How far from the roots?

[auntieannie]

We have already discussed where our eating and cooking habits may come from.

However, over the holidays, I couldn't help but realise how far I have gone from my family's eating roots.

Imagine, I ordered grilled sardines as a starter in a restaurant!
Something that has my parents shudder. Even with the trips to the Mediterranean, they still don't care for "fishy" fish. They do enjoy bland fish, but anything else is unwelcome in their home.

Also I do still cook some of the dishes that are traditional around their table, but have embraced influences of spicier shores. And it shows (smells) in my kitchen.

What about you? (I meant to say these things for a while now, so I hope I had not already created a thread.)

[bixaorellana]

Oh, this is an excellent topic, Annie!

Is your parents' aversion to "fishy fish" common to all Swiss people? I suppose it's a country that traditionally ate mostly fresh water fish, correct?

I can say I am now very far from my roots, since I partly moved to Mexico in order to be right at the source of its cooking. The very cooking techniques used here, not to mention the seasonings, are so different from what I ate growing up.

I think my generation & later ones were lucky in that we were exposed to at least the idea of other cuisines in magazines and newspapers. That may even have been what inspired travel in many people.

For those newer to AnyPort -- Annie's first sentence alludes to this thread.

[Deleted]

Very interesting subject.

I have retained a certain closeness to certain family dishes but perhaps for a somewhat odd reason. Growing up in the American southeast, I still ate my mother's French cooking for dinner about 75% of the time every night, and that attached me to it even more, because it was a far cry from the horrible meals of the school cafeteria. The other 25% of the time, we ate some local dishes that my mother had adopted either because she liked them or out of economic necessity -- fried chicken, fried fish, crabs, shrimp, oysters (ha ha, to think that those were the cheap items back then!).

Of course, the dishes that are the most engraved in my mind are my grandmother's spectacular dishes (she could easily have cooked in a 5-star restaurant). Unfortunately, I can reproduce almost none of them, but I certainly would if I could.

But in terms of straying from my origins, I do indeed try to cook Southeast Asian dishes quite regularly, and I have absolutely no problem eating prawn soup for breakfast or eating even the oddest combination of bizarre ingredients as a main dish. (And I am proud that my mother was just as happy to try all of this stuff, too, before her brain went weird -- my father and stepfather were never nearly as adventurous.)

[onlymark]

On one side I have tried and do like numerous dishes from all over the world and eat them regularly.
However, apart from those, the majority of my meals would be quite recognisable to either my mother or father in their youth - especially my father who had an international mother.

[cheerypeabrain]

My parents never ate the hot spicy foods that my OH and myself love, but I don't think that the foods that I grew up with were particularly bland, the haddock, cod etc that my Parents preferred had a delicate flavour often enhanced by subtle sauces, absolutely delicious. I don't like the taste of a lot of 'fishy-fish' either and I'm allergic to shellfish so that restricts what I can eat.

We're lucky to have grown up in a time when we have access to diverse and exciting cultures, people, food and traditions from all around the world. I know that since I've had a home computer (only 12 years or so) I've found some brilliant recipes. it's all readily available now isn't it. I can nip into town and pick up ingredients from across the globe...astonishing.

[Deleted]

It's true that most of us are living in very auspicious culinary times. Unfortunately, it sort of cheapens our exotic discoveries, since so many million other people have access to the same items. It was much better when we could eat strange items that nobody had ever heard of.

[onlymark]

I probably mentioned this some time ago but my parents regularly drove to Spain to see my brother. I know my father never liked Spanish food and he told me one day he was very happy when he got on the return ferry and could have a proper English meal.
I asked him what he ate.
He replied, "Chicken Madras".

[Deleted]

That's exactly like the famous French favourite, Couscous Royal.

[lagatta]

Chicken Madras and Couscous Royal are definitely favourite British and French foods. Hell, Roman cuisine was based on the cuisine of the Greeks whom they had conquered.

My family roots were already multicultural, but modern Montréal food is far more so. Another factor here is the fact that most of us don't need the hearty, caloric food of Québécois forebears working outside in the cold - and many other sets of forebears. I most often work in front of a computer all day.

[Deleted]

What, you don't need poutine? I certainly need it whenever I visit in the winter.

[lagatta]

No, I hate poutine. And have several other friends here who do as well. I find that is a terrible thing to do to frites.

I don't mean I'm some pure thing who doesn't eat any semi-junk - I'm making a pizza this evening (which I like, unlike Kerouac). Moreover, it may not be any colder in Montréal than in Paris right now.

Forgot to add: due to recent francophone immigration, just about all the foods featured in the wonderful "Ethnic Paris Cookbook", which our friend Jazz nous a fait connaître, are now readily available here.

[tod2]

I certainly have moved away from what my parents ate on a regular basis in our family home. My mother prepared food the Dutch way for my father, and apart from a cheese & tomato sandwich in a Tearoom or Cafe`, they never ate in a thing called a restaurant because there weren't any! And because my parents never went on a holiday, even a hotel diningroom was foreign to them.

In my late teens I acquired a boyfriend from a wealthy family, and it was he who took me to a restaurant for the very first time. I can remember exactly what I ate to this day
Eating out certainly encourages one to try new kinds of food hence my small move away from my roots.

Kerouac, what's in couscous Royal? Does one order it as a meal or a side dish?

[bixaorellana]

So what did you have on that momentous day, Tod?

[imec]

Being born in the working class, northwest of England, I'd say I've come a long way from the local standards of that time.... mince, shepherds pie, beans on toast, bangers and mash, fried bread, fish and chips, pie and chips, egg and chips, spam egg sausage and chips...

[bjd]

fish and chips, pie and chips, egg and chips, spam egg sausage and chips...

Sounds like a Monty Python skit.

[imec]

I KNEW there was another fan here somewhere! ;D

[tod2]

Well, let's see Bixa -

M E N U

Prawn Cocktail

Chicken Under the Bell

Fresh Strawberries and icecream

Chicken under the Bell was a grilled baby chicken ( really teeny little pigeon-sized thing) presented to the table under a silver dome covering by the maitre'D.

I can only think I remembered it so vividly because I was so overwhelmed by the glamour of the place. Funny thing though.....I can't remember it's name
NO MARK! Not the chicken's name - the restaurant name.

[lagatta]

bjd beat me to the Spam, spam, spam skit!

[onlymark]

imec, shuddup will ya. Ya makin me famished goin on about chips and pies and................

[onlymark]

tod, I doubt the chicken had a name. Probably too young to be christened.

[Deleted]

Feb 6, 2012 13:20:45 GMT tod2 said:

Kerouac, what's in couscous Royal? Does one order it as a meal or a side dish?

Tod, in France "couscous" does not refer to the box of cracked wheat (semolina), but to a complete stew of vegetables and meat. The semolina is only the base onto which you pour the broth and pile on the other ingredients.

You can have chicken couscous, beef couscous, mutton couscous, vegetarian couscous, meatball couscous, merguez couscous or.... couscous royal. This is a couscous stew which combines chicken, beef, mutton and merguez.

For example:

[lagatta]

A friend in Italy once made us pork couscous. Muslims and Sephardic Jews may well have joined forces in outrage at that. But the Maghrebis I know say Couscous Royal isn't "authentic" - well, it is certainly an authentic French dish, just as the Balti recipes are authentic British ones.

[Deleted]

Indeed -- couscous royal is just a dish for people who can't make up their mind.

[bixaorellana]

Sorta like "Surf 'n' Turf".

[tod2]

Kerouac, as soon as I read your explanation I remembered you telling us that some time ago - dunno where/Fodors? But, thanks so much for including a photo!
The Western shoppers have been led astray with the notions of Couscous - because when you go to buy the semolina grains the words COUSCOUS are emblazoned on the box. So naturally you think that's what the contents are

I am once again gratefully enlightened ;D

[Deleted]

What really counts in couscous in France (or North Africa) is the broth. When people say they are having spaghetti for dinner, I don't think they are thinking of the unadorned pasta but instead what goes on it. I will never understand the strange reason that caused a lot of the English-speaking world to believe that couscous is a grain to be served on the side like rice or something. Yuck! Plain couscous is horrible.

But when you pour this on top...... things change, just like naked spaghetti when you add the sauce.

[lagatta]

The only thing worse than plain couscous is when someone (not francophone, Arabic or Berber speaking) inflicted TOFU COUSCOUS on us at a self-catered conference.

There is some variation in the grain; size of grains, and while it is almost always wheat semolina, there is also barley couscous. Flavourful and nutritious, but can easily become a leaden weight if one is not careful preparing it and fluffing it.

Here is a link to a Vegetable Barley Couscous that appeared in Gourmet:

www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Vegetable-Barley-Couscous-238425

Vegetable Barley Couscous
Gourmet | May 2007
Adapted from Baija Lafridi
Jnane Tamsna, Marrakech

I have had something similar, though there was some meat - perhaps chicken or chicken meatballs (which are authentic, think mostly in Maghrebi-Jewish cookery).

[Deleted]

Yes, in the supermarkets in France, you can get fine, medium or coarse semolina. I think the finest version is used mostly in desserts, because it would turn into cement if used with the stew.