Food

vraiblonde

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
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The souvlaki posts in the other thread got me thinking (meandering, woolgathering, rambling, whatever):

If they can make a particular dish in another state, or even another country, anyone with basic culinary skills should be able to recreate it. Get the ingredients, follow the recipe. Simple.

If the best souvlaki you ever had was in Athens, or the best garden dog you ever had was in Chicago, you should be able to make it at home with no problem. But you can have the same dog in 5 different Chicago restaurants and it will be different at each one. Just like you'll get a different Philly cheesesteak at every sandwich place in Philadelphia.

So you can't say "this is what the gyros are like in Chicago" because that's stupid. That may be what the gyros are like at a particular restaurant in Chicago, but another Chicago restaurant will have a very different gyro.

"New York pizza is the best!" Yet I've had crappy pizza in NYC - it depends on where you go. Incredible pizza can be found in Baltimore at Angelo's, and in Annapolis at Mangia, yet neither Baltimore nor Annapolis is known for its pizza. Maryland is known for seafood, yet I had the best shrimp and clams I've ever eaten at Bubba's Luv Shak in South Carolina.

And another thought on Maryland:

My beach companion, who is from FL, got a jones for "Maryland fried chicken" for some reason. He asked if MD was known for its fried chicken and I said not that I'm aware of, unless you mean Chaptico Market specifically. Well, I'll be darned if there isn't a restaurant chain called Maryland Fried Chicken. They feature "broasted" (pressure-fried) chicken....which is what I ate as a little girl in Lincoln, NE at a shack called Johnny's in Havelock. I have never heard of Maryland being a fried chicken mecca, yet there it is - Maryland Fried Chicken.

So...that's all. Just musing about food and how states/countries get famous for something they don't really make all that well and you can get better somewhere else.
 
vraiblonde

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
PS, never - EVER! - order something called a "Maryland crab cake" especially when not actually in Maryland. It will contain bits of onion and green pepper, loaded with filler, which is not a "Maryland" crabcake at all.

In fact, Maryland should sue all those FL restaurants that tout "Maryland" crab cakes for false representation, defamation, and blasphemy.
 
Larry Gude

Larry Gude

Strung Out
Most crab cakes IN Maryland suck. The rest of the universe, forget it.

Fresh Lobster from Maine, IN Maine, is THE ####. Especially if it is from a no name dump.

Road side Mexican food at little dingy dumps in Texas made by the owners mom is THE best Mexican I've ever had.

No name BBQ at roadside dumps in Tejas is pretty damn good and FAR better than anything I ever ate by any commercial joint around here.

ALL Key Lime pie in Florida is criminally bad.
 
vraiblonde

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
Larry Gude said:
ALL Key Lime pie in Florida is criminally bad.
Click to expand...

Amen. Authentic Key Lime pie can be had right in my little kitchen in Great Mills, so you'd think that actual Floridians would know that cream cheese and jello do not belong in a Key Lime pie.
 
SamSpade

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
PREMO Member
vraiblonde said:
If the best souvlaki you ever had was in Athens, or the best garden dog you ever had was in Chicago, you should be able to make it at home with no problem. But you can have the same dog in 5 different Chicago restaurants and it will be different at each one. Just like you'll get a different Philly cheesesteak at every sandwich place in Philadelphia.
Click to expand...

The thing is, if you get a cheese steak in Philly, it's not going to be like most of the cheese steak you get anywhere else, which is usually going to taste like a Steak Umm. If you get pizza in Chicago, the deep dish stuff they have there isn't going to be like what they serve elsewhere. It's not so much that, yeah, you can duplicate it, but they do tend to make it in a similar fashion all over that region. And I do maintain that a steak in Kansas City is going to be different than most - because it was mooing about a mile away yesterday.

You can get Cajun and Creole dishes anywhere - but not like in the Big Easy. It may well be because the shrimp etouffee or jambalaya they serve in ANY place down there is all the same - but they've been making it there a hundred years. There's something to be said for someone who's been making the same dish since they were kids.

And I have to admit, to even this unsophisticated palate - just using the same ingredients and following the same recipe might make it taste mostly the same, in the hands of an expert chef, some dishes are just done to perfection.
 
Larry Gude

Larry Gude

Strung Out
vraiblonde said:
Amen. Authentic Key Lime pie can be had right in my little kitchen in Great Mills, so you'd think that actual Floridians would know that cream cheese and jello do not belong in a Key Lime pie.
Click to expand...

I have yet to have Key Lime pie, anywhere, that even approaches yours. The BEST.
 
C

Caution

New Member
I had thought about the same thing in the other thread.

There are likely lots of things that come into play. But availability of ingredients come to mind. An area like this that does not have many places that offer gyros so they may not be able to get their hands on stuff as fast as in an area where there may be 3-4 gryo places in a 3-4 block area. So supply may such that it is more expensive to get so you might see smaller serving sizes than you are used to. Might even be harder to get your hands on quality ingredients at all.

I lived in Chicago for a while and as you say it's different no matter where you go eat.

And you'll always have people saying something was better somewhere else. Gives them a "One-Up" on ya. :biggrin: What they say may be true, may not be. Chances are you'll never know either way. But they still get to puff their chest up and feel like a "Person of the World" for an instant.
 
Monello

Monello

Smarter than the average bear
PREMO Member
Pizza in Naples, Italy or Sicily is very different than pizza in Rome. Rome pizza crust reminds me or saltine crackers. Yuck
 
G

Gummie

Member
As I was driving thru Wilmington De this weekend, we spotted a restuarant advertising "New York Fried Chicken". Int wtf is New York Fried Chicken? Maybe pigeons?
 
Merlin99

Merlin99

Visualize whirled peas
PREMO Member
SamSpade said:
The thing is, if you get a cheese steak in Philly, it's not going to be like most of the cheese steak you get anywhere else, which is usually going to taste like a Steak Umm. If you get pizza in Chicago, the deep dish stuff they have there isn't going to be like what they serve elsewhere. It's not so much that, yeah, you can duplicate it, but they do tend to make it in a similar fashion all over that region. And I do maintain that a steak in Kansas City is going to be different than most - because it was mooing about a mile away yesterday.

You can get Cajun and Creole dishes anywhere - but not like in the Big Easy. It may well be because the shrimp etouffee or jambalaya they serve in ANY place down there is all the same - but they've been making it there a hundred years. There's something to be said for someone who's been making the same dish since they were kids.

And I have to admit, to even this unsophisticated palate - just using the same ingredients and following the same recipe might make it taste mostly the same, in the hands of an expert chef, some dishes are just done to perfection.
Click to expand...
I'm going to have to disagree with your reasoning, if not the conclusion. Most steaks, good , bad, or indifferent are aged for several days to several weeks. A steak from a cow butchered yesterday is going to be a bit tough and bland.
 
MMM_donuts

MMM_donuts

New Member
I thought the thing with NY pizza had something to do with the water, no?

Gummie said:
As I was driving thru Wilmington De this weekend, we spotted a restuarant advertising "New York Fried Chicken". Int wtf is New York Fried Chicken? Maybe pigeons?
Click to expand...

In TN, there's a restaurant called Maryland Fried Chicken (that's the name). I never noticed it until I moved to Maryland, then I had to look it up. Turns out, Maryland Fried Chicken has a wiki page.
 
vraiblonde

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
MMM_donuts said:
In TN, there's a restaurant called Maryland Fried Chicken (that's the name). I never noticed it until I moved to Maryland, then I had to look it up. Turns out, Maryland Fried Chicken has a wiki page.
Click to expand...

There are numerous locations throughout the south and east coast. None in Maryland, though. :lol:
 
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