So how do the Carl's Jr. ads, of which the most recent I saw involved a woman, sitting in her truck, eating a massive taco salad, fit into this scheme?
The King bade me welcome, yet my gut drew back,
Guilty of lust and binge.
But flame-broiled King, observing me grow slack
From my first exhale in,
Drew neare to me, sweetly questioning
If I like'd anything.
"A man," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
King said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unfit, the unhealty? ah my dear,
I cannot cook with thee."
King took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the fries but I?"
"Truth, Lord, I thought I'd charr'd them; let my shame
go where it doth be proper."
"And know you not," says King, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I'll have a whopper."
"You must sit down," says King, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.
1. And...? There are lots of little bit pieces of culture that we use just as something to talk about. There is nothing more cliched than the idea that real men eat meat. But nobody really cares about it or makes any decisions or categorizations on the basis of it.
You think she might be reading too much into it, SCMT? The Burger King people are going to be pissed that no one makes any decisions on the basis of this sort of thing, since they just dropped a bunch of money on these ads to try to make people decide to buy their burgers. And it's not remotely innocuous to teach guys that the thing we must avoid, most of all, is acting like a woman; which is what the attack on "chick food" does.
The Burger King people are going to be pissed that no one makes any decisions on the basis of this sort of thing, since they just dropped a bunch of money on these ads to try to make people decide to buy their burgers.
You'd have thought people would have been pissed to find that money managers generally don't outperform indexes. And maybe they are. But they keep handing their money over, and paying the required fees.
And it's not remotely innocuous to teach guys that the thing we must avoid, most of all, is acting like a woman;
If by "not remotely innocuous," you mean "actively good," we agree. But, then, I think we should be teaching women not to be acting like girlie-girls (which iw what we're really talking about). The Carl's Jr. ad that eb describes, if I have it right, should be treated as a feminist PSA. If womyn really care about the sisterhood, they will only eat at Carl's Jr. (where available) from now on.
A few years ago the Australian franchise of Burger King (which is called Hungry Jack's for some reason which escapes me) had an ad campaign featuring Aussie Rules football players - basically a bunch of gorillas in man suits. What I remember most, apart from the untrammelled masculinity, is that they 'cheers'ed with their burgers. They banged them together like squashy paper-wrapped glasses of beer - an act I have yet to see repeated in the real world.
About the same time, Red Rooster had an ad in which a man biting into a cheesey chicken burger sent a stream of liquid cheese flying across the table, where it landed on a woman's face. Bukkake with your burger, anyone?
9: I got sick after I ate a Carl's Jr. $5 burger, and I don't like their fries. If I were in California, I'd go to In 'N Out even though it is owned by a fundamentalist weirdo. I don't terribly mind the Bible verses--even if it is a bit naff--but others may feel differently.
You would think food companies/fast food chains would try to appeal to the largest consumer segment possible instead of targeting either men or women exclusively. Because after all, women have been known to eat meat (even steak!), and men have (gasp!) been known to enjoy vegetables.
I know a lot of marketing is gendered: there are "chick" cars, and "chick" flicks and "chick" lit and so on. But I think of food as more genderless, like an ipod or something.
12: The women are assumed to have kids, and so you have ads (I think McDonald's is worse about this) trying to bring the kids in with promises of Happy Meals and toys toys toys.
Advertisers are pretty adept at bringing to bear peer pressure on behalf of their products. I'm pretty sure people don't even have to take the ads seriously for the process to work.
Can we stop pretending that you're not sexist now?
It was a joke, a contrarian impulse intended to keep the thread from being one solid wall of agreement. See, e.g., reference to Becks Fleet-blogging, and reference to Carl's Jr. ad as PSA. That said, I might still be a sexist.
Since when are we talking about acting like girlie-girls? We're talking about eating vegetables.
I agree. Nobody cares about whether someone's a vegetarian, except as it makes it difficult to choose a restaurant. Have you ever in your life something like, "Well, he's a a vegetarian, so X," where X was important? Similarly, nobody really cares if a woman eats meat, or eats heartily, or whatever.
It's a common cliche that has a primary function of moving conversation along. Men like sports too much, or dress badly. Women take too long to dress. Some of these matter, some them don't. "Men like meat," is one that, in my opinion, doesn't matter. Are we really worried that, as a result of these commercials, women might eat too healthily, sticking to vegetables and eschewing the fatty fast food that is man-ish?
It's not reinscribing the norm "Men like meat" that is a problem for me, it's reinscribing the norm "Men had better not act like women in any way, or the other men will despise them." (cf. homosociality.) So "Men like sports, women like chick lit" may not be so harmful a way to pass the time, "Real men don't like chick lit or eat quiche" is pernicious.
18: Actually, you know... becoming a vegetarian really illustrated the social importance of food to me. I've known more than a few people to get weirdly defensive upon being informed I was a vegetarian; apparently this translates in a great many minds, if not precisely to "prissy," then at the least to "here's another one of those self-satisfied lefty granolas judging me for my diet." I've also had conversations with people who actually turned out to be self-satisfied granolas and assumed I was therefore an ally of any number of their pet political causes.
How much did it matter in the great scheme of things? Well, it's only a dram of weight on the scale -- only the shallowest of people, I think, are going to judge someone entirely based on what they eat -- but it's not completely unimportant either. I don't think Pollak is wasting his time in paying attention to it.
The most desirable fast food customer is people in their twenties and thirties who eat fast food 3-4 times a week. Not suprisingly this group is predominantely male.
I think a lot of people's dietary strictures, unfortunately, really are about teh prissy and that can, I suspect, be a source of that defensiveness vis a vis vegetarianism.
Although I eat meat these days, I was a vegan for about 10 years and even I used to get annoyed by some people whining about their diets or using the fact that they didn't eat certain foodstuffs as a way of drawing attention to themselves or exercising passive-aggressive control over where friends ate, etc.
's a shame all the other common-or-garden non-meat eaters get tarred with teh prissy brush though.
The real problem with the food advertising thing, obviously, is that the "macho" diet is bad for you, and the "girly" diet encourages you to starve yourself, which sooner or later leads to pigging out on cake or something because you're fucking famished. I don't think these are messages that people ignore, if cholesterol levels and eating disorders are any indication.
I'm basically with SCMT, here. I just don't care about the mental processes of people who think "vegetables = girly." Such people are a small minority, and I have difficulty believing it's anything but a superficial belief, without any real normalizing force. Why is meat = manly making it into commercials, then? B/c guys like playing "manly." It associates an atmosphere of fun and camaraderie with BK, where otherwise you might just think "depressingly commercial food chain."
The first part of 26 gets it exactly right, but I think we all recognize that this is old news. As to the second part, I'm not sure there's a causality b/w over- or undereating disorders and food advertisements. Don't magazines often get the blame for those? And TV? And hectic work scheudles?
27 shouldn't have referenced BK, whose commercial I haven't seen, but whatever restaurant that is where the guys sit around the table calling out meat products.
I don't disagree with the larger points, but it's not like these are the only ads out there, or that their target audiences are all men and women everywhere. I've seen the Burger King and TGIF ads a lot during the NBA and NHL playoffs - and I'm pretty sure that's where I saw the Carl's Jr. ad I mentioned above - but though I haven't watched every ad during every game, I don't think Lean Cuisine advertises much there.
The most irritating ads I've seen recently were the VW ads where the "fast" brand icon tells people what to do: "My fast likes to keep the windows down" or "Sometimes my fast and my girlfriend don't get along" (or something like that, I'm paraphrasing). Nothing says independence like being totally obedient to a dominating mechanical icon with a deep metallic voice.
Re: gendered food. It may well be that pushing food towards one gender drives more sales. Certainly that seems likely with Lean Cuisine. If LC was just another frozen dinner, it fades into the background. But with those commercials, which establish an identity with sexy, on-the-go-women bonding over their mutual self-denial to stay ahead, it jumps to the foreground. Identity is crucial. This is also why you wouldn't expect to see LC commericals durings sports. The LC angle, that of self-improvement through self-denial of food, doesn't work with most men.
The LC angle, that of self-improvement through self-denial of food, doesn't work with most men.
This has buckets to do with traditional gender roles. It's women who are expected to deny themselves sensual pleasure so they can look good for men. And this leads to an equation of dieting and femininity, which leads to pressure on men to do exactly the opposite of dieting, even if it's unhealthy.
33, well, of course it has to do with gender roles. That's the play-doh for advertising firms. But gender roles are micro as well as macro, and social circles establish their own norms. And it's not as if all ads are in lockstep. Is that 3 lb burger advert followed by a Bowflex, GHC, or Men's health advert?
B-wo took my comment (#2), but I'll note that, no, guys, you don't look more manly while proclaiming your love for sausage loudly while out on a date with your three cowboy friends.
The not at all gay men proclaiming their love for hot meat commercial ends incongruously with an elderly lady squeaking 'meat!' Gay men and old ladies. Mm-mm.
I don't really know how this ties in exactly, but there's also the stereotype of the manly man who only wants to eat what he's always eaten, the "meat and potatoes" guy, with the wife who's always trying to jazz things up a bit or try new foods. You know, this guy.
And actually, all of the really fussy eaters I've met in my life, i.e. people who will barely even consider trying something they're not familiar with, have been guys of the macho (or trying to be) variety. I've always thought that attitude towards food was pretty prissy, even wussy.
That said, the other extreme is pretty annoying too.
I am glad it's been a long time since I've seen that Hilton ad. Also, the last time I went to Carl's Jr it was disgusting. I pretty much agree with B-girl in 11, except In'N'Out can take a long time to put together your order, and sometimes that wait just isn't worth it.
Carl's Jr. is total crap, but nothing is worse than Long John Silver's. And In'n'Out may be the best of the lot, but really, wouldn't you rather have a big ol' mission burrito?
Has anyone eaten both at In 'n' Out and at Five Guys? Many folks here in the Mid-Atlantic evince a passion for FG that seems comparable to the In-'n'-Out-ism of many Southwesterners.
I've tried only FG's version of a veggie sammich, and it was Teh Grease. But I could see that greasiness being a desirable characteristic in a burger.
I don't like rice inside my burritos. I wanted to like the mission burrito I ordered on my trip to SF but couldn't get over the rice. The inclusion of rice seems to be a defining characteristic of a mission burrito so I doubt this is a surmountable complaint.
Actually there's some fantastically good stuf going on in Mexican cooking. That said, of course, there are a lot of poor people in Central and South America, and of course poor people don't eat well, duh.
Mission burrito is an extra-huge tortilla with rice and beans and pico de gallo and cheese maybe chicken, or beef, or fish--in which case it has cabbage and a tangy white sauce and no cheese--and they're damned good. I never claimed they were "authentically Mexican," but they are authentically west coast, and they beat the crap out of fast food burgers and cost the same amount of money. You do usually have to get out of your car to get one, though.
Ignore the quotation marks, I have no idea what that was about.
I agree with M/tch about the word "wrap." But I haven't seen that used any place but those stupid wrap shops, which are gross. The grocery stores around here call tortillas "wraps," though, and this--along with the fact that they've got a dozen different "flavors" of flour tortillas and no goddamn corn tortillas--really pisses me off.
Ever since the "Beef: Its what's for dinner" campaign, the meat industry has been pushing the tough guy image of meat. This was a conscious decision made when they realized that the era when they could tout the health benefits of eating a lot of meat was really, really over. Although most people still have bizarre notions of how much protein a healthy, non pregnant adult needs, most people associate meat, especially red meat, with poor health. This is a real sea change in attitude that didn't really occur until the 70s.
Companies turn to image marketing when they know their product sucks and can't be sold on its own merit.
Yes, that stereotype is definitely real and that sort of prissily 'old-fashioned' eater does often seem to be male or elderly people of both genders.
I've cooked for my wife's parents a few times -- Czechs in their late 50s -- and that was pretty difficult as there's just no way they'd go for anything not firmly within their traditional meat and veg purview. Difficult not just to find the right things to cook them -- most 'ethnic' food would be a definite no-no -- but also because they're pretty suspicious of guys cooking in the first place.
Britain in this respect is pretty good; the majority of people who aren't really elderly are going to be used to Indian and Chinese food and will have moderately wide ranging experience with other cuisines too. Going to the Czech Republic is like travelling back into the culinary dark ages.
On the other hand, people who are suspicious of offal, seafood or anything that's not white meat tend, in my experience, to be overwhelmingly young or female.
There's more than one way to be prissy about food and, I'm sure, these crude stereotypes only vaguely break down on gender or age lines.
I guess I haven't had an authentic mission burrito, then, though I've had ones with some of those ingredients in various proportions. The best burritos I've eaten have all had rice; I'm no culinary segregationist.
I feel like I should take this opportunity to comment Becks style. But I must not be that Becks style, because look at my spelling. Why yes, it is the middle of the afternoon. I feel drunker than my spelling would indicate.
So is that what those round flat things that are colored green or yellow or red are, that they use to wrap lunchmeat in? I had never made the jump to calling those tortillas -- weird now that I think about it I never really had occasion to name wrap components, but seriously I always sort of figured they had some name that was not "tortilla". I agree with you that wraps are gross; and I can't really see those wrap coverings as having any non-gross use outside the realm of the wrap.
I agree with you that wraps are gross; and I can't really see those wrap coverings as having any non-gross use outside the realm of the wrap.
I think they are to be called "flatbread". A name suggesting that indeed they are unappetizing and have no role outside serving as the bare minimum edible container for a cylindrical sandwich.
Just the other day I read about three men eating themselves to death and three women starving themselves to death, all due to clearly satirical fast-food commercials. Neither group had realized that such behavior was required of them until they encountered the awesome authority of BK and LC commercials.
In other news, Sephora, Bath&Body, and spas are closing down, bowing to the pressure society places upon women to deny themselves sensual pleasures.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to shotgun a beer, belch the alphabet, say something rude, and adjust myself in the most obvious way possible.
Disclaimer: The preceding is satire and/or parody, and is not intended in any way to reinforce, vivify, create, endorse, encourage, or in any way promote social norms that harmfully gender behavior and/or in any way further or cause the oppression or objectification of any self-identified members of any gender.
Working with the idea that meat is manly and vegetables are "chick food," how might one market vegetables to men...? V8 (not that pansy ass fruit-blend kind, but the real, *original* V8) is generally considered nasty by most people. A can is also equivallent (sp) to 2 servings of vegetables (however that's determined, I have no idea). So, V8 could capture a whole new market by making the claim that while you don't want to be a sissy like the fag in the comercial who chimes in about the vegetable medley, you can get your vegetables by being a MAN and downing a V8. Because only a real man can stomach that stuff. I'm going to call the V8 marketing people right now.
I have lost count of the wasted evenings in Indian restaurants trying to explan to pals that a) there is nothing intrinsically heterosexual about eating a hotter curry than you want b) that I am unlikely to respect any hierarchy of manliness that anyone derives from our curry orders and c) there are no birds about anyway so even if this was impressive, you're not inmpressing anyone.
70: Just the other day I read about three men eating themselves to death and three women starving themselves to death, all due to clearly satirical fast-food commercials.
But it still effects people. Advertising doesn't have to completely control people in order to have effects, both the intended effect and host of other effects that were at least forseen.
If the ad is effective, and I actually think it is funny enough to be effective, it will not only bring people into BK, but it will reinforce the idea that men, to be men, must distance themselves from the weak and feminine.
The advertisers may even be aware of the addional effect, and are glad that it is present, because it keeps open another channel to influence people. As long as these gender norms exist, they can be used to sell other crappy products. Advertisers, especially advertisers who specialize in marketing to children, are keenly aware of the role they play in creating a broader culture of consumption that will let them sell more things in the future.
To add to 75, most people (myself included) pride themselves on the fact that they are not "tricked" by advertising. But research (to which I can't be bothered to find a link or a reference) has suggested that even if you think otherwise you're still influenced on some level.
68: This demonstrates that it is irresponsible to make blanket statements about flatbread. Naan is great. No man but a blockhead ever ate matzoh, except for religious obligation. (Offer does not apply to matzoh brei.)
Weiner, I feel sorry for you, for having apparently had an upbringing in which matzoh was an instrument of punishment. I urge you to try it sometime, not during but say a week or two before Pesach. It's good. Like a giant cracker.
If the ad is effective, and I actually think it is funny enough to be effective, it will not only bring people into BK, but it will reinforce the idea that men, to be men, must distance themselves from the weak and feminine.
I'm not sure that three guys yelling for meat reinforces the idea that we should distance our selves from the weak and the feminine. But whatever idea it reinforces, does it reinforce the idea, or does it simply make fun of the idea? I see commercials like this more as parody, which if anything undercut the targeted idea, just as I see playful competition to see who can eat the hottest spices to be a kind of parody of social constructions of masculinity----and is simply typical male play.
what's really interesting is what chumps people who work in ad agencies are when it comes to advertising. They seem to be total suckers for the whole message, when you'd think they'd be immune. They have to have the smallest phone, the biggest car, the whitest of scary white teeth, and the women who actually eat lunch come back and throw it up in the ladies room.
I actually thought the joke in the TGIF ad was that the vegetable medley guy is holding up the side dish; the others are holding up the main meat dishes, which presumably also come with vegetables on the side.
Advertising tends to want to have its cake and eat vis a vis parodying apparently sexist points of view.
There are a lot of 'laddish' adverts that manage to both poke fun at and at the same time celebrate those points of view and if called on the celebratory aspect they can point to the parodic aspect as mitigation.
For what it's worth, I still find some of those ads amusing but it doesn't necessarily let them off the hook for reinforcing fairly reactionary views.
73 reminds me of a time I went out for curry with a London friend and his flatmate. LF ordered mild, flatmate spicy (which LF mocked as flatmate's trying to be hard), and I ordered spicy (similarly mocked), and neither of them could eat the spicy food, both of 'em having British palates, and southwestern piggy me finished it all off.
Then, to reaffirm my girlishness, I went and puked it all up in the bathroom* and shagged the flatmate later.**
*Not really.
**Really, but he was a lousy lay. I should've known that any guy who can't eat spicy curry = teh lame in bed.
Yeah, those can be hard to find, although the situation is improving as Mexican migration has moved beyond the traditional border states plus the produce-picking trail up to Chicago.
I actually several times schlepped bags of powdered masa harina (not nearly as good as fresh, but better than no masa) over to China because corn tortillas and tamales were some of the few food items I really missed that I couldn't find a reasonable replacement for over there.
Also, I fully agree that mission burritos beat the crap out of fast food burgers, and my complaint about Cal-Mex's burrito-centric view of Mexican food isn't based on any argument about authenticity, or for that matter on whether burritos are good or not.
And who would have guessed that dsquared was such a nancy boy? Not me.
"I ordered spicy (similarly mocked), and neither of them could eat the spicy food, both of 'em having British palates"
This is clearly explained by them being soft southerners and therefore teh ghey.
Although I did once find myself unable to finish a Thai curried swordfish at a restaurant where a former flatmate was chef. I don't know if he'd added extra green chillis since he'd seen it was me and thought it might be amusing or if he always served it that way but this shit could have stripped paint.
Advertising tends to want to have its cake and eat vis a vis parodying apparently sexist points of view.
There are a lot of 'laddish' adverts that manage to both poke fun at and at the same time celebrate those points of view and if called on the celebratory aspect they can point to the parodic aspect as mitigation.
I can see that possibility, but do you think that the BK and LC ads qualify? And maybe this is because I'm male and therefore insensitive, but I'm having difficulty thinking of any truly sexist commercials.
but I'm having difficulty thinking of any truly sexist commercials.
I'd say there's no doubt you're insensitive, but I don't think it's because you're male. Maybe it's because you're stupid, or intellectually dishonest, or have never seen a television.
This is clearly explained by them being soft southerners and therefore teh ghey.
That would explain why LF never would fuck me, and why Flatmate was so bad at it. Hmm.
I'm having difficulty thinking of any truly sexist commercials.
I am really forced to ask, then, what in your mind constitutes "true sexism"?
99: There is a hierarchy of hotness among foods, and Thai stands at the pinacle. While I generally don't subscribe to a claim of correlation between manliness and the spiciness of the food consumed, if you can eat hot Thai food, you are a total masculine stud. This means that most of the hot Thai women you know have penises. (Strangely enough, depending on where you live, this may actually be true.)
Flatbread, a genus under which fall as species naan, tortillas
While I was on vacation in Greece, I went to a combination Indian/Chinese/Thai restaurant. (Surprisingly tasty, despite what you might think. Also: not Greek food, which was a big point in its favor.) I asked the owner if the "Indian flatbread" on the menu was naan; he said it was more like a chapati.
Every guy who’s left a stupid comment on my blog about how I’m over-reading the “poke it/own it” commercial leaves me flabbergasted. To the last one, they think that if the price one must pay to ignore sexism is to deliberately make one’s self into a fucktard with an IQ of 10, then that’s not too high a price to pay.
--Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, commenting on IBTP re the "You poke it, You own it" beer commercials.
One of my favorite dishes made by my mom is a bunch of miniature, boneless chicken breasts marinated (completely covered) in Louisiana hot sauce, and baked on very low for five hours. Louisiana hot sauce isn't terribly hot as a condiment, but as a major ingredient, it's more than a lot of people can handle. I would bet that there are extremely few people who enjoy food as spicy as my family.
We housed a family from New Orleans after Katrina hit, and they cooked some of their "really spicy" food. They were sure we wouldn't be able to handle it. We had to add a bunch of hot sauce to it.
Now, I did know a guy who would, many days at lunch, eat a small tray of french fries floating in a complete ~6 oz. bottle of Louisiana hot sauce. I probably wouldn't have enjoyed that, had I tried it.
Thai food has a 1-to-5 hotness scale. 1 is not hot. 2 is "mild" and we would call it hot. 3 is medium and we would call it "very hot". I tried 3 and I couldn't eat it, and I can take a spoonful of Tabasco.
So anyone who wants to be macho, go to a Thai restaurant, ask if it's got a 1-5 scale, and if it does, ask for a 5.
I ate at a restaurant today that had signs all over the place warning about how hot the chile was and how they weren't responsible if your order was too hot for you, but it really wasn't all that hot (roughly medium, I guess) and was quite tasty--I had three delicious tamales and an enchilada. I suspect they cater mostly to tourists who don't know what they're getting into.
Spicy Thai food is good, but takes a li'l getting used to. I'm not so good w/ spicy Korean food.
No, no, Tim, I'm now completely convinced that all my feminist beliefs simply come from overreading perfectly innocent things. It's just wrong for me to look beyond the surface of things and question the status quo. La la la la la.
There is a hierarchy of hotness among foods, and Thai stands at the pinacle
Not true at all. I did the SouthEast Asian thing like every other repulsive middle class backpacker and Indonesia was top dog out of the SE Asians, but still not as hot as Kerala in India. In general, the spiciness of the food correlates pretty well with the typical rancidness of the meat, which is a good reason to start experimenting with your sexual identity wrt vegetarianism while abroad.
Yeah, I've had that. Sometimes they stick some peach slices or something in the whipped cream.
I do remember flicking through a Czech cookbook and seeing a recipe for brain goulash, and then for another recipe where the sauce was thickened with pureéd/diced brain and saying to my wife, 'I don't fancy that' and receiving the reply, 'Oh, I think you've already eaten that' ...
re: Thai food. Generally I find it OK. Some dishes occasionally verge on too spicy and there are some that I like in small quantities but really wouldn't want to eat a huge amount of but mostly I really like that kind of spiciness -- the fresh chilli heat with the other flavours. The swordfish thing alluded to in 99 was a whole order of magnitude spicier than most things I've eaten in Thai places.
50: Stanley, I have eaten at both 5 Guys and In'N Out. I like In' N Out better. 5 guys is good, but it's more expensive, and the fries are greasier. The experiences are different. In N' Out makes shoe string fries which you can order extra crispy, and they have their special sauce. Plus you can order their burgers animal style
Yeah, 'basta' that is, I think -- sort of like what we'd call a mixed-grill here in the UK. Several different kinds of meat (pork) on a plate.
'Krk' would probably have been in among that -- smoked pork neck. Krk is both tasty and a tongue-twister. 'Str? prst skrz krk' is one of the classic Czech tongue twisters for foreigners to get their head around.
I had a meal in Granada (Spain) last week that was almost the exact Andalucian equivalent -- various cooked meat-stuffs on a plate. It looked nigh on indistuingishable from Czech food.
Oh, now, I ate really well in Granada (and I'm so envious that you were there--haven't been in almost twenty years!). I think a lot of it was b/c I was a cute American college girl who spoke a little Spanish and wasn't above flirting with wait staff....
Indonesia was top dog out of the SE Asians
I'm glad someone pointed that out. Thai food can be hot, but it's not usually pointlessly, stupidly, turn-your-guts-inside-out-ingly hot like some of the regional Indonesian food.
Where I am, they do it to disguise the fact that rancid charred dog is not the best tasting of meats. Surprise!
The food was pretty good but I think I was expecting more from it. The seafood was good, particularly the whole fried anchovies (yum), and some of the tapas were nice, but it didn't really blow me away. The standard was pretty uniformly OK though, we didn't have a bad meal while we were there.
The city itself is pretty great though. My wife speaks a little Spanish and I found that a couple of hours spent scouring a phrase book and some basic grammar tips from my wife before we went were enough for me to communicate with waiters, bar staff, etc. pretty much entirely in Spanish.
a food thread! does anyone know if it is very bad to eat raw duck? i ordered some "rosé" at a wedding party and it was basically raw meat with a layer of raw fat on top of it because it was maigret de canard. i am not dead yet. should i be worried though?
it was tasty enough but kind of hard to cut, esp. the fat layer. i love raw seafood of all kinds including lovely fresh raw shrimp, but this was a bit much. uh, chewy.
Years ago we went with some friends to a new Indian Restaurant in London and ordered a Vindaloo curry (native to Southern India and famous for being HOT, HOT, HOTTTTTT)
We also ordered papadums. Half way through our meal I noticed my partner on the opposite side of the table, sweat pouring down over his eyes, reaching for his serviette and wiping his brow with a papadum..........
An acquaintance once went into a Szechuan restaurant in Beijing and ordered a dish called "3 chilli pork" or something like that, and the waitress refused to let him have it, because he wouldn't be able to eat it.
Of course he had to make a scene and insist on it, so she stood over him and watched him to make sure he ate it all. Very, very ill.
This may be true if you are eating the non-pesedich giant crackers that are marketed as "egg and onion Matzoh." Genuine Matzoh, however, just sucks. Henceforth I will ignore anything you say about food.
Actually, in Spain last week I ordered cuttlefish as I'd never had it, and the waitress told me she'd bring me bocadillos instead as 'I'd prefer it'.
I have no idea if the cuttlefish would have been good but the whole anchovies deep fried and served with their little piranha like teeth biting their own tails (ouroboros style) were great...
I also ordered morcilla in one place -- spanish black pudding -- and the waitress told me she'd bring me a small plate in case I 'didn't like it'. Which was a good call -- it was nice but way too salty to eat much. I presume she thought that as a Brit I'd find the morcilla unpalatable -- it's a lot 'rawer' than British black pudding -- but that aspect of it was fine.
I'm wondering whether experience with tourists hasn't taught the Thai to moderate their spicing even when asked not to. The time I ordered level 3 Thai food what I really got was level 2 1/2 Thai food, the waiter explained afterwards, and I could barely eat that.
Whereas the ignorant Keralans and Indonesians just treat you like anyone else.
My infamous friend Razib claims that it's a genetic thing.
Another thing I've found in Spain is that waiters will moderate your intake if they think you don't realise how much you've called for. In Galicia a few weeks ago, we ordered soup and some fish for lunch. The soup came in bowls the size of window-cleaning buckets, each containing a head of cabbage, a peck of potatos and most of a dead pig. The rest of the order was quietly forgotten by mutual consent.
133, 140, 147: We should be able to settle this. Unfogged has an Asian correspondent, I believe. We can just set up a spicy tournament, with competitors from each country trying to survive all of the other country entrants' food. Last person standing wins. (I've never had Indonesian food, but I'm still betting on the Thai.)
I have eaten Indonesian food a couple of times in Amsterdam and don't remember it being especially spicy. Plenty of chilli flavours, yes, but I certainly don't remember it as being any spicier than Thai food.
I mean, I've had plenty of spicy food in Thailand, but haven't had (say) a fish encased in chili paste, baked, and then served with extra chili paste, and sambal tomat (chili with tomato, for variety).
The mother of a college friend of mine used to FedEx her home cooked Indian dinners in Tupperware that she would then share with her friends. Once I scooped some green beans for myself, and thought, "What is this odd red green bean? I must try it." I bit into it, chewed, and swallowed. I spent the next hour eating rice and drinking water, with tears streaming down my face the whole time.
It's definitely a British thing, and there is quite a good claim made for the particular point of origin being Glasgow -- but I gather there are a lot of conflicting claims. Given the history of the UK as the colonial power in Indian and Pakistan I'd be *very* surprised if the dish originated in the U.S. You'd also then have to explain how it got here, in the 1960s, from the US.
Similarly, 'balti' style Indian cooking originates in Birmingham but different restaurants lay claim to having originated it.
My gripe really is that I've been in Indonesia, specifically Minahasa, too long, and Thai cuisine it ain't. While chili usually adds something to a complex bunch of flavours in a Thai dish, here it just overwhelms (though you can still taste the rancid pork, bat or dog underneath). So I guess I'm not really hung up on the idea that it is the hottest food, but that hotness is often the only (palatable) flavour.
That said, I am in Singapore today and have eaten 2 cheese platters. They weren't spicy at all!
hi mmf!,
You must still be in France then, right? I don't think you could get this duck concoction of which you speak anywhere in massachusetts. If I am wrong, please let me know. I shouldn't think raw duck would be any worse than beef tartar. probably safer.
I've had duck tartare in France and duck sashimi in Japan with no ill effects (other than not particularly wanting to eat raw duck again). Salmonella is your biggest worry - if you are not ill 1-2 days after you're probably fine.
I'm sure no one would consider it foofy when the alternative is rancid bat
It'd be about being polite to one's host: "I spent hours cooking that bat! Up before dawn to make sure it was just the right level of rancidness; carrying home five tonnes of chillis and peeling them with my own eyeballs! And now you sit there and ask me for BK. Ingrate!"
162: If anthony is actually chef Anthony Bourdain (not to un-pseudonomize someone), then he must think that being vegetarian while travelling is an unforgivable sin.
162
I do eat a lot of noodles and kangkong (charmingly translated as 'water convolvus'). Unfortunately it has become personally important to a number of people that I be seen to eat (and seemingly enjoy) all the festive meats as often as possible.
Has a history of Indian and Chinese restaurants in the UK and mentions the various tikka masala claims. The first Indian restaurant in London opened as long ago as the end of the 18th century.
167: Yes, OFE semi-pwned me. But Bourdain's disdain for vegetarianism seems to offend him specifically, not just the host or preparer of food. Listen to that interview if you can. He's seething with contempt for non-meat-eating travellers.
Yes, I've heard it. Do we have a term for someone who articulates a position you more-or-less agree with (go to a country, eat the food) in such a manner that you find you don't agree with it any more?
171 -- when that happens to me (as it did when I heard Bourdain spouting off about travellers who are not culinarily adventurous -- don't remember if it was the linked interview or another similar one though) I usually try not to reject the original position but rather to refine it in a way that distinguishes what I think from what Bourdain (or whoever) thinks. So it goes -- this seems to me to be rooted in a kind of narcissistic fixation on being right -- if you can actually reject the position you held previously after hearing it argued in an offensive way, more power to you.
Y'all, the New York Times wants you to know that the Navy is totally not gay:
Once it was strip clubs and bars and tattoo parlors and girls. And while there still may be some of that, sailors who sauntered around Midtown on Memorial Day gave some surprising answers when asked how they experience New York City in the two or three short days they are here. They mentioned frozen cappuccinos, and Off Broadway, and the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, and architecture — specifically, terra cotta facades.
A handy tip for handling what the the Mexicans refer to as being "enchilado" (overcome by spice, all spiced out): squeeze a lemon or lime into a glass of water and drink that. Works like a charm, and very fast too. For severe cases, such as in Tia's story, just suck directly on the lime or lemon. Orange juice sort of works too.
Capsaicin is an alkaloid compound and is highly basic, the acid in the citrus counteracts that.
A friend of mine reported reading an article in the Daily News which suggested that Fleet Week is the perfect time for no-strings attached sex. I'm not sure if the article was clear on which gender it was giving the advice to, since I didn't read the article.
via friends in the trade, he is really not that well respected a chef. His book, "Kitchen Confidential", if you look at it objectively, describes a really badly run kitchen. I know (third hand) that at least one of the people mentioned in his book "A Cook's Tour" has absolutely no time for him at all.
via friends in a different trade, he was at best a B-minus heroin addict too.
Thanks for 174. I'd always heard, and employed, sweet and/or milky--raita, cafe sua da, or just a glass of milk. Shall have to try the citrus option at some point.
And I did try my best yesterday - I chatted up the one sailor I saw, in line at the coffee shop. My flirtation was unsuccessful, though, because the guy was married. Make that "kid" -- turns out he was only 19. It's bad enough to find out that someone you've been talking with is less than 1/2+7 but less than 1/2+7 and already married? That's so wrong.
This is something of a tangent, but this thread has gone from meat marketing to international cuisine to meat markets of a nother kind, i.e. Fleet Week, so here goes. IIt's somethign I've been curious about for a while.
Unfogged seems to attract a more international audience than most American blogs. (See, it isn't totally unrelated to the food posts.) There are some Asian posted people and a shockingly (and wonderfully) high number of British commenters. Does anyone have a theory for why this is? Did they all dollow dsquared over from crooked timber which has, in addition to dsquared, an Australain?
But why do they stay? Is our "clever" banter comfortable for Europeans in a way that the earnestness of a lot of quasi-political blogs isn't. Are the Americans among us just completely freakish, not just in the blue-state vred state divide kind of way? I think you'd all make wonderful dinner party guests. and--although most Americans have people over for dinner, even, sometimes fairly fancy obes--I don't think that we, as a people, do dinner parties very well.
189: OK, that's wierd. Um, I quoted the above because I had suggested 1/2 +5 rule for women. (Affirmative action adjustment based on historic denial of opportunities to sex the young, etc.) I must have dropped it.
I'd always heard, and employed, sweet and/or milky--raita, cafe sua da, or just a glass of milk.
Citrus works way better.
Do Fast Show references work with this trans-Atlantic (and beyond) crowd?
As 184 said, no, they don't.
They also don't work when one is the lone septic playing the British edition of trivial pursuit with a bunch of the natives (all of whom insist that the USA has 52 states).
And while it pains me to say it, I would be remiss if I didn't note that comment 77 pwns. Especially because at first I was all ready to spring into "wolfson misspelled something!" mode. Then I thought, "wait, it's too easy, it must be a trap." And sure enough . . .
1. Unfogged seems to attract a more international audience than most American blogs Is this true - I haven't really thought about it.
2. Yes, came here via CT, but independently of D^2. I was just wandering around their blogroll. I went to CT out of curiosity because I knew Chris B in a past life.
3. Is our "clever" banter comfortable for Europeans in a way that the earnestness of a lot of quasi-political blogs isn't. Dunno. Can't generalise. I think of Unfogged as being a bit like the Deipnosophistes, only not boring.
3. Are the Americans among us just completely freakish Probably, but you'd be freakish anywhere. One thing I've learned in this vale of tears is never to trust anybody who doesn't have a well developed sense of their own absurdity. Which is why I don't have many friends.
Some of the young soldiers I know seem to get engaged when they're 19 or 20 and married young because they want to keep their girlfriends around.
Sometimes with worrisome consequences. One of my sister's soldier friends is on leave now and he's planning to ask his girlfriend to marry him before he returns to Iraq and everyone knows she's been cheating on him. Drama.
Normally, I'd agree with you, Cala, about the worrisome consequences of gettinbg married too young to keep a girlfriend. But I do wonder whether there aren't other considerations in a time of war. Wives get benefits if the poor guy dies in Iraq; girlfriends don't.
197: All I think is worrisome is the fact that the soldier's beloved is cheating on him and he doesn't know and she'll probably accept the ring. The young age doesn't bother me so much -- 19 makes me blink, but marriage age seems to be tied more to adulthood and position in life (judging by my friends whose trajectory goes college, job/law school, new job, hum around a year, meet woman, BOOM, married, and if they'd met their wife at the wrong time, it wouldn't have happened.) A 21-year old soldier is different than a 21-year old college student, perhaps.
I also came here via the Crooked Timber blogroll and stayed because of i) the general absence of politics, and ii) dick jokes.
There are political discussions but -- and this is the cool thing -- the politics is leavend with self-deprecation and humour and, this is the key thing, the absence of those totally f*cking nutso U.S. rightwingers that are *everywhere* else.
I generally don't comment over at CT anymore for that reason.
202: I'm not sure if Matt's "nutso rightwingers" was intended to include your type, Idealist, but I agree with his sentiment, and I wouldn't include you. Rightwingers at places like ObWings (besides Seb. H. and Slarti) and CT seem to me to contribute less than you do here.
How many times must it be explained? Neither you nor baa are f*cking nutso, U.S. rightwingers though you may be. Everywhere else wishes it had rightwingers like you.
203: I thought it more charitable to take you for a consumer of egg-and-onion matzoh than one who would, for pleasure, eat corrugated cardboard with a hint of ass.
Don't care how conservative or right-wing anyone's opinions, they can be distinguished in an instant from those arguing like trolls, with obvious and boring obsessions and lack of interest in facts, except as proof of pre-existing conclusions.
Orwell's Notes on Nationalism is a virtual catalogue of then-existing varieties of this sort of worthless creature.
Thanks, SCMT. My world-view was crumbling there for a minute.
I must admit that the use of nutter in close conjunction to a discussion of the Navy's habits on shore leave makes me vaguely concerned that you have attacked my manhood rather than my politics. Is this some slang term you kids use these days?
Matzoh is OK flatbread, AFAIK&IMHO. But gefiltefish is perhaps the worst food I've ever tried to eat. I did it in an ecumenical spirit, but I decided that the anti-Semites may have had a point.
Kosher pickles are OK, though I far prefer vinegary pickles. I'm a discriminating anti-Semite.
Also, if Dr. B. were to make a kinky video with a father-figure in a Navy uniform, that would be transgressive as shit.
I have grown to love gefilte fish. With horseradish. Plenty of horseradish.
There are two separate schools of thought, one where the parents hide the afikoman somewhere easy for the kids to find, one where the kids hide the afikoman and the parents pretend not to find it. Although if the kids are devious fuckers like me, that may not be necessary -- I went upstairs and dropped the matzoh down the laundry chute. Nobody looked for it in the basement. I'm the John Dickson Carr of afikoman-hiders.
Gefilte fish can be terrible. The mass-market stuff in jars I've tasted is poor. Often served as a fish course right after haroseth, at the beginning of the eating as opposed to ceremonial part of seders. Treated as a sort of soul food.
We make our own. But it's getting expensive: six pounds ground fish, including pike, cost me $90 two months ago.
Since it's beat up on Tony Bourdain day, anybody see that buried rotten fish they gave him to eat in Iceland? Makes lutefisk sound lke food of the gods. I liked Kitchen Confidential, but I'm tired of the schtick.
What are the good Jewish foods? Are latkes really Jewish, or are they Eastern European?
Is there a difference? At any rate, I'm ready to lay claim to latkes, brisket, matzoh ball soup, and, as slolernr says, pastrami (or corned beef) on rye.
[Bourdain] is really not that well respected a chef
According to that NPR interview, he's not much of a chef at all these days. He said he doesn't really cook at the restaurant anymore; with his travel schedule, he's only there a day or two a month, and even then only in a sort of emeritus position.
Nothing says "stud" like a guy who can deep-throat a double whopper.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-28-06 11:59 PM
Three men, again, proving their masculinity and heterosexuality by bursting into melody,
Uh huh…
Immediately, [the one whose masculinity was questioned] rejects his much-loved vegetables to sing the praises of sausage,
Yeah.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 12:03 AM
So how do the Carl's Jr. ads, of which the most recent I saw involved a woman, sitting in her truck, eating a massive taco salad, fit into this scheme?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 12:04 AM
The King bade me welcome, yet my gut drew back,
Guilty of lust and binge.
But flame-broiled King, observing me grow slack
From my first exhale in,
Drew neare to me, sweetly questioning
If I like'd anything.
"A man," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
King said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unfit, the unhealty? ah my dear,
I cannot cook with thee."
King took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the fries but I?"
"Truth, Lord, I thought I'd charr'd them; let my shame
go where it doth be proper."
"And know you not," says King, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I'll have a whopper."
"You must sit down," says King, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 1:34 AM
2 gets it exactly right.
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 6:54 AM
4 totally pwns.
Check out the illustrations in Amanda's post on the same subject.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 7:08 AM
1. And...? There are lots of little bit pieces of culture that we use just as something to talk about. There is nothing more cliched than the idea that real men eat meat. But nobody really cares about it or makes any decisions or categorizations on the basis of it.
2. Does Fleet Blogging commence later today?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 7:27 AM
You think she might be reading too much into it, SCMT? The Burger King people are going to be pissed that no one makes any decisions on the basis of this sort of thing, since they just dropped a bunch of money on these ads to try to make people decide to buy their burgers. And it's not remotely innocuous to teach guys that the thing we must avoid, most of all, is acting like a woman; which is what the attack on "chick food" does.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 7:38 AM
The Burger King people are going to be pissed that no one makes any decisions on the basis of this sort of thing, since they just dropped a bunch of money on these ads to try to make people decide to buy their burgers.
You'd have thought people would have been pissed to find that money managers generally don't outperform indexes. And maybe they are. But they keep handing their money over, and paying the required fees.
And it's not remotely innocuous to teach guys that the thing we must avoid, most of all, is acting like a woman;
If by "not remotely innocuous," you mean "actively good," we agree. But, then, I think we should be teaching women not to be acting like girlie-girls (which iw what we're really talking about). The Carl's Jr. ad that eb describes, if I have it right, should be treated as a feminist PSA. If womyn really care about the sisterhood, they will only eat at Carl's Jr. (where available) from now on.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 7:47 AM
A few years ago the Australian franchise of Burger King (which is called Hungry Jack's for some reason which escapes me) had an ad campaign featuring Aussie Rules football players - basically a bunch of gorillas in man suits. What I remember most, apart from the untrammelled masculinity, is that they 'cheers'ed with their burgers. They banged them together like squashy paper-wrapped glasses of beer - an act I have yet to see repeated in the real world.
About the same time, Red Rooster had an ad in which a man biting into a cheesey chicken burger sent a stream of liquid cheese flying across the table, where it landed on a woman's face. Bukkake with your burger, anyone?
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 7:54 AM
9: I got sick after I ate a Carl's Jr. $5 burger, and I don't like their fries. If I were in California, I'd go to In 'N Out even though it is owned by a fundamentalist weirdo. I don't terribly mind the Bible verses--even if it is a bit naff--but others may feel differently.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 8:01 AM
You would think food companies/fast food chains would try to appeal to the largest consumer segment possible instead of targeting either men or women exclusively. Because after all, women have been known to eat meat (even steak!), and men have (gasp!) been known to enjoy vegetables.
I know a lot of marketing is gendered: there are "chick" cars, and "chick" flicks and "chick" lit and so on. But I think of food as more genderless, like an ipod or something.
But then, I'm not a marketing expert.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 8:19 AM
12: The women are assumed to have kids, and so you have ads (I think McDonald's is worse about this) trying to bring the kids in with promises of Happy Meals and toys toys toys.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 8:39 AM
Advertisers are pretty adept at bringing to bear peer pressure on behalf of their products. I'm pretty sure people don't even have to take the ads seriously for the process to work.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 8:42 AM
The Sexual Politics of Meat is a concept with a pedigree.
Posted by DonBoy | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 8:46 AM
And it's not remotely innocuous to teach guys that the thing we must avoid, most of all, is acting like a woman;
If by "not remotely innocuous," you mean "actively good," we agree.
Can we stop pretending that you're not sexist now? Since when are we talking about acting like girlie-girls? We're talking about eating vegetables.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 8:48 AM
So how do the Carl's Jr. ads, of which the most recent I saw involved a woman, sitting in her truck, eating a massive taco salad
was it a pink taco salad?
Posted by dsquared | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 8:59 AM
Can we stop pretending that you're not sexist now?
It was a joke, a contrarian impulse intended to keep the thread from being one solid wall of agreement. See, e.g., reference to Becks Fleet-blogging, and reference to Carl's Jr. ad as PSA. That said, I might still be a sexist.
Since when are we talking about acting like girlie-girls? We're talking about eating vegetables.
I agree. Nobody cares about whether someone's a vegetarian, except as it makes it difficult to choose a restaurant. Have you ever in your life something like, "Well, he's a a vegetarian, so X," where X was important? Similarly, nobody really cares if a woman eats meat, or eats heartily, or whatever.
It's a common cliche that has a primary function of moving conversation along. Men like sports too much, or dress badly. Women take too long to dress. Some of these matter, some them don't. "Men like meat," is one that, in my opinion, doesn't matter. Are we really worried that, as a result of these commercials, women might eat too healthily, sticking to vegetables and eschewing the fatty fast food that is man-ish?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:03 AM
It's not reinscribing the norm "Men like meat" that is a problem for me, it's reinscribing the norm "Men had better not act like women in any way, or the other men will despise them." (cf. homosociality.) So "Men like sports, women like chick lit" may not be so harmful a way to pass the time, "Real men don't like chick lit or eat quiche" is pernicious.
[Becks: edited - link fixed]
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:22 AM
18: Actually, you know... becoming a vegetarian really illustrated the social importance of food to me. I've known more than a few people to get weirdly defensive upon being informed I was a vegetarian; apparently this translates in a great many minds, if not precisely to "prissy," then at the least to "here's another one of those self-satisfied lefty granolas judging me for my diet." I've also had conversations with people who actually turned out to be self-satisfied granolas and assumed I was therefore an ally of any number of their pet political causes.
How much did it matter in the great scheme of things? Well, it's only a dram of weight on the scale -- only the shallowest of people, I think, are going to judge someone entirely based on what they eat -- but it's not completely unimportant either. I don't think Pollak is wasting his time in paying attention to it.
Posted by Doctor Slack | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:26 AM
7: Oh lordy. My #1 was basically my own version of Ben's #2.
Lighten up, Tim. I really think you're reading way too much into my comments....
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:30 AM
So, if I'm not mistaken the "1" and "2" in 7 do not refer to comments 1 and 2 but are more ordered list thingies?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:34 AM
The most desirable fast food customer is people in their twenties and thirties who eat fast food 3-4 times a week. Not suprisingly this group is predominantely male.
Posted by joe o | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:35 AM
When Mr. B. and I were vegetarians, his mother was Very Very Worried that this was undermining his . . . strength.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:35 AM
re: 20
I think a lot of people's dietary strictures, unfortunately, really are about teh prissy and that can, I suspect, be a source of that defensiveness vis a vis vegetarianism.
Although I eat meat these days, I was a vegan for about 10 years and even I used to get annoyed by some people whining about their diets or using the fact that they didn't eat certain foodstuffs as a way of drawing attention to themselves or exercising passive-aggressive control over where friends ate, etc.
's a shame all the other common-or-garden non-meat eaters get tarred with teh prissy brush though.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:37 AM
Oh, well in that case ignore #21.
The real problem with the food advertising thing, obviously, is that the "macho" diet is bad for you, and the "girly" diet encourages you to starve yourself, which sooner or later leads to pigging out on cake or something because you're fucking famished. I don't think these are messages that people ignore, if cholesterol levels and eating disorders are any indication.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:41 AM
I'm basically with SCMT, here. I just don't care about the mental processes of people who think "vegetables = girly." Such people are a small minority, and I have difficulty believing it's anything but a superficial belief, without any real normalizing force. Why is meat = manly making it into commercials, then? B/c guys like playing "manly." It associates an atmosphere of fun and camaraderie with BK, where otherwise you might just think "depressingly commercial food chain."
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:53 AM
The first part of 26 gets it exactly right, but I think we all recognize that this is old news. As to the second part, I'm not sure there's a causality b/w over- or undereating disorders and food advertisements. Don't magazines often get the blame for those? And TV? And hectic work scheudles?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 10:00 AM
I'm not sure if the tone of #2 is poiting out the funny in the post, or ridiculing the melodramatic tone of the post.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 10:01 AM
27 shouldn't have referenced BK, whose commercial I haven't seen, but whatever restaurant that is where the guys sit around the table calling out meat products.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 10:03 AM
I don't disagree with the larger points, but it's not like these are the only ads out there, or that their target audiences are all men and women everywhere. I've seen the Burger King and TGIF ads a lot during the NBA and NHL playoffs - and I'm pretty sure that's where I saw the Carl's Jr. ad I mentioned above - but though I haven't watched every ad during every game, I don't think Lean Cuisine advertises much there.
The most irritating ads I've seen recently were the VW ads where the "fast" brand icon tells people what to do: "My fast likes to keep the windows down" or "Sometimes my fast and my girlfriend don't get along" (or something like that, I'm paraphrasing). Nothing says independence like being totally obedient to a dominating mechanical icon with a deep metallic voice.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 10:09 AM
Re: gendered food. It may well be that pushing food towards one gender drives more sales. Certainly that seems likely with Lean Cuisine. If LC was just another frozen dinner, it fades into the background. But with those commercials, which establish an identity with sexy, on-the-go-women bonding over their mutual self-denial to stay ahead, it jumps to the foreground. Identity is crucial. This is also why you wouldn't expect to see LC commericals durings sports. The LC angle, that of self-improvement through self-denial of food, doesn't work with most men.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 10:21 AM
The LC angle, that of self-improvement through self-denial of food, doesn't work with most men.
This has buckets to do with traditional gender roles. It's women who are expected to deny themselves sensual pleasure so they can look good for men. And this leads to an equation of dieting and femininity, which leads to pressure on men to do exactly the opposite of dieting, even if it's unhealthy.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 10:36 AM
33 by me.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 10:37 AM
33, well, of course it has to do with gender roles. That's the play-doh for advertising firms. But gender roles are micro as well as macro, and social circles establish their own norms. And it's not as if all ads are in lockstep. Is that 3 lb burger advert followed by a Bowflex, GHC, or Men's health advert?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 10:50 AM
2. Does Fleet Blogging commence later today?
I, of course, have run into no more sailors since commenting about Fleet Week.
If womyn really care about the sisterhood, they will only eat at Carl's Jr.
Yes, Carl's Jr.: for the sisterhood.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 11:18 AM
I, of course, have run into no more sailors since commenting about Fleet Week.
Check the local butcher's shop.
Yes, Carl's Jr.: for the sisterhood.
The Hilton ad is empowering in the same fashion as 80's Madonna or Erica Jong.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 11:27 AM
B-wo took my comment (#2), but I'll note that, no, guys, you don't look more manly while proclaiming your love for sausage loudly while out on a date with your three cowboy friends.
The not at all gay men proclaiming their love for hot meat commercial ends incongruously with an elderly lady squeaking 'meat!' Gay men and old ladies. Mm-mm.
Beef.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 11:36 AM
I don't really know how this ties in exactly, but there's also the stereotype of the manly man who only wants to eat what he's always eaten, the "meat and potatoes" guy, with the wife who's always trying to jazz things up a bit or try new foods. You know, this guy.
And actually, all of the really fussy eaters I've met in my life, i.e. people who will barely even consider trying something they're not familiar with, have been guys of the macho (or trying to be) variety. I've always thought that attitude towards food was pretty prissy, even wussy.
That said, the other extreme is pretty annoying too.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 11:44 AM
I am glad it's been a long time since I've seen that Hilton ad. Also, the last time I went to Carl's Jr it was disgusting. I pretty much agree with B-girl in 11, except In'N'Out can take a long time to put together your order, and sometimes that wait just isn't worth it.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 11:44 AM
Gay men and old ladies
Well this is going to generate some interesting referrals.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 11:45 AM
Second link in 39 should go here.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 11:51 AM
except In'N'Out can take a long time to put together your order, and sometimes that wait just isn't worth it.
Because they are making the fries (if your In'n'Out order doesn't include fries, you're doing it wrong)! Don't badmouth In'n'Out!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 11:52 AM
In'n'Out is vastly overrated. People who don't like Carl's Jr. don't like America.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 12:02 PM
The Hilton ad is empowering in the same fashion as 80's Madonna or Erica Jong.
My fanny it is.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 12:18 PM
In'n'Out may be vastly overrated, but even when rated correctly, it's still way better than Carl's Jr.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 12:21 PM
Carl's Jr. is total crap, but nothing is worse than Long John Silver's. And In'n'Out may be the best of the lot, but really, wouldn't you rather have a big ol' mission burrito?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 12:27 PM
45: Or Camille Paglia.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 12:32 PM
Paglia! I knew there was another candidate for worst lesbian evah.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 12:38 PM
Has anyone eaten both at In 'n' Out and at Five Guys? Many folks here in the Mid-Atlantic evince a passion for FG that seems comparable to the In-'n'-Out-ism of many Southwesterners.
I've tried only FG's version of a veggie sammich, and it was Teh Grease. But I could see that greasiness being a desirable characteristic in a burger.
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 12:49 PM
wouldn't you rather have a big ol' mission burrito?
I just want to take this opportunity to let it be known that the West Coast is far too burrito-centric in its Mexican food.
Also, the use of the word "wrap" to describe a food item is deeply deeply wrong.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 1:44 PM
Burritos aren't even real Mexican food, people.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 1:53 PM
I don't like rice inside my burritos. I wanted to like the mission burrito I ordered on my trip to SF but couldn't get over the rice. The inclusion of rice seems to be a defining characteristic of a mission burrito so I doubt this is a surmountable complaint.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 1:57 PM
What exactly is a mission burrito? I've eaten many burritos in the Bay Area but have never been conscious of eating a "mission" version.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 2:07 PM
According to a friend, real Mexican food is rice and beans, maybe some greens, and if you're lucky, a tough old hen that quit laying.
According to a Salvadoran friend, real Salvadoran food was rice and maybe beans, or else nothing.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 2:07 PM
Actually there's some fantastically good stuf going on in Mexican cooking. That said, of course, there are a lot of poor people in Central and South America, and of course poor people don't eat well, duh.
Mission burrito is an extra-huge tortilla with rice and beans and pico de gallo and cheese maybe chicken, or beef, or fish--in which case it has cabbage and a tangy white sauce and no cheese--and they're damned good. I never claimed they were "authentically Mexican," but they are authentically west coast, and they beat the crap out of fast food burgers and cost the same amount of money. You do usually have to get out of your car to get one, though.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 2:12 PM
Ignore the quotation marks, I have no idea what that was about.
I agree with M/tch about the word "wrap." But I haven't seen that used any place but those stupid wrap shops, which are gross. The grocery stores around here call tortillas "wraps," though, and this--along with the fact that they've got a dozen different "flavors" of flour tortillas and no goddamn corn tortillas--really pisses me off.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 2:15 PM
a dozen different "flavors" of flour tortillas
Can you guys get the chocolate chip ones out there? Those are totally my favorite.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 2:21 PM
Seriously. Flavored tortillas = teh gross.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 2:35 PM
Ever since the "Beef: Its what's for dinner" campaign, the meat industry has been pushing the tough guy image of meat. This was a conscious decision made when they realized that the era when they could tout the health benefits of eating a lot of meat was really, really over. Although most people still have bizarre notions of how much protein a healthy, non pregnant adult needs, most people associate meat, especially red meat, with poor health. This is a real sea change in attitude that didn't really occur until the 70s.
Companies turn to image marketing when they know their product sucks and can't be sold on its own merit.
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 2:37 PM
re: 39
Yes, that stereotype is definitely real and that sort of prissily 'old-fashioned' eater does often seem to be male or elderly people of both genders.
I've cooked for my wife's parents a few times -- Czechs in their late 50s -- and that was pretty difficult as there's just no way they'd go for anything not firmly within their traditional meat and veg purview. Difficult not just to find the right things to cook them -- most 'ethnic' food would be a definite no-no -- but also because they're pretty suspicious of guys cooking in the first place.
Britain in this respect is pretty good; the majority of people who aren't really elderly are going to be used to Indian and Chinese food and will have moderately wide ranging experience with other cuisines too. Going to the Czech Republic is like travelling back into the culinary dark ages.
On the other hand, people who are suspicious of offal, seafood or anything that's not white meat tend, in my experience, to be overwhelmingly young or female.
There's more than one way to be prissy about food and, I'm sure, these crude stereotypes only vaguely break down on gender or age lines.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 2:43 PM
I guess I haven't had an authentic mission burrito, then, though I've had ones with some of those ingredients in various proportions. The best burritos I've eaten have all had rice; I'm no culinary segregationist.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 2:52 PM
I feel like I should take this opportunity to comment Becks style. But I must not be that Becks style, because look at my spelling. Why yes, it is the middle of the afternoon. I feel drunker than my spelling would indicate.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 2:55 PM
Get drunk!
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 3:04 PM
Flavored tortillas = teh gross.
So is that what those round flat things that are colored green or yellow or red are, that they use to wrap lunchmeat in? I had never made the jump to calling those tortillas -- weird now that I think about it I never really had occasion to name wrap components, but seriously I always sort of figured they had some name that was not "tortilla". I agree with you that wraps are gross; and I can't really see those wrap coverings as having any non-gross use outside the realm of the wrap.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 3:08 PM
Oh and happy memorial day, Tia! I hope you are taking the opportunity to meditate on drunkenness and to take notes for tomorrow's discussion of same.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 3:11 PM
I agree with you that wraps are gross; and I can't really see those wrap coverings as having any non-gross use outside the realm of the wrap.
I think they are to be called "flatbread". A name suggesting that indeed they are unappetizing and have no role outside serving as the bare minimum edible container for a cylindrical sandwich.
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 3:19 PM
I think they are to be called "flatbread". A name suggesting that indeed they are unappetizing
Ummmmmm, are you nuts? Flatbread, a genus under which fall as species naan, tortillas, and matzoh, is great.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 3:32 PM
Also tasty members of the genus flatbread:
paratha (mmmm!), puri, poppadum, chapati and pitta.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 3:45 PM
Just the other day I read about three men eating themselves to death and three women starving themselves to death, all due to clearly satirical fast-food commercials. Neither group had realized that such behavior was required of them until they encountered the awesome authority of BK and LC commercials.
In other news, Sephora, Bath&Body, and spas are closing down, bowing to the pressure society places upon women to deny themselves sensual pleasures.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to shotgun a beer, belch the alphabet, say something rude, and adjust myself in the most obvious way possible.
Disclaimer: The preceding is satire and/or parody, and is not intended in any way to reinforce, vivify, create, endorse, encourage, or in any way promote social norms that harmfully gender behavior and/or in any way further or cause the oppression or objectification of any self-identified members of any gender.
Posted by Andrew | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 3:52 PM
But Andrew, it wasn't funny.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 3:55 PM
Working with the idea that meat is manly and vegetables are "chick food," how might one market vegetables to men...? V8 (not that pansy ass fruit-blend kind, but the real, *original* V8) is generally considered nasty by most people. A can is also equivallent (sp) to 2 servings of vegetables (however that's determined, I have no idea). So, V8 could capture a whole new market by making the claim that while you don't want to be a sissy like the fag in the comercial who chimes in about the vegetable medley, you can get your vegetables by being a MAN and downing a V8. Because only a real man can stomach that stuff. I'm going to call the V8 marketing people right now.
Posted by Stroll | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 3:56 PM
I have lost count of the wasted evenings in Indian restaurants trying to explan to pals that a) there is nothing intrinsically heterosexual about eating a hotter curry than you want b) that I am unlikely to respect any hierarchy of manliness that anyone derives from our curry orders and c) there are no birds about anyway so even if this was impressive, you're not inmpressing anyone.
Posted by dsquared | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 3:57 PM
I've got it: a V8-Listerine combination drink and/or mouthwash!
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 4:03 PM
70: Just the other day I read about three men eating themselves to death and three women starving themselves to death, all due to clearly satirical fast-food commercials.
But it still effects people. Advertising doesn't have to completely control people in order to have effects, both the intended effect and host of other effects that were at least forseen.
If the ad is effective, and I actually think it is funny enough to be effective, it will not only bring people into BK, but it will reinforce the idea that men, to be men, must distance themselves from the weak and feminine.
The advertisers may even be aware of the addional effect, and are glad that it is present, because it keeps open another channel to influence people. As long as these gender norms exist, they can be used to sell other crappy products. Advertisers, especially advertisers who specialize in marketing to children, are keenly aware of the role they play in creating a broader culture of consumption that will let them sell more things in the future.
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 4:09 PM
To add to 75, most people (myself included) pride themselves on the fact that they are not "tricked" by advertising. But research (to which I can't be bothered to find a link or a reference) has suggested that even if you think otherwise you're still influenced on some level.
Posted by stroll | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 4:13 PM
But it still effects people.
Sex effects people.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 4:16 PM
re: 73
Yeah, definitely. And I'll have the phal, with extra chillis.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 4:19 PM
re: 75
"will reinforce the idea that men, to be men, must distance themselves from the weak and feminine."
The problem, surely, is with conflation of weak with feminine. Rather than with the idea that, say, we ought to prefer not to be weak.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 4:20 PM
68: This demonstrates that it is irresponsible to make blanket statements about flatbread. Naan is great. No man but a blockhead ever ate matzoh, except for religious obligation. (Offer does not apply to matzoh brei.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 4:22 PM
The Hilton ad is empowering in the same fashion as 80's Madonna or Erica Jong. Or Camille Paglia.
Yeah. Thanks to this concentrated dose of empowerment, I feel empowered to throw up on my keyboard now. Thanks, SCMT.
Overheard at the workplace: "You know what I had yesterday? a doughnut!"
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 4:23 PM
79: "Men to be men, must distance themselves from the feminine" is bad enough.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 4:24 PM
Weiner, I feel sorry for you, for having apparently had an upbringing in which matzoh was an instrument of punishment. I urge you to try it sometime, not during but say a week or two before Pesach. It's good. Like a giant cracker.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 4:25 PM
matzoh was an instrument of punishment
I am having visions of Weiner getting his knuckles rapped with hard, stale matzoh.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 4:27 PM
If the ad is effective, and I actually think it is funny enough to be effective, it will not only bring people into BK, but it will reinforce the idea that men, to be men, must distance themselves from the weak and feminine.
I'm not sure that three guys yelling for meat reinforces the idea that we should distance our selves from the weak and the feminine. But whatever idea it reinforces, does it reinforce the idea, or does it simply make fun of the idea? I see commercials like this more as parody, which if anything undercut the targeted idea, just as I see playful competition to see who can eat the hottest spices to be a kind of parody of social constructions of masculinity----and is simply typical male play.
Posted by Andrew | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 4:28 PM
what's really interesting is what chumps people who work in ad agencies are when it comes to advertising. They seem to be total suckers for the whole message, when you'd think they'd be immune. They have to have the smallest phone, the biggest car, the whitest of scary white teeth, and the women who actually eat lunch come back and throw it up in the ladies room.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 4:31 PM
I actually thought the joke in the TGIF ad was that the vegetable medley guy is holding up the side dish; the others are holding up the main meat dishes, which presumably also come with vegetables on the side.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 4:33 PM
re: 85
Advertising tends to want to have its cake and eat vis a vis parodying apparently sexist points of view.
There are a lot of 'laddish' adverts that manage to both poke fun at and at the same time celebrate those points of view and if called on the celebratory aspect they can point to the parodic aspect as mitigation.
For what it's worth, I still find some of those ads amusing but it doesn't necessarily let them off the hook for reinforcing fairly reactionary views.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 4:56 PM
73 reminds me of a time I went out for curry with a London friend and his flatmate. LF ordered mild, flatmate spicy (which LF mocked as flatmate's trying to be hard), and I ordered spicy (similarly mocked), and neither of them could eat the spicy food, both of 'em having British palates, and southwestern piggy me finished it all off.
Then, to reaffirm my girlishness, I went and puked it all up in the bathroom* and shagged the flatmate later.**
*Not really.
**Really, but he was a lousy lay. I should've known that any guy who can't eat spicy curry = teh lame in bed.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 5:07 PM
87: I actually thought the joke in the TGIF ad was that the vegetable medley guy is holding up the side dish;
Ah, the awful vegetables are side dishes prejudice.
Posted by rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 5:11 PM
The real joke of the TGIF ads is that their food is gross.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 5:13 PM
I think I've said "gross" three times in this thread. Now four. Someone slap me so I can move on to a new verbal tic.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 5:14 PM
You're really gnarly for a chick, B.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 5:27 PM
Dude, totally.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 5:39 PM
B tastes of spicy curry.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 5:44 PM
I should've known that any guy who can't eat spicy curry = teh lame in bed.
Your reinscription of patriarchal norms about food and masculinity is not helping. You need to go listen to Open Your Heart and get your head right.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 5:48 PM
95: Well if I do, flatmate sure didn't find out.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 6:08 PM
and no goddamn corn tortillas
Yeah, those can be hard to find, although the situation is improving as Mexican migration has moved beyond the traditional border states plus the produce-picking trail up to Chicago.
I actually several times schlepped bags of powdered masa harina (not nearly as good as fresh, but better than no masa) over to China because corn tortillas and tamales were some of the few food items I really missed that I couldn't find a reasonable replacement for over there.
Also, I fully agree that mission burritos beat the crap out of fast food burgers, and my complaint about Cal-Mex's burrito-centric view of Mexican food isn't based on any argument about authenticity, or for that matter on whether burritos are good or not.
And who would have guessed that dsquared was such a nancy boy? Not me.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 6:22 PM
"I ordered spicy (similarly mocked), and neither of them could eat the spicy food, both of 'em having British palates"
This is clearly explained by them being soft southerners and therefore teh ghey.
Although I did once find myself unable to finish a Thai curried swordfish at a restaurant where a former flatmate was chef. I don't know if he'd added extra green chillis since he'd seen it was me and thought it might be amusing or if he always served it that way but this shit could have stripped paint.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 6:23 PM
69 -- papadum is more a cracker than a flatbread.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 7:11 PM
Advertising tends to want to have its cake and eat vis a vis parodying apparently sexist points of view.
There are a lot of 'laddish' adverts that manage to both poke fun at and at the same time celebrate those points of view and if called on the celebratory aspect they can point to the parodic aspect as mitigation.
I can see that possibility, but do you think that the BK and LC ads qualify? And maybe this is because I'm male and therefore insensitive, but I'm having difficulty thinking of any truly sexist commercials.
Posted by Andrew | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 7:19 PM
but I'm having difficulty thinking of any truly sexist commercials.
I'd say there's no doubt you're insensitive, but I don't think it's because you're male. Maybe it's because you're stupid, or intellectually dishonest, or have never seen a television.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 7:37 PM
This is clearly explained by them being soft southerners and therefore teh ghey.
That would explain why LF never would fuck me, and why Flatmate was so bad at it. Hmm.
I'm having difficulty thinking of any truly sexist commercials.
I am really forced to ask, then, what in your mind constitutes "true sexism"?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 7:42 PM
99: There is a hierarchy of hotness among foods, and Thai stands at the pinacle. While I generally don't subscribe to a claim of correlation between manliness and the spiciness of the food consumed, if you can eat hot Thai food, you are a total masculine stud. This means that most of the hot Thai women you know have penises. (Strangely enough, depending on where you live, this may actually be true.)
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 7:43 PM
I am really forced to ask, then, what in your mind constitutes "true sexism"?
Sex effects, people.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 7:53 PM
Flatbread, a genus under which fall as species naan, tortillas
While I was on vacation in Greece, I went to a combination Indian/Chinese/Thai restaurant. (Surprisingly tasty, despite what you might think. Also: not Greek food, which was a big point in its favor.) I asked the owner if the "Indian flatbread" on the menu was naan; he said it was more like a chapati.
It was a flour tortilla.
Posted by Josh | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 7:56 PM
And just what do you have against Greek food?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 7:58 PM
And just what do you have against Greek food?
Not a damn thing. (Greece would have been a poor vacation choice otherwise.) Nonetheless, a little variety was quite welcome.
Posted by Josh | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 8:04 PM
The crust of the pizza in Sicily was very naan-like. And delicious.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 8:30 PM
if you can eat hot Thai food, you are a total masculine stud.
Have you seen many Thai men, SCMT?
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 8:42 PM
That's not the question. The question is, have they fucked him?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 8:45 PM
Is he under 30?
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 8:45 PM
I am really forced to ask, then, what in your mind constitutes "true sexism"?
It's those commercials where the hubby is stoopid and incompetent and the wife is all smart and everything. Totally oppressive.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 8:58 PM
I'll let Amanda say it:
Every guy who’s left a stupid comment on my blog about how I’m over-reading the “poke it/own it” commercial leaves me flabbergasted. To the last one, they think that if the price one must pay to ignore sexism is to deliberately make one’s self into a fucktard with an IQ of 10, then that’s not too high a price to pay.
--Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, commenting on IBTP re the "You poke it, You own it" beer commercials.
And here's a link to an amusing little ad. Probably I'm reading too much in to it. but I like the cannibalism aspect.
http://www.milkywaybar.com/tvspots/index2.html
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:14 PM
One of my favorite dishes made by my mom is a bunch of miniature, boneless chicken breasts marinated (completely covered) in Louisiana hot sauce, and baked on very low for five hours. Louisiana hot sauce isn't terribly hot as a condiment, but as a major ingredient, it's more than a lot of people can handle. I would bet that there are extremely few people who enjoy food as spicy as my family.
We housed a family from New Orleans after Katrina hit, and they cooked some of their "really spicy" food. They were sure we wouldn't be able to handle it. We had to add a bunch of hot sauce to it.
Now, I did know a guy who would, many days at lunch, eat a small tray of french fries floating in a complete ~6 oz. bottle of Louisiana hot sauce. I probably wouldn't have enjoyed that, had I tried it.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:14 PM
Now, now, mcmc. Let's not get shrill and, you know, hostile. It's unbecoming.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:26 PM
mature women represent!
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:31 PM
Thai food has a 1-to-5 hotness scale. 1 is not hot. 2 is "mild" and we would call it hot. 3 is medium and we would call it "very hot". I tried 3 and I couldn't eat it, and I can take a spoonful of Tabasco.
So anyone who wants to be macho, go to a Thai restaurant, ask if it's got a 1-5 scale, and if it does, ask for a 5.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:31 PM
I've gone for medium at a good Thai restaurant near my grad school and it's never been too spicy. I've never had the guts to go for hot.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:34 PM
Have you seen many Thai men, SCMT?
He could kick my ass.
The question is, have they fucked him?
Again, B, with the standard assumptions. Why should masculine attributes correlate with topping? Break the chains in your mind, B.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:34 PM
The key to good Czech cuisine, I've been told, is lots of lard.
Your northernmost flatbread is lefse, a Norwegian potato flatbread. It's very good.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:36 PM
I ate at a restaurant today that had signs all over the place warning about how hot the chile was and how they weren't responsible if your order was too hot for you, but it really wasn't all that hot (roughly medium, I guess) and was quite tasty--I had three delicious tamales and an enchilada. I suspect they cater mostly to tourists who don't know what they're getting into.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:37 PM
Spicy Thai food is good, but takes a li'l getting used to. I'm not so good w/ spicy Korean food.
No, no, Tim, I'm now completely convinced that all my feminist beliefs simply come from overreading perfectly innocent things. It's just wrong for me to look beyond the surface of things and question the status quo. La la la la la.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:41 PM
The weirdest Czech food I ever ate was pork (it's always pork) with a sauce made, basically, of whipped cream.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:42 PM
Like Philip Roth, I am self-sacrificingly willing to fuck women under 30, thus saving them (at my cost) from the problem B alludes to.
Even though it's marginally relevant, I'll repeat my favorite Roth line (the words of a student he had a fling with):
"Professor X, I can't save you. I'm only twenty years old".
(My Life as a Man, paraphrased quote.)
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:46 PM
Wrong thread.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:46 PM
I'm now completely convinced that all my feminist beliefs simply come from overreading perfectly innocent things.
I don't think I've said anything even approximating that. You just hadn't read the Farley ouvre closely enough or deeply enough.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:47 PM
my favorite Roth line
So it seems.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:51 PM
But some still find hope in that.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:53 PM
Oh, now I see 125 has been reposted in the correct thread. 128 and 129 are not going to follow it around.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:55 PM
It remains a lovely bit. Gawd, Roth's a fucker. Why did The Human Stain suck so much?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:57 PM
I had a 5 at a Malaysian restaurant once in some sort of peanuty and tomato-y soup, and I swear my eyelashes were sweating from the spice.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 9:58 PM
There is a hierarchy of hotness among foods, and Thai stands at the pinacle
Not true at all. I did the SouthEast Asian thing like every other repulsive middle class backpacker and Indonesia was top dog out of the SE Asians, but still not as hot as Kerala in India. In general, the spiciness of the food correlates pretty well with the typical rancidness of the meat, which is a good reason to start experimenting with your sexual identity wrt vegetarianism while abroad.
Posted by dsquared | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 11:09 PM
Quite right; capsaicin is a preservative.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 05-29-06 11:17 PM
re: 124
Yeah, I've had that. Sometimes they stick some peach slices or something in the whipped cream.
I do remember flicking through a Czech cookbook and seeing a recipe for brain goulash, and then for another recipe where the sauce was thickened with pureéd/diced brain and saying to my wife, 'I don't fancy that' and receiving the reply, 'Oh, I think you've already eaten that' ...
re: Thai food. Generally I find it OK. Some dishes occasionally verge on too spicy and there are some that I like in small quantities but really wouldn't want to eat a huge amount of but mostly I really like that kind of spiciness -- the fresh chilli heat with the other flavours. The swordfish thing alluded to in 99 was a whole order of magnitude spicier than most things I've eaten in Thai places.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:06 AM
Brain isn't bad, necessarily, depending on what you do with it. I mighta had the peach slices, come to think of it.
And what about that Czech thing where it's like a pork chop with bacon and ham? Dude.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:12 AM
50: Stanley, I have eaten at both 5 Guys and In'N Out. I like In' N Out better. 5 guys is good, but it's more expensive, and the fries are greasier. The experiences are different. In N' Out makes shoe string fries which you can order extra crispy, and they have their special sauce. Plus you can order their burgers animal style
Five Guys fried are more like boardwalk fries. I do like the fact that you can get vinegar at 5 guys, and the peanuts there are pretty cool.
In 'N Out also makes great milkshakes.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:17 AM
re: 136
Yeah, 'basta' that is, I think -- sort of like what we'd call a mixed-grill here in the UK. Several different kinds of meat (pork) on a plate.
'Krk' would probably have been in among that -- smoked pork neck. Krk is both tasty and a tongue-twister. 'Str? prst skrz krk' is one of the classic Czech tongue twisters for foreigners to get their head around.
I had a meal in Granada (Spain) last week that was almost the exact Andalucian equivalent -- various cooked meat-stuffs on a plate. It looked nigh on indistuingishable from Czech food.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 1:00 AM
Oh, now, I ate really well in Granada (and I'm so envious that you were there--haven't been in almost twenty years!). I think a lot of it was b/c I was a cute American college girl who spoke a little Spanish and wasn't above flirting with wait staff....
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 1:08 AM
Indonesia was top dog out of the SE Asians
I'm glad someone pointed that out. Thai food can be hot, but it's not usually pointlessly, stupidly, turn-your-guts-inside-out-ingly hot like some of the regional Indonesian food.
Where I am, they do it to disguise the fact that rancid charred dog is not the best tasting of meats. Surprise!
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 2:10 AM
re: 138
The food was pretty good but I think I was expecting more from it. The seafood was good, particularly the whole fried anchovies (yum), and some of the tapas were nice, but it didn't really blow me away. The standard was pretty uniformly OK though, we didn't have a bad meal while we were there.
The city itself is pretty great though. My wife speaks a little Spanish and I found that a couple of hours spent scouring a phrase book and some basic grammar tips from my wife before we went were enough for me to communicate with waiters, bar staff, etc. pretty much entirely in Spanish.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 2:42 AM
hi everyone.
a food thread! does anyone know if it is very bad to eat raw duck? i ordered some "rosé" at a wedding party and it was basically raw meat with a layer of raw fat on top of it because it was maigret de canard. i am not dead yet. should i be worried though?
it was tasty enough but kind of hard to cut, esp. the fat layer. i love raw seafood of all kinds including lovely fresh raw shrimp, but this was a bit much. uh, chewy.
hope you're all well!
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 3:04 AM
Years ago we went with some friends to a new Indian Restaurant in London and ordered a Vindaloo curry (native to Southern India and famous for being HOT, HOT, HOTTTTTT)
We also ordered papadums. Half way through our meal I noticed my partner on the opposite side of the table, sweat pouring down over his eyes, reaching for his serviette and wiping his brow with a papadum..........
and I don't think he ever realised.
Posted by Herr Torquewrench | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 4:47 AM
An acquaintance once went into a Szechuan restaurant in Beijing and ordered a dish called "3 chilli pork" or something like that, and the waitress refused to let him have it, because he wouldn't be able to eat it.
Of course he had to make a scene and insist on it, so she stood over him and watched him to make sure he ate it all. Very, very ill.
Posted by OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 5:45 AM
83: It's good. Like a giant cracker.
This may be true if you are eating the non-pesedich giant crackers that are marketed as "egg and onion Matzoh." Genuine Matzoh, however, just sucks. Henceforth I will ignore anything you say about food.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 5:47 AM
re: 144 and waiter/waitress interventions...
Actually, in Spain last week I ordered cuttlefish as I'd never had it, and the waitress told me she'd bring me bocadillos instead as 'I'd prefer it'.
I have no idea if the cuttlefish would have been good but the whole anchovies deep fried and served with their little piranha like teeth biting their own tails (ouroboros style) were great...
I also ordered morcilla in one place -- spanish black pudding -- and the waitress told me she'd bring me a small plate in case I 'didn't like it'. Which was a good call -- it was nice but way too salty to eat much. I presume she thought that as a Brit I'd find the morcilla unpalatable -- it's a lot 'rawer' than British black pudding -- but that aspect of it was fine.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 6:13 AM
I'm wondering whether experience with tourists hasn't taught the Thai to moderate their spicing even when asked not to. The time I ordered level 3 Thai food what I really got was level 2 1/2 Thai food, the waiter explained afterwards, and I could barely eat that.
Whereas the ignorant Keralans and Indonesians just treat you like anyone else.
My infamous friend Razib claims that it's a genetic thing.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 6:42 AM
146: Cuttlefish = chocos? You'd have liked them.
Another thing I've found in Spain is that waiters will moderate your intake if they think you don't realise how much you've called for. In Galicia a few weeks ago, we ordered soup and some fish for lunch. The soup came in bowls the size of window-cleaning buckets, each containing a head of cabbage, a peck of potatos and most of a dead pig. The rest of the order was quietly forgotten by mutual consent.
Posted by OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 6:49 AM
133, 140, 147: We should be able to settle this. Unfogged has an Asian correspondent, I believe. We can just set up a spicy tournament, with competitors from each country trying to survive all of the other country entrants' food. Last person standing wins. (I've never had Indonesian food, but I'm still betting on the Thai.)
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 6:50 AM
Japan, knowing its entrant would almost certainly be reduced to a quivering mess in the first round, is unlikely to compete.
Posted by Tarrou | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 7:13 AM
I have eaten Indonesian food a couple of times in Amsterdam and don't remember it being especially spicy. Plenty of chilli flavours, yes, but I certainly don't remember it as being any spicier than Thai food.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 7:20 AM
Dutch Indonesian food is designed for the Dutch palate.
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 7:30 AM
I mean, I've had plenty of spicy food in Thailand, but haven't had (say) a fish encased in chili paste, baked, and then served with extra chili paste, and sambal tomat (chili with tomato, for variety).
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 7:38 AM
re: 152
That would make sense. Like the tikka masala's Glaswegian origins.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 7:42 AM
The mother of a college friend of mine used to FedEx her home cooked Indian dinners in Tupperware that she would then share with her friends. Once I scooped some green beans for myself, and thought, "What is this odd red green bean? I must try it." I bit into it, chewed, and swallowed. I spent the next hour eating rice and drinking water, with tears streaming down my face the whole time.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 7:43 AM
Someone *just* told me that tikka masala was invented in the Village.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 7:45 AM
Someone *just* told me that tikka masala was invented in the Village
The truth is lost in the mists of time. Birmingham, England also claims it. Onion bhajis, however, are pretty securely sourced in London.
Posted by OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 7:48 AM
re: 155
It's definitely a British thing, and there is quite a good claim made for the particular point of origin being Glasgow -- but I gather there are a lot of conflicting claims. Given the history of the UK as the colonial power in Indian and Pakistan I'd be *very* surprised if the dish originated in the U.S. You'd also then have to explain how it got here, in the 1960s, from the US.
Similarly, 'balti' style Indian cooking originates in Birmingham but different restaurants lay claim to having originated it.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 7:49 AM
My gripe really is that I've been in Indonesia, specifically Minahasa, too long, and Thai cuisine it ain't. While chili usually adds something to a complex bunch of flavours in a Thai dish, here it just overwhelms (though you can still taste the rancid pork, bat or dog underneath). So I guess I'm not really hung up on the idea that it is the hottest food, but that hotness is often the only (palatable) flavour.
That said, I am in Singapore today and have eaten 2 cheese platters. They weren't spicy at all!
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 7:52 AM
158
I've been to a few restaurants in London that claim to be the originators of Balti cooking too.
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 7:55 AM
hi mmf!,
You must still be in France then, right? I don't think you could get this duck concoction of which you speak anywhere in massachusetts. If I am wrong, please let me know. I shouldn't think raw duck would be any worse than beef tartar. probably safer.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 7:57 AM
anthony,
have you considered the vegetarian option? I'm sure no one would consider it foofy when the alternative is rancid bat.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 7:59 AM
I've had duck tartare in France and duck sashimi in Japan with no ill effects (other than not particularly wanting to eat raw duck again). Salmonella is your biggest worry - if you are not ill 1-2 days after you're probably fine.
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:02 AM
I'm sure no one would consider it foofy when the alternative is rancid bat
It'd be about being polite to one's host: "I spent hours cooking that bat! Up before dawn to make sure it was just the right level of rancidness; carrying home five tonnes of chillis and peeling them with my own eyeballs! And now you sit there and ask me for BK. Ingrate!"
Posted by OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:04 AM
162: If anthony is actually chef Anthony Bourdain (not to un-pseudonomize someone), then he must think that being vegetarian while travelling is an unforgivable sin.
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:05 AM
162
I do eat a lot of noodles and kangkong (charmingly translated as 'water convolvus'). Unfortunately it has become personally important to a number of people that I be seen to eat (and seemingly enjoy) all the festive meats as often as possible.
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:06 AM
In other words, what OFE said. Also I swear too much to be Anthony Bourdain.
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:07 AM
http://www.menumagazine.co.uk/book/restauranthistory.html
Has a history of Indian and Chinese restaurants in the UK and mentions the various tikka masala claims. The first Indian restaurant in London opened as long ago as the end of the 18th century.
I've eaten in about half the old Glasgow ones.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:08 AM
167: Yes, OFE semi-pwned me. But Bourdain's disdain for vegetarianism seems to offend him specifically, not just the host or preparer of food. Listen to that interview if you can. He's seething with contempt for non-meat-eating travellers.
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:10 AM
all the festive meats
I love this.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:16 AM
Yes, I've heard it. Do we have a term for someone who articulates a position you more-or-less agree with (go to a country, eat the food) in such a manner that you find you don't agree with it any more?
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:16 AM
171 -- when that happens to me (as it did when I heard Bourdain spouting off about travellers who are not culinarily adventurous -- don't remember if it was the linked interview or another similar one though) I usually try not to reject the original position but rather to refine it in a way that distinguishes what I think from what Bourdain (or whoever) thinks. So it goes -- this seems to me to be rooted in a kind of narcissistic fixation on being right -- if you can actually reject the position you held previously after hearing it argued in an offensive way, more power to you.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:25 AM
Does Fleet Blogging commence later today?
Y'all, the New York Times wants you to know that the Navy is totally not gay:
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:28 AM
A handy tip for handling what the the Mexicans refer to as being "enchilado" (overcome by spice, all spiced out): squeeze a lemon or lime into a glass of water and drink that. Works like a charm, and very fast too. For severe cases, such as in Tia's story, just suck directly on the lime or lemon. Orange juice sort of works too.
Capsaicin is an alkaloid compound and is highly basic, the acid in the citrus counteracts that.
Also, Anthony Bourdain is an ass.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:35 AM
My father was fond of beef tartare up to a certain point. You'd be surprised at how big tapeworms can get.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:36 AM
Also, Anthony Bourdain is an ass.
Anthony Buridan's ass?
I'll get my coat.
Posted by OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:40 AM
A friend of mine reported reading an article in the Daily News which suggested that Fleet Week is the perfect time for no-strings attached sex. I'm not sure if the article was clear on which gender it was giving the advice to, since I didn't read the article.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:42 AM
Do Fast Show references work with this trans-Atlantic (and beyond) crowd?
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:43 AM
178 to 176
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:44 AM
chef Anthony Bourdain
via friends in the trade, he is really not that well respected a chef. His book, "Kitchen Confidential", if you look at it objectively, describes a really badly run kitchen. I know (third hand) that at least one of the people mentioned in his book "A Cook's Tour" has absolutely no time for him at all.
via friends in a different trade, he was at best a B-minus heroin addict too.
Posted by dsquared | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:44 AM
w/d, Gawker did the research:
Hits for “Fleet Week” search broken down by Craiglist Personals section:
men seeking men: 60
women seeking men: 2
men seeking women: 1
women seeking women: 0
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:45 AM
Wow.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:46 AM
180
He even sucked at being a junkie? How does that work?
Posted by Anthony | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:47 AM
179: Evidently not all
Posted by OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:48 AM
Thanks for 174. I'd always heard, and employed, sweet and/or milky--raita, cafe sua da, or just a glass of milk. Shall have to try the citrus option at some point.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 8:50 AM
And I did try my best yesterday - I chatted up the one sailor I saw, in line at the coffee shop. My flirtation was unsuccessful, though, because the guy was married. Make that "kid" -- turns out he was only 19. It's bad enough to find out that someone you've been talking with is less than 1/2+7 but less than 1/2+7 and already married? That's so wrong.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 9:01 AM
This is something of a tangent, but this thread has gone from meat marketing to international cuisine to meat markets of a nother kind, i.e. Fleet Week, so here goes. IIt's somethign I've been curious about for a while.
Unfogged seems to attract a more international audience than most American blogs. (See, it isn't totally unrelated to the food posts.) There are some Asian posted people and a shockingly (and wonderfully) high number of British commenters. Does anyone have a theory for why this is? Did they all dollow dsquared over from crooked timber which has, in addition to dsquared, an Australain?
But why do they stay? Is our "clever" banter comfortable for Europeans in a way that the earnestness of a lot of quasi-political blogs isn't. Are the Americans among us just completely freakish, not just in the blue-state vred state divide kind of way? I think you'd all make wonderful dinner party guests. and--although most Americans have people over for dinner, even, sometimes fairly fancy obes--I don't think that we, as a people, do dinner parties very well.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 9:02 AM
And I did try my best yesterday - I chatted up the one sailor I saw, in line at the coffee shop.
Becks, you are a great American. Where were you when I came back from the Gulf in '91? (middle school, probably--never mind).
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 9:09 AM
It's bad enough to find out that someone you've been talking with is less than 1/2+7
It's just possible that a sailor would know other sailors, even unmarried ones.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 9:15 AM
189: OK, that's wierd. Um, I quoted the above because I had suggested 1/2 +5 rule for women. (Affirmative action adjustment based on historic denial of opportunities to sex the young, etc.) I must have dropped it.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 9:20 AM
190 - But is that change to the rules necessarily for the better?
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 9:33 AM
I'd always heard, and employed, sweet and/or milky--raita, cafe sua da, or just a glass of milk.
Citrus works way better.
Do Fast Show references work with this trans-Atlantic (and beyond) crowd?
As 184 said, no, they don't.
They also don't work when one is the lone septic playing the British edition of trivial pursuit with a bunch of the natives (all of whom insist that the USA has 52 states).
And while it pains me to say it, I would be remiss if I didn't note that comment 77 pwns. Especially because at first I was all ready to spring into "wolfson misspelled something!" mode. Then I thought, "wait, it's too easy, it must be a trap." And sure enough . . .
[x] Yay comity
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 9:41 AM
Ideal, it's my understanding that Fleet Week brings out the patriotism in all sorts of women. And lots of men.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 9:42 AM
BG @ 187:
Er...
1. Unfogged seems to attract a more international audience than most American blogs Is this true - I haven't really thought about it.
2. Yes, came here via CT, but independently of D^2. I was just wandering around their blogroll. I went to CT out of curiosity because I knew Chris B in a past life.
3. Is our "clever" banter comfortable for Europeans in a way that the earnestness of a lot of quasi-political blogs isn't. Dunno. Can't generalise. I think of Unfogged as being a bit like the Deipnosophistes, only not boring.
3. Are the Americans among us just completely freakish Probably, but you'd be freakish anywhere. One thing I've learned in this vale of tears is never to trust anybody who doesn't have a well developed sense of their own absurdity. Which is why I don't have many friends.
Posted by OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 9:49 AM
Ideal, it's my understanding that Fleet Week brings out the patriotism in all sorts of women. And lots of men.
Great Americans all!
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 9:51 AM
Some of the young soldiers I know seem to get engaged when they're 19 or 20 and married young because they want to keep their girlfriends around.
Sometimes with worrisome consequences. One of my sister's soldier friends is on leave now and he's planning to ask his girlfriend to marry him before he returns to Iraq and everyone knows she's been cheating on him. Drama.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 9:53 AM
Normally, I'd agree with you, Cala, about the worrisome consequences of gettinbg married too young to keep a girlfriend. But I do wonder whether there aren't other considerations in a time of war. Wives get benefits if the poor guy dies in Iraq; girlfriends don't.
Posted by Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 10:00 AM
it's my understanding that Fleet Week brings out the patriotism in all sorts of women. And lots of men.
Navy uniforms remind me of pictures of my dad. Ick.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 10:07 AM
The blog ate my commmenttttttt!
197: All I think is worrisome is the fact that the soldier's beloved is cheating on him and he doesn't know and she'll probably accept the ring. The young age doesn't bother me so much -- 19 makes me blink, but marriage age seems to be tied more to adulthood and position in life (judging by my friends whose trajectory goes college, job/law school, new job, hum around a year, meet woman, BOOM, married, and if they'd met their wife at the wrong time, it wouldn't have happened.) A 21-year old soldier is different than a 21-year old college student, perhaps.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 10:22 AM
re: 187
I also came here via the Crooked Timber blogroll and stayed because of i) the general absence of politics, and ii) dick jokes.
There are political discussions but -- and this is the cool thing -- the politics is leavend with self-deprecation and humour and, this is the key thing, the absence of those totally f*cking nutso U.S. rightwingers that are *everywhere* else.
I generally don't comment over at CT anymore for that reason.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 10:29 AM
The libertarian-bashing over at CT and other leftish sites often leaves me mystified.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 10:44 AM
absence of those totally f*cking nutso U.S. rightwingers that are *everywhere* else.
Not a complete absence. Sorry.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 10:49 AM
This may be true if you are eating the non-pesedich giant crackers that are marketed as "egg and onion Matzoh."
For what do you take me? Only the genuine article for me.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 10:49 AM
Do Fast Show references work with this trans-Atlantic (and beyond) crowd?
Maybe no, but references to 14thC philosophical paradoxes work.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 10:57 AM
202: I'm not sure if Matt's "nutso rightwingers" was intended to include your type, Idealist, but I agree with his sentiment, and I wouldn't include you. Rightwingers at places like ObWings (besides Seb. H. and Slarti) and CT seem to me to contribute less than you do here.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 10:57 AM
re: 202
No offence, Idealist, but you're not really scaling the same heights of idiocy as elsewhere. :)
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 10:59 AM
By nutso rightwingers I don't have in mind the run of the mill old-school conservatives that still exist in odd pockets here and there.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 11:03 AM
202:
How many times must it be explained? Neither you nor baa are f*cking nutso, U.S. rightwingers though you may be. Everywhere else wishes it had rightwingers like you.
Posted by mealworm | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 11:12 AM
When is pwnage like carnage?
Posted by mealworm | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 11:13 AM
203: I thought it more charitable to take you for a consumer of egg-and-onion matzoh than one who would, for pleasure, eat corrugated cardboard with a hint of ass.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 11:16 AM
Don't let 205-208 get you down, Idealist. I still think you're a nutter.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 11:16 AM
205-208: Hear, Hear.
Don't care how conservative or right-wing anyone's opinions, they can be distinguished in an instant from those arguing like trolls, with obvious and boring obsessions and lack of interest in facts, except as proof of pre-existing conclusions.
Orwell's Notes on Nationalism is a virtual catalogue of then-existing varieties of this sort of worthless creature.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 11:21 AM
I have Wolfson's back on the matzoh question. Yummy.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 11:32 AM
I still think you're a nutter.
Thanks, SCMT. My world-view was crumbling there for a minute.
I must admit that the use of nutter in close conjunction to a discussion of the Navy's habits on shore leave makes me vaguely concerned that you have attacked my manhood rather than my politics. Is this some slang term you kids use these days?
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 11:35 AM
First Weiner doesn't think Jin Hi Kim makes for a good question's answer in Botticelli, then he doesn't know from matzoh. Bad signs all.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 11:37 AM
Is this some slang term you kids use these days?
I think I picked it up from one of the Brits that now infest this place. I've assumed it means "nuts."
When you've left the military, do you get to keep the uniform? Might there fake sailors out there taking advantage of patriotic New Yorkers?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 11:40 AM
215: Weiner's clearly right. In fact, I wrote out almost precisely his comment without posting it. (I was worried that I had mispunctuated it.)
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 11:42 AM
As if anyone whom some call "Tim" is in a position to adjudicate questions concerning matzoh.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 11:45 AM
Most matzoh I've had could have benefited from more salt.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 11:47 AM
Most matzoh I've had could have benefited from more salt.
You're not supposed to like it.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 11:49 AM
Wolfson:
You're not seriously trying to defend your grouping of naan, tortillas, and matzoh, are you? Madman.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 11:50 AM
I've often found matzoh to be a snack.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 11:50 AM
I've often found matzoh under the seat cushions.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 11:52 AM
It was hiding from you. It knew you wanted to munch it.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:00 PM
Matzoh is OK flatbread, AFAIK&IMHO. But gefiltefish is perhaps the worst food I've ever tried to eat. I did it in an ecumenical spirit, but I decided that the anti-Semites may have had a point.
Kosher pickles are OK, though I far prefer vinegary pickles. I'm a discriminating anti-Semite.
Also, if Dr. B. were to make a kinky video with a father-figure in a Navy uniform, that would be transgressive as shit.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:11 PM
gefiltefish is perhaps the worst food I've ever tried to eat
Not lutefisk?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:13 PM
Under the seat cushion is the first place the kids will look. And, come on, matzoh isn't that bad, but it certainly isn't good.
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:14 PM
Lutefisk gives gefiltefish some competition, but as always, the Jews win in the end.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:17 PM
I have grown to love gefilte fish. With horseradish. Plenty of horseradish.
There are two separate schools of thought, one where the parents hide the afikoman somewhere easy for the kids to find, one where the kids hide the afikoman and the parents pretend not to find it. Although if the kids are devious fuckers like me, that may not be necessary -- I went upstairs and dropped the matzoh down the laundry chute. Nobody looked for it in the basement. I'm the John Dickson Carr of afikoman-hiders.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:17 PM
Gefilte fish can be terrible. The mass-market stuff in jars I've tasted is poor. Often served as a fish course right after haroseth, at the beginning of the eating as opposed to ceremonial part of seders. Treated as a sort of soul food.
We make our own. But it's getting expensive: six pounds ground fish, including pike, cost me $90 two months ago.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:18 PM
228: Do they win fabulous prizes?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:18 PM
I'm the John Dickson Carr of afikoman-hiders.
And who, Mister Smarty-pants, spent a weekend brushing the crumbs out of your clothes? That's right, your mother. Oy, such a child.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:20 PM
Mostly just world domination.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:21 PM
Is the "pike" used in gefiltefish northern pike or walleyed pike (aka "pike-perch"). Because walleye is wonderful, when not made into gefiltefish.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:24 PM
$20 or so, now. Not bad for a kid.
Since it's beat up on Tony Bourdain day, anybody see that buried rotten fish they gave him to eat in Iceland? Makes lutefisk sound lke food of the gods. I liked Kitchen Confidential, but I'm tired of the schtick.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:24 PM
What are the good Jewish foods? Are latkes really Jewish, or are they Eastern European?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:25 PM
Where are all the women bloggers?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:26 PM
What are the good Jewish foods?
Have you never had a pastrami on rye?
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:27 PM
Thanks to that Burger King commercial, they all have food issues, and don't feel comfortable commenting on this thread.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:27 PM
via friends in the trade, he is really not that well respected a chef
I don't think anyone disputes that, least of all Bourdain himself.
Posted by Josh | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:28 PM
239 to 237.
Have you never had a pastrami on rye?
Mmm. Pastrami. Knishes and the rest, too, right?
I love delis.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:30 PM
What are the good Jewish foods?
Christian baby blood is delicious.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:32 PM
Where are all the women bloggers?
Ooh, there's one. Quick! Try to catch it!
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:35 PM
Wiki reports that it is Northern Pike, which is not at all auspicious. All the fish reported by Wiki were indigenous American fish.
Bring on the Icelandic rotted fish! There's an Eskimo dish mush like that -- 3 months brewing undergraound inside a seal carcass.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:36 PM
'Postropher, we already covered matzoh.
What are the good Jewish foods? Are latkes really Jewish, or are they Eastern European?
Is there a difference? At any rate, I'm ready to lay claim to latkes, brisket, matzoh ball soup, and, as slolernr says, pastrami (or corned beef) on rye.
Posted by mrh | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:49 PM
Charoset.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:50 PM
Are you correcting my spelling or listing a food you like?
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:53 PM
Listing a food I like. I didn't see that it had previously been mentioned.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:56 PM
Marmoset.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 12:59 PM
There's a cookbook called Cucina Ebraica that has some good stuff in it.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 1:05 PM
[Bourdain] is really not that well respected a chef
According to that NPR interview, he's not much of a chef at all these days. He said he doesn't really cook at the restaurant anymore; with his travel schedule, he's only there a day or two a month, and even then only in a sort of emeritus position.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 1:06 PM
A mixture of marmite, apples, nuts, and wine? Sounds nasty.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-30-06 1:07 PM
Monkeys