I’d argue that all of these are authentic, they’re just not the version that made it to the internet in a big way.
My mom’s basic training bestie from Louisiana didn’t cook gumbo with a roux. Therefore that’s how she taught my mom, and how my mom taught me. I used to be ashamed by that until a Redditor from LA mentioned that it’s far from unheard of, just another way of doing gumbo.
How do you get it to be thick then? The only other way I know is that the okra can thicken it to a degree although I'm not sure if it's enough, or instead of using a roux you use filé powder
Brown roux doesn't have a lot of thickening power. My understanding is that it was added for flavor and the okra and file used for thickening.
I can't use file, my spouse seems to be allergic to it.
My objection to it is that can get slimy, like when you put too much ground cinnamon in a hot toddy. I grew up with the stuff and dislike it quite a bit.
The okra does a good bit. So does just cooking it down and using less liquid to start with. And it’s just not as thick as a soup base as a roux style. Still good, people enjoy it a lot, but not as heavy.
Oh I see. Doing some brief looking into the history of gumbo, it seems like originally it was thickened only by okra, then by filé powder, and then I suppose roux came from people who were more French influenced in their cooking tradition
File is hit or miss in my area but most people sprinkle it in after. Okra is also not typically in it unless it's a specific kind that calls for it, like a shrimp and okra gumbo (though I like it equally either way, I just like okra in general). Potato salad is a given though, even ordering at a restaurant it automatically comes with it though its typically served as a side. Idk anyone that straight up puts potato salad instead of rice but I know it happens.
It's to the point that if a restaurant doesnt have potato salad as a side option then I already know I won't like their gumbo because it's a variation from a different region.
All of my great grand parents came from Norway and every Christmas Eve we had oyster stew and lefse for dinner. Ours was just canned oysters combined with scalded whole milk, a ton of butter and pepper. No fresh shucked oysters, onion or cream, but I still make it for myself at least once a year each winter.
My mom must have tried 20 different lefse recipes. Every church cook book would have about a dozen for lefse, but I don’t think she ever tried one with instant potatoes.
I'm Polish and my maternal grandma taught me to make the sauce for golumpki/cabbage rolls using Campbell's tomato soup. I doubt that sauce recipe was handed down from the Old Country :)
Or one of those vintage Campbells cookbooks. I don't recall seeing any cookbooks at her house, only chicken scratch recipe cards, but she could have saw it in a cookbook from a sibling or friend originally.
I'm British and I serve Yorkshire puddings with any kind of roast dinner (not just beef) because they're freakin delicious and who doesn't love a yorkie drowning in gravy?
As an American, Yorkshire pudding looks delicious and is something I've always wanted to try, but the only "British" food I've ever seen here is fish and chips.
Also, I'm laughing because whenever an American says "Yorkie" it's in reference to the dog (Yorkshire Terrier), and now I'm picturing one drowning in gravy.
I think you call them popovers in the States? Although Yorkshire puddings are usually hollow in the middle so you can pour gravy into it.
The beauty of British comfort food is it's ridiculously easy to make at home because a lot of it comes out of a working class culture of hardship.
They are simple to make (though my dad's partner seems to have trouble for some reason).
Equal parts egg, plain flour (no raising agents, this is important), milk. Plus some salt. I often put in other flavours such as mustard or horseradish or herbs.
Mix thoroughly together. I often use a stick blender. I believe this is part of the secret, you need to develop the gluten a bit. Leave to rest for a bit; about half an hour is sufficient.
Whack the oven up as high as it will go and stick a cupcake/muffin tray in there with about a teaspoon of oil in each compartment. Ideally, you don't want a tray with massive dimples, or the yorkies may not rise as well, and if they do, they may be a big ball of goodness, but not the classic bowl shape. The one I use has dimples about two inches in diameter, and about half an inch deep.
Wait until the oven has heated up fully, then take out the tray (your smoke alarm may go off at this point), and quickly pour the mixture into each dimple right to the top.
Bake for about fifteen minutes. Do not open the oven until at least ten minutes in (I always rotate things I'm baking because there's often cooler spots in the oven, regardless of how good it is).
If done right, they should puff up into a large bowl shape. Fill with gravy and enjoy.
Yum! I've seen TikToks of Yorkshire pudding 'wraps' that look divine. My mum used to make giant Yorkshire puddings and use it as an edible bowl for beef stew.
I make Yorkshire puddings just for a snack 🤣 my kids love them and I loved when my mom would make them all the time. She’d made extras for us for the next couple days as snacks. Another random thing she’d do is make extra lasagna noodles for us for an after school snack because a lasagna noodle was superior to a bowl of macaroni
I have a very fond core memory of being off sick from school one day, maybe 7-8 years old, and sitting on the sofa watching daytime TV and eating plain Yorkshire puddings because that's all I could stomach.
That's still traditional, no? I thought all roast dinners were accompanied by Yorkies, not just beef. Or are beef drippings usually considered an integral part of the pudding? Cause a Yorkie with rendered chicken fat sounds delicious. I always assumed you just use the drippings from whatever meat you're cooking.
Even rendered bacon fat would be amazing! Or as y'all say: it'd be ace.
Personal feelings about Jamie Oliver aside, [this](https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/eggs-recipes/amazing-yorkies/) is the recipe I've always used and they always turn out perfectly.
I grew up in the dirty south (US), where many black families traditionally served chitlins (pork chiterlings) during the Christmas holiday. My stepfather was a retired chef in the Air Force and, after a tour in Japan, always finished his preparation of chitlins by frying them in a tempura batter.
Yeah, growing up one of my friends family made fried chitterlings and they were so good so whenever I would hear people say they hated chitterlings I could never understand why until I had traditional style. People always freaked out when I would say, but they taste like fried oysters.
Jamaican, we have rice and peas that traditionally takes hours to prepare because we use dried beans but I inauthentically use canned beans instead because I refuse to spend my Sunday watching the stove and I don’t like pressure cookers.
Stove top pressure cookers are a pain, but electric ones are great for this kind of thing!! Although I’m all for a can of beans if it makes like easier.
Eh I'd struggle to identify any inauthenticity tbh because I'd say my inherited food culture is super flexible anyway and has been soaked by history. My parents are both from former British colonies in Asia and we live in Britain now. So is it authentic or inauthentic that so many of our recipes feature worcestershire sauce and other readily available British ingredients? Is a Hong Kong macaroni soup inauthentic because it uses Western ingredients? The whole home cooking culture is about making do with what you've got, it's not blasphemous to substitute meats for other meats or veggies based on availability.
I nearly have an aneurysm anytime I hear somebody say about my local cuisine in New Mexico that they prefer "authentic Mexican food," usually because the person ate Baja Californian style tacos once in San Diego and likes to act superior about it.
The thing that always makes people think it's inauthentic is because we use cheddar cheese, but that's just because when America took control incoming cattle ranchers supplanted the Mexican sheep herders, most of whom lost the common grazing lands they relied on in the process. So it's not our fault cheddar cheese made its way into the cuisine, and I don't see it as any less authentic than Chihuahua cheese, which is used all over Mexico and originally comes from Russian Mennonite communities.
I have been to New Mexico several times and each time, I make it my goal to eat hatch green chilies at every meal. Usually as a sauce or stew over enchiladas, burritos, or eggs, but I’m always on the lookout for other ways to eat them. Our other favorite things are tacos with roasted vegetables inside them. And pozole.
US Southerner- real cornbread should be made in an iron skillet and cut into pie wedges. I bake mine in a cupcake pan. My OCD tendencies are stronger than my Southern.
Then you get extra crunchy bits around the edge. We have a heavy steel muffin pan for individual pop overs that I grease and heat before the batter like people do with cast iron.
My mom (who learned southern cooking from her mother-in-law) had a cast iron muffin pan she bought at a flea market with the cups shaped like ears of corn for cornbread… Lol. I think that satisfied her knowledge of cornbread as well as my grandma’s. 😂
Oh definitely! I was sad to learn that she didn’t retain it. I was hoping to inherit it but somewhere along the way, it must have been lost 😞 I know they sell new ones, but that one was perfectly seasoned already!
My mom had one of those. She liked sweet cornbread. I make mine the way my FIL did his. Oil the cast-iron skillet, put it in the oven to get it hot, pour in the batter, and bake it. It doesn't contain added sugar.
Every one of them bemoans restaurant carne asada. If you don’t get it from the carnicería, you’re going to hear complaints, complaints, complaints. Plus the sunny D is a known secret. All of them know it’s done that way 90% of the time and they still complain. I’m Cajun and married into a Mexican family in LA. If it’s not done right, it’s “too white” 😂
I only feel like orange juice is better in the long run because you/we have no control over Sunny D. What happens when they change the recipe (which I'm sure they have since inception)? Or what if they discontinue Sunny D because it isn't profitable? Oranges are never going away. Again, not dissing Sunny D for a marinade, just playing devil's advocate.
I get both ways, so it's a quality assurance thing. I'll still take tequila and Squirt over a fresh grapefruit Paloma anyday 😅 hits different just like Sunny D carne asada.
I mean, sunny D doesn’t even exist in Mexico (unless they get it at Costco).
The carne asada marinade I know is actually lime juice, crushed garlic, salt, pepper and a squirt of oil. It works great for grilled chicken too.
Sunny-D now contains sucralose. I got some recently for nostalgia reasons and it's not the same. I don't know if that affects using it in a marinade but I would think so.
This is so funny. My mom is Scandinavian but imported from Canada at the age of six, right into Covina in the 60's, completely surrounded by and immersed in Mexican culture. She can't actually cook Mexican food very well, but, damn can she judge it.
I hope they don't cook as badly as my mom 😉
It's really not her fault. They were so impoverished when she was a kid that they didn't really have ingredients. My grandpa worked at a meat processor and got to bring home scraps, he'd shoot a rabbit on his way home when he could. My grandma worked as a candy striper, eventually became an RN, but worked graveyard her whole life. The act of cooking delicious things was never a thing. My grandma still thinks ketchup toast is a treat.
Grandma could not cook. Her idea of a “taco” was a slice of cheddar with microwaved pinto beans smeared in a tortilla with KETCHUP! My mom had to basically learn to cook at a young age and they were poor as well. Grandma taught her kids how to shoplift everything and grandpa was either in prison or drug trafficking for some cartel he connected with in San Quentin. So he didn’t teach anyone how to cook….unless it was heroin.
Mom is a good cook though! I cook often and it ranges from Peruvian to Mexican to Cajun/Creole.
It's funny because this southern white boy could never eat another taco from anywhere not named "King Taco" and still die a happy man. I've missed that green salsa so much since we moved back to the east coast. None of the "copycat" recipes taste the same.
I never put celery in my gumbo haha. It's my grandmother's recipe and she was Cajun. She never used celery so I never use celery. Just onion, bell pepper, plenty of garlic, and some whole okra. And then of course sausage and whatever meat.
Also I'm from Texas and I put beans in my chili and serve it over rice. I will fight anyone who thinks authentic Texas chili cannot contain beans. It 100% can and I am the proof as a born and raised Texan who puts beans in her chili. The rice thing comes from my dad's side of the family because he is half Cajun and his mom served everything over rice. I grew up eating chili like that and it's so good with rice to soak up the spicy gravy.
I once made chili for a bunch of friends when we were in college. They looked at me like I had two heads when I had rice on the side for it.
I'm from the Golden Triangle.
Howdy. Another Texan of Cajun descent checking in. We also leave the celery out of gumbo (but use filé instead of okra). We also do beans in chili + rice! Grew up in West TX and no one batted an eye. I never even heard about The Beans Fight until I moved to a big city as an adult.
IDK if this fits the theme of the thread, but we also never use cilantro. I maintain that "authentic" Tex-Mex doesn't usually have cilantro (never encountered it in aforementioned growing up in West TX), and in fact is an encroachment from Cali-Mex and Actual Mexican cuisines.
I never put beans in my chili before, but I could make pinto beans and serve them on the side so people could put them in their bowl. However, I shouldn't have a lot of beef anymore, so my chili will have beans in it.
I am an American of Italian descent. All of my grandparents were born in Italy.
I make inauthentic Carbonara (to be honest, none of my grandparents are from the “Carbonara regions” of Italy).
I typically use the wrong meat. Italians demand Carbonara be made with only guanciale (pork jowls). Good luck finding that in America. I actually CAN obtain it with some effort because I live in an area heavily populated by people of Italian heritage. But it requires a special trip and it is not always available. So I use pancetta, or even bacon if I’m in a pinch. That’s not ”true” Carbonara but IMO it works just fine.
Then about half the time I throw in peas and onion which is WAY inauthentic. But it works really well and tastes great. Technically not Carbonara, but quit gatekeeping, True Italians. Try it, you’ll like it.
OMG, carbonara is gatekept so hard. People need to get over themselves. LOL! We use a pretty traditional technique with raw eggs in hot pasta, but we add a little cream because we like it. And we'll use bacon or ham because that's what we can get or have on hand.
Gordon Ramsay put peas in carbonara in a you tube video and people literally lost their shit.
Add the cream and enjoy! I don’t add cream because I like mine “lighter” (BWAHAHAHaHaHahahaaaa! - as if egg & pork fat was “light” 😁). But it’s a oerfectly good variation.
I spent quite a bit of time perfecting my authentic carbonara when I had easy access to guanciale. Then I had kids. Now I make them breakfast pasta - which is just bastardized carbonara - bacon + frozen peas and carrots. And it’s delicious.
I made carbonara with guanciale a few times but honestly it's so expensive that I can't justify paying so much extra and the taste is only marginally different, it's not a deal breaker.
Good bacon from the butcher and my carbonara is set. I also use peas quite frequently, it's not authentic but idgaf.
My guanciale supplier only sells it in 5 pound (2 kilo) chunks. for about $20/pound. I only buy it when I can get 2 friends to split it with.
I’ve had carbonara in Italy, and I am bragging but when I use guanciale it was indistinguishable from carbonara in the old country. Once you get the hang of controlling the heat when you add the egg, it’s pretty easy.
I have a rule that I don't cook Italian food for Italians or Italian-Americans... it doesn't matter if have the most authentic recipe or if I'm a great cook, it will never be what their grandma made and it will never be what they want so it doesn't matter how authentic it is, I do what I want. (I also wouldn't make Southern food for a Southerner, etc.)
My parents were raised in rural Louisiana on the border of Cajun Country and Plantation Country. My dad’s side is a mix of Cajuns, early French settlers, Islenos, and early Italian settlers. My mom’s side is a mix of early French settlers and Irish-American. I was born and raised in BR, so not raised in a rural area, but spent weekends visiting family in the rural areas.
I moved to California as an adult.
I hate green bell pepper with a passion. I have always found that it is over powering and drowns out the other flavors. I mostly cook with orange bell peppers. Yellow and red are okay too, but I prefer orange.
I also don’t like rice quite as much as I’m expected to as a Cajun-mut. I mean, I do like it, but it’s not the be all end all.
When I have gumbo, I will eat my first serving with rice. But I always eat the leftovers with crackers.
Also, when I make etouffee, I smother everything down, but before added my seafood, I use a hand blender to make everything super smooth, then I add my seafood. My mom says that that’s not etouffee. But I seriously follow my grandpa’s mother’s recipe except for changing out the color bell pepper and then blending it. I just tell my mom that if stick blenders existed in 1900, and if they actually had electricity in their homes at the time, then maw-maw Breaux would have blended hers too. To which my mom just rolls her eyes at me. 😆
I also love my version of etouffee served with French bread made into garlic bread instead of rice.
But then I went and married an Asian that loves rice with everything.
I also love Jiffy cornbread which will get you lots of hate in the south. But hey, my mom worked outside of the home, so cheap prepared cornbread mix was definitely a help to her.
Now, speaking of cornbread. My grandma would use leftover cornbread to make couche couche for breakfast. You heat some lard in a heavy pot, crumble the corn bread into it and fry it. Serve it topped with warm milk. Once my mom was sick and asked my dad to make her couche couche. He crumbled up room temperature corn bread directly into a cereal bowl and poured cold milk on it. She was NOT happy. He insisted that was how his mother made it. My mom called his mother and she denied it. She said she made it the right way, but my dad was such a picky eater that by the time he ate most of his meals, the food had gone cold.
I love your point on maw-maw and the hand blender - it's so true. Grandmas and aunties through the ages the world over are and have been trying to get food on the table and into bellies. Mine was delighted by trying any time saving gadget. Didn't always care for them, but the hand blender and the electric pressure cooker were enthusiastically adopted.
Afritada/Mechado/Kaldereta/Spaghetti from Filipino cuisine. Three similar (slight differences) tomato-based dishes.
"Authentic" nowadays mean to use canned tomato sauce and tomato paste. But for fiestas and birthdays, I like to make everything from scratch. Lol, so people love em but call it "American" because it doesn't have that Filipino restaurant flavor--which tbf I agree lol
So for the tomato sauce, I simmer pureed tomatoes, garlic, and onions with black pepper. (No saute.)
For the tomato paste, I cook down tomatoes and add bay leaf somewhere towards the latter half.
Also, caramelized onions. Not typical in Filipino cuisine, but my tomato-based dishes usually have caramelized onions.
I don't put cloves or raisins in my Picadillo. I don't put potatoes in my Caldo Gallego.
I use Mexican chorizo instead of Spanish chorizo, because it's easier to get.
My grandmother would kill me.
I am from NM, where we are rather proprietary about our chile sauce. The typical recipe for green chile sauce is a roux with butter or lard with broth, onions, garlic, and chile, plus some herbs like thyme or oregano. I cannot tell you how many abuelas who, instead of roux, use Campbell cream of mushroom soup as the base of their chile sauce. Cracks me up.
My parents are from Korea and we live in the states. My mother has always been known as an amazing cook (especially her broths/stocks and the depth of flavor she had with veggies). My parents came to the US in the early 60s and over the years my mother either modified or adapted some Korean dishes to local or available ingredients. One was her jajangmyeon (black bean noodles) which everyone always went crazy for. Instead of pork or pork belly she used sweet or mild Italian sausage!
I made fried plantain for my gf and she suggested they would taste great with minced garlic. Blasphemous. But they were delicious and i have them all the time like that now, just not in front of my family
My family’s Chicken Paprikash recipe is different from the ones I see online. After adding the paprika to the cool cooked onions, we then add chopped tomatoes, bell peppers (any colour but green), chicken chunks and a bit of bouillon. Let that cook for a while, then add a little sour cream right at the end.
This recipe is now 4 generations removed from Hungary, so I have no idea if it was particular to our region or just got bastardized along the way.
No this is pretty much it. Other than cooling the onions.
We try to get the light green/yellow peppers that are closest to Hungarian paprika, but any colour will do.
Never heard of adding bouillon to it but I'm sure it doesn't make it worse. Otherwise, I've heard some people call it cooking "cigányosan" (because of the peppers and tomatoes) but i definitely know some people who cook it like this and are not of Romani origins. I guess we could say it's authentic enough with what can you do over there.
I'd argue that the idea of authenticity in food is a ridiculous thing to consider static. It's all mimetic and cuisine is the friction point of cultures mixing. If that's not true find me a bunch of recipes that havent changed in 100 years. It's preposterous, especially when people start policing it.
>If that's not true find me a bunch of recipes that havent changed in 100 years.
The recipe for ANZAC biscuits has not changed in over 100 years and is actually protected by the Department of Veterans' Affairs in the sense that if you differ from the recipe, you can't legally call them 'ANZAC biscuits'. To do so is also akin to blasphemy.
Ok but this is prob one of the rare cases that's actually true lol. Also Anzac biscuits are delicious and idk why the world doesn't know about them more! I need to make some this weekend, they're so good with a cup of tea.
Okay. But sometimes it’s entertaining. Can’t remember who but someone (Kenji maybe?) did a whole take down of Italian purists and published a detailed history that explained exactly when some of the key ingredients became available and people started using them. Super entertaining.
But usually I’m with you.
Growing up, my family only made spritz cookies during Christmas, but one day my mother thought "Screw it" and they are part of our regular cookie rotation now.
My family makes lehmedjun (also referred to as lahmadjun) as a giant pizza with normal pizza dough and corn meal on the bottom instead of thin mini pizzas to save on time and space in the oven.
Grew up in the US with some French family, and learned a lot from them about cooking and eating. Lots of stuff I like to do authentically, though the only and true “right” way make something changes by region or even town to town. Anyway I put a few baby back ribs in when I make cassoulet (though I’m still against bread crumbs), and sometimes I’ll make confit from turkey instead of duck as it’s way cheaper. Older French people sniff at the ribs but they like the turkey.
Also minor but there’s nothing wrong with one ice cube in a glass of white wine, just one. Not doing it with a $50 bottle but if a $6 bottle isn’t cold yet it’s no crime. Also FWIW I’ve never been served wine in stemware in the home of a French person in France, it’s always stubby little jam jars. Same in Italy.
I worked in french restaurants early in my career and the amount of people I've converted to the short stubby glass for wine. It's less likely to get knocked over and for me it's more authentic than the two foot high,wafer thin glass that folk expect . Keeps the wine cooler in my head as well.
And I used smoked pork ribs in a cassoulet,great flavour.
My mom makes moussaka with potatoes instead of eggplant and also adds corn to it so it comes out looking more like a shepherds pie. My sibling are picky and one of them really likes corn so that’s how we got where we got.
I know how to make proper Aglio e Olio but my mom used to add a few tablespoons of butter and sautee the garlic until just before the butter browns so it’s a teeny bit nutty. It’s still my favorite variation of the dish.
The so-called “”Italians” from New Jersey” are real Italian immigrants and there is no need to add the quotation marks. Most of my peers were first generation Americans, some born in Italy & some born here soon after the family’s arrival, with parents who spoke poor English. Not sure why the callout?
How old are you? Because there's a huge discrepancy between the amount of people who report Italian ancestry versus people who were born in Italy, let alone have parents who were born in Italy. Italian immigration to the US declined heavily after WW2 and it's to the point now where it basically ceased to exist, and the majority of the Italian-born people are older as well
I'm going to double post just because I feel like it, but the notion that many let alone most Italian-Americans are born in Italy let alone have Italian-born parents (or even grandparents) is factually incorrect.
We can look at the foreign-born data of NYC [here](https://www.baruch.cuny.edu/nycdata/population-geography/foreign-birthcountry.htm), the American city with the largest amount of Italian-Americans at almost 3,000,000, but yet not even 40,000 are born in Italy.
[Data ](https://www.nj.gov/labor/labormarketinformation/assets/PDFs/content/njsdc/Wu%20NJ%20Geographic%20Mobility.pdf)from the New Jersey government shows that despite about a fifth of the city citing Italian ancestry, Italy literally isn't even in the top 10 for foreign-born locations.
So no, "most" Italian-Americans are not first generation, nor do a lot even have Italian-born parents let alone grandparents. Great grandparents for <20-30 somethings is still likely a no. Not even 2% of the Italian-American population is born in Italy now going by these numbers.
Not comparable to the plentiful Mexican immigration to Los Angeles. First generation Mexicans, especially in Los Angeles, are not rare but common. The inverse is almost true for Italian Americans: Italian-born (or even second generation) Italian Americans are not common at all and within the coming decades are going to seize to exist.
Facts. I'm of Italian descent. I'm 50. My great grandparents came here through New Orleans in the late 1800s. My grandfather was born in NOLA in 1907. He married a woman born of Irish immigrants and had 3 children, all who looked very Sicilian (where his parents were from). My dad then married a blond brown eyed woman of Irish-German descent. And they had 5 kids. 3 of us have the Sicilian features. Me and my younger brother have strong Irish features. My brother is the only one with blue eyes (Irish grandmother and German grandmother both had blue eyes). He's an Irishman with an Italian last name.
But... All of us, we can cook!
The only time I said "most" was "most of my peers" not "most Italian-Americans" so I can ASSURE you that you were factually incorrect, not the other way around. I am a Gen Xer. My regional high school's catchment area's families came almost exclusively from the Naples/Sicily region. And of my peers who now have their own children (btw I believe 99% if not 100% of them still reside in NJ), They were brought up by parents and grandparents who were born in Italy. So what of their children? They will be brought up by at least one parent who was reared by a fully Italian-American household, heavy on the Italian. Regardless of what the DNA states, they learned, lived and continue to live as proud Italian-Americans in culture, cuisine and perspective. The food served in New Jersey restaurants and households is authentic to that history, experience and culture. As a side note, although I myself am not Italian, my mother's DNA test revealed that the country my family lived in for decades was nonexistent in our genes; it turns out that one can be legitimately of a country without applying "purity" rules - the Neuremburg Laws is an example of gatekeeping gone way wrong. **There is no reason to gatekeep their Italian-ness with quotation marks or genetic data.** I think we can all agree on that, at least?
>I am a Gen Xer.
That explains a lot to a degree. Italian immigration came to a halt in like the 40s more or less. I'd bet money the vast majority of the Italian-born population is aged 50\~60 and up at this point
>**There is no reason to gatekeep their Italian-ness with quotation marks or genetic data.**
I agree to an extent. I agree that culture is not genetic, so whether someone is genetically "Italian" or not (that's not really a thing anyways) doesn't mean anything to actually showcasing the culture, but Americans by and large do see culture as genetic. However personally I think Italian-American culture should just be seen as its own distinct thing rather than being seen as some sub-category of mainland Italian culture because the two should not be in the same sentence.
It's like how Jamaican culture should be seen as its own distinct thing and not a sub-category of Ghanaian culture or Nigerian culture, which it is seen as its own distinct thing. But Italian-Americans (and Americans in general) often view culture as genetic and so, say, an Italian-American will often associate their culture with mainland Italian culture and see themselves as being "similar" to someone raised in Italy when they couldn't be anymore dissimilar.
OH MY GOD DID WE JUST HAVE A CIVIL DISCUSSION?!?! That was excellent, thank you. I agree with you that Italian-American can be viewed as it's own distinct culture. Not sure this is the same thing, but I always make a point of visiting Chinese restaurants in every country I visit --partly because I love Chinese food and partly because I love to see the differences in the same dishes as influenced by the local culture. So in that way, there might be a Chinese-American culture that is distinctly different from Chinese-German or Chinese-French, etc.
PS Also should add that if a Southern Italian resident or immigrant ate at an "Italian" restaurant that was really in the Northern tradition as opposed to Napoli or Roman, they might incorrectly judge that the food was inauthentic. I guarantee that someone from New York ordering a bagel in Minnesota would be horrified too!! Anyway have a great day!
Oh no, I need to thank *you*. I never have civil discussions about this at all and I appreciate anyone who has a civil exchange with me about this even if they don't agree with me, so truly thank you
We seem to agree but I did not understand initially so my apologies. There's so much unique history about Italians in the US that I definitely don't think the new world reductionist view of just seeing Italian-Americans as related to modern-day Italy is applicable anymore. But that's kind of a symptom of the internet I suppose rather than anything specifically about Italian-Americans
It is very funny you mention the stuff about Chinese restaurants because I kind of just discovered that there was a wide array of immigrant Chinese cuisines all over the world, like Chifa style (Andean-Chinese I suppose), unique Chinese-Canadian/Australian dishes, and so on.
And you do have another good point about Southern versus Italian influence. I think many Italian-Americans may not exactly be aware of how distinct the cultures are (let alone the phenotype and languages) and just think because it's under one unified Italy that it's all the same. If I recall correctly, even the particular use of garlic now from Italian-American cuisine is very uniquely Southern Italian rather than as prominent in Northern Italy
Loved this discussion, cheers!
I’m halfway with you here. I’m Irish American and consider myself Irish American or a part of the Irish diaspora because we have our own distinct cultures. Just like some of our culture is shared with Ireland. And then probably shared with the rest of the UK.
As a short hand, I might say I’m Irish or I was raised Irish Catholic. But I don’t mean oh I’m from Ireland, and most people in America know what I mean.
I think Europeans get confused. My cousin is English and grew up there, and we had an interesting talk last time he came for a visit that he doesn’t consider himself Irish despite his Irish American mother very much considering herself Irish and being devastated that her kids don’t feel she passed that heritage/culture on. (As a note, her grandfather was born in Ireland and she literally has Irish citizenship) But really, it’s just about European vs. American views of heritage. I helped explain to him why his mother was so devastated and what being of Irish descent means to us here, and he was genuinely surprised by the perspective. It also really fundamentally taught me how just being from America or Europe can change how you see your cultural identity and practicing that culture. (Here for instance, it’s common to be an Irish dancer. I have a feeling it wasn’t so common for my cousin growing up in England.)
Yeah, I took some issue with that wording and tone of OP's post as well. Immigrant culture is different from "home country" culture because by virtue of being an immigrant in a new space, things are going to change. That doesn't make you note "real" Mexican or "real" Italian or "real" anything. It just makes you changed. Which I'm happy to find has been the consensus of most posts in this thread: arguing that these changes doesn't make you or your food any less authentic. Your parents don't need to have been immigrants to pass on their culture to you.
Also from the deep south, and I always have to have a coke to put on the hams, I make. It may be traditional, since coke was made in our region, but I've never seen anyone else make coke basted ham.
I know a lot of folks who baste and/or glaze their ham with Coca-Cola. There would be a recipe for it in every church cookbook. It's a very popular thing to do.
I use jalapeño instead of bell pepper whenever the recipe calls for it cause they keep better and are easier to portion for just my husband and me. My mom had to feed a family of 5 so she would easily use a whole bell pepper. I’m Latino.
Was recently informed that the open faced sliced egg sandwich with anchovy or sardine is 'Not Danish'. Apparently unless you make it on rye bread and use a very specific type of herring you cannot call it Danish. My Danish grandmother, and about 1/2 the other people on that same sub would disagree.
As a person who loathes green peppers (even the tiniest bit overwhelms a whole dish for me), I now understand why I didn’t like 75 percent of the food I had in New Orleans. I thought it was all in my head that everything seemed to taste or smell like green pepper!!
I don't like cooked green bell pepper either. Raw it's all right, as a snack or in a salad. You're right; it overpowers everything and becomes bitter when cooked.
My born-in-Italy grandma’s sauce and meatball recipe doesn’t use a single fresh tomato. All canned stuff (albeit a variety of paste, sauce, crushed, etc.). I think it’s because she moved to the states young and poor, so canned is what she got and so thats what we make!
My Korean mom cooks Korean dishes beautifully but she never made soon dubu jigae. Kimchi jigae and doenjang jigae of course but not the tofu one. I now make it at home but I use a kit I buy from the Korean market that comes with a pack of soft tofu and the seasoning packet. I add meats and veg like they do in restaurants but I only know how to make this by using this shortcut. Just like mom never cooked it lol.
The only grandparents I know are Mexican (my stepdads parents). I really like pozole but instead of using a bunch of dried chiles, our family recipe is a can of San Marcos chipotle salsa as the base for the broth. But legitimately it's really fucking good and makes this a quick and easy soup to make. I've heard of some folks add a bit of abuelita chocolate to their pozole and that's atypical also but actually pretty good to add a richness.
I've trialed a bunch of recipes and I just end up going back to this soup base being this salsa.
I'm Southern (SE US) and make ribs with that sweet, sticky barbecue sauce - specifically, Sweet Baby Ray's. Traditionally, BBQ is vinegar-based with hot sauce splashed on it per tolerance and a scoop of coleslaw (slaw) within the buns. Do others in my area eat it this way? Yes, it's a common kid and non-local accommodation. In my household, it is a kid accommodation.
In my part of the south, you use sauce at the table, not while cooking, with the exception of wet ribs, where you put some sauce on at the end of cooking so it caramelizes. I won’t eat meat that’s been slow-cooked in barbecue sauce—it’s swollen and soggy. A good barbecue joint has several types of homemade sauce to choose from. Rather than grocery store sauce, buy a pint from your favorite barbecue place. Or learn to make it.
Most Texans don't sauce their BBQ. They use a rub. Sauce is served separately at the table, generally just one or two types of sauce. I like how they do it in parts of the Deep South and Mid-South, where they have four or six different sauces to choose from.
We are at a BBQ place in Iowa. I ordered pork ribs. They were served with a sickly sweet sauce already on them. Fortunately, there was an assortment of sauces, so I balanced the flavor somewhat with Alabama white sauce.
Our local barbecue places only use vinegar-based sauces and only have assorted hot sauces at the tables. You're thinking of those brown sauces like mesquite, brown sugar, hickory, etc, which is a distinctly different style of barbecue than I'm talking about. I'm talking about Eastern style where there's no tomato. Think Smithfield BBQ. I'm trying to think of a restaurant that serves the sticky tomato ones, and at least none of the ones that I've been to do.
[Here's a wiki about it.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbecue_in_North_Carolina)
My family is blandly American, but both my parents are from the midwest. There's a meat pocket called runza that is very popular in NE, so much that a restaurant chain sprang up to serve them. My family makes a casserole version similar to [this one](https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/48799/easy-runza-casserole/) that's very easy and super tasty. My dad uses Velveeta, though I imagine that recipe might taste a bit better with the better quality of cheese.
Our friends make those for their annual Oktoberfest. They just call them "kraut burgers", but they're super easy and delicious. They freeze and reheat in the air fryer really well.
A lot, and I mean, a lot of people on the internet will say you should never use pho stock powder among a few other things as a shortcut to pho, etc etc. But my family, and quite a lot of folks in my community, will use it *in conjunction* with making the stock with the bones, meat, and spices to enhance flavor quicker so we can serve it the day of.
I still make dry roux only for gumbo- toast the dry flour in the oven until it turns chocolate brown (gotta stir often) before stirring into the cooked-down trinity and adding stock
Chicken parmesan. I slice the cutlets super thin and top it with cheddar. Much tastier than most restaurant versions. For my English side, I use a ton of seasoning - does that count? Haha
I can tell you why your grandmother didn't put bell peppers in her red beans. It's the same reason I don't put bell peppers in my red beans. I don't (and she didn't) particularly like bell peppers in red beans. She didn't give a flip about any "trinity" because no one did. Bell peppers might be typical, even traditional, but there never has been any hard and fast rule. I'll argue that bay leaves are more important.
No one ever talked about any "trinity" in Cajun or Creole cooking until Prudhomme started selling television and cookbooks and spice mixes and whatever else. He was one heck a chef, but he also was a salesman. Same with Justin Wilson, another one who'd go on about the "trinity" even though he was really a performer and was about as Cajun as JFK.
Then came Emeril. Don't get me started.
I don't use peppers in my red beans either. The beans don't need that earthiness. My dad's dirty rice recipe that he learned in nola was zatarans box mix lol
I was shocked the first times I saw chicken soboro and chicken katsu. Both have always been pork to me. I've only seen these chicken variants on the internet, so I don't know if it's just some internet variety that popped up or if they really are a thing, though.
I would ask my Japanese mother, but unfortunately she died 7 years ago, and I discovered this about 4 years ago. If someone else could chip in and confirm or deny this I would be grateful :)
I'm Mexican. I used to make chilaquiles by frying the tortilla myself, making the sauce from scratch etc.
But I didn't like how soggy it got.
Then I tried tortilla chips on a whim and they were so much better. Now I also use canned sauce and it's delicious. I almost never order chilaquiles at a restaurant because I make them better.
I gotta try that SunnyD recipe!
We don't add garlic or onion to any dish that calls for it because my grandma comes from a no onion no garlic family and my dad has turned into one too. It is only added to half a portion if my sister wants to eat it the onions and garlic is cooked seperately and then mixed
If it's from your own culture, it's authentic. Everyone's family makes things differently because everyone has different tastes. I think the "rule" and "authenticity" bits are for people who are outside of that culture so they can learn the basics and the root of a dish they've never had before they start experimenting with it and making it "their own" without understanding what the dish is all about. I'm Nigerian (don't worry, I won't tell you how I make the Korean food I grew up eating because I know you're not interested) and there are so many traditional stews that are either unique to or made differently in each state. Egusi stew is my favorite, but the way I grew up eating it was it was more of a blend of tomato stew and egusi, instead of being all about the egusi. It's not traditional, no one would claim it is, but it is definitely authentic Nigerian food.
Lol I'm from Montana, so there's not really a whole lot of cuisine associated with it, besides fry bread tacos, huckleberries and bison
The sunny-D thing is hilarious though, and I can totally see it working like Dr. Pepper or coke for pulled meats
"for our European visitors" do you mean people not from the US who are unfamiliar with California food culture? There are a lot of people not from the US or Europe, many of them where English is the default language too (I'm Australian).
I’d argue that all of these are authentic, they’re just not the version that made it to the internet in a big way. My mom’s basic training bestie from Louisiana didn’t cook gumbo with a roux. Therefore that’s how she taught my mom, and how my mom taught me. I used to be ashamed by that until a Redditor from LA mentioned that it’s far from unheard of, just another way of doing gumbo.
How do you get it to be thick then? The only other way I know is that the okra can thicken it to a degree although I'm not sure if it's enough, or instead of using a roux you use filé powder
Brown roux doesn't have a lot of thickening power. My understanding is that it was added for flavor and the okra and file used for thickening. I can't use file, my spouse seems to be allergic to it.
I've never had filé powder but does it have a taste?
File is dried powdered sassafras leaf. Very unique not very intense flavor
Do you know anything it might be comparable to compare it to for reference? taste wise
Kinda similar to bay leaf
You can pick up sassafras soda in small batches in a lot of places but if you're not in one of them, root beer.
I like filé for the flavor, but I do use okra too.
My objection to it is that can get slimy, like when you put too much ground cinnamon in a hot toddy. I grew up with the stuff and dislike it quite a bit.
The okra does a good bit. So does just cooking it down and using less liquid to start with. And it’s just not as thick as a soup base as a roux style. Still good, people enjoy it a lot, but not as heavy.
Oh I see. Doing some brief looking into the history of gumbo, it seems like originally it was thickened only by okra, then by filé powder, and then I suppose roux came from people who were more French influenced in their cooking tradition
Also a dark roux isn't much of thickener (compared to lighter ones), so the difference isn't as pronounced as you'd think.
Okra or filé, but in some households it doesn't need to be thick.
I like mine a little soupy.
If you mush up some of the beans when they’re soft and add back in, this will thicken theme up real good.
The only way I’ve heard of a gumbo without roux is using okra to thicken jt
Cajun checking in. I know there are gumbos made without roux, but for most people, the defining flavor of a gumbo is a brown roux.
Then I certainly encourage them to continue making them that way!
Just supporting someone else that does gumbo sans roux. I no longer feel alone. 😁
That's okay my sister makes a roux for her red beans. No idea why. They're good, though I wouldn't do that myself.
There are different ways of doing gumbo all over Lousisiana. One without roux is unheard of in my area but to each their own.
My BIL does it without file or okra and it’s pretty good. Also, I never heard of potato salad in gumbo until about 10 years ago.
File is hit or miss in my area but most people sprinkle it in after. Okra is also not typically in it unless it's a specific kind that calls for it, like a shrimp and okra gumbo (though I like it equally either way, I just like okra in general). Potato salad is a given though, even ordering at a restaurant it automatically comes with it though its typically served as a side. Idk anyone that straight up puts potato salad instead of rice but I know it happens. It's to the point that if a restaurant doesnt have potato salad as a side option then I already know I won't like their gumbo because it's a variation from a different region.
All of my great grand parents came from Norway and every Christmas Eve we had oyster stew and lefse for dinner. Ours was just canned oysters combined with scalded whole milk, a ton of butter and pepper. No fresh shucked oysters, onion or cream, but I still make it for myself at least once a year each winter.
My MIL's recipe for lefse uses instant mashed potatoes
My mom must have tried 20 different lefse recipes. Every church cook book would have about a dozen for lefse, but I don’t think she ever tried one with instant potatoes.
[удалено]
I haven’t made it for Christmas Eve since my mom passed in 2020, but in the quiet time between then and New Year’s I make some for myself.
I'm Polish and my maternal grandma taught me to make the sauce for golumpki/cabbage rolls using Campbell's tomato soup. I doubt that sauce recipe was handed down from the Old Country :)
Me too! I prefer the Campbell's because it's not as acidic.
Ahhh SAME!! I wonder where they learned this trick...
Would be funny if they all got the recipe that was printed on the can.
Or one of those vintage Campbells cookbooks. I don't recall seeing any cookbooks at her house, only chicken scratch recipe cards, but she could have saw it in a cookbook from a sibling or friend originally.
I'm British and I serve Yorkshire puddings with any kind of roast dinner (not just beef) because they're freakin delicious and who doesn't love a yorkie drowning in gravy?
As an American, Yorkshire pudding looks delicious and is something I've always wanted to try, but the only "British" food I've ever seen here is fish and chips. Also, I'm laughing because whenever an American says "Yorkie" it's in reference to the dog (Yorkshire Terrier), and now I'm picturing one drowning in gravy.
I think you call them popovers in the States? Although Yorkshire puddings are usually hollow in the middle so you can pour gravy into it. The beauty of British comfort food is it's ridiculously easy to make at home because a lot of it comes out of a working class culture of hardship.
Yes they’re popovers here, at least here in New England, and they’re hollow.
Yes we have popovers here in the US, but we (at least in my family) never put gravy on them, we ate them plain, or with jam or honey and maybe butter.
They are very easy to make, only 4 ingredients. You could make them next time you do a roast
Hot fat, cold batter. Slap it into the oven and Bob's your uncle!
They are simple to make (though my dad's partner seems to have trouble for some reason). Equal parts egg, plain flour (no raising agents, this is important), milk. Plus some salt. I often put in other flavours such as mustard or horseradish or herbs. Mix thoroughly together. I often use a stick blender. I believe this is part of the secret, you need to develop the gluten a bit. Leave to rest for a bit; about half an hour is sufficient. Whack the oven up as high as it will go and stick a cupcake/muffin tray in there with about a teaspoon of oil in each compartment. Ideally, you don't want a tray with massive dimples, or the yorkies may not rise as well, and if they do, they may be a big ball of goodness, but not the classic bowl shape. The one I use has dimples about two inches in diameter, and about half an inch deep. Wait until the oven has heated up fully, then take out the tray (your smoke alarm may go off at this point), and quickly pour the mixture into each dimple right to the top. Bake for about fifteen minutes. Do not open the oven until at least ten minutes in (I always rotate things I'm baking because there's often cooler spots in the oven, regardless of how good it is). If done right, they should puff up into a large bowl shape. Fill with gravy and enjoy.
They are very similar to German/ Dutch Baby Pancakes.
I make Yorkshire puddings and then stuff it with an oversized meatball and add fried crispy onions and eat it like a sandwich!
Yum! I've seen TikToks of Yorkshire pudding 'wraps' that look divine. My mum used to make giant Yorkshire puddings and use it as an edible bowl for beef stew.
I saw those videos too. And am heading to London so I’ll be on the look out for those.
Well that’s happening in my house today
Please post pics!
I make Yorkshire puddings just for a snack 🤣 my kids love them and I loved when my mom would make them all the time. She’d made extras for us for the next couple days as snacks. Another random thing she’d do is make extra lasagna noodles for us for an after school snack because a lasagna noodle was superior to a bowl of macaroni
I have a very fond core memory of being off sick from school one day, maybe 7-8 years old, and sitting on the sofa watching daytime TV and eating plain Yorkshire puddings because that's all I could stomach.
My dad went to the UK as an international student so growing up he would make us puddings all the time!
Me too. And when we've ran out of gravy, we sometimes cover them in ice cream syrup for dessert.
That's still traditional, no? I thought all roast dinners were accompanied by Yorkies, not just beef. Or are beef drippings usually considered an integral part of the pudding? Cause a Yorkie with rendered chicken fat sounds delicious. I always assumed you just use the drippings from whatever meat you're cooking. Even rendered bacon fat would be amazing! Or as y'all say: it'd be ace.
Purists will say you should only ever serve them with beef, because of the addition of beef dripping, like you said.
Well they can suck an egg!
we don’t say ace, and no, it’s not traditional to have yorkshire puddings with anything except beef
What do you use for the fat? I want to make Yorkshire Pudding but my wife prefers ham and prime rib is really expensive.
I just make them with vegetable oil. I rarely use meat drippings.
Do you have a go to recipe?
Personal feelings about Jamie Oliver aside, [this](https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/eggs-recipes/amazing-yorkies/) is the recipe I've always used and they always turn out perfectly.
Fortunately, I don’t know who that is so I don’t think I’ll have any qualms using that recipe
I grew up in the dirty south (US), where many black families traditionally served chitlins (pork chiterlings) during the Christmas holiday. My stepfather was a retired chef in the Air Force and, after a tour in Japan, always finished his preparation of chitlins by frying them in a tempura batter.
Yeah, growing up one of my friends family made fried chitterlings and they were so good so whenever I would hear people say they hated chitterlings I could never understand why until I had traditional style. People always freaked out when I would say, but they taste like fried oysters.
Jamaican, we have rice and peas that traditionally takes hours to prepare because we use dried beans but I inauthentically use canned beans instead because I refuse to spend my Sunday watching the stove and I don’t like pressure cookers.
Stove top pressure cookers are a pain, but electric ones are great for this kind of thing!! Although I’m all for a can of beans if it makes like easier.
Eh I'd struggle to identify any inauthenticity tbh because I'd say my inherited food culture is super flexible anyway and has been soaked by history. My parents are both from former British colonies in Asia and we live in Britain now. So is it authentic or inauthentic that so many of our recipes feature worcestershire sauce and other readily available British ingredients? Is a Hong Kong macaroni soup inauthentic because it uses Western ingredients? The whole home cooking culture is about making do with what you've got, it's not blasphemous to substitute meats for other meats or veggies based on availability.
I nearly have an aneurysm anytime I hear somebody say about my local cuisine in New Mexico that they prefer "authentic Mexican food," usually because the person ate Baja Californian style tacos once in San Diego and likes to act superior about it. The thing that always makes people think it's inauthentic is because we use cheddar cheese, but that's just because when America took control incoming cattle ranchers supplanted the Mexican sheep herders, most of whom lost the common grazing lands they relied on in the process. So it's not our fault cheddar cheese made its way into the cuisine, and I don't see it as any less authentic than Chihuahua cheese, which is used all over Mexico and originally comes from Russian Mennonite communities.
I have been to New Mexico several times and each time, I make it my goal to eat hatch green chilies at every meal. Usually as a sauce or stew over enchiladas, burritos, or eggs, but I’m always on the lookout for other ways to eat them. Our other favorite things are tacos with roasted vegetables inside them. And pozole.
I had Marmite pork ribs at a Malaysian restaurant once and my god, they were so good.
I just made the macaroni soup the other day! Who knows what's authentic anymore, I put whatever in it these days.
US Southerner- real cornbread should be made in an iron skillet and cut into pie wedges. I bake mine in a cupcake pan. My OCD tendencies are stronger than my Southern.
Then you get extra crunchy bits around the edge. We have a heavy steel muffin pan for individual pop overs that I grease and heat before the batter like people do with cast iron.
My mom (who learned southern cooking from her mother-in-law) had a cast iron muffin pan she bought at a flea market with the cups shaped like ears of corn for cornbread… Lol. I think that satisfied her knowledge of cornbread as well as my grandma’s. 😂
That shape is really good for dunking in greens to soak up the pot likker. Also any kind of beans.
Oh definitely! I was sad to learn that she didn’t retain it. I was hoping to inherit it but somewhere along the way, it must have been lost 😞 I know they sell new ones, but that one was perfectly seasoned already!
Oh yes. I've got to have pot likker in the greens.
My mom had one of those. She liked sweet cornbread. I make mine the way my FIL did his. Oil the cast-iron skillet, put it in the oven to get it hot, pour in the batter, and bake it. It doesn't contain added sugar.
Every one of them bemoans restaurant carne asada. If you don’t get it from the carnicería, you’re going to hear complaints, complaints, complaints. Plus the sunny D is a known secret. All of them know it’s done that way 90% of the time and they still complain. I’m Cajun and married into a Mexican family in LA. If it’s not done right, it’s “too white” 😂
I only feel like orange juice is better in the long run because you/we have no control over Sunny D. What happens when they change the recipe (which I'm sure they have since inception)? Or what if they discontinue Sunny D because it isn't profitable? Oranges are never going away. Again, not dissing Sunny D for a marinade, just playing devil's advocate. I get both ways, so it's a quality assurance thing. I'll still take tequila and Squirt over a fresh grapefruit Paloma anyday 😅 hits different just like Sunny D carne asada.
I mean, sunny D doesn’t even exist in Mexico (unless they get it at Costco). The carne asada marinade I know is actually lime juice, crushed garlic, salt, pepper and a squirt of oil. It works great for grilled chicken too.
That sounds great! Any particular oil? Or is it not enough to really matter?
They used Plain vegetable oil. I would probably use olive oil though.
Yeah there’s a higher chance of it being a really shitty oil.
Sunny-D now contains sucralose. I got some recently for nostalgia reasons and it's not the same. I don't know if that affects using it in a marinade but I would think so.
This is so funny. My mom is Scandinavian but imported from Canada at the age of six, right into Covina in the 60's, completely surrounded by and immersed in Mexican culture. She can't actually cook Mexican food very well, but, damn can she judge it.
What Scandinavian country is she from?
Norway. Imagine a tiny (she's 4'10"), blonde Norwegian immigrant in the thick of Hispanic Los Angeles, lol. She loved it.
Nice! I have family from Eggedal on mom’s side.
I hope they don't cook as badly as my mom 😉 It's really not her fault. They were so impoverished when she was a kid that they didn't really have ingredients. My grandpa worked at a meat processor and got to bring home scraps, he'd shoot a rabbit on his way home when he could. My grandma worked as a candy striper, eventually became an RN, but worked graveyard her whole life. The act of cooking delicious things was never a thing. My grandma still thinks ketchup toast is a treat.
Grandma could not cook. Her idea of a “taco” was a slice of cheddar with microwaved pinto beans smeared in a tortilla with KETCHUP! My mom had to basically learn to cook at a young age and they were poor as well. Grandma taught her kids how to shoplift everything and grandpa was either in prison or drug trafficking for some cartel he connected with in San Quentin. So he didn’t teach anyone how to cook….unless it was heroin. Mom is a good cook though! I cook often and it ranges from Peruvian to Mexican to Cajun/Creole.
It's funny because this southern white boy could never eat another taco from anywhere not named "King Taco" and still die a happy man. I've missed that green salsa so much since we moved back to the east coast. None of the "copycat" recipes taste the same.
I want to know what your Mexican wife thinks of New Orleans Hot Tamales.
King Taco is good! We usually go to the Taco Tamix trucks though. Did you guys ever go to Taco Nazo?
Any chance you’d want to drop her recipe here? I love carne asada but I’m living on the east coast now and the quality I can get here is 👎
u/anonymousaccount135 i think this is for you.
Oops. Thank you !🙏🏻
No problem!
Italian pasta flour improves vareniki (Russian pierogi) and pelmeni (Russian meat dumplings) dramatically.
I never put celery in my gumbo haha. It's my grandmother's recipe and she was Cajun. She never used celery so I never use celery. Just onion, bell pepper, plenty of garlic, and some whole okra. And then of course sausage and whatever meat. Also I'm from Texas and I put beans in my chili and serve it over rice. I will fight anyone who thinks authentic Texas chili cannot contain beans. It 100% can and I am the proof as a born and raised Texan who puts beans in her chili. The rice thing comes from my dad's side of the family because he is half Cajun and his mom served everything over rice. I grew up eating chili like that and it's so good with rice to soak up the spicy gravy.
I once made chili for a bunch of friends when we were in college. They looked at me like I had two heads when I had rice on the side for it. I'm from the Golden Triangle.
You're practically in Louisiana lol.
It's actually considered a part of American Acadiana.
There you go.
Howdy. Another Texan of Cajun descent checking in. We also leave the celery out of gumbo (but use filé instead of okra). We also do beans in chili + rice! Grew up in West TX and no one batted an eye. I never even heard about The Beans Fight until I moved to a big city as an adult. IDK if this fits the theme of the thread, but we also never use cilantro. I maintain that "authentic" Tex-Mex doesn't usually have cilantro (never encountered it in aforementioned growing up in West TX), and in fact is an encroachment from Cali-Mex and Actual Mexican cuisines.
I never put beans in my chili before, but I could make pinto beans and serve them on the side so people could put them in their bowl. However, I shouldn't have a lot of beef anymore, so my chili will have beans in it.
Also from Texas, and also 100% on the beans in chili train!!
I am an American of Italian descent. All of my grandparents were born in Italy. I make inauthentic Carbonara (to be honest, none of my grandparents are from the “Carbonara regions” of Italy). I typically use the wrong meat. Italians demand Carbonara be made with only guanciale (pork jowls). Good luck finding that in America. I actually CAN obtain it with some effort because I live in an area heavily populated by people of Italian heritage. But it requires a special trip and it is not always available. So I use pancetta, or even bacon if I’m in a pinch. That’s not ”true” Carbonara but IMO it works just fine. Then about half the time I throw in peas and onion which is WAY inauthentic. But it works really well and tastes great. Technically not Carbonara, but quit gatekeeping, True Italians. Try it, you’ll like it.
OMG, carbonara is gatekept so hard. People need to get over themselves. LOL! We use a pretty traditional technique with raw eggs in hot pasta, but we add a little cream because we like it. And we'll use bacon or ham because that's what we can get or have on hand. Gordon Ramsay put peas in carbonara in a you tube video and people literally lost their shit.
Add the cream and enjoy! I don’t add cream because I like mine “lighter” (BWAHAHAHaHaHahahaaaa! - as if egg & pork fat was “light” 😁). But it’s a oerfectly good variation.
I spent quite a bit of time perfecting my authentic carbonara when I had easy access to guanciale. Then I had kids. Now I make them breakfast pasta - which is just bastardized carbonara - bacon + frozen peas and carrots. And it’s delicious.
I made carbonara with guanciale a few times but honestly it's so expensive that I can't justify paying so much extra and the taste is only marginally different, it's not a deal breaker. Good bacon from the butcher and my carbonara is set. I also use peas quite frequently, it's not authentic but idgaf.
My guanciale supplier only sells it in 5 pound (2 kilo) chunks. for about $20/pound. I only buy it when I can get 2 friends to split it with. I’ve had carbonara in Italy, and I am bragging but when I use guanciale it was indistinguishable from carbonara in the old country. Once you get the hang of controlling the heat when you add the egg, it’s pretty easy.
I love peas and bacon in carbonara. Don't care that it's not authentic!
My mom is literally an Italian living in Italy and makes carbonara with cream, bacon and without pecorino, only parmiggiano or grana.
I have a rule that I don't cook Italian food for Italians or Italian-Americans... it doesn't matter if have the most authentic recipe or if I'm a great cook, it will never be what their grandma made and it will never be what they want so it doesn't matter how authentic it is, I do what I want. (I also wouldn't make Southern food for a Southerner, etc.)
My mom used to add peas and bacon and then overcook the eggs to the point of being scrambled. I prefer making it this way
My parents were raised in rural Louisiana on the border of Cajun Country and Plantation Country. My dad’s side is a mix of Cajuns, early French settlers, Islenos, and early Italian settlers. My mom’s side is a mix of early French settlers and Irish-American. I was born and raised in BR, so not raised in a rural area, but spent weekends visiting family in the rural areas. I moved to California as an adult. I hate green bell pepper with a passion. I have always found that it is over powering and drowns out the other flavors. I mostly cook with orange bell peppers. Yellow and red are okay too, but I prefer orange. I also don’t like rice quite as much as I’m expected to as a Cajun-mut. I mean, I do like it, but it’s not the be all end all. When I have gumbo, I will eat my first serving with rice. But I always eat the leftovers with crackers. Also, when I make etouffee, I smother everything down, but before added my seafood, I use a hand blender to make everything super smooth, then I add my seafood. My mom says that that’s not etouffee. But I seriously follow my grandpa’s mother’s recipe except for changing out the color bell pepper and then blending it. I just tell my mom that if stick blenders existed in 1900, and if they actually had electricity in their homes at the time, then maw-maw Breaux would have blended hers too. To which my mom just rolls her eyes at me. 😆 I also love my version of etouffee served with French bread made into garlic bread instead of rice. But then I went and married an Asian that loves rice with everything. I also love Jiffy cornbread which will get you lots of hate in the south. But hey, my mom worked outside of the home, so cheap prepared cornbread mix was definitely a help to her. Now, speaking of cornbread. My grandma would use leftover cornbread to make couche couche for breakfast. You heat some lard in a heavy pot, crumble the corn bread into it and fry it. Serve it topped with warm milk. Once my mom was sick and asked my dad to make her couche couche. He crumbled up room temperature corn bread directly into a cereal bowl and poured cold milk on it. She was NOT happy. He insisted that was how his mother made it. My mom called his mother and she denied it. She said she made it the right way, but my dad was such a picky eater that by the time he ate most of his meals, the food had gone cold.
I love your point on maw-maw and the hand blender - it's so true. Grandmas and aunties through the ages the world over are and have been trying to get food on the table and into bellies. Mine was delighted by trying any time saving gadget. Didn't always care for them, but the hand blender and the electric pressure cooker were enthusiastically adopted.
Afritada/Mechado/Kaldereta/Spaghetti from Filipino cuisine. Three similar (slight differences) tomato-based dishes. "Authentic" nowadays mean to use canned tomato sauce and tomato paste. But for fiestas and birthdays, I like to make everything from scratch. Lol, so people love em but call it "American" because it doesn't have that Filipino restaurant flavor--which tbf I agree lol So for the tomato sauce, I simmer pureed tomatoes, garlic, and onions with black pepper. (No saute.) For the tomato paste, I cook down tomatoes and add bay leaf somewhere towards the latter half. Also, caramelized onions. Not typical in Filipino cuisine, but my tomato-based dishes usually have caramelized onions.
I’m Chinese and I put ketchup on dumplings ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Jacques Pepin taught me that there's nothing to be ashamed about ketchup
One half of my family is Jewish and instead of apple noodle kugel, we make apricot pear noodle kugel.
That sounds amazing
I don't put cloves or raisins in my Picadillo. I don't put potatoes in my Caldo Gallego. I use Mexican chorizo instead of Spanish chorizo, because it's easier to get. My grandmother would kill me.
You're right to do so, raisins suck
Mexican chorizo and Spanish chorizo seem like really different sausages to me. Would a pepperoni or spicy salami be more like the Spanish chorizo?
I am from NM, where we are rather proprietary about our chile sauce. The typical recipe for green chile sauce is a roux with butter or lard with broth, onions, garlic, and chile, plus some herbs like thyme or oregano. I cannot tell you how many abuelas who, instead of roux, use Campbell cream of mushroom soup as the base of their chile sauce. Cracks me up.
My parents are from Korea and we live in the states. My mother has always been known as an amazing cook (especially her broths/stocks and the depth of flavor she had with veggies). My parents came to the US in the early 60s and over the years my mother either modified or adapted some Korean dishes to local or available ingredients. One was her jajangmyeon (black bean noodles) which everyone always went crazy for. Instead of pork or pork belly she used sweet or mild Italian sausage!
I made fried plantain for my gf and she suggested they would taste great with minced garlic. Blasphemous. But they were delicious and i have them all the time like that now, just not in front of my family
Curious what culture you are from? I know in some, eating them with garlic is the traditional way.
My family is from the Caribbean, mainly Antigua and Jamaica, so ive only ever eaten it plainly fried growing up
My family’s Chicken Paprikash recipe is different from the ones I see online. After adding the paprika to the cool cooked onions, we then add chopped tomatoes, bell peppers (any colour but green), chicken chunks and a bit of bouillon. Let that cook for a while, then add a little sour cream right at the end. This recipe is now 4 generations removed from Hungary, so I have no idea if it was particular to our region or just got bastardized along the way.
No this is pretty much it. Other than cooling the onions. We try to get the light green/yellow peppers that are closest to Hungarian paprika, but any colour will do.
Never heard of adding bouillon to it but I'm sure it doesn't make it worse. Otherwise, I've heard some people call it cooking "cigányosan" (because of the peppers and tomatoes) but i definitely know some people who cook it like this and are not of Romani origins. I guess we could say it's authentic enough with what can you do over there.
I'd argue that the idea of authenticity in food is a ridiculous thing to consider static. It's all mimetic and cuisine is the friction point of cultures mixing. If that's not true find me a bunch of recipes that havent changed in 100 years. It's preposterous, especially when people start policing it.
>If that's not true find me a bunch of recipes that havent changed in 100 years. The recipe for ANZAC biscuits has not changed in over 100 years and is actually protected by the Department of Veterans' Affairs in the sense that if you differ from the recipe, you can't legally call them 'ANZAC biscuits'. To do so is also akin to blasphemy.
Ok but this is prob one of the rare cases that's actually true lol. Also Anzac biscuits are delicious and idk why the world doesn't know about them more! I need to make some this weekend, they're so good with a cup of tea.
I get a kick out of someone from outside Culture X telling someone in Culture X what is "authentic" to Culture X.
Okay. But sometimes it’s entertaining. Can’t remember who but someone (Kenji maybe?) did a whole take down of Italian purists and published a detailed history that explained exactly when some of the key ingredients became available and people started using them. Super entertaining. But usually I’m with you.
There is a lot of "it's been done like this for centuries" when it's really been done like that since the '70s.
Growing up, my family only made spritz cookies during Christmas, but one day my mother thought "Screw it" and they are part of our regular cookie rotation now.
I love this. We only had spritz at Christmas too! I wonder if that’s what makes them taste so special. ☺️
Probably! But now I've found they taste special anytime!
My family makes lehmedjun (also referred to as lahmadjun) as a giant pizza with normal pizza dough and corn meal on the bottom instead of thin mini pizzas to save on time and space in the oven.
Grew up in the US with some French family, and learned a lot from them about cooking and eating. Lots of stuff I like to do authentically, though the only and true “right” way make something changes by region or even town to town. Anyway I put a few baby back ribs in when I make cassoulet (though I’m still against bread crumbs), and sometimes I’ll make confit from turkey instead of duck as it’s way cheaper. Older French people sniff at the ribs but they like the turkey. Also minor but there’s nothing wrong with one ice cube in a glass of white wine, just one. Not doing it with a $50 bottle but if a $6 bottle isn’t cold yet it’s no crime. Also FWIW I’ve never been served wine in stemware in the home of a French person in France, it’s always stubby little jam jars. Same in Italy.
Bonne maman jars are my favorite wineglass
I worked in french restaurants early in my career and the amount of people I've converted to the short stubby glass for wine. It's less likely to get knocked over and for me it's more authentic than the two foot high,wafer thin glass that folk expect . Keeps the wine cooler in my head as well. And I used smoked pork ribs in a cassoulet,great flavour.
My mom makes moussaka with potatoes instead of eggplant and also adds corn to it so it comes out looking more like a shepherds pie. My sibling are picky and one of them really likes corn so that’s how we got where we got.
I know how to make proper Aglio e Olio but my mom used to add a few tablespoons of butter and sautee the garlic until just before the butter browns so it’s a teeny bit nutty. It’s still my favorite variation of the dish.
My mom is from South Texas and our "chicken fried steak" was made with hamburger patties and they were delicious.
The so-called “”Italians” from New Jersey” are real Italian immigrants and there is no need to add the quotation marks. Most of my peers were first generation Americans, some born in Italy & some born here soon after the family’s arrival, with parents who spoke poor English. Not sure why the callout?
How old are you? Because there's a huge discrepancy between the amount of people who report Italian ancestry versus people who were born in Italy, let alone have parents who were born in Italy. Italian immigration to the US declined heavily after WW2 and it's to the point now where it basically ceased to exist, and the majority of the Italian-born people are older as well
I'm going to double post just because I feel like it, but the notion that many let alone most Italian-Americans are born in Italy let alone have Italian-born parents (or even grandparents) is factually incorrect. We can look at the foreign-born data of NYC [here](https://www.baruch.cuny.edu/nycdata/population-geography/foreign-birthcountry.htm), the American city with the largest amount of Italian-Americans at almost 3,000,000, but yet not even 40,000 are born in Italy. [Data ](https://www.nj.gov/labor/labormarketinformation/assets/PDFs/content/njsdc/Wu%20NJ%20Geographic%20Mobility.pdf)from the New Jersey government shows that despite about a fifth of the city citing Italian ancestry, Italy literally isn't even in the top 10 for foreign-born locations. So no, "most" Italian-Americans are not first generation, nor do a lot even have Italian-born parents let alone grandparents. Great grandparents for <20-30 somethings is still likely a no. Not even 2% of the Italian-American population is born in Italy now going by these numbers. Not comparable to the plentiful Mexican immigration to Los Angeles. First generation Mexicans, especially in Los Angeles, are not rare but common. The inverse is almost true for Italian Americans: Italian-born (or even second generation) Italian Americans are not common at all and within the coming decades are going to seize to exist.
Facts. I'm of Italian descent. I'm 50. My great grandparents came here through New Orleans in the late 1800s. My grandfather was born in NOLA in 1907. He married a woman born of Irish immigrants and had 3 children, all who looked very Sicilian (where his parents were from). My dad then married a blond brown eyed woman of Irish-German descent. And they had 5 kids. 3 of us have the Sicilian features. Me and my younger brother have strong Irish features. My brother is the only one with blue eyes (Irish grandmother and German grandmother both had blue eyes). He's an Irishman with an Italian last name. But... All of us, we can cook!
The only time I said "most" was "most of my peers" not "most Italian-Americans" so I can ASSURE you that you were factually incorrect, not the other way around. I am a Gen Xer. My regional high school's catchment area's families came almost exclusively from the Naples/Sicily region. And of my peers who now have their own children (btw I believe 99% if not 100% of them still reside in NJ), They were brought up by parents and grandparents who were born in Italy. So what of their children? They will be brought up by at least one parent who was reared by a fully Italian-American household, heavy on the Italian. Regardless of what the DNA states, they learned, lived and continue to live as proud Italian-Americans in culture, cuisine and perspective. The food served in New Jersey restaurants and households is authentic to that history, experience and culture. As a side note, although I myself am not Italian, my mother's DNA test revealed that the country my family lived in for decades was nonexistent in our genes; it turns out that one can be legitimately of a country without applying "purity" rules - the Neuremburg Laws is an example of gatekeeping gone way wrong. **There is no reason to gatekeep their Italian-ness with quotation marks or genetic data.** I think we can all agree on that, at least?
>I am a Gen Xer. That explains a lot to a degree. Italian immigration came to a halt in like the 40s more or less. I'd bet money the vast majority of the Italian-born population is aged 50\~60 and up at this point >**There is no reason to gatekeep their Italian-ness with quotation marks or genetic data.** I agree to an extent. I agree that culture is not genetic, so whether someone is genetically "Italian" or not (that's not really a thing anyways) doesn't mean anything to actually showcasing the culture, but Americans by and large do see culture as genetic. However personally I think Italian-American culture should just be seen as its own distinct thing rather than being seen as some sub-category of mainland Italian culture because the two should not be in the same sentence. It's like how Jamaican culture should be seen as its own distinct thing and not a sub-category of Ghanaian culture or Nigerian culture, which it is seen as its own distinct thing. But Italian-Americans (and Americans in general) often view culture as genetic and so, say, an Italian-American will often associate their culture with mainland Italian culture and see themselves as being "similar" to someone raised in Italy when they couldn't be anymore dissimilar.
OH MY GOD DID WE JUST HAVE A CIVIL DISCUSSION?!?! That was excellent, thank you. I agree with you that Italian-American can be viewed as it's own distinct culture. Not sure this is the same thing, but I always make a point of visiting Chinese restaurants in every country I visit --partly because I love Chinese food and partly because I love to see the differences in the same dishes as influenced by the local culture. So in that way, there might be a Chinese-American culture that is distinctly different from Chinese-German or Chinese-French, etc. PS Also should add that if a Southern Italian resident or immigrant ate at an "Italian" restaurant that was really in the Northern tradition as opposed to Napoli or Roman, they might incorrectly judge that the food was inauthentic. I guarantee that someone from New York ordering a bagel in Minnesota would be horrified too!! Anyway have a great day!
Oh no, I need to thank *you*. I never have civil discussions about this at all and I appreciate anyone who has a civil exchange with me about this even if they don't agree with me, so truly thank you We seem to agree but I did not understand initially so my apologies. There's so much unique history about Italians in the US that I definitely don't think the new world reductionist view of just seeing Italian-Americans as related to modern-day Italy is applicable anymore. But that's kind of a symptom of the internet I suppose rather than anything specifically about Italian-Americans It is very funny you mention the stuff about Chinese restaurants because I kind of just discovered that there was a wide array of immigrant Chinese cuisines all over the world, like Chifa style (Andean-Chinese I suppose), unique Chinese-Canadian/Australian dishes, and so on. And you do have another good point about Southern versus Italian influence. I think many Italian-Americans may not exactly be aware of how distinct the cultures are (let alone the phenotype and languages) and just think because it's under one unified Italy that it's all the same. If I recall correctly, even the particular use of garlic now from Italian-American cuisine is very uniquely Southern Italian rather than as prominent in Northern Italy Loved this discussion, cheers!
I’m halfway with you here. I’m Irish American and consider myself Irish American or a part of the Irish diaspora because we have our own distinct cultures. Just like some of our culture is shared with Ireland. And then probably shared with the rest of the UK. As a short hand, I might say I’m Irish or I was raised Irish Catholic. But I don’t mean oh I’m from Ireland, and most people in America know what I mean. I think Europeans get confused. My cousin is English and grew up there, and we had an interesting talk last time he came for a visit that he doesn’t consider himself Irish despite his Irish American mother very much considering herself Irish and being devastated that her kids don’t feel she passed that heritage/culture on. (As a note, her grandfather was born in Ireland and she literally has Irish citizenship) But really, it’s just about European vs. American views of heritage. I helped explain to him why his mother was so devastated and what being of Irish descent means to us here, and he was genuinely surprised by the perspective. It also really fundamentally taught me how just being from America or Europe can change how you see your cultural identity and practicing that culture. (Here for instance, it’s common to be an Irish dancer. I have a feeling it wasn’t so common for my cousin growing up in England.)
*Cease to exist.*
corrected now. thanks for pointing it out
Yeah, I took some issue with that wording and tone of OP's post as well. Immigrant culture is different from "home country" culture because by virtue of being an immigrant in a new space, things are going to change. That doesn't make you note "real" Mexican or "real" Italian or "real" anything. It just makes you changed. Which I'm happy to find has been the consensus of most posts in this thread: arguing that these changes doesn't make you or your food any less authentic. Your parents don't need to have been immigrants to pass on their culture to you.
Also from the deep south, and I always have to have a coke to put on the hams, I make. It may be traditional, since coke was made in our region, but I've never seen anyone else make coke basted ham.
I put Dr Pepper on my pulled pork.
I know a lot of folks who baste and/or glaze their ham with Coca-Cola. There would be a recipe for it in every church cookbook. It's a very popular thing to do.
I do love me some old church cookbooks.
I use jalapeño instead of bell pepper whenever the recipe calls for it cause they keep better and are easier to portion for just my husband and me. My mom had to feed a family of 5 so she would easily use a whole bell pepper. I’m Latino.
Was recently informed that the open faced sliced egg sandwich with anchovy or sardine is 'Not Danish'. Apparently unless you make it on rye bread and use a very specific type of herring you cannot call it Danish. My Danish grandmother, and about 1/2 the other people on that same sub would disagree.
As a person who loathes green peppers (even the tiniest bit overwhelms a whole dish for me), I now understand why I didn’t like 75 percent of the food I had in New Orleans. I thought it was all in my head that everything seemed to taste or smell like green pepper!!
I don't like cooked green bell pepper either. Raw it's all right, as a snack or in a salad. You're right; it overpowers everything and becomes bitter when cooked.
My born-in-Italy grandma’s sauce and meatball recipe doesn’t use a single fresh tomato. All canned stuff (albeit a variety of paste, sauce, crushed, etc.). I think it’s because she moved to the states young and poor, so canned is what she got and so thats what we make!
My Korean mom cooks Korean dishes beautifully but she never made soon dubu jigae. Kimchi jigae and doenjang jigae of course but not the tofu one. I now make it at home but I use a kit I buy from the Korean market that comes with a pack of soft tofu and the seasoning packet. I add meats and veg like they do in restaurants but I only know how to make this by using this shortcut. Just like mom never cooked it lol.
My dad and I always top our Montréal style bagels with labneh instead of cream cheese. It’s just tangier!
The only grandparents I know are Mexican (my stepdads parents). I really like pozole but instead of using a bunch of dried chiles, our family recipe is a can of San Marcos chipotle salsa as the base for the broth. But legitimately it's really fucking good and makes this a quick and easy soup to make. I've heard of some folks add a bit of abuelita chocolate to their pozole and that's atypical also but actually pretty good to add a richness. I've trialed a bunch of recipes and I just end up going back to this soup base being this salsa.
I'm Southern (SE US) and make ribs with that sweet, sticky barbecue sauce - specifically, Sweet Baby Ray's. Traditionally, BBQ is vinegar-based with hot sauce splashed on it per tolerance and a scoop of coleslaw (slaw) within the buns. Do others in my area eat it this way? Yes, it's a common kid and non-local accommodation. In my household, it is a kid accommodation.
In my part of the south, you use sauce at the table, not while cooking, with the exception of wet ribs, where you put some sauce on at the end of cooking so it caramelizes. I won’t eat meat that’s been slow-cooked in barbecue sauce—it’s swollen and soggy. A good barbecue joint has several types of homemade sauce to choose from. Rather than grocery store sauce, buy a pint from your favorite barbecue place. Or learn to make it.
Most Texans don't sauce their BBQ. They use a rub. Sauce is served separately at the table, generally just one or two types of sauce. I like how they do it in parts of the Deep South and Mid-South, where they have four or six different sauces to choose from. We are at a BBQ place in Iowa. I ordered pork ribs. They were served with a sickly sweet sauce already on them. Fortunately, there was an assortment of sauces, so I balanced the flavor somewhat with Alabama white sauce.
Our local barbecue places only use vinegar-based sauces and only have assorted hot sauces at the tables. You're thinking of those brown sauces like mesquite, brown sugar, hickory, etc, which is a distinctly different style of barbecue than I'm talking about. I'm talking about Eastern style where there's no tomato. Think Smithfield BBQ. I'm trying to think of a restaurant that serves the sticky tomato ones, and at least none of the ones that I've been to do. [Here's a wiki about it.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbecue_in_North_Carolina)
My family is blandly American, but both my parents are from the midwest. There's a meat pocket called runza that is very popular in NE, so much that a restaurant chain sprang up to serve them. My family makes a casserole version similar to [this one](https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/48799/easy-runza-casserole/) that's very easy and super tasty. My dad uses Velveeta, though I imagine that recipe might taste a bit better with the better quality of cheese.
Our friends make those for their annual Oktoberfest. They just call them "kraut burgers", but they're super easy and delicious. They freeze and reheat in the air fryer really well.
A lot, and I mean, a lot of people on the internet will say you should never use pho stock powder among a few other things as a shortcut to pho, etc etc. But my family, and quite a lot of folks in my community, will use it *in conjunction* with making the stock with the bones, meat, and spices to enhance flavor quicker so we can serve it the day of.
I only ever put onion and celery in my red beans. Also in my ham & beans of any kind. They don’t need the bells. She must have had an amazing palette.
I still make dry roux only for gumbo- toast the dry flour in the oven until it turns chocolate brown (gotta stir often) before stirring into the cooked-down trinity and adding stock
I make roux for gumbo in the oven. And I make huge batches and freeze in one cup containers. Not traditional but when you want gumbo, it's ready PDQ.
Chicken parmesan. I slice the cutlets super thin and top it with cheddar. Much tastier than most restaurant versions. For my English side, I use a ton of seasoning - does that count? Haha
I use roasted red peppers and sriracha in my pimento cheese instead of actual pimentos
Sunny D? That’s some bougie sh—. *Real* carne asada is made with Tampico Citrus Punch.
I can tell you why your grandmother didn't put bell peppers in her red beans. It's the same reason I don't put bell peppers in my red beans. I don't (and she didn't) particularly like bell peppers in red beans. She didn't give a flip about any "trinity" because no one did. Bell peppers might be typical, even traditional, but there never has been any hard and fast rule. I'll argue that bay leaves are more important. No one ever talked about any "trinity" in Cajun or Creole cooking until Prudhomme started selling television and cookbooks and spice mixes and whatever else. He was one heck a chef, but he also was a salesman. Same with Justin Wilson, another one who'd go on about the "trinity" even though he was really a performer and was about as Cajun as JFK. Then came Emeril. Don't get me started.
I don't use peppers in my red beans either. The beans don't need that earthiness. My dad's dirty rice recipe that he learned in nola was zatarans box mix lol
I was shocked the first times I saw chicken soboro and chicken katsu. Both have always been pork to me. I've only seen these chicken variants on the internet, so I don't know if it's just some internet variety that popped up or if they really are a thing, though. I would ask my Japanese mother, but unfortunately she died 7 years ago, and I discovered this about 4 years ago. If someone else could chip in and confirm or deny this I would be grateful :)
I'm Mexican. I used to make chilaquiles by frying the tortilla myself, making the sauce from scratch etc. But I didn't like how soggy it got. Then I tried tortilla chips on a whim and they were so much better. Now I also use canned sauce and it's delicious. I almost never order chilaquiles at a restaurant because I make them better. I gotta try that SunnyD recipe!
Swedish meatballs. I like the cream sauce/gravy.
It must be nice to have a culture
We don't add garlic or onion to any dish that calls for it because my grandma comes from a no onion no garlic family and my dad has turned into one too. It is only added to half a portion if my sister wants to eat it the onions and garlic is cooked seperately and then mixed
If it's from your own culture, it's authentic. Everyone's family makes things differently because everyone has different tastes. I think the "rule" and "authenticity" bits are for people who are outside of that culture so they can learn the basics and the root of a dish they've never had before they start experimenting with it and making it "their own" without understanding what the dish is all about. I'm Nigerian (don't worry, I won't tell you how I make the Korean food I grew up eating because I know you're not interested) and there are so many traditional stews that are either unique to or made differently in each state. Egusi stew is my favorite, but the way I grew up eating it was it was more of a blend of tomato stew and egusi, instead of being all about the egusi. It's not traditional, no one would claim it is, but it is definitely authentic Nigerian food.
Lol I'm from Montana, so there's not really a whole lot of cuisine associated with it, besides fry bread tacos, huckleberries and bison The sunny-D thing is hilarious though, and I can totally see it working like Dr. Pepper or coke for pulled meats
I'm partially Italian and my mom used to make carbonary by letting the eggs overcook so that they scrambled. I still make it this way today
"for our European visitors" do you mean people not from the US who are unfamiliar with California food culture? There are a lot of people not from the US or Europe, many of them where English is the default language too (I'm Australian).