Pizzas R Us, You Call That Pizza?!

[JimmyTheMook]

I don't know Pizza Big... who has time to go past Pattaya Klang...

It is worth the trip. So far IMO this may be the best pizza option in the Pattaya area.

[TEFLMike]

<H2 class=bodyTxt>Wheat & Grains http://' target="_blank"></H2>What is the most commonly used grain for flour?

There are many grains which can be milled, but common wheat has long been a favourite because it produces flour which is ideal for a wide range of cooking and baking.

What other grains can be used to make flour?

A whole host of other grains can be used to make flour including barley, buckwheat, maize (corn), gram, oats, rye, sorghum, soya and spelt.

What is durum wheat?

Durum wheat and common wheat are different species of wheat. Durum wheat is very hard and usually used to make flour and semolina for pasta.

What is spelt wheat?

Spelt wheat is ancient variety of wheat, which has a slightly nutty flavour. It is low in gluten, but high in protein, which makes it a more digestible for some people.

What is Endosperm?

The endosperm is the food reserve on which the young plant lives until is has developed a root system. The endosperm is the part of the grain milled to make white flour.

What is the Germ?

The embryo of the wheat plant with a radicle which can grow into roots and plumule which can develop into stems, leaves and ears. (The germ is present in wholemeal flour and can be added to white or brown flour (10%) to make wheatgerm flour).

What is the Bran?

Comprised of the pericarp which protects the grain and the inner seed coats which control the intake of water into seed. Most or all of the bran is present in wholemeal and brown flour, together with the endosperm.

What is Gluten?

Gluten is formed from the proteins in grains and becomes elastic in dough. As the dough ferments the gas which is released (carbon-dioxide) is caught in the elastic gluten which creates balloon-like bubbles. This causes the dough to rise.

What grains are gluten-free?

Gluten-free grains include buckwheat, gram and rice.

Where does the wheat used to make flour in the UK come from?

Around 82% of wheat used by UK flour millers is grown in the UK. Other wheats used in UK grists include North American,German and French.

What is the difference between a hard and soft wheat?

In the mill a hard wheat will break down into a more granular, free-flowing, easily sifted flour, while a soft wheat will produce a flour with finer, irregular particles, which tend to stick together slightly. Hard wheats tend to be high in gluten, soft wheats tend to be low in gluten.

[wilko]

Pasta is Italian for paste - anything made from flour and liquid.....

To make good Pizza dough you need a "hard" flour - hence a mixture containing "durum" flour from the Latin adjective Durus/a/um = hard

[Weho]

Pasta is Italian for paste - anything made from flour and liquid.....

To make good Pizza dough you need a "hard" flour - hence a mixture containing "durum" flour from the Latin adjective Durus/a/um = hard

I had no idea people on this board were so sophisticated... same for the prior poster.

I know I had some of that hard endosperm last week, and I can give it a very high recommendation.

Maybe this thread should now be moved to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgerder/multi gender/no genderr board.

[Ulysses G.]

I know I had some of that hard endosperm last week, and I can give it a very high recommendation.

Maybe this thread should now be moved to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgerder/multi gender/no genderr board.

Weho is a gay man, not a woman. Real girls don't say things like this!

[Jingthing]

I know I had some of that hard endosperm last week, and I can give it a very high recommendation.

Maybe this thread should now be moved to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgerder/multi gender/no genderr board.

Weho is a gay man, not a woman. Real girls don't say things like this!

You can't out someone who is already out.

[TEFLMike]

What? With all this talk about Edosperm flour, it is enought to put one off pizzas for life!

[SweeTips]

I know I had some of that hard endosperm last week, and I can give it a very high recommendation.

Maybe this thread should now be moved to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgerder/multi gender/no genderr board.

Weho is a gay man, not a woman. Real girls don't say things like this!

But the harmless little Laddie does seem a tad uptight at times, what what his issue is?

[Weho]

I know I had some of that hard endosperm last week, and I can give it a very high recommendation.

Maybe this thread should now be moved to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgerder/multi gender/no genderr board.

Weho is a gay man, not a woman. Real girls don't say things like this!

Maybe I'm a real butch lesbian, with a short haircut, flannel shirt, pickup truck, lots of cats, and wear isolation boots.

[wilko]

So, as I understand it, endosperm is what you get as the result of a good grind?

[Monkeypants]

when in Rome do as the romans, don't you Yanks know this ?

If you want the perfect cr@p pizza then have it in America.

You guy's whine to much, not to much, but over the top as ever.

Moan moan moan moan.

And yes I have been to the states,

Wouldn't go again though

Cos the yorkshire puddings are cr@p!!!

Whenever you Brits who "have been to the States" make judgements, I want to ask "Where in the States have you been?" It's an awfully big and diverse country, you know. Have you been to Las Vegas? Miami? New York? Boston? Nebraska? How long have you spent there? Have you been anything more than a tourist? Did you venture beyond Wendy's and Mc Donalds? Did you look for anything else than pubgrub?

America has thousands of cuisines and tens of thousands of restaurants. Unlike England, the US has absorbed generations of immigration and, in the urban centers like New York and San Francisco, generations of fine international cooking. In all its 300 years of empire, Britannia aborbed nothing more than vidaloo and soggy Chinese food. Chicken curry is still the English idea of exotic cuisine.

I find your "crap pizza" remark typical of the provincialism and insularity of the British, who, until a few years ago, were eating pasties and beans on toast almost exclusively. Now that they can cross the Channel for cheap cigarettes and booze, they have expanded their tastes somewhat. But what you find wherever the yobbo British settle in droves -- the coast of Spain, Normandy, and, yes, Pattaya -- is a proliferation of steak and kidney.

You can find more varied and delicious food on Second Avenue in Manhattan, or along the No 7 Subway line in Queens, or in San Francisco, or in many other American urban centers than you can in London (forget about other English cities).

Anyone who judges the cuisine of a country of 280 million by the availability of Cornish pasties is quaint.

Among many benefits of 1776 was independence from English food.

By the way, Dean and DeLuca, on 14th Street and 8th Avenue has excellent pasties, and other savouries.

I have been to the states , lived there for a while in Denver, travelled around a fair bit too.

The OP was moaning about the quality of pizzas in Thailand.

I (tongue in cheek) said that the reason for me not liking the states was the fact that they can't make a decent yorkshire pudding, i.e when in Rome.

It amazes me how you fail to see the Irony of it all!

Say's it all to me.

If you want REAL Pizza live in Italy,otherwise quit your moaning girls!

Edited August 21, 2007 by Monkeypants

[elkangorito]

Has anyone discovered that Thailand, like some other countries, go overboard with sugar in food? I lived in Argentina for a while & the bread there was insipidly vile. To be precise, it was sugar with a bit of bread added. I must admit that the processed bread here is not three bad.

[wilko]

Bread in

Thailand is baked Portuguese style which is also quite common in Spain...this has a lot of sugar in it - and would probably explain why it's like that in Argentina -

[wilko]

Real Pizza - Italy only I'm afraid.

[Ulysses G.]

Real AMERICAN pizza - New York I'm afraid.

[Jingthing]

This is silly.

There is great pizza out of Italy.

There is great sushi out of Japan.

There is great tom yum goong out of Thailand.

There is great Mexican food out of Mexico (but not in Thailand).

Globalization of food. We are living it and ain't we lucky?

[wilko]

First you need to know how to make the base!

Whereas I would eat (and enjoy?) some American "pizzas", I find it hard to call them "pizza" -apart from being a round bread-based comestible, they are it would seem, some strange offspring of pizza - bastardised is the term I think.

Edited August 21, 2007 by wilko

[Jingthing]

First you need to know how to make the base!

Whereas I would eat (and enjoy?) some American "pizzas", I find it hard to call them "pizza" -apart from being a round bread-based comestible, they are it would seem, some strange offspring of pizza - bastardised is the term I think.

I am completely amazed by your thought process. Diverse America has over 300 million people and as pizza is a top food choice in America, there must be thousands and thousands of pizza providers. And countless pizza styles on offer. Given those incredible odds, surely many of those providers are better than some random choice in Italy. You think there is something in the American genetic structure that makes making or appreciating good pizza impossible?

Edited August 21, 2007 by Jingthing

[elkangorito]

Bread in

Thailand is baked Portuguese style which is also quite common in Spain...this has a lot of sugar in it - and would probably explain why it's like that in Argentina -

I lived in BsAs for about a year. It was only the processed bread that was chock-full of sugar. The 'real' bread, which could be bought from the panaderia, was very similar to Australian bread - low sugar.

[wilko]

First you need to know how to make the base!

Whereas I would eat (and enjoy?) some American "pizzas", I find it hard to call them "pizza" -apart from being a round bread-based comestible, they are it would seem, some strange offspring of pizza - bastardised is the term I think.

I am completely amazed by your thought process. Diverse America has over 300 million people and as pizza is a top food choice in America, there must be thousands and thousands of pizza providers. And countless pizza styles on offer. Given those incredible odds, surely many of those providers are better than some random choice in Italy. You think there is something in the American genetic structure that makes making or appreciating good pizza impossible?

you barking up the wrong tree.......choice and numbers of people has nothing to do with it...millions of people voted for Hitler in the 30s and lots of people smoke cigarettes.....

If you have ever eaten Italian pizza you will know what a pizza should look/taste like - you may not even like it but that is a pizza - whatever they produce in USA is a bastardised version and should really be called something else - it often is - e.g. tagging the word "pie" on the end....

there are some pretty well established socio-economic reasons why "Pizza" in US is so unlike the original and most of them lead to a lower quality product that bears little or no resemblance to a Pizza.

I'm not saying they're all not edible or that you can't eat what you like - (I see USA hasd dropped from number 11 to 42 in the life expectancy tables) but just don't think you're eating Pizza - it's the same as in the States when they play "football"....

[Jingthing]

OK Wilko, thanks for exposing your thought processes! I have had pizza in Italy and have had the exact same style in the US. Heck, I used to even bake my own totally Italian style pizza right in my own USA kitchen! (Using lovely imported Italian ingredients, yes you can buy them there.) I agree there are plenty of things to criticize about the US that are valid, but lack of access to all kinds of good pizza at least in sophisticated urban areas ain't one of them. Plenty of bad pizza available too, no doubt. I also agree with you that the classic Italian style is not a popular style in the US, but it is definitely available. I also think the variations are stlll pizza.

Edited August 21, 2007 by Jingthing

[wilko]

I'm sure you can buy bad pizzas in Italy - I think I've even seen some US franchises there.

Strangely enough I think it is a particular characteristic of Italian food that although it appears deceptively simple, it doesn't travel. I spent nearly 2 decades doing business in Italy and as a result am very reluctant to eat Italian food outside the country, having had so many bad experiences. Ingredients are not a problem in Europe but getting them cooked right is.....there are many Italians who set up restaurants around the world who really shouldn't be allowed in a kitchen and there are many Italians who CAN cook who get equally frustrated by the lack of good Italian food available outside the country. Just using the same ingredients as any cook will tell you does not guarantee success.

PS it's not "Italian Style" pizza .... it's simply "Pizza", anything else is just not Pizza...can you have a US style Lamborghini?

[Humphrey Bear]

Wilko - agree with you completely on this subject.

But the American-style adaptation of many different foods is becoming universal.

It is cheap, quick and easy to prepare, can be produced in bulk and thus undercuts the traditional 'local' dish - even in the country / area of origin.

Although JingThing is correct in that the US presents a market of 300 million, and thus a very large homogenous market - the American is one of the least travelled of all industrialised peoples. They are happy in their isolation and only travel abroad to shoot people (TV members excepted, of course).

[Jingthing]

Nope.

Its an incredibly diverse market.

Yes, dumbed down mass market stuff is cheap and easy to get. But such a large country allows for thousands of NICHE markets for better quality, higher cost.

San Francisco is over half people of Chinese descent. A huge percentage of Americans weren't even born or raised there. Where do people get such ignorant myths about America?

I think you are confusing the EXPORTED mass market American crap products with the reality on the ground in the country's incredible diverse and sophisticated cities.

It is true that Americans don't travel as much as Europeans or Aussies.

However, many of them say, why should I travel abroad when we have the entire world and their food INCLUDING PIZZAS here? And any climate you can think of within the borders. They have a point there.

Edited August 21, 2007 by Jingthing

[Humphrey Bear]

I think you are confusing the EXPORTED mass market American crap products with the reality on the ground in the country's incredible diverse and sophisticated cities.

Sooooo the export market is not the stuff you can get in US.

Then why the blue blazes is this thread so full of complaints about "Why can't we get the same as back home?"

Simple - it's the crap that's exported.

[Jingthing]

I think you are confusing the EXPORTED mass market American crap products with the reality on the ground in the country's incredible diverse and sophisticated cities.

Sooooo the export market is not the stuff you can get in US.

Then why the blue blazes is this thread so full of complaints about "Why can't we get the same as back home?"

Simple - it's the crap that's exported.

I am not sure what you are asking. Of course, you can get crap mass market American food in the US. And it is very popular. But there is much better quality and diversity available for the millions of people there that value it and are willing to pay for it. You can't exactly mass market export a one off gourmet bistro. There are also great native gourmet ingredients available in the markets. I am not sure why they aren't exported more, but the wine at least certainly is.

Its just kind of annoying. I know its hard to pardon the US for electing Bush, but this myth that all Americans don't know about or care about good food or that the US doesn't have great food for those that want it and can afford it just crosses a line. I guess these are the same people who say the US doesn't have any highbrow culture. Just read the New York Times weekend entertainment section to be relieved of that notion.

Also, expats in general often miss silly things, not necessarily the best gourmet stuff. Often it is the comfort food kinds of things that remind us of a cozy childhood, before we developed sophisticated palates. Maybe we also tend to miss stereotypical items that remind us of our now ambiguous nationality. In my case, for some strange reason I want to eat hamburgers once in while here in Thailand, when as an adult in the US, I could go several years without wanting one.

Edited August 21, 2007 by Jingthing

[wilko]

What the States have done to food - and others have followed, is industrialise it or replace cooking with "processing" - this leads to an homogenisation in many aspects and a use of somewhat dubious methods to make people by the stuff - e.g. flavour enhancers and appetite stimulants rather than real taste and ingredients - there is also the emphasis on quantity over quality. Quality itself is then promoted as a few specific features that the company emphasises rather than the overall quality - e.g. the selling of beef steak using "tenderness" as the number one criteria with no reference to the taste.....(it's easy to produce a tender steak)

As for the general importation of foreign foods they tend to be "adapted" for sale in the US and then regurgitated on unsuspecting less sophisticated markets using aggressive sales and market infiltration techniques.

The result is companies make a fortune selling salt, sugar and fat as food all around the world to the detriment of local markets and real food providers.

[wilko]

Nope.

Its an incredibly diverse market.

Yes, dumbed down mass market stuff is cheap and easy to get. But such a large country allows for thousands of NICHE markets for better quality, higher cost.

San Francisco is over half people of Chinese descent. A huge percentage of Americans weren't even born or raised there. Where do people get such ignorant myths about America?

I think you are confusing the EXPORTED mass market American crap products with the reality on the ground in the country's incredible diverse and sophisticated cities.

It is true that Americans don't travel as much as Europeans or Aussies.

However, many of them say, why should I travel abroad when we have the entire world and their food INCLUDING PIZZAS here? And any climate you can think of within the borders. They have a point there.

I'm not sure you are fully aware of the cultural diversity in Britain alone...let alone the rest of Europe.

Recently London was declared the most culturally diverse city in the world-- sorry no reference for that!

Plymouth not known for it's cultural diversity has the one of the biggest Chinese communiies in the UK and over 100 registered languages

[Ulysses G.]

- there is also the emphasis on quantity over quality. Quality itself is then promoted as a few specific features that the company emphasises rather than the overall quality - e.g. the selling of beef steak using "tenderness" as the number one criteria with no reference to the taste.....(it's easy to produce a tender steak)

You are a perfect example of someone who SOUNDS like they know what they are talking about, but don't know sh*t from shinola. American beef is the best in the world compared to anything in the same price range - Kobi beef is better, but 20 times more expensive.

By the way, London may be the "most culturally diverse city in the world", but other than a few insanely expensive restaurants, the food quality usually lives up to its bad reputation around the world. No wonder so many old people on the dole seem to prefer canned dog food to the slop served in most English pubs.

Edited August 22, 2007 by Ulysses G.

[elkangorito]

First you need to know how to make the base!

Whereas I would eat (and enjoy?) some American "pizzas", I find it hard to call them "pizza" -apart from being a round bread-based comestible, they are it would seem, some strange offspring of pizza - bastardised is the term I think.

I am completely amazed by your thought process. Diverse America has over 300 million people and as pizza is a top food choice in America, there must be thousands and thousands of pizza providers. And countless pizza styles on offer. Given those incredible odds, surely many of those providers are better than some random choice in Italy. You think there is something in the American genetic structure that makes making or appreciating good pizza impossible?

you barking up the wrong tree.......choice and numbers of people has nothing to do with it...millions of people voted for Hitler in the 30s and lots of people smoke cigarettes.....

If you have ever eaten Italian pizza you will know what a pizza should look/taste like - you may not even like it but that is a pizza - whatever they produce in USA is a bastardised version and should really be called something else - it often is - e.g. tagging the word "pie" on the end....

there are some pretty well established socio-economic reasons why "Pizza" in US is so unlike the original and most of them lead to a lower quality product that bears little or no resemblance to a Pizza.

I'm not saying they're all not edible or that you can't eat what you like - (I see USA hasd dropped from number 11 to 42 in the life expectancy tables) but just don't think you're eating Pizza - it's the same as in the States when they play "football"....

I gotta agree with wilko - the poor bloody septics have been eating crap food for ages, thanks to allowing themselves to be brainwashed by idiot governments who let corporations do terrible things to otherwise perfectly edible food.

Actually, my sister & brother-in-law spent about a month in septic tank land & had great difficulty finding 'real' food. The first thing my sister said to me when she got back was, "What you see on TV is correct - the yanks DO eat loads of crap food".

BTW, pizza was invented by the Chinese.