Culinary Pet Peeves

[Darb]

WE'RE OUT OF XYZ:

I hate it when buffets, cafeterias, or restaurants run out early of their primary entree du jour. It's one thing to run out if a whole busload of out of towners drops in unexpectedly, but not on a normal day during the work week. That's just bad prep-planning.

Case in point: I went to the cafeteria for lunch today ... a normal work day, with good weather (many people eat in when it rains and go out to eat when the weather is good), and I went during the middle of lunch hour too. There should have been plenty of everything.

Today's primary entree was sausage & broccoli rabe ... and naturally they were out. All that was left was the salad bar, the deli counter, and some penne w/marinara.

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I ordered plain penne with marinara ... and paid the same price as if it were sausage & rabe. Oh, the horror.

[Aunflin]

I had something similar happen today at work. I made 120 orders of "Orange Cider Chicken" (I actually threw the recipe away because it tastes horrible, ommited the cider and made my own Orange chicken (the sauce: Orange juice, a bit of apple juice, some ground up whole oranges [rind included], brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, thyme, and salt and pepper to taste. For the chicken: I seasoned it with salt, pepper, garlic, onion, and thyme and baked it in the oven. I then poured the sauce on it, covered it and let it set in the warming oven for a while for the flavors to intermingle...) Anyway, my boss needed food for a special function, told me to use some of my Orange chicken. I said I needed to make more. She said, "You'll have enough. It's not a big seller." In reply, "Last time we sold all of it and I had to make more." "No you didn't. Don't make more." I grew quite irritated...and to prove a point, didn't make extra, though I know I should have. We ran out in an hour... I had to make more--one hundred orders more--even though it was going up against toasted ravioli, which always sells good here in St. Louis...

[Darb]

Mmmmm ... sounds tasty.

I do something similar with pork chops, lightly floured and seared, then braised in the bone until the sauce is thick & bubbly & caramelized, and the meat is fork tender. However, it's hard to do that sort of recipe in bulk.

Ok, and your boss definitely sounds like an out-of-touch twit.

[Darb]

Guests who cheat at BYOD Parties:

My foodie friends and I often throw themed BBQ or "Bring Your Own Dish" Parties in which everyone is asked to bring a homemade dish to share/discuss. Invariably, some guests ignore the directions and just hit a deli or store on the way there ... so they show up with tiny tub of tasteless generic deli salad glop, or a platter of cold cuts, or a faux-mexi salad (picture a tray into which the following are unceremoniously dumped & trowled out in layers: canned re-fried beans, jarred salsa, sour cream, canned sliced olives, kraft shredded cheese - classic trailer trash tex-mex cuisine), or an anemic shrimp platter featuring microscopic thawed pre-cooked shrimp that have long since had every last iota of flavor and texture boiled/frozen/thawed out of them. Ugh.

C'mon ... the WHOLE POINT of a homemade foods party is to bring/discuss homemade dishes.

It doesn't have to be fancy or complicated or expensive ... it just has to be homemade.

[mccormack44]

Brad

I tend to agree with you, but must confess that sometimes I DO buy (at the last moment). The cause is either

1.) Illness scotched the preparation plans.
2.) The dish absolutely FAILED to come out and there was no time to recoup. In the latter case, would you accept a "boughten" dish, plus the hard-luck story?

Sue

[Darb]

A good culinary hard-luck story is a fair wergeld for a murdered dish.

I've done that myself, on occasion.

[tollbaby]

or a faux-mexi salad (picture a tray into which the following are unceremoniously dumped & trowled out in layers: canned re-fried beans, jarred salsa, sour cream, canned sliced olives, kraft shredded cheese - classic trailer trash tex-mex cuisine)

ouch.... that's one of my favorite foods! I *always* bring that for bbq's at my parents' house, and it's a huge hit LOL Granted, it's not very creative and everybody's likely had it a million times... but it's SOOOOO yummy (one of my layers is half sour cream/half mayonnaise with an envelope of taco seasoning tossed in)... you also have to have a layer of lettuce, a layer of green onions... and I decoratively arrange fresh jalapeno slices on top of the shredded cheese (I don't do Kraft, I grate the damn cheese myself, and my salsa is never jarred).

[Darb]

Props to you for adding homemade salsa, jalapenos, and grating some gourmet cheese instead of using pre-bagged stuff. Yours is a better version of most examples I've seen.

Say, have you ever tried making your own fried corn tortilla chips ? They're fun, easy, and tasty.

Speaking of corn, one of the things I'm planning to do for my next kiddie BBQ is old fashioned kettle-style popcorn ... popped over a cajun cooker in a tall kettle, sans lid. It's fun to watch.

That's half the fun of homemade food parties - it's fun to learn stuff. Dumping stuff outta cans and jars, or deli containers, is completely anathema to the experience.

[Darb]

INCORRECT INGREDIENTS:
I hate it when cafeterias and restaurants use (either deliberately, or out of incompetence) low cost substitutes for key ingredients without telling you. Case in point - I just had a cafeteria spawned "lobster newberg" that contained no lobster whatsoever. It was made with surimi ... with a few middle necks and mussels tossed in.

They should have called it "Seafood Newberg".

[tollbaby]

yeesh. They wouldn't have been allowed to do that up here.... that's a health violation. Potential allergens MUST be clearly identified (as all forms of shellfish are). That could be pretty dangerous.

[Darb]

Oh, we have similar laws here ... including point of origin tagging for all shellfish, etc. My beef is with what they called the dish.

I should have clarified that I was actually able to see the dish in this case, before ordering it ... it was a hot buffet after all. I ordered it anyway, despite the label, because I was hungry. I just razzed them for the incorrect label.

Restaurants are a lot more stringent, where most are fairly meticulous about describing what's in their dishes, before you order it ... but they're not perfect. I hate places that claim to serve you lobster with drawn butter ... and they serve it with melted margarine instead, as if people can't tell the difference. Yeech.

Or they'll claim to serve you haricot vert ... and serve you fully grown green beans instead.

Or (and this one's very common) they'll claim to serve you chicken tenders ... and they'll cut "mock tenders" from the breast instead. Everyone, and I do mean everyone (myself included) abuses that term.

Or they'll claim to serve you "prime" tuna steak ... and when you cut into the pink part when it arrives, there's not an ounce of fat marbling anywhere to be seen, and the seared exterior is as dry as sawdust.

... grumble ... grumble ... grumble ...

Don't mind me - I just like to complain, in general.

[tollbaby]

Or they'll claim to serve you haricot vert ... and serve you fully grown green beans instead.

But .... *boggle*.... that's what "haricot vert" means!... "haricot vert" literally means "green bean"...

You know, it's not nice to confuse the poor French girl....

[Darb]

Ahh, but that's just it ... you're not the only one confused by the nuances of that term, both consumers and non-classically trained chefs alike.

In this country, "Haricot Vert" (despite the fact that it translates as simply "green beans") refers to premium tender baby green beans ... slender, tender-skinned, flawless, unblemished, hand picked, and usually grown in hot houses. It's an age/quality designation.

Regular green beans are just that - the run of the mill variety that're machine harvested en mass when they're full grown. They're usually larger, a bit tougher, not as sweet when cooked, and have blemishes.

Think tender baby zucchini vs larger, older examples that are starting to get tough and progressively more & more seedy, and you'll have the basic idea.

[tollbaby]

bloody English people.... in French, an haricot vert is an haricot vert, regardless of how young/old it is. *growl* and it's not an "In this country" distinction, it's an "in this language" distinction.

[Darb]

[mccormack44]

Tollbaby

I'm with you; I've mentioned elsewhere that I am so out of practice that I really don't have much knowledge of French anymore. But there are SOME places where I still think in French, and haricots vert is one of them. I see no reason for the U. S. to give this some special meaning.

But Brad may be right about "in this country." I'm ashamed of it, but I think we in the U. S. may do more willful damage to the meaning of words than any two other English speaking peoples in the world. And English lends itself so beautifully to this sort of thing that many, many English speaking people are contenders for this title. (As you're bilingual, you probably know this.)

Sue

[Darb]

I'm pretty sure that the issue of people taking liberties with the meaning of various words, both foreign and domestic, is not limited to America or English speaking peoples in general. It's probably universal, to varying degrees.

[Kvetch]

It may be universal to different degrees, but
1) That doesn't mean its a good thing
and
2) You Merkins are the worst.

As to green beans, over here I think that haricots vert is synonymous with green beens of every type - although you will come across as pretentious asking in French for green beans.

[tollbaby]

Okay, I wasn't entirely accurate earlier. The term "Haricot" refers to the bean pod, while the word "Fève" refers to the beans in the pod. But how far along they are never even enters the equation.

[Darb]

You Merkins are the worst.

I disagree - every culture has the language abuses.

For instance: my wife attended a rugby game in australia once, and she asked her friend (an elderly catholic priest) "which side are you rooting for ?", and the poor guy almost had a heart attack. He informed her, quite scandalized, that the word "rooting" was synonymous with sexual intercourse, in Australian English.

"Rooting", here in America, means "Cheering For / Hoping will win" ... it doesn't really mean foraging for weeds.

I've also heard tell that in the UK, "passing the crack" means having spirited and humorous conversation, whereas here in America, it means smoking rock-crystal cocaine.

Slang is universal.

[Darb]

Ok, back on topic.

WRITERS WHO ARE CULINARILY CLUELESS

I'm disappointed by writers who apparently don't know squat about basic cooking and non-native cuisines ... and campfire cuisine in particular. I mean come on, how many authors have you read in which food either isn't mentioned at all, or is essentially the same boring minimalistic primitive stuff the world over, no matter which country you're in ?

Tavern Fare:
* MEAT: It's invariably some generic non-descript spit-roasted haunch of meat.
* STARCH: Generic bread.
* DAIRY: Non-descript hard cheese.
* FRUIT: It's invariably apples, regardless of whether or not they're in season.

Totally boring, and woefully inadequate to the task of differentiating various different religions, culture, climates and seasons.

TRAIL/CAMPFIRE FARE:
* BREAKFAST: Erm, Eggs & Bacon ? Bacon is viable, but eggs ? No, I don't think so ... you need laying chickens or ducks for those, and unless you bring em, you ain't havin em. Also, most eggs encountered in the wild (if you can find them) usually have embryos in various stages of development. It's not pretty.
* MEAT: Either dried meat, chewed as is, or some non-descript critter, cut into strips and roasted on sticks: Rather unimaginative.
* STARCH: Invariably hard tack. Totally and completely unimaginative.

Ditto above - woefully inadequate. How about porridge from dried grains ? How about soups or stews, from dried meat and wild onions/herbs/mushrooms ? How about seeing people forage for wild berries, wild greens, edible plants & nuts & seeds & roots ? Freshly caught fish ? More detailed accounts of hunting, dressing wild game, and (in general) foraging in the wild, please !

I've yet to encounter an author who takes such things seriously, and does them proper justice.

[Kvetch]

The point I'm making and the point you are making are different.

I'm saying that adapting/restricting/expanding the meaning of words ("taking liberties") that have well defined meanings is not good (in most cases at least) - discriminate for example has lost it's neutrality - in general usage you can only discriminate against (bad) instead of discriminate between (neutral), and I dislike this trend.
I'm not saying that it isn't inevitable - I think it is, but I think you should work to maintain the richness of language, not work ellide it into simpler and simpler forms - that way the usages that come into comman usage are stress tested as it were.

The above should of course be considered separately from my statement that Americans are the worst for this sort of linguistic decay.


Slang, however, is of its nature culture-centric, and can cause confusion between people inexperienced in the lingo (I still wince when natives of Yorkshire tell me they will knock me up in the morning ... ). This is true of any culture, and isn't inherently a bad thing (however embarassing/confusing) - and neither is it taking liberties with the meanings of words, since the primary meaning is usually not lost, and in many cases the slang/dialect word is a new coinage anyway.

Interesting, rooting has all three meanings you gave in British English, each generally accepted (at least to my aquaintances), although none of the meanings are common (except among pig farmers and (association) football commentators).

Crack is an example of parallel evolution - the meaning do not have the same root.
According to a recent discussion on usenet (with all that entails), the most common explanation of crack-the-good-time is an anglicisation of the gaelic craic, which has a similar meaning (or something like that - the argument got pretty complex), which is not connected linguisticly to crack-cocaine-the-drug, despite the same spelling and pronuciation

[tollbaby]

I've yet to encounter an author who takes such things seriously, and does them proper justice.

Jean Auel?

Oh, and most romance novelists do a pretty good job of this as well, especially the western or historical romances

[Darb]

Although I didn't state it explicitly, I was primarily complaining about Fantasy & SciFi authors ... but I'll concede the point that writers in the western and romance genres generally tend to do a bit better, on average.

[mccormack44]

About use and misuse of language in general: I believe that Kvetch and I are on the same wavelength here. And his statement that we in the U. S. are the worst offenders is in agreement with me. So we have 1 (young) Brit and 1 U. S. (senior) citizen in agreement.

As far as authors and food are concerned: Is the food important, or merely a prop. If it's a prop and the general setting is outside the author's experience (foreign climes, made-up worlds, other times), then I think that the author has probably spent so much energy in getting the big picture correct that it doesn't occur to him/her to sweat the props.

But if the food is important, than Brad is correct; the author should use some imagination.

And, sometimes, importance isn't the food, but the attitude of the character to it. I remember a statement in George Rosel Brown's "Galactic Sybil Sue Blue" in which the heroine keys in the dinner into a food synthesizer and reflects that it takes a lot of skill to get the nutrients and the taste components balanced and pleasing. The meal isn't exactly important to the story, but it's a "new guy" situation and her reflection about the act tells us something about her character. (We own this book, and I really should go and look up the details; it's been years since I read this, so I may be somewhat wrong, but surely the basic idea is correct, I've referred to it often over the years, and Bob has never corrected me.)

Sue