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Post by Deleted on Nov 23, 2016 15:41:01 GMT
I have long wondered what the "tacos" now sold by the Indian places in my neighbourhood could possibly be like, and today I was handed a brochure by the new Royal Bengal fast food that opened on my street the other day. I can now say with confidence (?) that it appears to be something inspired by the panini. imageshack.com/a/img922/1812/alQHYt.jpg |
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 23, 2016 16:58:24 GMT
Oh lord ~ those blasted French! Here are two pictures I took in Toulouse (one day I will produce a Toulouse thread!). As far as I can tell "tacos" is singular, not plural in this application.  |
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Post by lagatta on Nov 23, 2016 18:33:14 GMT
A lot of words that are singular in English mysteriously become plural in Frenglish, such as "un tacos" or "un pins' " - yes, there is a ' after the plural noun - pin in the sense of badge or button with a slogan. But French, English and perhaps other languages do the same with the Italian word panino. They call a single one a panini, which is nonsensical for those who speak Italian. If they want to use French or English plural forms (which is perfectly acceptable) logically, it would be one panino, two paninos. I guess panini sounds cute. Spaghetti is actually a plural. One spaghetto would be a single, stringlike noodle.
I take it that they are using flour tortillas. Bixa, are those eaten in Mexico? Perhaps in the North?
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 23, 2016 19:04:20 GMT
And cannolo in the US is a cannoli. Two are cannolis.  I suspect that what is wrapped around that "tacos" is something made with naan dough. Nothing like that object in the picture is eaten anywhere in Mexico. What the hell is that inside -- potato salad? |
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Post by lagatta on Nov 23, 2016 23:01:56 GMT
Yes, that looks like no Mexican food I've ever seen. I am very far from your expertise, but I have read books by Diana Kennedy about Oaxaca and elsewhere. Samosas are a kind of fried dumpling common in South Asian cooking (as a snack and street food) and they are often stuffed with potatoes and other vegetables (garden peas, sweet corn, carrots etc). The filling of this thing looks like the filling of those, but it is far less appealing.
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Post by bjd on Nov 24, 2016 6:43:48 GMT
I have yet to understand why anything wrapped in bread requires french fries. I can't tell what that filling is supposed to be in Bixa's picture #91 -- maybe chicken in cheese sauce? (I can't find that barf smiley). In Israel once I ordered falafel in pita bread and had to ask the guy to leave out the fries.
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Post by lagatta on Nov 24, 2016 10:12:14 GMT
Like in the famous "merguez - frites"! Also, the chip butty and the mitraillette...  I guess it is just a matter of getting enough grease in one's diet. |
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 24, 2016 14:51:54 GMT
Probably potatoes teamed with bread started out as poverty food -- filling and cheap -- and then became enshrined as actual food items, as in the chip butty and the potato po-boy. But it's strange that we now accept and even expect fries as a side dish with almost everything. I don't think anyone makes mounds of fries to serve with hamburgers at home, but we expect them to accompany our bread-enclosed meat when eating out.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2016 17:41:05 GMT
I'm guessing that the "filling" of those "tacos" is chicken but, ugh...
With all the other wonderful food, fast food included available why would this even appeal to anyone?
On an other note, this past week, I had "a time of it" procuring the base of what I needed to make mincemeat pie.
(kind of cheating along the lines of using canned chicken broth versus real chicken stock).
My reasoning aside from sheer laziness on my part, I did not want to buy all the ingredients of the base because they are not ingredients I would likely use within the time frame of them going to waste.)
And so, there began my quest.
I went to a small independently owned market that I was sure, and had been told, carried said item.
I looked in the row which held what I needed and saw no sign of it.
I then asked one of the people stocking the shelves for it and was met with a look of WTF,"say what"?
Onto the next person.
Same look.
(At this point I'm feeling like a Johnette Cleese wishing I was videotaping all this...)
Along comes an associate manager and she also has no idea but, courteously, looks around the section and lo and behold we see a tiny empty space with the markings/label MINCEMEAT filling.
NADA available.
She then phoned one of their new locations and they indeed had cases of the stuff and arranged to have some sent to our location and then called us when it arrived.
Two hours later Patricia phones us to let us know that said item was now available at their location.
Clearly, a North vs. South US cultural chasm...
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 24, 2016 18:12:03 GMT
I think it may be more of a sign of the times, Casimira. You used to be able find tons of the stuff in any supermarket in New Orleans, especially around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Also, it seemed that every single T'gvng featured both pumpkin and mincemeat pies. The last few times I've had one of those two holidays at my mother's, the nieces either looked baffled or pretend gagged when I suggested mincemeat.  |
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Post by lagatta on Nov 24, 2016 19:05:55 GMT
What do people usually eat at the holidays in those parts, pecan pie? I know one cannot generalize about the entire Southern US, with many sub-regions and rural/urban divides etc...
Does the "mincemeat" in those tins still contain suet?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2016 19:59:08 GMT
While you may well be right Bixa, I have never in all my years living here seen mincemeat pie offered in any form.
I made it at the request of Hank whom you know, and a couple of other people because I'm always the pie lady...
Lagatta, the mixture I speak of is a jarred condiment concoction of which I then embellish with chopped up walnuts, raisons, currants, apple, pear, adjusted spices of nutmeg, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves and a couple of splashes of cognac and then put on the stovetop to come to a light boil, simmer, leave to stew overnight in the fridge then, make my pie crust, add minced pork tenderloin meat and place all in a preheated 400F oven.
Voila!!!
They are on the cooling rack as I post.
Other desserts in the pie category Southern wise are sweet potato and pecan.
Oh, and as for suet, no. (likely a major bastardization to those traditionalists but I didn't go that far...), and no one (unless you were here) will know the difference.
This, in itself was a departure for me and I did it solely because of the persons who requested it.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 24, 2016 21:50:08 GMT
I was wondering why you fancied up the commercial filling, Casimira, but then googled Crosse & Blackwell mincemeat filling and was appalled. I definitely see why it has to be embellished. Crosse & Blackwell used to be the most common brand found in supermarkets and I would swear on a stack of cookbooks that it used to contain suet. Well, read it & weep: it's been cheapened and bastardized almost out of existence. Starting from the first customer review, the whole ugly story is laid out: www.amazon.com/Crosse-Blackwell-Mincemeat-Regular-jars/dp/B0000V682S |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2016 22:16:46 GMT
Wow, casi. Wow.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 25, 2016 0:02:39 GMT
Yes, the commercial brand that I procured is listed in the link you posted Bixa. Robertson's Mincemeat Classic. 5 oz. (I used 2) jars from the good people of the UK. The texture of it was sorely lacking although all the ingredients seemed in order, it needed some umph hence the coarser chopped up fruit, walnuts, brandy and the meat and adjusted spices most especially some freshly grated nutmeg.
Otherwise it would have been just a soupy mess of a pie.
It was big hit with those who were familiar with what mincemeat pie is while many looked at it quizzically but upon trying it became converts.
Comments such as "wow. oh I haven't had mincemeat pie since I was a kid" (from the NE US and a couple of Brits) aroused other people's curiosity.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2016 23:42:43 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 3, 2016 0:44:58 GMT
How do you say "Hot Pockets" in French?
That looks like the merde Air France flung at the passengers for the second meal when I returned home this summer. I will never, ever forgive them for it.
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Post by lagatta on Dec 4, 2016 16:34:19 GMT
There is similar crap here in Canada, but it has different names in French, and in English. I'm sure there is crap like that in France and other French-speaking countries; crap food is everywhere now, as it is so "convenient" - not a damned sight more convenient than making a sandwich - either a cold sandwich or melting cheese (perhaps with ham) on bread or bread rolls in the oven.
There is one kind called "Bistro" - no, I've never eaten it; if I want something like that I put a slice of cheese and vegetables or ham etc on a piece of bread (slice, length of baguette, whatever) and heat it up in my ittle convection oven.
That is not nice of Air France to inflict such a thing on you, but airline food does have a rep...
As for tacos, the crap food companies have inflicted the same treatment on Asian foods for many years now.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2016 16:41:27 GMT
They look positively disgusting.
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Post by tod2 on Oct 20, 2017 13:55:07 GMT
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 20, 2017 14:08:02 GMT
germes = sprouts (things that have germinated). It's just bean sprouts.
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Post by tod2 on Oct 20, 2017 14:24:14 GMT
But in English subtitle....Germs and we all want to avoid those! |
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Post by lagatta on Oct 21, 2017 10:46:36 GMT
I'm not sure I'd want "black fungus" either. Of course mushrooms are among that family, but black fungus looks like something you'd clean out of grout.
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Post by tod2 on Oct 21, 2017 19:03:06 GMT
Lagatta, I did experience Black Fungus in one of the Chinese meals we had! It came as part of the vegetables. The 'mushroom' is floppy or jellylike in texture. As part of a meal they are curiously unexciting so I would not want to see more than two or three on my plate. I can't say I took particular note of the flavour either. You may notice a yellow vegetable that looks like a small piece of chamois cloth - that was one of the strangest textures I've ever eaten. Tasted OK but Oh it was a challenge! imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/922/JWiNbw.jpg |
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 21, 2017 19:39:44 GMT
germes = sprouts (things that have germinated). It's just bean sprouts. Almost the same in Spanish -- "germen de trigo" = wheat germ. But in English subtitle....Germs and we all want to avoid those! It is funny, Tod, but probably would have more immediately been identified as funny over in the Mangled English thread. I'm not sure I'd want "black fungus" either. Of course mushrooms are among that family, but black fungus looks like something you'd clean out of grout. *orp* I guess there is no nice euphemistic name for that, as there is for cloud ears, for instance. |
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 21, 2017 20:48:06 GMT
Black fungus was always a mistranslation anyway, due to dried seaweed being called "black mushrooms" in English for so many years. That went straight to French as "champignons noirs" and came back as fungus.
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Post by onlyMark on Oct 21, 2017 20:55:52 GMT
I have never owned a toaster in my life. (However, I do have a countertop oven, so I can grill bread if ever I want to.) Will you be getting a toaster with your new kitchen? |
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 21, 2017 22:43:50 GMT
No, I eat very little bread. Strangely enough, in the final days of my toaster oven, I found that I had a craving for grilled cheese sandwiches (not even croque-monsieur), so I made some at least 3 or 4 times. Of course, you can't make them in a toaster anyway -- you have to use an oven, and I will finally have a real one for the first time in many years.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 21, 2017 23:25:05 GMT
At last! Now, when people drop in on you, you'll be able to say, "If I'd known you were coming, I would have baked a cake!"  |
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 22, 2017 4:46:52 GMT
In terms of cultural differences, in France it would be a tart more often than a cake.
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