A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s • Hacker News Board

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#141

Post by alistairSH » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 11:54 AM UTC

p1necone wrote: post #55

Rodeoclash wrote: post #8

> We’re sure bananas would be fine served as a vegetable, or with bacon, but this is certainly not the role we would assign to them today. At least in Melbourne, Australia and Wellington, New Zealand it's not unusual at all to find pancakes or waffles with banana + maple syrup and bacon together. https://lastappetite.com/pancakes-at-fandango/amp/

Cooked green bananas (both actual plantains, and just unripe regular bananas) are used as starchy sides in a lot of cultures (mostly South America, Africa and the Caribbean afaik).

I have fond memories of tostones(literally translates as toasted, but actually twice-fried) plantains from college.

Long-time friend and then-roommate is Panamanian so we ate them frequently as an appetizer before (usually) a pork main.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#142

Post by shaky-carrousel » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 12:07 PM UTC

I was reading the article and I was thinking over and over how enjoyable was reading it. I even continued reading it after having a pause because I got distracted by something else (something that almost never happens).

Then I remember how "monetized" (meaning ad-ridden) articles are full of filler to artificially keep you on the page. And reloaded the page without ad-blockers. And there it was, the page has no ads. And that's why the content is good, and engaging, and a pleasure to read.

So not only ads are a source of malware, but also of badly written articles. I want the person writing the article be focused on the quality of what they write, not on the amount of words they can cram. I would very much prefer an internet with less content than an internet with shitty content sponsored by shitty ads. And I would really pay for a search engine which allowed me to filter out ad-ridden websites.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#143

Post by dalbasal » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 12:07 PM UTC

jotm wrote: post #78

dalbasal wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like confit. The meat is often salted a little before cooking. Stored in cellar/refrigerator, it keeps a long time. You can also buy canned confit duck. Can be eaten straight from the jar, buy delicious and crispy when (re)cooked.

Oh yeah, so it is! Finally learned the word for that mystery food :D

:) Final tip.

The lard or (even better) duck fat used to preserve the meat can indeed be used like butter. But, by far, the best use of the fat is roast potatoes.

Parboil peeled (preferably floury) potatoes. Whole or cut works. Àdd fat. Jiggle around in a pot to rough up the outside of the spuds. There is no such thing as too much fat, use it all. Roast until crispy and golden brown... 30 to 90 minutes depending on heat and specifics of the potato.

Serve with butter, gravy, onions, sour yogurt, etc.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#144

Post by tpush » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 12:07 PM UTC

VoodooJuJu wrote: post #139

camhart wrote: post #46

I can't stand "normal" milk from the US... the stuff you buy in the plastic cartons. It taste horrid. Milk from Germany? I love it. Milk from Darigold in the paper cartons? I love it. Milk from Darigold in the plastic? Tastes like garbage. Organic milk in a paper carton? Some is good, some taste like garbage. I didn't realize how different milk tastes until I spent some time in Germany. Prior to that I just thought I…

There are a lot of factors that go into milk and its taste. There's: pasteurized (most American milk), homogenized, ultra-pasteurized or UHT (which most German milk probably is), raw milk, how quickly it was cooled-down, cream content, and then there's the variance between dairies based on things such as breed, feed, time of year, quality of life, etc. We can't accurately make blanket statements about one country's m…

> [...] ultra-pasteurized or UHT (which most German milk probably is) [...]

In Germany there's a difference between fresh milk (pasteurized & homogenized) which is sold refrigerated and "H-Milch" which is UHT and sold unrefrigerated.

Most people buying milk to drink get the fresh stuff. It also tastes much much better IMO than the UHT milk.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#145

Post by randallsquared » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 12:12 PM UTC

helpfulmandrill wrote: post #102

Reading some of the stuff people used to eat, I have a really hard time understanding how obesity is worse today than back then.

Given how much agricultural productivity has improved, I wonder if these descriptions of meals are more aspirational than everyday.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#146

Post by kaesar14 » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 12:12 PM UTC

helpfulmandrill wrote: post #107

Wohlf wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Larger portion sizes, more snacking, much less manual labor. Only the wealthy were obese back then.

But it says that soldiers were fed 4000 to 5000 calories. Sounds pretty hard to exercise enough to burn that off.

Can’t imagine fighting a war of annihilation being as hard of work as being a high school athlete?

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#147

Post by exfascist » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 12:21 PM UTC

camhart wrote: post #46

I can't stand "normal" milk from the US... the stuff you buy in the plastic cartons. It taste horrid. Milk from Germany? I love it. Milk from Darigold in the paper cartons? I love it. Milk from Darigold in the plastic? Tastes like garbage. Organic milk in a paper carton? Some is good, some taste like garbage. I didn't realize how different milk tastes until I spent some time in Germany. Prior to that I just thought I…

I live and the US and have noticed the milk from the "nicer" grocers like Whole Foods and Farm Fresh tastes absolutely awful but the stuff from Food Lion etc in the HDPE jugs with the minimal labeling tastes way better. I don't know why that is.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#148

Post by orthoxerox » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 12:21 PM UTC

ufo wrote: post #120

Is milk being on every relief menu a sign that people had a derranged love for milk? Or just the strength of the milk lobby?

People ate less meat/poultry back then. Dairy and eggs were the most common sources of animal fats and protein.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#149

Post by AlgorithmicTime » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 12:27 PM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #51

camhart wrote: post #46

I can't stand "normal" milk from the US... the stuff you buy in the plastic cartons. It taste horrid. Milk from Germany? I love it. Milk from Darigold in the paper cartons? I love it. Milk from Darigold in the plastic? Tastes like garbage. Organic milk in a paper carton? Some is good, some taste like garbage. I didn't realize how different milk tastes until I spent some time in Germany. Prior to that I just thought I…

Even milk from the same dairy tastes radically different in plastic than paper. I always hated plastic milk as a kid. Nobody else seemed to notice the difference though. I sometimes wonder if there’s only a small subset of the population that can notice it.

No post body was provided.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#150

Post by mauvehaus » Thu, Apr 07, 2022, 12:38 PM UTC

technothrasher wrote: post #123

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s entirely possible, most artificial sweeteners have a chemical taste to me and if I consume them it unsettles my stomach for a couple hours. My mother is the only other person I’ve encountered with the same condition. My father and brothers can’t tell the difference. I can ingest real sugar and corn syrup without issue, but they taste very different to me. I discovered sodas made with real sugar about ten years a…

When the "Mexican" coke started making a splash as "better than American", Coke tested it blind with taste testers and came to the conclusion that there was no perceptible difference, and that the glass bottle makes more difference than the cane sugar vs HFCS (The whole point of HFCS is to be formulated to contain the same amount of glucose and fructose as cane sugar). Many other folks then performed tests (of better…

Come Passover, all Coke in the stores is cane sugar (so I'm told). I don't drink much Coke, and if you put two glasses in front of me, I'm pretty confident that I could tell you whether they're the same sweetener or different. I'll notice the switch at the beginning and end of Passover. Since I'm not Jewish, and since Passover moves around, I'll claim this is close enough to a blind test.

For my money the elusive perfect Coke comes from a soda fountain that's adjusted just so. Couldn't tell you what's different, but some just nail the perfect carbonation level and syrup ratio. When I find one, I usually have three or four in rapturous joy, because it'll be months before I find one again.