Seeing that both vegetables were part of the Columbian exchange and therefore have no pre 1500 European roots it’s improper to call any potato preparation ‘Irish’.
This reminds me of working in a brewery/restaurant kitchen in the middle of a rich Midwestern suburb (read: white as white gets), we wanted to do teriyaki wings. Instead of letting us make our own sauce, our idiot manager brought in a premade sauce made by a Chinese company in “the Korean style”. So it was a Chinese-made Korean-style Japanese-American sauce. Fucking what? Especially silly considering real teriyaki sauce is just four very easily attainable ingredients in more-or-less equal parts.
You flavor a neutral oil with the ginger and garlic (don’t burn), add the brown sugar, a bit of soysauce, caramelize, add water, mirin or cooking wine slowly until desired thickness. You can do cornstarch slurry to dilute the flavor while maintaining the thickness.
You can toast some sesame at the start for that flavor.
The caramelized sugar may solidify if the liquid is too cold, redissolve it by increasing heat and/or liquid.
Italian cuisine is particularly enjoyable for this. The carbonara sauce was an improvisation by an American army cook, and one of the first recipes had it made with cream.
And part off modern sushi is Norwegian, as they had an excess of salmon they kind of imposed the idea to use it on sushi, which worked.
Chilly peppers in Indian cuisine where introduced by the Portugese
Cuisine is one of the most fusion sensitive bits of culture out there and most claims of originality are bogus in a way.
I don’t think a dish has to be 100% original from the domestication of the species of the ingredients all the way to the invention of the dish. I would say it’s valid to claim a variation of a dish with just one tiny tweak. Norwegians can’t claim the entirety of sushi but they are totally valid in claiming specifically salmon sushi. The French can’t claim to have invented neither wheat, flour, bread, the baking of bread in ovens or any of the other steps it took in-between, but they can claim the baguette specifically as a French bread.
I don’t think any food type can be claimed by a nation, that idea is very novel. You talk about bread and I think about the quintessential Italian ciabatta bread, which was invented in the 1990’s.
But I do really enjoy experiencing different cultures. I don’t subscribe to the idea of ownership of any of it by any country or culture. That is all.
The broad consensus amongst scholars of nationalism is that nations are a recent phenomenon. However, some historians argue that their existence can be traced to the medieval period, or a minority believe even to antiquity.
Yes it’s quite novel. Most national identities and stereotypes are from the latter half of the nineteenth century. Read Eric Hobsbawns ‘the invention of tradition’’ for example.
The Italian cuisine and it’s staples are very much a construction from the post war period, look at the history of the spaghetti carbonara, which was wiped up by an American army cook, but was later elevated to an supposedly ‘ancient’ recipe.
But before the era of nationalism most people didn’t think in terms of nations and national stereotypes.
Ok “nationalism” sure. But you can’t argue that cultural associations didn’t exist. This is why we had trade routes. And agriculture influenced by regional geography, climate, etc.
You point out very carefully selected specific examples like carbonara. This is like the exception that proves the rule.
So nothing can be described as Irish if it didn’t exist since the beginning of the earth on the land we could later call Ireland? Or where is the cutoff, the year 1400?
I’m just disputing the started fact that mashed potato is an Irish invention. There’s plenty of Irish things after that date, but that’s because people didn’t really think about ‘national’ things untill the late 19th century, take the Scottish tartan, fi (which was popularized by an English textile merchant btw).
I only agree with this line of reasoning because you would have to conclude that there is nothing quintessentially US American with everything coming either from Native American culture (which they reject) or immigrant culture.
I do think cultures can change. I only don’t think foodstuffs become a national thing that way. Like I said as a response in this thread that certainly the original population and culture of the Aztecs was almost completely destroyed.
The idea that the portal became Irish because it was forced upon them by the English is a bit ironic, with a whiff of Stockholm syndrome, at least for me.
The appropriation of certain dishes as national is, in itself, a rather novel idea.
How is this even relevant? I really don’t see any connection.
The idea that the portal became Irish because it was forced upon them by the English is a bit ironic, with a whiff of Stockholm syndrome, at least for me.
How so? The potato was force upon them, not mashed potatoes specifically. It would be totally understandable if the Irish would choose to get rid of everything that has anything to do with the British. This happens to a degree that the language Gaelic is revitalized. But it’s not up to me as a foreigner who never set foot on Ireland to expect that from them. Potato is an important food item all over Europe. “The idea that the portal became Irish because it was forced upon them by the English” is just an observation. You can’t dispute observations because they are “a bit ironic”. That’s not how history works.
The appropriation of certain dishes as national is, in itself, a rather novel idea.
How is this even an argument for your side? Nations are a social construct developed long after Columbus. By saying, anything that came after the 1400s can’t be part of a national identity, you are implying that nations exist since for ever.
My argument is in line with ‘the invention of tradition’ of Eric Hobsbawn and ‘imagined communities’ by Benedict Anderson in that most ‘national identity and tradition’ is an actively put forward construct that is really not as ancient as it purports.
The ownership of national dishes is what I argue against, the one in this thread that elicited my response was that of mashed potatoes being an Irish dish. If you read correctly it’s my interlocutor that made the point about the British repression forcing the potato on the Irish, and the argument of that being the National dish is even more silly to me.
So no disagreement in that matter, I would say.
The Aztec argument is about what is fundamentally Mexican and the tragedy of that civilization being wiped out. This is another example that traditionalism about culture is a rather silly position to hold in an argument.
But if you re read the thread I think you’ll find that
I think you misunderstood the meme and worded your first comment poorly.
The meme is saying that the equivalent of guacamole on the island of Ireland is mashed potatoes. It doesn’t say the Irish invented it, it doesn’t really focus on national identity. I mean on Ireland is the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Different nations and the meme just says Irish.
And instead of saying “there is no such thing as Irish”, you said “potatoes aren’t Irish enough because they came too late”, implying that there is such a thing as Irish culture but potatoes don’t qualify.
If you read correctly it’s my interlocutor that made the point about the British repression forcing the potato on the Irish, and the argument of that being the National dish is even more silly to me.
The interlocutor was me and all I’m saying is that the British Empire forced potatoes on the Irish and because of that, potatoes were so wide spread in Ireland that they quality as a national dish. How is that silly? I still don’t follow. Imagine having to grow potatoes and then trying out a variety of dishes. Silly.
Seeing that both vegetables were part of the Columbian exchange and therefore have no pre 1500 European roots it’s improper to call any potato preparation ‘Irish’.
You’re talking half a millennium ago…
What and marinara sauce isn’t Italian? Mapo tofu isn’t chinese? Modern sushi isn’t japananese?
This reminds me of working in a brewery/restaurant kitchen in the middle of a rich Midwestern suburb (read: white as white gets), we wanted to do teriyaki wings. Instead of letting us make our own sauce, our idiot manager brought in a premade sauce made by a Chinese company in “the Korean style”. So it was a Chinese-made Korean-style Japanese-American sauce. Fucking what? Especially silly considering real teriyaki sauce is just four very easily attainable ingredients in more-or-less equal parts.
I wish to know this four ingredient teriyaki recipe.
Ginger, garlic, soysauce, brown sugar.
You flavor a neutral oil with the ginger and garlic (don’t burn), add the brown sugar, a bit of soysauce, caramelize, add water, mirin or cooking wine slowly until desired thickness. You can do cornstarch slurry to dilute the flavor while maintaining the thickness.
You can toast some sesame at the start for that flavor.
The caramelized sugar may solidify if the liquid is too cold, redissolve it by increasing heat and/or liquid.
Lol
Shut up, let me enjoy my bananana in peace.
Italian cuisine is particularly enjoyable for this. The carbonara sauce was an improvisation by an American army cook, and one of the first recipes had it made with cream.
And part off modern sushi is Norwegian, as they had an excess of salmon they kind of imposed the idea to use it on sushi, which worked.
Chilly peppers in Indian cuisine where introduced by the Portugese
Cuisine is one of the most fusion sensitive bits of culture out there and most claims of originality are bogus in a way.
I don’t think a dish has to be 100% original from the domestication of the species of the ingredients all the way to the invention of the dish. I would say it’s valid to claim a variation of a dish with just one tiny tweak. Norwegians can’t claim the entirety of sushi but they are totally valid in claiming specifically salmon sushi. The French can’t claim to have invented neither wheat, flour, bread, the baking of bread in ovens or any of the other steps it took in-between, but they can claim the baguette specifically as a French bread.
I don’t think any food type can be claimed by a nation, that idea is very novel. You talk about bread and I think about the quintessential Italian ciabatta bread, which was invented in the 1990’s.
But I do really enjoy experiencing different cultures. I don’t subscribe to the idea of ownership of any of it by any country or culture. That is all.
The Swedes can keep the entire claim to Surströmming.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surströmming
Have you met our Lord and savior hakarl?
The idea of a national culture having some claim on a food type is novel? I’d say the concept is pretty common and widespread.
Novel and widespread have nothing to do with aech other.
From the wikipedia article about nations:
Yes it’s quite novel. Most national identities and stereotypes are from the latter half of the nineteenth century. Read Eric Hobsbawns ‘the invention of tradition’’ for example.
The Italian cuisine and it’s staples are very much a construction from the post war period, look at the history of the spaghetti carbonara, which was wiped up by an American army cook, but was later elevated to an supposedly ‘ancient’ recipe.
But before the era of nationalism most people didn’t think in terms of nations and national stereotypes.
Ok “nationalism” sure. But you can’t argue that cultural associations didn’t exist. This is why we had trade routes. And agriculture influenced by regional geography, climate, etc.
You point out very carefully selected specific examples like carbonara. This is like the exception that proves the rule.
So nothing can be described as Irish if it didn’t exist since the beginning of the earth on the land we could later call Ireland? Or where is the cutoff, the year 1400?
I’m just disputing the started fact that mashed potato is an Irish invention. There’s plenty of Irish things after that date, but that’s because people didn’t really think about ‘national’ things untill the late 19th century, take the Scottish tartan, fi (which was popularized by an English textile merchant btw).
With that logic any Mexican dish that contains cumin, cilantro, wheat or any dairy product including cheese is not real Mexican.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. Cuisine is particularly evolutionary.
The question ‘what is Mexican’ is particularly dark in this context as the conquistadors managed to wipe it so much of it’s people and culture.
I only agree with this line of reasoning because you would have to conclude that there is nothing quintessentially US American with everything coming either from Native American culture (which they reject) or immigrant culture.
You think cultures can’t change? Ireland was colonized by Britain. They forced them to grow potatoes. You don’t think that influenced Irish culture?
I do think cultures can change. I only don’t think foodstuffs become a national thing that way. Like I said as a response in this thread that certainly the original population and culture of the Aztecs was almost completely destroyed.
The idea that the portal became Irish because it was forced upon them by the English is a bit ironic, with a whiff of Stockholm syndrome, at least for me.
The appropriation of certain dishes as national is, in itself, a rather novel idea.
How is this even relevant? I really don’t see any connection.
How so? The potato was force upon them, not mashed potatoes specifically. It would be totally understandable if the Irish would choose to get rid of everything that has anything to do with the British. This happens to a degree that the language Gaelic is revitalized. But it’s not up to me as a foreigner who never set foot on Ireland to expect that from them. Potato is an important food item all over Europe. “The idea that the portal became Irish because it was forced upon them by the English” is just an observation. You can’t dispute observations because they are “a bit ironic”. That’s not how history works.
How is this even an argument for your side? Nations are a social construct developed long after Columbus. By saying, anything that came after the 1400s can’t be part of a national identity, you are implying that nations exist since for ever.
I think that we do not disagree in most points.
My argument is in line with ‘the invention of tradition’ of Eric Hobsbawn and ‘imagined communities’ by Benedict Anderson in that most ‘national identity and tradition’ is an actively put forward construct that is really not as ancient as it purports.
The ownership of national dishes is what I argue against, the one in this thread that elicited my response was that of mashed potatoes being an Irish dish. If you read correctly it’s my interlocutor that made the point about the British repression forcing the potato on the Irish, and the argument of that being the National dish is even more silly to me.
So no disagreement in that matter, I would say.
The Aztec argument is about what is fundamentally Mexican and the tragedy of that civilization being wiped out. This is another example that traditionalism about culture is a rather silly position to hold in an argument.
But if you re read the thread I think you’ll find that
I think you misunderstood the meme and worded your first comment poorly.
The meme is saying that the equivalent of guacamole on the island of Ireland is mashed potatoes. It doesn’t say the Irish invented it, it doesn’t really focus on national identity. I mean on Ireland is the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Different nations and the meme just says Irish.
And instead of saying “there is no such thing as Irish”, you said “potatoes aren’t Irish enough because they came too late”, implying that there is such a thing as Irish culture but potatoes don’t qualify.
The interlocutor was me and all I’m saying is that the British Empire forced potatoes on the Irish and because of that, potatoes were so wide spread in Ireland that they quality as a national dish. How is that silly? I still don’t follow. Imagine having to grow potatoes and then trying out a variety of dishes. Silly.