And then I answered a question which I found almost too trivial. I am sure others could have given it, it was nothing special. I just happened to see the question first.
And because for some reason (OK, probably bacon :) ) the question gets so many hits, the upvotes are raining.
I am not complaining that I got all the upvotes :) But I feel that the relative quality of answers between questions isn't measured well by the system.
Just because there are great questions and great answers which don't get much exposure.
my most popular answer is still the fish in a dishwater... a very similar situation that i thought was gonna get closed as a troll question.. it happens
Wow, that sounds like a silly question, but really! My wife froze bananas in the freezer with the peel still on. You can't peel them frozen. I put it in the microwave for one minute at 50% power. After 30 seconds the thin end of the peel (where a bunch connect to each other) was on fire, with a v...
Because my reaction to both these messages is that from what I know about US food, there shouldn't be any problem with food safety. Most things seem to be processed enough that no bacteria would survive in them.
Some months ago there was this mommy blogger who made headlines
A year before, she had bought a Happy Meal and left it on a shelf in the pantry.
But they still aren't willing to cook for themselves or even buy slightly more expensive "real" food.
@rumtscho When I lived in Utah things almost never really decomposed. There is so little humidity that bread will just go rock hard and never really break down.
If they are composed of something with too much fat and salt and not enough water to allow bacterial life, then this is a big warning for me. (I don't believe in conspiracy theories of McD putting too much poisonous conservants in the food).
But make that cheap store bought bread and canned beans and it isn't even edible anymore.
Whenever someone tells me that they don't like tomatoes (which happens not infrequently) I have to ask them if they have ever had one from a farmer's market?
If not then they have never eaten a ripe tomato and don't actually know how magical they taste.
You know, I've always tried to distance myself of stereotypes. I've heard all the stuff about Americans not knowing about geography outside NA, having one gun for everybody plus one for the dog, and eating the worst food in the world, without ever touching any other appliance than a microwave oven.
I still have no opinion on the first two.
But one day, I was curious about what a "casserole" is, and looked on the internet for recipes.
the thing is, I don't think most people care, period.... there are plenty of people who agree with sobachati and plenty more who just don't care what they eat... the thing is once you start trading time for money and you run into the present situation
The common ones (highly starred) usually went like "Take the precooked turkey out of the package. Empty the canned vegetables on it. Pour two cans of soup over it. Put into the microwave for 20 minutes.". And it had so many comments about how homemade is so great.
@rum there are a lot of people who grew up on that, and will continue too. but there are a lot of people that actually cook.... it's just sorta lost in the wave of noise generated by the cans of soup crowd
Here in Europe, frozen dinners don't have that much tradition, and I've read that consumption is on the rise. But it is nowhere as bad as with you. The people can make the trade offs, the supply is there. But there are still many who cook. Not everyday, but often.
I don't doubt that there are people in America who cook and even enjoy it.
@rumtscho 1- The geography- Russians knew just as much about geography outside of Asia as Americans do outside of NA. That is they learned it in school but had no real reason to continue remembering after school. I suspect it comes from being relatively alone on the continent.
i meant, that most would eat like americans if given the chance, look at the explosive growth of the fast foods which are possibly the worst food ever made by man
I agree about the fast food, the moment I enter a McDonalds, I start to gag from the permeating stench of fat. I can't eat there. Not even the salads or the yogurts.
@rum not to the same extent, you guys, as i understand it, have a much more rational attitude about work which means you have time for things like dinner, not so much the case over hear
@rumtscho As for 3- most people I know don't exclusively use a microwave or frozen meals but they do eat squishy bread, poor produce, fake parmesan, veggies out of a can, and a lot of fast food.
@sarge_smith I'm fortunate that my wife chooses to stay at home and that combined with my personal interest in cooking means we eat better than average.
@Sobachatina the house i grew up in had a stay at home mom, and my dad was the same, and i cook at a professional level..... not at the job I currently have but I have the skills, and I have say that I'm glad they exposed it to me when they did
The recipe contained cheese, flour, several kinds of highly processed powders, everything formed into balls and deep fried.
And he asked how to reduce calories by choosing a healthier oil for the deep frying.
@sarge_smith I totally recommend Kenji too.
But my point is, that the people care about food - or maybe they think that they should care and try it, but somehow can't get it right. That's what puzzles me a lot.
@rumtscho yeah because he wanted to keep eating fried balls, he just didn't want to feel bad about it. the thing is most of the people you are talking about don't see anything wrong with what they eat
and they have no desire to change... shoot my roommate eats off a menu of about ten things... no lie, and has zero problem with it
@sarge_smith I don't find it bad if they have no problems with it. I find it bad when they are trying to convince themselves and the world that they are better than the average fast-food-gobbling Westerner who's going to keel over from plugged arteries or the C, because they give much thought to their diet and eat healthy, good quality food. And their healthy food is fried cheese, but please in something other than canola, I've heard bad things about that.
@Sobachatina, I am glad to know you people. I never imagined that I'd spend so much time on a cooking forum, just because my life doesn't revolve about food and cooking. But it is just nice company here.
@rumtscho Likewise. I wonder if it isn't a result of a (currently) fairly niche demographic- Cooking enthusiasts on a site that branched off of a programming Q&A site. Just my kind of people.
@Sobachatina It surely is. Non-geek Internet communities have completely other dynamics.
I just have hard time to feel at home there, because they don't understand me, and they are filling their forums with stuff I consider noise around the real information.
I once stumbled on a German forum that was dedicated entirely to sourdough. If your questions find no one equipped to answer, I can try translating info from there.
Cool, they have made a book out of their knowledge.
Im using a sourdough starter from the recipe in Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day and i have gone through several of the rebuilding cycles with it. Its been working fairly well for me and i have been refreshing it every week. It is stored in an airtight container in the fridge.
How lon...
That would explain why my experiments were never able to get the same depth of flavor.
@sargesmith- what is required of one who runs KFC? I figured you probably deal with staffing and ingredient supply and the corp sends you menus and promotional material, etc.
Type text or a website address or translate a document. Cancel Listen Read phonetically German to English translation 4.1 The Current: Rye sourdough
The rye sourdough is the best known and probably most important form of sourdough.
Because rye flour can't be baked just like that (the rye enzyme phytin disturbs the formation of a stable crumb), the addition of an acid to the dough is necessary to stop this enzyme. This problem is solved with the lactic and acetic acid bacteria in an outstanding manner. That it brings as a third companion also a yeast (the wild sourdough yeast) is a happy s…
Or actually, I improved the Google translation. Now it should be usable.
OK, goodnight now. I should have long since been in bed anyway. I hope the text helps.
@Sobachatina staffing, food cost, store repair, basically anything you need to do in a normally in a restaurant just with the backing of a large corp. that makes sure you get paid when you are supposed to... I didn't do culinary school and I am way better at the making money side than the cooking side (plus it makes more money over here).
@yossarian so my proposal would be award people that are bringing in somebody new to the community... maybe a bounty type system where you call the person and if you manage to get them to stop by you get an entry for the prize
@yossarian or maybe month long leagues for a bigger prize... or a couple of months leading up to the year winner getting something huge... Just saying that gaming is operating under a much different set of constraints
Im using a sourdough starter from the recipe in Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day and i have gone through several of the rebuilding cycles with it. Its been working fairly well for me and i have been refreshing it every week. It is stored in an airtight container in the fridge.
How lon...
