You know what else is poor food? Duck confit.
You know what else? Soul food is literally food made from things slaves got and grew themselves. Like, it's below poor food and it's absolutely amazing.
There's poverty food from all over the world that's amazing. The English are just bad at food.
Beans. And. Rice.
We have different definitions of what amazing is. Poor food, is only poor food, because people with money choose better things because those better things have a higher taste ceiling, therefore poor food can only ever be average at best, else is it really poor food?
That's a bit wrong. Poverty food was poverty food a lot of time just because it wasn't trendy for the rich and royals to eat the same food as the common people. They may even have preferred the poor food, but they couldn't eat that in view of others.
Is Ash…banging Pikachu?
I'm pretty sure that was canon for Ling Ling.
Ay yo, tacos ain't rich people food. Just saying.
All Mexican food is delicious, but that's not a difficult feat when you fry everything and smother it with cheese and sauces. Heck man, they even have a chicken dish that's mixed with chocolate. They're all about flavor, health and fitness be damned.
You ever have a guac or huitlacoche taco? Delicious and incredibly nutritious.
Still poor people food.
Also, not nearly as much Mexican food as you think is fried or cheese centric and moles are a hugely important facet of Mesoamerican cuisine and can vary in terms of how calorie packed they are.
Moral: Spotted Dick is what you get from spending too much on Rent, Bangers & Mash.
Elsewhere in the world it's what you get if you stick it in the wrong hole.
they realize that every culture's cuisine is dictated by the poor doing what they can with what they have, right? Do you think my italian-american ancestors were hype to eat beans and paste every day for its own sake? No, they did it because they had 170 kids each and could only find work throwing garbage over the hill into the pond for 2 cents a year. It's just that they also made it really, really good.
"When this food is made good its made good" also applies to British cuisine. You're telling me that brandy cake made with a type of fat that supercedes butter for all of its baking properties, Corinthian raisins and a warm brandy/cream sauce doesn't sound good?
I thought this was an interesting topic of one of the episodes of chef's table (netflix docuseries). The chef focused on what real "american" cuisine looks like, and since cuisine typically comes out of hardship, American food doesn't have as distinct of an identity since the USA has typically been a country of "plenty." Was really a fascinating point, and it made me look at food culture in a very different way
I dunno man, the Pretzel Bun wasn't really popularized until after Millenials couldn't afford houses
Lol fair. Though I don't mean to suggest that there is no hardship anywhere in the US (i think that's why chicken wings became popular), but across the board, food has historically been more easily accessible in the US than most nations than pre existed it. Sure there are some regional delicacies, but no true US cuisine. I'm sure that could be partially explained by the geographic size as well, but there are some distinct differences in UK cuisine even though those cultures are significantly closer.
That sounds really interesting, you've made me curious about this topic now; I'm not a documentary kind of person, but I'm probably going to read about it later.
I typically don't watch documentaries, and I watched the entire series. It's pretty well done!
Each episode follows one world renowned chef and their personal history, their food journey, their take on food in general, and where they are now. The first episode was an Italian chef who tried to bring home cooking to restaurants in Italy and was met with backlash by the community (you can't monetize Mom's home cooking). The second one was about a highly regarded chef who moved to Argentina to cook for a remote village and that's pretty much it (as far as i recall) because it was way less stressful cooking a whole pig underground than running a 3 Michelin star French restaurant.
Fascinating stuff.
A lot of south Louisiana food is a reflection of this.
I think it's more that the US is a very recent country and was a melding of many cultures, plus the sheer size of the country and diversity of the ingredients found around the country.
Yeah that's fair, but in some ways other young countries have their own distinctive cuisines that are popular, such as Mexico and Peru. Additionally, i don't think the blend of other cultures is really the problem in having an identity. Other countries have plenty of immigrant populations, but they still have their own identity. For example, turkish doner is huge in Germany, but German cuisine is very much its own thing. Then you can even dial it in even further, looking at bavarian, franconian, swabian, etc.
Watch "High on the Hog."
This keeps coming up like British chefs aren’t household names in America.
Also, spotted dick is awesome.
like British chefs aren’t household names in America
I dunno, they're taking a massive beating lately from Uncle Roger.
Well we can kind of claim him too - Nigel Ng had been living in London working as a data analyst for Monzo when his Uncle Roger character blew up during lockdown.
Famous for their French cuisine.
But I'm just ribbing; Toad in the hole is fucking delicious.
Anthony Bourdain? Gordon Ramsay? Never heard of 'em. I exclusively watch Justin Wilson and Uncle Roger.
/s
All that hoity-toity British "poor" food, only available at restaurants. Meanwhile, tacos are literally found on the streets the world over, where they are always delicious.
What I'm saying is: 🌮 > 🇬🇧
No tacos around here...
You poor soul. May tacos one day fill your belly with their grace.
Taiwanese man who can cook. Dated a British girl in college. I normally cook and one day she decided to cook for me.
I went into the kitchen to see what was happening and she was boiling the broccoli.... in just water.... No salt....no oil..... just water.
She was also microwaving some kind of yellow peas in the microwave.... in just water.
I haven't made it over to the UK to try real British food, but as of now, it's not very favorable.
please, do tell me about this rich people british food that tastes good
British food is a bit like the English language. We robbed everyone else of all the best bits which could get our hands on. We then reimagined them. "Chinese" and "Indian" food are good examples of this.
For proper good English food, you have to go back a bit. It tended to be simple, high quality food, done well. The traditional roast is a good example. Along with its fancy cousin, the beef wellington. A good stew, or casserole can be amazing, when done well. A lot of "rich people" food gets thrown in with "french cuisine".
Beyond those you have the traditional dishes, things like a ploughman's lunch, or a shepherds/cottage pie. Suet pies can be wonderful if done right, and desserts like carrot cake can be excellent. Even the classic British fried breakfast can be a thing of beauty, with proper care.
Unfortunately, almost all of these have been heavily bastardised now. The big supermarkets have conditioned us to crap food. Even finding good ingredients is a challenge now. The fruit and veg we get are dire, and it's difficult to build a mighty tower on poor foundations.
Oh, and also remember, we exported a LOT of our food around the world. British cuisine formed a baseline for measuring other cultures to be measured against.
It's called French food.
Blows my mind every time I get reminded of toast sandwiches - it's treated with the same sense of normalcy that I would have for, say, microwave ramen
Toasties!
There's also cock-a-leekie soup.
And it's fucking delicious.
Chips aren't exactly cheap these days. Poor food isn't cheap more.
