SC - US bars UK

[Elaine Koogler]

And then, of course, there are the cuisines from the Southeast, which usually
don't get a whole lot of play anywhere, except possibly in the Southeast!
Southern cooking is usually the result of a marriage of African cookery and
European, mostly British.  Then they added in the foods that they found available
in the New World.  A lot of what is called Soul Food is southern cooking...at
least what I grew up with!  However, contrary to popular opinion, it doesn't
consist mostly of veggies that are overcooked with fatback!  A lot of what you'd
find in Martha Washington's Cookery Book is typical of Colonial southern
cooking...and what we know today grew out of that.

Kiri

Philip & Susan Troy wrote:

> Christina Nevin wrote:
> >
> > Because I'm an English-born New Zealander, American food is 'foreign' to me.
> > At first I wanted to see if there was more to American cuisine than Cajun
> > food (which I love) hotdogs (which I also love) and hamburgers (which I
> > don't). Like I said, I got hooked on Buffalo Wings. :-)
>
> I can uncategorically say that there is more to American food than the
> above... (it's not yet time to announce the completion of my book on New
> York State foods, but rest assured that it would not have been possible
> to even attempt the project without there being a huge wealth of
> demonstrably and more or less exclusively American cuisine).
>
> > I don't regard fast food chains such as McDonalds, BurgerKing, KFC etc as
> > indicative of American cuisine or even as restaurants, no matter what they
> > call them. I also don't patronise them myself because life is too short to
> > eat substandard fodder and I really just don't like the taste. I also spent
> > 2 months in Germany in 1986 eating McDs for lunch almost every day - quite
> > enough to put you off the stuff for life.
>
> Fast food _is_ more or less an American invention, at least in its most
> common current form, as is its cousin, the Stouffer Recipe Kitchen. Both
> concepts are, in my opinion, designed to prevent the production and sale
> of absolutely inedible food (with mixed success in some cases),
> theoretically producing the same product in Peoria as in New York as in
> London as in Tokyo, but unfortunately, as a side effect, more or less
> guaranteeing a top standard of mediocrity. However, be all of this as it
> may, none of this should be seen as a suggestion that these chains are
> selling representative American food.
>
> > Aside from which, eating any form of beef product in Europe nowadays is like
> > Russian Roulette - the gun may have several thousand empty chambers, but I'm
> > not taking the chance.
> >
> > If you want fast food in England you go into a sandwich bar (of which they
> > even have chains such as the extremely good Pret a Manger), the quality of
> > which is usually high. I've only been to San Diego but I've been told you
> > don't really get sandwich bars in the US?
>
> Is a sandwich bar like a salad bar for sandwiches? Essentially a cold
> buffet of breads and fillings, centering on things like sliced meats and
> saladish stuff? As far as I know, we don't have a lot of that in the
> States, which is interesting because for a while bars in the U.S. used
> to have this; it was known generally as The Free Lunch (a nickel out of
> the price of each beer, etc., paid for it). Once upon a time the typical
> bar Free Lunch (maybe 120 years ago) would also include a large range of
> preserved foods, since there was no refrigeration to speak of, so Free
> Lunch food was based largely on things like pickled eggs and pickled
> pigs' feet, maybe head cheese, sausages, etc. All the Free Lunch
> counters I've seen in my lifetime, though, have been refrigerated "cold
> cut" (i.e. sliced meats and cheeses) buffets.
>
> Actually, though, the art of the sandwich is alive and well around the
> U.S., with respectable entries coming from some diners, sandwich shops,
> and even four-star restaurants. Probably the best sandwiches (apart from
> the Pan Bagnat I used to sell at La Colombe d'Or and elsewhere, which is
> the best sandwich in history) most often come from various Kosher Jewish
> and Italian delicatessens, at least in the larger cities, and then there
> are various regional specialty sandwiches like the Beef On Kimmelweck
> (warm roast beef, often prime rib, au jus with horseradish on a salted,
> caraway-seed roll), a specialty of Buffalo, New York. (No, no plugs for
> NY food there...)
> >
> >         [Please, please note that nowhere, at any time in my life, have I
> > ever
> >         ascribed to the idea that English food is bad. That perception does
> >         exist, and in some cases it is not unjustified, but as a cuisine, it
> > is
> >         glorious, when done properly.]
> >
> > Too true! All together now:
> > "No such thing as a bad cuisine, just bad cooks!"
>
> Ah, yes! G-d gives us good meate, and the Devil sends cooks!
>
> Adamantius
> --
> Phil & Susan Troy
>
> troy at asan.com
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