Pan

You wanna get even more confused? I think that "yam" is used only for the orange sweet potatoes, not the yellow ones.

I find it kind of bizarre that white Southerners seem so apt to identify their ancestors as "Southern" (which gets changed to "American" by the Census Bureau), whereas people in other regions are what I would call more honest about their ancestry. What do you think accounts for this?

My Swedish ex-girlfriend said the same thing, and I've read that Poles also say this. It seems to be a widespread belief/superstition (depending on how you think about it).

Oh, also, in Malaysia, I had the best fried banana ever! It was pisang tanduk -- you guessed it, a plantain. It cost 10 times more than regular fried bananas, back in 1975, and my parents and I got it from a man with a roadside stand on the old east coast highway in Jerteh, Besut district, Terengganu. The traditional way to fry bananas in Malaysia is whole, in coconut oil. The coconut oil they used in those days was unrefined. And that's about all I could tell you. The mother of a friend/classmate/neighbor of mine had a roadside fried banana stand in the village I lived in in Marang district, Terengganu, but though I ate many of her fried bananas (no pisang tanduk, unfortunately, but just about all varieties of bananas in Malaysia are great!), but I never fried one, myself. I don't think it's difficult, though. For the record, I can eat fried plantains in New York but never eat other kinds of bananas, because they totally suck here, for the same reasons that have been given upthread: They are never allowed to ripen on the tree, and therefore, never get ripe.

achevres, when I was living in rural Malaysia with neighbors who had banana trees, I ate them ripe picked directly off the tree (in other words, picked a banana myself and ate it right away), so at least in some places, people do eat truly tree-ripened bananas. Plantains, however, are green when ripe, aren't they?

Sounds like they should be OK. Thanks for the advice, everyone!

The taste will be different, but by all means, try it!

Just what is "screw wine"?

peony, I thought gula Melaka came from the sugar palm tree, not the coconut palm.

Yeah, the second and third wines have been stored in my livingroom/kitchen for a year. I don't have the luxury of a cellar, let alone a wine cellar. You're sure they'd be ruined? My apartment isn't so hot. I keep it comfortable for myself, which means that when too much heat is coming out of the radiator, I open the window.

Dan, you'd have to give a time frame on that, because there was negro slavery in New York State, too, and no-one would ever call New York part of the South. ← As of 1860, then. Point is that the South as a place is defined by slavery, especially by those states that still had it in 1860. The South as an area, well, Southern culture would define it, food is a part. ← So is Delaware a Southern state, even though the northernmost part of it is part of the Philadelphia suburban area? I think there are still some gray areas, in both directions. But I agree that your criterion is a good rule of thumb, probably as good or better than any other.

Yes, definitely an earthy taste, which I like.

My problem with run-of-the-mill mass-produced cream cheese is that it's gummy. I hate gum in cream cheese and wish they abolished it! And gum SUCKS in a cheesecake!

The meal at Jean-Georges really looks great! I can't convince my brother to go there when he visits New York, because he's soured on Vongerichten since he expanded to Vong, which never impressed us, and then further expanded, with resulting deterioration in several of the restaurants in his chain (including Jo Jo, which used to be my family's favorite restaurant in the 80s and which just never seemed as good in either food or service after the renovation). I keep telling him that many people I respect say the fate of Mercer Kitchen, etc., has not rubbed off onto Jean-Georges at all, but he tends to just discount their opinions. By the way, I.M. Pei and I share a periodontist. I've met him, and he's a very nice man, soft-spoken, humble, and dignified. I respected his privacy and didn't talk to him about architecture, just greeted him as one person to another. My periodontist and her receptionist say that Mr. Pei is one of their kindest patients.

Hi, everyone! I come to you wine experts for advice: In the past couple of years, I've gotten three bottles of wine as gifts that I have yet to have the occasion to open. This Wednesday evening, there is a departmental party of a school I'm teaching at. These folks (especially the hosts) like good food, so I wouldn't want to bring lousy plonk. I'd like you to tell me whether each of these wines is plonk, passable, good, or perhaps a real special occasion wine. I'm not really re-gifting the wine, because I believe a lot of wine will be drunk at the party, so there's a high probability that the wine I bring would be opened and I'd be sharing it with people I respect. Anyway, enough preliminaries! Here are the wines: La Spigola 2005 (Sicilia Indicazione Geografica Tipiaca [sic] -- white Inzolia wine) Finca Luzon 2003 (Red Table Wine) Vino de Eyzaguirre Cabernet Sauvignon 2001 (Wine in the Sack, D. O. Colchagua Valley)

If you can mix milk and meat, you could use beef bacon. Otherwise you could use a smoked cheese or Spice Islands smoked salt or even a drop of Wright's liquid smoke to get a similar taste without any meat. ← She keeps kosher and cannot mix dairy and meat.

I think cheddar cheese would go well with any number of sweet items. Many people enjoy putting cheddar cheese on their apple pie. You'll probably come up with something much more imaginative. I could also easily see parmigiano crisps in a dessert, and I'm sure it's been done. Brie and similar cheeses could go interestingly with various kinds of fruit, too. The more I think about it, the more nearly limitless the possibilities seem (which doesn't mean I could actually execute any of them beyond using raw materials).

I find galangal VERY different from ginger, and way more aromatic! It is not the same at all! I agree with Andie that it's "milder" in the sense of not being "hot and spicy," but otherwise, I find its taste stronger!

I gave up, because I didn't understand some of the questions. Divided by a common language, indeed. What does "take up" mean, in this context? I looked up "minging" on dictionary.com, and it didn't help. What does that mean? Funny stuff, though.

Is camphor safe to ingest? You might want to look through these Google search results for "camphor toxicity" before having (more of) it. Any authoritative information from eGullet members?

Have fun, J! I'll be watching and enjoying.

Not just Canada, but wherever there are sugar maples. I haven't researched their distribution in previous periods of history, but today, there are quite significant quantities of maples syrup harvested and sold at least as far south as Pennsylvania.

I just want to say that, because I'm not a baker or pastry-maker, I don't participate in these threads much, but I always look at the challenges and the results, and I've been so impressed with them! Congratulations, Chufi, what a beautiful-looking and -sounding dessert!

I don't imagine you can order this in any restaurants, so, Michael, you'll have to get adopted by some kindly Po-Po. Or, you can make it yourself. It's really very simple. Shall I teach you how to DIY? My family serves this during Chinese New Year. I get a craving for it several times a year, especially in the winter. ← I don't know when I would get around to cooking it, but I'm sure others would want to attempt it!

Are the ones who made these decisions career civil service personnel or political appointees? Anyway, though, part of the reason I probably have a different take on civil servants is that, as a city employee (Brooklyn College), I am a type of civil servant, and so were my parents, who were both full-time professors in the CUNY system (my mother still is). I'm not a bureaucrat, though, thank goodness (that kind of work would bore me to death, and I surely don't disagree that there's a lot of red tape that does no-one any good). I agree about institutional food. The solution for me was for my mother to make a bag lunch for me, and when I got a bit older, for me to make my own sandwich (though I think my mother still saw to it that she packed fruit, juice, milk, a few raw vegetables and, yes, a cookie or two).