Debunking the Myth of the National Dish • Hacker News Board

Re: Debunking the Myth of the National Dish

#31

Post by mahogany » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 6:34 PM UTC

WirelessGigabit wrote: post #27

submain wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bread is indeed different nowadays, specially in the americas. Modern wheat was "invented" by Norman Borlaug in the 60s. It was genetically modified (through breeding and other means) to provide higher yield. Some places, like Italy and France, still use the old low yield "original" wheat. I learned this painful lesson when I thought I had gluten allergy. I can't eat any kind of bread in the US. But when I went to Fr…

Bread in the USA is an abomination. There. I said it. Any bread in the normal isle that you can buy and have on your counter for over a week, where it still looks and feels and tastes the same is an abomination. It is not bread. It is a super-processed food which makes you initially feel full but digests very rapidly, leaving you hungry again. 100 calories of engineered US bread compared to 100 calories of steel cut…

> I remember going to an actual bakery in Belgium, you know, the guy who wakes up at 3AM to make bread. Get a fresh bread. Still warm. If you leave it on the counter for 2 days it is rock hard. Because it is unprocessed (or at least a lot less).

> I guess we have to thank Kroger for putting the bakeries in the US out of business.

While I agree with you about typical bread found in US grocery stores, there are plenty of small bakeries in the US that make "real" bread. Every city or even decently-sized town that I've been in had a least one solid bakery with bread/pastries/etc baked fresh every day. Find them and support them!

Re: Debunking the Myth of the National Dish

#32

Post by jterrys » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 6:41 PM UTC

WirelessGigabit wrote: post #27

submain wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bread is indeed different nowadays, specially in the americas. Modern wheat was "invented" by Norman Borlaug in the 60s. It was genetically modified (through breeding and other means) to provide higher yield. Some places, like Italy and France, still use the old low yield "original" wheat. I learned this painful lesson when I thought I had gluten allergy. I can't eat any kind of bread in the US. But when I went to Fr…

Bread in the USA is an abomination. There. I said it. Any bread in the normal isle that you can buy and have on your counter for over a week, where it still looks and feels and tastes the same is an abomination. It is not bread. It is a super-processed food which makes you initially feel full but digests very rapidly, leaving you hungry again. 100 calories of engineered US bread compared to 100 calories of steel cut…

I remember my first trip to Germany, would pick up off the shelf supermarket bread, white, wheat, whatever. It was great. Especially pretzels. I ate so much bread, and was surprised at how much regularly I was still pooping. I'm not even going to touch on local bakeries, because that shit was fucking fantastic.

But in the U.S, we're forced to be the slaves of Metamucil to poop. Eat white bread here and you basically have cotton stuck up your ass. Good luck.

Re: Debunking the Myth of the National Dish

#33

Post by jterrys » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 6:42 PM UTC

causi wrote: post #7

1letterunixname wrote: post #2

Post 1550 as part of the Columbian interchange, the Old World owes these to the New: tomato, maize/corn, squash, peppers, chili pepper, cocoa, potato, sweet potato, avocado, vanilla, tobacco.[0] It would seem that although most staples and dishes are hundreds-thousands of years old (bread c. 30k BCE), what would qualify as modern pizza couldn't exist before the 16th c., although it arrived c. 18th-19th c. 0. https://…

Pizza predates the use of the tomato. The oldest mention of pizza in text is from 997 C.E.

Whats more interesting is how fish sauce or Garum fell out of favor.

Re: Debunking the Myth of the National Dish

#34

Post by Mordisquitos » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

neom wrote: post #30

Me: oh, I'm Canadian Them: don't know much about Canada, it's a friendly country. What is Canadian food? Me: uhm... French fries with cheese and gravy... Them: O.o

Don't forget the hyperglycemic ent blood.

Re: Debunking the Myth of the National Dish

#35

Post by Mordisquitos » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 6:51 PM UTC

CoastalCoder wrote: post #25

analog31 wrote: post #20

Great. Now I can make pizza any way I damn well want. And chili.

I believe it's spelled "Chile". (This is a pun. At least in my corner of the U.S., people typically pronounce "chili" and "Chile" the same way.)

Going off on a tangent, but still related to national cuisines, a few years ago Spanish speakers in the UK would find it hilarious how many restaurants and pubs would call their vegetarian alternative to chile con carne... wait for it... veggie con carne.

I haven't seen that term in the wild recently. I guess they eventually realised.

Re: Debunking the Myth of the National Dish

#36

Post by rombuu » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 6:55 PM UTC

anthk wrote: post #18

katbyte wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

older, at least 2000 years now https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/27/world/europe/pizza-mural-...

Dishes similar to pizza (bread with stuff on top) existed across all of the Mediterranean since forever. Back in the day people had no proper phyisical dishes (read: recipients) and they just ate food on top of bread slices.

Trenchers... but it was old bread and you didn't necessarily eat it. Or sometimes you gave it to the poor after your meal if you were being gregarious.

Re: Debunking the Myth of the National Dish

#37

Post by NoRelToEmber » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 6:57 PM UTC

hahaxdxd123 wrote: post #29

NoRelToEmber wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A modern falsehood. The concept of a nation is far older - it really should not come as a surprise that defining the in-group based on kinship is an ancient practice. That's what the word itself is derived from - the Latin word for birth, i.e. common birth. Only the scale has changed, and even that not as much as some like to claim: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation Even groups such as the Navajo fit perfectly wel…

Your links don't support your claims. Can you really claim that nationalism existed among the majority of people when those people were illiterate, had never traveled more than 10 miles outside their place of birth, and had never met someone who they could place outside their concept of their nation?

> Your links don't support your claims.

Adrian Hastings has claimed that England's Anglo-Saxon kings mobilized mass nationalism in their struggle to repel Norse invasions. He argues that Alfred the Great, in particular, drew on biblical nationalism, using biblical language in his law code and that during his reign selected books of the Bible were translated into Old English to inspire Englishmen to fight to turn back the Norse invaders. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation#Medieval_nations

This was in the 9th century. More than a millennium before that, Greek city states realized they had more in common with one-another than with the Persians, and organized along those lines in the Greco-Persian wars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Persian_Wars

Even Aristotle spoke on the importance of kinship: Also difference of race is a cause of faction, until harmony of spirit is reached; for just as any chance multitude of people does not form a state, so a state is not formed in any chance period of time. Hence most of the states that have hitherto admitted joint settlers or additional settlers have split into factions; - https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext...

> had never met someone who they could place outside their concept of their nation?

You mean like during a war? Or their cultural inheritance of history? The Jews for example have a ~3000 year tradition of passing down stories of their nation interacting with others, e.g. the story of Moses. Even someone who hadn't left their shtetl for generations would have heard tales of other nations, e.g. the Egyptians, growing up.

I'm sure you'll agree that though based on common birth, a nation is flexible - the neighbor you quarrel with becomes kin and ally when a larger threat from further away arrives. But that doesn't imply it's based on nothing, "culturally constructed" out of thin air. So your claim that people didn't travel much supports my argument, through the rootedness required for a nation to form.

Re: Debunking the Myth of the National Dish

#38

Post by nkozyra » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 7:00 PM UTC

mcphage wrote: post #21

causi wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pizza predates the use of the tomato. The oldest mention of pizza in text is from 997 C.E.

> Pizza predates the use of the tomato. What makes it pizza specifically at that point?

Yeah, I find the idea that a flattened leavened (maybe?) bread with something on top is "pizza" to be quite a stretch.

Re: Debunking the Myth of the National Dish

#39

Post by kcb » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 7:00 PM UTC

WirelessGigabit wrote: post #27

submain wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bread is indeed different nowadays, specially in the americas. Modern wheat was "invented" by Norman Borlaug in the 60s. It was genetically modified (through breeding and other means) to provide higher yield. Some places, like Italy and France, still use the old low yield "original" wheat. I learned this painful lesson when I thought I had gluten allergy. I can't eat any kind of bread in the US. But when I went to Fr…

Bread in the USA is an abomination. There. I said it. Any bread in the normal isle that you can buy and have on your counter for over a week, where it still looks and feels and tastes the same is an abomination. It is not bread. It is a super-processed food which makes you initially feel full but digests very rapidly, leaving you hungry again. 100 calories of engineered US bread compared to 100 calories of steel cut…

Most grocery stores have a "fresh" bread section where they're at least giving it the final bake in the store. Some grocery stores have quite competent bread selection.

Re: Debunking the Myth of the National Dish

#40

Post by bdowling » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 7:03 PM UTC

> In her latest book …, Anya von Bremzen goes on a multi-year quest … In the process, she “crushes” bowls of noodles with a ramen otaku in Tokyo, learns to make pasta puttanesca in a former brothel in Naples, and drinks ceremonial cacao at her own wedding in Oaxaca.

The primary purpose of a book like this seems to be so that the author can go on a tour around the world and write the costs off as a business expense. If the book sells well, that’s just gravy (pun intended).