Come to South Africa, they’re common here. They used to be the default restaurant at gas stops along the major inter-provincial highways - that market has diversified but they’re still a large part of it.
Does any other country have a dedicated grilled meat national holiday? I mean, I know people barbeque on other holidays, like 4 July, but where the holiday is more-or-less ubiquitously known as the local equivalent of “BBQ Day”, and you have to actually stop and think about what it originally was for.
Because we have Braai Day, and if someone said “Heritage Day” it would take me a second. Because slapping meat (or, in the case of many Coloureds, fish) over the coals is one cultural thing almost every group in South Africa has.
I thought of fish - oily fish with an apricot jam butter basting - as the standard thing to have at a BBQ, growing up. Turns out having fishermen relatives and living on the coast gives you a skewed view.
I don’t think that is true. I’d never heard of kosher salt until a couple of years ago but it is my go-to salt style for cooking for decades in the UK and elsewhere and is pretty much identical to what is called kosher salt in the USA. Same sort of crystal size and consistency. The wikipedia entry bears this out as well. Just the name seems to be specific to the USA, not the ingredient itself.
While it’s not quite a food, it is a restaurant custom: In the 80s and 90s, restaurants in NC would bring everyone a glass of water at the table at the same time as the menu without asking. This meant that there would usually be several untouched glasses of water for them to pour out at the end, but it was also considered good service that you didn’t have to ask. This one died out in NC when the Raleigh area had significant droughts in the 2000s and one of the conservation measures was to ban the practice (IIRC this was in the 2007 drought). Restaurants would still serve water for free, but you had to order it rather than it just being on the table and poured out later, and if anyone complained they would have the law as an excuse. Once that switch happened, it stuck even after the restrictions were lifted, and seemed to spread throughout the state since I haven’t had a glass of water appear without asking for it anywhere in the state.
I had a friend visiting from Canada during the time of the restrictions, and mentioned to her that because of the drought you would need to order water if you wanted it, and she looked at me like I told her something stupidly obvious like ‘if you want your food, you need to tell the waiter what you want’. Apparently Canada never had the custom, and to her it was just weird. Meanwhile from googling a bit to check the dates, it looks like the custom is still going strong in a lot of the US, even in places like California that have significant water issues.
The custom varies a lot in Canada. A few old school places still give the table water automatically and a few fancier places throw some fruit in the jug. Many Asian restaurants serve complimentary tea. But the custom has much decreased. Most places serve free water on request or offer it if you do not order another drink. Restaurant profit margins can be thin and drinks, especially alcohol, are especially profitable.
In St. Louis it’s long been a standing joke that no wedding is legally valid unless mostaccioli is served at the reception.
The two differences from Chicago custom is the sauce is St. Louis style which means generic Ragu-like meatless marinara with about 20% sugar added. And the stuff is always, always, pronounced “MUSK-uh-Cho-lee”.
In St Martin, restaurants bring a big bottle of water to your table. When they open the bottle, many servers will hold the bottle near you, stop speaking, then open it, so you can hear the seal being cracked open. This proves they didn’t just fill an empty bottle with tap water.
Am I the only American who has never knowingly had Green Goddess dressing? I don’t think I even heard of it before I moved to Switzerland.
When I was little we would always take Hidden Valley Ranch dressing to my relatives in Ohio. Now they can buy it themselves. Along with Coors beer. And we would take home Vernor’s ginger ale and Barq’s Red Cream soda.
For the record, I grew up with this brand of salad dressing:
I was born in Minnesota in 1955, and traveled over a lot of the US with my dad when I was growing up. I can’t remember a time or place where you weren’t brought a glass of water (usually with ice in it) the moment you sat down in a restaurant. The waitress (it was almost always a waitress) would also ask my dad if he wanted coffee before we said anything.
The last place I lived before moving to Europe in 1991 was Milwaukee, and they were still doing this at the Big Boy I frequented when I was in grad school.
IIRC the beginning of the end in the USA of ice water for everyone without asking was a drought in California in the 1970s.
Somebody in Sacramento got the bright idea that mandating that restaurants couldn’t serve water except by request was a) within their authority, b) a tangible change that would make the water shortage feel real to the public at large, and c) would actually save both the water in the glasses and the far greater amount needed to wash them. It was an early example of the Nudge theory in action decades before anyone knew it by that name.
Pretty quickly the restaurants twigged to how few people really wanted that water, how much glassware and dishwasher effort they no longer needed, etc.
So when the drought passed and the order was withdrawn, the practice stayed. And quickly spread via the national chain restaurants to the rest of the USA.
But yeah, mom and pops in places where water is plentiful may still do the water-for-all-upon-being-seated thing. It also used to be the case that a basket of bread or crackers was set at the table in substantially every mainstream restaurant without asking and without charge. That’s pretty well died out too, with the tortilla chips and salsa at most Mexican restaurants being the surviving exception that proves the rule.
The ‘without asking’ part did change (in my experience that’s also true for Mexican restaurants), but the practice of ‘have some carbs’ is still around. BBQ and seafood places will bring hushpuppies, several chains like Outback, Logan’s, and Lone Star bring bread or rolls, and baskets of bread are common at a lot of other places.
Bread or breadsticks being brought to the table without our asking for it I remember only from Italian restaurants.
I should mention too that not only did the waitress ask my dad if he wanted coffee as soon as we sat down, she would always have a pot or carafe of it in her hand, ready to pour. She would also give refills for free and without his asking for them.
What do you mean by “without asking”? There are plenty of places where I get bread/rolls, chips of some type or crackers without me asking for it ( sometimes before I’ve gotten any food and sometimes with some part of the meal) but it’s entirely possible that the server asked if I wanted it and I don’t remember.
It was a long time before I knew that Vernors wasn’t more-or-less local. My brother had moved to Atlanta, and the first time he visited back home he returned to Atlanta with several cases of Vernors.
It’s very different from, say, Canada Dry.
And it’s a lot better than Moxie. It still amazes me that was once the most popular soft drink in the United States.
I mean without our asking for it. It was just brought out and placed on the table after we placed our order.
Indian restaurants often put out poppadums and little cups of mint and tamarind chutney. I think someone mentioned the fried wonton noodles in Chinese restaurants and the tortilla chips in Mexican restaurants. My impression is that restaurants of whatever type give out something to munch on.
Hey! I like Moxie. When I can find it at the local bodega I always grab a couple. It’s not like it’s common around these parts.
Vernor’s was pretty common in East Tennessee when I was growing up. In fact, I’ve seen it everywhere I’ve lived (Brooklyn and DC).
Which things? I can’t overstate how standard of a catering package this is around here.