm country.

[thimes]

Hey me too!! Wisconsin though ;)

[tinnywatty]

We did that too! I remember making butter at farm school too. Yay MN!

[jmcarthur8]

My sons did that in grammar school (in northwest Indiana)- the teachers put a marble in the jar, too, to help keep it all moving.
Well, smarty me decided that sounded fun, so I tried it too. The boys forgot to mention that the jar should be plastic..... Guess what happens when you violently shake a marble around in a glass jar full of cream? Guess who had a gazillion grease spots on her sweater even after washing it several times after the butter explosion?

[sandylc]

Did it in Indiana.

[PotatoPuff]

We did that too! In New Jersey

[eastofnevada]

Did that in New York!

[tzurriz]

Illinois here, and we learned a poem to go with it, which I still remember oh so many years later.

I've never seen a purple cow
And never hope to see one,
But if I should see a purple cow,
I'd rather see than be one!

[gaffk]

Mom' s (and I think, Ogden Nash's original) version

I never saw a purple cow.
I never hope to see one.
But I can tell you anyhow
I'd rather see than be one.

We learned the butter "trick" in school in Philadelphia. (The whipped cream I learned from mom.)

[rockycat]

It was written by Gelett Burgess. He got so sick of the whole thing that he wrote a response to himself:

Ah, yes, I wrote the "Purple Cow"—
I'm Sorry, now, I wrote it;
But I can tell you Anyhow
I'll Kill you if you Quote it!

[gaffk]

LOL; I'm dead. Can I steal this?

[rockycat]

Be my guest. :-)

[Querencia]

I thought that making butter by whipping cream with an egg beater was a standard thing to do with four year-olds, no matter where.

[LauraGrace]

We made butter in school when i was a kid, in Colorado, and we do it every year at the school where I teach in Kentucky!

[John E.]

Laura, was your school in Colorado in a rural area? How about in Kentucky, is it a rural district? My theory was that it is a rural thing, not necessarily a Minnesota thing to make butter in school. We put it on plain saltine crackers.

[LauraGrace]

In CO -- a small town, but not a dairy production area. In KY -- the largest city in the state! :D

[foiegras]

I did it in a fairly large city (16th in US in 2010). I had thought it was universal ...

[John E.]

Texas has a long tradition of farming and ranching. I wonder if kindergarteners in NYC, LA, or San Francisco had similar experiences?

[gaffk]

We did it in Philadelphia (although, admittedly, drive 1 hour out of the city and you can find scores of dairy farms) in the 70s. I think it may be more a factor of what science curriculum was in use than region. It would be interesting to hear from young posters whether this is still being done or whether if "teaching to the standardized tests" has resulted in a more universal curriculum throughout the country.

In sixth grade in the MGP, we also hatched chicks in an incubator to learn about candling and impressioning--not something most folks would expect from a big city neighborhood elementary. My neighbors were *not* impressed that I won the opportunity to bring one of the chicks home. Apparently, cute little chicks grow into roosters and roosters are unsuitable to a city neighborhood. When I came home from school one day, dad said he had taken it to a dairy farm . . . never did get to ask him clucker's real fate.

[John E.]

My big sister used to tell about how she got a baby chick in her Easter basket one year.. She had vivid memories of my 2 year old brother stepping on the chick with his little red sneaker.

[gaffk]

Ouch.

I was the youngest; the damned chick lived to maturity.

[FrauMetzger]

This was still being done just a couple years ago at my son's kindergarten just north of philadelphia. They used small baby food jars for their "churns". Granted, this was a private school, so perhaps they had more leeway in their curriculum than a public school might. Also, the butter was incredibly good, and my son took great pride in serving it to us for dinner! Would that more kids (and most adults) had that understanding of how food gets to our plates.

[John E.]

Your post sorta makes me want to go find a random kindergartener and hand them a jar of cream and tell them to shake. ; )