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Alex, I'll look forward to an explanation of "pea soil."

A few comments: (1) French cuisine is certainly very influential in the West, but has little relevance in many parts of Asia. It's not necessary to exaggerate the influence and worldwide importance of French cuisine; its influence and importance are great enough without exaggeration. (2) I wonder whether spicing levels differ in different parts of France. I had a favorite Vietnamese restaurant in Nice the two summers I spent there. I went there repeatedly and did not find the spicing timid, and I'd say I have a healthy appreciation for that great American vegetable (well, in a biological sense, fruit), the chili pepper. That said, I find that Vietnamese food -- possibly due to French influence, even? -- often has a kind of subtle blending that distinguishes it from, say, Thai cuisine. True, I have yet to visit Vietnam and have (very briefly) visited Thailand, but I get the sense that balance between different flavors is important in Vietnamese food, and that it doesn't have to be blindingly hot. Just as another data point, there was a mid-priced La Reunion-style restaurant in the same part of Nice that served well-balanced but quite spicy (from peppercorns or/and hot pepper) food that was fantastic, but it was closed by the second summer I was there. (3) Also a question to Jonathan: Is Italian food better in Nice than Menton? I found Italian food in Nice quite serviceable and, in one particular restaurant, memorable. And there was also a restaurant in Vieux Nice with a Corsican chef/owner that served very Italian-like food and was quite good. I guess I also feel like Provencale food generally is as much a regional Italian as a regional French style, and is one or the other mainly because of accidents of history that determined the current borders between the two countries.

What's fry jack? Fried jackfruit? Flapjacks? Something else?

I basically agree with plk. I love South Indian vegetarian foods, which aren't mock-meat at all, but also have had terrific Chinese vegetarian food that mimics meats. (I have a strange feeling of deja vu -- didn't we have this thread before?)

Thanks, yeah, all that makes sense to me. I've been in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and I haven't visited the Chao Zhou/Chiuchow/Teochew area but have gone to restaurants serving food in that style (especially but not restricted to noodle soups and pig offal).

Sounds like those folks eat later than the Spaniards! Do they all have long siestas in the afternoon or/and do they sleep in? What are typical open hours for food stores and such in Beirut?

I enjoyed that post, Karen. Just one small quibble: Rural areas change, too. In fact, I'm sure you could tell us a lot about that.

As I said, I've experienced that in parts of France and Italy. No, it's not just escapism. But having lived in both a big city and a village, I know that neither is a paradise, and there are advantages and disadvantages to both. I'll never have papayas, ginger, turmeric, long beans, sweet potatoes, limau nipis (a fragrant kind of lime), cashew leaves, and lemon grass growing outside of my apartment in New York, nor fresh eggs laid that day by hens in the chicken coop near the fence, nor are there fresh clams to dig up in the mangroves in East River Park. But I also don't have to hire someone to slaughter a goat or drive 25 miles on a 1-lane-each-way highway with dangerous curves and animals lying on it or walking back and forth in order to get Chinese food I like. No, it's not the chili lobster-shrimp (udang galah) of blessed memory, but I can get it delivered to my apartment in 15-20 minutes. And many of those things I'm describing about the place I lived in 3 decades ago are no longer true there, anyway, for good (mostly) and for ill. Life is always about tradeoffs, ain't it?

Yes, but not always in the countryside. I've gotten things I consider analogous to that in Kuala Terengganu and Kota Bharu, Malaysia; Delhi and Srinagar, India; and Nice, France. When you go to Nice, try some of the seafood and fish dishes there. The memory of them makes me smile.

Interesting topic, NulloModo. But I'm not sure how this translates internationally. Rural trattorie in Tuscany and Umbria can be fantastic. Likewise for rustic cafes and brasseries in a region like La Provence. But the area whose rural cooking I have most experience with is the East Coast of Peninsular (West) Malaysia, particularly Terengganu. In the 70s, with the exception of some special occasions and individual terrific home cooks, I had to go to the cities (small cities in those days, mind you, but still cities) to get great meals. There were a few popular coffee shops in the village I lived in, but that was really home cooking, too, plus iced drinks using blocks of ice transported from the city and kept in a bin until they melted (no refrigeration). Ingredients during most of the year except for the monsoon season were fresh but not necessarily sumptous, and the people were poor. Actually, the food I had in the elementary school canteen during recess was terrific, but my daily fare tended to be over-full of belacan (shrimp paste) and included much more ikan selayang (the cheapest and most dependably available fish in those days, with lots of thin, long bones to spear one's gums and scrape one's throat with) than I would have liked. No complaints about the great cultivated and wild fruits and vegetables, though. Nowadays, things are very different. The people are much wealthier, and the kampung (village) food available in coffee shops is excellent and much more varied. The local cuisine has also benefitted from a strong infusion of culinary influence from Thailand. So where does this leave us in this discussion? First of all, probably in much the same way that all politics is local, all culinary questions are local. Secondly, if I chose to live in Malaysia and wanted to live in my old village for personal reasons, there's no doubt I could be happy with what I ate there. And I'd certainly get fresher produce there than in Kuala Lumpur, in general (it always pays to live in an agricultural region if you want things that are really fresh). But if I wanted to live somewhere in Malaysia where I could get the best quality food and most variety, that wouldn't be in the countryside or even on the East Coast (much as I love Kota Bharu food); it would be in a West Coast city like Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, or Penang (caveat: I haven't been to Penang in 28 years, but it's always been well-known as a place to get terrific food).

I see. Just marketing. Tuscan cantaloupes are way better than any cantaloupes I've had in the US. I've really liked California produce in California, though. I'd be at least passingly curious how good those melons are.

Wow! I think a lot of people would disagree strongly with the latter statement! It certainly wasn't my experience -- in 1977!

For what it's worth, that doesn't seem very strange to me. Tuscany is a major agriculture and horticulture region.

I didn't think BSE was hereditary.

Koreans started arriving in the US in large number about 30 years ago, so that's not surprising (except for the abject ignorance it shows about the Korean War, etc.), but I'd have to disagree, on the basis that there was plenty of Greek, Jewish, and Central/Eastern European food, at least in New York. I think that "ethnic" food has been popular in the US wherever "ethnics" have been. In terms of France, most of you have focused on Paris. I've spent much more time in Nice than Paris. Nice, perhaps because it used to be part of Savoia, has plenty of good (and, yes, sometimes authentic [truly Italian-tasting], if you want to use the word) Italian food (or did the last time I was there), mainly pasta. There is also a very heavy presence of Tunisians there, so there was good Tunisian couscous and pastries. There was also delicious Vietnamese food. One cuisine I haven't seen mentioned yet is Cambodian. I ate a lovely Cambodian meal in the 1ieme the last time I was in Paris. The best Chinese restaurant I've been to in France, which was in Orleans, was run by Cambodian Chinese people, too.

Hardly likely, considering that I'll be in California for almost 2 weeks already by the time I hit LA.

Yuck! Still, with the increasing mountain of raves about WD-50, my resistance to risking big bucks on a restaurant that serves peculiar-sounding combinations of food is weakening.

I get the idea that technological products are very expensive for Kazakhs, but otherwise, I don't know what $50/month means in terms of local purchasing power. How much are you paying for bread and such-like at those bakeries?

Just a quick update: I was able to get a reservation for Joe's in mid-August. I will eventually report back on my meal, but no pictures, because it's a dinner with relatives.

a good portion of the Al-Andalus recipes end this way, maybe the other recipes are more dependable? ← In all seriousness, probably not, or at least not on that basis. Muslims are always supposed to end their statements with "Inshallah," to acknowledge that no human plans or wishes are successful unless God wills it. Thanks for the information about paynemayn. I did a web search and found a definition for wastel bread: http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/wastel The current edition of Merriam-Webster (www.m-w.com) has no definition for wastel. Should we talk about simnel bread now?

That looks really nice, Patrick. I'm wondering whether with a really sweet fruit like watermelon, you'd be sparing with the amount of sugar added. I could imagine simply freezing unsweetened watermelon juice and having a terrific cold dessert that way.

I think you haven't had a really good samosa yet. If you ever have occasion to be in Ipoh, Malaysia, go to Little India. Such moist, delicious samosas, so full of onions, with less potatoes, in a masala bursting with flavor!

I really enjoy your photos, too, both in terms of the interesting viewpoints and compositions and in terms of how they represent the human relationships you discuss on your site. Would you like to talk more about whose photography you enjoy looking at and have been influenced by?

I don't know much about Swatow food (is that one of the places that has a new name?), and I've never heard of "King che." Could you please list some of the specialties of those regions, either in this thread or another one?

Pulasan? What an odd name for a fruit! (Pulas=to take off or remove in Malay. Sure, I guess you remove the peel...) I've never heard of it. What part of Malaysia is growing pulasan?