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Post by murphee on Apr 10, 2004 17:22:18 GMT -5
I remember eating Wonder Bread as a small child. Later, my parents bought healthy whole wheat bread. America is a junk food, fast-food society, but there are many individuals such as myself who eat only healthy food, mainly prepared at home from scratch.
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Post by Kukul-Kan on Apr 10, 2004 17:31:14 GMT -5
I agree some original dishes can be really messy but in most of the US, except for a few places Mexican immigrants frequent, Mexican food is weird. It also tends to vary greatly from region to region, being the food made in Yucatán my favorite, but what you get in the US and overseas is a washed version of simple Mexican food(I guess that could be said about most ethnic food made outside of its ethnic borders). Wheat tortillas are better for certain dishes. In Baja California the lobster tacos made with this kind of tortilla are great and wouldn’t taste that good with corn tortillas. Also Mexico and particularly Mexico City has a great baking tradition: The Mexicans have named their baked goods as whimsically as the Italians have named their pastas. Conchas (shells), orejas (ears), cuernos (horns), and cochinitos (little pigs) are only a few favorites. Care to try something different? How about bigotes (moustaches), trenzas (braids), or corbatas (neckties.) For the more adventurous, there are the somewhat aggressively named picones (jabbers) and piedras (stones.) The bread situation in Mexico, however, was not always so varied and appealing.www.mexconnect.com/mex_/recipes/puebla/kgbreads.html Some examples of Mexican ‘sweet’ bread The ‘Day of the Death bread’<br> Can you see the small 'bones' on the top of it?
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Post by berschneider on Apr 10, 2004 17:33:08 GMT -5
When I said Upper Class, I should have said Upper-Middle Class. I think American junk food in general is pretty bad. At least low-class Hispanic immigrants here can cook good meals for themselves with fresh ingredients. EuroMeds in the USA tend to be better about what they eat than low-class Anglo-Americans. Poor diet has huge effects on physical and mental fitness, in my opinion. You are what you eat. Med culture people tend to socialize over food and eat with gusto, so they're much less likely to eat junk. N Euro culture people tend to just stuff their face as fast as they can, barely noticing the organic material (food) that is passing through their GI tract. Germany, Scandinavian countries and Austria have their own food culture, distinct and different from Mediterranean Europe but still a very rich culture. The indifferent attitude - devouring stuff pretty much like a farm animal - is characteristic only of lower classes in Britain and of Ireland and of course, outside of Europe, of American-Americans (white and black) in the United States. I would also say that among European nations Russia falls into the same animalistic category (just eating without giving a thought to what you are eating), while Poland makes a remarkable contrast, most people there still give a thought to what they are eating and home meals remain something of a ritual. American junk food can be outrageously bad - like cheap processed cheese (after inspecting the label I found out that the substance contains no cheese at all, just vegetable shortening, colours, dies, starch, Titanium Dioxide, etc.) . It can be OK though. I don't find twinkies repulsive. They are edible.
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Post by berschneider on Apr 10, 2004 17:41:35 GMT -5
I remember eating Wonder Bread as a small child. Later, my parents bought healthy whole wheat bread. America is a junk food, fast-food society, but there are many individuals such as myself who eat only healthy food, mainly prepared at home from scratch. Right, the only thing is that eating well in America is expensive. In Germany or in France eating well or eating badly costs same in US it is not. On the lower end of the scale, in cheapest of the cheap supermarkets in Germany or France, you can get a half a kilo (or a pound) of brie for roughly 2.50 euros (make it dollars), bottle of OK wine is 1 euro, bottle of mineral water is 25 cents. Same kinds of food items would cost far more in America. You can get food at same prices in the US but what you'd get is garbage. As of Wonder Bread. American Wonder Bread is not that bad, it's just industrially produced thing with very little taste. You have to put it through a toaster first otherwise it is just too mushy.
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Post by berschneider on Apr 10, 2004 17:49:03 GMT -5
I agree some original dishes can be really messy but in most of the US, except for a few places Mexican immigrants frequent, Mexican food is weird. It also tends to vary greatly from region to region, being the food made in Yucatán my favorite, but what you get in the US and overseas is a washed version of simple Mexican food(I guess that could be said about most ethnic food made outside of its ethnic borders). Wheat tortillas are better for certain dishes. In Baja California the lobster tacos made with this kind of tortilla are great and wouldn’t taste that good with corn tortillas. Also Mexico and particularly Mexico City has a great baking tradition: The Mexicans have named their baked goods as whimsically as the Italians have named their pastas. Conchas (shells), orejas (ears), cuernos (horns), and cochinitos (little pigs) are only a few favorites. Care to try something different? How about bigotes (moustaches), trenzas (braids), or corbatas (neckties.) For the more adventurous, there are the somewhat aggressively named picones (jabbers) and piedras (stones.) The bread situation in Mexico, however, was not always so varied and appealing.www.mexconnect.com/mex_/recipes/puebla/kgbreads.html Some examples of Mexican ‘sweet’ bread The ‘Day of the Death bread’<br> Can you see the small 'bones' on the top of it? I only tried Mexican food when visiting the US. All sorts of ingredients mixed together, some yellow industrial cheese, peppers, mixture topped with sour cream. I’d like to visit Mexico. It’s a must see country on my travel target list. I’ve read about bread of the dead baked for the day of the dead (dia de los Muertos?). I thought the whole idea was a bit macabre but the bread must be delicious.
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Post by Melnorme on Apr 20, 2004 7:59:01 GMT -5
Frome iSteve.com :
"White Bread -- One of the most common racial epithets that white liberals use to denigrate other whites in their never-ending quest for status is "white bread." The funny thing about the "white bread" epithet is that it's black ghetto dwellers who are the biggest consumers of white bread these days. I went into a supermarket near the corner of Florence & Normandie where the 1992 LA Riot broke out, and, sure enough, practically all the varieties of bread on sale were white."
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Post by Silveira on Apr 20, 2004 9:30:00 GMT -5
I believe that the very industrial "white bread" is mostly used in English speaking countries, including the UK. In Portugal, where there is a bakery on every other street corner, it is not too popular. Known as "pão de forma", it is mostly used for making toast.
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Post by berschneider on Apr 20, 2004 14:45:57 GMT -5
I believe that the very industrial "white bread" is mostly used in English speaking countries, including the UK. In Portugal, where there is a bakery on every other street corner, it is not too popular. Known as "pão de forma", it is mostly used for making toast. An obsession with bread whiteness and with whiteness in general has been an old phenomenon in Britain as this 1771 passage from Huphrey Clinker by Tobias Smollet testifies "The bread I eat in London is a deleterious paste, mixed up with chalk, alum, and bone ashes, insipid to the taste and destructive to the constitution. The good people are not ignorant of this adulteration; but they prefer it to wholesome bread, because it is whiter than the meal of corn. Thus they sacrifice their taste and their health .... to a most absurd gratification of a misjudged eye; and the miller or the baker is obliged to poison them and their families, in order to live by his profession." Corn is of course regular grain (not maize or American corn). Industrially produced white bread in America or UK is a relatively recent phenomenon, traditional English bread is not bleached white Wonderbread Americans eat, I would still place olde England in the dark bread part of the continent.
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Post by Graeme on Apr 21, 2004 10:11:27 GMT -5
Isn't the difference due to climate. Wheat is easy to grow in the South, rye is easier to grow in the North. From what I have seen white/wheat bread is more desirable than dark/rye bread on a snobbish basis. Rye bread being peasant food. Even in the South being able to afford white/wheat bread as distinct from brown/wheat bread is a 20th century thing. Now of course the bran and wheat germ is considered to be necessitous in bread, but in the past brown bread was the poor man's bread.
I love rye bread. It contains other ingredients other than rye flour at least from what's written on the label. It is more expensive than wheat bread. Odd how times change.
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Post by berschneider on Apr 21, 2004 15:33:16 GMT -5
Isn't the difference due to climate. Wheat is easy to grow in the South, rye is easier to grow in the North. From what I have seen white/wheat bread is more desirable than dark/rye bread on a snobbish basis. Rye bread being peasant food. Even in the South being able to afford white/wheat bread as distinct from brown/wheat bread is a 20th century thing. Now of course the bran and wheat germ is considered to be necessitous in bread, but in the past brown bread was the poor man's bread. I love rye bread. It contains other ingredients other than rye flour at least from what's written on the label. It is more expensive than wheat bread. Odd how times change. Graeme - of course you are right (I think your avatar is great too, I like the red fur and the trident or big fork you've got). Rye is traditional to countries which had difficulty with growing wheat in abundance (unlike Mediterranean people and the Middle Easterners who always had enough wheat). It is now however more cultural than climatic difference. Similar wine/beer and butter/oil "barriers" exist in Europe and their ancient origins are (of course!) climatic. Personally, I like both wheat and rye traditions. Freshly baked Italian wheat bread is delicious (you can dip it in olive oil too), so is Northern rye bread. Both are parts of our common and shared European culture and heritage.
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Post by Graeme on Apr 22, 2004 9:54:20 GMT -5
The avatar is one of Dodona's. I am a little bit devilish. I am sure Marina/Adelaide/Ada thinks so. I prefer beer by the way and I don't use oil or butter much. Maltese people don't grow wheat or rye. The place is too small to grow much except fruit and vegetables. Most food is imported from nearby Sicily. Maltese people use both olive oil and butter and generally drink beer. They do prefer wheat bread though. Maltese cuisine is very Italian, but has English touches. I have never dipped bread into olive oil, but my mother did make bread and dripping. Sounds horrid right! Probably why I don't like oils or fats now.
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Post by berschneider on Apr 23, 2004 7:58:02 GMT -5
The avatar is one of Dodona's. I am a little bit devilish. I am sure Marina/Adelaide/Ada thinks so. I prefer beer by the way and I don't use oil or butter much. Maltese people don't grow wheat or rye. The place is too small to grow much except fruit and vegetables. Most food is imported from nearby Sicily. Maltese people use both olive oil and butter and generally drink beer. They do prefer wheat bread though. Maltese cuisine is very Italian, but has English touches. I have never dipped bread into olive oil, but my mother did make bread and dripping. Sounds horrid right! Probably why I don't like oils or fats now. I guess it takes much effort and a lot of olive oil to keep your red fur shiny. I wonder why do Maltese drink beer instead of wine, may be because of the British influence? I like both beer and wine depending on occasion. I think I am going to visit Malta this summer. I am a history and architecture buff and the place is quite incredible. There are excellent summer package deals for Malta, so I'll get one, go and explore the island on my own. I also know that ordinary Maltese have preserved many cars (youngtimers) from 1960s and 1970s, so for old car spotters it's a veritable treasure island, another good reason to visit Malta. I know that Maltese cooking is almost Italian and that Maltese seafood in restaurants must be excellent.
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Post by Graeme on Apr 23, 2004 9:30:20 GMT -5
I have not seen any old cars. They must keep them garaged as most cars are modern and small. Malta does produce wine. I don't think the British left too much behind except the English language which is spoken by almost everyone and a few protestants.
You are brave to go there in summer. I was there in October and it was too hot and too sunny for me. Maltese native cuisine is peasant food with lots of starch. Architecturally there are the ancient buildings, the megaliths such as Mnajdra, Hagar Qim, Tarxien and the underground Hypogeum. Otherwise most Maltese architecture is Baroque and Siculo-Norman.
I am sure you will enjoy yourself, but use a very good sunblock.
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Post by berschneider on Apr 23, 2004 12:41:12 GMT -5
I have not seen any old cars. They must keep them garaged as most cars are modern and small. Malta does produce wine. I don't think the British left too much behind except the English language which is spoken by almost everyone and a few protestants. You are brave to go there in summer. I was there in October and it was too hot and too sunny for me. Maltese native cuisine is peasant food with lots of starch. Architecturally there are the ancient buildings, the megaliths such as Mnajdra, Hagar Qim, Tarxien and the underground Hypogeum. Otherwise most Maltese architecture is Baroque and Siculo-Norman. I am sure you will enjoy yourself, but use a very good sunblock. I know it's very hot there. I may go in late August or even in the Autumn (or Fall?). The city of Valetta is a UNESCO World Heritage site and there are many things to see and explore. From this standpoint - history, culture and architecture - I believe Malta is one of the densest areas in entire Europe.
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Post by Graeme on Apr 25, 2004 12:05:51 GMT -5
I hope you meant populous not stupid. ;D Valletta is a planned city, planned by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, hospitallers... They did not like the old city originally built by the Romans, remodelled and reduced by the Saracens and taken over by the Maltese nobles. As far as weather, it is warm in September and October, November is OK. Winters there are not very cold, about 16 to 18 Celius max. A German Spring day! The Maltese use British English, so autumn is good, fall is not. I would not recommend going to my home town, Lija, it is where the Yanks have their embassy. Most of the old langues, houses belonging to the different nationalities of the knights, are still there but are used as government buildings eg the langue of Castile et Leon. Try to find authentic Maltese cuisine - try it. Unfortunately the Maltese have gone into either pasta or pizza as their common tourist foods. It is hard to get traditional cuisine at restaurants.
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