Food • Page 1175

I've always been one for frying potatoes in oil, roasting in the oven, or boiling if I'm making mashed. Lately, I've been doing this gluttonous, old school thing, where I take some baby gold or red potatoes, slice them in half, and then I boil them until they're just tender. Then I'll take 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, smash and chop that into a paste with some olive oil and salt. Then I'll heat up my cast iron and add 2 or 3 tbsp of butter and toss the potatoes in there, then add the garlic, and cook until the garlic starts to brown slightly and the potatoes are crispy around the edges. Then I'll add a f*ck-ton of parsley, maybe some parmigiano, and toss them around until they're this buttery, garlicky, parsley covered mess of soft yet crispy potatoes. I feel as if it's a potato dish you'd get at some really old restaurant, but I love them so much.

 

That sounds amazing @Ken and I’ll take some for tonight please

 

I’m gonna have to try this sometime.

 

I'm currently writing a paper on authenticity in restaurants, its history, the implications etc

 

We actually just learned about that in our persuasion and media class. I’m sure you found it but there was a whole study/dissertation on yelp reviews using that word

 

I don’t think so, do you by any chance know the title/author? I’ve read about Yelp reviews and authenticity but that was a non-academic source.

 

Oof sorry the article she linked is actually an op ed?? She told us it was a dissertation so I’m not sure if we just didn’t have access to the actual thing or what
But this is the article

 

That's the one I read. It might be an op-ed based on the authors dissertation then. Thanks!

 

Sorry I wasn’t so helpful :( haha but for what is worth I learned about it in an academic setting so you’re not crazy it’s real! Hahah

 

I'm using it regardless, this class's professors is one of those that likes all sources, not just academic ones. Like, I'm even about to cite David Chang on his Netflix show lol

 

As someone who grew up in immigrant family hospitality businesses, I have a love-hate relationship with authenticity in restaurants/food. I'm not surprised that a lot of the material I find talks about exactly that feeling, if indirectly lol

 

Oh well there you go! It definitely made me think of thinks from a new perspective. Even if I don’t intend for those consequences/for it to be taken that way, it opened my eyes to how it COULD be taken and how it puts the place in a catch 22 spot

 

It's both freeing and confining (the authenticity trap is a phrase that is used here), depending in the situation of the cook/restaurant. Catch 22 is right. Basically, if you ask me, the rule of thumbs should be to not tell people how to cook their own food (and decorate their restaurants and so on), whether you're one of those customers that wants it "authentic" or one of those that wants it "adapted". Then again, I do believe in teaching people - all people - to cook more sustainably and ethically, so there's that.

Beyond all that, the whole concept of authentic food is tenuous at best if you look at it from an even remotely historical perspective (for example, pasta and tomatoes being relatively new additions to Italian cuisine and so on), but that's a whole other can of worms.

It's complicated. To summarise: people should be more careful with using buzzwords.

 

Also I nevertheless frequently declare my love for authentic Italian food lol so yeah

 

Nothing destroys my soul more than a middle aged white guy on Yelp saying he's from San Diego and going on about authentic Mexican food. It's awesome there's stuff being written about it. It has always been a pet peeve of mine and my politically active college rm disagreed when I called her out on it once so I was like maybe I'm being ~sensitive

 

Yelp is the devil anyway lol

 

I hate myself and can spend hours reading ridic reviews on Yelp

My fave one was for a hotel and the guy gave it low ratings cause it wasn't as close to the city as he thought. Like it's their fault he can't do basic geography. Or once I read the reviews for my local casino and one dude was furious because he'd parked his midlife crisis car all far away so nobody would hit it but he parked it under a planter and they watered the planter and got water droplets on his car!!!

Anyway yeah I need to stop punishing myself by reading them lol

 

You wouldn’t believe the insane reviews my family’s business sometimes gets lol people actually complain about the weather and stuff

 

Yelp is good for finding pictures or if a menu isn’t online, but I never trust what people say.

 

Yeah I usually find myself in Yelp for menu pictures because my town hasn't gotten the memo that it's 2019 and like none of them have an online presence

 

tengentially tangent related:
one of our IT guys drove a fancy, modded-out VW, and parked it at the far end of our building’s lot in order to put space between our cars and his, not realizing that half of the lot was “reserved” for customers to our shop. it only took a week or two before a customer backed into his car.

 

One of my favorite hangover meals. The house made bleu cheese really makes it.

 

Btw re the whole authenticity thing, I recommend watching the pizza episode of “Ugly Delicious” on Netflix

 

A lot of the episodes of Ugly Delicious changed how I viewed certain foods and associated cultures. Very good show. The only issue I had with the pizza episode was I had just finished watching all the episodes of the Pizza Show on Youtube a couple weeks beforehand and they hit a lot of the same topics and places so it was a little redundant for me.

 

man i have some feelings on authenticity in restaurants. specifically there's this popular restaurant in portland called pok pok made by a vermont white guy who lived in thailand and then took the techniques he learned from the old thai ladies to open up a restaurant in portland. i mean, it helped the thai food scene progress a little from your regular pad thais/pad see ews but i could name so many other immigrant lao/thai restaraunts (including my aunt's) that brought southern thai dishes to the scene but never got rewarded a james beard and multiple chains on the west coast.

i've had many conversations with white people who are like 'oh man i lovveeee thai food, have you been to pok pok?" like it's a staple in authenticity. why would i ever, my mom is lao. i sound so bitter and hate that i'm seen as being bitter but i get certain feelings to see a white guy get rewarded for being mediocre. but on the other hand i want white people to try new things and experience the culture. idk, i usually keep my mouth shut about it but i'm internally screaming lol