Food but not recipes

[Frater I*I]

I used to love spicy hot foods, but in my older years, my GI tract no longer approves.

My upper has no problem, but my lower, we'll let's just leave it at that I make a few trips to the head each day due to my use of cayenne pepper in substitute for black pepper...

[northland10]

I always suspected the over spicing of foods in central/south America may have to cover over the lack of quality sourced protein. I could be wrong. With the exception of Brazil where their food is rather bland, latin regions crank up the heat.

Bangladesh also spices the heck out of their dishes. Maybe for the same reason?

I used to love spicy hot foods, but in my older years, my GI tract no longer approves.

Vietnam, India, various Mediterranean areas, and other southern areas generally have spicier food. While getting a lunch of biryani and saag paneer, I once asked a colleague from India why it seemed southern food was always spicier (vindaloo would be a good example). He was not entirely sure, but he did point out that in a warmer climate, spicy food can make you perspire (or, for me, sweat like a pig), and that helps cool you down in a hot climate. This has been the most explanation I've heard.

There's probably also a thing about peppers not growing well in a northern climate.

I enjoy some spice, but this descendent of the British Isles, and Germany (and a dash of Norweigen, apparently), tends to keep it limited. The Thai place I get stuff from has a choice of spice level. Either you can generally go without or a scale of .5, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. I usually get .5, and that works well. With 1, I would include lots of milk, have a very wet scalp, and clear sinuses. I can't image 5.

I once got a frozen dinner of vindaloo from Trader Joe's. Oh my. Because I like torture, I have gotten it again since.

[northland10]

Since we are on spicy food, here are a few fun stories.

Story 1.

Back at the office, our cafe would have a visiting restaurant at one of the stations (this was also good advertising for the visiting place). A regular one was from a Vietnamese place. I was eating away and chomped into a rather large jalapeno. This was a far more powerful jalapeno than I was used to or expecting and I suddenly found myself on a beeline back to the serving area and the milk cooler. So there I was, running for milk while I was sweating away, with my eyes all teared up, and I looked over at one of the stations, and there was Rodney, their regular lead chef laughing away. He knew me well enough; he knew what I did. I do miss him (he had moved on to another place before the lockdown).

Story 2.

Back when I was high school or early college age, my dad was busy cutting up stuff for dinner. I was outside doing something in the yard. He ran out and said, "I think I poisoned myself." He had eaten a cucumber and his mouth was burning. I go in, and he points at the cucumbers he was cutting and the powdery stuff nearby and says, "try that." I'm like, wait; you think you poisoned yourself and want me to try it? Well, after a closer look, the powder was actually some spilled flour. What happened was that he had been cutting up peppers that were much spicier than he had expected. The juice from them had gotten on the knife and, therefore, ended up on the cucumber slices.

He does fancier cooking so ending up with a much spicier pepper than he expected was unusual.

[sugar magnolia]

Some time in the late 60's, my dad had to attend some sort of big political hoopla about a Bell helicopter in Dallas. The president was even there. They had the cutest little canapes being offered around. I bit into on with a slice of jalapeno on it and, trying to be as ladylike as I was warned to be, grabbed my dad's hand and spit it out. He was talking to some sort of political bigwig at the time and never looked at me or missed a beat. He just stuck his handful of half-chewed jalapeno into his suit pocket.

[neonzx]

...
I enjoy some spice, but this descendent of the British Isles, and Germany (and a dash of Norweigen, apparently), tends to keep it limited. The Thai place I get stuff from has a choice of spice level. Either you can generally go without or a scale of .5, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. I usually get .5, and that works well. With 1, I would include lots of milk, have a very wet scalp, and clear sinuses. I can't image 5.
...

Oh my, memories. When I was a younger Neon, we went to a business luncheon at a Thai restaurant. My first visit to one. I was used to ordering Chinese hot and spicy-- Thai is Asian too, right. Ugh, No.

[MN-Skeptic]

Neon approved. Like the "air fryer" marketing lie.

https://www.tmz.com/2023/03/10/buffalo- ... ss-action/

Buffalo Wild Wings Sued Boneless Wings Are Just the Breast ... Customer Cries FOWL!!!

Buffalo Wild Wings is duping customers into believing they are chowing down on wing meat when they order boneless wings, when in reality it's essentially just chicken nuggets ... at least according to a new lawsuit.

The nationwide restaurant chain is being dragged into a class-action suit by a man named Aimen Halim, and he's got a serious bone to pick here. Sorry, we had to do it.

In the suit, obtained by TMZ, Halim claims Buffalo Wild Wings' boneless wings are not deboned wings at all, as they would have customers believe, but rather slices of breast meat deep fried like wings with a composition more akin to nuggets than wings.

He says he fell victim to what he describes as deceptive marketing.

Fake advertising. LOL

To be fair, if you are chowing down on fake boneless wings (breast meat) it is more healthy than the garbage wing meat of a chicken.

From Buffalo Wild Wings website menu -

Traditional Wings - "AUTHENTIC BUFFALO, NEW YORK-STYLE CHICKEN WINGS / HANDSPUN IN CHOICE OF SAUCE OR DRY SEASONING"

Boneless Wings - "JUICY ALL-WHITE CHICKEN / LIGHTLY BREADED / HANDSPUN IN CHOICE OF SAUCE OR DRY SEASONING"

Google Maps will have photos from users for various sites, and a lot of folks share photos of menus. A five year old photo of a menu has these descriptions -

Traditional Wings - "Fresh, award-winning and authentic Buffalo New York-style wings."

Boneless Wings - "All-white meat chicken, lightly breaded and perfectly cooked to a golden crisp."

I imagine that the most recent menus are very similar in their descriptions.

[northland10]

I don't get lawsuits like these (well, save for some attorney trying to make a buck). If you buy a big ticket item and find out it does not contain what you bought; there is an issue, but $5-$10 worth of "wings?" If you bought it once and found it was just white meat, don't go again. If you kept buying it, it sounds like you enjoyed it despite not being real wings. If I enjoy it, does my enjoyment go down if I find it was breast meat instead?

I would have wondered about "boneless wings" in the first place. Deboning wings does not sound like a very efficient operation. Even if you did, the recovered meat would be much smaller in size than the regular wings.

[Volkonski]

Belgian hospital food earns restaurant guide accolade

https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/belgi ... 023-03-14/

Hospital food would normally rank alongside school lunches on the culinary charts but a hospital in western Belgium has broken the stereotype after winning approval from a prestigious French restaurant guide.

AZ Groeninge in the city of Kortrijk becomes the first hospital in the Benelux to be officially recognised by Gault & Millau for the quality of the food it serves to its patients.

Marc Declerck, chief executive of Gault & Millau Benelux said the guide producer has been collaborating for more than 10 years with the likes of companies and retirement homes on the meals served to employees and residents.

The hospital brought in Gault & Millau experts to inspect their food and offer advice for improvement, notably for their fish dishes, their sauces and their potato servings.

"People don't want necessarily too complicated things. Make it healthy, make it tasty... Try to cook for them like you would cook for yourself," he told Reuters.

[busterbunker]

I don't like strawberries, personally, since I picked them when I was a kid and saw the ones that go into ice cream. But if you like strawberries, buy them now if they are on sale. According to some fruit grower reports, the California floods wiped out $200m of strawberries. They don't mention that they can't (or better not) replant those fields until they are no longer contaminated by sewage. Strawberries are a low-hanging fruit, they hit the dirt all the time. Good thing I don't like strawberries.

[Danraft]

I’ve catered hundreds of weddings and have never seen the cookie table tradition. I can see why it would have legs though.

[RTH10260]

I don't like strawberries, personally, since I picked them when I was a kid and saw the ones that go into ice cream. But if you like strawberries, buy them now if they are on sale. According to some fruit grower reports, the California floods wiped out $200m of strawberries. They don't mention that they can't (or better not) replant those fields until they are no longer contaminated by sewage. Strawberries are a low-hanging fruit, they hit the dirt all the time. Good thing I don't like strawberries.

I once read that the whole of Californias (or was it US?) annual strawberry harvest would only be enough to give 20% of the US strawberry ice cream consumption natural flavouring

[northland10]

Last fall, I went to using a prepared meal delivery service recommended by a colleague in the hope that it would help me do lunches that were not from restaurants (well, in most cases, though I have 2-3 that I still use often as they have done me well). This was to help me reduce how much I was eating. I went with RealEats at the time.

RealEats suddenly closed a couple of weeks back. While I went one week without a service, I decided this is not the time of year to rethink how or where I eat (reminder, I am a church musician, and Holy Week/Easter is approaching). As such, I went with CookUnity.

Today, from the lunch I made, my place reeks of garlic from heating the meal. I like this plan.

I also like their packaging more. They deliver with a bag and a cool pack. I can leave it out during next week's delivery and they will take it back and reuse it. I can also just keep a few for use when I need one, which I might.

[MN-Skeptic]

[RTH10260]

i wonder how this tastes

[Volkonski]

In the USA white meat chicken has long been more popular than dark meat chicken (which actual chicken wings are). I recall a time when US chicken producers sold much of their chicken dark meat to China because they had more than they could sell in the USA after producing enough white meat to meet American demand. Roughly half of a chicken is white meat and half is dark meat.

Then a bar owner in Buffalo NY noticed how inexpensive chicken wings were, the bar developed a spicy sauce and a long lasting national craze was born.

[sugar magnolia]

i wonder how this tastes

Probably like chittlins.

[neonzx]

Then a bar owner in Buffalo NY noticed how inexpensive chicken wings were, the bar developed a spicy sauce and a long lasting national craze was born.

Sorry, but I never got on that national craze. Chicken wings were considered scrap leftovers by poultry producers as not fit for human consumption. Until a bar thought, hey let's slather these things in a hot sauce so the unsuspecting customers won't know they are eating garbage. cha-ching$$.

[AndyinPA]

I'm in the minority. I much prefer dark meat, always have.

[neonzx]

I'm in the minority. I much prefer dark meat, always have.

Yikes, there is something wrong with you woman. Why do you want all that gristle and fat?

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to cancel our date night.

[AndyinPA]

I'm in the minority. I much prefer dark meat, always have.

Yikes, there is something wrong with you woman. Why do you want all that gristle and fat?

Fat=flavor.

[MN-Skeptic]

I'm in the minority. I much prefer dark meat, always have.

Yikes, there is something wrong with you woman. Why do you want all that gristle and fat?

Fat=flavor.

Chicken legs and thighs don’t have a lot of gristle on them and are delicious.

I never could understand the appeal of chicken wings… not worth the effort.

Chicken gizzards… yum!

[Patagoniagirl]

Gizzards, yay! Has anyone ever had fish gizzards? We think only fowl have gizzards, but Mullet are (I think) the only fish that have them.

I lived in the small fishing village of Cortez, FL, and worked in the winter "pulling roe". A cold, messy job. The roe was sold to Taiwan and surrounding areas, the gizzards were saved for us Cortezians and the Mullet sold dirt cheap for smoking and frying.

The fat, ring-shaped gizzards were washed and deep-fried after a salt and cornmeal dredge. They were very slightly sweet but had no fishy flavor at all. We had an abundance of mullet to dredge and fry, which we had with rice and tomato gravy and a side of fry bread or hush puppies. Oysters, stone.crab, shrimp and clams were abundant.

[humblescribe]

i wonder how this tastes

Probably like chittlins.

Sugar, I am shocked! Shocked I am!

I would expect that a non-Southerner would not know the proper spelling of pig intestines. But a Southern girl like you knows that the proper spelling is chitterlings, especially among genteel folks like us.

That darn elision can be troublesome.

[Kriselda Gray]

Chicken legs and thighs don’t have a lot of gristle on them and are delicious.

I never could understand the appeal of chicken wings… not worth the effort.

Chicken gizzards… yum!

I just the right, impressionable age when a friend told me - while I was eating a drumstick - the old urban legend about someone discovering their KFC chicken leg was actually a rat that it absolutely scarred me for life. Even though I've now known for years that it was a lie, I was so disgusted that I can't eat chicken legs to this day. It's just one of those things where logic cannot overcome fear - even stupid fear.

[keith]

Vietnam, India, various Mediterranean areas, and other southern areas generally have spicier food.

Viet Nam has the most bland, tasteless food in Indochina (IMHO). Bier Hanoi draft is great though.

Restaurants in the west (including Australia) glam it up a bit because they know the market, but in Viet Nam its almost boring.

I once worked with some Hindu's from India that were convinced that Italian food was all vegetarian. It came as a surprise that restaurateurs try to understand their market so they can actually serve food their customers will be able to eat.

Cambodia was much better food-wise than Viet Nam.