Early Risers.

[southern42]

Sunshine and showers

I did venture out between showers to take some photos of the hibiscus as you can tell from the flower below:

 

but on closer inspection, I noticed most of the flowers are a bit moth-eaten as are many of the leaves.

 

<<Well, they took their time uploading...>>

 

and now it is "Time for bed," said Zebedee...

 

' night all and nos da.

[Tony_S]

14 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

Nope. A curry is "an Indian" whether it comes from India, Afghanistan or Birmingham. Unless it's green, in which case it must be Thai.

“A curry” may be “an Indian” to some people but the sub continent is well basically a sub continent and quite large. The food traditionally offered in “Indian” restaurants is Bangladeshi, a noticeable lack of pork dishes is a big clue. Some parts of the UK where people have settled from Kashmir also traded as Indian but aren’t.  
One of the things is that if my wife’s country of birth gets mentioned someone wants to go on about their curry experiences. She is a very polite person and so tries to find a nice way of saying she doesn’t eat stuff like that. As I mentioned, former “Indian” restaurants round here are now describing themselves now as Bangladeshi or in one case Malaysian. I have no idea what happens elsewhere 

[Tony_S]

Some of the Turkish restaurants round here openly trade as Turkish but others describe themselves as Mediterranean or Anatolian. All serve similar food though. 

[PhilJ W]

57 minutes ago, BoD said:

Buggggger it. I’m well cheesed off. 

 

Three times earlier tonight I tried ERs (and a couple of times since my last post) and on each occasion the damn thing  just hung.

 

No error messages, whatever their number, no by your leave, the ruddy thing just hung. 
Left me dangling there until I went off to another site, came back, and the darn thing just hung again.

 

Much as I love you all and enjoy your (virtual) company I fear that if this does  not resolve itself, my time here may well be limited. I do not wish to spend much more of the time left to me on this mortal earth waiting to see if the site will kindly deign to let me in.

 

 

 

I can also guarantee that when I post this, the site will go all shy, grey out, and I will have to head off elsewhere and return later to be allowed to view it.

When that happens to me I open RMweb in another tab which usually works properly. I then close the existing tab.

[Andy Hayter]

47 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Some of the Turkish restaurants round here openly trade as Turkish but others describe themselves as Mediterranean or Anatolian. All serve similar food though. 

 

We tend to think too much of national dishes, rather than regional.

 

Purely as an example, are Mezes Greek or Turkish and the answer is both and neither.  They are a food for a region that acknowledges no borders.  Your Indian food example is another, where the north and south dishes are very different and even as close as Italy, pasta is traditionally more found in the South than the North, where rice was the carbohydrate of choice.  Not today of course as we smear the regional boundaries and dishes across the world and often lose the authenticity.  Chow mien in Newcastle and Pizza in Shanghai.  

Edited September 11 by Andy Hayter

[jjb1970]

There has been cross pollination of food culture for as long as people have had any contacts or links with people outside their own bubble.

 

What tends to happen is that as new food styles are introduced by immigrants, visitors, as part of empire etc they are adapted to local tastes and at some point evolve into a new tradition. I love the 'Indian' food we get in Britain from Bengali cooks but Anglo-indian is probably a better names as it's now removed from the food of the sub-continent.

 

It's not just in Britain, Indian food in Singapore has adopted local flavours and styles of SE Asia, though I suspect it's closer to food you might find in India than Anglo-indian food and cultural exchanges between SE Asia and South Asia go back a long time. I like Dutch Indonesian food but that's in the same category as Anglo-indian,  nice but not like anything I eat in Indonesia. Of course if you look you can find restaurants anywhere which serve much more authentic food but they tend to be the exception. 

 

The inverse is also true, western food in Asia is adapted for local tastes.

 

I think something that gets lost is the size and diversity of Asia. Imagine the regional variations in European food culture across countries which are relatively small and relatively culturally homogeneous, then imagine countries like India, China, Indonesia which are huge and very diverse. Talking about Chinese food is like talking about European food. 

[jjb1970]

Something which bemuses a lot of people from Asia is the obsession of some British and European people with spicy foods and heat.

 

If a waited in Indonesia,  Singapore,  China and I daresay India warns you a dish is hot then it's probably very hot, but hot food isn't the norm. 

 

In Britain spicy is a synonym for hot, but in Asia spices are more about flavour and foods can be highly spiced without being hot. Many of the signature dishes of cultures around the place, including those we associate with hot food, have no more heat than bangers and mash. Some Chinese dishes like mala are brutal, but it's not the norm.

 

A funny one is the Republic of Korea which seems to have adopted our thing with hot food. Buldak is quite a recent thing but it can be bonkersly hot. Even the instant noodles can be crazily hot (nice though).

[iL Dottore]

Good Morning,

A very early start this morning - the weather has turned cold and rainy and my poor beleaguered musculoskeletal system has been protesting vigorously! 

 

I see that The Bear is (very) timidly venturing a few feet beyond the borders of his tiny culinary world! Well Done That Bear! But PB is very British in this regard: it seems whilst a goodly proportion of Britons will be happily be Gastronauts - exploring the culinary universe, far, far more regard anything beyond the usual "meat & 2 veg" (or heavily bastardised pseudo- Italian, Indian or Chinese food) as - to quote Terry Pratchett - "dangerously foreign".

 

Many years ago, at the dawn of the package holiday, I remember reading in a Sunday colour supplement interviews with people who had gone on one of these (at the time) "new fangled package tours" to someplace "exotic" like Benidorm or Rimini. Almost unanimously the interviewees were negative about the "foreign" food; describing  it variously as "too oily", "too spicy" and "had too much flavour" (just love the latter quote).

 

@Tony_S makes a very good point about the regionality of food in the Indian subcontinent and - as @Andy Hayter pointed out, Italian food is also intensely regional (I remember being in the vegetable market in Bologna one year and noting on a greengrocer's stall a sign that read [and I translate loosely] "foreign produce: artichokes from Sicily!").

 

But does regionality in food matter? I think it does. Can you imagine the brouhaha if people were to describe Haggis as an English speciality? Or, probably more appropriately to this discussion, the brouhaha arising if you were to serve Haggis with Yorkshire pudding and soggy "chip-shop" chips followed by custard poured over Bara Brith and then described this mess as "a typical British meal"

As @jjb1970 pointed out, since the dawn of time immemorial there has always been cross fertilisation (contamination?🤣) between food cultures, but - I would argue - there's a difference between adopting an ingredient or a style of cooking and the deliberate bastardisation of a cuisine whilst passing it off as authentic (Uncle Roger, of YouTube fame, has targeted  one particular English chef notorious for that).

[jamie92208]

12 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

Erm,  No.   Also goes well with smoked salmon and smoked trout as well as mackerel - smoked or not.  

I often ttry sauces etc with different meats.  One of my favourite sandwich fillings is cold sliced roast beef with mint jelly on it. 

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from a cool Charente.  Much to do today as our visitor is due from the UK.  Some jobs this morning g then we are off to Limoges airport to collect her. 

 

Jamie

[iL Dottore]

To address @jjb1970 point about "bonkers" hot. I love hot food, but apart from one or two concoctions I've cooked up for my own enjoyment, I prefer the "heat" of a dish to be an integral part of the dish and not from mindlessly chucking in tons of chillis.

 

I've had quite a few "hot 'n' spicy" dishes in Malaysia, but always in (presumably authentic) dishes eaten by locals at hawker stalls. Italian food, surprisingly, can also get quite spicy - mostly through the use of dried chilies, such as in spaghetti olio, aglio e pepperoncino or pasta alla arrabbiata. Both of which being Southern Italian dishes and with the dried chilies presumably coming from Arab traders (once the chilli had spread to Asia and had been incorporated into the spice trade).

 

One of my "hot and spicy" concoctions is a red pepper soup. Basically it is a good quantity of red bell peppers, a handful of red Chili peppers, cayenne pepper and smoked paprika (to taste), red onions and plenty of garlic. The garlic and onions are sweated down in a little bit of butter (or ghee or peanut oil) with the cayenne pepper and smoked paprika, then chopped and deseeded red peppers and roughly chopped (but not deseeded) chillis chucked into the pan, together with about a litre or so of vegetable stock and the whole thing left to simmer for about an hour. The soup is then puréed, sieved, the seasoning adjusted and a touch of cream added to smooth things out.

 

Depending on how much cayenne pepper and red chilies you choose to use, the soup can vary from having a pleasantly mild tang all the way up to biohazard level heat. I usually make this when I'm alone (and Mrs ID and the Wolfpack are up at the holiday hovel) and I definitely go for biohazard level heat!

 

Edited September 12 by iL Dottore

[polybear]

7 hours ago, BoD said:

Buggggger it. I’m well cheesed off. 

 

Three times earlier tonight I tried ERs (and a couple of times since my last post) and on each occasion the damn thing  just hung.

 

No error messages, whatever their number, no by your leave, the ruddy thing just hung. 
Left me dangling there until I went off to another site, came back, and the darn thing just hung again.

 

Much as I love you all and enjoy your (virtual) company I fear that if this does  not resolve itself, my time here may well be limited. I do not wish to spend much more of the time left to me on this mortal earth waiting to see if the site will kindly deign to let me in.

 

Maybe it's time for an alternative thread in Wheeltappers......now then, what to call it.....

 

How about "It's Not a System Problem....."  😉

 

27 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

I see that The Bear is (very) timidly venturing a few feet beyond the borders of his tiny culinary world! Well Done That Bear! But PB is very British in this regard: it seems whilst a goodly proportion of Britons will be happily be Gastronauts - exploring the culinary universe, far, far more regard anything beyond the usual "meat & 2 veg" (or heavily bastardised pseudo- Italian, Indian or Chinese food) as - to quote Terry Pratchett - "dangerously foreign".

 

Bear actually went for another traditional main course after the soup starter....it seems that Poland is rather "big" on dumplings; various fillings are available (not LDC though 😢) - ISTR these were potato & cheese.  I'd scoff 'em again:

 

 

27 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

.......followed by custard poured over Bara Brith ......

 

 

Now that has definite possibilities....

What we need is an officially appointed ER Tester who's up to the task (photo evidence essential) - any GuineaHippo's up to the challenge?

[Ozexpatriate]

8 hours ago, rockershovel said:

I could envisage it with mackerel

Japanese horseradish (aka wasabi*) is quite 'normal' with mackerel - raw.

 

* so is the imitation paste which I am more accustomed to.

[Ozexpatriate]

8 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Finns drink things even Russians won't drink!

They would probably even drink Šljivovica (Slivovitz). Revolting stuff. A Croatian colleague brought some into the office.

 

I was surprised to see it recently in a local liquor store. I asked a stockist whether they had tasted it. I advised them not to.

[Ozexpatriate]

8 hours ago, polybear said:

Polish Snaggers

Polska Kielbasa is almost more common than hot dogs in US supermarkets.

[Ozexpatriate]

15 minutes ago, polybear said:

Poland is rather "big" on dumplings

Pierogis.

 

Very common in the midwestern US.  Also will be front and centre at the local Polish Festival this weekend. (The same time as the region's biggest Oktoberfest.)

[Ozexpatriate]

17 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Quite where pineapple as an accompaniment to pig products comes from, I am not sure. Although – given all the bizarre pairings and concoctions promoted by the food industry in the 50s and early 60s – I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was something dreamt up by the marketing department of the Del Monte Company.

15 hours ago, Tony_S said:

South America originally. Pineapple is effectively a meat tenderizer. 

Tacos al pastor. Excellent.

[Ozexpatriate]

47 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

pasta alla arrabbiata

Big fan of alla arrabiata here.

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

But does regionality in food matter? I think it does. Can you imagine the brouhaha if people were to describe Haggis as an English speciality? Or, probably more appropriately to this discussion, the brouhaha arising if you were to serve Haggis with Yorkshire pudding and soggy "chip-shop" chips followed by custard poured over Bara Brith and then described this mess as "a typical British meal"

The analogue of an "Indian" or "Chinese" restaurant in the West would be to open an "authentic" "European" restaurant in Asia.

 

The menu:

• Paella
• Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding
• Pasta Carbonara
• Fondue
• Coq au vin
• Wiener Schnitzel
• Rollmops 

And people would be encouraged to buy one of each and serve them 'family style' with a bit of each dish all together on one plate - just like Westerners do with "Indian" and "Chinese" foods.

 

[TheQ]

In Saudi our cooks were from Kerala, once a month we had a curry night, I suspect it's the closest to real Indian curries I've had.

As for going native for food, we regularly had " Tammis" and dips, that's flat round bread and various versions for a bean / lentil thick dip. From the local takeaway, all being made in front of you...

 

Going to be busy today ..

Bye for now.

 

[rockershovel]

Some important things about Anglo-Indian food....

 

- The British are, above all, a meat eating people. That means any sort of meat, fish or poultry. It may well be a small amount, in a stew or pie, but they like meat

- they don't really observe any sort of religious or cultural dietary restrictions

- most Brits with experience of "The East" don't eat local food cooked by locals. When I worked in S China Sea or on a drilling rig in Bangla Desh I was mostly concerned with not getting "Delhi belly" and ate in the mess. My grandfather was no different in his day.

- nor do they eat ducks feet, dogs noses or other such scraps. 

- the original introduction of "Indian food" to the UK as a commercial product was through the immigration of the 1940s and 1950s. Most of this came from a single area of Pakistan (it still is, 75% of the Pakistani population in UK are derived from there). It was passed off as "Indian" because most Brits thought of it vaguely as "India". 

- a more recent generation was introduced by such travesties as Vesta Beef Curry. 

- most of that applies to Chinese, or indeed Dutch Indonesian food

[rockershovel]

14 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

The analogue of an "Indian" or "Chinese" restaurant in the West would be to open an "authentic" "European" restaurant in Asia.

 

The menu:

• Paella
• Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding
• Pasta Carbonara
• Fondue
• Coq au vin
• Wiener Schnitzel
• Rollmops 

And people would be encouraged to buy one of each and serve them 'family style' with a bit of each dish all together on one plate - just like Westerners do with "Indian" and "Chinese" foods.

 

Most Brits regard European food as scarcely less "furrin" than curry or chow mein. 

 

European style sausages occasionally appear as fried black pudding in cafe breakfasts, but the typical fatty, garlic enhanced European sausage is greeted with cries of aversion. Fondue had a vogue as a middle class fad in the 70s (skewered in the Guardians quite brilliant "Mrs Webbers Diary" cartoon) but I don't recall when I last saw it. 

 

Most of them don't eat shellfish or seafood, other than prawns or crab, mostly as a sandwich filler paste. Roll mops are a low-status food eaten by Cockneys, along with cockles, whelks etc. My wife thinks it quite disgusting that I eat such things. It's no coincidence that such things mostly derive from the East European Jewish population of East London in the 1850-1960 era

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

Now that has definite possibilities....

What we need is an officially appointed ER Tester who's up to the task (photo evidence essential) - any GuineaHippo's up to the challenge?

I've had a thought (it happens).

 

What if we turn PB into a celebrity "chef" (note the ironic quotation marks) and we put him into a West End restaurant and aim him squarely at the Oligarchs, the Petrosheiks, the Nouveau-Riche and the Z-list media "celebrities".

Let's call it "Casa Del Orso"

 

We could make a fortune from the culinarily clueless. Just think of the dishes we could fob off on them:

 

• Baked beanz on brioche toast with caviar

• The Bear's "House Pizza" (whatever's hanging around in label-less tins, chucked on a pizza base)

• The King's Sausages (basic 6 for £1 soss, covered with edible gold foil) with "house fries" (aka freezer bag skinny chips).

• The Bear's "seafood" pizza (caviar, crab, lobster and shrimp on a pizza base)

• The "curly-whirly experience" (curly fries served in a bowl, covered with a cheese sauce with several "dips" on the side)

• The "complete bear" a bowl filled with curly fries, baked beans, sausages, bacon, chunks of LDC, covered with a cheese and tomato sauce, baked in the oven then covered with edible gold foil, sprinkled with caviar and topped with  a fried egg.

 

We'd have a short wine list (basically Tesco house red and house white with the labels soaked off and replaced with hand drawn labels glued-on haphazardly) and slap on a 2000% mark-up.

 

We'd either make an absolute mint or end up in the dock...

 

So, who's in?

[iL Dottore]

24 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

Most lower middle class and working class Brits regard European food as scarcely less "furrin" than curry or chow mein. 

There, fixed it for you.

 

Britain is definitely the home of both food snobbery and - as you have illustrated - inverse food snobbery. In most European and Asian countries food is (mostly/relatively) classless. It's either good or it isn't (some things, for financial reasons, may be the occasional treat for some but are nonetheless still enjoyed by all).

 

I wonder if the British attitude to food is because the British tend to socialise over alcohol (pubs, clubs, etc) more than they socialise over food. 

[Winslow Boy]

9 hours ago, polybear said:

And for those who like to "dabble" with Guitars.....Bear spent several evenings listening to this Guy in the Town Square.....

I didn't think he was too shabby.....

 

(edit:  I did think the bit from 30s onwards was rather clever - so much so I even bought his CD, which is unheard of).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can't see his fingers. Are you sure it wasn't that gramophone that he was sat on.