Sandro, my man, that’s not a Mexican mustache.
October 10, 2022 10:50 PM Subscribe
Mexican Week on the Great British Bake Off. "let’s give them some credit for trying to pronounce things like guacamole or pico de gallo; it’s not their fault that the Anglo world decided to base pronunciation on Common Law."
This whole thing was just a wtf in terms of production decisions all around. Like why did they pick something not baking for the technical, why the hell did Paul call the tortilla a "taco" multiple times. Why are they stacking tres leches cake? I don't know I expect that the bakers show mastery of a cuisine or culture they haven't met, but the fucking producers should know better and should set people up better for success.
posted by Carillon at 11:36 PM on October 10, 2022 [34 favorites]
posted by Carillon at 11:36 PM on October 10, 2022 [34 favorites]
The way they are peeling avocados really deserves some kind of spoiler alert warning. My god.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:40 PM on October 10, 2022 [42 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:40 PM on October 10, 2022 [42 favorites]
related Irish Con Carne:
Classic Cork humour. ‘Go on Chili, keep going Chili, stick it in the net Chili’, they roared from the sideline. Why ye call him ‘Chili’ asked a neutral? ‘He’s Con Kearney’s son’.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 11:43 PM on October 10, 2022 [28 favorites]
Classic Cork humour. ‘Go on Chili, keep going Chili, stick it in the net Chili’, they roared from the sideline. Why ye call him ‘Chili’ asked a neutral? ‘He’s Con Kearney’s son’.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 11:43 PM on October 10, 2022 [28 favorites]
I don't know why, but I am reminded of those old Pace Picante ads from the 90s. New York City?!
posted by Literaryhero at 11:44 PM on October 10, 2022 [22 favorites]
posted by Literaryhero at 11:44 PM on October 10, 2022 [22 favorites]
The commiseration is in full swing over on Fanfare.
I for one enjoyed greatly when Noel called baking a waste of time. Hated the rest, ofc.
Gwackymohl.
posted by supercres at 11:46 PM on October 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
I for one enjoyed greatly when Noel called baking a waste of time. Hated the rest, ofc.
Gwackymohl.
posted by supercres at 11:46 PM on October 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
I quit watching GBBO because (among other reasons) I got so tired of watching the rampant ignorance of flavors / bakes that didn't originate from Britain or a former British colony. The thing that was the tipping point for me was watching Seasons 2-5 of the Great Australian Bakeoff. The judges (Matt Moran and Maggie Beer) had much wider palates than the GBBO judges and were genuinely curious and interested when a baker made something they weren't familiar with. It just highlighted GBBO's failures in that department.
I saw a headline on Google News about "GBBO Mexican Week" and thought, "oh, I'm sure that was a shitshow." I was curious whether other people were finally getting fed up with the same things that I did, so I read the linked article and the Fanfare thread about the episode. And yeah, it's pretty much what I expected, only the bullshit was concentrated into one horrendous week instead of sprinkled judiciously across multiple episodes / seasons as per usual. (Criticizing someone for using corn in a cake in Mexican Week is just peak Paul Hollywood as far as I'm concerned.)
posted by creepygirl at 11:46 PM on October 10, 2022 [15 favorites]
I saw a headline on Google News about "GBBO Mexican Week" and thought, "oh, I'm sure that was a shitshow." I was curious whether other people were finally getting fed up with the same things that I did, so I read the linked article and the Fanfare thread about the episode. And yeah, it's pretty much what I expected, only the bullshit was concentrated into one horrendous week instead of sprinkled judiciously across multiple episodes / seasons as per usual. (Criticizing someone for using corn in a cake in Mexican Week is just peak Paul Hollywood as far as I'm concerned.)
posted by creepygirl at 11:46 PM on October 10, 2022 [15 favorites]
Oh dear, GBBO. But this take down is delicious.
Bahaha- the British invaded the world in search of spices they don't even use - I hadn't heard that one before.
(Slightly self consciously, as an Aussie of British heritage who grew up in South America*. I look back on some of my childhood with big cringe.)
*I know it's not a monolith- just obscuring who I am by not being specific.
posted by freethefeet at 11:49 PM on October 10, 2022 [4 favorites]
Bahaha- the British invaded the world in search of spices they don't even use - I hadn't heard that one before.
(Slightly self consciously, as an Aussie of British heritage who grew up in South America*. I look back on some of my childhood with big cringe.)
*I know it's not a monolith- just obscuring who I am by not being specific.
posted by freethefeet at 11:49 PM on October 10, 2022 [4 favorites]
Middle-aged, white, GBBO-watching, global food-loving Brit here. A few brief takes:
- GBBO is getting a bit odd in their decisions, agree with that.
- Masterchef is the same in that the judges seem to assume expert understanding of how dishes from other cultures are supposed to be which sometimes leads to competitors from those cultures wondering what just happened.
- However, it's entertainment, not education - let's not forget that the producers have other goals in mind. Stated as an observation, not an endorsement.
- Let's also remember that ignorance about pronunciation is not exclusive to the British, and neither is a more generalised ignorance about other cultures. But yeah, colonialism.
I do think it's worth pointing out something about Britishness that might get overlooked in all the (reasonable) colonialism comments, and that's the class system, and about how as a culture we really don't like people who we think are getting above themselves. And a classic example of that is someone coming back from a trip abroad, or a cookery course, or just having seem something on the internet, and starting to pronounce things correctly, like dishes or ingredients. 'We' (and I'll exclude myself from this, please) think it's a silly affectation put on by middle class people who went on a morning's 'cooking experience' while on holiday. Again, an observation, not a defence, I think it's silly. We think they've come back thinking they're experts (sometimes they think that too...).
But, poor pronunciation doesn't get in the way of people who properly appreciate food from other cultures arguing passionately about those foods. I've heard plenty of friends arguing about authentic* chorizo while calling it cher-itz-o.
*almost certainly means they got it from Waitrose (you'll get that if you're British).
posted by dowcrag at 12:24 AM on October 11, 2022 [9 favorites]
- GBBO is getting a bit odd in their decisions, agree with that.
- Masterchef is the same in that the judges seem to assume expert understanding of how dishes from other cultures are supposed to be which sometimes leads to competitors from those cultures wondering what just happened.
- However, it's entertainment, not education - let's not forget that the producers have other goals in mind. Stated as an observation, not an endorsement.
- Let's also remember that ignorance about pronunciation is not exclusive to the British, and neither is a more generalised ignorance about other cultures. But yeah, colonialism.
I do think it's worth pointing out something about Britishness that might get overlooked in all the (reasonable) colonialism comments, and that's the class system, and about how as a culture we really don't like people who we think are getting above themselves. And a classic example of that is someone coming back from a trip abroad, or a cookery course, or just having seem something on the internet, and starting to pronounce things correctly, like dishes or ingredients. 'We' (and I'll exclude myself from this, please) think it's a silly affectation put on by middle class people who went on a morning's 'cooking experience' while on holiday. Again, an observation, not a defence, I think it's silly. We think they've come back thinking they're experts (sometimes they think that too...).
But, poor pronunciation doesn't get in the way of people who properly appreciate food from other cultures arguing passionately about those foods. I've heard plenty of friends arguing about authentic* chorizo while calling it cher-itz-o.
*almost certainly means they got it from Waitrose (you'll get that if you're British).
posted by dowcrag at 12:24 AM on October 11, 2022 [9 favorites]
GBBO is increasingly popular in the US. 50/50 this was a deliberate shit show to increase the market further with a hatewatch. (Curious what Mexicans think, but my impression is this episode is more Tex Mex than Mexican).
posted by Nelson at 12:37 AM on October 11, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 12:37 AM on October 11, 2022 [6 favorites]
I've heard plenty of friends arguing about authentic* chorizo while calling it cher-itz-o.
I want to add, especially for the Americans here, that when Brits talk about Chorizo they mean Spanish Chorizo. Spanish and Mexican Chorizo are entirely two different things. Even the famous "-itzo" ending comes from Castilian Spanish since Mexicans pronounce it with an 's' sound.
I can assure you, as a Mexican who lived in the UK, that the latter is impossible to get there. I love Spanish chorizo too but it is Mexican chorizo, of course, that gives Chorizo con Huevos that distinct flavor Americans are used to.
posted by vacapinta at 12:52 AM on October 11, 2022 [24 favorites]
I want to add, especially for the Americans here, that when Brits talk about Chorizo they mean Spanish Chorizo. Spanish and Mexican Chorizo are entirely two different things. Even the famous "-itzo" ending comes from Castilian Spanish since Mexicans pronounce it with an 's' sound.
I can assure you, as a Mexican who lived in the UK, that the latter is impossible to get there. I love Spanish chorizo too but it is Mexican chorizo, of course, that gives Chorizo con Huevos that distinct flavor Americans are used to.
posted by vacapinta at 12:52 AM on October 11, 2022 [24 favorites]
I quit watching GBBO because (among other reasons) I got so tired of watching the rampant ignorance of flavors / bakes that didn't originate from Britain or a former British colony.
For me it was the stroopwafels debacle.
posted by Pendragon at 1:22 AM on October 11, 2022 [6 favorites]
For me it was the stroopwafels debacle.
posted by Pendragon at 1:22 AM on October 11, 2022 [6 favorites]
Bahaha- the British invaded the world in search of spices they don't even use - I hadn't heard that one before.
Okay, thats a much better formulation than the version of that joke my family came up with after visiting the U.K. as a child.
posted by pwnguin at 1:34 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
Okay, thats a much better formulation than the version of that joke my family came up with after visiting the U.K. as a child.
posted by pwnguin at 1:34 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
Why are they stacking tres leches cake?
This is what got me. Paul Hollywood going on about how they have to strike the delicate balance of soaking the cake but making sure it's strong enough to stack while also having a delicate crumb????
I had to google tres leches just to double check that all of my previous experience with the dessert being a single layer (sometimes with a bit of pooled milk, usually not) throughout my life wasn't just some weird coincidence.
posted by newpotato at 1:43 AM on October 11, 2022 [11 favorites]
I've been waiting for years for the tides to turn... Dare I hope the British will never be taken seriously outside their actual cuisine again? Or at least I can expect a sense of surprise if I see (mainly) American engagement with British media and not an automatic fawning over them. That said i know Malaysians who genuinely look forward to London Mexican food. What can I say, colonialism is a hell of a drug.
posted by cendawanita at 1:43 AM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 1:43 AM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
Can't wait for Colonialism week, oh wai-
posted by litleozy at 1:49 AM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by litleozy at 1:49 AM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
Anyway, i live in eternal fear that there will be a Malaysia week (being an actual ex-colony). I've lived among them. I've seen their idea of satay. No amount of understanding from my part will ever be enough. The moment I heard of this theme I've been expecting variations of TFA.
posted by cendawanita at 1:50 AM on October 11, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 1:50 AM on October 11, 2022 [9 favorites]
Anyway, i live in eternal fear that there will be a Malaysia week (being an actual ex-colony). I've lived among them. I've seen their idea of satay. No amount of understanding from my part will ever be enough. The moment I heard of this theme I've been expecting variations of TFA.
I pray for you that it won't happen. It was bad enough when they all collectively "discovered" (read: completely misunderstood) 'hygge' and decided that Danish/Nordic shit was 'in'. I hated it. And that's without the colonial history complicating it.
posted by Dysk at 2:06 AM on October 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
I pray for you that it won't happen. It was bad enough when they all collectively "discovered" (read: completely misunderstood) 'hygge' and decided that Danish/Nordic shit was 'in'. I hated it. And that's without the colonial history complicating it.
posted by Dysk at 2:06 AM on October 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
I tried to convince the server that the name literally meant there was meat in it but they were adamant it was vegetarian and "just called that".
Soya milk isn't milk, and ordering "a latte" at Starbucks gets you coffee not milk, and in the US your entrée is your main course.
Such is language. I like the adoption, repurposing and embrace of other cultures (including our own from the past). Yes, we misremember, and change, but such is culture. Let's be pleased Brits are enjoying Mexican food! It's yummy!
posted by one more day at 2:52 AM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
Soya milk isn't milk, and ordering "a latte" at Starbucks gets you coffee not milk, and in the US your entrée is your main course.
Such is language. I like the adoption, repurposing and embrace of other cultures (including our own from the past). Yes, we misremember, and change, but such is culture. Let's be pleased Brits are enjoying Mexican food! It's yummy!
posted by one more day at 2:52 AM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
Two things, not unrelated:
Number one, don’t try and draw conclusions about a culture from its mass-market television programs. Who do you know that watches direct-to-air tv? For me, it’s only people over the age of 70. Basically all broadcast television these days is pitched to retired people, aka, not usually people who know what quesadillas are.
Secondly, GBBO’s production changed a few years ago, from a BBC thing to one of the other main channels. That’s why the original presenters Mel and Sue left, after instilling a culture of support in the show. The guys that are left - Paul Hollywood et al - don’t have a great reputation, and I can’t help but feel that this culture shift is reflected in this episode.
posted by The River Ivel at 2:56 AM on October 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
Number one, don’t try and draw conclusions about a culture from its mass-market television programs. Who do you know that watches direct-to-air tv? For me, it’s only people over the age of 70. Basically all broadcast television these days is pitched to retired people, aka, not usually people who know what quesadillas are.
Secondly, GBBO’s production changed a few years ago, from a BBC thing to one of the other main channels. That’s why the original presenters Mel and Sue left, after instilling a culture of support in the show. The guys that are left - Paul Hollywood et al - don’t have a great reputation, and I can’t help but feel that this culture shift is reflected in this episode.
posted by The River Ivel at 2:56 AM on October 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
Who do you know that watches direct-to-air tv? For me, it’s only people over the age of 70.
We're having this conversation in a thread about the direct-to-air (and online streaming) cross-generational hit success that is GBBO. I know lots of people of all ages who watch it, and the same is true of several other programmes. Your point may stand for what is often dismissively called daytime TV here, but it doesn't really apply to the longer-running prime-time successes in the same way.
posted by Dysk at 3:01 AM on October 11, 2022 [18 favorites]
We're having this conversation in a thread about the direct-to-air (and online streaming) cross-generational hit success that is GBBO. I know lots of people of all ages who watch it, and the same is true of several other programmes. Your point may stand for what is often dismissively called daytime TV here, but it doesn't really apply to the longer-running prime-time successes in the same way.
posted by Dysk at 3:01 AM on October 11, 2022 [18 favorites]
Let's be pleased Brits are enjoying Mexican food! It's yummy!
That's just it. I'm not sure they are. With lack of knowledge and culture there are no corrective measures that ensure that the cuisine being served bears any resemblance to what others eat and enjoy.
I still tell people about my "incident" at Wahaca in London. My wife and I were eating something there with beans in it, I forget what, maybe a taco. But the refried beans were burnt, badly burnt. These beans should have never left the kitchen. They were inedible.
Since beans like this are usually made in large batches, surely everyone else noticed right? So we complained to our server who looked skeptical and politely informed us that indeed they were made in large batches and that nobody else had complained about the beans. This was said in a tone that clearly was subtly reprimanding us for perhaps not knowing what real Mexican food was like. And then it dawned on me that the other people there were indeed having overcooked beans and must have believed that this is how Mexican food is supposed to taste like. Perhaps they went home and complained that Mexican food was not to their liking!!
So, yeah, what you end up with is not Mexican food but some gross parody. And that is what we saw on GBBO with beans on street tacos and under-ripe avocados and Paul going on and on about how he is an expert on Mexican food because he went to Cancun once or something.
As I said, I have lived in the UK, in London and in the English countryside. This show was actually an accurate representation of what the food situation is like there. And the reason I bet that the producers did not try and consult experts or otherwise raise the provincial bar here is that there's a myopia here about the wider world existing at all ("Is Mexico a real place?" was one of the jokes), especially outside the Anglosphere.
This show was all about the burnt refried beans, with Brits happily chewing away while much of the rest of the world looks on in horror.
posted by vacapinta at 3:16 AM on October 11, 2022 [98 favorites]
That's just it. I'm not sure they are. With lack of knowledge and culture there are no corrective measures that ensure that the cuisine being served bears any resemblance to what others eat and enjoy.
I still tell people about my "incident" at Wahaca in London. My wife and I were eating something there with beans in it, I forget what, maybe a taco. But the refried beans were burnt, badly burnt. These beans should have never left the kitchen. They were inedible.
Since beans like this are usually made in large batches, surely everyone else noticed right? So we complained to our server who looked skeptical and politely informed us that indeed they were made in large batches and that nobody else had complained about the beans. This was said in a tone that clearly was subtly reprimanding us for perhaps not knowing what real Mexican food was like. And then it dawned on me that the other people there were indeed having overcooked beans and must have believed that this is how Mexican food is supposed to taste like. Perhaps they went home and complained that Mexican food was not to their liking!!
So, yeah, what you end up with is not Mexican food but some gross parody. And that is what we saw on GBBO with beans on street tacos and under-ripe avocados and Paul going on and on about how he is an expert on Mexican food because he went to Cancun once or something.
As I said, I have lived in the UK, in London and in the English countryside. This show was actually an accurate representation of what the food situation is like there. And the reason I bet that the producers did not try and consult experts or otherwise raise the provincial bar here is that there's a myopia here about the wider world existing at all ("Is Mexico a real place?" was one of the jokes), especially outside the Anglosphere.
This show was all about the burnt refried beans, with Brits happily chewing away while much of the rest of the world looks on in horror.
posted by vacapinta at 3:16 AM on October 11, 2022 [98 favorites]
Somehow I have a deeper understanding of "why did Brexit win".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:01 AM on October 11, 2022 [48 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:01 AM on October 11, 2022 [48 favorites]
all about the burnt refried beans, with Brits happily chewing away while much of the rest of the world looks on in horror.
@vacapinta you just described the whole of Britain in 2022 there...
posted by dowcrag at 4:04 AM on October 11, 2022 [26 favorites]
@vacapinta you just described the whole of Britain in 2022 there...
posted by dowcrag at 4:04 AM on October 11, 2022 [26 favorites]
All I can say is that I winced less at this episode than I did at Japanese week two years ago. So, progress?
posted by Johnny Assay at 4:18 AM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Johnny Assay at 4:18 AM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
...haven't watched GBBO since the Japanese week to be honest.
posted by wellifyouinsist at 4:28 AM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by wellifyouinsist at 4:28 AM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
I've been looking for decent Mexican food in London for 20 years, with similar results to those described by vacapinta above. There just isn't any. Happy to be proven wrong, and very open to suggestions, but I think it's hopeless.
posted by Optamystic at 4:40 AM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Optamystic at 4:40 AM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
Slight tangent to Japanese food in the UK: it was a small factor but it was still one of the things I was looking forward to when I was going to come home. The sushi (for example) is all right, but the general British parochialism rears its head in the lack of imagination in terms of available seafood on the menu. At one point I got it in my head that I was missing some unagi... Eventually I found some in Brighton, which was funny to me because I was all the way from up north . Anyway, it was the boney English eel that I got (likely because no one wanted to try any eel, so that's how the menu changed).
posted by cendawanita at 4:42 AM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by cendawanita at 4:42 AM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
I've never been to China. But here in the USA—yes, New Yorkers... even in NYC—there's this idea of "Chinese food" that is not very close to what most Chinese people eat in China. This is what I've read and heard from some friends who used to live in different parts of China. Not to mention that China is enormous and has many different cuisines and types of food.
I don't think weird assumptions about regional food from various places around the globe is anything unusual. I agree that this is likely a troll episode to get Americans talking about this show (which I do not watch... see? It's working!)
posted by SoberHighland at 4:49 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
I don't think weird assumptions about regional food from various places around the globe is anything unusual. I agree that this is likely a troll episode to get Americans talking about this show (which I do not watch... see? It's working!)
posted by SoberHighland at 4:49 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
For me it was the stroopwafels debacle.
What... what happened in the stroopwafel episode? Apart from everyone pronouncing them as stroepwofelz?
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 5:01 AM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
What... what happened in the stroopwafel episode? Apart from everyone pronouncing them as stroepwofelz?
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 5:01 AM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
I don't think weird assumptions about regional food from various places around the globe is anything unusual. I agree that this is likely a troll episode to get Americans talking about this show
I've tried rewriting my comment many times and I'll settle on this: one would make a serious case of underestimating the British (English rather) self-regard of themselves to make this argument. These aren't troll episodes. They think this.
posted by cendawanita at 5:01 AM on October 11, 2022 [14 favorites]
I've tried rewriting my comment many times and I'll settle on this: one would make a serious case of underestimating the British (English rather) self-regard of themselves to make this argument. These aren't troll episodes. They think this.
posted by cendawanita at 5:01 AM on October 11, 2022 [14 favorites]
Someone on twitter said the beginning of this episode reminded them of this cartoon by One Smol Hurt. File it away for use again!
posted by lalochezia at 5:02 AM on October 11, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by lalochezia at 5:02 AM on October 11, 2022 [6 favorites]
Also, those ponchos (actually, sarape in Mesoamerica) look tacky as hell, probably bought from a costume store.
Which I guess answers the question “Is that a real poncho or is that a Sears poncho?”
posted by TedW at 5:03 AM on October 11, 2022 [10 favorites]
Which I guess answers the question “Is that a real poncho or is that a Sears poncho?”
posted by TedW at 5:03 AM on October 11, 2022 [10 favorites]
On the bright side, this inspired me to seek out a local Mexican bakery so that's my Sunday morning adventure sorted. So many more interesting bakes they could have done, what a shame.
To be fair, when I googled "Mexican bakery 'my city'" I got several promising options but also numerous taco joints, so the algorithm is not a lot better about understanding there's more to Mexico than tacos than the tv producers.
Related, from Jack Herrera at Texas Monthly: I find myself asking, out of all the different kinds of Mexican and Mexican American dishes—sopes, flautas, huaraches, enfrijoladas, tlayudas—why did gringos latch on to the taco?
posted by the primroses were over at 5:15 AM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
To be fair, when I googled "Mexican bakery 'my city'" I got several promising options but also numerous taco joints, so the algorithm is not a lot better about understanding there's more to Mexico than tacos than the tv producers.
Related, from Jack Herrera at Texas Monthly: I find myself asking, out of all the different kinds of Mexican and Mexican American dishes—sopes, flautas, huaraches, enfrijoladas, tlayudas—why did gringos latch on to the taco?
posted by the primroses were over at 5:15 AM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
cendawanita: I don't think anyone was faking anything. Not trolling in that sense. But I'm saying it's along the same lines as airing a cooking show in China and having the British cooks make Egg Foo Yung and General Tso's Chicken and fortune cookies. The producers know what reaction they will get from Chinese people in China.
Not the same exact comparison and reaction, but I'm making an analogy.
posted by SoberHighland at 5:19 AM on October 11, 2022
Not the same exact comparison and reaction, but I'm making an analogy.
posted by SoberHighland at 5:19 AM on October 11, 2022
Even the famous "-itzo" ending comes from Castilian Spanish since Mexicans pronounce it with an 's' sound.
Happy to defer to you about this, but wouldn't most Spaniards say it as "chor-ee-tho" with an unvoiced th like in "bath"? I always assumed "cheritzo" came from misapplying ideas about Italian spelling and pronunciation.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:40 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
Happy to defer to you about this, but wouldn't most Spaniards say it as "chor-ee-tho" with an unvoiced th like in "bath"? I always assumed "cheritzo" came from misapplying ideas about Italian spelling and pronunciation.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:40 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
The taco technical was bad in and of itself, but the tiered tres leches cake was the second torpedo that sent the ship to the bottom. A tiered tres leches cake??? I was simply stunned.
I seriously doubt PH has ever attempted such a monstrosity himself, at least not without the result either toppling over immediately, or completely losing the lovely texture and mouthfeel of a real tres leches. It was a plan doomed to failure. I submit that the actual losers of that particular challenge were the ones whose cakes actually stood-up.
In a just world, they would bring back both Rebs and James, and then pretend Mexican week never happened.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:55 AM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
I seriously doubt PH has ever attempted such a monstrosity himself, at least not without the result either toppling over immediately, or completely losing the lovely texture and mouthfeel of a real tres leches. It was a plan doomed to failure. I submit that the actual losers of that particular challenge were the ones whose cakes actually stood-up.
In a just world, they would bring back both Rebs and James, and then pretend Mexican week never happened.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:55 AM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
I've been looking for decent Mexican food in London for 20 years
One of the worst meals in my life was at a "Mexican" restaurant in Scotland (Stirling, I believe). What I thought would be amusing was just horrific, including a taco that treated like it had been made with a mildly flavored but corn syrup drenched BBQ sauce.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:00 AM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
One of the worst meals in my life was at a "Mexican" restaurant in Scotland (Stirling, I believe). What I thought would be amusing was just horrific, including a taco that treated like it had been made with a mildly flavored but corn syrup drenched BBQ sauce.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:00 AM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
The Tiered-Tres Leches thing felt just like 'work'. Ridiculous requests, from people who don't understand intents or constraints. And you just have to do it anyway.
posted by DigDoug at 6:02 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by DigDoug at 6:02 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
OK, so how about icing a tres leches cake?
Also, this was indeed a travesty, but I will still watch this all day rather than Gordon Ramsay yelling at people.
posted by BeReasonable at 6:03 AM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
Also, this was indeed a travesty, but I will still watch this all day rather than Gordon Ramsay yelling at people.
posted by BeReasonable at 6:03 AM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
Basically all broadcast television these days is pitched to retired people, aka, not usually people who know what quesadillas are.
What kind of ageist claptrap is this? I assure you, 20/30-somethings did not discover the quesadilla. Jesusfriggingchrist.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:05 AM on October 11, 2022 [39 favorites]
What kind of ageist claptrap is this? I assure you, 20/30-somethings did not discover the quesadilla. Jesusfriggingchrist.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:05 AM on October 11, 2022 [39 favorites]
The Texas Monthly article linked above by the primroses were over is worth a read. In particular this bit: "When it cooked, the smell would mix with the floral scent of the air freshener she used as the microwave’s dials clicked like an old film reel. Obviously, those quesadillas shouldn’t have been anything special, or even particularly edible, but it was Grandma’s house and Grandma’s cooking. I’m not sure I’ll taste something as perfect as that again." may be the best thing I read all day.
posted by TedW at 6:46 AM on October 11, 2022
posted by TedW at 6:46 AM on October 11, 2022
Nigel "Foodie" Slater's book Toast has a wonderful story about his Dad introducing spaghetti Bolognese to a British dinner table as a 1960s multicultural experiment . . .
Unexpectedly, my father takes out a cardboard drum of grated Parmesan cheese and passes it to me to open.
"What's that you've got there?" asks Mum.
"It's grated cheese, Percy Salt said you have to sprinkle it over the top, it doesn't work if you don't."
Now we're talking. I peel away the piece of paper that is covering the holes and shake the white powder over my sauce . . .
Dad shakes the last of the cheese over his pasta and suddenly everyone goes quiet. I'm looking down but can see my father out of the corner of my eye; he has stopped, his fork in mid-air, a short strand of spaghetti hanging loose. His eyes have gone glassy and he puts his fork back on his plate.
"Daddy, this cheese smells of sick," I tell him.
"I know it does, son, don't eat it . I think it must be off".
QFT . . . but it's a good / interesting thing.
posted by BobTheScientist at 6:50 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
Unexpectedly, my father takes out a cardboard drum of grated Parmesan cheese and passes it to me to open.
"What's that you've got there?" asks Mum.
"It's grated cheese, Percy Salt said you have to sprinkle it over the top, it doesn't work if you don't."
Now we're talking. I peel away the piece of paper that is covering the holes and shake the white powder over my sauce . . .
Dad shakes the last of the cheese over his pasta and suddenly everyone goes quiet. I'm looking down but can see my father out of the corner of my eye; he has stopped, his fork in mid-air, a short strand of spaghetti hanging loose. His eyes have gone glassy and he puts his fork back on his plate.
"Daddy, this cheese smells of sick," I tell him.
"I know it does, son, don't eat it . I think it must be off".
QFT . . . but it's a good / interesting thing.
posted by BobTheScientist at 6:50 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
I assure you, 20/30-somethings did not discover the quesadilla.
And ignorance of quesadillas is not unique to the British. About 10 years ago I worked for a company that had an in-house kitchen and cafeteria, and one day made-to-your-order quesadillas were on the menu; you'd tell the chef what you wanted in yours and he'd make it up for you.
Something made me ask the chef when it was my turn: "just curious, how many people make a point of telling you that they want cheese on their quesadillas?" He laughed, but with a pained look.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:03 AM on October 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
And ignorance of quesadillas is not unique to the British. About 10 years ago I worked for a company that had an in-house kitchen and cafeteria, and one day made-to-your-order quesadillas were on the menu; you'd tell the chef what you wanted in yours and he'd make it up for you.
Something made me ask the chef when it was my turn: "just curious, how many people make a point of telling you that they want cheese on their quesadillas?" He laughed, but with a pained look.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:03 AM on October 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
I didn't watch this because I did my time living in England and I've heard enough people say "tack-o" and "kay-sa-dilllllllla" to last a lifetime, BUT
I was in Ireland in the spring and hung out with a Mexican gentleman and I remarked about all the Mexican restaurants I was seeing around the country and he said "yeah but none of them are good", so you know
Also re: pronunciation--I mean, um.... Spain? Is a thousand miles from England? I have heard that many English people enjoy going there on vacation?
posted by rhymedirective at 7:09 AM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
I was in Ireland in the spring and hung out with a Mexican gentleman and I remarked about all the Mexican restaurants I was seeing around the country and he said "yeah but none of them are good", so you know
Also re: pronunciation--I mean, um.... Spain? Is a thousand miles from England? I have heard that many English people enjoy going there on vacation?
posted by rhymedirective at 7:09 AM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
Hard to imagine a British cooking show could cause worldwide consternation but here we are. I've always found British pronunciations of foreign words a bit jarring (Jag-u-ar? Really?) so this culinary cultural ignorance seems on track. Still unforgivable, though.
posted by tommasz at 7:36 AM on October 11, 2022
posted by tommasz at 7:36 AM on October 11, 2022
I think the British travelers to Spain are rather famously going to enclaves where they get most of the things they're used to, just in the sunshine. (I'm only slightly being sarcastic about this.)
I remember Jurgen muttering about some sort of German show-stopper not being a thing in Germany, and honestly most of the show stoppers aren't things - but trying to pretend that any sort of stacked tres leches was legitimate is pretty beyond. There's no point after which the cake is too soggy - it should literally be sitting in a little puddle of milk.
Arguing about authenticity in food is mostly a losing game - for example, apparently quesadillas in central Mexico frequently don't have cheese? American Chinese food is it's own thing, as I learned when I moved from the East Coast to the Midwest and discovered regional variants like peanut butter chicken, which I'd never seen before. But when you have such a popular show demonstrate such a misunderstanding of some really basic stuff, it's going to baffle and enrage people.
posted by PussKillian at 7:37 AM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
I remember Jurgen muttering about some sort of German show-stopper not being a thing in Germany, and honestly most of the show stoppers aren't things - but trying to pretend that any sort of stacked tres leches was legitimate is pretty beyond. There's no point after which the cake is too soggy - it should literally be sitting in a little puddle of milk.
Arguing about authenticity in food is mostly a losing game - for example, apparently quesadillas in central Mexico frequently don't have cheese? American Chinese food is it's own thing, as I learned when I moved from the East Coast to the Midwest and discovered regional variants like peanut butter chicken, which I'd never seen before. But when you have such a popular show demonstrate such a misunderstanding of some really basic stuff, it's going to baffle and enrage people.
posted by PussKillian at 7:37 AM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
the gbbo episode sounds like an embarrassment, but i don't really get why the broader lack of good mexican food in the uk is a surprise.
if you want to see lots of high quality examples of country 1's cuisine in country 2, you're probably going to need at a minimum (i) country 1 and country 2 to be geographically / culturally close to each other, or (ii) relatively high immigration from country 1 to country 2.
mexico is on the other side of the world from the uk, has no particular cultural connection to it, and has a very small uk immigrant population (not even in the top 50 as of 2021, based on ons stats - presumably because why would you emigrate from mexico to the uk when the us is right there).
so the majority of mexican food in the uk is going to be chain food, and therefore suck to a greater or lesser degree.
the reverse example would be the plethora of great indian restaurants in the uk (commonwealth country, huge immigrant community) and the average-at-best quality of most indian food in the us - despite the size of the indian-american community, which i guess shows that geographic / cultural connections or immigration are necessary but not sufficient conditions for good cuisine.
(edit: unless there's been an explosion of amazing indian food in the us in the last five years, in which case disregard the above)
posted by inire at 7:39 AM on October 11, 2022 [12 favorites]
if you want to see lots of high quality examples of country 1's cuisine in country 2, you're probably going to need at a minimum (i) country 1 and country 2 to be geographically / culturally close to each other, or (ii) relatively high immigration from country 1 to country 2.
mexico is on the other side of the world from the uk, has no particular cultural connection to it, and has a very small uk immigrant population (not even in the top 50 as of 2021, based on ons stats - presumably because why would you emigrate from mexico to the uk when the us is right there).
so the majority of mexican food in the uk is going to be chain food, and therefore suck to a greater or lesser degree.
the reverse example would be the plethora of great indian restaurants in the uk (commonwealth country, huge immigrant community) and the average-at-best quality of most indian food in the us - despite the size of the indian-american community, which i guess shows that geographic / cultural connections or immigration are necessary but not sufficient conditions for good cuisine.
(edit: unless there's been an explosion of amazing indian food in the us in the last five years, in which case disregard the above)
posted by inire at 7:39 AM on October 11, 2022 [12 favorites]
To excuse English xenophobia with the argument that...
@thoroughburro if that was a response to my earlier post, be reassured that I most definitely was not excusing British xenophobia, just adding another stupid, embarrassing behaviour to the list.
posted by dowcrag at 7:57 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
@thoroughburro if that was a response to my earlier post, be reassured that I most definitely was not excusing British xenophobia, just adding another stupid, embarrassing behaviour to the list.
posted by dowcrag at 7:57 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
I've been looking for decent Mexican food in London for 20 years, with similar results to those described by vacapinta above. There just isn't any. Happy to be proven wrong, and very open to suggestions, but I think it's hopeless.
There's a small but mighty taqueria in Walthamstow called Homies on Donkeys. It's run by a Mexican couple, Smokey and Sandra, who are absolutely lovely. They've won a load of cross London awards for best taco as well as a BBC "best Mexican takeaway" competition.
They're just about to take a trip back to Mexico for a month and a half or so, so if you want to go then you have until Friday this week or else will have to wait until the end of November.
posted by knapah at 8:18 AM on October 11, 2022 [10 favorites]
There's a small but mighty taqueria in Walthamstow called Homies on Donkeys. It's run by a Mexican couple, Smokey and Sandra, who are absolutely lovely. They've won a load of cross London awards for best taco as well as a BBC "best Mexican takeaway" competition.
They're just about to take a trip back to Mexico for a month and a half or so, so if you want to go then you have until Friday this week or else will have to wait until the end of November.
posted by knapah at 8:18 AM on October 11, 2022 [10 favorites]
Everyone is like "how could they not learn" but Prue is a posh-as-hell upper class South African (aka, racist) and Paul Hollywood is definitely a Tory. Matt Lucas basically did blackface in every other episode of Little Britain. I love GBBO, but mostly for the bakers and their conviviality. The people producing it seem like they'll never learn.
posted by dis_integration at 8:36 AM on October 11, 2022 [21 favorites]
posted by dis_integration at 8:36 AM on October 11, 2022 [21 favorites]
I think the deserved critique goes to the the hosts/producers/ judges for at best, insensitive but really racists “jokes” and lack of understanding for the challenge. It’s ok that Mexican or Tex Mex isn’t big in the UK. I grew up in NJ and hadn’t heard of a soft corn tortilla until I went to school in Michigan and my Mexican American boyfriend introduced me to them. He was used to over cooking spaghetti and breaking it in half. Whatever.
And let’s go ahead and say that there isn’t “authentic” Mexican food in the UK and so it was really a UK-Mex week (like if there was an American Chinese food week) that would be fine, it’s a different cuisine that came up under different circumstances to be its own thing EXCEPT MEXICAN FOOD ISNT REALLY A THING IN THE UK. So there’s no UK-Mex cuisine that this was based on!
The contestants did the best they could with what they were given. I don’t fault them for not knowing how to prep an avocado or even pronunciation.
I do fault GBBO for
- making me question every delicious tres leches cake I’ve ever had and not even giving them a reasonable showstopper,
- For doing zero effort for coming up with a technical that’s actually baking (as suggested elsewhere, Chocoflan would have been a really cool one to do).
- having a technical that’s very personal taste dependent given the lack of spiciness in a lot of traditional UK cooking. I can only imagine that Paul Hollywood’s mouth would have been on fire if I left in the jalapeño seeds I usually do and I’m not convinced they didn’t have them make it with green bell peppers.
- I think the contestants did a great job with the given knowledge base for the pan dulce (though is passion fruit big in Mexico? I genuinely don’t know. It’s only more recently become more popular in the US but for France and UK seems to be a stand in flavor like coconut or mango or anywhere that has a hot climate).
- the official GBBO recipe for tacos includes brown sugar in the meat :/
posted by raccoon409 at 8:40 AM on October 11, 2022 [9 favorites]
And let’s go ahead and say that there isn’t “authentic” Mexican food in the UK and so it was really a UK-Mex week (like if there was an American Chinese food week) that would be fine, it’s a different cuisine that came up under different circumstances to be its own thing EXCEPT MEXICAN FOOD ISNT REALLY A THING IN THE UK. So there’s no UK-Mex cuisine that this was based on!
The contestants did the best they could with what they were given. I don’t fault them for not knowing how to prep an avocado or even pronunciation.
I do fault GBBO for
- making me question every delicious tres leches cake I’ve ever had and not even giving them a reasonable showstopper,
- For doing zero effort for coming up with a technical that’s actually baking (as suggested elsewhere, Chocoflan would have been a really cool one to do).
- having a technical that’s very personal taste dependent given the lack of spiciness in a lot of traditional UK cooking. I can only imagine that Paul Hollywood’s mouth would have been on fire if I left in the jalapeño seeds I usually do and I’m not convinced they didn’t have them make it with green bell peppers.
- I think the contestants did a great job with the given knowledge base for the pan dulce (though is passion fruit big in Mexico? I genuinely don’t know. It’s only more recently become more popular in the US but for France and UK seems to be a stand in flavor like coconut or mango or anywhere that has a hot climate).
- the official GBBO recipe for tacos includes brown sugar in the meat :/
posted by raccoon409 at 8:40 AM on October 11, 2022 [9 favorites]
The producers literally could have called this guy. They had no excuse.
posted by droplet at 8:46 AM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by droplet at 8:46 AM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
the avocado handling skills on display reminded me of this
posted by logicpunk at 8:51 AM on October 11, 2022
posted by logicpunk at 8:51 AM on October 11, 2022
EXCEPT MEXICAN FOOD ISNT REALLY A THING IN THE UK. So there’s no UK-Mex cuisine that this was based on!
It sort of is, though, to a fairly limited extent (though mostly it's a bastardisation of something more like Tex-Mex?) - at least every other pub with a kitchen serves chili con carne, for example, and every super market has a "Mexican section" with tortillas, salsa, guacamole, and picked jalapeños. Yes, a lot of this bears only passing resemblance to actual Mexican food* but it is a thing with a set of norms and expectations, and widely thought of as Mexican.
*(not that I'm familiar with actual Mexican food especially, my only exposure being eating a meal cooked by a Mexican girl on my halls at uni after she'd been home, as a showcase, and tacos at the place knapah mentions above, so I can be assumed to basically know nothing)
posted by Dysk at 9:03 AM on October 11, 2022
It sort of is, though, to a fairly limited extent (though mostly it's a bastardisation of something more like Tex-Mex?) - at least every other pub with a kitchen serves chili con carne, for example, and every super market has a "Mexican section" with tortillas, salsa, guacamole, and picked jalapeños. Yes, a lot of this bears only passing resemblance to actual Mexican food* but it is a thing with a set of norms and expectations, and widely thought of as Mexican.
*(not that I'm familiar with actual Mexican food especially, my only exposure being eating a meal cooked by a Mexican girl on my halls at uni after she'd been home, as a showcase, and tacos at the place knapah mentions above, so I can be assumed to basically know nothing)
posted by Dysk at 9:03 AM on October 11, 2022
I don’t fault most of the competitors for being unfamiliar with Mexican food - but I think it’s fucking weird and awful that this show is so committed to its format that they cannot accept the limitations of the judges (and the hosts jokes were the worst. Like in the open when Noel says their probably going to make some racist jokes. . . And then they do). Most other shows would bring in an actual expert and attempt some level of education before loosing the competitors on a challenge they’re unlikely to find familiar. I’m thinking of the most recent season of Top Chef where, despite having a field of competitors who cook professionally, they still take the time to explain the ingredients and conceptual underpinnings of the cuisine in the various challenges.
It all just makes me ask: why? Paul clearly knows fuck all about Mexican food, the competitors clearly don’t either, so is this just the most hapless attempt at DEI ever, or what?
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 9:21 AM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
It all just makes me ask: why? Paul clearly knows fuck all about Mexican food, the competitors clearly don’t either, so is this just the most hapless attempt at DEI ever, or what?
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 9:21 AM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
This episode blew me away in the worst possible way. My partner (Mexican and Guatemalan) and I watched together, as we usually do. Never before have so many “oh noooooo”s been uttered. The interchangeable use of “tack-o” and “tortilla”? Like, these judges should have a basic understanding of vocabulary, non? My bf was like, eh, I forgive them, but I’m still fuming. Sooo bizarre. PS: I have some friends who host a GBBO podcast where they review each episode. It’s called the Layers Lair. Loved hearing them rip apart this episode!
posted by sucre at 9:27 AM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by sucre at 9:27 AM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
the avocado handling skills on display reminded me of this yt
They missed the part where they charge $9 to chop it up a bit at your tableside and squeeze some lime juice and garlic on there.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:29 AM on October 11, 2022
They missed the part where they charge $9 to chop it up a bit at your tableside and squeeze some lime juice and garlic on there.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:29 AM on October 11, 2022
Secondly, GBBO’s production changed a few years ago, from a BBC thing to one of the other main channels. That’s why the original presenters Mel and Sue left
I miss them, and their approach:
I miss them, and their approach:
Here's something you might not know about Mel and Sue: they nearly quit once before. Last year, while promoting her memoir, Sue revealed that she and Mel walked off the set during Bake Off's first season because the producers were trying to coax human-interest drama—and the inevitable tears—out of contestants. "We felt uncomfortable with it, and we said 'We don't think you've got the right presenters,'" Sue told the Telegraph. "I'm proud that we did that, because what we were saying was 'Let's try and do this a different way'—and no one ever cried again. Maybe they cry because their soufflé collapsed, but nobody's crying because someone's going 'Does this mean a lot about your grandmother?'" Bringing up dead relatives at stressful times is a time-honored technique for introducing tension into a television show, but it's no way to treat your family.posted by Iris Gambol at 9:31 AM on October 11, 2022 [41 favorites]
Here's another thing you might not know: When contestants do cry—out of frustration or disappointment, generally—Mel and Sue stand near them and use un-airable language so the embarrassing footage is tainted, and won't make it into the final edit. "If we see them crying or something," Sue told the Guardian, "Mel and I will go over there and put our coats over them, or swear a lot because we know then that the film won't be able to be used." (Eater, Sept. 16, 2016)
Why the heck did they think this was a good idea? Why would Brits, on a British baking show, think people should be making tacos? Why did they put on sombreros and make the "Juan" joke OBVIOUSLY KNOWING THIS WAS GOING TO MAKE THEM LOOK LIKE IDIOTS, and went for it anyway?
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:38 AM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:38 AM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
I want to push back a little on Chinese American food not being "real" Chinese food. Okay, it's not a cuisine associated to a specific region in the country of China, but it is definitely a cuisine developed Chinese people: those who moved to the US and adapted their cuisine to the locally available foods and tastes. Heck, even Panda Express was started by a Chinese American couple and is still (AFAIK) run by them. Most, if not all sit-down Chinese restaurants I've been to her in the US would darn well make you more "authentic" Chinese dishes if you could read the Chinese language menu or knew what to order.
Saying that Chinese American food isn't "real" Chinese food is implicitly kind of ultranationalist in a way that does not seem great to me.
posted by Zalzidrax at 9:48 AM on October 11, 2022 [35 favorites]
Saying that Chinese American food isn't "real" Chinese food is implicitly kind of ultranationalist in a way that does not seem great to me.
posted by Zalzidrax at 9:48 AM on October 11, 2022 [35 favorites]
There's just so much to unpack here, but I feel like one major issue is, as raccoon409 notes, there's really no such thing as UK-Mex cuisine (at this point, anyway) which makes it hard to excuse so much of what is seen here. This isn't a question of GBBO having the contestants cook up a specific regional variant of Mexican food that seems bizarre to Latinos and U.S. Americans. It was GBBO having the contestants aim for nonsensical targets based on the host-producers' ignorance.
American Chinese food is, I think, not the best analogy here. Because while, indeed, American Chinese food would be scoffed at in China, it has existed long enough and widely enough to carry its own history, expectations, commonalities, etc. You could do a cooking competition about the American version of Chinese cuisine and there would be an understanding of the target, at least. We know what American Chinese food is.
With Mexican food, there's a ton of regional variance within Mexico and within the areas of the U.S. where it thrives (Texas, L.A., and Chicago being the big three that I'm thinking of there) but they're all going to have an understanding of the basic principles involved (like why you don't stack tres leches), the flavors involved (expect spiciness), the ingredients involved (don't be shocked when maiz shows up basically anywhere) and, you know, how to cut into an avocado.
On a discord with my friends this week, we've been guffawing at this while also dreaming up a cooking challenge show hosted/judged by a panel of abuelas with distinct understandings about the "right way" to cook everything, where every challenge takes days to allow for marination and slow-cooking. That's something I'd love to watch.
But this... this just raises the question of what, exactly, the hosts like about Mexican food at all? Like, what aspects of Mexican cuisine were they hoping would come out of this?
posted by Navelgazer at 10:16 AM on October 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
American Chinese food is, I think, not the best analogy here. Because while, indeed, American Chinese food would be scoffed at in China, it has existed long enough and widely enough to carry its own history, expectations, commonalities, etc. You could do a cooking competition about the American version of Chinese cuisine and there would be an understanding of the target, at least. We know what American Chinese food is.
With Mexican food, there's a ton of regional variance within Mexico and within the areas of the U.S. where it thrives (Texas, L.A., and Chicago being the big three that I'm thinking of there) but they're all going to have an understanding of the basic principles involved (like why you don't stack tres leches), the flavors involved (expect spiciness), the ingredients involved (don't be shocked when maiz shows up basically anywhere) and, you know, how to cut into an avocado.
On a discord with my friends this week, we've been guffawing at this while also dreaming up a cooking challenge show hosted/judged by a panel of abuelas with distinct understandings about the "right way" to cook everything, where every challenge takes days to allow for marination and slow-cooking. That's something I'd love to watch.
But this... this just raises the question of what, exactly, the hosts like about Mexican food at all? Like, what aspects of Mexican cuisine were they hoping would come out of this?
posted by Navelgazer at 10:16 AM on October 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
(Also, neither here nor there, but I remember being at, like, a Planet Hollywood in London when I was a teenager, and my mom ordered the fajitas, and the server was taken aback by the fact that she pronounced it properly.)
posted by Navelgazer at 10:19 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Navelgazer at 10:19 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
One of the worst meals in my life was at a "Mexican" restaurant in Scotland (Stirling, I believe).
Reminds me of eating at Chinese restaurants in Montana. I don't recommend doing that. The food is entirely tasteless.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:21 AM on October 11, 2022
Reminds me of eating at Chinese restaurants in Montana. I don't recommend doing that. The food is entirely tasteless.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:21 AM on October 11, 2022
I want to push back a little on Chinese American food not being "real" Chinese food. Okay, it's not a cuisine associated to a specific region in the country of China, but it is definitely a cuisine developed Chinese people: those who moved to the US and adapted their cuisine to the locally available foods and tastes.
This is a very good point. It's a lot like a conversation I had with the owner of an Irish bookstore here in New York, back in the 90s when I was hip-deep in my Irish-culture snobbery phase; I sneered about "corned beef and cabbage isn't even Irish" at one point, and she gently pointed out that well, no, but the history about how it became a thing says a lot about the history of the Irish emigrant experience in the Americas, and that does deserve some respect.
Similarly, the food in "Chinese restaurants" in the U.S. is almost exclusively from a handful of provinces, because that's where the biggest pool of Chinese immigrants to the U.S. were coming from. And they changed things up to cater to American palates - just like any immigrant has worked to assimilate in their new home.
I'm pretty sure that the "Mexican food" available in the UK is dissimilar from what you would find in Oaxaca, say. And it's fine if someone goes out to a Mexican restaurant in Brighton and enjoys a meal there, and is perfectly satisfied with that Mexican-English hybrid cuisine. However, if these same people went to a restaurant in Mexico and started complaining that they didn't have the "Victoria Bocadillo tres leches" cake like they got back home in Brighton, that's where it starts to not be a good look.
And people who are running a baking contest should obviously also know way more than that. Paul Hollywood may say he's "Been to Cancun", but to me that just smacks of him having gone to a resort which Anglo-fied everything for the tourists instead of looking for the more local stuff.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:25 AM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
This is a very good point. It's a lot like a conversation I had with the owner of an Irish bookstore here in New York, back in the 90s when I was hip-deep in my Irish-culture snobbery phase; I sneered about "corned beef and cabbage isn't even Irish" at one point, and she gently pointed out that well, no, but the history about how it became a thing says a lot about the history of the Irish emigrant experience in the Americas, and that does deserve some respect.
Similarly, the food in "Chinese restaurants" in the U.S. is almost exclusively from a handful of provinces, because that's where the biggest pool of Chinese immigrants to the U.S. were coming from. And they changed things up to cater to American palates - just like any immigrant has worked to assimilate in their new home.
I'm pretty sure that the "Mexican food" available in the UK is dissimilar from what you would find in Oaxaca, say. And it's fine if someone goes out to a Mexican restaurant in Brighton and enjoys a meal there, and is perfectly satisfied with that Mexican-English hybrid cuisine. However, if these same people went to a restaurant in Mexico and started complaining that they didn't have the "Victoria Bocadillo tres leches" cake like they got back home in Brighton, that's where it starts to not be a good look.
And people who are running a baking contest should obviously also know way more than that. Paul Hollywood may say he's "Been to Cancun", but to me that just smacks of him having gone to a resort which Anglo-fied everything for the tourists instead of looking for the more local stuff.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:25 AM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
That was me saying Paul has only been to Cancun.
He actually did an entire show of him in Mexico, being introduced to Mexican food.
Which, honestly, makes it more shameful that he came back and showed clearly that he learned ...nothing.
posted by vacapinta at 10:33 AM on October 11, 2022 [13 favorites]
He actually did an entire show of him in Mexico, being introduced to Mexican food.
Which, honestly, makes it more shameful that he came back and showed clearly that he learned ...nothing.
posted by vacapinta at 10:33 AM on October 11, 2022 [13 favorites]
The first “Great Bake-Off” competition show I watched was the Canadian one, and I quite enjoyed it. I was told most emphatically by some other avid baking show watchers that the Canadian one was not as good as the British one, so I watched the first few episodes of GBBO and was pretty appalled at how overtly ethnocentrically white Western European it was. I believe at one point I said to my partner, “This is one of the whitest things I’ve ever seen.” I was used to the Canadian one which celebrated diversity and where the judges did not seem to be afraid of food they weren’t as familiar with (and they were familiar with a lot of different cuisines). Contestants on the Canadian show didn’t seem to feel like they had to white-ify everything they made in order to appease Western ethnocentrism.
Now, I will say I kept watching the British version and actually came to enjoy it, basically because the contestants are often so lovely and I liked Mel and Sue so much. I do think the show got a bit better, but that ethnocentrism remained. I haven’t watched it for many seasons, because I was sad when Mel and Sue left, and this critique of GBBO’s latest cringeworthy foray into “ethnic” cuisine seems very much on brand.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:41 AM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
Now, I will say I kept watching the British version and actually came to enjoy it, basically because the contestants are often so lovely and I liked Mel and Sue so much. I do think the show got a bit better, but that ethnocentrism remained. I haven’t watched it for many seasons, because I was sad when Mel and Sue left, and this critique of GBBO’s latest cringeworthy foray into “ethnic” cuisine seems very much on brand.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:41 AM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
And it is a peculiarly English thing, in my observation. The aggressive mispronunciation of neighboring French terms is remarkable when compared with border relations elsewhere. I’d read an essay about the English need to intentionally mispronounce common foreign words.
Even apart from all the crimes against Mexican cuisine, this is probably what annoys me most. I know my perspective is different as a Southern Californian who's lived an hour or two's drive from Mexico for most of my life, but it really seems like a no-brainer to me to take the minimum step of pronouncing things as correctly as you can. And English speakers can absolutely pronounce Spanish words, this isn't a case of having genuine difficulty with a wholly unfamiliar phoneme or tones, or only ever having seen it in writing or whatever. Like, I try to imagine saying "tor-tilla" to a Spanish speaker's face, and I want to die. You don't need to roll your r's or whatever, but for god's sake, make an effort. Like, British people, I know y'all go to Mallorca. You know a double l turns into a y sound! If Paul Hollywood went to Mexico, he ought to know enough to make a good faith effort at pronunciation, and tack-o ain't it.
posted by yasaman at 10:59 AM on October 11, 2022 [6 favorites]
Even apart from all the crimes against Mexican cuisine, this is probably what annoys me most. I know my perspective is different as a Southern Californian who's lived an hour or two's drive from Mexico for most of my life, but it really seems like a no-brainer to me to take the minimum step of pronouncing things as correctly as you can. And English speakers can absolutely pronounce Spanish words, this isn't a case of having genuine difficulty with a wholly unfamiliar phoneme or tones, or only ever having seen it in writing or whatever. Like, I try to imagine saying "tor-tilla" to a Spanish speaker's face, and I want to die. You don't need to roll your r's or whatever, but for god's sake, make an effort. Like, British people, I know y'all go to Mallorca. You know a double l turns into a y sound! If Paul Hollywood went to Mexico, he ought to know enough to make a good faith effort at pronunciation, and tack-o ain't it.
posted by yasaman at 10:59 AM on October 11, 2022 [6 favorites]
Like, British people, I know y'all go to Mallorca. You know a double l turns into a y sound!
I am not as convinced of this, to be frank...granted, I'm basing this on the behavior of my fellow Americans who would go to Canada and thank someone by saying "Merr-see Mahn-sewer".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:02 AM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
I am not as convinced of this, to be frank...granted, I'm basing this on the behavior of my fellow Americans who would go to Canada and thank someone by saying "Merr-see Mahn-sewer".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:02 AM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
On the topic of Mexican food in the UK: My partner lived in Mexico City for a few months, and two of the Mexican friends he made during that time moved to London a few years before the pandemic. My partner visited them once, and then learned that there was maybe one Mexican restaurant in all of London they'd deign to eat at, but generally all the Mexican food they ate was food they prepared themselves. So, I think it's fair to say most of the contestants have never had a decent taco in their life - but the judges/production team should have known better.
posted by coffeecat at 11:14 AM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by coffeecat at 11:14 AM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
I was recently watching an old Kitchen Nightmares episode set at a British tourist-focused place in Spain and there was a bit where everyone (Gordon Ramsay included) kept referring to the great "authentic" "pie-el-ah" that Gordon was about to unveil to pick this place up off the mat, and I was just flabbergasted.
posted by AndrewInDC at 11:22 AM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by AndrewInDC at 11:22 AM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
Zalzidrax, not sure if you were in response to my comment or another, but what you brought up is kind of my point (though perhaps it wasn’t expressed well) that American Chinese food is its own cuisine which is different to different cuisines in China. Trying to “judge” one on the basis of the other wouldn’t make sense. Similarly, Tex Mex or Mexi-Cali are their own cuisines, different to what is prepared in Mexico. My point is that this episode wasn’t built on a strong culture of Uk-mex baking/cooking that we are evaluating through an unfair lens of Mexi-Cali, Tex- Mex or Mexican standards, just that the the challenges were flawed from the beginning. If there is such a culture of UK- Mex food, then have the challenges be based on that . But it wasn’t, it was neither here nor there.
posted by raccoon409 at 12:39 PM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by raccoon409 at 12:39 PM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
Series 5 was so good...that was really sublime. Really shudder at what this has become.
posted by yueliang at 12:55 PM on October 11, 2022
posted by yueliang at 12:55 PM on October 11, 2022
I have the impression that ‘Americanized Chinese’ has been embraced, at least by some of the SE Asian restaurants in/around the SF Bay Area, as it’s own thing, which of course means it will get translated through yet another cultural filter and the tastes & flavors will evolve and change. And to me this is a great thing.
I also have had several Indian friends over the years go on about ‘Indian Chinese’ and how good it is but I’ve yet to feel I’ve really experienced it.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 1:32 PM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
I also have had several Indian friends over the years go on about ‘Indian Chinese’ and how good it is but I’ve yet to feel I’ve really experienced it.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 1:32 PM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
(I guess I should have written 'Indianized Chinese' to be fair)
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 1:48 PM on October 11, 2022
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 1:48 PM on October 11, 2022
I wonder what, if any, effect the Swedish Taco Fredag phenomenon has on British Taco culture.
Sweden apparently went nuts for tacos in the 1990s, and many people still have the equivalent of Taco Tuesday every Friday (including a friend of mine from Gothenburg, which is why I know about this). Old El Paso was involved, as was a Swedish spices company that eventually changed names to Santa Maria to sound more taco-friendly.
At least the Brits didn't adopt the Swedish localizations, like pineapple/cucumber/banana tacos.
To be honest I want to try Swedish Banana Tacos, just to see what they're like. But Mexican week seems like it falls into the uncanny valley...
posted by Mad_Carew at 2:00 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
Sweden apparently went nuts for tacos in the 1990s, and many people still have the equivalent of Taco Tuesday every Friday (including a friend of mine from Gothenburg, which is why I know about this). Old El Paso was involved, as was a Swedish spices company that eventually changed names to Santa Maria to sound more taco-friendly.
At least the Brits didn't adopt the Swedish localizations, like pineapple/cucumber/banana tacos.
To be honest I want to try Swedish Banana Tacos, just to see what they're like. But Mexican week seems like it falls into the uncanny valley...
posted by Mad_Carew at 2:00 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
Just musing here...
All this got me thinking about whether some native/indigenous food cultures are simply more syncretic than others, able and willing to embrace a set of foreign influences and find some unique admixture out of which (finally) comes a 'tasty adaptation' (for lack of a better description). The adaptation might only be vaguely recognizable from it's source but it will have developed its own aesthetic and standards of 'good' and 'bad' which is to say it arrives at some kind of 'authenticity' of its own. So the pizza at Pizza Hut in Jakarta may no longer please the palate of an American diner raised on it but the locals think it's a treat.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 2:02 PM on October 11, 2022
All this got me thinking about whether some native/indigenous food cultures are simply more syncretic than others, able and willing to embrace a set of foreign influences and find some unique admixture out of which (finally) comes a 'tasty adaptation' (for lack of a better description). The adaptation might only be vaguely recognizable from it's source but it will have developed its own aesthetic and standards of 'good' and 'bad' which is to say it arrives at some kind of 'authenticity' of its own. So the pizza at Pizza Hut in Jakarta may no longer please the palate of an American diner raised on it but the locals think it's a treat.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 2:02 PM on October 11, 2022
I am American and made a horrible decision to get Mexican food at the Manchester airport (what was I thinking?!) I got food poisoning and had a miserable flight. Bonus is this was in November 2014 during Ebola and everyone on the plane was mad at me (in my head, at least).
What does this have to do with GBBO?
Hmmmm
posted by PistachioRoux at 2:31 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
What does this have to do with GBBO?
Hmmmm
posted by PistachioRoux at 2:31 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
While visiting a friend in Moldova, we missed another friend's birthday by going to the wrong shitty Mexican restaurant in Chișinău. The food was bland but passable, which put it far better than the sweet goopy food of the "Italian" restaurant in Budapest.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 2:36 PM on October 11, 2022
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 2:36 PM on October 11, 2022
I too have eaten the “Mexican food” at the Manchester airport. I have also regretted it.
posted by iamkimiam at 3:22 PM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by iamkimiam at 3:22 PM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
I feel like somehow I experienced the inside out of this episode by eating "Mexican" at the Jimmy Buffet Branded restaurant at the Cancun airport on my way back to the US. A cultural hall of mirrors featuring your table side guacamole grinder and dinner for two.
posted by djseafood at 3:37 PM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by djseafood at 3:37 PM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
This discussion is great and I'm really enjoying it. I think there's definitely room for a plurality of opinions on things like regional cuisines and pronunciations, etc. and it's wonderful to read the different takes. I mentioned in the previous week's GBBO thread that one of the worst meals I've ever eaten was at a Mexican place in Norwich that my friends took me to because they thought it might be a taste of home or something for me (back in the '90s, when I was living in the SW).
But part of what bothered me so much there was not just the really awful version of the only thing I thought I could stomach from the menu (a chicken "chimichanga"), but the attitude that went along with it. I ordered it by pronouncing it with Spanish language rules--short a, mainly, and immediately the waiter pretended not to understand what I said, and my friends, who'd seemed like awesome people, snickered over the way I said it as well. I asked them why it was so hilariously inept to them--I spoke, at the time, passable Spanish, enough where if I went to Rosarito with my sis I could converse with people in a limited way. They pronounced the -anga part like you would in "angry" and even though I pointed out that "ahnga" isn't that far off so as to invite mockery, it only seemed to reinforce their opinion of my ridiculousness. So a lot of what some folks have said above makes sense, and it's something I've seen a lot of, since I travel to the UK so often, but I've never learned to accept it.
Anyway, it ruined the evening for me, I was miserable even before the "food" was brought out, and then later it kind of reared its head on a listserv I was on for people who love the English language--mostly copyeditor and writer types, but a lot of other just interested parties. There was this one guy on the list who was a medical doctor, I think, in London, and he was such a smug, snooty, toff-nosed pedant that I used to just dread his posts, and one day he pops up with a question about the show Friends: why did Monica, a chef, insist on the pretentious pronunciation of flan as "flahn"? To him, it invited scorn.
I immediately had flashbacks to Norwich and had to write a response, which I never ever did. I kept my head down and just answered factual things or asked procedural questions; I never waded into list spats. But I had to say that the US, being the melting pot that people love to talk about so much, has absorbed a lot of its food culture from immigrant groups and borrowed words for things, and that if you pronounced it flan to rhyme with plan in a Mexican restaurant here, you'd immediately be marked as either an ignorant doof or a racist ass. I said that it's not pretentious to try to pronounce borrowed words the way the immigrant group might, or at least make a good faith effort, and Mexico is literally right next to us. I got SO many emails from people on the list cheering me on that it made my Norwich experience fade a little.
It all reminds me of Anthony Bourdain's excellent essay about Mexico and Mexican food and Mexican immigrants. If you've never read it, it's beautiful. "And as much as we think we know and love it, we have barely scratched the surface of what Mexican food really is. It is NOT melted cheese over tortilla chips. It is not simple, or easy. It is not simply 'bro food' at halftime. It is in fact, old — older even than the great cuisines of Europe, and often deeply complex, refined, subtle, and sophisticated."
posted by kitten kaboodle at 3:37 PM on October 11, 2022 [28 favorites]
But part of what bothered me so much there was not just the really awful version of the only thing I thought I could stomach from the menu (a chicken "chimichanga"), but the attitude that went along with it. I ordered it by pronouncing it with Spanish language rules--short a, mainly, and immediately the waiter pretended not to understand what I said, and my friends, who'd seemed like awesome people, snickered over the way I said it as well. I asked them why it was so hilariously inept to them--I spoke, at the time, passable Spanish, enough where if I went to Rosarito with my sis I could converse with people in a limited way. They pronounced the -anga part like you would in "angry" and even though I pointed out that "ahnga" isn't that far off so as to invite mockery, it only seemed to reinforce their opinion of my ridiculousness. So a lot of what some folks have said above makes sense, and it's something I've seen a lot of, since I travel to the UK so often, but I've never learned to accept it.
Anyway, it ruined the evening for me, I was miserable even before the "food" was brought out, and then later it kind of reared its head on a listserv I was on for people who love the English language--mostly copyeditor and writer types, but a lot of other just interested parties. There was this one guy on the list who was a medical doctor, I think, in London, and he was such a smug, snooty, toff-nosed pedant that I used to just dread his posts, and one day he pops up with a question about the show Friends: why did Monica, a chef, insist on the pretentious pronunciation of flan as "flahn"? To him, it invited scorn.
I immediately had flashbacks to Norwich and had to write a response, which I never ever did. I kept my head down and just answered factual things or asked procedural questions; I never waded into list spats. But I had to say that the US, being the melting pot that people love to talk about so much, has absorbed a lot of its food culture from immigrant groups and borrowed words for things, and that if you pronounced it flan to rhyme with plan in a Mexican restaurant here, you'd immediately be marked as either an ignorant doof or a racist ass. I said that it's not pretentious to try to pronounce borrowed words the way the immigrant group might, or at least make a good faith effort, and Mexico is literally right next to us. I got SO many emails from people on the list cheering me on that it made my Norwich experience fade a little.
It all reminds me of Anthony Bourdain's excellent essay about Mexico and Mexican food and Mexican immigrants. If you've never read it, it's beautiful. "And as much as we think we know and love it, we have barely scratched the surface of what Mexican food really is. It is NOT melted cheese over tortilla chips. It is not simple, or easy. It is not simply 'bro food' at halftime. It is in fact, old — older even than the great cuisines of Europe, and often deeply complex, refined, subtle, and sophisticated."
posted by kitten kaboodle at 3:37 PM on October 11, 2022 [28 favorites]
I don't follow the show, so I still don't understand why they would be making tacos on a baking competition? But I imagine it's just one of a number of bad decisions that cascaded, Mr. Bean style. (or would that be 'Señor Frijol'?)
I may be over-estimating their international reach, but I can think of no more stereotypical Mexican baked good than the concha. A light, sugary bread roll, with a sugar/flour seashell pattern on top; perfect companion to a cup of strong black coffee.
Is this a pastry not found in British or European bakeries? Is it known by another name; or not thought of as (snob voice, having just returned from 'Port-o Val-erta') so authentically Mexican?
There is a wide variety of Mexican pan dulce (sweet bread = cakes, pastries), and some undoubtedly have multiple claimants - orejas (ears) could be said to just be a puffier version of the palmier. But for the Mexico episode of a baking show to overlook the simple but perfect concha? Tsk tsk.
[Now I'm imagining making a lot of money by going there and selling the familiar 99p-with-a-flake, but served in a hollowed out concha as a bowl. You get to the end and tear it up, like eating bits of cake soaked in melted ice cream.]
posted by bartleby at 4:56 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
I may be over-estimating their international reach, but I can think of no more stereotypical Mexican baked good than the concha. A light, sugary bread roll, with a sugar/flour seashell pattern on top; perfect companion to a cup of strong black coffee.
Is this a pastry not found in British or European bakeries? Is it known by another name; or not thought of as (snob voice, having just returned from 'Port-o Val-erta') so authentically Mexican?
There is a wide variety of Mexican pan dulce (sweet bread = cakes, pastries), and some undoubtedly have multiple claimants - orejas (ears) could be said to just be a puffier version of the palmier. But for the Mexico episode of a baking show to overlook the simple but perfect concha? Tsk tsk.
[Now I'm imagining making a lot of money by going there and selling the familiar 99p-with-a-flake, but served in a hollowed out concha as a bowl. You get to the end and tear it up, like eating bits of cake soaked in melted ice cream.]
posted by bartleby at 4:56 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
bartleby, the signature bake was pan dulce, and a few bakers did make conchas. Still couldn’t salvage this embarrassing shitshow of an episode.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:14 PM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by uncleozzy at 5:14 PM on October 11, 2022 [4 favorites]
We shall exact our revenge in perpetuity by mispronouncing Norwich.
posted by sjswitzer at 5:45 PM on October 11, 2022 [14 favorites]
posted by sjswitzer at 5:45 PM on October 11, 2022 [14 favorites]
Oh, they did make concha? Nevermind. I'll just have to content myself with the fact that both chocolate and color television are Mexican inventions. So every episode is a Mexican-influenced episode, in a way.
posted by bartleby at 5:55 PM on October 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by bartleby at 5:55 PM on October 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
Why are they stacking tres leches cake?
I'm pretty sure that the Brits are either legally forbidden, or physically incapable, of baking or eating a cake that isn't at least three layers with some goop in between.
It's only a miracle they didn't put in more fruit. I've never seen a people so devoted to putting fruit in cake as the British.
posted by sotonohito at 5:57 PM on October 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
I'm pretty sure that the Brits are either legally forbidden, or physically incapable, of baking or eating a cake that isn't at least three layers with some goop in between.
It's only a miracle they didn't put in more fruit. I've never seen a people so devoted to putting fruit in cake as the British.
posted by sotonohito at 5:57 PM on October 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
While I want to say the show has long ago jumped the shark, by doing so out into the universe, however -- and on our horrible timeline, particularly -- I do fret that the gods will actually hear me and put the judges into shark costumes for fishcake week. Though I suppose it would be fun and fitting to see Lucas dressed a bucket with the word CHUM stitched on it.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 6:48 PM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 6:48 PM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
In defense of British versions of foreign food, the Chinese food I've eaten almost anywhere in the UK closely matched the delicious Chinese food I've had in northern China. Likewise UK Indian food closely matches what I've eaten in India/Nepal.
The US versions of Chinese and Indian food I've eaten have been over sweetened, flavorless nursery versions of the real thing. I've had a chicken vindaloo in one of the "best" Indian restaurants in Portland, and it was disconcertingly the exact opposite of a genuine chicken vindaloo.
posted by monotreme at 7:17 PM on October 11, 2022
The US versions of Chinese and Indian food I've eaten have been over sweetened, flavorless nursery versions of the real thing. I've had a chicken vindaloo in one of the "best" Indian restaurants in Portland, and it was disconcertingly the exact opposite of a genuine chicken vindaloo.
posted by monotreme at 7:17 PM on October 11, 2022
Oh, man, I totally forgot about this - I have once had something that was ostensibly a Mexican-influenced item while visiting in Ireland. But even worse - it was a Mexican-influenced item in a kebab shop. This was at a fast-food place called Abrakebabra, at a location in Cork, where the friend I was visiting stopped in with me after we'd been out one evening. I ordered the "taco kebab", an item I notice they no longer have, and it was so bad I only ate half and then I was up all night with food poisoning, experiencing gastrointestinal symptoms a friend of mine euphemistically calls "two exits, no waiting".
The "taco kebab" wasn't even remotely like a taco - it was some sloppy-joe consistency browned ground beef, with a very un-taco-like seasoning to it, slopped into the middle of a flatbread and topped with raw shredded carrots and cabbage. My travel journal entry before I started getting sick describes it as "vile", and then I added a postscript an hour later:
The "taco kebab" wasn't even remotely like a taco - it was some sloppy-joe consistency browned ground beef, with a very un-taco-like seasoning to it, slopped into the middle of a flatbread and topped with raw shredded carrots and cabbage. My travel journal entry before I started getting sick describes it as "vile", and then I added a postscript an hour later:
March 13 1990, 1 am, after throwing up all over the O'Donovan's Bathroomposted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:22 PM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
Note to self: NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER have Mexican food in Ireland again.
While visiting a friend in Moldova, we missed another friend's birthday by going to the wrong shitty Mexican restaurant in Chișinău.
Soooo...is there a right shitty Mexican restaurant in Chișinău?
posted by Thorzdad at 7:28 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
Soooo...is there a right shitty Mexican restaurant in Chișinău?
posted by Thorzdad at 7:28 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
I assumed it was like the old "What's worse than biting into an apple and finding a worm? Biting an apple and finding half a worm."
posted by bartleby at 7:35 PM on October 11, 2022
posted by bartleby at 7:35 PM on October 11, 2022
(I guess I should have written 'Indianized Chinese' to be fair)
Getting pretty far off topic here but there is an oft told joke that, like all good jokes, has a kernel of truth at its center that there are three types of Indian food: North Indian, South Indian, and Chinese. How Chinese food came to be hugely popular in India is a different story from the introduction of Chinese food to the US even if the outcomes aren’t super far apart - lots of red dye and sugary fried things. There was a franchised Chinese-Indian place in Curry Hill in NYC for quite a few years with several other locations in the Northeast. Unlike bad and intentionally inauthentic (a loaded word but here I’d say just meaning not firmly rooted in the traditions of the place it is said to have originated) Mexican food which I am never interested in, I’ll fuck up a good Gobi Manchurian if I’m in the right mood - with all due apologies to the people of Manchuria.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 8:41 PM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
Getting pretty far off topic here but there is an oft told joke that, like all good jokes, has a kernel of truth at its center that there are three types of Indian food: North Indian, South Indian, and Chinese. How Chinese food came to be hugely popular in India is a different story from the introduction of Chinese food to the US even if the outcomes aren’t super far apart - lots of red dye and sugary fried things. There was a franchised Chinese-Indian place in Curry Hill in NYC for quite a few years with several other locations in the Northeast. Unlike bad and intentionally inauthentic (a loaded word but here I’d say just meaning not firmly rooted in the traditions of the place it is said to have originated) Mexican food which I am never interested in, I’ll fuck up a good Gobi Manchurian if I’m in the right mood - with all due apologies to the people of Manchuria.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 8:41 PM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]
He actually did an entire show of him in Mexico, being introduced to Mexican food.
Which, honestly, makes it more shameful that he came back and showed clearly that he learned ...nothing.
And this whole thing, he's just another example. Famously over here, we had such a brouhaha during one season of MasterChef (UK, natch) when the judges dinged a contestant of Malaysian background who prepared a pretty standard rendition of chicken rendang (a Malay version of a curry) for the skin not being crispy. Why the fuck would slow cooked chicken stew needed crispiness? AND one of them literally swanned around the country for another travel programme on my taxpayer money where he supposedly learned the local cuisine! But the confidence, the absolute certainty, that the rendang was incorrect. 'at least' Mexico can say there's no colonial relationship that would have familiarized them to the culture, but, pfffft.
The adaptation might only be vaguely recognizable from it's source but it will have developed its own aesthetic and standards of 'good' and 'bad' which is to say it arrives at some kind of 'authenticity' of its own. So the pizza at Pizza Hut in Jakarta may no longer please the palate of an American diner raised on it but the locals think it's a treat.
On a more pleasant and lighthearted note, McDonald's international seems to be extremely into menu localization, so it's not just adjusting the ratios but I'm talking about menu items you can't find elsewhere. Which can be one of the little touristy things my friends like to do and check out when they're elsewhere. I never remember to do this unless they drag me to one so I tend to remember Asian stuff. That said, all credit to Maccas Australia for kicking off the McCafe menu section, which should be elsewhere too, even the US (?). But the country-specific menus did make me miss mine when I'm sick because it's one go-to option here for chicken rice porridge/congee.
posted by cendawanita at 8:42 PM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
Which, honestly, makes it more shameful that he came back and showed clearly that he learned ...nothing.
And this whole thing, he's just another example. Famously over here, we had such a brouhaha during one season of MasterChef (UK, natch) when the judges dinged a contestant of Malaysian background who prepared a pretty standard rendition of chicken rendang (a Malay version of a curry) for the skin not being crispy. Why the fuck would slow cooked chicken stew needed crispiness? AND one of them literally swanned around the country for another travel programme on my taxpayer money where he supposedly learned the local cuisine! But the confidence, the absolute certainty, that the rendang was incorrect. 'at least' Mexico can say there's no colonial relationship that would have familiarized them to the culture, but, pfffft.
The adaptation might only be vaguely recognizable from it's source but it will have developed its own aesthetic and standards of 'good' and 'bad' which is to say it arrives at some kind of 'authenticity' of its own. So the pizza at Pizza Hut in Jakarta may no longer please the palate of an American diner raised on it but the locals think it's a treat.
On a more pleasant and lighthearted note, McDonald's international seems to be extremely into menu localization, so it's not just adjusting the ratios but I'm talking about menu items you can't find elsewhere. Which can be one of the little touristy things my friends like to do and check out when they're elsewhere. I never remember to do this unless they drag me to one so I tend to remember Asian stuff. That said, all credit to Maccas Australia for kicking off the McCafe menu section, which should be elsewhere too, even the US (?). But the country-specific menus did make me miss mine when I'm sick because it's one go-to option here for chicken rice porridge/congee.
posted by cendawanita at 8:42 PM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
Just hearing the terrible pronunciation in the advert sent my memories winging back to an early visit to London in maybe 1979 or 1981, when I was what is now described as a tween, and my father took us to a "Mexican" restaurant. The appetizer was a nacho: a flat fried corn tortilla that probably came out of the Old El Paso box covered in mozzarella cheese with an olive slice in place of the usual jalapeño. My father, a man not much given to profanity around his child, said afterwards in frustration, "that's not a nacho, that's a goddamn pizza".
It sounds like not much has improved since then from this thread.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 9:42 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
It sounds like not much has improved since then from this thread.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 9:42 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
Sweden apparently went nuts for tacos in the 1990s, and many people still have the equivalent of Taco Tuesday every Friday (including a friend of mine from Gothenburg, which is why I know about this). Old El Paso was involved, as was a Swedish spices company that eventually changed names to Santa Maria to sound more taco-friendly.
This is very much still a thing in Norway too. If you go to a supermarket on Friday, half the customers have Old El Paso and Santa Maria stuff in their baskets.
March 13 1990, 1 am, after throwing up all over the O'Donovan's Bathroom
Note to self: NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER have Mexican food in Ireland again.
This isn't a terrible assumption, but your real problem was in eating in AbraKebabra.
posted by knapah at 1:03 AM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
This is very much still a thing in Norway too. If you go to a supermarket on Friday, half the customers have Old El Paso and Santa Maria stuff in their baskets.
March 13 1990, 1 am, after throwing up all over the O'Donovan's Bathroom
Note to self: NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER have Mexican food in Ireland again.
This isn't a terrible assumption, but your real problem was in eating in AbraKebabra.
posted by knapah at 1:03 AM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
It seems to me there are two main types of comment in this thread:
1. "GBBO presented an entire national cuisine in a stereotyped and inaccurate way. "
2. "Here's a simple rule that applies to all British food, based on a single meal I had as a tourist fifteen years ago."
I'd like to politely point out that perhaps there is a little bit of irony here. And I'd like to request that people not let their (totally valid!) criticisms of one particular show bleed over into stereotypes about 68 million British people.
A good antidote might be to take a look at this home-grown British critique of that GBBO episode. (It's from The Guardian, FYI. If you'd prefer not to give them your clicks, here's a summary from DigitalSpy.)
posted by yankeefog at 1:53 AM on October 12, 2022 [5 favorites]
1. "GBBO presented an entire national cuisine in a stereotyped and inaccurate way. "
2. "Here's a simple rule that applies to all British food, based on a single meal I had as a tourist fifteen years ago."
I'd like to politely point out that perhaps there is a little bit of irony here. And I'd like to request that people not let their (totally valid!) criticisms of one particular show bleed over into stereotypes about 68 million British people.
A good antidote might be to take a look at this home-grown British critique of that GBBO episode. (It's from The Guardian, FYI. If you'd prefer not to give them your clicks, here's a summary from DigitalSpy.)
posted by yankeefog at 1:53 AM on October 12, 2022 [5 favorites]
I lived in Colorado for well-nigh twenty years. Good Mexican food was abundant. (I still remember the smells of roasting chiles every fall, the coolers full of homemade tamales for sale outside of events downtown, and the amazing little family-owned restaurant near one of our first apartments. My first-ever breakfast in Colorado was huevos rancheros. A slightly regrettable decision--my palate hadn't adjusted yet and I had as-yet-undiagnosed acid reflux. Still delicious, though.)
Then I moved to the UK.
I have had some of the saddest, most disappointing Mexican food in this country over the last fifteen years. There was the place in Bromley that served us what I would have been willing to bet money were microwaved burritos with barely any meat in them. The chain place on the South Bank in London that didn't seem to know what salsa was. The restaurant in central Sheffield that served a room-temperature burrito (it's 90% burritos, tacos, and maybe enchiladas in these places) that was full of cold, soggy lettuce and carrot shavings. And so on.
Mrs. Example and I wept for joy when a Chipotle opened in London. Yes, okay, it's also a chain like one of the other places I mentioned, but they at least know what they're doing. Everything was hot and delicious and as freshly-made as you can get in a place like that. I wish they'd get a few locations Oop North.
(We used to make evenings of it, actually. Dinner at Chipotle, then a couple of hours browsing at the massive Foyle's bookstore just across Charing Cross Road from it. I miss that.)
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 3:06 AM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
Then I moved to the UK.
I have had some of the saddest, most disappointing Mexican food in this country over the last fifteen years. There was the place in Bromley that served us what I would have been willing to bet money were microwaved burritos with barely any meat in them. The chain place on the South Bank in London that didn't seem to know what salsa was. The restaurant in central Sheffield that served a room-temperature burrito (it's 90% burritos, tacos, and maybe enchiladas in these places) that was full of cold, soggy lettuce and carrot shavings. And so on.
Mrs. Example and I wept for joy when a Chipotle opened in London. Yes, okay, it's also a chain like one of the other places I mentioned, but they at least know what they're doing. Everything was hot and delicious and as freshly-made as you can get in a place like that. I wish they'd get a few locations Oop North.
(We used to make evenings of it, actually. Dinner at Chipotle, then a couple of hours browsing at the massive Foyle's bookstore just across Charing Cross Road from it. I miss that.)
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 3:06 AM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
"GBBO presented an entire national cuisine in a stereotyped and inaccurate way. "
The full description should be "... And seems representative of a culture that has shown no real regard for other cultures while patting itself on the back for being so cosmopolitan, while being so adamantly provincial as a class marker."
There's stuff that passes muster still in bougie British circles that would be considered embarrassing 10 years ago in similar American circles. But in this they're still quite European. Acknowledging that means I have to admit it is true, no culture is particularly better suited to be less ignorant. But just like American media gets a heavier burden of representation because it's so ubiquitous, GBBO seems to be in that same profile. Let me put it this way: i learn about Canadians based on American stereotypes never having met one (apparently!). Another example: once I've heard a local deejay who has a slot with a foreign talent here who happens to be black American 'joking' about how he must be hungry for fried chicken and watermelon (on the subject of missing home). Ah yes, fried chicken, the absolutely bog-standard food WE also eat and have opinions about, and watermelon, a fruit so common practically every Chinese restaurant will serve it on their dessert menu. I'll let you draw your own conclusions on what dumbass meme that guy picked up from pop culture about FOOD HE ALSO EATS AND IS NOT RACIALIZED THAT WAY.
posted by cendawanita at 3:43 AM on October 12, 2022 [5 favorites]
The full description should be "... And seems representative of a culture that has shown no real regard for other cultures while patting itself on the back for being so cosmopolitan, while being so adamantly provincial as a class marker."
There's stuff that passes muster still in bougie British circles that would be considered embarrassing 10 years ago in similar American circles. But in this they're still quite European. Acknowledging that means I have to admit it is true, no culture is particularly better suited to be less ignorant. But just like American media gets a heavier burden of representation because it's so ubiquitous, GBBO seems to be in that same profile. Let me put it this way: i learn about Canadians based on American stereotypes never having met one (apparently!). Another example: once I've heard a local deejay who has a slot with a foreign talent here who happens to be black American 'joking' about how he must be hungry for fried chicken and watermelon (on the subject of missing home). Ah yes, fried chicken, the absolutely bog-standard food WE also eat and have opinions about, and watermelon, a fruit so common practically every Chinese restaurant will serve it on their dessert menu. I'll let you draw your own conclusions on what dumbass meme that guy picked up from pop culture about FOOD HE ALSO EATS AND IS NOT RACIALIZED THAT WAY.
posted by cendawanita at 3:43 AM on October 12, 2022 [5 favorites]
There's a small but mighty taqueria in Walthamstow called Homies on Donkeys.
Thanks very much knapah!
posted by Optamystic at 5:19 AM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
Thanks very much knapah!
posted by Optamystic at 5:19 AM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
while being so adamantly provincial as a class marker
i think this is conflating a couple of different things. being adamantly provincial about food here is a stereotypical class marker, but it marks you as specifically 'lower' class. it can also be a political marker (of the little england brexiter who's eaten meat and two veg for their entire life and looks askance at pasta because it's foreign), but that doesn't track neatly with class.
this is also why the comments here criticising ignorance of other countries' cuisines, mispronunciation of foreign words, etc. land a bit oddly to this uk reader, given that you'd say precisely the same thing here as a cosmopolitan highly educated middle class urbanite in order to disparage the know-nothing proles and nouveau riche who don't know how to pronounce 'chorizo', have never been to a farmers' market, and are too stupid and unsophisticated to realise that they're eating inauthentic trash.
(i appreciate that's not why people in this thread are saying that, obviously, but there's a certain irony to it.)
posted by inire at 5:24 AM on October 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
i think this is conflating a couple of different things. being adamantly provincial about food here is a stereotypical class marker, but it marks you as specifically 'lower' class. it can also be a political marker (of the little england brexiter who's eaten meat and two veg for their entire life and looks askance at pasta because it's foreign), but that doesn't track neatly with class.
this is also why the comments here criticising ignorance of other countries' cuisines, mispronunciation of foreign words, etc. land a bit oddly to this uk reader, given that you'd say precisely the same thing here as a cosmopolitan highly educated middle class urbanite in order to disparage the know-nothing proles and nouveau riche who don't know how to pronounce 'chorizo', have never been to a farmers' market, and are too stupid and unsophisticated to realise that they're eating inauthentic trash.
(i appreciate that's not why people in this thread are saying that, obviously, but there's a certain irony to it.)
posted by inire at 5:24 AM on October 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
As you say, that's not where a number of the comments are from, and I share your sense of irony because what I'm observing is the habit of the class that does make disparaging remarks about the nouveau riche and prole's lack of cultural knowledge. Bougie-on-bougie violence? Sure, why not. I am certainly inhabiting the trappings nowadays. But it remains so that for my comment IS about those cosmopolitanish elites, and I'm mentally grouping mine with the comments that also noticed which languages the English make an attempt to pronounce 'well' (e.g "kwah-san'") and which ones they won't (e.g. the entirety of this ep in question). I do stand by my observation on class: i really do think the Guardian-reading demographic of the British public or at least the Oxbridge comedic exports overestimate their sense of cultural fluency, and food is one of the terrains you see it being expressed on the regular, being an inescapable activity.
posted by cendawanita at 5:55 AM on October 12, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 5:55 AM on October 12, 2022 [5 favorites]
Perhaps most puzzling aspect about watching this psychodrama unfold, is seeing characters like “Todd from Massachusetts” act as the true arbiters of Mexican culture and cuisine.
Whilst unironically diagnosing British colonialism as the root evil here.
But we have all learned that wherever in the world Americans go on holiday, they only look for Mexican food to eat.
posted by MattFeiler at 6:50 AM on October 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
Whilst unironically diagnosing British colonialism as the root evil here.
But we have all learned that wherever in the world Americans go on holiday, they only look for Mexican food to eat.
posted by MattFeiler at 6:50 AM on October 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
I only ask that people stop comparing dangerous food (ie: you got food poisoning) with inauthentic or bad (doesn't taste correct) food in this thread.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:39 AM on October 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:39 AM on October 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
"Here's a simple rule that applies to all British food, based on a single meal I had as a tourist fifteen years ago."
I actually lived in the UK for several years in the early 80s. I enjoyed a lot of different cuisines including some that weren't readily available in Texas at the time (it was before curry was available on every corner, for instance, and one of the things I figured out was that terrible cafeteria curry was the UK equivalent of terrible enchiladas in Texas school cafeterias).
There are actually a lot of things about old-school British cooking that could be useful in assembling something like Tex-Mex, for instance the actual use of lard, but there are also a lot of things that don't work well, like the way the butchers grind mince (ground beef), which we had to get specially made to get the right texture to eat with those stale Old El Paso taco shells from the "American store" near the US air base that were the closest to Tex Mex we could get at the time.
What actually boggled me most about the discussion around Bake-Off/in this thread is that I was a teenager in the 1980s, which is 40 years ago, and now we have a lot more international exchange of cuisine and the ability to get food from all sorts of places pretty easily, and it sounds like the Bake-Off folks are still in the same mindset of exoticism about Tex-Mex that they would have been 40 years ago. My sense is that to many Americans, this is super weird because 1. our own palates have expanded a little in the last 20-40 years and 2. Tex-Mex is a nationally known American style of food (cf also Americanized Chinese food) so it's very surprising to Americans that Bake-Off plays it as weird and exotic. And that's without getting into the brownface costumes and other racist and hinky stuff (like whichever presenter actually went off to Mexico to learn about Mexican cuisine, which is different to Tex-Mex or Cal-Mex, which are American foodways).
So yeah, people are throwing laugh lines at Bake-Off in this thread, maybe because they think this episode was kind of dumb and racist (and stupid given the US is apparently a big market for Bake-Off) or maybe they feel that way about the whole Bake-Off approach to cuisines not from the old British imperial territories. But that's not about British FOOD, it's about British ATTITUDES. As someone who grew up in the former Confederacy, I feel like defending the bigoted and bass-ackward attitudes of my neighbors is not my job and honestly isn't a great look, but y'all do you....
(and Mr Bad Example, I lived in Yorkshire, and I feel your complaint in a big way.)
posted by gentlyepigrams at 9:51 AM on October 12, 2022 [5 favorites]
I actually lived in the UK for several years in the early 80s. I enjoyed a lot of different cuisines including some that weren't readily available in Texas at the time (it was before curry was available on every corner, for instance, and one of the things I figured out was that terrible cafeteria curry was the UK equivalent of terrible enchiladas in Texas school cafeterias).
There are actually a lot of things about old-school British cooking that could be useful in assembling something like Tex-Mex, for instance the actual use of lard, but there are also a lot of things that don't work well, like the way the butchers grind mince (ground beef), which we had to get specially made to get the right texture to eat with those stale Old El Paso taco shells from the "American store" near the US air base that were the closest to Tex Mex we could get at the time.
What actually boggled me most about the discussion around Bake-Off/in this thread is that I was a teenager in the 1980s, which is 40 years ago, and now we have a lot more international exchange of cuisine and the ability to get food from all sorts of places pretty easily, and it sounds like the Bake-Off folks are still in the same mindset of exoticism about Tex-Mex that they would have been 40 years ago. My sense is that to many Americans, this is super weird because 1. our own palates have expanded a little in the last 20-40 years and 2. Tex-Mex is a nationally known American style of food (cf also Americanized Chinese food) so it's very surprising to Americans that Bake-Off plays it as weird and exotic. And that's without getting into the brownface costumes and other racist and hinky stuff (like whichever presenter actually went off to Mexico to learn about Mexican cuisine, which is different to Tex-Mex or Cal-Mex, which are American foodways).
So yeah, people are throwing laugh lines at Bake-Off in this thread, maybe because they think this episode was kind of dumb and racist (and stupid given the US is apparently a big market for Bake-Off) or maybe they feel that way about the whole Bake-Off approach to cuisines not from the old British imperial territories. But that's not about British FOOD, it's about British ATTITUDES. As someone who grew up in the former Confederacy, I feel like defending the bigoted and bass-ackward attitudes of my neighbors is not my job and honestly isn't a great look, but y'all do you....
(and Mr Bad Example, I lived in Yorkshire, and I feel your complaint in a big way.)
posted by gentlyepigrams at 9:51 AM on October 12, 2022 [5 favorites]
This isn't a terrible assumption, but your real problem was in eating in AbraKebabra.
Yeah, a few people mentioned that to me in the aftermath. :-)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:19 AM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
Yeah, a few people mentioned that to me in the aftermath. :-)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:19 AM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
I want to know what percentage of Mexican restaurants in England are started by homesick Californians or Texans.
Seoul Korea has, last I checked, a proliferating and totally passable (Cal) Mexican food scene that has been largely propelled by Korean Americans from California who have settled in Seoul and want their enchiladas.
There must be cooking competition shows in Korean tv but I'm scared to look for them lest I find a version of Mexican Week. While oodles of South Koreans have traveled abroad, many older Koreans are convinced that they will hate any new cuisine and stuff their suitcases full of microwavable rice, instant ramen, and tubes of gochujang. 15 years ago I had to beg the pho restaurants in Seoul to give me cilantro, assuring them repeatedly that I did indeed want 고수 and wouldn't throw a fit at the distinct flavor.
posted by spamandkimchi at 11:04 AM on October 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
Seoul Korea has, last I checked, a proliferating and totally passable (Cal) Mexican food scene that has been largely propelled by Korean Americans from California who have settled in Seoul and want their enchiladas.
There must be cooking competition shows in Korean tv but I'm scared to look for them lest I find a version of Mexican Week. While oodles of South Koreans have traveled abroad, many older Koreans are convinced that they will hate any new cuisine and stuff their suitcases full of microwavable rice, instant ramen, and tubes of gochujang. 15 years ago I had to beg the pho restaurants in Seoul to give me cilantro, assuring them repeatedly that I did indeed want 고수 and wouldn't throw a fit at the distinct flavor.
posted by spamandkimchi at 11:04 AM on October 12, 2022 [6 favorites]
I'm still fixated on the idea that Paul wanted no color whatsoever on the tortilla. For fuck's sake!
posted by BlahLaLa at 12:03 PM on October 12, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by BlahLaLa at 12:03 PM on October 12, 2022 [7 favorites]
their vegetarian menu option was named "chili con carne".
Years ago, I worked at a school in Sweden, and one day they served chili con carne, which unsurprisingly contained meat. But they also had a vegetarian option, which they decided to name "veg con carne".
posted by martinrebas at 2:01 PM on October 12, 2022 [23 favorites]
Years ago, I worked at a school in Sweden, and one day they served chili con carne, which unsurprisingly contained meat. But they also had a vegetarian option, which they decided to name "veg con carne".
posted by martinrebas at 2:01 PM on October 12, 2022 [23 favorites]
I want to know what percentage of Mexican restaurants in England are started by homesick Californians or Texans.
Bit of an outlier, but there used to be a burrito place within a minute or so of my office that was run by a couple from Boston, of all places. It shut down a while back--I can only assume they couldn't sustain it through the COVID lockdowns. I miss it terribly.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 2:50 PM on October 12, 2022
Bit of an outlier, but there used to be a burrito place within a minute or so of my office that was run by a couple from Boston, of all places. It shut down a while back--I can only assume they couldn't sustain it through the COVID lockdowns. I miss it terribly.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 2:50 PM on October 12, 2022
> how as a culture we really don't like people who we think are getting above themselves. And a classic example of that is someone coming back from a trip abroad, or a cookery course, or just having seem something on the internet, and starting to pronounce things correctly, like dishes or ingredients
Someone explained to me (here? USEnet?) that that's why so many British people say BARR-ack Obama, or Don QUICKS-oat.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:13 PM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
Someone explained to me (here? USEnet?) that that's why so many British people say BARR-ack Obama, or Don QUICKS-oat.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:13 PM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
It took me a full minute to figure out that Don QUICKS-oat is not a mascot for quick-cooking oatmeal but a famous figure from literature. Yikes.
posted by Comet Bug at 3:59 PM on October 12, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Comet Bug at 3:59 PM on October 12, 2022 [4 favorites]
Seoul Korea has, last I checked, a proliferating and totally passable (Cal) Mexican food scene
Aha, that explains the dishes in videos I've seen, like
Korean Girls try REAL Mexican food. And Korean Grandma tries Mexican food for the first time.
Makes sense. Menudo and horchata seem like winners; tamales not so much?
Have to figure out a good source for limes.
posted by bartleby at 4:03 PM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
Aha, that explains the dishes in videos I've seen, like
Korean Girls try REAL Mexican food. And Korean Grandma tries Mexican food for the first time.
Makes sense. Menudo and horchata seem like winners; tamales not so much?
Have to figure out a good source for limes.
posted by bartleby at 4:03 PM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
There's a small but mighty taqueria in Walthamstow called Homies on Donkeys.
The photos on their instagram look tasty for sure, but dang those are some bright yellow tortillas.
Seoul Korea has, last I checked, a proliferating and totally passable (Cal) Mexican food scene
That doesn't surprise me given all the fusion trucks that proliferated in the last decade or so. Those two cuisines play nice together.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:32 PM on October 12, 2022
The photos on their instagram look tasty for sure, but dang those are some bright yellow tortillas.
Seoul Korea has, last I checked, a proliferating and totally passable (Cal) Mexican food scene
That doesn't surprise me given all the fusion trucks that proliferated in the last decade or so. Those two cuisines play nice together.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:32 PM on October 12, 2022
The photos on their instagram look tasty for sure, but dang those are some bright yellow tortillas.
They vary a bit, not sure whether they press their own or not. I'll need to ask next time I'm in there.
I wouldn't be entirely surprised if this is a concession to local prejudices though. They once got a 1 star review on Google Maps because the special involved blue corn tortillas and the customer said they "eat with their eyes", sigh.
posted by knapah at 6:32 AM on October 13, 2022
They vary a bit, not sure whether they press their own or not. I'll need to ask next time I'm in there.
I wouldn't be entirely surprised if this is a concession to local prejudices though. They once got a 1 star review on Google Maps because the special involved blue corn tortillas and the customer said they "eat with their eyes", sigh.
posted by knapah at 6:32 AM on October 13, 2022
Soooo...is there a right shitty Mexican restaurant in Chișinău?
Ha ha ha, no. The second hand birthday invitation was passed on as just "the shitty Mexican restaurant", and we went to the other one.
Unsurprisingly for post-Soviet states, you go to the Georgian restaurants if you want good food.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 8:29 PM on October 15, 2022
Ha ha ha, no. The second hand birthday invitation was passed on as just "the shitty Mexican restaurant", and we went to the other one.
Unsurprisingly for post-Soviet states, you go to the Georgian restaurants if you want good food.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 8:29 PM on October 15, 2022
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
They were right, there wasn't meat in the chili "con carne", but it left a lasting impression on me that the British were a pretty fundamentally unserious group of people when it came to cuisine, particularly if it came from a culture that hadn't been assimilated into their empire
posted by potrzebie at 10:59 PM on October 10, 2022 [54 favorites]