Food and Food Culture

Ah yes fast food, I eat it more often than I should but I am forced to do a lunch break each day and too lazy to prepare me something in advance. We got Mc Donalds (Mecces), Subway, Burger King, KFC and a Kochlöffel (a german chain that serves burgers, rotisserie chicken and currywurst) nearby. I guess Subway is my favorite out of them, though our Mecces did recently expand and now has self-service terminals with waiting service and customize-able burgers which did make eating there way more comfortable.

My absolute favorite fast-food chain has to be "Quick" a french chain that has a burger called the Supreme ClassiQ which just has it all: emmentaler cheese, herbal butter sauce, a mix of iceberg and rocket salad and a bun with sesame and poppy seeds. They also have a nice tomato basil sauce for their fries / potato wedges.

Unfortunately they got bougth by Burger King in 2015 and now are slowly replaced.

edited 12th Jun '18 7:07:38 AM by Kiefen

Ah yes, rocket aka arugula aka fancy lettuce.

For me it's a tossup between arugula and fresh spinach leaves.

As for the herbal butter sauce...it sounds nice. But I gotta admit I'm a sucker for classics. I prefer mustard on my burgers.

And yeah, the corporate world is a harsh and unforgiving one.

edited 12th Jun '18 7:13:53 AM by M84

I went to Ancash, besides that there was way more native white people than expected. I'll also have to say...

Andean food is fucking varied. I'll ended up sticking to the classic but geez, that's variety. My mom eat a Puchero, she loved it but her stomach ends up pretty bad. She's fine now, but still...

I also proved some pretty good local ice creams. Yeah, People living in a mountain only meters from a snowy mountain that can be seen from the city eat Ice creams.

It makes sense, the days in the andes are painfully hot, the night is cold and the early morning is a frozen hell.

edited 12th Jun '18 9:04:23 AM by KazuyaProta

All right, this makes me laugh every time I see it. In Australia there's nothing fancy about rocket. It's more "cheap ass filler found in food court salads" lettuce.

Australia doesn't have a really big "street food" culture. Fairly strict food hygiene laws. The one real constant is the "meat pie". Traditionally beef, though their are chicken variants. Same with the sausage roll, which is just minced meat wrapped in pastry. Various small trucks (or even a set up on the back of ute) with semi-regular locations. They don't really rely on foot traffic though but set up in high traffic areas with passing car traffic.

Anticuchos and Ceviche.

Of course.

edited 12th Jun '18 7:46:40 PM by KazuyaProta

Welcome to what I ate growing up: Char siu.

Other highlights of Hong Kong cuisine include the pineapple bun and Yangzhou fried rice, the latter which wasn't invented in HK, but very common in restaurants anyway.

edited 12th Jun '18 7:53:18 PM by TheWildWestPyro

Another popular Taiwanese street food is stinky tofu. Yes, that's its actual name.

Wikipedia: Stinky tofu

臭豆腐, pronounced chòudòufu, is basically fermented tofu. The odor is somewhat strong, but it's hardly unbearable. If you like things like limburger, kimchi, durians, etc. you'll like this.

I've eaten all of those and I can confirm that they are delicious.

edited 12th Jun '18 7:56:07 PM by M84

I feel very fortunate that I live in a city which has an abundance of both assorted food from other cultures but also a number of ethnic grocery stores. I love trying new food on occasion and the city of Omaha, NE has no shortage of restraunts coming and going at any given point.

edited 12th Jun '18 8:59:46 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Ok so what are some of your favorite "fast food" themed ethnic or mixed ethnic places? We have a chain of loosely affiliated resturaunts that serve Mexican food closer to what you can find in some parts of Mexico. They are all basically these small "hole in the wall" like places that serve the same kind of food.

They don't really qualify as "fast food" per se — just a bit too pricey, but the area around my home in the states has several really good Mexican places. One's got affordable authentic Mexican dishes including some of the heartiest burritoes I've ever had with plenty of choices for meat — even tripas (small intestines). Another one makes incredible fish tacos. And the third makes amazing enchiladas with a variety of fillings to choose from, including scallops.

That's one of the downsides of working overseas in Taiwan. It's really hard to find a place that serves good authentic Mexican food. I've found places where you can get authentic German food, authentic Italian food, authentic British food...but no Mexican.

edited 13th Jun '18 9:49:12 PM by M84

Your making me hungry just thinking about it.

One of my favorite foods to learn to make has been stuffed steam buns of any variety. Also found out steam cooking biscuits works pretty well.

I've got a steamer at home, and it's served me very well over the years.

Never underestimate the value of steam cooking.

Apologies for double post.

So I recently bought and ate another durian. If anything, it's even better than I remember. The only thing keeping me from eating durians as regularly as I do guava (Taiwan has some of the best guavas on the planet) is the price. A single durian costs over ten US dollars, which isn't cheap in Taiwan's economy.

While I do enjoy eating them fresh as they are, I'm wondering if I should look up recipes that use durians. I'm thinking maybe a durian cake or something.

edited 19th Jun '18 9:24:14 PM by M84

That sounds like an interesting experiment. I love finding something different to cook with from time to time. Though if it is too odd my wife takes the helm for that meal.

Protip: If you do manage to get a durian, cut it open and put the contents in the fridge asap. That way the odor doesn't become too strong. Some places that sell durian also sometimes open them up beforehand and package the (still smelly) contents too.

Edit:

Speaking of steam cooking, we recently celebrated the Dragon Boat Festival in Taiwan. As tradition dictates, that meant we ate quite a few zongzi (think Chinese tamales). Frozen zongzi are best reheated via steam-cooking.

edited 20th Jun '18 2:46:25 AM by M84

Check this out. CHEF PRIME On youtube shows how to make Teriyaki Chicken and Rice

I also saw a couple where you hollow out the pineapple, stuff it with the raw ingredients, seal it back up, and then basically bake the food inside the pineapple.

Teriyaki chicken and rice is one of my favorites. I'm not sure how much the flavor actually benefits from being baked in a pineapple, but at the very least it makes for a nice presentation of the dish.

Speaking of baking things inside other things, you ever have clay-baked dishes? You've got to try Beggar's Chicken at least once in your life.

Edited by M84 on Jul 31st 2018 at 9:40:50 PM

Ok. That sounds pretty damn great.

Peru had its own type of tamales too. Is different from the mexican one but not too much.

How are the zongzi? What they have?

Oh there are a variety of fillings. You've got ones with chestnuts, ones with chicken, ones with roast pork, ones with peanuts, ones with salted egg yolk...there is even a sweet version that uses red beanpaste.

Edited by M84 on Jul 31st 2018 at 10:19:37 PM

It sounds wonderful

Mmm... Tamales sound like a fusion of our local foods: dolma (spiced lamb mincemeat grape leaf rolls, cooked on steam) and manti (basically, Central Asian dumplings, also steamed, with chopped meat and vegetable fillings; mostly beef, lamb or horseflesh, with onions, potatoes, pumpkin or tail fat added for juiciness).

That beggar's chicken thing sounds intriguing. I don't suppose you could cook it in a regular oven? And you'd need a specific kind of clay?

You gotta pick a non-toxic clay that breaks open easily like raku or terracotta for this to work. It's meant to lock in the moisture and flavor during the baking process. Then you crack it open. It shouldn't take anything more than a few whacks with a spoon or something.

And don't forget to wrap it up in lotus leaves and tie it up before covering with the clay. This will further lock in the moisture and keep clay shards off of the chicken.

Edited by M84 on Aug 1st 2018 at 6:18:18 PM

Oh, so the principle is the same as in baking fish in salt casing?

Yep. It's pretty much the same thing. Heck, you can even bake fish in clay too. Take a fish, gut and clean it, stuff it with sliced lemons and sage, wrap that sucker up in leaves and tie it up with kitchen twine, and bake it in clay. I remember seeing a recipe online that used trout, though I think a lot of other kinds of fish can be prepared in a similar manner.

I should once again reiterate that you must use non-toxic clay that breaks apart easily for this to work. You obviously don't want to poison yourself and you don't want to entomb your food in clay forever.

Edited by M84 on Aug 1st 2018 at 6:24:17 PM

That looks pretty good. I saw some recipes use some sort of pastry for the Beggars Chicken. How common is that?

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Aug 1st 2018 at 6:28:30 AM