Food in whose name the worst atrocities have been committed

why not just eat food and enjoy how it tastes

― Mr. Que, Thursday, March 25, 2010 2:56 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"yum, this food is enjoyable. and yet i don't care about the socio-historic conditions in which it was prepared."

― Mr. Que, Thursday, March 25, 2010 2:57 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

That's totally fine, dude. In turn, why do you have an issue with people who view food differently? Yes, people can be pretentious d-bags about it, but that doesn't mean you have to summarily reject anyone with a similar viewpoint.

i agree w/ michael btw but i still think equating authenticity with quality is fuccin dum

Agree with this, too. Maybe you should wait til someone, y'know, actually does this before twisting of the panties commences?

Dan, I kind of can't eat BK and McD's 'cause of all the salt, plus I'm a mustard not a ketchup freak, but w/o a doubt my favorite burger memories are all at someone's home or at bbqs.

many xposts:

In Philadelphia, cheese steaks can have Cheese Whiz or provolone cheese on them. It varies from vendor to vendor. I prefer provolone, personally, although I would not turn down a cheese steak with Whiz if somebody were to bring one to me here in Chicago.

i do prefer the baked ones and i am kind of a dick, so you're probably right, Laurel. :/

Michael: i think the balance fell on the side of steamed buns? more buns for me~.

In turn, why do you have an issue with people who view food differently? Yes, people can be pretentious d-bags about it, but that doesn't mean you have to summarily reject anyone with a similar viewpoint.

i don't feel like i've "rejected" anyone with a similar viewpoint, and if i did, that was not my intention. just stating my preferences.

I am fully mindful of the thing that Shasta was pointing out above, too, that cuisines evolve and you can't step in the same river twice, blah, blah, blah. The champagne that made the Widow Clicquot famous and rich was way too sweet for my taste but they loved it in the early 19th century.

hey max did you know mexican is really a FUSION CUISINE????

Does anyone whose had both prefer the "good-for-you" veggie-oil McDonald's fries to the lard ones?

oops, who the hell are you arguing with? your shadow?

It's not cheese whize and I will admit to being a kind of cheese snob but there's a bar I used to go to that served that Cracker Barrel soft cheddary shit, God knows what it's called and I used to eat that with Ritz crackers and exult. Last night my very foody gf and neighbor made old school tacos and loved them not just for nostalgic reasons; crispy taco shells, shredded iceberg, ground beef, grated cheddar, taco sauce, diced tomato, black olives, etc... It was authentic, old school, White-people tacos.

Agree with this, too. Maybe you should wait til someone, y'know, actually does this before twisting of the panties commences?

― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Thursday, March 25, 2010 4:23 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

can you get it through yr head that no one was talking about people in this thread

c sharp major thank you for making me think for a second that everyone was talking about the cuisine in legend of zelda

which I imagine to heavily rely on chickens

lol

starting now anyone who uses the word "authentic" on this thread is getting a suggest ban from me

― max, Thursday, March 25, 2010 11:45 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ne way whats really irritating abt the use of 'authenticity' is this idea like... "oh if ppl only had authentic chinese food they would all love it" or "o well u dont hate italian food uve never had AUTHENTIC italian food"

― max, Thursday, March 25, 2010 2:49 PM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

That's what I'm referring to.

i have had the worst tacos in the world, and they live in Dublin.

Did u get them at one of these joints? (*shudders*):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/5a/Abrakebabra.jpg/280px-Abrakebabra.jpg

The worst tacos (& Mexican in general) I've had, BY FAR, came from those Chinese taco stands in Brooklyn, Yummy Taco in Greenpoint in particular. I did not know it was possible to fuck up a simple taco so badly.

lol angry taco

brooklyn is odd because it's not unusual to have chinese people making your mexican food and mexican people making your chinese food.

that's like every large East Coast city from my experience

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/authentic

Anyway repping for pizza as the asnwer to this, you're wrong. There's no way in the world that the answer to this is not curry. The shit they serve up in yer standard British eight-pints-and-a-vindaloo curry house is, uniformly, the worst restaurant food possibly anywhere in the world.

And the shit I have been served masquerading as curry in both New York and Paris is just as bad in different ways.

Actually there may be some attempts at Mexican food that are as bad, but I generally avoid Mexican food on the grounds of it being shite in this country.

hmm i've not had any bad curry experiences that come close to either bad pizza or bad fryups tbh

Have been for a couple of curries in the US and they ask you how hot you want your dish! I don't know about "authentic" curry but my instinct was to be VERY suspicious of this. Both times were ok in their own way but definitely lacked something. Not as bad as shitty pizza either.

they ask you how hot you want your dish!

Wait, where do they not do this?!?? And how do you keep it from being inedibly spicy for your tastes??

You choose a dish whose ingredients make it mild, like korma, or hot, like vindaloo. Usually (UK) there will be some indication on the menu of if it's hot, mild, or medium, but "medium" varies an awful lot.
Anyone tried a 'mild' vindaloo? Curious...

I've been to British curry houses, usually in provincial times, when a medium curry pretty much burns your face off and tastes of nothing other than hotness. I think a lot of them don't even try.

(The good ones obviously are sublime)

max sooo otm in this thread

once went through a capsaicin junkie phase of ordering nothing but phalls...this policy did not last long

I had some terrible curry pizza recently. It wasn't very authentic. Glad I did not order the meat version.

curry is so plastic, really rank "meat curries" are guaranteed a priori. wondering if the tragedy of a bad example is magnified to me cuz I love curry so much, but I guess that applies for all examples.

i agree w/ michael btw but i still think equating authenticity with quality is fuccin dum

― max, Thursday, March 25, 2010 3:05 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

It's not so much dumb as a lazy shortcut. Authenticity almost always means that the food maker loves what they're making, has respect for the food and their customers, and for the culture from which it came. (All of which doesn't mean that they are slaves to tradition for its own sake.) Usually, but NOT always, this results in higher quality than your median foodery. Conversely, often those who pay no regard to authenticity are strictly in it to make money, have no love of the food or their customers, will take any shortcut or make any substition to save a lil $. This can, but NOT always result in boring or substandard quality food.

doesn't any authenticity debate eventually involve traveling to the origin of the authentic food in question? not everybody can do that, though, can they? so, then the person who is able to travel tells the person who isn't that they have never had "real" such-and-such, and then this really turns into an issue of travel instead of food. and then I am thinking about this and am tempted to start a poll involving Foodies vs. Globe Trekkers.

nah all it really takes is one dude/dudette in your town that can caook and who's from or spent a fair amount of time in a particular place.

though maybe you're saying there's still no real way to know for sure if something is authentic unless you yourself have been to the place?

Someone made the comparison of people caring about originality in music. I get that there's a whole history of people who care about originality looking down on people who don't, and thus the whole anti-rockism thing came about. But to look down on everyone that DOES care bout originality, people for whom originality makes the (music-listening)experience richer to them, is just as douchey. (obv caveat being that those people who do care aren't looking down on you for not caring)

though maybe you're saying there's still no real way to know for sure if something is authentic unless you yourself have been to the place?

I don't necessarily feel that it is the case, but I do think it's sort of the ultimate trump card in an authenticity debate. With your music example, all a person has to do is go find the original music in question - without ever leaving your computer. For food, you either have to be able to afford to jump on a plane or take someone's word for it that some local place is just like they serve it in Saigon or wherever.

ppl very concerned about any aspect of their food obviously trying harder than most others, but I don't think the majority of good food is made by ppl concerned with authenticity. it only really works as a shorthand for "ppl who care about food" and lots of ppl do that without being especially interested in authenticity.

"Authenticity almost always means that the food maker loves what they're making, has respect for the food and their customers, and for the culture from which it came."

YES! I did not feel this authenticity coming from rice krispy treats made with GRAPE NUTS! It fails to meet each of those criteria.

those must be some pretty filling rice krispy treats

it filled me with sadness mostly.

an authentic, if unoriginal reaction

I will be just a bit globe-trottery douchey to point out that many regional cusines are very region-specific. There's a local French baker, for example, who bought a flour mill just so he could stop importing flour and mill wheat to his specifications, specs that didn't exist in the U.S. prior to that. What about the specificity of Norman apples or whatnot? As I've mentioned before translating seafood names from English to french is helpful but flawed inasmuch as the eponymous creatures can be quite different in different places.

http://www.menshealth.com/MensHealth/Media/Frindlys.jpg

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3058/2643623745_3c6c626ed7.jpg

Asian Nachos
Crispy Fried Wontons Covered with Chicken in a Sweet-Hot Peanut Sauce. Topped with Wasabi Cream and Melted Cheese

would try

Local place has:
Crab Rangoon pizza
crab rangoon base, surimi, green onion, asiago and mozzarella, topped with crispy egg roll strips and sweet chili sauce

It is delicious

http://www.wumarkus.com/images/hamdog.JPG

I dunno, I haven't eaten at this place (yet), but the menu gives...pause

e.g.

La Pizza Mexicaine
Reblochon: Crème fraîche, Lardons, Reblochon, Fromage, Oignon

When I read the thread title I took "atrocities" to be meant literally rather than figuratively. My first thought was: roasted breast of passenger pigeon.