Sounds about right.
Can’t speak to LA, but nah. Cream cheese is the East coast trick. The Midwestern secret is “cream of [ ]” soup. Cream of mushroom is my go to, but when I ate chicken I used Cream of it a lot too. It’s useful in casserole/hotdish where a roux would be great but a real pain in the ass.
and only two bucks a pound at kwik trip right now, too
… And deep fry it
Yes, LA food is awful.
Strongly disagree.
You mean to tell me you don’t like kbbq and tacos :(
I guess I’m used to Texas where our tacos have seasoning.
If it’s in the South you have to deep-fry it as well.
Recipes in the south: The secret ingredient is more butter.
That’s the secret in lot of really nice restaurants as well. When in doubt, add more butter.
Agreed on the Midwest. I refuse to ever go to LA so I’m just gonna say you’re 100% objectively correct that their food sucks with all the confidence of a Chicago native, because our food is better than everyone else’s.
Best taco truck I’ve ever had was in LA.
You should come down to Mexico. We don’t do taco trucks, but there’s a taco stand at every corner serving you the best tacos of your life after a night out drinking at 3 am.
Best taco truck I ever had was Korean cheesesteak fusion.
I haven’t found good food trucks in my new town (I’ve gone mostly vegetarian and this isn’t a very friendly city for that), its disappointing.
Part of me want to be the change I wanna see in the world and partner with a local vegan place to do street tacos or something
What’s wrong with LA?
LA native here, I’ve also traveled a lot, including to Chicago.
If we’re talking about food, then I think there are two or three legitimate complaints about LA.
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LA is huge and spread out. If you want to get the “best” of whatever genre of food I guarantee we have it. But throw in geography and traffic and you’re talking about driving an hour or more to get it. This is fun once in awhile, but it gets tiresome. Chicago and NYC definitely have a leg up on us for accessibility, mostly due to density.
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High end fine dining is a weak spot for us. We’ve recently started climbing up the Michelin list, but NYC and Chicago also have us beat in this category. Conversely, how often do you want to drop $500 on a meal? Michelin stars are great, but that’s not how most of us eat when we go out, so they’re sort of overrated.
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We don’t do cheese like the Midwest, I’m convinced no one does. Do not order curds or poutine here, you’re going to be disappointed.
IMO we excel in the $ to $$ price range. Food trucks and random planchas on the street will turn out food that blows your mind, and they’re literally everywhere. We also do well in the organic/healthy and locally grown categories.
I haven’t been to LA but I’ll also add, in the late 20th century a culinary movement sprung from California focused on fresh ingredients cooked simply. And as someone from the Midwest that’s what a lot of us think of LA food as. And crucially: we’re ass at it.
Primarily though its not to our tastes. Midwestern food, in addition to being influenced by the abundance of animal agricultural products, is also heavily influenced by the harsh winters. Food is high fat and hearty. Lots of canned and preserved foods. Its the mid century soup ad recipes that worked well enough to last.
All Midwestern critiques of LA food (such as oop) needs to be seen through that lens. Most midwesterners haven’t been there. They aren’t thinking guacamole, thats just ordinary food to them. They’re thinking fish tacos as prepared in St. Paul, some vegetables that were shipped across the country before being wood fired, and a bitter salad with a light vinegarette. It’s seen as fancy, unsatisfying, and generally unpleasant. And even worse, its all that while conforming to negative stereotypes they hold of Californians.
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Depends. It’s either a pound of cream cheese or a pound of HFCS. Bonus points for adding both to a dish.
Do people for reals buy HFCS for home baking? Like you can just go buy a jug at the grocery store? I’ve seen it in ingredients lists of packaged foods, but I’ve never seen the stuff itself IRL. (Gonna assume it looks roughly like syrup. Corn syrup maybe.)
It is corn syrup. And people buy it for cooking, not just companies. Think cookies and home-made candies.
Nah, high fructose corn syrup is a more heavily processed version of normal corn syrup.
The processing causes the glucose to break down into fructose, which is perceived as sweeter. In the end, it’s just different types of sugar in syrup form.
Who is using Hydrofluorocarbons in their cooking? That’s probably a bad idea. Heat plus HFCs is how you wind up inhaling hydrofluoric acid.
High Fructose Corn Syrup
You aint from Michigan if you neva done this
French cooking: add wine, cream, and butter.
And you’d better spend half a day stirring those onions on a level of heat you’d get from a cigarette lighter
Slow cooker. 👈🏼
The slow cooker is my best friend. Amazing invention. Throw food in, pass out from the heat, wake up to food! A+
Universal recipe for any regional specialty
Ingredients
‑ local meat (TN: actually a slang word for meat, I don’t know the equivalent in English)
‑ local fat
‑ local booze
‑ onionsPreparation
① Sauté the meat and the onions in the fat.
② Cover with booze.
③ Let simmer for ages.
④ Serve. Grandma’s tip: it’s better the day after.Comic by M. la Mine — reposted here
One of the most important influences on my life and cooking was a wonderful French woman who married a Brit and settled here. Quite apart from her tendency to ask my friends and I “how many are we for lunch” and cope with any number from 3 to 30, her approach to cooking was legendary and usually involved meat, butter, wine, and cream. That said, she did once try deep fried, leftover, spaghetti and that did not work at all!
I grew up in the midwest. We survived on processed ingredients. I now live in the Bay Area.
I tell my partner that I need the shitty Kraft cheese for my grilled cheese sandwich, not the cheeses from Whole Foods or Trader Joes, because that’s what I had growing up. I need the shitty ingredients for certain specific foods because I want that taste. It’s not a lot of meals, but a handful must match my childhood.
The Boar’s Head yellow American cheese is a great melter and actually has some cheese flavor compared to Kraft singles.
Honestly just better off getting a block of muenster
Cooper Sharp American cheese is where it’s at. If you know, you know.
You don’t really see Cooper Sharp in the Bay Area where OP is.
I’m in the Midwest now though and agree that’s a great option.
the microplastics give it that crunchyness
Kraft Singles are not cheese… Like literally, read the label, they’re not legally allowed to call it “cheese.”
It’s a shame because there are decent American cheeses, yet people equate “American cheese” with disgusting Kraft Singles.
“pasteurized cheese product” 🤢
Im not a cheese eater but I was under the impression that American cheese made a better grilled cheese because of the way it melts.
Its a different dish. American cheese is very melty but unless you go for some specialty shit or do some kitchen chemistry, its a very uncomplex cheese. It’ll taste like a blend of mild cheeses, predominantly unaged cheddar. That’s sometimes good, but one of cheese’s best features as a food is that it’s got a wide range of deeper flavors available. For the cozy familiar dish you go with the cozy familiar version. But those of us who love the depths of cheese and don’t have that craving, we often prefer more fancy cheese blends
That’s actually correct, and a lot of people like to give American cheese grief because it comes individually sliced and packaged in plastic, but in reality it’s just cheddar that has been reconstituted with extra milk. It can still be very high quality, with a uniquely creamy texture that is unmatched for a hot ham and cheese, or melting onto a burger.
that is true. normal sliced american cheese melts better than cheddar or other real cheese.
the cheap individually-wrapped ‘singles’ melt even easier… like velveeta does.
The cheese melts faster. But I’ve def had better grilled cheese with, like, provolone.
I think there is such a thing as fancy American cheese that actually tastes good, but I’ve never seen it or tasted it.
Kraft Deli Selects if you’re looking for prepackaged, otherwise a deli counter probably has it.
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Sodium citrate. Which I believe is there to allow the cheese to survive pasteurization, but it results in the texture and melting properties that make it the objectively correct choice for cheeseburgers. I still stand by provolone for cheesesteak sandwiches though.
That’s interesting. I would imagine the same with magnesium citrate would be more of a uh liberating experience.
And in that vein if you’re sufficiently adventurous you can americanize your cheeses of choice
Sounds accurate to me.
Confirmed
At the Minnesota State Faire last year, I had deep fried cheesecake batter. Yes, this is correct.
Eh, I’d eat it. Cheesecake slaps.
You have to have spam curds to go along with it to round out the meal, and wash it all down with a pint of dill pickle or mini donut beer.
Was it glorious?
I don’t think I’d have it again, tbh. The texture of the batter isn’t for me.
It’s gluttonous as hell, though, and for state faire food, that’s all that matters.
Disappointing, but probably better for my health. 😄
I just got a bbq pork chop on a stick and saw some local band called Slipknot when I went to the Iowa State Fair
chocolate covered frozen cheesecake is way better. but i got banned from the state fair for complaining about the awful heat so i dont go there anymore
Personally I don’t like the frozen cheesecake on a stick because for me the best part of cheesecake is the cheesecake texture
Cream cheese is universally beloved, even by those with lactose intolerance
I greatly dislike cream cheese
I an horribly wrong then, I take it back and I wish to go back to when I was a baby so that I can avoid ever having made this foolish assertion.
