Pizzas R Us, You Call That Pizza?!

[Ulysses G.]

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".

They couldn't find any plain gruel, bowel and kidney pies or sawdust and chicken dropping sausages and they didn't recognize beef that didn't have to be cut with a chainsaw, so they didn't know what to eat.

[wilko]

The best in the world - a rather subjective perspective - there has to be some subjectivity in this....but as the comments above illustrate -the American taste in food is largely based on prejudice and the repetitive consumption of familiar foods

Plain gruel is called consommé in some circles, bowel is eaten here in Thailand with relish and used by real sausage-makers for the skin thereof, when it comes to kidneys - why is it that so many people reduce the organs they will eat of a dead animal to only one - the muscles? Good calves’ liver is more expensive than the finest steak (imported or otherwise) in Italy (BTW - ever eaten Aberdeen Angus - not the chain the real McCoy). sawdust - if you mean cereals - they have been an important ingredient as in a binder of foods for centuries and do away with the need for a lot of chemical additives.

I am NOT a fan of beef or steak myself - the world is full of much more interesting foods - but as I pointed out earlier this idea that if beef is "tender" it must be good is a load of that wonderful offal product – baloney. I’m not suggesting it should be tough but that there are also many, many other criteria by which I would judge a lump of dead bullock….(castrated bull – related to the above post?) - Most US beef is fed on grain as Sweet grass is unavailable due to the climate – so they make a big thing out of “corn-fed” and put a yellow dye in to make the fat look better.

To tenderise meat you can treat it with chemicals or hang it – US meat has a reputation for chemicals and hormones it is also hung longer than allowed in the EU.– if the market is educated to eat this ultra- processed product and knows no better that’s what they eat – unfortunately it is seldom like real meat.

So this is a glorious example of what the American food industry has reduced it’s customers to………

…..

“They couldn't find any plain gruel, bowel and kidney pies or sawdust and chicken dropping sausages and they didn't recognize beef that didn't have to be cut with a chainsaw, so they didn't know what to eat.”……..

In the end the industrialisation of US food and the expectancies of an unsophisticated, hungry (greedy?) over-weight public has given rise to a nation that wouldn’t know a decent pizza if you smacked ‘em in the face with it

–

Edited August 22, 2007 by wilko

[elkangorito]

What's that great lump of 'singing' food called again? That's right! Meatloaf........"You took the words right out of my mouth", wilko.

[Jingthing]

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".

I would be curious to know where your relatives were in the US. If they spent any time in one of our great cities and did a smidgen of research, they would have been hooked up with fantastic food and witnessed actual Americans savoring it. Could be they were typical yahoo tourists going to the typical yahoo tourist traps where I admit there would be crap food on offer. For real food fans, just go directly to San Francisco (away from the tourist trap areas) for a month, pick up a local newspaper with a restaurant review section (or buy some of the hundreds of books available on the subject of San Francisco restaurants), and eat. You won't be coming back with those ignorant comments which are more a result of their behavior than what is available. Or do the same thing in New York for three times the cost, up 2 u.

Heres something to get your mouth watering:

http://sfgate.com/food/top100/2007/

On a tight budget. No problem! These are my favorites anyway, mostly ethnic places:

http://www.sfgate.com/food/bargains/

If an Aussie goes to Pattaya walking street and spends a month and says all Thailand is a brothel, would you believe that?

BTW, I have eaten around Sydney after researching the restaurants extensively. It was excellent, but not as great a restaurant city as San Francisco. Still looking forward to doing the same in Melbourne.

Edited August 22, 2007 by Jingthing

[wilko]

PS - in 2005 15 of the worlds top 50 restaurants were in the UK pop 65 million - that is now dropped to 7 against 8 from the US - kind of takes the sting out of 300 million people?

The current figures are 38 in Europe and 8 in the US....I know where I'd rather eat - and Yes! in CAN cost a fortune - show me where I can buy a Picasso for a hundred bucks....

[Jingthing]

PS - in 2005 15 of the worlds top 50 restaurants were in the UK pop 65 million - that is now dropped to 7 against 8 from the US - kind of takes the sting out of 300 million people?

The current figures are 38 in Europe and 8 in the US....I know where I'd rather eat - and Yes! in CAN cost a fortune - show me where I can buy a Picasso for a hundred bucks....

I never said there isn't great food available in Oz, Europe, UK, Thailand, etc. Not really a competition. Its just that people who say you can't get great food in the US are more on some kind of anti-American political agenda than describing reality.

[wilko]

2005 - the United States-based Gourmet Magazine declaring London “The best place to eat on the planet,”

"Best American Restaurant:

The French Laundry, California " - It's a FRENCH one?? - bet there's a French (or a Brit) in the kitchen!

Edited August 22, 2007 by wilko

[Jingthing]

2005 - the United States-based Gourmet Magazine declaring London “The best place to eat on the planet,”

"Best American Restaurant:

The French Laundry, California " - It's a FRENCH one?? - bet there's a French (or a Brit) in the kitchen!

Congrats, but what about 2007? Really, who cares. Thats not really the point. Eating good food isn't the Olympics. And how many of us to afford to eat at the top restaurants in the world very often?

[Jingthing]

2005 - the United States-based Gourmet Magazine declaring London “The best place to eat on the planet,”

"Best American Restaurant:

The French Laundry, California " - It's a FRENCH one?? - bet there's a French (or a Brit) in the kitchen!

Not exactly:

The food is mainly contemporary American with French influences, often based upon American food concepts and phrases but prepared according to high French culinary preparations, while drawing upon the entire planet for inspiration. Most of the dishes are culinarily extravagant and dramatically presented with a staff ready and willing to discuss each dish's ingredients. The staff moves in synchronization and throws in special touches like presenting various butters, noting various types of salts and bringing truffles out in special made boxes to add to the effect of the occasion.

[Ulysses G.]

If you ask Yahoo Answers the question, "Who has the worst food in the world"? This is your answer:

Resolved Question

Worst food in world? Which country has the worst food in the world.

England often gets given the title for the worst food in the world.

http://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index...09033453AA50VKi

[elkangorito]

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".

I would be curious to know where your relatives were in the US. If they spent any time in one of our great cities and did a smidgen of research, they would have been hooked up with fantastic food and witnessed actual Americans savoring it. Could be they were typical yahoo tourists going to the typical yahoo tourist traps where I admit there would be crap food on offer. For real food fans, just go directly to San Francisco (away from the tourist trap areas) for a month, pick up a local newspaper with a restaurant review section (or buy some of the hundreds of books available on the subject of San Francisco restaurants), and eat. You won't be coming back with those ignorant comments which are more a result of their behavior than what is available. Or do the same thing in New York for three times the cost, up 2 u.

Heres something to get your mouth watering:

http://sfgate.com/food/top100/2007/

On a tight budget. No problem! These are my favorites anyway, mostly ethnic places:

http://www.sfgate.com/food/bargains/

If an Aussie goes to Pattaya walking street and spends a month and says all Thailand is a brothel, would you believe that?

BTW, I have eaten around Sydney after researching the restaurants extensively. It was excellent, but not as great a restaurant city as San Francisco. Still looking forward to doing the same in Melbourne.

Actually, they were far from being the typical yahoo tourists as you so eloquently put it. They hired a car (from where, I've no idea) & drove quite a substantial distance AWAY from most of the tourist areas. They wanted to see 'normal' USA (if there is such a thing) & they saw it. It was in 'normal' USA where they had to search or ask many people just to find a place that sold meals with real vegetables. In the end, they just looked for the biggest hotel in the area, which usually had a half decent resaurant that sold real food.

BTW, I'm glad you liked Sydney food but the 'real' food is not in Sydney. As a matter of fact, Australia is getting a bit like the US - more & more food is being 'processed. More chemicals are used in food. Where I come from, we grew our own meat & veges, which tasted great compared to that manufactered crap that is sold in the cities.

Thai food...now that's yummy & good for you. I wonder why you don't see many blubbering obese Thai bodies? I wonder why the opposite exists in the western world, especially the USA?

AS for Thai pizza, it makes vomit taste delicious (by comparison).

Edited August 22, 2007 by elkangorito

[Jingthing]

OK, well then, the normal USA is not so good for food. If you mean what we call "the sticks". In the USA the best food is definitely in more abnormal places like San Francisco and New York. If you start driving randomly to suburban USA you will find the same chain restaurants from one end of the country to another. It is crap. If they were looking for good food, they looked for it the wrong way.

[wilko]

If you ask Yahoo Answers the question, "Who has the worst food in the world"? This is your answer:

Resolved Question

Worst food in world? Which country has the worst food in the world.

England often gets given the title for the worst food in the world.

http://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index...09033453AA50VKi

England??? an Americanism for United Kingdom???

Could you actually explain the validation behind using that quote?

It appears to be a question off a chat forum - a troll no less.

I mean you didn't need to look for that it would have been just as easy (and valid) to simply type it.

Edited August 22, 2007 by wilko

[wilko]

2005 - the United States-based Gourmet Magazine declaring London “The best place to eat on the planet,”

"Best American Restaurant:

The French Laundry, California " - It's a FRENCH one?? - bet there's a French (or a Brit) in the kitchen!

Congrats, but what about 2007? Really, who cares. Thats not really the point. Eating good food isn't the Olympics. And how many of us to afford to eat at the top restaurants in the world very often?

sorry that was 2007....

[wilko]

Yes - sad to say Oz does slip into American food processing ways on many occasions. And also suffers from "adaptions" of European Food - or to give it a trendy name "fusion" - "confusion" would be more appropriate

[Humphrey Bear]

OK, well then, the normal USA is not so good for food. If you mean what we call "the sticks". In the USA the best food is definitely in more abnormal places like San Francisco and New York. If you start driving randomly to suburban USA you will find the same chain restaurants from one end of the country to another. It is crap. If they were looking for good food, they looked for it the wrong way.

I come from Cambridge, in England (the original and the best).

We have several high quality restaurants in and around the city - mainly because the ingredients are grown locally and are FRESH. On the average evening there is a good proportion of diners from London, who have driven up the M11 for less than an hour to enjoy these treats.

SF is reputed to have good sea-food, but I have never been there.

I have been to Houston several times, either on a Fluor Daniel expense account or similar, and have been entertained by the local managers. The food has been adequate, but never great.

I have been to Florida - did not enjoy any good food there.

I have been to Washington DC and Baltimore. Very overpriced food, but some of good quality.

But the main thing - wherever I went in the States, was the preponderance of fast food chains and fry-up places. Everything had to be prepared and served immeiately, if not sooner. This leads to having too much salt (taste enhancer), too much grease from the quick-cook and ingredients that could be stored without going bad / pulled out and cooked without further preparation.

Heat it - Eat it - Beat it is the watchword of the US food industry.

[Ulysses G.]

If you ask Yahoo Answers the question, "Who has the worst food in the world"? This is your answer:

Resolved Question

Worst food in world? Which country has the worst food in the world.

England often gets given the title for the worst food in the world.

http://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index...09033453AA50VKi

England??? an Americanism for United Kingdom???

Could you actually explain the validation behind using that quote?

It appears to be a question off a chat forum - a troll no less.

I mean you didn't need to look for that it would have been just as easy (and valid) to simply type it.

I have NO idea where you come up with "a chat forum". Yahoo Answers is a search engine that answers questions - like ask.com.

By the way, if you type "Which country has the worst food in the world? at ask.com, you get this article:

Chirac jokes about British food

French President Jacques Chirac is reported to have cracked jokes about British food at a meeting with the German and Russian leaders.

French newspaper Liberation says Gerhard Schroeder and Vladimir Putin laughed and joined in the banter.

"One cannot trust people whose cuisine is so bad," it quotes Mr Chirac saying.

A spokesman for Mr Chirac said the report did not reflect "the tone or the content" of the meeting, but stopped short of issuing a categorical denial.

The only thing they (the English) have ever done for European agriculture is mad cow disease

Jacques Chirac

The comments, made within earshot of reporters, come in the run-up to the G8 summit in Scotland later this week.

The three leaders met on Sunday for celebrations to mark the 750th anniversary of the founding of Kaliningrad, formerly known as Koenigsberg, an exclave of Russia surrounded by Poland and Lithuania.

"The only thing they have ever done for European agriculture is mad cow disease," Mr Chirac said, according to the newspaper's report.

Edited August 23, 2007 by Ulysses G.

[Ulysses G.]

I have been to Florida - did not enjoy any good food there.

We all know that the US has a lot of fast-food chains - as England has a lot of seedy pubs - however there are plenty of full service restaurants and great food all over the US if you actually look for it.

Just one example from your list: Florida has all kinds of amazing seafood, great Jewish delis, wonderful fresh Cuban cuisine and great restaurants from all over the world. Have you never heard of Key Lime Pie? If you didn't find any "good food" there I would suggest that it was either from lack of looking or lack of knowledge about good food.

Edited August 23, 2007 by Ulysses G.

[Jingthing]

Also really good Caribbean food! Jerky, pallao rice, goat curry, goat rotis, fresh ginger beer. Don't get me started ...

Yeah, good eats in Florida for sure. There are lots of regional cuisines all over the US. Great country for food.

Edited August 23, 2007 by Jingthing

[kopite]

im italian also, and i kinda agree with what khunmarco says, and to be honest, speak to any italian anywhere in the world and he will say the same things.

Pizza, Pasta, Antipasti, Risotto, Secondi do not exist out of italy.

BUT, you do get the ambience, you do get the wine and the joy of eating with friends etc.

i do enjoy eating american *cough* pies *cough*. but for me/us its not pizza. neither is it pasta (the worst copy anywhere you go in the world)

its just impossible to re-produce outside of italy. all good italian food is made from fresh produce and LOCAL ingredients, if your missing one thing, then its gone.

but theres nothing wrong with liking dishes that are kinda the same.

to each his own

[Jingthing]

kopite,

Unless you eat at ALL of the thousands of quality Italian restaurants in the world outside Italy, you are just voicing your national chauvinism, and nothing more. Good Italian food doesn't exist outside Italy? Its comical that anyone actually believes that.

When you go to San Francisco, try Delfina, for example, and then tell us what you think about it:

http://www.delfinasf.com/menu.html

Restaurants Worth Building a Trip Around by Cory Kummer

December 2001 Hide the article

“It’s the only new place that tastes right,” Carol Field, a novelist and writer of authoritative books on Italian food, told me on late-August morning at the Saturday San Francisco farmers’ market-foodie central in a food-crazed city. “Right” is a foodie code for “really good”, so I made sure to dine at Delfina twice on that trip. I saw why Field, a longtime friend thought it could be mentioned in the same breath as our Bay Area trinity of Chez Panisse, Oliveto and Zuni Café: Delfina has their simplicity, basic Italian vocabulary, and desire to show off what’s local and freshest. It also has the low prices that those restaurants had before they became landmarks.

Delfina now occupies two storefronts (it expanded last February) on a neat block in the Mission District that retains some 1960s Haight funk even as it undergoes the transformation that has revived the adjoining area known as South of Market. It’s next door to the Lady Baltimore Cake Co., an unreconstructed 1960s bakery whose high layer cakes might well have inspired the artist Wayne Thiebaud, and near the Bi-Rite Market, a combination general and grocery store whose second-generation owner has restored it to its streamlined 1940s splendor.

The décor of the restaurant is industrial modern on a budget, with wooden benches, brushed-steel tabletops, and light-yellow walls exhibiting changing displays of art. The hard surfaces and continual crowds make for loud dining, especially in the original half, which has a pleasant bar near the open kitchen: the second storefront, which doubled the seating capacity to seventy, has the audial if not visual blessing of industrial gray quilting along the top of one wall. The best place to sit is at the long counter in the new room, which offers views of the other diners and what they’re eating and also, by means of a tilted mirror under the quilt, a good view of kitchen activities.

Other friends warned me of long waits and indifferent service – the price of Delfina’s great popularity since it opened, three years ago. Before each of my dinners there I called in the afternoon and got a (late) reservation. I found the young, informal staff members, who sport the tattoos and body ornaments typical of the neighborhood, to be friendly, knowledgeable, and free of the arrogance that often typifies a hot-ticket place.

Delfina’s menu is short and printed daily, sparing everyone the recitation of specials. It changed substantially over the three August nights I was in San Francisco, demonstrating the chef’s close attention to what comes available each morning. But several dishes never go off the menu, and when I tasted them, I understood why. One is an appetizer of grilled fresh calamari with warm white-bean salad, a common enough dish but unusually good in this case – less for the fresh squid (I live in Boston, where it’s easy to come by) than for the white beans, seasoned with local sage and garlic. I liked the homemade lamb sausage with picked onions, too – especially for the tiny flageolet beans to the side, celadon-green Chiclets shapes with the delicate flavor of baby limas. Another standard is roast chicken (served with mashed Yukon gold potatoes and shiitake mushrooms), a contender, together with Zuni’s version, for the city’s best, and for similar reasons – good locally raised chicken, heavy use of herbs, and expert roasting. Then there’s the price: $12.00.

The menu fixture I would happily eat every night is a salad of bitter greens pancetta, walnuts, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. The peppery greens are maroon-accented with shredded radicchio, the toasted walnuts are almost as meaty as the locally cured pancetta, and the balsamic vinaigrette is as creamy as an old-fashioned boiled dressing. I would also take a chance on any pasta dish, given the full, immediate flavor of the two I tried: soft fresh tagliarini tossed with summer squash and squash blossoms, and al dente spaghetti with plum tomatoes, garlic, and chili flakes.

The wines, most of them Californian or Italian, are reasonably priced, with a good selection by the glass. I considered it part of experiencing the local culture to try the Cold Heaven viognier, from the Edna Valley, which offers the full, fruity body people want in Chardonnay without the boring oak. A better match with most the menu, though, is the spicy Schuetz Oles zinfandel, from the Napa Valley. The desserts are plain and very tempting: a buttermilk panna cotta, for example, and a lattice-topped plum tart with deep-purple juices bubbling over dark strips of pastry.

Many chefs try dishes like these, but they don’t have the skill of Delfina’s chef, Craig Stoll, who worked for a time in Italy but trained mostly in Bay Area restaurants. One of the tricks he took from Italy is sautéing pasta for a minute or two with its sauce and final ingredients before sending it out (those mirrors give a very good view of thestoves). He naturally absorbed the Bay Area ethos of buying from local farms – an ethos that emanated from Chez Panisse and that I wish pervaded the entire country, not just a few enlightened pockets.

Delfina’s success has already been a local inspiration. Stoll and his partner and wife, Anne Stoll, opened their restaurant “on credit cards”, a talented young chef named Tasha Prysi told me during my stay, with a starry, I-can-do-it-too light in her eyes. I hope she does follow their example, soon – and in a less blessed city.

Delfina, 3621 Eighteenth Street, San Francisco, 415-552-4055. Dinner 5:30 – 10:00 Sunday through Thursday and until 11:00 Friday and Saturday. Reservations and Visa and MasterCard accepted.

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

Edited August 23, 2007 by Jingthing

[brooklynbridge]

OK, well then, the normal USA is not so good for food. If you mean what we call "the sticks". In the USA the best food is definitely in more abnormal places like San Francisco and New York. If you start driving randomly to suburban USA you will find the same chain restaurants from one end of the country to another. It is crap. If they were looking for good food, they looked for it the wrong way.

I come from Cambridge, in England (the original and the best).

We have several high quality restaurants in and around the city - mainly because the ingredients are grown locally and are FRESH. On the average evening there is a good proportion of diners from London, who have driven up the M11 for less than an hour to enjoy these treats.

SF is reputed to have good sea-food, but I have never been there.

I have been to Houston several times, either on a Fluor Daniel expense account or similar, and have been entertained by the local managers. The food has been adequate, but never great.

I have been to Florida - did not enjoy any good food there.

I have been to Washington DC and Baltimore. Very overpriced food, but some of good quality.

But the main thing - wherever I went in the States, was the preponderance of fast food chains and fry-up places. Everything had to be prepared and served immeiately, if not sooner. This leads to having too much salt (taste enhancer), too much grease from the quick-cook and ingredients that could be stored without going bad / pulled out and cooked without further preparation.

Heat it - Eat it - Beat it is the watchword of the US food industry.

I didn't realize that fish and chips shops have disappeared from England. Tough for the newspaper industry!

[Tinkelbell]

I have been to Florida - did not enjoy any good food there.

We all know that the US has a lot of fast-food chains - as England has a lot of seedy pubs - however there are plenty of full service restaurants and great food all over the US if you actually look for it.

Just one example from your list: Florida has all kinds of amazing seafood, great Jewish delis, wonderful fresh Cuban cuisine and great restaurants from all over the world. Have you never heard of Key Lime Pie? If you didn't find any "good food" there I would suggest that it was either from lack of looking or lack of knowledge about good food.

Also I'd like to ask 'HB' since he claims not to enjoy the food in Florida.

Have you tried the Florida signature dish : Stonecrab claws ?

Japan imports this special claws from Florida to sell in Tokyo restaurants at 95USD a plate ( customer gets around 1 1/2 lb. in weigh).

[wilko]

Believe what you like about Yahoo Answers - it isd still an unreferenced chat forum.

You still show no sign of even looking like you know anything especially your confusion about British/English and who said what.....really it's so pathetic - if I wanted anti-American quotes do think I'd have any difficulty in finding them?

the post is about decent Pizza in Thailand my argument is that USA wouldn't know a good one if it crept down their throat and lay on it's back in their bellies making rude noises.

BUT - the idea that if someone says US food is poor that saying another country is poor too doesn't really cut the mustard, because it still doesn't actually deny that USA food is in general crap and the national appreciation of good food is very low.

I have no intetion of defending the Brits or the English on this posting they can do that themselves -

[Jai Dee]

the post is about decent Pizza in Thailand...

Exactly - can we please stay on topic?

[wilko]

I know many people - not only Italians who won't or avoid eating Italian food outside Italy - it just doesn't travel - I could offer some theories why but I'm in the middle of a stream of invection for Thaibeachlover on another thread

[Ulysses G.]

the post is about decent Pizza in Thailand my argument is that USA wouldn't know a good one if it crept down their throat and lay on it's back in their bellies making rude noises.

BUT - the idea that if someone says US food is poor that saying another country is poor too doesn't really cut the mustard, because it still doesn't actually deny that USA food is in general crap and the national appreciation of good food is very low.

I have no intetion of defending the Brits or the English on this posting they can do that themselves -

How would a Brit know anything about good pizza in Thailand or any place else?

Most of the posters who go on and on about how "terrible" American food is are British - including wilco - and since their food is widely known by everybody to be the worst garbage in the world, I would suggest that their opinions don't really matter. You don't go to a trashman to discuss diamonds!

I'm a British national with a non-immigrant "B" visa for Thailand.

[Humphrey Bear]

Also I'd like to ask 'HB' since he claims not to enjoy the food in Florida.

Have you tried the Florida signature dish : Stonecrab claws ?

Japan imports this special claws from Florida to sell in Tokyo restaurants at 95USD a plate ( customer gets around 1 1/2 lb. in weigh).

Due to a medical condition (gout) I do not eat shellfish. Nor offal. Various other minor irritations, but there is enough food that I can eat that I do not really miss these things after 30 years on this diet.

You septics do get stroppy over food, don't you?

Lighten up - it's only food!

And bringing that great Anglophobe - JC - into the discussion - the man really thinks he is JC. Have you seen his paternal lectures to the French people. Treats everyone as being his six-year-old child.

Not JC - more Pontification Pilate.

[wilko]

What the postings are trying to establish is to make a judgment about a pizza one would need to have eaten a real Pizza and realised it was a good one - then one could say that the vast majority of Pizzas in Thailand don't even qualify as Pizza, let alone a good one.

[elkangorito]

I rather enjoy the pizzas that the Pizza Company makes. Still, not a patch on my 'home made' ones but at least they don't put mayonnaise on everything. Why are Thais obsessed with mayonnaise...especially on pizzas? That's like putting tomato sauce on ice-cream. YUK!!!!