g.johnson

Asalt and Battery (a fish and chip shop opened by Brits) is immigrant cuisine. No one would describe it as ethnic.

I didn't know that, and I think most people think of Spanish food, for example, as ethnic. How about Greek and Turkish? I think it's more complex than you make it out to be. I think you'll find exceptions to every definition*. But I'm not sure I'd describe Spanish as ethnic (unlike South and Central American). Maybe Greek but then, as we have learnt, Greek is really Turkish and Turkey is not in Europe**. This may be an Anglo-centric view. Perhaps 'non-recent-immigrant' is a more workable definition. *Is Diwan ethnic? Tabla? **Unless you go by the Eurovision Song Contest***. In which case Israel is also in Europe. ***Don't ask.

Plotnicki is not quite right. Ethnic doesn't mean non-WASP*, but non-European. Everyone knows it means that and it's a perfectly serviceable term. *Gore Vidal points out that the 'white' is redundant and that ASP more perfectly describes our venom.

Trout would be both too smokey and too oily, I think, at least for me.

I've never found the right fish for kedgeree in NYC. You need a lightly smoked white fish, like haddock. Arbroath smokies preferably.

A modest 83.

Yuppified suggests corrupted or cheapened in some way which Diwan is not.

I googledfor the strength of US draft beer but couldn't find anything. Generally, British beers are slightly stronger in the bottle than on draft. (Bottles of Abbot were 5.5 whereas draft was 5.0, as I recall.)

After I bought a 10" knife, I rarely went back to the 8".

3.4 oz. A useful website.

Jason has got Plotz here, and actually the greek connection goes BOTH ways in time. The empire was an offshoot of Rome--which of course was strongly influenced by the Greeks. But AFTER that split, the Greeks became the cultural backbone of the Ottoman Empire. It may, in terms of locality, have seemed more like a "Turkish" empire... but it wasn't in terms of actual day-to-day cultural influence. I would suppose, as others have, that the events of the past hundred years or so might have had an effect though. Err, don't think so. The Ottoman Turks came out of central asia and kicked the Romans out of Constantinople in 1453. It was ruled by Osman I and his descendents until 1918. And it was, of course, an Islamic empire. Click.

You do have it the wrong way round. But even taking this into account American bottled beers are, as a rule, stronger than British bottled beers and quite a bit stronger than british draft beers.

This is a common myth held by Brits, including myself until recently. In reality, regular British bitter is about 3-4% alcohol. Something like Abbot is 5%. American beer is near 5%.

Is it sensible to regard Greek and Turkish (and Uzbeck) food as regional and/or class variations of the same fundamental Ottoman cuisine?

Why exactly should I do your research for you? It's you that wants to prove Schrambling is a terrible writer. I have no opinion on the matter.

Fat-Guy All of which misses the point that it was a poorly argued piece, judged from the point of view of someone unfamiliar with Schrambling's work, and comes off looking vindictive.

How long do cultural influences last? We need Balic on this, but I suspect that contemporary Greek and Turkish cooking looks little like Greek cooking in 500BC, whereas contemporary Turkish cuisine will be similar to that found at the end of the Ottoman empire, less that 100 years ago.

I actually think Plotnicki’s probably right about this. The Ottoman Empire was the Turkish Empire, run from Istanbul. I assume that the wealth of the empire flowed back to the Turkish aristocracy and could have helped foster a more elaborate aristocratic style of cooking.

Don't go getting all litigious on me. I've rephrased to be more precise. I hope that all statements made in a serious publication are backed by evidence. Since, in this case, the matter is a largely subjective, it is incumbent on the writer to convince us of the evidence. And, as we're talking about someone's writing, the appropriate evidence is quotation. And there's just too little of it to justify the venom.

And how the hell do you 'fact check' an assertion like 'Schrambling has a chip on her shoulder'. Sounds like a matter of opinion to me.

Oh rubbish. Klc is making quite specific allegations which could easily have been backed with appropriate quotations, and they would have been in any serious publication. Klc could have given us an effective piece by givng evidence. By providing little or no evidence he weakens his assertions and looks vindictive and petty. As a result I, and I guess most others who haven't already made up their minds, remain agnostic on Schrambling.

Here we have an entire paragraph of assertions yet the only evidence supporting any of them is a single Schrambling quotation (and not a particularly compelling one) about a book by Deborah Madison. That's just lazy. Edit: I should say I hold no brief for Schrambling. I can't remember reading any of her articles and have no opinion one way or the other.

There are photos of my lazy man's gooducken on this thread.

I would have prefered more evidence that Schrambling is, in fact, The Most Evil Food Writer That Has Ever Lived and less ranting. That would, however, require a bit of work.