Food in whose name the worst atrocities have been committed

The idea is that some types of foods may have glorious exemplars but also horrible ones, ones so bad that they force you to question your commitment to that type of food entirely. And because their promise is so high, people have experimented with them in many ways; and the results have disemboweled many an unsuspecting victim. (See also a related topic here.)

For instance: I nominate pizza. The basic concept: maybe humanity's greatest triumph. But its abuses are legion. Versions served in schools, most frozen versions, the kind sold at sporting events: typically awful. Other examples, like "Hawaiian" and "Mexican" pizza (à la Taco Bell) may have their defenders, but are no doubt controversial. But the worst crime against humanity committed in pizza's name, in my experience, was in Nancy, France last year. Words won't do to convey its full awfulness but scallops, emmental cheese, and walnuts give you an idea.

In any case I would like to read other people's nominations, or at least see some disgusting pictures of significant types of foods (that are presumably not meant to be disgusting).

boring academic answer would be salt

pizza is the first thing i thought of.

Words won't do to convey its full awfulness but scallops, emmental cheese, and walnuts give you an idea.

would scoff

everybody who read that fancy salt book is some sort of salt expert.

americans getting outraged on pizza's behalf = what fucking heroes. you guys barely understand thin-crust anyway

:D

mexican food of all stripes?

that doesn't make sense; the mainstreaming of mexican, I guess

Please Confirm...

Ban this user from this thread (temporarily)

xxpost

come to think of it, maybe the answer is ethnic cuisine of all stripes. i'm sure chinese food is lovely if i ever found a place that made it.

jj valuable mod in '10 imo

americans getting outraged on pizza's behalf = what fucking heroes. you guys barely understand thin-crust anyway

crazee talk

in the new york times they said that when mexican people watch americans eat salsa it's like an american watching someone guzzle salad dressing. i did not know that. i mean, i knew that there were different kinds of salsa for different dishes, but i thought even mexicans had their own chip dipping salsa.

britisher talking pizza does not compute...

i'm sure chinese food is lovely if i ever found a place that made it.

I believe they're quite good at it in China

Words won't do to convey its full awfulness but scallops, emmental cheese, and walnuts give you an idea.

I can totally see the emmentaler and walnuts, but scallops with that?! First of all they'd get overcooked and secondly you'd barely taste them.

I think it's harder to fuck up a taco than a pizza but then again, I've pledged to avoid ordering Mexican in places where I am sure disaster awaits. Plus: I don't usually see like tacos with asparagus, chevre and bbq sauce, e.g.

The general principle there and with pizza is that a food can be a lot worse than the sum of its parts.

xp I wish I could have barely tasted the noix de Saint Jacques.

some horrible horrible substances get sold under the name "cheese"

cheese in a can, i mean this is a product in the states, right?

I think it's harder to fuck up a taco than a pizza but then again

WAHT

so glad I got threadbanned - this is gonna turn nasty

cheese in a can, i mean this is a product in the states, right?

please--aren't you British? Don't start with the "food product in a can" stuff.

"I believe they're quite good at it in China"

i'll bet. i mean, i've grown up with american chinese take-out, so i like it and everything, but it would be nice if there were more homespun/authentic chinese places around. problem is, you can make really good money making the cheap stuff. it's risky to open an "authentic" anything.

bbq

lol no i'm not british

okay well wherever you live in the world, i'm sure there are lovely food products in cans for you to eat

re. tacos vs pizza: what's the worst a tortilla can get? Actually, yeah, pretty bad: we stupidly bought the Old El Paso tortillas here in Paris a couple of weeks ago and they were basically crepes. And they were labelled "tortillas de maïs" and yet their first ingredient was wheat flour.

But I still think pizza crust is more generally fucked up than tortillas.

scott, go somewhere with enough Chinese to sustain 'authentic' food.

every ilx food thread eventually boils down to pizza, tacos, and Brooklyn

what to do if you are a vegetarian vampire weekend

american chinese food is p good imo

we got beans in a can? oh, and soup.

BBQ is a good one, especially the shit hoisted as bbq at Midwestern pot lucks (i.e. sloppy joes or just meat baked in bbq sauce)

this doesn't address the concept of cheese in a can, however

cheese in a can is pretty bad, i will grant you that. but worst atrocity ever committed? maybe in the top 10.

cheese in a can: don't they use Cheez Whiz on cheese steaks in Philly, like as the "preferred" cheese? looking for enlightenment here if this is incorrect

that doesn't make it right!

btw you lose 5 IQ pts every time you type the words "Cheez Whiz"

it is certainly not right!

there's nothing wrong with using cans to preserve foodstuffs. propelling said foodstuff from the can through a nozzle is a different matter - one both disgusting and savage.

bipartisan agreement que, we're a shining example to all of the political spectrum.

not cooking a steak until the steak is cooked is an atrocity imo.

i am aware this may not be a universally held belief

wondering if some enterprising kid has ever figured out how to get high off spray cheese

shaking my fist at you xpost

'cheesing' what an interesting concept

btw, courtesy of a visit to a gf that was craving mexican food due to studying abroad in a tiny town, i have had the worst tacos in the world, and they live in Dublin.

tbh there is enough terrible cheese here that doesn't come in a can.

also, bread.

lol:

Is there any way that spray cheese can get you high?

not cooking a steak until the steak is (over-) cooked is an atrocity imo.

"Irish Taco" sounds like a euphemism

Mmm, corned beef taco!

Easy Cheese + Chicken in a Biskit = family Christmas tradition

This is fast becoming the go-to thread for Disgusting Savages

The bastardization of sushi is way worse than tacos, maybe as bad as pizza imo.

have not had british "pizza" tho so the jury is still out here.

chickn in a biskit is fucking awesome

hey this isn't about how badly the irish do foreign and fantastical cuisine you nation of cheesecanning steakruining savages.

Irish food is also pretty bastardized. How often do the Irishes in Ireland eat corned beef and other deli food?

i cant even describe that taco, there was no effort to make it not a taco, it was just as if every spice and technique and ingredient was chosen by someone that had heard of a taco and was working it out as they went along

notable decisions made would be the use of cream cheese. also ketchup.

mac n' cheese is similar to pizza in varying from sometimes being the greatest/worst thing ever

also i am not trying to demean irisher cuisine, i am just having some sort of PTSD moment here ok

English food > Irish food >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Scottish food

corned beef is not a 'thing' in ireland, tbh. i mean it exists, but in the same way that other food we don't eat all that much exists.

Irish Food>>>>> english food

like our actors, the english just steal our best food and call it english. english food = eels n shit.

welcome to Eels N' Shit, can I take your order

The bastardization of sushi is way worse than tacos, maybe as bad as pizza imo.

See, I can stomach most bad sushi as long as there's nori/soy/wasabi. I remember getting 7-11 sushi late at night in Tokyo that was pretty dire, objectively, but a little ginger and (as long as it wasn't fake fish) some rice/protein wasn't the worst drunk food I could have gotten at 4 AM. /ds-gaijin

Also, I think pizza is kind of a portmanteau concept since there's flatbread all over the place, Comparing, say, crudo and sushi wouldn't be out of line but it has to be done w/a fair sense of what each tradition brings and expects.

i'm sorry we're out of the eel pie

English food > Irish food >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Scottish food

Fair enough, apart from salmon, venison and grouse. Irish have the best bread, though.

the best basic bacon/eggs/toast breakfast i have ever had in my life was in ireland, so for that i thank you all.

xpost: see MW knows what is up

xxxxpost: idk when i think of bastardized sushi im thinking of the bullshit you see where theres like bacon and chutney and shit. basically sushi for novelty eaters that think raw fish is ooogy.

in scotland they deep fry pizza in batter. <3333333

Lots of Scottish food is great, but not the stuff the Scots actually eat

and by "they" I mean all scottish people, for every meal

All the good grub gets eaten by posh English bastards

another argument for pizza here would be the delivery pizza option of getting your pizza surrounded by a rubber o-ring of semi-melted not really cheese encased in the crust

Sushi is a good one for this.

Another one I'd like to throw out there: lasagna. There are the versions served in schools that are typically embarrassingly terrible, but the vegetarian versions that are loaded with white sauce are another degree of awfulness.

OTM

I just thought of a couple of broad prejudices I have:

Fish and cheese generally shouldn't go together, not should fish and bacon.

scallops, emmental cheese, and walnuts give you an idea.

sounds awesome!

i don't think anything competes with pizza for this question. maaaybe 'mexican' but that doesn't really compare.

maybe chinese too, but i'm a fan of really ratty storefront fake chinese food

I know (re. the pizza w/ emmental + scallops)! I ordered it, unsuspecting what was to come. Execution was more the problem than the ingredients, though I tend to agree that fish + cheese is a bad combo.

it so isn't

my personal vote might be fish and chips. it always sounds like a good idea when i see it on a menu and it is always a grave error.

http://jacksonville.com/sites/default/files/editorial/images/files/editorial/images/images/mdControlled/cms/2009/09/05/489464932.jpg

oh fuck that sandwich is going to kill people

aw on what planet continent is 'fish and chips' ALWAY a grave error?

for jj

RFI: The Traditional Irish Fry-Up

fish and chips is a good shout. my personal vote would be any 'traditional' 'british' 'food'. fortunately my countrymen don't really attempt much mediterranean, but sheesh pork joint and roast potatoes can be dismal

also bad casserole ;_;

not a fan of fish and cheese at all

que that is apparently a 'cake'

and strangely nough, that thread about the daily mail seems to have an indepth discussion of the merit of a potato farl vs fried soda bread.

xxp lol no I know - found out the hardest way

i'm not saying f&c is bad, i'm saying i've had a lot of really bad f&c

that cake is going to kill me, tonight. i can feel it.

btw the 'traditional irish/english (under protest)' fry up' is a genuine contender for this title.

^^^yes

Fish and chips = awesome, sorry, jolly good

fortunately my countrymen don't really attempt much mediterranean,

fish and chips is mediterranean, funny enough

"vegetarian fry" as a breakfast option in dublin café- good strong evidence that you're in west brit territory imo

FUCK YOUR MUSHROOMS I DEMAND CREMATED PIGFLESH

Maybe chili is another one? Eh, I think chili's pretty hard to fuck up, maybe because even at its best it's just stewed meat + maybe beans (stfu Texas). I suppose if people start adding shit like creme fraiche or rhubard to chili, then we can start talking.

Good fish and chips is okay - not a fan of chips, per se (shoestrings are far superior imso). I've had fish poached in cream before but dairy and fish and even mayo and fish make me uncomfortable, especially ADM indistrial grade oil mixed with bland, factory-raised eggs kind of mayo. Sure, I've had aioli with my bouillabaisse but I'm always a little sqeamish about getting it in the broth. I don't even make tuna fish with mayo much anymore - I just get tuna in oil and use lots of lemon and lemon zest and s and p. The whole neo-sushi shit with weird mayo type things on it makes me want to retch.

fish and chips is mediterranean, funny enough

Haha, well most good food is tbh

I'm not saying F&C is bad - often it's lovely. But soggy, terrible chips + soggy batter + tasteless, chewy cod = why. why. why.

Creme fraiche in chili sounds intriguing, though.

but i think the question is more about common (or not) preparations of food that are atrocities, not badly prepared examples of food that is actually ok- ie not fish and chips, more like quail eggs on pizza or w/e

apparently chili with creme fraiche is "a thing" acc. to the google, e.g. "Delicious recipe for Mango Chilli Creme Fraiche on Foodista.com, the cooking encyclopedia everyone can edit." and Results 1 - 10 of about 416,000 for chili creme fraiche

quail eggs on pizza aren't so crazy! There's definitely pizzas w/eggs on them so why not quail eggs? I, for example, cannot abide pizza w/chicken on it but then I cannot bear pizza with potatoes on it either.

Chinese is def right up there with pizza in my book, and prob ahead of Mexican. Cause even bad, Americanized Mexican can be good in a drunk-at-3am sort of way. Bad Americanized Chinese is so prevalent that people say "oh Chinese? nah not a fan" without ever having had good, more authentic Chinese. There's one place nearby that has good shit in addition to the kung paos and general tso stuff, and taking people there is always a revelation to them.

i mean, i knew that there were different kinds of salsa for different dishes, but i thought even mexicans had their own chip dipping salsa.

They do. Don't know if I'd trust the NYT for Mexican cuisine info.

xp yeah I was thinking of types of food that leave room for specification, and it's in the specification where things go wrongly: like taking pizza and adding lettuce and hollandaise sauce, e.g. The idea of pizza opened up great possibilities for good but also for ill.

pizza is probably the answer. i would also say "seafood" or any "ethnic" recipe originating from the back of a box or can of goods.

ok eggs on pizza in general, but quail eggs stands as a particular example.

creme fraiche is p good on any type of ground beef dish, partic on the 2nd day.

Part of these discussions here stems from our categorical thinking. Flatbread is ubiquitous. Pizza is Italian, though there are American versions of pizza that many Americans think of as normative. Even if you include them all, does a thai chicken pizza really count as a pizza or should it be considered either 'bad' or other? Beans and meat is hardly limited to America, but if I make a boar ragu w/cannelini beans, take a wand mixer to it, add creme fraiche and hives, should I even bother calling it chili, even if I add some traditional chili spices?

starting now anyone who uses the word "authentic" on this thread is getting a suggest ban from me

i dunno but i would eat yr boar chilli and to hell with the doubters.

if you call your wild boar ragu, it's a ragu
if you call your wild boar chili, it's chili

going with nachos on this one.

xxp thread police severely underworked imo

authentic authentic authentic authentic authentic authentic authentic authentic

Fish and dairy isn't always wrong. If you are making fish pie with smoked haddock you have to prep the haddock by poaching in milk. My mom makes an awesome artery-clogger of a dip featuring crabmeat, shrimp and Philadelphia cream cheese baked into a hollowed-out round loaf.

I will also nominate bad British greasy spoon breakfasts for this - so much angst could be avoided by keeping the bacon frying that little bit longer.

If you are making fish pie with smoked haddock you have to prep the haddock by poaching in milk.

^^^The problem here is that you are making something called "fish pie"

Flatbread is ubiquitous but I've not seen anyone putting pineapple or bbq sauce on lahmacun, for instance.

cause lahmacun isn't American?

more examples of fish and dairy: shrimp in primavera or alfredo pasta. most Indian curries made in the US/UK have some cream in them. and a slice of cheese on a filet-o-fish!

Fish and dairy isn't always wrong.

Oh, I agree! There are plenty of recipes with milk or cream and I don't mind those if they don't hide or denature the taste of the fish.

No results found for "hawaiian lahmacun".

thank goodness though perhaps this is a business opportunity as well

Just on the pizza front, I rather foolishly, weakly, idiotically fell into a pizza place in Venice - I was tired and hungry and knew it was a mistake, so I kind of got what I deserved -

What I got was a massive crisp with a frisbie of cheese on top which, where it hadn't hardened, had formed into globules of grease. I don't know what vintage the wine was but it made the top of my head tingle and made everything else seem very far away but very loud. I was lucky though. A young French couple next to me ordered calzoni and she a cheese pizza. I was on the verge of warning her, as I remembered the 'quattra formaggia' pizzas inexplicably for sale in English supermarkets. (Would you like a cheese, cheese, cheese and cheese pizza plz? No, not today thank u.'). What he actually got was a tinned tomato and cancer pizza. It swam gently in some red slime and had a massive black buboe coming out of the top of it.

It looked so bad we all started laughing when the waiter put it down in front of him. None of us finished these things, and we all went to a wine bar and ate little bits of sea food on polenta which was lovely and what we should have done in the first place.

how 'bout all the strange flavors of ice cream out there?

can't believe no one thought to respond to lj and answer the thread qn at the same time with this - List your culinary disasters.

In Madrid two nights ago I had a tapa consisting of shrimp cooked in a curry sauce, wrapped in pasta, and then served in a queso fresco sauce. It was good! That's kind of a fish + cheese deal.

Actually tapas are ripe for the kind of abuse I'm talking about, though "tapas" doesn't single out a single type of food so it doesn't really work.

Fish pie is amazing - smoked haddock, cod, (sometimes) salmon sand shrimp in a stock and cream sauce, mashed potato top with a dusting of parmesan so it goes crunchy on top in the oven. Like this:

http://www.hannafords-online.co.uk/images/F0329%20Fish%20Pie%20-%20Multi%20Portion.JPG

starting now anyone who uses the word "authentic" on this thread is getting a suggest ban from me

I tend to start with hyper traditional recipes, ingredients and approach with new cuisines and then when I'm pretty comofrtable with how they belong in their native habitat, then I'll adventure. I'm not a horrible stickler about this and there are the ironies of having, say, had American style tacos years in advance of going to Mexico or pizza before I went to Italy. It's not authenticity for its own sake that I seek, its context with a healthy respect for the people, the environment, the products, the cuisine that first gave birth to a foodstuff - a kind of terroir approach, but again, I try not to be a dick about it.

on man -vs- food last night the dude ate a hamburger that was: huge hamburger + cheese + eggs + five pieces of bacon and the bun was actually two grilled cheese sandwiches. american extreme eating gotta be on the list of worst atrocities.

Actually, hamburgers are a candidate for this thread. My mother made apple hamburgers for us when I was a child. I wept.

was with that burger until the grilled cheese atrocity

Just on the pizza front, I rather foolishly, weakly, idiotically fell into a pizza place in Venice

Big mistake. Venetian food is so far off from pizza regione like Naples or Lazio. I used to get pizza in Milan and it was awful.

I had a tapa consisting of shrimp cooked in a curry sauce, wrapped in pasta, and then served in a queso fresco sauce.

I can see how this might work if the curry wasn't too strong. Also, the stronger the fish taste, the better it can blend with heartier flavors.

That whole show "Man v. Food" just disgusts me. The restaurants he goes to are usually alright, and sometimes really good, but his whole death-by-foodgasm approach to eating is really gross.

And is it just me or does his weight yo-yo from hefty to downright fat?

The curry wasn't strong, and neither was the queso fresco sauce. It was quite good. xp

Euler, I can totally see that being tasty. Just curious, how was the shrimp cooked? If they grilled it first, I think it might give it additional taste.

Big mistake

Oh yes, absolutely. As I say, I knew that at the time. Sheer stupidity.

On the dairy + fish equation, as well as fish pie, you got seafood lasagne (wonderful), some versions of kedgeree are faily dairy intensive, there's fish florentine, and a very nice crab meat and cream pasta sauce.

And bisques and chowders, etc., it's just strong cheese that overwhelms the fish that I really object to.

It wasn't grilled as far as I can tell; my guess is it was steamed.

can't believe no one thought to respond to lj and answer the thread qn at the same time with this

yah I haven't referenced that at all on this thread

never knew that getting a pizza in italy could be such a terrible, craven error of judgement :/

starting now anyone who uses the word "authentic" on this thread is getting a suggest ban from me

― max, Thursday, March 25, 2010 12:45 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark

<3 u max

xp fairly sure that's why jj wanted to threadban you tbh

fish tacos exception to dairy/fish rule btw

Also putting bacon with scallops. Maybe a little, but scallops are pretty subtle and if you want to hide their taste, I think you're kind of disrespecting them or you're trying to hide fishy fish.

love these faux men-of-the-people who get their panties in a twist whenever authenticity is mentioned w/r/t food. fight the good fight, gentlemen.

Maybe my real answer should be: all the sweets that have been messed up with corn syrup.

good one

there are a lot of folks out there fuckin around a little too much w/ bagels imo. Pizza still owns this tho.

what about just "salad". at some point "salad" started to mean "anything you can fit into a bowl".

yesssss^^^

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_yJDiDVtrcO0/Somj6ASmlLI/AAAAAAAAAI8/HtdFpf7rX5c/s400/bbq+salad+w+cilantro+ranch+dressing

yeah but i don't think there was any kind of grand salad tradition that was being violated

like if you go to an old person steakhouse the salad they give you is a total drag

I think there are a lot of foods where they throw a lot of one of the essential flavors at you, salt or fat or sweet, to the detriment of an interesting mix of flavors that reflect the ingredients. It's sort of the McDonaldsification of food; if you throw enough fat and salt at most things, they'll be satisfying going down, but underneath that is the fact that the tastes are generally pedestrian or bland and they're exploiting our basest eating predilections and also exploiting a really shitty food production model.

as soon as ranch dressing, grilled chicken, and cheddar cheese entered the picture, something was totally violated! we're talking about a best case scenario salad by the way, not some iceberg lettuce one cherry tomato b.s.

bread

if anything ruined salad, it was not grilled chicken.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Ham-Salad-Spread/Detail.aspx

strike the grilled chicken from the record--my comments on ranch and cheese stand

There has been chicken in salad in France for ages and they kind of rule at 'traditional' salads.

I have recently fallen back in love with cheddar but I'm not a fan of it in salad and there's something deeply unsettling about Ranch dressing.

mr. que what is in your best case salad

buttholes

actually, yummy well-cooked chicken or beef - hot - on top of a yummy proper salad is one of my fave things.

love these faux men-of-the-people who get their panties in a twist whenever authenticity is mentioned w/r/t food. fight the good fight, gentlemen.

― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Thursday, March 25, 2010 1:12 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i bet ur real fun to go out to eat with

the actual "faux men-of-the-people" btw are the insufferable twats who only go to one particular taqueria because "it's the most authentic" and because the workers and the other ones aren't from the right spanish-speaking country

*at the other ones

I would like to know in what directions someone's tongue has moved around in their head for the past 20 years before they make me food

omg LJ's culinary disaster is fucking amazing, how did I miss that

Rare sliced skirt steak on a bitter greens salad with goat cheese is XOXOXOXOXOXO TROO LOVE.

i bet ur real fun to go out to eat with

I bet YOU are. So there!

mr. que what is in your best case salad

nicose, i guess?

the actual "faux men-of-the-people" btw are the insufferable twats who only go to one particular taqueria because "it's the most authentic" and because the workers and the other ones aren't from the right spanish-speaking country

― call all destroyer, Thursday, March 25, 2010 12:33 PM

do people like this really exist?

my wife made a salad last night that was:

spinach
sliced pears
candied walnuts
tomatoes
goat cheese
homemade balsamic vinaigrette

that salad was chock full of WIN

faux taqueria twats

that sounds GOOOOOOD

The answer is chicken. Especially if you're a chicken.

she also made chicken mirabella

she is awesome

yes ksh i have actually had someone tell me those things

the actual "faux men-of-the-people" btw are the insufferable twats who only go to one particular taqueria because "it's the most authentic" and because the workers and the other ones aren't from the right spanish-speaking country

This is true, and yes they mos def exist. But automatically reacting negatively to any use of the word "authentic" in food talk is just as narrow-minded and not conducive to engaging in, y'know, an actual conversation and trying to understand what people are actually saying.

I mean just because I use the word doesn't mean I think anything that is authentic is "better" and people who don't seek it out and/or perfer it are rubes or whatever sort of shit you wanna believe is going on.

what is "authentic"

ksh, wait until you have disposable income and you are looking to have a nice dinner with someone who considers themselves to be a "foodie"; you will enter a whole new world of genteel savagery the likes of which you never could have imagined

like, imagine dining with insufferable know-it-all tv chefs, only instead of having years of culinary training under some of the best chefs in the world in the planet's most prestigious kitchens, it's actually some jackasses who watch a lot of the Discovery Channel and the Food Network

wow

sounds great

I went to an indian place a few weeks ago that a bunch of friends hyped up and while everything was good I didn't think it was v. authentic

i refuse to eat any tacos other than those prepared by the good ppl of Uruguay.

so happy i'm not friends with any foodies btw

steve shasta is a foodie

i am friends w/ too many foodies! o the disdain with which they sneer at my pedestrian eating habits..

Is "paella" too specific to mention here? Because I want to mention it, solely off of an experience with some self-described "foodies" we used to sing with who match the description I posted where we were all tasked with bringing an ingredient for some fancy-schmancy paella recipe one of them found online and my wife and I ended up being asked to bring like 6 lbs of lobster while everyone else was asked to bring things like "rice" and "onions" and they made a big fucking deal over the imported smoked paprika that they were putting into it and they spent like 3 fucking hours cooking the damn thing on an outside skillet gill and, due to them not using any salt at all, the thing basically tasted like an eraser and they were all rolling their eyes back in their heads going g"OH MY GOD JUST TASTE THAT PAPRIKA YUUUUUUUUUUUUM" and that was literally the last time we ever spent time with any of them because we quit their fucking group because seriously fuck you for making us buy the most expensive thing and then ruining it so throroughly

in fairness we should have known better because this is the same group of people who foisted a meal on us that was chicken and pasta in gorgonzola sauce where they tripled the amount of gorgonzola in the sauce and then crumbled more on top of the chicken and pasta when serving it, leading one of them to offer the ever-immortal quote "yummmmmmmmm this is so rich I can just feel my throat closing up"

I will also nominate bad British greasy spoon breakfasts for this - so much angst could be avoided by keeping the bacon frying that little bit longer.

so many good places for this tho, easy enough to avoid badness. cheap sausage usage is usually a bigger problem.

loooool @ Dan

dan i'm going to risk insult here and say: hanging out with singers, kind of dicey

totally depends on the singers, but I know too many of the terrifying ones to say that's an unfair comment

ugh, what a waste of lobster

cheap sausage usage is usually a bigger problem.

Real fucking talk. Biggest complaint about English breakfasts in cafes. My local one does a pretty good job of cooking everything, but still has the cheap sausage.

Pizza would be my #1 response to this, and I will just chuck in my 2cents that says that right down the bottom end of the spectrum, the mid-range frozen pizzas you can get in the US are worse than the Asda Smartprice ones I used to get for about 99p. Back in the UK yr Tescos "Taste the Difference" or w/ever pizzas were FINE for a quick dinner yet here I *have* to order pizza in because all the supermarket ones are worse than terrible. And *always* melt through the oven bars, what's up with that?

the last time I got a frozen supermarket pizza, it was a DiGiorno pizza and it was decent enough

Yeah, my bf will not SHUT UP about how much better the frozen pizzas are in Germany, and did I know they're only a few euros, too? $5 for a whole pie and the frozen kind is better than fresh NYC pizzeria fare which is a rip-off at $2 a slice.

Did anyone else ever read that book Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About? His girlfriend was German, too. I'm just sayin'.

didn't read the book but I obsessively followed his website for like a year; one of the funniest fucking things I've ever read

i used to have some jeans that were authentic

the answer is curry

hahaha aside from this post right here, I have used the word paprika on this board 4 times, 3 of which were me complaining about this terrible dinner party (the 4th being me c/p-ing a description of... a vagina puppet)

posts almost excruciatingly in character

i'm a foodie as in food enthusiast. i love to eat (take a look at my big fat ass wontcha?).

authenticity is funny. like people will talk about authentic, traditional food that is a blend of so many cultures many of them recent.

sushi (as we know it "edomae nigirizushi") is about 60 years old. authentic sushi is not very appetizing and pretty out of vogue (batterazushi from osaka).

one of my favorite cuisines is vietnamese which is funny when someone will talk about "authentic traditional" vietnamese dishes like pho or banh mi, both of which are basically french (pho = pot de feu, banh mi = pate and pork baguette). i'm not saying that the french invented vietnamese food as we know it, just that there is a lot of fusion going on there (montagnard/french/chinese in particular), it is a region always in flux and perhaps why the food is good there.

also, back to japan: ramen is another funny thing. my bro just finished a book about ramen and he talks about how after the sino-jp war when the wealthy chinese sent their sons to japan to study how the japanese modernized so quickly, how the chinese immigrant villages in yokohama and kobe, these chinatowns popped up and started serving pork noodle soup (a traditional chinese dish) to students and day-laborers. japanese who were writing about this at the time were not fond of pork/beef at the time and thought this dish was foul, oily and disgusting. but eventually, some japanese warmed to the chinese dish and then even began serving it in japanese restaurants. so when you hear people talk about authentic, traditional japanese ramen... that's pretty funny.

but yes i like authentic food, that's why i've gone paleo with cutty and the NN crew. i'm gonna hunt some saber tooth tiger when i clock out tonight.

authenticity is funny. like people will talk about authentic, traditional food that is a blend of so many cultures many of them recent.

^^ this is what im saying about authenticity

i forgot to add that McDonald's Big Mac is older than both ramen and sushi as we know them today. that always ruffles the feathers of people who try to talk to me about authentic sushi and ramen.

man i am so stealing that fact.

no kidding!

I couldn't care less about authenticity, personally

good stuff shasta

its the foodie equivalent to music geeks arguing about originality

xp

(pho = pot de feu

I thought the name derived from the Chinese word for noodles, no?

but eventually, some japanese warmed to the chinese dish and then even began serving it in japanese restaurants. so when you hear people talk about authentic, traditional japanese ramen... that's pretty funny.

Yet, that's authentic Japanese ramen. It's not Chinese ramen. Pizza may be Italian but before the introduction tomatoes to Italy, it wouldn't have been possible, though, of course the Romans had placenta and flatbreads are about as old as bread itself. When I think of 'authentic' or 'traditional', I think of adherence to a relatively defined tradition of technique and ingredients, especially as they relate to a larger cuisine and style of life.

Authenticity isn't in itself any more desirable than originality but it's no worse a starting point, either.

pretty sure all of humanity had placenta, all the way back to ape days

The SF burrito, fer instance, only dates to the 60's (according to El Faro) but that doesn't mean it's not recognizable in its basic perameters.

You could argue that since the French only got grapes from the Phonecians or Greeks that their wine must be inferior and less authentic but you could also argue that there are traditional ways of making and serving French wine, many of which are no longer being followed by vintners in the Southwest, for example, which have a specificity that anyone learning about wine might feel behooved to investigate.

I'm totally fine with "authentic" as short-hand descriptor of the thing that a usually over-salted, over-sugared, cheap, yet still bland, more expensive, and gross thing imitates.

"Sushi as we know is is about 60 years old"

"McDonald's Big Mac is older than both ramen and sushi as we know them today"

But: The first Big Mac was created in 1968.

ne way whats really irritating abt the use of 'authenticity' is this idea like... "oh if ppl only had authentic chinese food they would all love it" or "o well u dont hate italian food uve never had AUTHENTIC italian food"

i'm not fine with anything that hacks "authentic" to mean "good"

ugh

im also not fine with the word "hack" used in that way fwiw

"o well u dont hate prefer italian food to mexican food uve never had AUTHENTIC italian mexican food"

^^^worst moment in ILE poll history fwiw

words should not hack one another

Most of my beef with 'inauthenticity' stems from a fundamental lack of understanding of what a foodstuff is 'supposed' to taste like in the large context of a cuisine (like how, in 'Big Night', all their American customers want big bowls of easily appreciated pasta when, for them, it is a course amongst many) and also with inferior ingredients and sub-par substitutions. When I was a kid, you had to make some French dishes with sour cream - there wasn't any crème fraiche and they are different.

sorry i used hack guys

is it wrong that I have a strong, palpable desire to brutally murder whenever I see the words "crème fraiche"

I think looking for authentic food differs depending on whether the food is your own culture's, or someone else's culture. Like, this weekend I was in Sevilla with a guy from Galicia, and he thought I was kinda silly for ordering pulpo tapas there, because really, he said, you should only eat pulpo in Galicia. Similarly, he thought eating paella anywhere but Valencia was a little odd. Evidently the "best" places to have paella in Madrid use only water brought from Valencia to cook the rice (grown of course in the vicinity of Valencia). Now my friend is seeking authenticity in his pulpo but that's different from *me* being all like "I only eat pulpo in Galicia". Maybe I'll prefer the Sevilla version!

I feel I owe to a culture to not just love pizza but find out how they eat pizza, maybe at what season, amongst what class of people, on what occasion, with what other dishes and what drinks. It's okay to be a dilletante, I guess, but why NOT explore further?

it's almost as much of a trigger as "balsamic reduction"

also feel free to explore, I'll just be over here eating

yeah but m. white that's a luxury of time money and energy that a lot of ppl don't have

why not just eat food and enjoy how it tastes

"yum, this food is enjoyable. and yet i don't care about the socio-historic conditions in which it was prepared."

cad I think it's as much a luxury of attention, which a lot of people don't want to spend on food

it's definitely kind of a show me, don't tell me proposition--if some v. traditional preparation or whatever is realize awesome, then i'll enjoy myself! but being like "oh that's how they do it in whatever section of spain" gets a big don't give a fuck from me.

*really awesome

I guess for me, I've spent enough of my life being fetishized as an example of The Curious Other that someone coming up to me and asking "so how are you supposed to eat clam chowder" is going to get a curt "with a spoon you fucking dumbass" response and I presume that other people feel the same way, ergo unless someone is offering advice on how to eat/prepare a dish or I am genuinely baffled by my meal (like for example, was I supposed to eat the crispy head of the toasted fish I was served in Japan? I don't know but I did and it was yummy), I'm going to shut the fuck up and eat.

Places with deeper roots than we have in America tend to be very regionalistic. If you want flammkucher in Nice, both the Alsatians and the Provençals would look at you funny. Sure, you can get currywurst in Frankfort or Philly cheese sandwiches in SF, and they might be both delicious and 'not authentic' but Berlin and Philly do have a kind of right to claim them. Just like French bread in SF is distinctly not French but it's very SF, regardless of the name.

i mean they can claim them all they want, and they should! but i just don't think most people are going to be worried about that stuff most of the time when they just want something good to eat. and i don't think there's anything wrong with that.

"yum, this food is enjoyable. and yet i don't care about the socio-historic conditions in which it was prepared."

It's a fool's errand to fetishize something as basic as eating good food, but why NOT explore if that's your bag. It is mine, so what's the problem. Eat what you want and let me have my way of eating.

hope there's food left for you by the time you finish exploring, because the rest of us can be some hungry motherfuckers

i'm not saying you have to agree with me Michael--I was merely stating my position, just as you have stated yours.

it's funny because in a sense i'm pro-consumerism in that it's hilarious, but foodieism is conspicuous consumption masquerading as something else and it disgusts me.

no one on here is being a foodie jerk, obv.

I am not claiming that I am not a bit odd, btw, but it's how I found out about other culture and foods and I came from a really bland background.

i'm also sensitive to the fact that if i spent a lot of time in another country i would probably end up sharing their thoughts on these issues, but right now i just can't.

i agree w/ michael btw but i still think equating authenticity with quality is fuccin dum

I think that, to go by your example, knowing that the best cheesesteaks come from Philly doesn't make every other cheesesteak from everywhere else gross and inedible be definition, and that is why that particular brand of authenticity-hunting is a total non-starter for me.

I don't really care about the socio-historic conditions of the cafeteria corndogs I've eaten, but I'm pretty sure an investigation into that will reveal why they taste so gross compared to "authentic" corndogs.

I feel I owe to a culture to not just love pizza but find out how they eat pizza, maybe at what season, amongst what class of people, on what occasion, with what other dishes and what drinks. It's okay to be a dilletante, I guess, but why NOT explore further?

i don't get how that is any less dilettantish than not 'exploring further'? you can know a bunch of things about the archetypal way of enjoying pizza, you can probably perform a reasonable approximation of how-the-archetype-eats-pizza, but it'd still be a performance of how a partly-imaginary cultural archetype does a thing. Loving pizza as part of your own life seems less dilettantish to me.

xposts

cafeteria corn dogs can be awesome

As I said above, I'm totally down w/experience as experience. When I was in Vienna a couple of years ago with a Bosnian refugee ex-pat who had spent some time in Israel, he took my gf and me to a shawerma place run by a grumpy old Israeli that was so good we went back and ate dinner there a few night later since we couldn't get the taste out of our minds.

also i would venture a guess that there's a huge overlap problem re: "authenticity" and "fresh, high-quality, non-processed ingredients" in how ppl talk about this stuff

Sometimes the authentic version of a food is very, very different than the popularized version of it, and whether the original is better or not, it's fair to say that you haven't really tried some food if you haven't had the authentic version.

"cafeteria corn dogs can be awesome"

only as a weapon!

Sometimes the authentic version of a food is very, very different than the popularized version of it, and whether the original is better or not, it's fair to say that you haven't really tried some food if you haven't had the authentic version.

agreed.

yeah, I think a good point is that people who fetishize authenticity in cultures other than their own (no one itt as far as I can tell) are trying to borrow something "authentic" for their own lives, to "ground" themselves somehow. It's not really about how good things taste.

lords of hyrule, let's just say that if you're Italian and I take you to your first baseball game, you're going to be invited to have a dog, maybe some peanuts, I'll encourage you to get up during the 7th inning stretch, etc...

People like sharing their culture, especially what they prize about it, and I feel cussed not trying that, especially as an American.

fyi lords of hyrule, if you are Italian and I take you to your first baseball game, I am clearly suffering from a fever and should be rushed to the hospital because I hate baseball

I also feel that American food has been degraded by a nexus of govmt and industry over a very long period and many of the dishes that were brought here by immigrants were not only looked down upon for awhile but also had to be made with increasingly worse ingredients. When I look at the glowing future the 50's in America saw in white bread, TV dinners and frozen food, I shudder.

I admit to living as you describe, Monsieur White, but I admit it's because I don't have much in my own background to be crowded out; or else I feel like the other things have plenty of space for growth or change. Plus I think it's really fun to know a lot about other cultures and food is great and so why not learn a lot about other culture's foods? I guess I'm kinda the same with music: I want great tunes but I also want to see the world through other people's eyes.

sure, michael but who's to say that's a more authentic american experience than eating a chicken parm sub at a pizza joint and then going bowling? the problem isn't the experience, it's the idea that a single experience can be singularly "authentic."

authentic hyrule never has italians in it.

you know, i have only seen baseball in Japan, and i dunno if that was "authentic" baseball or what but it was certainly an experience.

Sometimes the authentic version of a food is very, very different than the popularized version of it,

For this, I spent an entire day miserably under criticism for not knowing what an "authentic" Balkan moussaka was.

sure, michael but who's to say that's a more authentic american experience than eating a chicken parm sub at a pizza joint and then going bowling?

I'm down with that. I might not like it but I'll fucking try. It might just be an authentic Mr. Que esperience but I'll assume that you live here, you know what you like and it's good and fun.

ctrl-f "any food that has been discussed on ilx"

What we should do a thread on is 'inauthentic food' that we prefer.

Sometimes the authentic version of a food is very, very different than the popularized version of it, and whether the original is better or not, it's fair to say that you haven't really tried some food if you haven't had the authentic version.

does the converse of this apply - are there things where you have to try the popularized version to say that you really know that food?

i was just thinking- i don't know if authentic/inauthentic applies here, but i went for dim sum with some friends the other day and they were raving about the steamed char siu buns so i took them round the corner straight after to get baked char siu buns just for, you know, balance.

Actually that kind of seems like you wanted to show them that you knew better than they did, and it cuts down the thing they were so excited about. "You think those are good? Let ME show YOU..."

What we should do a thread on is 'inauthentic food' that we prefer.

Taco Bell and White Castle for-fucking-ever (until my digestive system explodes)

One thing I know I don't want when I'm abroad is for someone to take me to Burger King or Shakey's Pizza 'cause that's my 'home culture'.

Ha ha, that's awesome, hyrule. Which did they prefer?

also I like McDonald's and Burger King hamburgers more than almost any type of restaurant/boutique-style burger you can name

and when I am in a foreign country, I never ever want to eat at American restaurants because that is not why I'm there

Yeah but laurel that could also be construed as a good thing.

why not just eat food and enjoy how it tastes

― Mr. Que, Thursday, March 25, 2010 2:56 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"yum, this food is enjoyable. and yet i don't care about the socio-historic conditions in which it was prepared."

― Mr. Que, Thursday, March 25, 2010 2:57 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

That's totally fine, dude. In turn, why do you have an issue with people who view food differently? Yes, people can be pretentious d-bags about it, but that doesn't mean you have to summarily reject anyone with a similar viewpoint.

i agree w/ michael btw but i still think equating authenticity with quality is fuccin dum

Agree with this, too. Maybe you should wait til someone, y'know, actually does this before twisting of the panties commences?

Dan, I kind of can't eat BK and McD's 'cause of all the salt, plus I'm a mustard not a ketchup freak, but w/o a doubt my favorite burger memories are all at someone's home or at bbqs.

many xposts:

In Philadelphia, cheese steaks can have Cheese Whiz or provolone cheese on them. It varies from vendor to vendor. I prefer provolone, personally, although I would not turn down a cheese steak with Whiz if somebody were to bring one to me here in Chicago.

i do prefer the baked ones and i am kind of a dick, so you're probably right, Laurel. :/

Michael: i think the balance fell on the side of steamed buns? more buns for me~.

In turn, why do you have an issue with people who view food differently? Yes, people can be pretentious d-bags about it, but that doesn't mean you have to summarily reject anyone with a similar viewpoint.

i don't feel like i've "rejected" anyone with a similar viewpoint, and if i did, that was not my intention. just stating my preferences.

I am fully mindful of the thing that Shasta was pointing out above, too, that cuisines evolve and you can't step in the same river twice, blah, blah, blah. The champagne that made the Widow Clicquot famous and rich was way too sweet for my taste but they loved it in the early 19th century.

hey max did you know mexican is really a FUSION CUISINE????

Does anyone whose had both prefer the "good-for-you" veggie-oil McDonald's fries to the lard ones?

oops, who the hell are you arguing with? your shadow?

It's not cheese whize and I will admit to being a kind of cheese snob but there's a bar I used to go to that served that Cracker Barrel soft cheddary shit, God knows what it's called and I used to eat that with Ritz crackers and exult. Last night my very foody gf and neighbor made old school tacos and loved them not just for nostalgic reasons; crispy taco shells, shredded iceberg, ground beef, grated cheddar, taco sauce, diced tomato, black olives, etc... It was authentic, old school, White-people tacos.

Agree with this, too. Maybe you should wait til someone, y'know, actually does this before twisting of the panties commences?

― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Thursday, March 25, 2010 4:23 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

can you get it through yr head that no one was talking about people in this thread

c sharp major thank you for making me think for a second that everyone was talking about the cuisine in legend of zelda

which I imagine to heavily rely on chickens

lol

starting now anyone who uses the word "authentic" on this thread is getting a suggest ban from me

― max, Thursday, March 25, 2010 11:45 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ne way whats really irritating abt the use of 'authenticity' is this idea like... "oh if ppl only had authentic chinese food they would all love it" or "o well u dont hate italian food uve never had AUTHENTIC italian food"

― max, Thursday, March 25, 2010 2:49 PM (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

That's what I'm referring to.

i have had the worst tacos in the world, and they live in Dublin.

Did u get them at one of these joints? (*shudders*):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/5a/Abrakebabra.jpg/280px-Abrakebabra.jpg

The worst tacos (& Mexican in general) I've had, BY FAR, came from those Chinese taco stands in Brooklyn, Yummy Taco in Greenpoint in particular. I did not know it was possible to fuck up a simple taco so badly.

lol angry taco

brooklyn is odd because it's not unusual to have chinese people making your mexican food and mexican people making your chinese food.

that's like every large East Coast city from my experience

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/authentic

Anyway repping for pizza as the asnwer to this, you're wrong. There's no way in the world that the answer to this is not curry. The shit they serve up in yer standard British eight-pints-and-a-vindaloo curry house is, uniformly, the worst restaurant food possibly anywhere in the world.

And the shit I have been served masquerading as curry in both New York and Paris is just as bad in different ways.

Actually there may be some attempts at Mexican food that are as bad, but I generally avoid Mexican food on the grounds of it being shite in this country.

hmm i've not had any bad curry experiences that come close to either bad pizza or bad fryups tbh

Have been for a couple of curries in the US and they ask you how hot you want your dish! I don't know about "authentic" curry but my instinct was to be VERY suspicious of this. Both times were ok in their own way but definitely lacked something. Not as bad as shitty pizza either.

they ask you how hot you want your dish!

Wait, where do they not do this?!?? And how do you keep it from being inedibly spicy for your tastes??

You choose a dish whose ingredients make it mild, like korma, or hot, like vindaloo. Usually (UK) there will be some indication on the menu of if it's hot, mild, or medium, but "medium" varies an awful lot.
Anyone tried a 'mild' vindaloo? Curious...

I've been to British curry houses, usually in provincial times, when a medium curry pretty much burns your face off and tastes of nothing other than hotness. I think a lot of them don't even try.

(The good ones obviously are sublime)

max sooo otm in this thread

once went through a capsaicin junkie phase of ordering nothing but phalls...this policy did not last long

I had some terrible curry pizza recently. It wasn't very authentic. Glad I did not order the meat version.

curry is so plastic, really rank "meat curries" are guaranteed a priori. wondering if the tragedy of a bad example is magnified to me cuz I love curry so much, but I guess that applies for all examples.

i agree w/ michael btw but i still think equating authenticity with quality is fuccin dum

― max, Thursday, March 25, 2010 3:05 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

It's not so much dumb as a lazy shortcut. Authenticity almost always means that the food maker loves what they're making, has respect for the food and their customers, and for the culture from which it came. (All of which doesn't mean that they are slaves to tradition for its own sake.) Usually, but NOT always, this results in higher quality than your median foodery. Conversely, often those who pay no regard to authenticity are strictly in it to make money, have no love of the food or their customers, will take any shortcut or make any substition to save a lil $. This can, but NOT always result in boring or substandard quality food.

doesn't any authenticity debate eventually involve traveling to the origin of the authentic food in question? not everybody can do that, though, can they? so, then the person who is able to travel tells the person who isn't that they have never had "real" such-and-such, and then this really turns into an issue of travel instead of food. and then I am thinking about this and am tempted to start a poll involving Foodies vs. Globe Trekkers.

nah all it really takes is one dude/dudette in your town that can caook and who's from or spent a fair amount of time in a particular place.

though maybe you're saying there's still no real way to know for sure if something is authentic unless you yourself have been to the place?

Someone made the comparison of people caring about originality in music. I get that there's a whole history of people who care about originality looking down on people who don't, and thus the whole anti-rockism thing came about. But to look down on everyone that DOES care bout originality, people for whom originality makes the (music-listening)experience richer to them, is just as douchey. (obv caveat being that those people who do care aren't looking down on you for not caring)

though maybe you're saying there's still no real way to know for sure if something is authentic unless you yourself have been to the place?

I don't necessarily feel that it is the case, but I do think it's sort of the ultimate trump card in an authenticity debate. With your music example, all a person has to do is go find the original music in question - without ever leaving your computer. For food, you either have to be able to afford to jump on a plane or take someone's word for it that some local place is just like they serve it in Saigon or wherever.

ppl very concerned about any aspect of their food obviously trying harder than most others, but I don't think the majority of good food is made by ppl concerned with authenticity. it only really works as a shorthand for "ppl who care about food" and lots of ppl do that without being especially interested in authenticity.

"Authenticity almost always means that the food maker loves what they're making, has respect for the food and their customers, and for the culture from which it came."

YES! I did not feel this authenticity coming from rice krispy treats made with GRAPE NUTS! It fails to meet each of those criteria.

those must be some pretty filling rice krispy treats

it filled me with sadness mostly.

an authentic, if unoriginal reaction

I will be just a bit globe-trottery douchey to point out that many regional cusines are very region-specific. There's a local French baker, for example, who bought a flour mill just so he could stop importing flour and mill wheat to his specifications, specs that didn't exist in the U.S. prior to that. What about the specificity of Norman apples or whatnot? As I've mentioned before translating seafood names from English to french is helpful but flawed inasmuch as the eponymous creatures can be quite different in different places.

http://www.menshealth.com/MensHealth/Media/Frindlys.jpg

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3058/2643623745_3c6c626ed7.jpg

Asian Nachos
Crispy Fried Wontons Covered with Chicken in a Sweet-Hot Peanut Sauce. Topped with Wasabi Cream and Melted Cheese

would try

Local place has:
Crab Rangoon pizza
crab rangoon base, surimi, green onion, asiago and mozzarella, topped with crispy egg roll strips and sweet chili sauce

It is delicious

http://www.wumarkus.com/images/hamdog.JPG

I dunno, I haven't eaten at this place (yet), but the menu gives...pause

e.g.

La Pizza Mexicaine
Reblochon: Crème fraîche, Lardons, Reblochon, Fromage, Oignon

When I read the thread title I took "atrocities" to be meant literally rather than figuratively. My first thought was: roasted breast of passenger pigeon.

thinking of it that way, the French munching down dodos on Mauritius would also count

sugar

sugar! dlh otm x 1000

that pizza doesn't seem very mexican to me, but i don't see what's so shocking about it. am i missing an ingredient? its cream, cheese and onions, right?

Assumed that it was the total un-Mexicanness that made it weird. I kind of believe that non-French/non-colonial food in France is uniformly awful.

lardons = bacon, reblochons = ??

http://www.reblochon.fr/

(it's a kind of cheese)

Risotto surely

Caprese, nicoise, bruschetta too

Yeah it's just french takes on Mexican are nuts, like that's just a normal if sorta weirdish french pizza, what's it have to do with Mexican food

fair enough. would gladly eat this pizza tho!

Yeah it sounds good!

Worst pizza atrocity I ever experienced was when my hosts brought me to what I assume was a rather pricey "Western" restaurant in China. My best guess was that the chef had had pizza described to him once but he had never tasted or even seen one irl. It's not that it was inauthentic that bothered me (iirc the dough was sweet and the cheese was underneath the tomato sauce), more that it tasted really really bad.

Ordering pizza in Asia is a real game of Russian roulette ime. Had some perfectly decent ones there, but my god the bad ones are bad.

I'm eating the most disgusting 'sweet chilli chicken noodles' imaginable atm so I nominates that

thinking of it that way, the French munching down dodos on Mauritius would also count

Isn't this a misconception, and it was actually the animals introduced to the island (swine & cats iirc) that did for the dodo? Apparently they weren't very tasty.

the restaurant I linked to in the latest revive has duck fajitas which tbh sound amazing

xp you're right about extinction from what I've heard. but apparently our taxidermy models of the dodo (like in the Natural History Museum in London, and in the Grande Galerie de l'Évolution in Paris) aren't known to be accurate b/c all that made it back on the boats were skeletons, b/c the hungry French scientists ate their meat. so we don't know how the birds carried themselves, since we never got muscled birds.

not really sure where to put this

http://www.gerlach-schaefer.de/Puppen/09-Wurstpuppe-Lena.jpg

it's german, so it fits on an atrocity thread very well

worst atrocities committed in the name of "dolls made out of tinned sausage"

http://idahoanfoodservice.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Hashbrown-Nachos-960x480.jpg

Hash brown nachos

Would eat.

I can't believe I spent a good part of my childhood thinking that canned pitted + sliced olives were the most gourmet delicacy ever.

That said, apart from the inferior olives, that looks tasty.

I would too and really it's the name that rankles.

that looks dope, but ewww black olives.

More canned black olives for me.

the local "irish pub" serves "irish nachos" over potato chips

Reminds me of a very similar, if probably superior, dish from the mission restaurant in san diego

PAPAS LOCO 8.50
Rosemary potatoes, grilled jalapeños, black beans, cheese, avocado slice and sour cream
With two scrambled eggs Add 1.75

Would still eat.

That sounds great

I want that right now

should be papas locas though smh

Place in noe valley does an 'Irish breakfast' which is close to a full English but has some kind of salsa. I don't think that's meant to be the Irish bit though.

i had "breakfast enchiladas" (chicken enchiladas w/ eggs and black beans on the side) yesterday and although i didn't eat most of the tortillas or beans, it was quite good.