American things

1. biscuits & gravy
2. rodeo
3. smores or smore’s or smore(s)
4. “a super bowl”
5. stoops
6. speakeasy
7. “high school prom”
8. cheese in a can
9. dr pepper

smore

wtf?

Steely Dan
The Beat Generation

10. "democracy"
11. mac 'n cheese
12. sherrifs

It's s'mores and it's short for some more.

13. those varsity jackets with a big letter on the front
14. propeller beanie hats

15. grits

16. Shriners

https://s.hswstatic.com/gif/shriners-little-cars-1200x800.jpg

monster trucks

bison
bass fishing tournaments
Yellowstone Park

Looney Tunes cartoons

22. tipping

Mate,

https://i.imgur.com/kjgsMLQ.jpg

I mean, don't forget 23. Indigenous Genocide, but, you know.

if we're going down that route let's not forget 24. slavery

and of course 25. egg creams

slavery has existed everywhere for all recorded history. hardly confined to America, although we certainly embraced one of the most brutal forms of it for a couple centuries.

26 white ppl
27 mayonnaise
28 conway twitty
29 all the bad things
30 no good things

31 guns guns guns love guns need guns
32 sabermetrics
33 god

(Holland surely king of mayonnaise though, for better or for worse)

34. (With drawl) PICKUP TRUCK. GIDDY UP COWBOY.

35. 99.9% of all "cultural appropriation"

36. $$$

37. Road Trips
38. Self Help
39. Seminars on how to flip properties with no money down

40. Hawaii

41. Grand slams

42. Brian Wilson

43. drive-in cinemas

44. john cena

(19)45. the atomic bomb

(19)46. Donald John Trump

Just sayin some of these things aren't exclusively American. They're everybody's!

47. Superhero movies for "grownups"

48. jack kirby

49. jack ruby

27 mayonnaise

27 "ranch"

ranch-style houses

Ranch might be the most american word there is. The sound of it, the meaning, the house style, the dressing. It's 100% American.

https://i.imgur.com/IOlj6Lw.jpg

51. Saturday Night Live and dozens of comedy series and comedians no-one's ever heard of.

... no-one else, that is.

Every nation seems to have its b-list comedy that doesn't escape its borders though

I mean there are all these british comedians called "Jimmy Pram" or "Tolliver Whelk" or whatever that the britishers on the board seem to reference a lot.

52. happy endings
53. late night shows
54. hyper-capitalism
55. "football"
56. "soccer"

Italians
Irish

57. Barack Hussein Obama
58. Velveeta

Misuse of the collective clause when referring to sports teams

Every nation seems to have its b-list comedy that doesn't escape its borders though

Saturday Night Live is b-list?

'Math'

American comedy is painfully unfunny. There's no real bite, no real cynicism, it always has to be nicey nicey in the end. A or B list, SNL fits that bill surely.

today, sure. I think SNL at its best (maybe 80s-early 90s) was good exactly because it captured and spoofed that wide-eyed lack of cynicism. Kevin Nealon comes to mind, and all of the fake commercials. Since at least Will Ferrell and maybe going back to Chris Farley and Adam Sandler though the style of comedy has been very "I AM BEING FUNNY RIGHT NOW! DO YOU SEE ME BEING FUNNY!"

Also, no one I know drinks tea regularly. (Probably bc it is disappointment juice?) _The not using electric kettles is weird. I can’t remember having a non electric kettle in like the last 2 decades. Do USA’ians really not use them?? Poor people._


What do you use it for?

feel like we've been over the electric kettle thing a million times and why it makes sense that they haven't caught on in the US (much, anyway - my tea-obsessed mother has used one for many years)

It's such an internet dead horse but I still don't get why it is such a big deal. Like, water is water. It gets heated. It doesn't taste different based on the method of heating. If you can't detect a difference in a blind taste test you should maybe just be quiet on this boring shibboleth for a while.

My kitchen is tiny and very short of both counter space and electrical outlets, hence I hate single-use appliances.

It doesn't taste different based on the method of heating. If you can't detect a difference in a blind taste test you should maybe just be quiet on this boring shibboleth for a while.

🧐

I proof pizza dough in our electric kettle

brown some london broil in the ole kettle

if you heat water in the microwave it's either not hot enough or it has boiled itself all over the inside of your microwave

I've always been a microwave refusist but could do with borrowing one for tomorrow

word

key to microwave happiness is getting the smallest one possible that just sits on the counter. A large microwave hanging over the stove with an ersatz fan will be the death of all kitchen goodtimes.

If you have a stove you can put a teakettle (or even a saucepan) on it, twist the knob, boom, hot water. Like, it's already there, it's the same device that you use to make other things hot. This is not even a little bit complicated.

I can’t think of one thing I would use a microwave for that my toaster oven/stove-top won’t do better. Haven’t had one in decades.

If you have a stove you can put a teakettle (or even a saucepan) on it, twist the knob, boom, hot water. Like, it's already there, it's the same device that you use to make other things hot. This is not even a little bit complicated.

― your marshmallows may vary (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, July 17, 2022 8:06 PM (fifty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

An electric kettle boils much faster, and some of them will also keep the water hot.

usa thing: good mexican food outside of mexico

Also, no one I know drinks tea regularly.
lies!!!
unless you have disavowed knowing me

i also use the electric kettle to make coffee

yeah electric kettle is significantly better for pour over or french press, even your most basic, non-gooseneck one.

i hate that i'm getting into this but if you're content to let the water boil more slowly (which many are not) then idk what kind of magic water your electric kettle is producing that makes "significantly better" coffee

maybe this whole conversation is an American thing

It's an ILX thing.

boiling shit on the stove is for boring ass nerds who are going to wait around for a fuckin cup of american ass bullshit tea with no milk because it aint worth delivered any quick

quick boil electric kettles are galaxy brain so you can get to steeping asap abd enjoy your good cup of tea NOW instead of later

i don’t know why it needs to be explained but you all invite this beating every single fucking time

if you dont get why you its because dont know and therfore you deserve to make your water in a fucking pot on the fucking stove or an asinine whistling goddamn kettle THEY SUCK AND THEY ARENT WORTH THE TIME WHAT IS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND

^my favorite Wu-Tang skit

is there like a video where I can see this competition side by side with a timer?

also this dispute ignores the voltage difference, which is why US electric kettles are um less than ideal at 120V

Just plug the kettle into two 120V outlets that are 180 degrees out of phase.

I actually have a friend who hacked a UK 230V kettle to run on US 240V power, but it's tricky

Kettle Cookery

the sauce will cover the element

summa cum laude

Are stingy/stinging nettles not a think in the USA? I see lots of poison ivy talk, but not much mention of nettles.

We have them in California. My horse tries to eat them!

Not native to North America, it was "introduced" there - though why anyone would bother I know not

here in the Pacific Northwest we eat them

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nettle_soup

Stinging nettles are known to have a high nutritional value, including calcium, magnesium, iron, and vitamins A and B.[1] Historically, one of the easy ways of consuming nettles is either through a soup or a tea because the boiling water deactivates the nettle from stinging

and may I add

Today, nettle soup is mostly eaten in Scandinavia, Iran, Ireland, and Eastern Europe, with regional differences in recipe; however historically consumption of nettles was more widespread.

I know there was a section on them being introduced to the Americas in the book Ecological Imperialism by Alfred Crosby. Talked about how they can reformat broken ground and stuff. Good way of anchoring nitrogen or something to that effect. I read the book in the mid 00ies so I can't remember if it gives a specific way the nettles arrived just that weeds and vermin tended to travel with other transport. So probably odd seeds on things and onboard infestation.

I did hear about nettle usage by Native Americans but they were pretty dynamic in ability to adapt to new phenomena, horses only arrived in teh 15th or 16th century too. Legacy of the Spanish at least the herds of mustangs or whatever taht were recorded as used.

nettles remind me of the fairy/folk tale where the sister knits vests of nettles for a bunch of swans who turn into her brothers and carry her on a net (of nettles?) to some area for safety

maybe it's the other way around -- they turn into swans, carry her over some large body of water, and then she knits the vests and turns them back into brothers

They have a long, long history of being used for textiles. They're processed in the same way flax is, iirc.

Roman soldiers stationed in Northern lands (like Britain) were said to beat themselves with nettles to keep warm.

We have the plant "stinging nettles" here, but there is also a completely different creature called a nettle - an aquatic jellyfish that stings.

https://www.vims.edu/bayinfo/jellyfish/guide/bay_nettle.php

They are plentiful in Chesapeake Bay, and you want to be careful about swimming near them. Hence lots of people who want to swim in the Bay put out "nettle nets" - basically a big mesh circle with a floating rim. You swim inside it; the nettles presumably stay outside.

I was pretty far into my adolescence when I cleared up the confusion.

In the woods, you had to be careful of stinging nettles in the underbrush. When swimming in open water, you needed to be careful of stinging nettles in the water. I knew both of these things. I must have been an extremely confused child; perhaps I thought they had an aquatic and a terrestrial life cycle, like amphibians?

Compare anemone: also refers to a stinging animal and a completely unrelated plant.

Some of our friends bought a nettle net this summer! It was pretty nice, but you still had to get yourself out into deep enough water to swim. I think they are mostly purchased by people to use off the back of their boats. We used SUPS and kayaks to ferry kids out to the deeper water - some of whom would dangle their legs over the side and get stung anyway. Way to go, kids!

When I was growing up, we had nettle patches all over the woods and every summer I would invariably brush against some and end up in screaming pain for 10 minutes or so.

wheat thins

keeping your fridge permanently packed with food, a fifth of which has gone bad at any given time

leaving the heating on all day

“the broiler”

stoop is dutch really (stoep = "flight of steps, doorstep, threshold")

"And it's got a hint of cilantro."

"Broiler" is an Americanism I like; calling it a "grill" confuses it with a real grill, the kind where you place food on a gridiron above a fire from charcoal briquets, or at least an electric element with charcoal rocks that simulates it. Heat from above in an oven? That's broiling, not grilling.

that's a good point tbf

Weird Al Yankovic

thank you for explaining this, i don't know what some recipes are on about.