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I thought the Jello thing was a British term, but to clarify

There's jelly, jam, and preserves. Jelly is a clear, viscous sort of fruit paste or topping. I suppose jam and preserves are the same thing. There's Jell-O which is what wagga said, it's crystals that you boil in water and then cool it in the refrigerator for a few hours until it becomes gelatin. Jell-O is the brand name. Confused yet?



But Jell-O also makes pudding too...



...which I believe you folks refer to as custard.

It's jam/preserves that you combine with the peanut butter, by the way. The peanut butter is salty and the jelly/jam is sweet, and the peanut butter is very thick and the jelly is loose. These two things counter and complement one another wonderfully, although I've never met anyone outside of North America who "got" the combination I love the stuff though

Actually, preserves are different than jam. With jam, it has to jell and is more spreadable, like jelly--only it has bits of fruit in it. Preserves don't have to jell and are more like fruit in syrup. Marmalade is lot like jam, except it has bits of citrus fruit and peel in it.
I do a lot of canning so I know the differences between all the different fruit spreads pretty well.

Shadowlander wrote:I thought the Jello thing was a British term, but to clarify

There's jelly, jam, and preserves. Jelly is a clear, viscous sort of fruit paste or topping. I suppose jam and preserves are the same thing. There's Jell-O which is what wagga said, it's crystals that you boil in water and then cool it in the refrigerator for a few hours until it becomes gelatin. Jell-O is the brand name.

No, I thought jello is your term for what we call jelly. Unless it is apple or other sort of a fruit-flavoured jelly jam, that is made with pectin and sugar, with the skin & seeds skimmed off through muslin with the liquid dripping back into a container, before being allowed to gel in its jars. One of the penalties of going to work is that making that sort of jelly jam got too cumbersome and time-consuming, so I don't do it any more, and haven't seen it in the supermarkets, either. It seems that is not what you mean by jelly either, since you describe it as a kind of fruit paste.

And here is what we mean by jelly, in the picture below. Aeroplane jelly is in a lot of flavours, including lime, lemon, pineapple, passionfruit, mixed berry (blue), bubblegum, raspberry, strawberry, blackcurrant, orange and others. They even experimented a decade or so ago with some native fruits like Quandong (blue), Lilli pilli (pink, I think) and others.



I expect that what you think of as pudding or custard might be blancmange or mousse. Especially if it is chocolate. Custard is made with eggs and milk. Though at one stage it was made with egg powder and milk. These days I buy it in ready to pour cartons. Brandy-flavoured custard or brandy-flavoured cream is the usual accompaniment to Christmas pudding, especially if the pudding has been flambe-ed.

I discovered what we call milkshakes and what they are in America is different. My roomate was like "Your milkshakes are just milk and flavoured syrup"

I think what he wanted is called a thick shake here.

Also apparently he hadn't heard the phase "flat white" until he came to Australia. What do you call a flat white in America than?

On another note. From working in a chemist where we serve customers. Most people not from Australia/new zealand get confused when you say "How are you going?"(unless they have been here before). They think you are talking about how they are leaving the shopping centre.

Also we often have to call out "are you right over there" and often again non-Australians (well I think this phase may be used in Britain too) have often thought we thought they were injured or sick or something haha.

IloveFauns wrote:Also apparently he hadn't heard the phase "flat white" until he came to Australia. What do you call a flat white in America than?

I had to Google the term "flat white", because I have never heard of it either. I couldn't find any American term for it. But I did find a post on a forum that said this:

Recently I was in the States and asked for a "flat white." The waitress looked at me strangely, the people I was with looked at me strangely, and I felt really dumb trying to explain that I wanted a plain coffee.. with some milk in it.. eventually I got a black coffee with half a glass of milk on the side (!!!) - I'm sure if I'd asked for a double decaf skinny mocha latte with a cinnamon stick and almond flakes I'd have got it straight away!

[Source]

Could "double decaf skinny mocha latte with a cinnamon stick and almond flakes" accurately describe a flat white?


~Riella

Haha it is a black coffee with milk. This is how wiki explains it

A flat white is a coffee beverage developed in Australia and New Zealand in the 1980s.[1][2] It is prepared by pouring microfoam (steamed milk with small, fine bubbles and a glossy or velvety consistency) over a double shot of espresso (sometimes ristretto espresso). It is somewhat similar to the cappuccino or the latte although smaller in volume, therefore having a higher proportion of coffee to milk (closer to a cortado), and milk that is more velvety in consistency – allowing the espresso to dominate the flavour, while being supported by the milk.

so similar to a cappuccino. Basically if you ask for just a "coffee" here you will get a flat white.

Plus I never new it was an Aus/NZ thing until today.

I had to Google it as well. The things you learn here on the forum.

(Or elsewhere - I'd never heard of jelly babies before Doctor Who).

To be fair, I'm not one to order any kind of coffee.

I like drinking coffee when I have had a disrupted sleep and need to be awake haha or generally with friends, otherwise I opt for tea with breakfast.

I am not sure if I have told this story before but when I was in new york with my dad, one man thought he was saying orange juice, when he was actually saying coffee. I have a feeling he had no idea what dad said, so took a guess haha. My dad doesn't have a real bogan accent either. It is kind just a normal Australian male accent haha.


I am know I must be getting old when I don't know what some of the internet speak means. I am nearly 20 (To think I was 13 when I joined) this shouldn't be happening for another 5 years. Though I don't really like internet speak anyway.

It's funny how North America in general has so many different accents. A thick New York accent is wildly different, for instance, from a Boston accent and geographically they're really not that far apart. I live in the Southeastern US where everyone pretty much speaks "Southern", in which the locals tend to speak a bit more slowly and with a very noticeable drawl. It's a very laid back manner of speech with lots of strange vocabulary .

Here's a brief example of what some regions accents will sound like:

English - "I'm going to drive my car down to the harbor"
Boston accent - "I'm taking my cah down to the hah-bah"
NY accent - "I'm takin' my car down to da' bay. You got a problem wit' dat?"
Southern - "Hey ya'll, I'm thinkin' of takin' the truck dow'n to the beach. Ya'll in?"

Thanks to Wifester I can do a passable Wisconsin/Minnesota accent but it's difficult put into text here. Chicago has its own strange accent too. Midwestern US has little discernable accent on its own. I've not really picked up on any other ones as of yet.

Shadowlander wrote:Thanks to Wifester I can do a passable Wisconsin/Minnesota accent but it's difficult put into text here. Chicago has its own strange accent too. Midwestern US has little discernable accent on its own. I've not really picked up on any other ones as of yet.

I have family in/from Minnesota, and the way they pronounce kettle as "kittle" drives me crazy! Otherwise, I love their accents. I'v heard a lot of people in that area have roots in countries like Norway, Iceland, and Greenland (I think that's right?) so that contributes to the accent a lot. There is a great example of a rather overdone Minnesotan accent in this hilarious youtube video called "Lutheran Air."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD_-EUUYRA0

IloveFauns wrote:Haha it is a black coffee with milk.
.. similar to a cappuccino. Basically if you ask for just a "coffee" here you will get a flat white.
Plus I never new it was an Aus/NZ thing until today.

I hadn't heard of a flat white until I came back from two years in UK about 12 years ago. I had got used to buying ordinary filter coffee at a cheap price (about 99p last time I was there) and it annoys me not to be able to get it easily in NZ. I object to having to buy coffee at $4 to $5, when I don't want cappuchino or latte etc.

When I was a young working lass I once asked for white coffee in a cafe and got the sort made with hot milk. I really didn't like it and had to explain to the cafe host why I hadn't drunk it - I was wanting weakish black coffee with milk in, like I had at home.

so nz have just as bad coffee prices as here?(only get cheap ones at like mcdonalds and they are terrible). A black coffee with milk is the most common one here. I do love an ice mocha in the summer.

I thought of this thread the other day when a local news broadcast carried a report that flat whites will soon be available at US Starbucks locations. The anchors didn't know what it was either until it was detailed in the report. The report added that it is the 'unofficial coffee drink of Australia.'

Nope, we think we invented it in NZ actually.
There is even a NZ stage play called Four Flat Whites In Italy about two local couples on holiday in Europe.

However, Starbucks has launched it as a new product.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/0 ... 22868.html

^ Though I feel that some Americans tend to think nz and Aus are one of the same. hahaha though the first paragraph says it is a running debate here:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-07/r ... es/6003748

This is just like that pavlova debate. I honestly don't care who invented it because they both taste nice.

Though I have tasted starbucks coffees and they are not great at all. Often very weak and watery. Give me a gloria jeans or an independent cafe anyday.

I'm supposed to make a trifle for Australia Day. Any hints from fellow Aussies or our NZ aunty, please?