Can't speak to LA, but nah. Cream cheese is the East coast trick. The Midwestern secret is "cream of [ ]" soup. Cream of mushroom is my go to, but when I ate chicken I used Cream of it a lot too. It's useful in casserole/hotdish where a roux would be great but a real pain in the ass.
Recipes in the south: The secret ingredient is more butter.
That's the secret in lot of really nice restaurants as well. When in doubt, add more butter.
The bit about the food in LA being delicious might not be true but the second half is 100% true.
Yes about the Midwest.
LA on the other end has an insane variety of foods, so while they have organic, vegan restaurants where everything is super healthy, they also have southern BBQ foods, steak houses, Asian foods, Italian foods, etc.
I think there's a heavier focus on organic, vegan restaurants up in the San Francisco area.
Honestly all the cali cities have pretty diverse food options, it's just that the cities are known for certain foods. If you want a specific cuisine, chances are there's still a restaurant nearby for that, granted you live in the big cali cities.
LA imo is known for korean food in ktown and street tacos but also has a lot of organics and vegan options. There's also sawtelle and little tokyo with lots of Japanese food options. There's even a decent strip of greek, persian, turkish food options.
Irvine (and Westminster) is known for mostly viet food imo
SD has a lot of coastal dining and surf n turf options
SJ is also known for viet food and mexican food but also has a sizable portion of cantonese banquet style restaurants and japanese izakayas
SF has a lot of chinese food (cantonese, taiwanese, mainland) due to the chinatown and also lots of fishery based restaurants near the ports. Japantown there is also pretty sizable and includes a variety of japanese foods.
LA on the other end has an insane variety of food
This is any city, really... At least on the east and west coasts. And Chicago.
Sounds accurate to me.
At the Minnesota State Faire last year, I had deep fried cheesecake batter. Yes, this is correct.
chocolate covered frozen cheesecake is way better. but i got banned from the state fair for complaining about the awful heat so i dont go there anymore
Personally I don't like the frozen cheesecake on a stick because for me the best part of cheesecake is the cheesecake texture
I just got a bbq pork chop on a stick and saw some local band called Slipknot when I went to the Iowa State Fair
You have to have spam curds to go along with it to round out the meal, and wash it all down with a pint of dill pickle or mini donut beer.
Eh, I'd eat it. Cheesecake slaps.
I grew up in the midwest. We survived on processed ingredients. I now live in the Bay Area.
I tell my partner that I need the shitty Kraft cheese for my grilled cheese sandwich, not the cheeses from Whole Foods or Trader Joes, because that's what I had growing up. I need the shitty ingredients for certain specific foods because I want that taste. It's not a lot of meals, but a handful must match my childhood.
Im not a cheese eater but I was under the impression that American cheese made a better grilled cheese because of the way it melts.
Its a different dish. American cheese is very melty but unless you go for some specialty shit or do some kitchen chemistry, its a very uncomplex cheese. It'll taste like a blend of mild cheeses, predominantly unaged cheddar. That's sometimes good, but one of cheese's best features as a food is that it's got a wide range of deeper flavors available. For the cozy familiar dish you go with the cozy familiar version. But those of us who love the depths of cheese and don't have that craving, we often prefer more fancy cheese blends
the microplastics give it that crunchyness
Kraft Singles are not cheese... Like literally, read the label, they're not legally allowed to call it "cheese."
It's a shame because there are decent American cheeses, yet people equate "American cheese" with disgusting Kraft Singles.
"pasteurized cheese product" 🤢
Move a little to the southeast and its just lard added for flavor.
If it's in the South you have to deep-fry it as well.
When mom cooked breakfast, she'd collect bacon grease (as, like, supplemental butter) and add that to subsequent meals. AFAIK, it still happens, but is probably less common.
Cooking for two people, I do half a pound of thick cut bacon, and when it's done and the bacon off to the side, put in 6 eggs scrambled up right into the grease. I've found this is the perfect ratio of bacon grease to eggs.
Breakfast?
I can assure you that this is not uncommon at all xD
I know it's bad for me, so I use it very sparingly, but I have a jar of bacon grease that gets used every so often. I'll be honest, I don't know anyone outside my family that still does it.
I'm also from bumfuck nowhere, so that could be an influencing factor on why I am the way I am.
I don’t use it sparingly and I also have a jar of bacon grease.
The day I learned to put a coffee filter or paper towel in the jar under the lid ring to filter the hot oil? Game changer.
My grocery store carries “bulk bacon” which is packs of low quality fatty bacon that’s great for cooking. I buy that sometimes and the grease off a pound fills a pint jar about halfway, sometimes more.
Good news, it's not bad for you at all compared to industrially refined oils. Enjoy your bacon grease!
Bacon grease has a higher smoke point, a longer shelf life, and makes veggies taste amazing. It's also high in saturated fat and sodium, but ya don't need much of it - often just a knife tip's worth. The only time we buy bacon is when we run out of bacon grease for cooking, maybe 3 times a year.
My grandma did this and it made pancakes AMAZING!
That or 3 sticks of butter
That and 3 sticks of butter
And/or a pint of heavy cream.
Although, there is absolutely amazing indulgent food in Los Angeles. There is great healthy food but it isn't all Erwhon smoothies.
This one is correct.
Confirmed
French cooking: add wine, cream, and butter.
Universal recipe for any regional specialty
Ingredients
‑ local meat (TN: actually a slang word for meat, I don’t know the equivalent in English)
‑ local fat
‑ local booze
‑ onionsPreparation
① Sauté the meat and the onions in the fat.
② Cover with booze.
③ Let simmer for ages.
④ Serve. Grandma’s tip: it’s better the day after.Comic by M. la Mine — reposted here
One of the most important influences on my life and cooking was a wonderful French woman who married a Brit and settled here. Quite apart from her tendency to ask my friends and I "how many are we for lunch" and cope with any number from 3 to 30, her approach to cooking was legendary and usually involved meat, butter, wine, and cream. That said, she did once try deep fried, leftover, spaghetti and that did not work at all!
Yes, LA food is awful.
Strongly disagree.
You mean to tell me you don't like kbbq and tacos :(
I guess I'm used to Texas where our tacos have seasoning.
I made your favorite! Deep-fried bacon-wrapped pumpkins stuffed with chive butter in a 5 gallon painters bucket of fondue.
Pumpkins? Gross, that's a vegetable
Cream cheese is universally beloved, even by those with lactose intolerance
I greatly dislike cream cheese
I an horribly wrong then, I take it back and I wish to go back to when I was a baby so that I can avoid ever having made this foolish assertion.
Depends. It's either a pound of cream cheese or a pound of HFCS. Bonus points for adding both to a dish.
Who is using Hydrofluorocarbons in their cooking? That's probably a bad idea. Heat plus HFCs is how you wind up inhaling hydrofluoric acid.
High Fructose Corn Syrup
You aint from Michigan if you neva done this
Do people for reals buy HFCS for home baking? Like you can just go buy a jug at the grocery store? I've seen it in ingredients lists of packaged foods, but I've never seen the stuff itself IRL. (Gonna assume it looks roughly like syrup. Corn syrup maybe.)
and only two bucks a pound at kwik trip right now, too
Is that Los Angeles, Latin America, or Louisiana?
Context clues tell us it's Los Angeles. I'm sure there's plenty of people who eschew sugar and additives everywhere but in LA there's the whole industry of people who have to run around weighing 15 pounds less than skinny but still appear attractive and healthy and smiley or they won't get work.
(Whereas in the Midwest, cream cheese and butter are needed daily, 10 months of the year, to prevent one from freezing solid.)
The difference between the Midwest and LA is also how fresh the produce is. Most of the produce in the US comes from California so it would make sense that the biggest metro areas closest to the fresh veg and fruit would focus on eating healthy and nutritious foods. The Midwest is the home to some incredible cheese and ice creams, likely much more dairy as a whole. The amount of cow in Midwestern meals is what one would expect the same way proximity to the produce influences CA cuisine.
chinese cooking: the secret is a kilogram of sugar
Don't forget the MSG.
THE FLAVA ENHANCA!
MSG is in like everything though, not just Chinese food.
@Hideakikarate @Swedneck I came here to say this.
... And deep fry it
Me who just made buffalo chicken an hour ago in Illinois
Sounds about right.
