yes, or at least yes if you buy the quality stuff (I normally go for the ‘Hi-Juice’ types, which are 50% fruit juice)
It does, but the context in which I’d rather have you understand it is that it’s French for ‘Eat all’ (incidentally, that’s also why snow peas are so called - you eat the whole pod)
I nearly always make my own pizza, or buy it from the local Italian restaurant, or at a push Pizza Hut.
UK supermarket pizzas are, despite their popularity, to be avoided, you can get them with good toppings, but the bases are often very dense and chewy. I can’t understand how people here find them acceptable.
But I like making bread anyway, so pizza is easy.
What seems to be coming across more than anything in this thread is that when you travel abroad, you should try to find the local delicacies instead of hoping that your own favourites will be faithfully reproduced, for me that’s part of the fun of travelling.
I remember one particular time when people travelling with me in Cyprus ordered omelette and chips (because it was the only thing on the menu that they recognised) in an authentic Greek restaurant, it was tragic.
A friend of mine brought back a big bag of assorted American confectionery from his recent travels and I was surprised to find that probably 90% of the chocolate bars he had picked up contained peanuts in some form - would you say this is a representative sample?
DAMN!!! I too am a diet coke fiend and I leave this friday. Now let’s see. 12 cans a day, 14 days away, that’s 7 cases … and no ice huh? pondering over the feasability of a battery powered refridgeration unit crap!!! it’s impossible. If I got rid of all my clothes I could take the cans but if I can’t drink it at 34[sup]o[/sup]F or about 1[sup]o[/sup]C then what’s the point. oh man, withdrawals are gonna suck!
Here’s another great American treat from Hawaii. Shave Ice. Watch out for the ones that are chipped and chunks, you want stuff that makes snowflakes look thick. Most mainland ones I had were too thick but they’re learning. And let me tell you, when it’s hot, nothing beats a nice Shave Ice. I love half almond, half vanilla, mmmm-mmmmm, although I’m not above a guava/strawberry/cherry.
Root Beer used to be one of my favorite drinks but I lost my taste for it. But when I was a kid I could drink it all day. My parents used to home make it, which was awesome. A&W Root beer is the real classic as far as I know among the commercial brands. We still have an A&W stand way out by Pearl Harbor. And I had their Root Beer Float (which is Root Beer plus ice cream, preferably vanilla) and oh man I was in heaven. so creamy and frothy. It really makes you heady.
Jinxie - Diet coke is available everywhere over here, nearly all shops have a chiller cabinet too, so you’ll be fine.
there are many popular american cereals which are not sweetened… As you may know the whole idea of cereals came out of a health craze in the 1800s. Just off the top I can think of:
Cheerios
Rice Krispies
Chex (Rice, Corn, Bran, mixed varieties)
Raisin Bran (Some brands have sugar on the raisins, some don’t)
Crispix (pretty similar to chex)
Kix
Corn Flakes, Bran Flakes
Special K (higher-protein flakes)
As a child I was never allowed to eat the sugared crap… although, incidentally Frosted Flakes has less sugar than some of the “meusli” (mixed grains and dried fruits) - type cereals. The sugar’s all on the surface, none is baked in.
And I cannot believe that someone from NYC does not list a bagel in their typical breakfast!! It is a very common breakfast in some parts of the country.
Not quite, but close. Americans aren’t real imaginative when it comes to chocolate, and it seems we can think of few better uses for inferior chocolate than mixing it with inferior nuts. (And I speak as one who, for a time, lived in one of the US’s major peanut-farming communities. Yes, it was exactly as much fun as it sounds.) If you’re going to get a chocolate and nuts bar, it probably will be peanuts or almonds, and it’s more likely to be peanuts. Mr. Goodbars. Peanut M&Ms. Feh.
That said, I confess to liking Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. I’ve been known to eat the miniatures by the bag during times of severe stress.
Oh man, speaking of British frozen pizzas, I understand that Heinz makes frozen pizzas in Britain. I currently intern at the Heinz Regional History Center. There is one display of Heinz product containers from around the world. There are several Heinz Frozen Pizza Boxes with-get ready-BAKED BEANS!!!
What the HELL?
Hmmm, I believe this is part of their ‘Bean cuisine’ range of frozen ready-meals, also includes Lasagne and cottage (potato-topped minced meat) pie, both with beans mixed in bleh.
I like baked beans and I like pizza, sometimes (rarely) I’ll even have them at the same meal, but I’ll do the mixing thank you Mr Heinz
Using a Standard Pizza Hut deep pan pizza as a reference point (I think it’s safe to assume that this is pretty much the same the world over), how would you describe the ‘ideal’ American pizza? - Thicker base? thinner? lighter? more cheese? more tomato? more/less herbs?
Within the US, two pizza styles predominate: New York Style, and Chicago-style. I don’t know much about Chicago-style except that its deepdish and made with a sourdough crust.
New York-style pizza is on a very thin base, which is cooked dry and crispy-on-the-bottom. The only acceptable cheese is mozzarella. Its sold in a wedges (by the slice) and in pies all over NYC and the correct way to eat a slice is to fold it in half and take bites out. Ideally, when you fold your slice, the crust would be crispy enough to crack, and the crust is not at all greasy. You can also get “sicillian” which is squares of pizza on a thicker crust base, but this is not the same as chicago-style. Traditional toppings for NYC-style pizza are pepperoni, mushrooms and italian sausage, though you can get loads of other toppings. A lot of people eat it plain, though. Every pizza parlor in NYC provides cannisters of garlic powder, oregano and red pepper flakes that can be applied as desired.
Strong regional preferences abound, but one thing both New Yorkers and Chicagoans can agree on is that Pizza Hut pizza is vile.
Thanks for that rmariamp
I suppose pizza over here is very different then, although ‘thin & crispy’ pizzas are around, I think the deep-pan pizzas are the most popular, but that;s probably because Pizza Hut is most people’s lasting impression of pizza.
When I make pizza, it tends to be either very thin indeed, but then topped with only a thin layer of tomato paste and some cheese, or I make a great thick (but light and fluffy) bread-style base and pile loads of toppings on.
Neither of these are probably anything like American pizza, but that in turn is an adaptation of all kinds of mediterranean topped breads anyway, so it’s just more regionalisation; the supermarket pizzas however, probably are trying to be American-style, but failing miserably.
I understand that Mozarella is the authentic cheese for pizza topping, but generally I will just use Cheddar, it’s not as soft and stringy (which is a shame I suppose), but it has more flavour. (Mozarella is comparatively expensive over here, for no particular reason)
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NO! And all this time, I’ve been thinking your name was “Man Get Out”! There’s a poster called mangeorge, who I thought was “mange orge” but then I found out it was actually “man george” so I nauturally assumed yours was supposed to be “man”-something too. Hm. You learn something new everyday.
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As for pizza, I have to agree that there’s just nothing like a good old 'Murrican pizza. My ideal is the Pizza Hut pan pizza, just about any topping will do as long as it has that crust.
When Mr. Sunshine was in Ireland, they served him pizza with CORN on it. Ick.
Wait a minute, back up. . . your name isn’t Man, get out!
Can blintzes be found in the UK? (Sweetened cream cheese inside and cherry sauce on the side)
What do you eat at fairs, or midways (I’m not sure what you would call them.) My favorite fair foods are corncakes (2 sorta like cornbreadish type patties with mozzarella cheese in between, grilled) and funnel cake (fried dough with sugar)
Hmmm. Sounds similar to these:
I keep getting kicked out of restaurants for drinking bottles of A1. It grosses out the waiters when I do it. But it also allows me to eat free.
It is. I have an actual Turkish brother-in-law, plus a mother that, for some inexplicable reason, loves Turkish Delight. (No puns, please.) So when my sis and b-i-l return from Turkey, they bring back boxes of TD, and between their trips, my mother eats Aplets and Cotlets and so forth. Frankly, it’s all disgusting; I think I have now been forced to try up to a dozen different flavors of TD, including rosewater, pistachio, almond, etc., and they’re all just deeply icky. There’s no way to make the stuff palatable, and it is the dream of my life that the Turkish Delight fans will understand that and stop making me try the cursed stuff. (Fruitcake fans, too, but that’s another thread.)
Edmund clearly had something deeply wrong with him long before he met the White Witch. Any child who adores a sweet that amounts to semi-solid Kool-Aid with inexplicable flavorings is a child that has already gone over to the dark side. The selling-out-your-friends stuff was just confirmation.
You’ll break your teeth on the “cookies” over here, unfortunately. The idea of a soft, chewy cookie with the chocolate chips nearly at a liquid consistency ::swoon:: doesn’t seem to exist over here.
Any of the Yanks want to send me a Mrs Fields gift box 
ROFL
I was in a chat room once and somebody sent me a PM saying Man Get Out - I immediately took offence, thinking they were telling me to get lost; it took about twenty minutes before the penny dropped, I really am terribly slow-witted at times.