Everything sounds the same

[Shadders]

2 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

So, no more issues with mad cow?

Hi,

No, was only an issue for 1 year in 2001.

 

We had a spate of blue tongue - but that was imported from the EU continent.

 

Regards,

Shadders.

[Jud]

4 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

Correct. But driving through the area and interviewing some Amish which is in about the same area as I recall, unveiled that it is more complicated. I recall a story about ships which left from the Netherlands because we have the harbors to the North Sea (and from there go to America (I avoid the "States" for now)) but the ships were loaded with German and not with Dutch. Don't ask me whether the ships would be Dutch and carry Dutch flags, but I suppose the latter and now the most nice confusing thing is :

 

Drive through that Dutch area and see that the flags which are everywhere to expres the forthcoming are ... Dutch flags. Allow me :

 

 

The German flag is slightly different :

 

 

Add to that indeed the similarity between the words Dutch and Deutch which an American would both express quite similar, and there you go. All history down the drain.

 

Maybe now I start investigate where ever the word "Dutch" comes from

 

That area is where I spent most of my life.  The craftsmen there are where most of the furniture in my past two houses comes from. I bought my garden plants in Pennsylvania from a wonderful fellow there. And a Pennsylvania Dutch couple whose family had owned the land since they bought it from William Penn's sons, and were heavily involved in traditional PA Dutch folk activities (singing, dancing - on national TV - fairs, the local historical society) were our landlords for 12 years. My stepson presented a paper at a national archaeological society meeting on German clay (smoking) pipes from the area in the 1700s, that was then translated into German and published in a German archaeology journal.

 

Know why you saw those colors? Red, white and blue - the colors of the *US* flag. No one is flying such flags with the idea they are Dutch there. Sorry Peter, there may be a few scattered families in the area with Dutch ancestry (such as a certain Mr. Springsteen from New Jersey), but as the folks at the local Grundsau (German for groundhog) Lodge will tell you as they speak the German dialect with which some in the area are still familiar, Pennsylvania "Dutch" has always meant Pennsylvania Deutsch.

[PeterSt]

38 minutes ago, lucretius said:

So, no more issues with mad cow?

 

Me again ... ( @diecaster, watch out now) ...

 

I live in (Holland in) a village with 1800 people. It is the very village where the mad mad cow disease emerged. Am I famous or what. Notorious me.

 

34 minutes ago, Shadders said:

No, was only an issue for 1 year in 2001.

 

Maybe it was one year, but it wasn't 2001. It was 2000. In that year I drove the WRC Rally of Great Britain and I recall the extra (disinfection) hurdles we needed to take everywhere.

Oh, that hobby doesn't combine well with audio, although in the car you'd talk through microphone and headphones to each other. Kind of 120dBSPL noise around you ...

Also, that hobby is more expensive than audio. Way more.

 

[jabbr]

5 hours ago, PeterSt said:

Anyway, Applebee's baby back ribs. And since we are not always in the US, we steal the recipe and make it ourselves.

 

You are killing me ?

[gmgraves]

4 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

OK, last one (lucky you) ... About pancakes and pizzas.

 

I forgot where it was exactly, but a bit of a larger city above Phoenix. Pizzas are generally fine and we ate them in general restaurants. I mean, not Italian restaurants.

This time we found the real Italian restaurant and I went for a pizza. Okayyy. The bottom really was like a pancake and I asked the waiter what this was about. "We can't make them better here, Sir". And "You may like to order something else".

Really.

OK. Most pizzerias in the US who make real Neapolitan-style pizza use real Italian high-protein flour. The brand I have seen the most in these places is Caputo. There is no American brand of flour like it. I've been told that you can't make a Neapolitan style pizza without it. There are other brands of Italian flour than Caputo, but that's the one I recognize. Also, you can't use American mass produced rubbery mozzarella cheese, you need the white, soft stuff that comes packed in water. Many American Neapolitan style pizzerias make their own in house (it's not difficult), BUT, in Italy, the mozzarella is made with the milk of water buffalos and essentially all the mozzarella made in the US is cows milk and there is a subtle difference in the resulting cheese. Real Neapolitan pizza is cooked in wood-fired ovens that are kept at around 900 degrees F.  Finally, the classic Neapolitan pizza is called the pizza Margarita (named after an Italian queen [female]). It is very simple: thin crust, cooked fast and lightly charred in spots on the bottom. The topping is crushed San Marzanno tomatoes (canned or fresh) garlic, EV olive oil, "mozzarella buffula", fresh torn basil. That's it! Nothing else. And as simple as that sounds, No American pizza with everything but the kitchen sink on it, while loved by many, can't hold a candle to that simple concoction when it comes to FLAVOR! 

It's really interesting about most foods that Americans call "Italian". They aren't. Order Spaghetti and meatballs (or meat sauce) in Italy and the waiter will look at you like you were something that crawled from under a rock. Spaghetti is served in Italy, but it's served with olive oil, butter, garlic and cheese.  And in the south, it's served with pesto. Meatballs are served in Italy, but they are a separate course, never in conjunction with spaghetti, which is usually the first course. Italians make meat sauce. It's made in the North in the region of Bologna. It's called ragu bolognese, and it's usually made with veal or pork and has tomatoes and some form of dairy (milk or cream). It is usually served with tubular pastas like penne or Rigatoni, NEVER stranded pastas like spaghetti or fettuccine. Lasagna is a real Italian dish, but if you had it in southern Italy, you wouldn't recognize it. 

If you were of Italian extraction, raised in either NYC or New Jersey, you may have had an Italian grandmother or aunt who, on special occasions, would make something that she might have called "Sunday Gravy". It was a rich tomato sauce with pork shoulder, beef Roulados, meatballs, and Italian sausages simmered in it. It's delicious, no doubt. It is ladled over pasta and you get some pork shoulder, cooked until it falls apart, a beef roulade, an Italian sausage link and a meatball. Put some grated cheese on it,   big slice of Italian bread, a side salad and a glass or two of red wine, and all is right with the world. But In Italy, they never heard of it!

 

[PeterSt]

8 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

It is the very village where the mad mad cow disease emerged.

 

I wanted to say ... emerged first. But I come back here to say that I can't even find proof that this is so. It is only that I know it from back then.

In retrospect - seeing how people have written about it - it would be very difficult to state where this BSE really began. I read something like 1980 and a ridiculous incubation time (which is 2 years minimum to begin with).

[PeterSt]

7 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

you need the white, soft stuff that comes packed in water.

 

[Jud]

29 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Finally, the classic Neapolitan pizza is called the pizza Margarita

 

Apologies for being pedantic, but as long as we're talking about "the real thing," I believe that's Margherita. 

[PeterSt]

6 minutes ago, Jud said:

as long as we're talking about "the real thing," I believe that's Margherita.

 

 

... from Switzerland.

Must be the Italian speaking part of it. 

[jabbr]

2 hours ago, gmgraves said:

Real Neapolitan pizza is cooked in wood-fired ovens that are kept at around 900 degrees F. 

 

Oh there are so so many debates ... so this: https://pepespizzeria.com/about/

 

Interestingly, and folks from CT will verify, despite recreating the original ovens brick by brick, the new locations have never been able to equal the original in terms of flavor. The theory is that the wooden shelves where the dough is stored create an environment for the yeast ... the new sites use metal shelves as the wood was "grandfathered" in ...

 

In any case the pizza in the Northeast USA has little local diversities and passionate adherents e.g. wood vs coal ovens, Neopolitan vs Sicilian, etc etc etc., much like my experience in Italy where moving down the coast from just over the Monaco border all the way down, the pizza changes, slightly, from town to town.

 

Now BBQ in the states, mostly the south ... same regional differences e.g. eastern vs western North Carolina pulled pork... just keep the pressure cooked mass produced and then slathered in corn syrup ribs away from me! I look for a stack of wood out back before driving in ...

 

all good fun  

[jabbr]

2 hours ago, PeterSt said:

I live in (Holland in) a village with 1800 people. It is the very village where the mad mad cow disease emerged. Am I famous or what. Notorious me.

That explains a lot!

[Superdad]

3 hours ago, PeterSt said:

I live in (Holland in) a village with 1800 people. It is the very village where the mad mad cow disease emerged. Am I famous or what. Notorious me.

 

Maybe it’s time for the name Phasure to be put out to pasture Peter.  Mad Cow Audio might suit better.  

[wgscott]

Or Creutzfeldt–Jakob audio.  I've always suspected the audiophile condition was a neurodegenerative prion disease.

[davide256]

9 minutes ago, Superdad said:

 

Maybe it’s time for the name Phasure to be put out to pasture Peter.  Mad Cow Audio might suit better.  

 Mad Cow Audio? innocuous, infectious? I'd pause on that as a random search hit ? But could be politically incorrect in Peter's home town. 

[gmgraves]

 

2 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

Oh there are so so many debates ... so this: https://pepespizzeria.com/about/

According to the "Neapolitan Pizza Association" a true Neapolitan pizza must be cooked in a domed brick oven with a wood fire at a temperature of around 480 degrees C. 

2 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

Interestingly, and folks from CT will verify, despite recreating the original ovens brick by brick, the new locations have never been able to equal the original in terms of flavor. The theory is that the wooden shelves where the dough is stored create an environment for the yeast ... the new sites use metal shelves as the wood was "grandfathered" in ...

That's interesting. Things like that are often unexplainable. Like being unable to replicate the sound of a Stradivarius violin in spite of copying one exactly - down to the wood used and where the wood came from and drying the wood just like Stardivari, using the same glue, and replicating the same varnish using beetle carapaces from the same species harvested from the same area. They still don't sound alike!

2 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

In any case the pizza in the Northeast USA has little local diversities and passionate adherents e.g. wood vs coal ovens, Neopolitan vs Sicilian, etc etc etc., much like my experience in Italy where moving down the coast from just over the Monaco border all the way down, the pizza changes, slightly, from town to town.

Well, next to a Margherita made by the Pizzeria Da Michele in Naples (supposedly the best pizza in the world and where I fell in love with that style of pie), Some of the best pizza I've ever eaten was in Manhattan and New Jersey. I was visiting NYC on business one time and my company's rep took me to a tiny shop near Washington Square (IIRC) run by an elderly Italian gent - there was no else there that I could see! Pizza was by the slice, and vended through a service window out to the street. There was no place inside to sit down. We ate ours on a park bench! The rep said it was the best pizza in NYC and suggested that I order just plain tomato and cheese, so I did. It was, without a doubt, the best tasting pizza I had ever eaten in the USA. There is much to be said for North-eastern US pizza. It's not Italian pizza, but it is delicious. Here in the Reno Area where I now live there are two pizzerias that serve a similar pie to the NYC type: One is a quite nice restaurant called Grimaldi's (like the Royal House of Monaco), I'm told it's a chain, but boy they do it right, and serve an excellent NY-style pie. The other is a hole-in-the-wall place in a strip mall simply called NY Pizza. They make only one size pie, a huge 21 inch affair. If you don't want a whole one, you buy it by the slice just like in NYC. It too is excellent. I have found that if the crust is "right" and the sauce is good and made with quality EV Olive oil and the cheese is high quality, I don't gots to have no steenkin' toppings. In fact fully loaded pizzas are, in my opinion a coverup for mediocre crust and sauce. (Dominos, Pizza Hut, Round Table, Little Caesars', et al) If you don't believe me, try a Dominos some time with just tomato sauce and cheese. I'll bet you that you won't like it!

2 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

Now BBQ in the states, mostly the south ... same regional differences e.g. eastern vs western North Carolina pulled pork... just keep the pressure cooked mass produced and then slathered in corn syrup ribs away from me! I look for a stack of wood out back before driving in ...

I was born in Virginia and have always been a fan of good pork BBQ. In Richmond, where I was born, there is a chain of "hickory pit" barbecue places called "Bill's BBQ". To me that remains the gold standard for eastern Carolina style Q. They use a vinegar based sauce, no tomato and they chop the pork. They serve it on square "hamburger" buns with a mound of coleslaw on each sandwich with their own cider vinegar based hot sauce. Simply heaven on earth. Haven't had one since 2005 though when I was back there for my Moms funeral. I froze several big carry-out tubs of the stuff and packed it in my suitcase to bring it back with me to Silicon Valley where my friends fell on it like the barbarian hordes on Rome! 

2 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

all good fun  

 

It certainly is!

[gmgraves]

5 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Apologies for being pedantic, but as long as we're talking about "the real thing," I believe that's Margherita. 

That's OK. No Apologies needed, but I wrote Margherita and my auto spell checker "fixed it" for me....

[Ralf11]

wow - epic thread!

some tidbits:

 

Asian restaurants are quite common on the West Coast of the US (Pacific Rim) 

 

The origins of ketchup (and even of catsup) came up at a French dinner here some years ago - despite the amount of wine consumed, I recall that when one guy looked it up on his phone it turned out to be derived from Chinese hoisin sauce...

 

Only a very few restaurants in the US produce authentic Neapolitan Pizza (according to the one here, which is certified and was (or is) inspected by the Neapolitan Pizza Police, TSZ Division).  One requirement is to use imported San Marzano tomatoes.  Also real Mozzarella (Buffalo milk) is required.  The flour and yeasts used are both special.

 

NY style pizza is an offshoot of the above.

 

The deep dish pies they make in Chicago can be good, but are not pizza!

 

Finally, tomato sauce is not a traditional Italian sauce.  It is a newcomer from the Americas...

[mansr]

4 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

The origins of ketchup (and even of catsup) came up at a French dinner here some years ago - despite the amount of wine consumed, I recall that when one guy looked it up on his phone it turned out to be derived from Chinese hoisin sauce...

According to the dictionary: "Late 17th century: apparently from Chinese (Hokkien dialect) kê-chiap ‘brine of pickled fish or shellfish’, perhaps partly via Malay kecap, kicap ‘soy sauce’."

[jabbr]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

According to the "Neapolitan Pizza Association" a true Neapolitan pizza must be cooked in a domed brick oven with a wood fire at a temperature of around 480 degrees C. 

 

First of all, let's not assume that the only pizza style is Neapolitan. Aside from Italy, there is a robust Greek style of pizza (cooked in an oiled pan as opposed to directly on brick) as well as coastal french "Pissaladière" which is very similar to Ligurian. Neither classically use tomatoes, and as has been said, the ubiquitous use of tomato sauce is probably American. Then there is classic Sicilian pizza which has a thicker crust, and often topped with caramelized onions. Baked into a square disk, and given rise to pizza styles: Detroit, Providence RI and probably what morphed into Chicago deep dish.

 

That said, I'm going to open up this thread "All things don't taste the same" ? https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/sep/13/best-foods-in-the-world

 

I will note that #31 Best Pizza is Pepe's in New Haven which I referenced above, and Worlds second best (Frank Sinatra's favorite) is/was "Sally's" which is/was right next door  , across the street they claim to have invented the calzone -- who knows...

[mansr]

11 minutes ago, jabbr said:

First of all, let's not assume that the only pizza style is Neapolitan.

I find most talk of what is or isn't "real" pizza rather silly. If you like it, eat it, even if it has pineapple.

 

13 minutes ago, jabbr said:

Neither classically use tomatoes, and as has been said, the ubiquitous use of tomato sauce is probably American.

Tomatoes were introduced to Europe in the 16th century, but did not become commonly used in Italian cooking until the late 17th or early 18th century. Although tomatoes were cultivated by Aztecs, their use did not spread to North America until the 18th century. By now, the tomato can probably be considered traditional in both Italian and American cuisine. I doubt it is recorded who first incorporated tomato sauce in a pizza-style dish.

[Ralf11]

sure, eat it - but names are useful - if you call clam chowder a pizza, expect communications to have high jitter levels

[lmitche]

5 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

Oh there are so so many debates ... so this: https://pepespizzeria.com/about/

 

Interestingly, and folks from CT will verify, despite recreating the original ovens brick by brick, the new locations have never been able to equal the original in terms of flavor. The theory is that the wooden shelves where the dough is stored create an environment for the yeast ... the new sites use metal shelves as the wood was "grandfathered" in ...

 

In any case the pizza in the Northeast USA has little local diversities and passionate adherents e.g. wood vs coal ovens, Neopolitan vs Sicilian, etc etc etc., much like my experience in Italy where moving down the coast from just over the Monaco border all the way down, the pizza changes, slightly, from town to town.

 

Now BBQ in the states, mostly the south ... same regional differences e.g. eastern vs western North Carolina pulled pork... just keep the pressure cooked mass produced and then slathered in corn syrup ribs away from me! I look for a stack of wood out back before driving in ...

 

all good fun  

My home is just a few miles from the Fairfield branch and the original New Haven Pepe Pizza stores.  New Haven is the better of the two for sure. Sally's Apizza a block from Pepe's in New Haven is also terrific, and the locals can't decide which is best. I like both myself. The same family runs Consiglio's restaurant down the street. We took my parents to Consiglio's for their 60th wedding anniversary last year. The owners could not of have been nicer or more accomodating.

 

There is no pizza I have enjoyed more then http://www.pizzametro.it/ in Vico Equinse, Italy near Sorrento. The whole experience is outstanding. There is a loosely related London branch in Battersea Rise that it also fantastic. At least it was fantastic the last time I ate there 18 years ago. I just checked and it is still there.

 

 

[lmitche]

What happened to this thread? I've been away. Did someone say "All pizza tastes the same"?

[Ralf11]

define "pizza"

[lmitche]

35 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

define "pizza"

?