Reveal Your Uncool Culinary Beliefs Here

i don't like ribeye cuts of steak

oh yeah now we're talking, bookmarked

if you have to cook on electric, you might as well go out to eat

unculinary surely

localism is overrated, it's the 21st century and I'm gonna enjoy it

lol dmac

McDonald's fries are good

^co-sign, just had some

American chocolate is perfectly acceptable

(btw I love steak and i like just about every other cut but ribeyes just like make my mouth sad, but it's also possible i've only had shitty ones)

that's interesting, we get good organic ribeyes at the Grocery Outlet discount place and make them pretty regularly, I prefer them to the NY strip option that they also have

tri-tip ftw, but that is definitely something that cool people think

I always use salted butter, even when the recipe calls for unsalted

i just need to go to Fogo de Chao again

Gonna refer you all to the "why can't we ban meat" discussion on the other thread ..

I have a huge appetite for Smartfood.

I always use salted butter, even when the recipe calls for unsalted

Not uncool.

lol it is in my house!

I like overcooked chicken breast. Not more than juicy, properly cooked meat but chicken jerky doesn’t offend me, just reminds me of childhood dinners.

one of my OCD symptoms was being excessively fearful of foodborne illness to where I'd excessively check the meat thermometer and chicken itself and never trust it was cooked, no matter the temp or apparent readiness, until finally I had ruined it and it was the driest garbage alive.

unpopular opinion - who cares, just douse it in sriracha, sriracha goes on everything and improves all terrible meals

(if you can find it)

So according to the thread title salads are off topic?

nah go ham on salad

But I've never had a hot ham salad

No vegetable should ever be boiled. There will always be a better way to cook it that doesn't turn the poor thing into a tasteless mess, leached of all goodness and purpose.

I hate salad. (I am a vegetarian.)
Nutritional yeast tastes like sweaty feet (or so I'd imagine).

I generally am cool with seafood, but lobster and shrimp are garbage

#1 -- jarlic is frequently, in fact, good enough for me. ditto ginjar.

i am sure i will think of others but that is my main one that i know is definitely uncool. i am not a chef. i am not a restaurant. most of the things i make with garlic are just as good with garlic i can keep in my fridge. i have tried it both ways (fresh/jar) and this is the way that works for me if i want to actually make my own food, which i do. no one has ever complained about it either.

No vegetable should ever be boiled. There will always be a better way to cook it that doesn't turn the poor thing into a tasteless mess, leached of all goodness and purpose.

Also not uncool

frozen garlic cubes are useful if you're lazy (I am)

i am not lazy -- i simply choose not to spend my time peeling and dicing things i can scoop with a spoon.

Fuck cancer, I like burnt toast.

ok these threads have made me realize I don't know what ilxors mean by "uncool"

pineapple is good on pizza

https://i5.peapod.com/c/85/8539A.jpg

Not sure I've ever even seen these in the wild, but they must be uncool

what's the verdict on bread bowls?

that's a lotta bread

Don’t like soggy bread

MSG is a vastly underrated and underused home cooking ingredient.

not big into bread bowls, I like dipping bread into stuff, not having the bread be part of stuff.

(flaky crusted stuff like pot pies, otoh, are the best, and I love even the shitty $1 grocery store ones)

MSG was wrongly vilified for racist reasons in the 80s yea

MSG is a vastly underrated

Not uncool at all, it's been used for thousands of years. My dickwad stepdad "BOB" used to have a big Farmers Brothers can of it, he'd put it on everything

In San Francisco, bread bowls are sort of a tourist trap thing that we all sneer at, but I wondered if there was any genuine love for these, guess not

you might want to stock up on MSG before your insane politicians try and ban it!

good point

tbh I think most foodies still look down their noses at MSG

xp Denatured alcohol has been banned in California and there's really no substitute, I use if for all kinds of woodworking projects

Now they wanna ban Skittles

anybody takes my skittles i'm taking their teeth

xp but we're looking down our noses at foodies on this thread

i'm tall i look down my nose at most people

right I was saying MSG was a good post! sorry

and wait what's this about Skittles?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/03/22/california-skittles-ban-legislation-explained/11523314002/

Skittles are the gateway to Fentanyl

You can get perfectly good bagels anywhere in America now.

I like velveeta

It's fine to order your food mild

I kind of like industrial cheeses like Kraft American and Polly-O

McDonald's fries are good

― obsidian crocogolem (sleeve), Thursday, March 23, 2023 4:15 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

all bougie fries worth a damn are attempting to recreate mcdonalds fries so i'm pretty sure this is a widely held opinion among the pros

“small plates” and “share plates” are just bougie excuses for not giving me a normal amount of food

winco fried chicken is great & cheap

cold leftover spaghetti sandwiches rule (homemade spag bol is good for this but canned spaghetti is best)

pomegranates are better as juice & artichokes are better in jars - too much work in their natural state

eating slices of Kraft American cheese singles one at a time is awesome

ok one i actually believe is small plates and share plates are an excuse for the restaurant to run their service like shit and not course out the meal properly

i actually have a friend who we like to share a little of each of each other's food but tbf that doesn't actually require serving mini-meals that cost $9, you can just share full entrees.

Burger King is better than McD's

the food, sure, but all of the actual buildings themselves are awful near me. also all of them have "You Rule" written on the marquee, is that like the new slogan?

i'm happy that we have a Jollibee here now, hope it's as good as the one in Manila

Midwest pizza styles, particularly Chicago deep-dish and Detroit-style buttery crust, are streets ahead of New York styles.

Same with midwest IPAs (especially St Louis) vs. their northeast cohorts.

ok now hold up

request thread title change to “Reveal your UNCOOLINARY Beliefs Here”

as you were

well made tiki drinks are amazing

white bread is generally better than whole wheat

pomegranates are better as juice

pomegranate molasses >>>>>>>>>> pomegranate juice

everyone likes tiki drinks

I confess that I will totally eat soup out of a bread bowl, then I will fucking eat all the bread that used to be a bowl.

its a waste if you dont!

Like, I would totally bust a move on a Panera French onion soup in a bread bowl right now. #sorrynotsorry

Damn

french onion soup is gross there i said it

soggy bread is a crime against nature

it's ok. it's never very good bread.

I will choose almost anything edible over creamy soups or western cream sauces.

i dunno if i love anything as much as i love a ballpark brand boiled hotdog

Church's Fried Chicken (which I haven't had in 20 years) was real good, precisely because it tasted exactly like the old Swanson's TV Dinners.

Have realised that I and my wife have the culinary tastes of people in their 90s (we are both 43) - sweet sherry, cream liquers, wafer biscuits, rum baba, pork scratchings. even our kids have picked up our taste for Brussels sprouts and haggis.
but now I realise that this isn't about tastes, it's beliefs, hold on, got some of those too.

Best, most neglected flavours for things: mint, pear. I will find French import shops to buy mint cordial every summer, and will always get a pear ice lolly if it's ever available

Ok, thought of one. Every chain restaurant/bakery in the UK is bad. including bakeries because Greggs, there is nothing good in there, nothing. Their pizza is an absolute crime. I honestly don't know why nobody seems to have noticed.
Since moving back to the UK in 2016 I have tried every chain restaurant, think the worst is Itzu, but all were some shade of bad.

Itsu, it's called, sorry.

I used to like the Itsu brand udon noodle pots when they had chunkier noodles, but then they decided to change what didn't need changing. Their seaweed thins are nice though, but too expensive.

if I were to pin down what I don't like about it:

* UK Asian fusion restaurants are always bad, putting very different kinds of food together in clumsy, insulting ways
* "Heathy" focus means piling up dishes with cold edamame beans and uncooked carrot, and not adding any salt or msg, nothing tastes of anything at all.

Ok, thought of one. Every chain restaurant/bakery in the UK is bad. including bakeries because Greggs, there is nothing good in there, nothing. Their pizza is an absolute crime. I honestly don't know why nobody seems to have noticed.

they've noticed but they like it. ppl fetishise bad food here.

most of the things i make with garlic are just as good with garlic i can keep in my fridge. i have tried it both ways (fresh/jar) and this is the way that works for me if i want to actually make my own food, which i do. no one has ever complained about it either.

depending on what type of garlic you have, (I am obv biased but Californian is generally better than Chinese imports) refrigerated garlic is great, and is what I use. I generally get CR crushed, but if I was doing more cooking, I'd have a jar of crushed and a jar of minced for different things.

Church's Fried Chicken (which I haven't had in 20 years) was real good, precisely because it tasted exactly like the old Swanson's TV Dinners.

― Hideous Lump, Thursday, March 23, 2023 10:48 PM (yesterday)

I drive by a Church's Chicken regularly and it smells great in an uncool way

Italian food is fake.

https://www.ft.com/content/6ac009d5-dbfd-4a86-839e-28bb44b2b64c

Small plates is just how it goes in a lot of parts of the world that don't have the starter/main/dessert structure of European food (not an uncool opinion, just following up on this).

Actual uncool opinion: Pret's stuff is fine as long as you're not in a situation where you have to eat there on the reg.

Bag salads are good.

French food in general is highly overrated (and completely futile if you don't eat meat). Talking about restaurants here, maybe French family meals are culinary delights.

I want to get a coke spoon necklace and fill it with white pepper for emergencies

around 2000 whenever I took a trip to London I actually looked forward to eating at Pret, I would have the coronation chicken sandwich, it had decent not-half-frozen bread, well-seasoned chicken, raisins, mayonnaise and nothing else. now if I go in there they have nothing I want to eat, all the sandwiches are half-frozen clammy slivers of bread with layers of salad leaves and no condiments to be found anywhere inside, just like everywhere else in London with their sad fridges full of sad sandwiches. I will say that their delivery service seems to be a little better for some reason.

Going to town and buying a Pret sandwich for lunch felt super sophisticated when I was 16. Sadly now I am 45.

Steak is bad and one-note. No combination of flavors, seasonings, or textures, just dumb beef flavor. And when cooked 'properly', the texture is kinda gross too. So not worth the price of the ecological impact.

An open faced peanut butter sandwich is superior to a flip over or one made of two pieces of bread.

i dunno if i love anything as much as i love a ballpark brand boiled hotdog

lol I ate this exact thing far too often in high school (1980s). Also ate loads of Steak-umm sandwiches.

Trying to think of a contribution though, this is kinda hard.

Every once in a while I will eat a food that I loved when I was a kid, and it's just unpalatably bad.

In about 1986 my mother got a job that had her commuting home too late to cook dinner, so we were all on our own. We ate Steak-Umms, Chicken Rondeles, freezer food. I have fond memories of that time but I can't really reconnect with the food.

Like, au gratin potatoes from a box used to be a treat. I made them last year, for nostalgia, and almost gagged. Chunky sirloin burger soup has these hilarious tiny burgers - with grill marks! - but is actually terrible.

1980s processed food felt like a miracle at the time, but compared to the many many things we can make now - with fresh ingredients - just as fast? No comparison.

Like, it doesn't take any longer to make an actual stir-fry or pasta than it does to microwave a TV dinner. I can make a real soup in the same time it takes to heat up a canned soup.

I hated guacamole as a kid, thought it tasted like diarrhea.

in my mid-20s, I realized I liked it. in my 30s, I fell in love with it.

last year, I brought a mediocre brand of it to a party and did not care for it at all. since then I haven't enjoyed it once - even when getting good, quality guacamole.

I know palettes change over time but idk if it's that or if that one off brand classically conditioned me, but wtf, it wasn't that long ago I was munching on a $13 gigantic guac appetizer in San Juan nightly on my company's dime and being addicted to it.

YMP - yr right that it's not so much a convenience thing anymore. but hitting a few buttons on a box still 'feels' more convenient i think.

lol at Chicken Rondeles, I forgot about those.

i'm kind of worried about getting stomach cancer due to all of the processed foods I've eaten over the years. so trying to be more mindful.

We used to eat mini pizzas and all sorts of crap when I was a teenager and my parents also worked terrible hours, and now I can put veggie noodles on the table in almost the same time and they have fresh (well, frozen) proper vegetables in them. I'd rather eat beans on toast for my dinner than a lot of the more highly processed options. Speaking of which, I get very annoyed when I hear people dissing UK/Irish food because they think it's weird we eat beans on toast. I don't understand how beans on toast is any weirder than a bean burrito. It's beans and bread. Either it's all weird, or none of it is.

Re: guac., the year-round availability of fresh ingredients is salient here. Give me a ripe avocado and in two minutes I will serve a better guacamole than anything that comes in a package.

That said, I acknowledge that there are huge environmental and social costs involved in making it so that I can casually stroll down to the corner store and grab a ripe avocado in the middle of February. I'm well aware that I'm here in the DC area and half of the abundant produce in my basket comes from Chile or Ecuador or some such.

We live in a world that reeks of privilege, and we should be cognizant of that. But it's really hard to pass up those gorgeous nectarines or whatever.

I try to be a seasonal eater and a locavore and shit, but I just don't have the moral strength to be all "Little House on the Prairie" and live on preserved boiled yams or whatev.

Let me eat Peruvian blueberries while the world dies, thxbye

guacamole is only good after it's been sitting around for a while and the ingredients muddle

eating slices of Kraft American cheese singles one at a time is awesome

― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Friday, 24 March 2023 02:22 (twelve hours ago) link

Yeah they are good, and sometimes they taste better on burgers/melt sandwiches than "good" cheese

Also I think Costco Pizza should be considered its own style of pizza, and it's good

Here's one -- almost all delivery food is bad by the time it makes it to you, and people shouldn't do order delivery if they can help it.

The only way it's good is if you put the pizza back in the often (and probably add some extra seasoning, let's be honest) or heat up Thai food properly on the stove, in which case you still have the same amount of dishes to do. I get that it's a timesaver for people with kids who may not even be able to go get takeout (in which case you can usually time it so it's a bit fresher), but I also know a lot of lazy people who aren't above getting Taco Bell or a sub delivered, which just blows my mind. You absolutely could have just made food in the time it takes to get overpriced, cold, soggy food delivered to your door.

Jordan, this is why I try to pick up takeout rather than rely on delivery

Mh: Agree to disagree. For me, the best guac is guac that just got made, and is still zippy from a finishing glug of lime juice and a third of a minced onion

Chili, however, definitely benefits from waiting a day and reheating.

xpost for me, it was often that I was teaching an 8 hour class and only had a 30 minute lunch and I didn't feel like getting up early to pre-make myself a lunch.

outside of that though i try not to use Uber Eats because it about doubles the cost of what you're getting unless you're like buying for your whole family

re:steak talk - yeah I've never really enjoyed a steak. ultra-thin slices of marbled steak with kimchee on rice, yes that's good. huge chunk of semi-cooked flesh, however good it is, I get bored after a few mouthfuls.

burgers are also usually a disappointment, especially any more than a few inches tall. how am I supposed to eat it? have they not considered this?

subway is much, much worse than mcdonalds / burger king / kfc / any other fast food restaurant you can name, also not cheaper or healthier

An open faced peanut butter sandwich is superior to a flip over or one made of two pieces of bread.

I need an explanation for this!

Like, it doesn't take any longer to make an actual stir-fry or pasta than it does to microwave a TV dinner. I can make a real soup in the same time it takes to heat up a canned soup.

― carne asana (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, March 24, 2023 7:00 AM (fifty-one minutes ago)

do you just have a really slow microwave or are you not including prep time in your calculations? also, what kind of soup are we talking about here? ... last night I heated up a store bought container of split pea soup in the microwave. It took less than 10 minutes from fridge to table. Making split pea soup from scratch ... I would really like to hear how that can take 10 minutes or less.

I don’t really like biscuits (uk definition: mainly wheat-based crunchy sweets, what Americans call biscuits are fine) - this might not be uncool idk, but ppl here are mad for the things, they’re like the go-to quotidian treat & are frequently consumed by the packet; I don’t hate them but I’ve never bought a packet & don’t care if I never eat one again

al dente is not cooked enough. i'm sorry, that's just the way i feel.

Agreed!!!

#2 I’m totally down with fusion cuisine that tastes good, preferably made by me. It’s fun, allows for imagination, thrifty on ingreds, and usually delicious. (I rarely eat restaurant food so most of my culinary beliefs are reflected in home cooking.)

subway is much, much worse than mcdonalds / burger king / kfc / any other fast food restaurant you can name, also not cheaper or healthier

― Camaraderie at Arms Length, Friday, March 24, 2023 9:49 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I hate Subway. But btw have you had Burger King anytime recently? IDK if it was just my bad luck at one NJ Turnpike rest stop but it was HORRENDOUS. Even my kids hated it.

Shake Shack also is nothing great - I don't find it tastier than McDonalds but it costs more and has more pretense. And the restaurants aren't even particularly pleasant to eat in notwithstanding how hard they tried with their design.

Not an uncool belief but since we're talking bad uk chains I just had food at a place called LEON and it was one of the worst meals of my life

lots of thoughts so far:

electric stoves - I will acknowledge that they are not as good, but I cook on one all the time and make good food

don't have particular love for bread bowls, but there's a soup stand at Quincy Market in Boston that sells things like clam chowder and bisque in bread bowls, and I will eat tf out of those

onion soup is good

I actually think American cheese is the ideal cheese for burgers because it is less greasy than "real" cheese

my uncool thought is that presentation is overrated in home cooking, but that may just be because I'm too lazy to get it right

My wife used to not let us buy American cheese, so I often struggled trying to get the right heat and thickness of slice to make a grilled cheese sandwich without fucking it up. In the early pandemic, all cheese was out at the store except American Pasteurized Cheese Food Product. I've never looked back.

xps I had a burger in the burger king in leicester square, the avatar ii premiere was taking place next door and about 50 people were crowded round the windows upstairs trying to get a look at (whoever is in avatar ii) - the burger was slightly better than mcdonalds, it had barbecue sauce and bacon, a solid 4/10, would eat there in desperation at finding anything affordable again if I hadn't since discovered the new jianbing shop in chinatown nearby. or might go there if it's raining.

But btw have you had Burger King anytime recently? IDK if it was just my bad luck at one NJ Turnpike rest stop but it was HORRENDOUS. Even my kids hated it.

Burger King has been my historical favorite fast food burder. But when they do it wrong, it's utter shit.

burger

the worst burger, actually the worst food I have ever eaten, was a burger from florenc bus station in prague. expectations were set low when the woman took it out of an unrefridgerated plastic bag and heated it in the microwave for two minutes. the bread was stale, soggy and chewy, the lettuce had been thoroughly cooked, the tomato slices were a mealy mush, and the meat itself was a bright red jelly made from grade-F reclaimed meat, it smelled and tasted strongly of stale sweat.

I was trying to think of an uncool belief but my only one is dining out is overrated and increasingly not worth the cost, basically the only reason to do it is for truly amazing meals (whether they’re $ or $$$$) or for socializing (not a bad reason at all.)

So many times I’ve gone out for a well-presented meal at some supposedly good/great but actually mid spot and the only thing I feel after is full. This is why I only do homemade pizza now too.

Someone’s probably already said something similar upthread idk

xxp my god

have we ever had a "worst meals" thread? it should prob be on ILTMI if not, lol

Camraderie I think this is relevant to your post: Hungry? Perhaps you'd like a POOP BURGER

ok also uncool belief, Korean barbecues are fun and there are some amazing ones with great food here for good value but I don't wanna cook my own damn food, esp since I'm terrible at it.

managed to cross-contaminate my entire plate by accident , but fortunately didn't get sick after.

Yeah I refuse to go to any restaurant that involves paying to cook (the 'cook your own steak/burger' places are hilarious, hot pot/fondue, etc).

My mom would eat open faced Peanut Butter sandwiches, so I picked it up as a kid. If I am at home, still my preferred way of making one. To me flipping over a single slice or two slices- in a simple PB and bread situation throws off the balance in a bite - too much bread and if you slather on the PB, too much butter also in a bite.

It’s kind of like taking two pieces of toast flipping the butter side down and having them at the same time.

But hey, I get for ease of the road going flip over or two pieces of bread or of you like to load up your peanut butter sandwich with jelly, jam, banana, pickle or crushed percocets.

Ah yes, the classic PB&P

quinoa sucks

That one is a truth bomb for me… we mostly eat vegetarian and I’m always looking for ways to make sure there’s protein, so I keep quinoa on hand but I never get excited to use it.

quinoa is really good when roasted with pork belly and spices

omar little at 11:37 24 Mar 23

I was trying to think of an uncool belief but my only one is dining out is overrated and increasingly not worth the cost, basically the only reason to do it is for truly amazing meals (whether they’re $ or $$$$) or for socializing (not a bad reason at all.)

So many times I’ve gone out for a well-presented meal at some supposedly good/great but actually mid spot and the only thing I feel after is full. This is why I only do homemade pizza now too.


^^^^^the worst is these new sort of family friendly quasi cool places like breweries that serve where they serve "fancier" bar food so like $19 hamburgers and shit and by time you have burgers, an app and a couple pints each, it's close to what you would have spent at an actual good restaurant... I'm now pretty much only high end as a splurge a couple times a year or cheap dive bar food

Eating out is even expensive if you eat fast food.

My Wendy's combo was $13.

Our Peruvian friends used to cook quinoa in a sort of mash with apples and spices, it was actually pretty good that way.

ums extremely otm

I know what I am purchasing when I eat out: it's not the food so much as the experience of having it be someone else's problem. Buying ingredients, coming up with recipes, chopping things, setting the table, cleaning up afterward, all that business.

You know how most ancient Romans ddidn't have kitchens? There was a whole infrastructure of mass-produced convenient food. Those fuckers knew how to live.

I recently became unemployed but, perversely, immediately thereafter went out and spent something like four hundred dollars on a five-course tasting menu for two at a ridiculously fancy restaurant. I regret nothing.

i often do it to 'get out' but i get stressed when friends and/or my mother want to do it too often because that shit adds up monthly if yer not careful.

I'll enjoy a $55 Fogo de Chao night which I don't get to do often as a treat. but going to like an Applebee's type place multiple times a week, it makes me anxious due to the cost, plus since my time out of the house is much more limited, I prefer not to spend most of it sitting in a booth waiting for mediocre food (though a Fogo type experience where they just bring you meat for hours and you say 'yes' or 'no' to the cut is p amazing and in fact I want to do it right now).

fortunately my best friend is a foodie so we like to find great Thai places where the meal and ambience are always lovely

even if the one place plays "Michael Learns to Rock" and nothing else on the PA

xpost to YMP

but I bet that was a memorable meal. I've had those and never feel ripped as a much as I did the other day when I took my daughter, my niece, mom and SO to a fairly mediocre "nice" bar and spent close to $200 with tip

wing scarcity causing high wing prices is a travesty IMO

time was you could at least go to a good wing place affordably

the fav place for me and my other friend now lists the pricing as "market price" for each wing

jfc

Wing scarcity? as far as I know chickens have the same number of wings as they always have had. Has something changed?

it technically ended in Feb but it caused wing prices to shoot up for a while. probably be a while before it swings back, esp if people willingly paid higher for it

https://buffalonews.com/business/local/the-great-chicken-wing-shortage-has-ended-the-great-chicken-wing-price-spike-has-not/article_4265684c-a3d4-11ed-9bd7-93f2a893dfd1.html

I've got lots of options for Vietnamese, Thai and """Mediterranean""" food (only one proudly admits to being owned by Iraqi immigrants, everyone else would like to avoid vandalism). Works for me because bomb pho or chicken shwarma is still cheaper than a Wendy's combo so I eat out a couple of times a week because I am simply not capable of making good pho or pad see ew at home.

yeah we are blessed with a huge array of pho places in the Twin Cities, I've looked into making it and it seems like it would be twice as expensive and (much less than) half as good to try it yourself

Pho sure

My uncool culinary opinion is that I'm not crazy about pho. To be fair, I haven't had it all that much, but I'd much rather have ramen.

I never have the appetite for either. Pho and ramen places serve utterly insane portions

...hereabouts anywas

Anyways

Ramen places have mostly been a dud here, the one great one is standing bar service only, usually packed and I'm still not that comfortable being butts to nuts with strangers.

xxp Mostly true, but there's a ramen place here in Atlanta that gives you reasonably sized bowls that don't make you feel as though you're being waterboarded.

yeah the ramen dish I had at this local favorite, ,I ate for about a half hour and was like "there's still so much left!"....though I did take it with me.

I love quinoa

My best friend and I, when we lived together, would make a weekly enormous thing we called “bland” that we’d just use as a staple side all week (or even eat it on its own)

Quinoa and parsley and maybe mint and diced peppers and salt and pepper and oil and lemon. Sometimes a can of rinsed black beans if we felt like it

It tastes nourishing and I like it and still make it

I heard that apparently quinoa is “bad” socioeconomically as almonds are bad environmentally, never read an article about it but maybe I should

Pho sure

― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal)

surely there must be a pho place that has stolen this name already, applause

I believe the issue w/quinoa is that it was a staple crop that turned into a cash crop so now nobody in e.g. Bolivia can afford it which messes up the rest of the food supply (aiui)

Certain preparations of quinoa can be very enjoyable, especially on an occasional basis (though IME none of these involve boiling it into mush). It sucks in the sense that as a daily staple, it's very unappealing compared to e.g. rice or pasta, so its potential as a healthier replacement for those foods is overhyped.

i take it fgti disagrees, and tbf one of my favorite quinoa recipes indeed uses copious amounts of mint, lemon zest and evoo. been waiting eagerly/anxiously for you to show up and post in defense of British cuisine, btw.

I don't know if they're still open but someone actually used the Pho King joke here for their restaurant.

i don't have any strong uncool cuilnary opinions because i'll eat anything, but i'm a little tired of pickled everything maybe.

Chili, however, definitely benefits from waiting a day and reheating.

Day-old chili > fresh chili. Absolutely. Day-old chili over rice = amazing.

Fast food burgers, ranked: Wendy's > Five Guys > White Castle > letting someone who's eaten five burgers in two days shit in your mouth > Burger King > McDonald's

NJ pizza > NYC pizza

(So far, I have only had Montana pizza once; based on that sample size, Montana pizza is to be avoided.)

Cheese does not belong on tacos. Tacos should consist of meat, diced onions, and chopped cilantro on a soft tortilla, with lime juice and hot sauce.

Yes, unperson otm.

There is a very popular taqueria here with a convenient ordering shorthand - if you say "Mexican Way" it is meat/onion/cilantro/lime. "American Way" is lettuce/pico/cheese.

(I confess I will sometimes do Mexican Way but add guacamole)

this place in St. Paul is hilarious (and very good)

https://iphomn.com/

Cheese does not belong on tacos. Tacos should consist of meat, diced onions, and chopped cilantro on a soft tortilla, with lime juice and hot sauce.

come on, this is not uncool. uncool would be "give me all the debased tex mex with cheese on everything". tbc i also prefer authentic street tacos or w/e.

give me gloopy chicken tikka masala over just about anything else on the menu at the indian restaurant *shrugs*

I agree with unperson but every once in a while I need the ground beef, Ortega taco mix packet, hard shells, iceberg lettuce and shredded cheese tacos of my Midwest childhood

one of the best things you can do every once in a while is make those at home on a weeknight!

I agree with unperson but every once in a while I need the ground beef, Ortega taco mix packet, hard shells, iceberg lettuce and shredded cheese tacos of my Midwest childhood

I have been known to eat tacos with hard Ortega shells, shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, and mild salsa from a jar. Still no cheese or sour cream, though.

You reminded me that 8 times out of 10 I still prefer old school Cantonese-American fare over any of the various authentic regional cuisines from China I've tried. Tough some of those are amazing, too, and I briefly became addicted to Xi'an Famous Foods when they had a branch open in my neighborhood.

Relatedly, the food court at the New World Mall is a daunting place for a vegetarian/vegan. That i can read Chinese somewhat hasn't helped much.

Tacos should consist of meat, diced onions, and chopped cilantro on a soft tortilla, with lime juice and hot sauce.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Saturday, March 25, 2023

agree with this

Ah yes, the classic PB&P
― carne asana (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, March 24

peanut butter and dill pickle (even sandwich pickle) sandwiches are so awesome. Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone character (A Is for Alibi, etc…) taught me that

I've been evangelizing for the peanut butter + pickles + Sriracha sandwich, it has it all (salt, fat, acid, heat).

While I generally agree with the taco purism expressed above, in general, "authenticity" is a crock.

Ireland did not have potatoes, nor did Italy have tomatoes, until the Columbian exchange. But you can no longer imagine their cuisines without those imports.

The chili peppers that make spicy Asian food spicy? Same deal. New World imports.

wow Italy not having tomatoes is wild

ikr?

chocolate, coffee, corn, etc etc

see also vietnamese/french fusion

now I want a banh mi

but I am making lomo saltado (Peru) and a Korean cucumber salad tonight

what to do

chocolate, coffee, corn, etc etc

See also: POLL: New World crops/plants

Given how expensive even shit quality food is these days, we have given up and do a majority of our shopping at Whole Foods. If you’d told me this ten years ago, I would have looked at you like you were crazy.

also: sugar could be grown in southern Europe but not very well, which explains A LOT about slavery, the Caribbean, and colonialism

Tacos should consist of meat, diced onions, and chopped cilantro on a soft tortilla, with lime juice and hot sauce.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Saturday, March 25, 2023

agree with this

Pho sure

― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal)

surely there must be a pho place that has stolen this name already, applause

I believe the issue w/quinoa is that it was a staple crop that turned into a cash crop so now nobody in e.g. Bolivia can afford it which messes up the rest of the food supply (aiui)

― obsidian crocogolem (sleeve), Saturday, March 25, 2023 5:51 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

there is, it's less than 10 minutes from my house https://www.phosureshrewsbury.com/

lmao xp I forgot what thread I was in. Carry on

anyway I don’t think it’s “uncool” to prefer “authentic” tacos from certain region or w/e

peanut butter and dill pickle (even sandwich pickle) sandwiches are so awesome.
I've been evangelizing for the peanut butter + pickles + Sriracha sandwich, it has it all (salt, fat, acid, heat).

a recent great discovery: peanut butter and banana sandwich with pickled jalapenos.

that also sounds great

I think I have one: peanut butter is gross and the scent of it makes me want to barf.

(my partner is also allergic to peanuts, but even before that, i never liked peanut butter)

i love tacos in all forms

but my deeply uncool comfort food fave is 70’s suburban taco kit tacos in the hard shell from a box w crappy taco-seasoning-ground-beef, shredded iceberg lettuce & cheddar

i just suggested we make them more often to my husband. he balked at the shredded iceberg lettuce tho lol.

I remember those hard shell tacos

i like making those tacos except i use diced red bell pepper instead of shredded lettuce for the crunchy topping. it's probably the first thing my spouse and i had for dinner after moving in together when we had to learn how to cook and eat w/each other

diced red bell pepper is a great idea

my local grocery outlet had boxed taco shells for like $2, i indulged my nostalgia & it was v satisfying

i do a local meat share thing where one of the things you get each month is a pound of ground beef, and i don't have an incredible backlog of dinner ideas involving ground beef, so we make our share of those suburban tacos with a clear conscience

You can make keema peas with ground beef, so try that?

There’s an appeal to what I’ve always called school lunch tacos for sure, but I am so pleased to eat the good stuff whenever I go back to Mpls.

ground beef is great for spiced rice like biryani. This might be uncool, but I use tortilla wraps with curries I make, because it works and the all the readymade chapati brands I have tried tend to be crap.

The frozen chapatis are not as good as the frozen parathas (and tyvm for the timely reminder that I have a paratha in my freezer).

Knorr caldo con sabor de pollo improves almost everything. Ground ginger is often better than fresh for texture reasons.

ground beef

bolognese, yo

Ortega taco mix packet

I’ll go a step further: Old El Paso seasoning mix

I’m not into brioche buns. Why are you putting my burger in cake

I don't like pretzel buns

brioche buns for hamburgers are gross, like holding a wet dish sponge

On that note, there's something icky about patty melts. There was this one restaurant that everyone seemed to love here that only served burgers on bread, and would also serve them near-rare no matter how you ordered them, it was definitely a gross sponge situation.

i make a big batch of bolognese every winter! talking more about quick weeknight meals w/ground beef. keema peas is a good idea suzy!

A patty melt is burger and onions inside a grilled cheese sandwich made with pumpernickel bread, with ketchup and mustard on the side. If made properly there will be no bread collapse. Anything else touted as a PM is an abomination.

If I am looking for durability in a burger bun, I use a Kaiser roll and grill off the cut, buttered surface of any bun or roll I use, which keeps the integrity of the bread.

I love a good patty melt but lots of places fuck it up

a recent great discovery: peanut butter and banana sandwich with pickled jalapenos.

i can relate to this. i've been doing peanut butter/either banana or jam/habaneros for a few years now. LOVE the combo sweet, salty, spicy in a savory dish

Anybody like fluffernutters

I like peanut butter and butter sandwiches

a brioche bun toasted in butter is robust enough for a burger and great. but a good burger doesn't require brioche, so it feels like a waste of money.

I like burgers on Texas Toast

Probably due to years of eating Frisco melts

one of the benefits of being a cook at a sports bar was being able to make myself Texas toast whenever I wanted it

Buy a bag of Bugles. Buy a can of aerosol cheese (Easy Cheese is the only brand I’m aware of, at least in the US). Take a Bugle, and squirt aerosol cheese into it. Repeat. You now have the tastiest, dumbest, tastiest stoner snack ever.

^^^ peak uncool

Does aerosol cheese exist outside of the US? It's not available in the UK to my knowledge, and we have most of the terrible processed food options here.

Mine is that Ffigs are completely pointless.

Ppointless

even Jesus cursed fig trees

takes:
*all corporations are bad but maybe the dr pepper one is okay and dr pepper zero is better than the sugar ones
*taco bell bean burrito is probably the most reliable meal in small towns on the road
*the food can be good but the experience of eating from food trucks is fuckin bullshit, mmm love to wait 30 minutes while u awkwardly make everything from scratch in a cramped space so i can later drip things all over myself in the heat, this demeans us both (note: this doesnt include food carts where i just go up and im like "food pls" and its good to go, love 2 food cart)
*it should be illegal to market something as a superfood if it doesnt give u superpowers

food trucks are terrible and overpriced because restaurants lobby against them, restrict licenses and make them super expensive & affordable only to the bougiest dumbest kimchi bacon fusion bao selling to idiots. old gen affordable street food (hot dog cart, food trucks) are on legacy licenses and won’t exist in 5-10 years. (according to polish guy who sells sausages on the corner where i catch the bus)

kraft dinner/annie’s is superior to “real” mac and cheese

chocolate is overrated, and the extent to which people uncritically parrot marketing tropes which suggests it triggers an erotic/orgasmic reaction (partic in women) is disturbing

white vinegar is underrated and the price premium that balsamic, apple cider, white wine, rice vinegar command bears no relation to quality or cost

“sprouts” are not a good ingredient on a sandwich

Would kick it w/flopson over a meal

chocolate is overrated, and the extent to which people uncritically parrot marketing tropes which suggests it triggers an erotic/orgasmic reaction (partic in women) is disturbing

― flopson, Sunday, March 26, 2023 4:16 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

tbh i think this marketing trope doesnt work as much anymore bc its way easier to get actual orgasms now

Reveal Your Uncool Orgasm Beliefs Here

Smokey Robinson just released an album about that

there's not enough mayonnaise in most sandwiches.

Had truck tacos for lunch today and they were not great. Added green salsa despite me saying, out loud, “no green salsa,” and the rice and beans on the side were tasteless Kraft yellow rice, and bean gravy with no actual beans to be found.

I love food trucks and white vinegar

I love Annie’s but my baked Mac beats it any day of the week

(Uncool side note: I use Boursin in my baked Mac which is basically just French Velveeta)

Chocolate sucks

Sprouts suck (except mung bean sprouts obv)

Idk if it’s uncool or what but maybe twice a month I have cause to think to myself “vanilla is the greatest flavour there is”

vanilla is v much that girl, she can stay

There are a lot of great food trucks at the Orlando Fringe Festival, but there are ample places to sit and eat in the shade. There's one Caribbean place which is outright amazing. Ate enough goat to last a lifetime.

In general though not my favorite way to eat. I always feel awkward standing around waiting, like I worry they think I'm getting impatient when really idgaf how long it takes, and I don't like to get in other people's way. I like the ones that just text you when your order is done

I don't understand American breakfast perennials like French toast, pancakes, waffles, etc. They're dessert! They're what we call in Cuban Spanish comidas de bobo: empty calories that don't fill you.

being fat is good, getting fat is better

the pancakes with cinnamon and mashed banana in the batter? actual expensive ass maple syrup on the side for dipping? buddy i dont do drugs so im here to spike my blood sugar AND elevate my consciousness

Homemade mayo > store bought mayo
Homemade ketchup < store bought ketchup

The other day my breakfast was two eggs over easy, four strips of bacon as thick as a leather belt, about a pound of home fries, and two pancakes the size of dinner plates and as thick as layers of birthday cake. I sent a silent apology to my former endocrinologist and ate every bite.

I like muffins and pastries for breakfast but don’t really fuck with pancakes or waffles. French toast IS dessert and a spectacular dessert at that

I love eggs. Warping my brain with the purported dangers of eggs when growing up in Reagan's America is a sin for which I won't forgive our health community.

I grew up eating french toast as a savoury food (it's egg + bread, fried) and still have it with ketchup or brown sauce.

mayo is horrible, throwing pickled peppers into things is horrible, these are just my personal tastes I don’t have any culinary beliefs.

Mayo is good as a butter substitute for grilling or combined with something else to make a better condiment.

i love the kind of nachos you get at gas stations or sporting events, that fake molten yellow cheese glop and a little side of picked jalapenos

haha. yeah the movie theater nachos

pairs well with a $15 plastic cup of Bud Light

the movie theatre 15 mins from me is the one AMC that will leave little cups of jalapenos near the condiments. not sure if it's intended for nachos/etc but I used to grab cups and eat the fuckin things by themselves in the theatre.

just love jalapenos. fresh > pickled

you can put pickled jalapenos in a lazy quesadilla and have a great time.

most def

This is not my impression of brimstead, and their post suits the thread, but I associate mayo hatred with the dullest people I knew in high school. Golfers who ate their school lunch sandwiches by holding them in the plastic for fear of germs. Eating only burgers and chicken fingers into adulthood.

no no I do like a variety of foods from across the globes with flavor… but what the fuck is wrong with people who just like bland shit?

I meant that question non-rhetorically

haha pickled peppers and mayo aren't bland!

together they would typically move the dial on most of the flavor axes

People are allowed to hate mayo. It is simply too ubiquitous as a sandwich condiment, like if people were putting BBQ sauce on every other sandwich then it'd get pretty tiresome, also

I have a strange thing where I have literally never made a batch of 9/10 mayo despite trying every technique or recipe. I taste it and thing "it's not right" and I feel disappointed. And yet: the not-perfect mayo remains preferable to store-bought mayo. It fails in the Pepsi Challenge context (i.e. I would prefer to taste Miracle Whip out of a jar than my own mayo) but it works immeasurably better on a sandwich

The only reason I make mayo btw is for the breakfast sandwich de Maison: cheap grocery store croissant, halved, Red Leicester grated on bottom half, lightly toasted until cheese is melted, single egg plopped on (omelet style for me, fried for my bf), sliced tomato, and a generous slather of homemade mayo on the topside croissant half

I don’t utterly reject mayo but I find it somewhat disgusting in more than small quantities

I don't understand American breakfast perennials like French toast, pancakes, waffles, etc. They're dessert! They're what we call in Cuban Spanish _comidas de bobo_: empty calories that don't fill you.

mayonnaise rocks

Would kick it w/flopson over a meal

― the very juice and sperm of kindness. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 26 March 2023 5:23 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

anytime homie

mayonnaise c or d

https://gocomics.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c5f3053ef0120a8ca89ab970b-800wi

(Uncool side note: I use Boursin in my baked Mac which is basically just French Velveeta)

do ppl outside quebec eat boursin? feels like one of those things that only caught on there. ditto le cendrillon

mayo: the devil's condiment

the north american arms race to make the lowest fat yogurt is one of the most depressing developments in food. it’s becoming challenging to find anything above 1% fat in many canadian grocery stores now. 0.1% is becoming the new norm. not yoghurt

one of the few things i can find in vancouver keeping the 10% mantle alive is this iranian yoghurt. so salty and funky. i love it

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0586/6091/3302/products/photo_2022-09-07_15-36-46_600x.jpg?v=1662590553

mayo vs. ketchup: which is hated more?

Honkin' on comidas de bobo

flopson: most definitely. Here in Acelaland, it was popular 1995-2005. If you were an upper-middlebrow couple and you had people over for wine & cheese, you could count on seeing a hunk of Boursin. It was regarded as a step up in classiness from Rondele.

Its popularity has waned somewhat, as charcuterie has risen in prominence, refocusing the party fare on harder cheeses.

Would kick it w/flopson over a meal

― the very juice and sperm of kindness. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 26 March 2023 5:23 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

anytime homie

― flopson, Sunday, March 26, 2023

:)

I remain confused as to the terms defined when we're saying "uncool" in these trhreads because to me, an uncool culinary opinion is someting like "I will happily eat veal, fois gras and palm oil, do not @ me".

Uncool in the "that is NOT cool" sense? Or "this is daggy but I like it" sense?

uncool = daggy

the north american arms race to make the lowest fat yogurt is one of the most depressing developments in food. it’s becoming challenging to find anything above 1% fat in many canadian grocery stores now. 0.1% is becoming the new norm. not yoghurt

this is not an uncool belief, but I ended up buying one of the yogurts in black packaging (“yogurt for MEN”) that purported to be a high protein, low calorie product and it had ungodly amounts of stevia faux-sugar in it

not what this man wants

Every once in a while I will eat a food that I loved when I was a kid, and it's just unpalatably bad.

In about 1986 my mother got a job that had her commuting home too late to cook dinner, so we were all on our own. We ate Steak-Umms, Chicken Rondeles, freezer food. I have fond memories of that time but I can't really reconnect with the food.

Like, au gratin potatoes from a box used to be a treat. I made them last year, for nostalgia, and almost gagged. Chunky sirloin burger soup has these hilarious tiny burgers - with grill marks! - but is actually terrible.

1980s processed food felt like a miracle at the time, but compared to the many many things we can make now - with fresh ingredients - just as fast? No comparison.

When I was a kid my idea of heaven (and nutrition) was Stouffer's frozen mac 'n' cheese, but I think if I attempted to eat it today it would severely underdeliver the expected proustian moment.

there's a bar here that serves an actual TV Dinner entree, even serve it in a rewashable plate that resembles the TV dinner tray with the compartments, only it's proper dinner portions and the chicken is actually good.

Stouffer’s still really good, don’t you worry!

Whither the Swenson’s chicken pot pie? They were cheap as Hell and I ate at least two a week in high school.

my faulty memory has now recalled the existence of Schwan's frozen food delivery and the number of things I ate from the freezer as a teen

thing i'm curious about is the frozen marie calendar's pies, bet they're still incredible

I was big on the “baked ziti” that came with a little reflective sheet that was also microwave safe. I think it was supposed to provide browning? Either way it was just frozen pasta so can’t be THAT gross (or that good either)

so much of this stuff has been made obsolete by tjs frozen food items for me, can't remember the last time i strolled down an "old school grocery store" frozen food aisle

I recently ate a Noodle-Roni that I bought at a weird local grocery store that sells lots of products I thought were discontinued in 1985, and tbh it tasted exactly like and just as good as I remembered from 10th grade. Now I also ate a LOT of Chicken Rondelets at that age and I do wonder whether I'd still enjoy those. Are they still made???

Like, it doesn't take any longer to make an actual stir-fry or pasta than it does to microwave a TV dinner. I can make a real soup in the same time it takes to heat up a canned soup.

― carne asana (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, March 24, 2023 9:00 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

And I just want to add my name to the chorus of those in awe of either YMP's stir-fry skills or their slow microwave -- it takes longer just to boil the pasta water than it does to microwave a frozen entree!

i was infatuated with noodle roni as a kid. a pile of it next to bottled peaches with the syrup mingling with whatever gloopy butterfat sauce coats the noodles, that's my madeleine

Just boil the shit out spaghetti. Who gives a fuck if it's al dente?

mh at 10:04 27 Mar 23

my faulty memory has now recalled the existence of Schwan's frozen food delivery and the number of things I ate from the freezer as a teen

hell yeah Schwan's.... they had those orange dreamcicle ice cream bars, so good

so much of this stuff has been made obsolete by tjs frozen food items for me, can't remember the last time i strolled down an "old school grocery store" frozen food aisle

― ꙮ (map), Monday, March 27, 2023 10:42 AM (thirty-six minutes ago)

there are a few decent surprises. there's a korean frozen food brand, bibigo, that's had some surprisingly good stuff I've picked up in the last couple years

the chicken breading (at least when heated in the oven) is different and pretty tasty

the handful of local-ish frozen pizza options has gotten better, too, but that's completely regional

On the same note as non al dente spag, I refuse to do that "par cook" style veg where brocoli, carrots, beans etc are still completely crunchy. I want them cooked dammit.

the most normal way to serve potatoes in China is "tudousi" and my wife still makes it about once a week. the potatoes are not even parboiled, they are actually crunchy

https://healthynibblesandbits.com/chinese-stir-fried-shredded-potatoes-tudou-si/

I was told as a child that potatoes are inedible when uncooked, but my first proper girlfriend used to eat them raw (she wasn't from China, she was from pennsylvania)

i actually prefer softer pasta. there's an uncool culinary opinion lol. it wouldn't be worth insisting my poor italian-cuisine-loving boyfriend cook it longer though. it's a hill he's ready to die on and i def don't care that much especially if someone else is cooking it.

i have some lightly held uncool culinary opinions i'm not a monster

I grew up eating raw potatoes as snacks. Crunchy and sweeter than you'd expect.

basic-ass, cheap little green pimiento stuffed olives in a jar are good & i eat them by the handful

I used to love Rice-a-Roni and may have to find some to see how it holds up today.

ohh i used to love that tooo
something about that seasoning was so delicious

Trying to think of the aussie equiv from the 80s. It was like a nasi goreng kind of thing?

rice-a-riso is what it was called in oz
or sonething like that

just boxed rice w flavor packet

Thats the one!

IIRC it called for a stick of butter. Which in my family would have meant a stick of Imperial Margarine.

Note that no one here is uncoolly stanning for margarine.

Ouuugrghh margarine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyI_dmYqw84

xxp haha yes good call

my mom has early childhood memories circa 1945 of mixing the yellow coloring into the family's war-rationed big tub of white margarine

I will rep for Crisco over lard, lard being "cool" these days

Ooh, I grew up on margarine, Country Crock. Real butter seemed weird and hard to spread. Haven't had it in years though.

Also didn't have mayo until college.

Even when and especially when we asked for it because it was something eaten at other friends’ houses, my mom would not have margarine cross our threshold.

is flora margarine? that's what we always had, and we called it "butter" (obvs it isn't butter either) If someone says "margarine" I think of sth like stork.

In sandwich bars the boss man/woman always asks if you want ‘butter’ on a sandwich but it is nearly always marg.

I never saw my grandparents (in the US) use butter, it was always margarine.

They also used to put a slice of Kraft cheese on their apple pie. I'm not sure if that would be considered uncool or cool...

I grew up thinking two eggs a week was the most a human body could metabolize; now it's okay to eat two eggs a day.

Love rice a roni — the secret was in browning the rice/vermicelli in butter before adding the flavor packet/water. I used to eat mine with crushed up potato chips in it and frankly I have no regrets.

Rice-A-Roni is a bowdlerised version of Egyptian koshari.

Hamburger Helper was a staple in our household.

"I don't even own a stove."

Lol

I eat Taco Bell hot sauce packets. Like by itself

It feels good to get that off my chest

I love margarine. Specifically, I think it’s a preferable ingredient when whipped with sugar. Sans Rival (a Filipino dessert) is miles better when made with margarine as opposed to butter

Ah, further recollection and consultation: the best sans rival I’ve had has not been “just margarine” in the icing but a 50/50 mix of marg and butter. Tastes really margarine-y tho (and it’s better for it)

A lot of research went into making convenience foods like Rice-a-Roni or Hamburger Helper taste good to the average palate. Same for fast foods. The biggest problem with them isn't flavor, but too many calories, too little nutrition, too little fiber, and too much sodium. Home cooked food from scratch isn't necessarily better for you, either. It can have all the same problems as convenience food - but at least it usually costs less to start with plain ingredients and cook them yourself.

At least it doesn't have as many stabilizers, preservatives, different oils, and who knows what else (provided you're starting with decent ingredients).

Love rice a roni — the secret was in browning the rice/vermicelli in butter

Not a huge secret.. it tells you to do that on the box

geez y'all are such killjoys!

i am not sitting around eating rice a roni in this century but it was frequently what was for dinner once i was old enough to read the box and reach the stove.

fun fact, Bobby Brown's "Roni" was about preparing his favorite out of the box meal

A little convenience food wouldn't kill anybody. When you eat some, enjoy it!

The "san francisco treat" thing I think was supposed to evoke some kind of Chinese/Italian synthesis, but the family that developed it were Armenian and it's basically an Armenian dish

I have several boxes in the pantry, sometimes you can find $10/10 deals

Oh - the mouse described in the mouse thread got into my pantry and tore open a bag of Grape-Nuts, I just discovered his nibble hole

But he's gone now - RIP

As I got old enough the tagline "Rice-a-Roni/That San Francisco treat!" made me think the rice tasted like cock.

omg lol

steely flan (suzy) at 10:28 28 Mar 23

Rice-A-Roni is a bowdlerised version of Egyptian koshari.


ugh pretty sad some people grew up in homes where their moms didn't make their Egyptian koshari from scratch

Alfred you have forever ruined that jingle for me, in the best way <3

What the fuck? I didn’t know it was basically koshari when I was eating it in the 1970s, and I’d ask my mom if she knew herself, but she’s now dead.

reading about how Caucasian pilaf spread via the Abbasid Caliphate and evolved into both Spanish paella and Indian pilau

and also into rice-a-roni, a bit later

see also arroz al horno which iirc is the paella ancestor

Tom's wife, Lois, was inspired by the pilaf recipe she received from Armenian immigrant Pailadzo Captanian, to create a dish of rice and macaroni, which she served at a family dinner. In 1958, Vince invented Rice-A-Roni by adding a dry chicken soup mix to rice and macaroni.

arroz al horno would be a good cat name

was a joke suzy

Egyptian koshari, the Abbasid Caliphate treat

"I don't even own a stove."

― This machine bores fascism (PBKR), Tuesday, March 28, 2023 1:41 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

1) I don't own a microwave.
2) I never talk about this, because I don't want people to think I'm boasting.

I don't own a microwave either. I heat stuff in the convection oven.

In my new apartment the microwave sits above the stove, which I know is very common but strikes me as deeply weird. In my last place the microwave sat on the counter.

I don't have/want a microwave but I have a little toaster oven envy, I don't always wanna fire up the big gas over for shit like leftovers

But I have a little galley kitchen and no room for a toaster oven

We had that in our first house and removed the microwave, it was a good move.

xp

I literally don’t own a stove

I never use a (hand) grater because I can't stand the bits of stuff that stay on the grater itself -- I'll always try to mince (even if my knife is losing its edge).

you can clean the grater Leee

you can always lick the bits of stuff off the grater, just saying that's an option as well

I like grating stuff down as close to my fingertips as possible.

Tongue Grater, lost Scorps album from '79

We have friends who don’t have an oven, just a large toaster oven, and it makes me lose my mind— I use my oven so often, I can’t imagine how they cook anything, but surprise! They’re both amazing cooks!

Toaster ovens rule. I couldn't imagine heating, say, pizza in a microwave.

oh god no

I don't even reheat a pizza in the microwave.

reheating a pizza on a covered skilled on the burner works really well

i have a microwave because i guess i just think of it as something you are supposed to have but i don't really use it very much come to think of it

And actually sticking a couple slices in the air fryer works great

I've gotten decent at reheating pizza with the oven broiler, too

air fryers are the future. I'm deleting my dating apps and using an air fryer.

anyone who actually microwaves a bread product and enjoys it probably wins this thread

and yeah air fryers are amazing for reheating things

isn't an air fryer just a tiny convection oven?

yep!

microwave is really good at reheating soup in a bowl ime

Heating them on the oven rack is optimal except for the cheese.

My uncle had one of the first microwaves - an Amana Radar Range - and my sister and I stuck our hands in it (yes, it operated with the door open) because that's what five year olds do

I had a horrible experience recently trying to reheating some soup I took to a hotel, using the janky little microwave in the area by the front desk where they sell candy and weird frozen meals. Most of the buttons/functions didn't work and it seemed to be stuck on very lower power, took foreverrrrr and mostly superheated the pyrex container while leaving the soup largely cold, except for some spots which would be heated and get that kludgy skin that I would have to stir in. Gross.

Air fryers are basically just fan-forced ovens, I dont see the point of them tbrh.

Another one Ijust thought of: I WILL use my madeline without the hand guard, fingers be damned.

My MANDOLIN I meant to say, guh I need coffee.

LOL I guess I can stop googling

Roasting veggies in under 10 min in the air fryer vs 30 - 40 in the oven changed my life

agreed with all of that apart from the word "veggies"

thank you

I guess my uncool culinary belief is that it doesn't bother me when people say "veggies"

mandolins are scary

Every place I've lived has had a giant fucking microwave over the stove and no vent. Drives me nuts. Technically there's a fan, but it pulls it up through the microwave and spits it back out the top. Maybe there's a filter in there, but it doesn't do shit. Seems like that should be illegal in a place that has a gas range.

Only thing I use a microwave for: melting butter for popcorn. I can seriously do without a microwave. I wonder how much a good hood costs.

mandolins are scary

Not as scary as banjos, tbf

you can clean the grater Leee

It's the thought of wasted ingredients! I want it all in the thing I'm making, not headed down the drain.

I'm perfectly happy to reheat pizza in the microwave.

I legit can't even figure out half the options on my friend's microwave. It became moot when he destroyed it by accidentally getting drunk and putting aluminum in there

This morning I was unable to figure out how to just punch in an amount of time on the microwave where I was staying. I wanted to heat a cardboard cup of instant oatmeal and had to just hit "beverage" - punching numbers on the keypad had no effect at all.

The hotel has a few appliances break, the microwave now controls the a/c and is also the smoke alarm

Uncool op: blackening fish is what ppl who don't like fish do to fish

Ehh, it's a thing.. it's really just a heavy sear, not necessarily just overcooking if done right

I said it was uncool!

That implies a wee bit of poo-pantsery

Oh I forgot catfish and crawfish tho, those are my exceptions

if you like rice-a-roni, you've got to buy some knorr bouillon. My only professional chef friend worked at a michelin starred restaurant. He couldn't get high marks from the head chef on his family meal pasta until the others let him know he must add this one special ingredient.

Don't really fuck with any freshwater fish or whitefish.

This probably belongs in the Irrational Anger thread, but microwaves that don’t allow me to key in the specific time I want fill me with rage. You go to enter 1:15 but as soon as you hit the 1 it begins microwaving for one minute and you can only increase it by hitting a button that says “+30s.” AAAGH HULK SMASH

Mine doesnt have a normal defrost option. I have to tell it what KIND of thing I'm defrosting and it only has like 3 options - bread, mince and a whole lump of meat (I think), so I just use the mince option all the time.

reheating a pizza on a covered skilled on the burner works really well

The method I like is to preheat the oven with a cookie sheet inside at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Add 1-2 slices at time and they reheat in 3-4 minutes with crisp-chewy crust and melty cheese.

Yeah we reheat our pizzas on the perforated pizza trays I have for cooking fresh pizzas, bit of extra cheese, 5 min at 250C, works niceely.

In a pinch at work I have reheated a small slice or 2 in the panini press as well.

i have no problem with charred food but this made me lol

Welcome! Have you guys dined with us before? Wonderful, then you’ll know what to expect, just a quick reminder that everything is a little bit burned here, so whatever you order, do be advised, it’s going to be a little bit burned. The edges will probably be burnt, at least a little, possibly as much as some. So for example, if you were to order the bratwurst, it would be a little bit burned. Definitely around the edges, and possibly again somewhere in the middle, where it might have charred a little on the grill from being left there just a minute or two too long. Sound good?

I’ll be back in a minute, happy to answer any questions you might have, and just a reminder that everything here is just a little bit burned, okay? Nothing is incinerated, we’re not setting off any fire alarms, we’re not trying to sell charcoal here – it’s the very first stage of being burnt around the edges. Any less burned and it wouldn’t be burned at all, any more burned and it would no longer be “a little burnt.” What we offer here is precisely the quality of having been burned a little bit, no more and no less.

Oh, and all the drinks are normal. There’s no weird secret burnt element to any of the drinks. We wouldn’t do that.

https://www.thechatner.com/p/the-menu-from-the-greatest-restaurant

lol that's great

Would totally kick it at the "little bit burned" restaurant

My wife and child know that if there are burnt bits, I want them.

Last night I made a baked ziti kinda thing and I called dibs on all the crunchy edges. The leftovers were all middle bits.

One can get a brownie pan with a mazelike pattern so that every piece is an edge piece.

thread moved on but i stan margarine. on a saltine

yeah we always had flora margarine as kids
plus we’d all crack the shits bc we couldnt spread the cold butter on sandwiches

A friend’s pizza place here has made social media posts basically saying “we are hand making pizza, which sometimes has a little char. don’t like it, dominos is that way”

I have tried liver from several different animals, prepared different ways, and I fail to see why it is a taste worth acquiring.

Chicken and beef liver is incredibly good for you iirc but yeah there's "something of the night" about the taste for sure

In other uncool culinary beliefs I don't really care about the welfare of the geese they fatten up to make foie gras I realise this is not a great position but this is a safe space iirc

I think deciding it's fine to eat chicken, beef, etc but not foie gras or veal is not really rationally defensible in an industrial agriculture system — no livestock enjoys a life free from suffering or dies a dignified death.

Relatedly, people who won't eat octopus because octopuses are "smart" are basically doing food eugenics and need to reflect.

I can't imagine having the uncool culinary belief that Domino's/Pizza Hut/etc. is comparable let alone preferable to good pizza. Pizza bagels, on the other hand... could eat those lil guys anytime anyplace. not sure if that's uncool

pizza bagels are like pizza rolls

yummy going down the pie hole

imo chain pizza is almost a different thing entirely compared to a more bespoke pizza style

i've been watching some of bill oakley's food reviews and briefly checked out the patreon for his food-related endeavors and his lane is basically reviewing snacks and fast food, or checking out interesting grocery chains

it's prob uncool to follow or jump in on the novelty food items or seasonal specials that act as marketing blitzes, but finding out that a new arby's sandwich is pretty good or joking about ridiculous potato chip flavors is kind of interesting!

I would rather have a good frozen pizza over Dominos, like here in Minnesota, Lottza Mottza or Heggies.

Pizza Hut and Domino's are good stoner pizzas when you want to unhinge your jaw and uncritically consume shame

it's amazing how the sausage on a Pizza Hut pizza doesn't taste anything like an actual sausage. quite remarkable.

having had good locally-sourced italian sausage on local pizzas, I just can't get into plain sausage or chain italian sausage

I love sausage and mushroom bar pizza.

The “guy who reviews snacks” seems to be a trend — I know a couple off the top of my head. We currently got live in a society where you can successfully monetize snack eating I guess.

xp that's definitely an exception!

there was a bar in my college town with a pizza place above, same owners, and you could "order down" to get a pizza sent downstairs. the sausage mushroom melt was double sausage, mushrooms, and an added portion of cheddar cheese

yeah there are too many places here with good sausage on pizza for me to eat the freeze-dried warts that they put on Hut pies

xp definitely a trend

I think the value add with Oakley is he gets to call his endeavor the "Steamed Hams Society" as he actually wrote that bit on the Simpsons

Community had a bit years ago where the elderly student Leonard had a Youtube channel where he did things like review frozen pizzas he bought at Kroger's.

My home town had a brilliant bar pizza parlour, Beek’s, which delivered pies cut into party squares.

Make it sausage, mushroom and black olive.

i want someone to review every type of ghost pepper chip and call out the ones that are weak af

Pizza Hut and Domino's are good stoner pizzas when you want to unhinge your jaw and uncritically consume shame

― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal),

i.e. hooking up with conservative men

LOL

Re: the ghost pepper chips at Trader Joe's - I'm always like 'these aren't that hot, whatever' but then my lower intestines will violently disagree the next day

I had one set of ghost pepper chips that incapacitated me once.

Had another that was ridiculously tame a month ago.

people who won't eat octopus because octopuses are "smart" are basically doing food eugenics and need to reflect.

Right, there's a reason we don't get to eat stupid people because they're stupid.

See also: concern for dolphins, whales, and cute fluffy animals but not for slimy creepy animals, etc.

anyone who cares enough about one animal should care about the whole world equally, sure, but which ones you consume really comes down to taste. i'm not particularly compelled by an argument against people caring about other creatures regardless of the irrationality of their reasons and i don't think people who love cute animals but not ugly animals are why the world is burning, so who cares?

also whales are fucking amazing and each one is precious imo

rob's comment was funny tho

Plants are also living things trying to stay alive, killing things for energy is just the way of things. I don't eat too many animals for health/sustainability reasons (and I def recognize my own hypocrisy in not wanting to eat octopus etc), but I'm coming around to the pov that if you're going to eat animals at all, why not eat all of them.

One whale feeds a whole village, while a shrimp cocktail barely feeds one person

"big sack of oysters, their molecules will soon become mine"

- Michael Hurley, 'Slurf Song'

I don't love sentience/intelligence as a moral criterion - my son's IQ is about 45, and I still don't want anyone to cook and eat him. Babies are notoriously stupid, and yet it's still pretty socially unacceptable to eat them.

Of course I happily eat meat from nonhuman animals (including foie gras), plus milk and honey; I wear leather, etc.

Also? Plants are bastards. They may look innocent, but they richly deserve our savage treatment of them. They grow where we don't want them. They refuse to grow when we want them to. They make us sneeze in springtime. When our lives are at their most drab and difficult, plants abandon us by losing their pretty bits or dying altogether. Many humans feel they have spend significant amounts of time looking after plants or otherwise tending them. Some plants will kill us for no reason. Fuck plants.

Plants are also living things trying to stay alive, killing things for energy is just the way of things

I don't want to get into a genuine debate on this breezy thread, but if you're going to make this argument, don't you have to exclude quite a large number of plants that aren't killed as a result of human cultivation? For example, most anything that fruits; in fact, aiui those plants are generally "trying" to get animals to eat their fruit and thereby spread their seeds. Whereas no animal species that I can think of benefits from other animals preying on it.

I get the point that vegetarianism relies on a not 100% defined idea of "sentient" rather than "living," but there are probably quite a few animals with fruit or leaf-based diets that don't actually *kill* anything. And hell if humans wanted to live that way, it would not be impossible! Desirable is another issue of course

A Jain diet is probably the way to go then.

just don't eat people without their consent.

as a Meiwes-ing as it is

Whereas no animal species that I can think of benefits from other animals preying on it.

this isn't true! see deer population explosions where there are no wolves. there is a balance.

That’s an interesting point sleeve, I’ll have to think about that

Also many plants have defense mechanisms to discourage being eaten!

namely tasting like shit

Aaaand we're back on track

yeah figs are the 'currency' of the rain forest economy for many species of primates and birds, and they're almost all seeds that they want you to poop out all over said forest

i'll never hear 'figgy pudding' the same way again

my uncool culinary opinion as a long-time vegetarian who is now a pescetarian is that it's OK to make your own moral decisions about what you feel ok about eating and what restrictions you're willing to make to help the environment and animal welfare, as long as you actually put some thought and consideration into it. these aren't standalone decisions, stuff like your health and lifestyle and budget play into it too. the only exception are the assholes who are super aggro about eating meat all the time.

100% cosign

Setting aside the question of their liberality or illiberality, more ilx uncool culinary beliefs:

If necessary for your survival, do you think you could resort to cannibalism?

most of this thread consists of truthbombs and/or cool culinary beliefs. Enjoying it very much so far.

that is basically how I feel too NA

I'm (genuinely) not sure about your deer point, sleeve. If deer populations explode, then some deer starve — is that much worse than being killed by wolves? I could see that maybe it would be (e.g., if the whole herd died...not sure why that would happen though after some thinning), but at any rate, it's not quite the same symbiotic relationship that fruit-bearing plants have with fruit-eating animals. I think it's in a different category, though admittedly I'm struggling to articulate why

Sorry if this is an annoying derail btw

I mean isn't there something to be said for wolves killing off the weak, old, slow deer, thus sparing the stronger, healthier ones for breeding?

Not that there's any 'plan' to that, it's just evolution in action

Okay we've really gone off topic here, I think Screaming Yellow Zonkers are inferior to Fiddle-Faddle, and I don't care who knows it

rob there's tons of interesting stuff here fwiw:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predation

"In the absence of predators, the population of a species can grow exponentially until it approaches the carrying capacity of the environment."

so the issue really isn't how the deer die, it's how their population explosion fucks up the rest of the ecosystem and causes more damage overall

re: candy, Peeps are not as cool as they are made out to be, and taste terrible

having had good locally-sourced italian sausage on local pizzas, I just can't get into plain sausage or chain italian sausage

― mh, Wednesday, March 29, 2023 11:16 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

the only place you can buy locally sourced italian sausage is in italy

the only exception are the assholes who are super aggro about eating meat all the time.

this is discriminatory against argentinians

yeah that makes sense, sleeve, and I can see why you framed it as beneficial. I think my problem was coming from an urge to differentiate between the fate of individual beings and a more ecological/species perspective, but spreading seeds doesn't directly benefit individual plants either on second thought, so... (that said I'm unaware of any animal species that evolved to be more susceptible to predation, so I still don't think these things compare 1:1)

anyway, carry on thread

doesn't "italian sausage" just mean pork sausage in the US?

that is discriminatory against italians

does "ketchup-flavoured chips are delicious" count as uncool?

xp I think of it more in terms of the spices used, but yeah, pork

and I will defer to flopson's technicality and call it italian-american sausage if need be

the local sausage to which I refer: https://grazianobrothers.com/pages/shop

breakfast sausages are often pork as as well but they are seasoned different than Italian sausage

UCB: Peeps benefit from being left out in the open air for a day or two. Let the outside get a little stale and you have crunch plus goo. Same goes for most marshmallow products, btw.

Also: Poppycock > Fiddle-Faddle > Cracker Jack > any other type of caramel popcorn. This is not in dispute.

And many xps, but: personally I would VASTLY rather get torn to pieces by wolves than slowly starve to death. YMMV

my uncool culinary belief is that reconstituted meat isn't grosser than other meats and is often the way to go depending on the food product. chewed food is gnarly, humans are beasts, eating is violence, etc

starting to think an uncool culinary opinion might not actually exist, at least in the context of western eating habits

in other news my husband brought home stuff to make those midwestern tacos, including shredded iceberg lettuce 😍

Caramel popcorn is bad. Sour candy is bad. Gummy candy is bad.

I WILL FIGHT YOU

lots of people go to the farmer's market with every intention of buying beets, chard or kale but actually all they buy is a giant plastic bag of kettle corn

canned refried beans are great

did someone say farmer's market? here are some zaddy shorts for an epic farmer's market fit

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FfX48CTVUAESWkF?format=jpg&name=small

Looks comf.

starting to think an uncool culinary opinion might not actually exist, at least in the context of western eating habits

Guy Fieri is as great a chef as anyone with a Michelin star.

o_o

that's me not blinking

are we measuring greatness here via height, weight or hair style?

maybe here's one, an italian american place up the road from me that dates from the 70s called "primo italian restaurant" (i always say the name in a mobster caricature voice), is tres chic

This thread is making me rethink my stance on eating human babbies.

There are some pretty epic "defending Guy Fieri" hot takes out there btw.

His facial hair is stupid and you don't like his shirts or how he wears his sunglasses or whatever but:

He champions small local businesses that would otherwise have no shot at the level of publicity he can give them.

He like has run some pretty decent charity activities. I hear

I mean, I will probably never watch his show or eat in his restaurant but the hate on him is aesthetic- "subjective and ultimately inadmissible matters of taste and class," as Joan Didion said of the Reagans.

^ uncool culinary opinion beamed to you straight from flavortown

I can't judge how great a chef Guy Fieri is for the same reason I have no real basis to determine how great any chef with a Michelin star might be because I've never eaten anything any of them has cooked or closely supervised the cooking of. Knowing his name, his charitable activities, or his sartorial inclinations still render me non clues in that regard. Happy to hear milo likes him, but that still leaves me as much in the dark as before.

He grew up in the town across the river from me, and went to high school over there. If I knew him at all, it was Guy Ferry, the chubby kid that ran a hot pretzel stand at the county fair... Not sure when/why he decided to italianize his surname

I think he started out his 'celebrity chef' career as wayyyy more of a knob than he is now... he's lead a lot of good efforts to feeding NorCal fire victims and the firefighters themselves. He still seems like a knob but it's pretty easy to tune him out when I only see a cardboard cutout of him in a gas station once a year. He didn't invent that style (baggy cargo shorts & crocs, weird beard, sunglasses on the back of his head) but he's certainly its most visible proponent

He did come from very humble, rural roots so I'm inclined to say 'good for him' to create this whole media/restaurant empire that I completely ignore and really have no opinions about

And THAT is my uncool culinary opinion!

Goodnight.

Classic thread

worst sounding sushi roll at guy fieri's southern bbq & california style sushi restaurant tex wasabi's

Also we have a Chicken Guy here and there is NO FLAVOR TO BE FOUND.

Tried it twice and it so garbage

that is basically how I feel too NA

I'm (genuinely) not sure about your deer point, sleeve. If deer populations explode, then some deer starve — is that much worse than being killed by wolves? I could see that maybe it would be (e.g., if the whole herd died...not sure why that would happen though after some thinning), but at any rate, it's not quite the same symbiotic relationship that fruit-bearing plants have with fruit-eating animals. I think it's in a different category, though admittedly I'm struggling to articulate why

Sorry if this is an annoying derail btw

― rob, Wednesday, March 29, 2023 1:26 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Unchecked deer population can lead to an extinction event. https://www.geo.arizona.edu/Antevs/nats104/00lect21reindeer.html

Reindeer were introduced to Alaska, so... maybe it was meant to be

I like uncool food opinions because they encompass a lot of different foods and tastes

I'm just constantly amazed by how so many of my friends have childish food restrictions - no spice at all, or rejecting any food with simple things like peas, mushrooms, olives etc. To be honest, a lot of it just seems like an unwillingness to re-examine your taste and grow out of a suburban teenage close-mindedness when you get older

"bland" is an option for airplane meals, I always wondered who this is for

white people

Iceberg lettuce is valid lettuce. It doesn't matter if "it has no nutritional value."

xp

Even more difficult for me though are adult friends who are decidedly not interested in food ~at all~ and are desperately trying to be the most healthy food bores in your life, so when you have a dinner party you have to agonize over the menu, because they all have different conflicting food requirements and it becomes impossible to plan

My advice to them … unless you want to alienate your dinner host, just eat what you can from what's served, or bring your own food so we don’t have to worry about it. We won’t be offended. That is what my most evolved vegan friend does without asking, which makes me respect her so much

bring your own food so we don’t have to worry about it

Imagining myself showing up to a party with two Old El Paso frozen burritos in my jacket pocket. "Hey, can I just use your microwave?"

I had a couple friends who were "gluten intolerant. but not celiacs" but their unfortunate malady seemed to ebb and flow depending on what was served and how hungry they were

I mean I grew up on a farm and was kinda picky and used to have to sit at the table eating stuff that made me physically gag until I was done (mushrooms, which I've been able to embrace to a degree, olives I'm afraid never). I don't like onions which is incredibly stressful maybe if I could change one thing about myself it would be that, life would be a lot easier. but don't worry I have a tremendous amount of shame about it.

oh shit you gotta try olives stuffed with onions, to die for

I'm not a bland food guy, I like bold flavors and most types of food, but I reject the idea that the key to good food is always lots of seasoning. Different foods require different approaches and always valuing seasoning and spices over things like aromatics, herbs, fresh produce, etc, is very limiting.

I just need everyone to make sure they provide salt for the table. Don’t make me ask for it.

I had a couple friends who were "gluten intolerant. but not celiacs" but their unfortunate malady seemed to ebb and flow depending on what was served and how hungry they were

I used to make fun of this shit too, but have been having all kinds of intolerances and issues after having cut out gluten and a bunch of other stuff for a few months. So yeah, sometimes the food and occasion is worth saying 'fuck it' and rolling the dice, even though I might feel shitty later or it could exacerbate some other things. So sadly I get it not. I don't want to be picky, I love food and all I want is to be able to eat everything.

I don't expect anyone to accommodate me though, I'll just bring my own food these days.