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Cultural Curiosities: Life in Other Countries

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Re: Cultural Curiosities: Life in Other Countries

Postby IloveFauns » Jan 17, 2014 3:26 am

Maybe I will give them a try if I ever see them for sale at a cafe. Is the onion you speak of raw or cooked because dipping a raw onion into mustard would be foul.
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Re: Cultural Curiosities: Life in Other Countries

Postby shastastwin » Jan 17, 2014 7:20 am

IlF, a blooming onion is bits of onion battered/breaded and fried and then arranged to look like it is blooming. I suspect it's more of an American thing, due to our love of fried foods. ;))

Or is that a misconception of mine? Do any of you have deep fried foods in abundance in your home countries?
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Re: Cultural Curiosities: Life in Other Countries

Postby IloveFauns » Jan 17, 2014 8:35 pm

Oh that sounds much nicer than what I was imagining.

Other than at fish and chip shops no not really. I don't deep fry chocolate bar and stuff like that ha.

Australia has many different cultural influences. I usually try a it of everything. There is more of an Italian influence now. My mum said when she was a child they never had pizzas or tomato pasta dishes at all. The main take away in every town was fish and chips.
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Re: Cultural Curiosities: Life in Other Countries

Postby Puddleglum » Jan 17, 2014 11:05 pm

Shadowlander. I don't know if you are familiar with the "Little House" books, but there is a reference to corn bread in them as well. It was introduced as you mentioned to the settlers by the Indians, and was handy since it did not spoil in the hard kernal form so long as it was kept dry. I have had it at re-enactments many times where it is commonly served with butter, and or honey.
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Re: Cultural Curiosities: Life in Other Countries

Postby Shadowlander » Jan 18, 2014 1:47 pm

....and chili! ;))

My sister Liz makes her cornbread in a manner that makes it taste more like cake, like you'd eat at a birthday party or what not, than regular cornbread. It's sweet and moist and awesome. Were that I could get the recipe from her on that. I love both varieties though. And if we're on cornbread there's also a need to mention hush puppies, which are small balls of cornmeal dough mixed with onions and then deep fried. They're commonly served with pork barbecue or seafood where I live. They are thoroughly addictive and delicious. :D
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Re: Cultural Curiosities: Life in Other Countries

Postby DiGoRyKiRkE » Jan 18, 2014 3:08 pm

Shadowlander wrote:And if we're on cornbread there's also a need to mention hush puppies, which are small balls of cornmeal dough mixed with onions and then deep fried. They're commonly served with pork barbecue or seafood where I live. They are thoroughly addictive and delicious.


Ooh yes. . . love those things. They're especially good dipped in tartar sauce, honey butter or ketchup :D

My Mom's entire family is from Kentucky (where cornbread is practically the only thing keeping some people alive) so I've grown up on all kinds of cornbread. It's never been anything special to me as I usually had it once a week, if not more. . .

Though I still love fried cornbread, where you basically take the corn bread batter and fry it in very light oil like a pancake.
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Re: Cultural Curiosities: Life in Other Countries

Postby Shadowlander » Jan 18, 2014 3:51 pm

I love my hush puppies dipped in malt vinegar (with my fish and chips) or if I get them at a seafood restaurant I like them with that red sauce on them, which I think is called "cocktail sauce" (ketchup and horse radish mixed, basically ;)) ). Hush puppies are really good!

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Edit: Oh, I almost forgot! Corndogs too...imagine you've got your standard frankfurter or hot dog and you dip it in cornmeal batter and then deep fry it. Then you impale the whole thing lengthwise on a wooden stick and you've basically got a corn dog. They're usually served at carnivals or fairs but most grocery stores will have some in the frozen foods section, though they're not as good. I *love* mine with yellow mustard, but they're good with ketchup too. :D

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Re: Cultural Curiosities: Life in Other Countries

Postby IloveFauns » Jan 18, 2014 6:01 pm

My stomach wouldn't be use to such things. A corndog would make my stomach flip(I don't even like regular hotdogs). It can be rather a pest choosing what I eat. Not only would such battered foods upset me I am to some extent lactose intolerant(I can have 1 glass of milk a day but no more). I am usually fine with cheese but I can only have cream if I haven't already had that glass of milk. So it is usually safe for me to stick to vegetables and meals with none or low amounts of lactose.

A while back we had accent videos? maybe we should give those another try? Perhaps reading a page or two from one of the narnia books of your choice? .
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Re: Cultural Curiosities: Life in Other Countries

Postby Puddleglum » Jan 20, 2014 3:19 pm

We used to have hush puppies up here in the local Red Lobster, but for some strange reason they stopped serving them :-o
Just in case anyone who has never had a corn-dog goes out to get one at a local fair, or buys a package of what looks like some, be warned there is nefarious fraud that keeps showing itself called the pronto-pup /:) It may look like a corn-dog, but in fact it is made with ordinary bread batter instead of corn. though I am told by semi-reliable sources, that there are some people who prefer their hotdogs covered in this unsavory matter [-(
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Re: Cultural Curiosities: Life in Other Countries

Postby Warrior 4 Jesus » Jan 20, 2014 4:30 pm

I thought hush puppies were a brand or type of shoe? We do have fried foods in Australia but they're just the fast-food sort. They're not a cultural item or anything - except maybe battered fish and potato chips (but we stole them from the UK).
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Re: Cultural Curiosities: Life in Other Countries

Postby Puddleglum » Jan 20, 2014 9:22 pm

There is, or at least was, a brand name of shoes called hush-puppies. I cannot say if they are still around. Though, if we are talking food, I imagine that puts another spin on the old saying of putting your shoe in your mouth =))
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Re: Cultural Curiosities: Life in Other Countries

Postby IloveFauns » Jan 21, 2014 2:11 am

w4j: We steal all the best stuff from them.

I thought a hush puppy might of been something like a hash-brown. I looked it up and well I was wrong.

I find it very funny how Americans say mocha(like moo-car/moo-ca). I was watching a tv show about how to pronounce items when travelling to America. Though I think Australians say the world maroon weirdly(we say it like marone).
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Re: Cultural Curiosities: Life in Other Countries

Postby Ithilwen » Jan 21, 2014 2:21 am

IloveFauns wrote:I find it very funny how Americans say mocha(like moo-car/moo-ca). I was watching a tv show about how to pronounce items when travelling to America. Though I think Australians say the world maroon weirdly(we say it like marone).

I've never heard anyone here say it like "moo-car" or "moo-ca". Everyone I've ever heard in the US says it like "Moe-cuh". How do they say it in Australia?


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Re: Cultural Curiosities: Life in Other Countries

Postby IloveFauns » Jan 21, 2014 2:43 am

Maybe it was Canadian?. Australians tend to say mock-a(the below video will allow you to hear it as we say it).

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Re: Cultural Curiosities: Life in Other Countries

Postby shastastwin » Jan 21, 2014 7:19 am

I grew up on the Gulf coast in Florida, so hush puppies, fried fish and cornbread were staples in our area. I love hushpuppies almost as much as cornbread, though they aren't as versatile (cornbread is good in most soups as well as on its own; it's also very good if you put a slice of cheddar cheese in the middle of your slice while the bread is still warm).

Yes, there was a brand of shoes called Hushpuppies. In fact, I remember the first time I saw a billboard for the shoes. I thought it was an ad for a restaurant. ;))

As Ithilwen said, most Americans say moe-cuh, at least in my experience.

Ooh! Accent videos could be fun. I could treat you all to my many accents. ;))

Has anyone here ever tried Vegimite (which I'm sure I've misspelled)? I remember a friend of a friend visiting my college from Australia and bringing some with him. It was too salty for me, but not as terrible as everyone had been leading me to believe. I tried to make grits to complete the cultural exchange of foods, but alas, I had only the instant kind, which are much harder to get right than the normal stovetop variety. (For those who don't know, grits are another food made from ground corn. They are sometimes called hominy, and when you cook them up they make a thick concoction somewhat like oatmeal. People usually serve them with butter. I prefer mine with cheese, and my mom and her family grew up putting sugar on theirs.)
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Re: Cultural Curiosities: Life in Other Countries

Postby Shadowlander » Jan 21, 2014 4:05 pm

If we get started on grits...I may never leave this thread. Seriously. No breakfast is complete without that most wonderful of breakfast foods, another grand byproduct of corn. What they do is somehow process the corn kernels and take all of the sweet corn syrupy stuff out. After that they take the hulls off (or maybe I've got it reversed here) and I guess the corn turns into hominy which is softened corn kernels. They're still dry, just not rock hard like corn feed like one would give to farm animals. Now, this is the fun part. You take that hominy and grind it up into a sort of coarse powder. When you put it in boiling water the hominy soaks up the water and becomes....GRITS!

Grits are truly one of the *awesome* foods in the world. You can do so much with em' that it's insane. Schwinn listed just a few variants. I prefer mine with lots of butter and salt and pepper. Cheese grits are phenomenal and highly delicious, and my family will usually have theirs that way. Down south here they also have red eye gravy, which is where you take the drippings from bacon or country ham and mix them with some black coffee and put them into the grits, but I have yet to experience that variety. Also you can put in straight up bacon and eggs and ham and all sorts of things. One of the dishes that is popular in the Low Country in South Carolina is to put shrimp in one's grits and it's supposed to be quite good. Mmmm...grits...I love them with a sort of thicker consistency too, not too thick, but definitely not too watery either. Sort of like one would mix grout up to put between bricks, but delicious grout that you can eat out of the wheelbarrow.

If anyone is interested I can compose a short poem dedicated to grits in which I extol its abundant qualities, not the least of which is its wonderful taste. In the voice of Christopher Walken.

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Note the bottle of Texas Pete hot sauce in the back there. That's made only 30 minutes north of me and every Carolinian has a bottle in their house somewhere at any time. :D
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