Well, food tastes tell a story of a person's past, the environments in which they have been, and what the people in their environment have been up to for the last few generations. Meatloaf, for instance, is very American, like hamburgers. Whereas fried rice is post-war Dutch, pre-war East Indies, and enduringly Indonesian. Salt fish and fatty pork? Cantonese.
Everything with sambal? Single man from a Dutch environment.
Lutefisk, as a good example, is American Lutheran, or Scandinavian. No one else. Gehakte leber is urban coastal American, Jewish, and gout.
I am a 12th. generation American of mostly Dutch-American ancestry, whose parents were both born outside the country because of World War One. When I was two we left Southern California and moved to the Netherlands. I came back to the States for college.
I'm curious and have a minor linguistic bent.
And I like to eat.
Here are consumables mentioned in essays during the past four weeks. With explanation.
Vegemite: unspeakable Australian yeast spackle
Spaghetti sandwiches: The alternative to a Vegemite sandwich.
Pineapple: A pizza topping.
Hot sauce: Something which makes Vegemite, spaghetti sandwiches, and pineapple pizza edible.
Smoked eel sandwich: Better than Vegemite, spaghetti sandwiches, and pineapple pizza.
Fried stinky tofu: Almost inedible.
Taro durian hopia: Thoroughly unpleasant.
Cheese: Essential.
Curry pastes: Usually one can find three Thai types in Asian markets; yellow, a regular hot curry flavour. Red, more of the aromatic spices. Green, hotter and sharper. Additionally there are HK curry pastes, which will appeal to the English, and Japanese curry pastes, which are for making your stews more complex and gravied, but not really fully curry-like.
Cucumber flavoured potato chips: I don't think this is a flavour that will catch on in the US.
Spaghetti Os: Canned Italian food. Not available in Italy.
Fatty pork with salted veg: 梅菜扣肉 ('mui choi kau yiuk'); streaky pork long simmered with salted vegetables, dashes of rice wine and soy sauce added. Stupendous over rice.
Salt fish: 鹹魚 ('haam yü'), the acme of uncool food for the poor and elderly. Delicious and versatile, a few slices on their own steamed with ginger are a great accompaniment for rice. Steamed pork patty and many pork dishes are improved by the addition of a little salt fish. Chicken and salt fish is classic. And vegetables benefit from the saveur.
Charsiu pork: 叉燒 -- Cantonese-style barbecued pork, flavoured with sugar and soy sauce, rice wine, and five spice. Sweetish, fatty. Served by itself over rice, or used to flavour a multitude of other dishes.
Roast duck: 燒鴨 ('siu ngaap') Food of the gods. Delicious-greasy-fatty-juicy-scrumptious.
Steamed pork patty with salted fish and ginger: 鹹魚蒸肉餅 ('haam yü jing yiuk beng'); ground pork flattened, a few thick slices of salt fish on top, with some shredded ginger. Steamed (depending on thickness five or ten minutes). Which cooks the meat, imbues it with a hint of savory saltiness, and renders the juices. Country Cantonese style food, beloved by city dwellers, soulfood in Chinatown.
Baked porkchop over rice with cheese: Very Hong Kong chachanteng.
Bami goreng: Indonesian fried noodles, one of the most common dishes in Dutch cities. Cooked noodles put in the pan with browned onion, other ingredients such as meats and vegetables added. Tossed around a bit, ketjap manis (sweet soy sauce) drizzled in, and then scooped onto a plate. The fried onions are a major characteristic, the meats somewhat define it, and sweet soy sauce is a common Indonesian and Dutch flavouring invented several centuries ago by Chinese migrants to South East Asia. My version adds ginger, subtracts onion, and omits sweet soy sauce in lieu of a drizzle fish sauce and some curry paste.
Almost all of us serve sambal on the side.
Guleh ayam: Indonesian-style curried chicken. Essential spices aside from turmeric and ground coriander are lengkuas (langkawas, galangal; a type of dwarf ginger), serai (sere, lemongrass; a fragrant plant with a perfumy citrus fragrance), chilies, cumin, green cardamom. The sauce includes coconut milk and fish paste. It is a soupy dish, with plenty of sauce for the rice.
Bebek tjabe hijau: Duck with green chili. Large chunks of duck cooked with a curry paste that has a dominance of green chilies, made fragrant with kaffir lime and lemon grass, and includes shallots and garlic. The Minangkabau version ("itiak lado ijo") is the most authentic, you might have to go to Bukit Tinggi for that. Soupy, to go with rice.
Chicken paprikash: Hungarian chicken prepared with paprika.
Holishkes: Stuffed cabbage, golubtsi; a savoury filling of minced meat flavoured with spices and onions, wrapped in cabbage leaves and cooked. Often served with tomato sauce.
Nokrln (little boiled dumplings similar to spaetzle, served with many dishes; nokerly).
Rakot Krumpli: A casserole of potato layers, sliced onion, speck, and hardboiled eggs baked in butter and sour cream (smetana).
Letsho: Sautéed onions, peppers, and tomatoes, with eggs or sausage.
Purkult is a paprika flavoured meat stew.
Cheese steak sandwich: A popular late night comestible in Philadelphia. Scrap beef griddle fried with onions in a toasted long bun, with canned liquid cheese glopped down the length.
Milk tea: 港式奶茶 ('gong sik naai cha'). Very similar to something severe Dutch Protestants do. If such beverages as coffee and tea are sinful self-indulgence, then making them with milk instead of water changes them to a health beverage. HK Milk Tea is strong tea augmented with sweetened condensed milk. Served hot or cold. I prefer it hot. I throw a few dried dates and slices of ginger into the water I use. Which, I suppose, is rather protestant of me.
Wonton noodle soup: Wontons are little dumplings filled with pork and shrimp. Or just pork, if made by northerners. Adding noodles to wonton soup is very Hong Kong, and somewhat odd by the standards of Northern Chinese. The broth has a noticeable flavouring of dried flounder, which adds depth and complexity and seems positively heretical to many non-Cantonese.
Kaidanchai: 雞蛋仔. A big piece of outer space alien skin dusted with confectioners sugar. Errm, I mean a fried waffle-type thing eaten spur of the moment snack-wise.
Steamed meat patty with ginger and salt egg: 咸蛋蒸肉饼 ('haam daan jing yiuk beng').
Fish balls: 魚蛋 ('yü daan'). Often either fried and served on a stick with curry sauce, or added to noodle soups.
Egg tarts: 蛋撻 ('daan taat').
French toast: 西多士 ('sai do si'). A thick peanut butter, nutella, or jam sammich, battered, fried, dusted with confectioners sugar, drizzled with chocolate syrup, golden treacle, and sweetened condensed milk. Considered a light in between meals snack in Hong Kong, and a heart-attack on a plate by sane people. It is very yummy.
Rutabaga: A fictitious vegetable invented by muppets.
Tofu: If cooked by and for Caucasians, this is very strange. However stuffed with fish paste and fatty pork then coated and deepfried it is totally marvelous, and it can also be plain-cooked then served with meat sauce and chilipaste.
Guleh: Indonesian curry, usually on the wet side, to go with rice.
Soto: a soup with meat, vegetables, and a starch component, plus yellow curry spices. In Holland most often made with chicken and fried potato chunks or potato croquettes. Beansprouts and fresh basil leaves are (or should be) considered essential.
Rendang: Coconut milk and chili meat stew. Water buffalo chunks rubbed with salt, turmeric, garlic, ginger, an equal amount of chili paste added, then coconut milk to generously drown added, and the whole simmered till the liquid is gone, and the oils have come out. Raise heat, fry crusty around the edges while stirring. Thus cooked the meat will keep for a few days unrefrigerated. A small quantity is sufficient with rice, this is not a main dish. If made wet, it is called 'kalio'. In either version it is delicious.
Lalap: Raw vegetables with chili paste. Salad, snack, or side dish.
Rudjak: blanched vegetables with a sauce comprised of fish paste, chili paste, lime juice, sugar. Similar to 'lotek', or 'petjel'.
Nasi goreng: Indonesian style fried rice. The national dish of Holland.
Portuguese chicken: 葡國雞 ('pou gwok kai'), chicken pieces with chunked potato in a mild coconut curry sauce. Great with sambal.
Salt fish and chicken fried rice: 鹹魚雞粒炒飯 ('haam yü gai naap chaau faan'). A classic taste. I find it very enjoyable. Great with sambal.
Black rice porridge: 黑米粥 ('hak maai juk'.) Black rice porridge with pears (梨汁黑米粥 'lei jap hak maai juk'): rinse roughly equal parts black and white 米 before simmering with eight times the volume water to the nearly falling apart stage, then add fresh or canned pears and their syrup or sugar to taste, simmer a while longer.
Most of which are great with sambal, and HK milk tea.
Followed by a pipe.
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