liuzhou

Proper pilaf is not made with leftover rice. The point is to cook the rice in a stock with spices so that it soaks up the flavours. Pre-cooked rice won't do that.

I sure have. I remember it well. You wouldn't get Xi Jinping saying anything like that!

I was reading something today totally unrelated to anything food related when I came across something which grabbed my attention. As I'm sure everyone knows, English has these little idioms we use when someone asks a dumb question with an obvious answer. We use rhetorical question such as: "Do bears shit in the woods?" "Is the pope a catholic?" The writer of the piece I was reading used "Do children hate broccoli?" with exactly the same meaning - "Of course. Everyone knows that!" Other languages have the same constructs. That one works in English, but if I were to translate it to Chinese, it wouldn't work that way at all. It would just be a rather strange but literal question. And I see that not only as a linguistic difference, but a cultural one regarding children's food choices. For the record, both my children loved broccoli; it was me who was reticent on the matter. Still not my favourite.

Thanks for that Anna. That list of lost pubs is depressingly long, though. My sister ran a pub for a few years but ran into financial problems and lost it. It has lain abandoned ever since. Sad.

A fully costed business plan.

I don't think I've ever read her toast instructions (or did I just instinctively bury them in my subconcious to preserve what little remains of my sanity?), but I still make my hummus to her recipe to this day.

The luosifen chips I mentioned up-thread have proved impossible to find in Liuzhou where the dish originated. They wouldn't dare! But at great expense and personal hardship, I've managed to track a bag down purely for this topic! So, here they are. The ingredients (and everything else) are in given Chinese, of course. In English they are: Potato, vegetable oil, snail noodle seasoning (sugar, edible flavouring, MSG (monosodium glutamate), salt, garlic powder, maltodextrin, mixed soy sauce powder/chilli, white vinegar powder, tomato powder, yeast extract, citric acid, 5-flavor nucleotides disodium, ginger powder, whey powder, apartamame (containing phenylalamine)). None of these appear in real luosifen apart from the salt! And most of the ingredients which DO appear in real luosifen are missing: snails, pork, pickled bamboo, black cardamom, fennel seed, dried tangerine peel, cassia bark, cloves, pepper, bay leaf, licorice root, peanuts, sand ginger, and star anise, etc. None of the things they use in their packaging illustration are in the product. They smell just like any other variety of flavoured chip. None of the distinctive luosifen smell whatsoever. Don't ask me what they taste like. I'm not in the habit of putting shit in my mouth!

There is more on Saint Delia here on the Guardian site today to mark her 80th birthday.. And here's my daughter's copy of her Complete Cookery Course. It was originally published in three volumes. This was the first collected edition. Whether I gave it to her or she bought it, neither of us remember.

I definitely got served when I was 15, but I was (still am) quite tall. I don't recall ever vomiting in a pub, but then again, if I did there's a good chance I wouldn't remember. When I was studying for my master's degree, I had a part time job leading tourists on a literary pub crawl around London, particularly Bloomsbury. Virginia Woolf, Shelley and Dickens were my neighbours along with many lesser figures. I never drank on those crawls, maintaining a professional standard. Actually, I was never much of a beer drinker until I came to China and couldn't easily get anything else I was prepared to drink.

11C. Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Please Image: Public Domain As in many countries, the sale of alcohol is strictly controlled in the UK, particularly in terms of opening hours for pubs, etc. National alcohol regulations had first been introduced in the late 18th century as a reaction to the notorious gin addiction problem as depicted by William Hogarth in the famous Gin Lane print of 1751, actually one of a pair, the other being Beer Street, reproduced above. However, it was the outbreak of Word War One in 1914 that had the longest lasting impact on British society. The 1914 government was concerned that wide availability of alcohol would hamper the war effort and slow down production of armaments etc. Pub opening times were restricted to 12 noon to 2:40 pm for lunch, then they were permitted to open again at 6:30 pm before closing at 10:30 pm. These laws were strictly enforced. With only minor changes along the way, these wartime restrictions remained in force right into the 21st century. When I was 18 (the legal age for drinking in pubs then and now) and had my first (legal) pint in a British pub in the late 1960s, the opening hours in England and Wales were 11 am to 11 pm (11 am to 10 pm in Scotland) and this remained the case for years to come. Sign in Scottish pub, 2019. My image. These restrictions hit a snag in the 1970s and 80s, when a new-found affluence among the young, coupled with other social changes, led to a toxic culture in which young men (mostly) developed a habit of spending time in the pub, drinking more frantically as closing time approached knowing their supply would be cut off at precisely 11 pm. At 11, they poured into the streets, drunk and often aggressive, still wanting more to drink. The only way to get more drink was to head to a restaurant, where different rules applied. So long as you bought a meal, alcohol could be served at virtually any time. The cheapest restaurants still open tended to be Indian or Chinese. So, in they would pile, demanding lager¹ and the hottest curries their low self-esteem thought they had to eat to prove their virility. Often while racially abusing the staff and upsetting other customers. Then vomiting, usually outside in the street as they left, but occasionally not getting that far. Lager 2021 (Five minutes ago!) - My image It was with this in mind, no doubt, that partly inspired British comedy scriptwriter John Sullivan, creator of Britain’s favourite (still) situation comedy “Only Fools and Horses” to have the show’s lead character Derek Trotter, better known as Del Boy, played by David Jason, say in one 1983 episode “I thought I might go down and have a couple of light ales² down the Nag's Head, and then go on to the Star of Bengal for a Ruby Murray.³” The “beer followed by curry and more beer” culture was nailed, although in the sitcom without the racism, violence or vomit. Not everyone drank lager. I remember being in one Indian restaurant near London, sometime in the 1980s and seeing one young man drinking bad white wine – by the pint glass! Scotland escaped the worst of what became known as the “lager lout” culture by repealing the World War One laws in 1976, effectively allowing pubs to open any time they liked. Few still stayed open after midnight, but there were few signs of the drunken chaos more conservative elements had predicted. England and Wales delayed real reform until 2005, bringing it more in line with Scotland. So pubs today can legally open 24 hours a day, although very few do. Most still close around midnight. Northern Ireland licensing laws remain very restricted. Many restaurants dealt with the lager lout problem simply by raising their standards and offering more inventive dishes at higher prices, while dropping the vindaloos and especially the phal they had previously invented to attract business. They no longer wanted that business, so they priced them out of the market. I won’t say that the old style Indian restaurants have disappeared entirely; nor have the idiots. But things have definitely improved for everyone: the restaurants, the sensible customers, the police. And for Indian food in Britain ¹ British lager tends to be stronger than many American lagers. The lager of choice for many of the louts was Carlsberg Special Brew, at that time 9% by volume. (It has since been reduced to 7.5%) ² Del Boy never drank light ales; his preference was for outrageously pretentious cocktails. He is just using this here as a form of metonymy to refer to alcoholic drinks in general. ³ John Sullivan created this example of London rhyming slang specifically for the episode and it caught on, as did many of his other linguistic inventions used by the show’s characters. There are thirteen phrases in the OED which he either invented or popularised. Finally, here is a famous example of what closing time in a British pub was like! Recorded in 1980.

Oh yes, They are being sold in China. In supermarkets and convenience stores, mainly. Also, online.

Actually, the Chinese brands are more normal. These "seemingly unfathomable" types are all Lay's, an American company owned by Pepsico.

Certainly not! That was just my intro to the topic. My two kids, born, bred and still in Britain, were always and are still adventurous eaters, but I'd heard and read parents talk about difficulties with their children, although I never thought about it much. Then, one day I realised I wasn't hearing those stories any more. The only significant thing that had changed was I'd moved to China, so I started loking closer. I am mainly just interested in exploring whether or not there are cultural differences in children's food choices and aversions. But it's not my thread. I just started it. Whatever direction it goes in, so long as it stays on topic, is up to everyone else. In fact, I look forward to it widening. I lived in Italy for a couple of years, many years ago, and would love to hear about your experience. This topic wasn't something on my radar back then.

It's been 38℃ / 100℉ for most of the day. Now it's 9 pm and 35℃ / 95℉. So, this made for a quick, simple but satisfying and tasty dish. Followed by a bowl of cherries and some Marvin Gaye. Orzo with squid, shrimp. snow pea slivers, garlic, ginger, chilli and white wine.

Lay's China seems to be on a roll. I spotted these today. Never seen them before. Rich Chestnut Flavor This one baffles me. It reads 'Mouthwatering Chinese Bayberry Flavor', and the red berries portrayed are bayberries, but berry chips? I love bayberries in season - sweet but also slightly sour. Didn't buy these. Rich Sea Salt and Black Pepper Flavor Another oddity. The nearest I can translate is 'Flower Steeped Rice Wine Flavor. No thanks! Refreshing Lime Flavor.

Indeed, but I'll just add that the paper itself admits its data is flawed.

Yes, the link you provided is not to a Chinese source, but where did they get it? As they say Everything about the paper (language, layout etc. ) tells me it is Chinese in origin. In fact, the study was funded by a Chinese dairy company and carried out at Chinese universities.

I started the other topic in the vain hope that people putting posts here (and elewhere) about children's food choices might go there instead of a topic which is supposedly about non-dessert dishes which might be mistaken for desserts. In one centralised topic, future members wishing to search for a discussion on children's choices have a better chance of finding it. Few, I suspect, would think, "I want to find a forum about fussy eaters; I'll search for 'not dessert'.

Normal.

That is typical. Hedge your bets! I'd be very careful with 'academic papers' from Chinese sources. About a decade ago, the Party decreed that all members must produce such papers and have them published or risk being passed over for promotion. This lead to the setting up of 'paper farms' which churn out these papers for a sutable fee. People buy them then 'publish' them in magazines set up just for the puurpose. The 'writers' of the papers pay to have them published, too. They are not peer-reviewed; they are only cash reviewed. I know of no western universities who accept them. They are notorious in academic circles. I am frequently asked to 'help' translate these papers. The so-called authors are required to have a brief summary in English, but many hope to have 'their' papers published in western publications. Extra points for that! So they offer me money to translate them and send me samples to see if I am willing to do the job. These usually arrive still on the farms' headed notepaper. Most of those I see are from medical staff in the local hospital. I am no medic (often neither are they) but even I can see they are nonsense which has no chance of being accepted by any serious academic journal. I always find that I am "too busy" at the time to help and so, decline. Now, I'm not saying that the one @Anna Nhas linked to is necessarily of that genre; I'm just saying be very wary.

Yeah, but I've overdone that Lao gan ma! I prefer a different dressing on my lice, these days.

I may give that a miss! 🤣