Tropicalsenior

@Shelby's recipe does look good, but I have to pass. She uses that dreaded s--------t word. Now that I know that people put this in it, it must be from Nebraska.

Many think that restaurants are a fairly recent innovation. Not true. There is archaeological evidence that there were 'sit-down' and 'take out' restaurants in ancient Rome. I wonder if they also had food critics then.

It's a very interesting article. Thank you. I'm just saying that none of the Nebraskans that I know have ever heard of them.

Since we have gotten on the subject of famous local foods I think that it is appropriate that I should write about famous foods in the state where I grew up. In order to do that, regrettably, I will have to admit that I was born in Nebraska. Therefore, this will be one of my shorter posts. According to what I have read lately one of their most famous foods is something called Runza. Growing up, I never heard of them. I have asked family members who are all still in Nebraska (still eating sauerkraut) and none of them have ever heard of it. Our most famous food invention was Kool-Aid. And as far as I can find out, it is the only one. I am proud to say that it was invented 63 miles from where I was born.

Wow!! That would send me to @shain's recipe right quick.

@weinoo. What great articles. Thank you. This is a food that probably few of us outside of the big cities have ever had a chance to try or even know about. @shain makes wonderful bialys and even has a recipe for them in the recipe forum.

Me too! I'm still stuck back in the day when it was something that you didn't step on so that you didn't break your mother's back.

One of ours cinnamon toast.

This just showed up in my email inbox. I think I'll pass.

My uncle used to make Poor Man's Sunday roast. A thick slice of bread with leftover gravy on it. It was one of his favorite meals.

Yeah, we were relatively poor, too, but growing up on a farm definitely had its advantages. We were never short of food. The one thing that I was really nostalgic about was something that my mother called 'Stirum'. It was like a thick eggy pancake that she fried on both sides and then chopped up into 50 Cent size pieces and fried until they were golden brown. Then we ate it with butter and homemade syrup or just butter and salt and pepper. I asked her once for the recipe and she said that she wouldn't give it to me because it was poor people food and she hoped that I would never have to make it. I loved it. I guess it was an actual food because I have found it on the internet but the recipes aren't anything like what she made. No matter what I have done, I can't replicate it.

Ah, but you do it so well.

Except for her baking spices I think that that was all my mother ever had in the house to cook with, but she was a darn good cook for the time that she lived. In our house, Campbell's soup was foreign food.

So true! And a lot of times if you get anchovy, it is right in the middle of a big blob of iceberg lettuce in ranch dressing.

Too many people have been turned off by getting a big bite of anchovy in their salad or on their Pizza. They are salty, but if they are finely chopped or used as an ingredient in salad dressing they can be wonderful. I've converted quite a few anchovy haters.

I've made a lot of it working in restaurants, but I have to admit, it's not something that I will make it home nor will I order it out. I can't say that I would give that description to anything that we sent out, but she's got the ingredients right.

Yep, I got one of those stories, too. A little pizza place opened up down the street from us so we gave it a try. They had something that we had never seen on a pizza menu down here. They had anchovies. So the first time we ordered Pizza we ask for anchovies but they were out. It was pretty good pizza so we tried it again later, still no anchovies. Finally I asked the guy why he never had anchovies and he admitted that he didn't even know what they were. He had just copied his menu from some other pizza place. After that, when I went to order our pizza I just took anchovies to put on it.

Got you. Caesar isn't Caesar without anchovies, Pizza isn't Pizza without anchovies. We're going through anchovy withdrawal here. Since the pandemic began, there have been no anchovies for sale in Costa Rica. Anybody want to send me a care package?

I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that if you put rabbit in it, don't call it venison stew because most people don't like to find hare in their stew.

I only read through a few of these and most of them are vile. If I were to go vegan I would follow the example of @shain Her vegan dishes are layers of flavor, texture, and color and they are not pale limitations of classic dishes. But your point is taken. Even the Italians are messing with the traditional.

I've seen this before and I loved it. You get the gold medal!

I'm the same way but if I see Caesar salad or fettuccine Alfredo on a menu I at least want it to resemble the original dish. We had one seafood restaurant here that had Caesar salad on the menu. It didn't resemble a Caesar salad in any way shape or form but it was delicious, full of bacon, so I ordered it every time I went there.

Therein lies the conundrum. Carbonara does not have variants. It is a specific style of a specific dish. I think this article from Epicurious explains it better than I can. Would you ever throw tomato sauce in Cacio e Pepe.

I'm not advocating that everyone go back and cook just the way it was before. Food evolves, it has to and it should. Most of it is good, very good. But some bloggers and television chefs take a perfectly good recipe, tear it apart and add to it until it doesn't even resemble the original. This is all done in the name of putting "my twist" to it. I can't tell you the times that I have clicked on a recipe and thought, what in God's name were they thinking? I think a lot of good food has been ruined in the name of fusion. I cringe every time I see Mexican lasagna, Italian tacos, or my favorite is the one that I saw the other day, Polish sushi.

When I was pregnant with my first daughter I craved canned sardines in tomato sauce. I bought them by the case. After she was born I couldn't stand the smell of them. The strange thing is, she loves them. No one else in my family will eat them.