Cuisines You Just Don't Get

[hannnah]

i have a tough time with salad not meaning green stuff.  ... - i asked the guy at the counter if they had any salads he said - yeah right in that fridge - we got ham salad, macaroni salad, potato salad....

In the US, a list of vegetables might include macaroni as well as ketchup. In France, the other name for lettuce is "salad."

apparently mayonnaise holds some sort of vegetable status in the US as well.

Here's a new one - we went to a pizza place over the weekend that lists anchovies as a vegetable.

As far as "cuisines I don't get," I'd have to go with Ethiopian. Various blobs of non- to half-cooked gloop, served cold, with a nasty-tasting pancake thing with which you're supposed to scoop the gloop. I understand the whole nomadic culture/no utensils thing, but it would all taste much better if it made it all the way to lukewarm.

In a similar vein, I've never understood vichysoisse. What's the point of ruining a perfectly good potato soup by serving it cold? Blecch.

[Suzanne F]

Oh, my god, you people are really serious! Forgive my naivete, but if you "don't get" a cuisine (that is, not understand its appeal), whether for lack of experience or just not liking what you've had of it, wouldn't you want to correct that? (Although to be honest I'm not so sure I do, given the EXTREME difficulty in finding echte Mongolian ) Instead of dismissing it with "it can't be good?" Aren't you curious about why so many other people DO "get it?" I don't mean you have to like it, but don't you at least want to understand its components, rather than dismiss it? Or am I just being too solemn and professorial about this?

Jinmyo, if you think "cobbler" sounds weird, just think of some of its cousins: grunts (berries and steamed dough) and slumps (cooked fruit and raised dough, baked). Not to forget bettys (baked layered fruit-and-crumbs) aka crisps. You don't have to like it.

[tryska]

I don't get German cuisine - except for the sausages.

word.

[Jason Perlow]

I don't get German cuisine - except for the sausages.

word.

German cuisine IS sausages. Everything else is a condiment.

[=Mark]

Oh, my god, you people are really serious!        Forgive my naivete, but if you "don't get" a cuisine (that is, not understand its appeal), whether for lack of experience or just not liking what you've had of it, wouldn't you want to correct that?  (Although to be honest I'm not so sure I do, given the EXTREME difficulty in finding echte Mongolian  )  Instead of dismissing it with "it can't be good?"  Aren't you curious about why so many other people DO "get it?"  I don't  mean you have to like it, but don't you at least want to understand its components, rather than dismiss it?  Or am I just being too solemn and professorial about this?   

Jinmyo, if you think "cobbler" sounds weird, just think of some of its cousins: grunts (berries and steamed dough) and slumps (cooked fruit and raised dough, baked).  Not to forget bettys (baked layered fruit-and-crumbs) aka crisps.  You don't have to like it. 

Image of Suzanne F pulling her chair up to a table groaning with every conceivable type of Pasta Salad...

[hjshorter]

Oh, my god, you people are really serious!        Forgive my naivete, but if you "don't get" a cuisine (that is, not understand its appeal), whether for lack of experience or just not liking what you've had of it, wouldn't you want to correct that?  (Although to be honest I'm not so sure I do, given the EXTREME difficulty in finding echte Mongolian  )  Instead of dismissing it with "it can't be good?"  Aren't you curious about why so many other people DO "get it?"  I don't  mean you have to like it, but don't you at least want to understand its components, rather than dismiss it?  Or am I just being too solemn and professorial about this?   

I am of German heritage, lived in Germany for a couple of years, and grew up eating a lot of Sauerbraten, spatzle, schniztle, sauerkraut, various other pickled veggies, etc. I just don't care for a lot of it.

Now Ethiopian I do get.

[tryska]

I am of German heritage, lived in Germany for a couple of years, and grew up eating a lot of Sauerbraten, spatzle, schniztle, sauerkraut, various other pickled veggies, etc.  I just don't care for a lot of it.

does all german food start with an "s"?

[Ladybug]

I get natto. I get steak and kidney pie. I get tongue and heart and shanks and bits.

And yet I don't get much of American cuisine, especially Southern American.

Shoot! If you can get natto, you can surely get peach cobbler!!

Much of what you don't get about Southern American food doesn't sound like the best examples of Southern American food. I grew up in NC and haven't been served much jello salad - but I have had homemade sweet potato pie. I've had plenty of pecan pie. I've had cobbler - and some of it is absolutely nasty - but made well, it's perfection. The same goes for white sausage gravy. If you didn't like it, perhaps it wasn't made well.

I think you should challenge yourself to try peach cobbler until you like it, much like you advised me to eat fish sauce until I could appreciate it. Cook it yourself to make sure it's made properly - not soggy, pasty or too sweet. If at first you don't succeed, try try again!

[Toliver]

No, I don't get desserts at all. But I mentioned peach cobbler because, well, it just sounds weird to me.

"Cobbler."

What is that? I don't get it.

The actual derivation of the word "cobbler" when referring to the dessert is vague, at best.

As you know, a fruit cobbler is a deep dish fruit pie with no bottom layer of dough or crust. A layer of biscuits or dumplings are placed on top of the fruit filling and then the dessert is baked.

Regarding the name, one thought is that fruit "cobblers" were so named because the biscuit/dumpling layer of dough on top resembled rounded cobble stones after baking.

Another thought was that since the dough on top is usually not a single sheet of dough but is, instead, pieces of dough (like dumplings) placed incrementally over the layer of fruit, that the name "cobbler" came from the phrase "to cobble", meaning "to piece together" (which is how the shoe-related term "cobbler" came into being).

As to why it typifies "Southern cuisine", given the role that the biscuit plays in that genre, using sweet biscuits on top of a dessert seems like a natural progression. It certainly exemplifies the best that Southern cooking has to offer.

On a hot July 4th, nothing goes better with your homemade vanilla ice cream than a good peach cobbler.

[fresco]

I had occasion to try chunks of raw narwhal on a trip to Baffin Island last week. It was part of a lunch buffet, and was extremely chewy, about 100 times more chewy than, say, grilled squid. Can't say that I'd want to make it a regular part of my diet but I did "get" that it was an important source of vitamins, omega oils and other nutrients for people who live in a place with practically no vegetation and practically no sunlight for many months of the year.

[bloviatrix]

Another thought was that since the dough on top is usually not a single sheet of dough but is, instead, pieces of dough (like dumplings) placed incrementally over the layer of fruit, that the name "cobbler" came from the phrase "to cobble", meaning "to piece together" (which is how the shoe-related term "cobbler" came into being).

I've heard another derivation for the name. Using the definition of "to cobble" meaning "to piece together," a dish was cobbled from various ingredients found around the house - fruit, flour, eggs, etc.

[Socrates]

Jinmyo, if you think "cobbler" sounds weird, just think of some of its cousins: grunts (berries and steamed dough) and slumps (cooked fruit and raised dough, baked).  Not to forget bettys (baked layered fruit-and-crumbs) aka crisps.  You don't have to like it. 

Don't forget pandowdies...

[bloviatrix]

Richard Sax, in his book Clasic Home Desserts has a great section on Cobblers and its relatives.

He tries to trace the origin of pandowdies and explains that the dish is of American not English origin.

It consists of a dish of fruit (usually apples,) sweetened with molasses or maple syrup, topped with a pastry crust (or bread dough) and baked until the dough starts to brown.  The pastry is then cut into squares ("dowdied") and pressed back down into the fruit.  The dish is returned to the oven, and everything finishes baking together, the fruit juices thorougly saturating the dough.

[Kenk]

I don't get how goat cheese is has ended up on so many restarant menus. I find most goat cheeses I have tried tastes the same as licking a live goat.

[CityCook]

Someone has to say it:

Been licking a lot of live goat lately, Kenk?

[GordonCooks]

"Gourmet" Pizzas

[mrbigjas]

i have a tough time with salad not meaning green stuff. 

We can reconcile these issues with a little treat called Watergate Salad. recipe here.

[tryska]

hmmm...well it is green.

it sounds kinda yummy.

for afters......

and i just have to say.....you've gotta love the folks at jello for being able to turn horse hooves into dessert and salads.

Edited October 1, 2003 by tryska (log)

[abbeynormal]

I don't get vegan. I don't mean from a philosophical point of view either. Humans should eat meat. We were made to eat meat. My advice, eat some meat. Meat is good.

[Jinmyo]

[The actual derivation of the word "cobbler" when referring to the dessert is vague, at best. 

As you know, a fruit cobbler is a deep dish fruit pie with no bottom layer of dough or crust.  A layer of biscuits or dumplings are placed on top of the fruit filling and then the dessert is baked. 

Regarding the name, one thought is that fruit "cobblers" were so named because the biscuit/dumpling layer of dough on top resembled rounded cobble stones after baking. 

Another thought was that since the dough on top is usually not a single sheet of dough but is, instead, pieces of dough (like dumplings) placed incrementally over the layer of fruit, that the name "cobbler" came from the phrase "to cobble", meaning "to piece together" (which is how the shoe-related term "cobbler" came into being).

That makes sense. I get that.

[Raynickben]

I don't get head cheese.

[Jinmyo]

I don't get head cheese.

Ha ha ha.

The first piece I had as a child had a piece of tooth in it.

But I've since had some very good examples of Mittle European head cheese that were quite nice.

[Toliver]

I don't get head cheese.

My parents, both raised on farms where nothing went to waste, love the stuff. I understand why it exists but I will never ever taste the stuff myself.

I used to have to sell it when I worked in a Hickory Farms cheese & meat store in a shopping mall during my college days. It used to give me the heebee jeebees to have to slice the stuff for the customers.

...I cannot (for the most part) eat guts, blood, brains, etc. There's a reason that 'offal' sounds like 'awful.'

I'm with you. Someone else can eat my paté, my foie gras, my fish head, etc. No thank you. Next.

edited for spellling

Edited October 2, 2003 by Toliver (log)

[sandra]

Scrapple.... WHY???

[hwilson41]

Scrapple.... WHY???

All dates back to the days when 1) folks raised their own swine, so no doubt about the content, cleanliness, etc., of the scrapple, and 2) you wasted nothing, because food was difficult to preserve, and you might run out during the winter if times were hard. Most of us are so far removed from that now that it's difficult to envision, but if your nearest neighbor was five miles away and you had both run out of meat last year due to a poor harvest and a real bitch of a winter, preserved scrapple would probably look pretty good to you. BTW, it's actually pretty good if you dust it lightly with flour and fry it in bacon drippings. With cheese grits, of course .

THW