The former. Balut
Hmmm… most of the less familiar cuisines have been mentioned here, so I’ll throw in Sicilian. Most Americans are familiar with southern Italian food in its generalities, but whenever we have guests over at large family gatherings, there are still plenty of WTF moments on their part:
-Stuffed artichoke (common reaction: how the hell do I eat this?)
-Bread covered with sardines (“eww!”)
-Stewed pigs feet
-Cardoni (“Is that celery?” “NO”)
-Octopus and squid (though, to be fair, these are becoming a lot more familiar to Americans in general in recent years)
-The prevalence of small, oily fishes in general, along with a much smaller focus on meat than you find in most Italian restaurants, with most meat being almost more of a seasoning (such as spicy sausage or pigs feet served on the side) than the main focus of the meal, while all sorts of wonderful things are done with vegetables and sauces and seafood.
And Sicilian desserts are the best in the world. I’m surprised pignolata is still a fairly unknown sweet – small crispy fried balls of dough (that look like pine nuts – hence the name) clumped and held together by caramel or chocolate – you can’t get much better (or unhealthy!) than that.
Atlanta has a couple of Peruvian restaurants, too. As you might expect, potatoes feature heavily (in a delicious spicy cream sauce). Seafood is also prominent on the menu. I don’t recall if they serve deep fried guinea pig, of the type you see on menus all over the Andes.
I don’t see mention of Cuban restaurants, which are very common in Florida (and of which we have several in Atlanta). Are they commonly found elsewhere?
That’s it! Pancet or pancit is how I hear it pronounced, though I’m not certain of the spelling either.
Yeah, this is one thing I can’t quite get used to in Mediterranean cooking. I dislike small oily fish and for that matter most shellfish other than scallops. When I was Spain last year I had several versions of paiella and while they were all edible, even tasty in their own way, I wouldn’t make a practice of eating anything that loaded up on the sorts of seafood they seem to prefer.
I like large prawns, crabs, lobster, scallops and firm, white fish like halibut or lingcod. Mussels, clams, oysters, sardines, anchovies, mackerel, little fishy bay shrimp - not to my taste. I’m even inclined to treat salmon as a very occasional thing.
It’s a failing, to be sure ;).
- Tamerlane
Thing about shellfish and small oily fish is they tend to have a much stronger flavor than the whitefleshed fish that are more popular in America. When you put sardines on a loaf of bread, they have enough oil and flavor to maintain their sardiny taste even after being baked. If you put some whitefish on there, you’d wind up with crunchy bits of protein.
Sometimes you want your fish to taste fishy.
I don’t think it is a coincidence, it seems the same family has several places with the same name throughout the US:
http://ae.mercurynews.com/entertainment/ui/mercurynews/restaurant.html?id=476&reviewId=10344
That link mentions another place in Maryland which squares with what I remember.
Anyway it is a shame the Bay Area one let you down, I haven’t been to the Cambridge one recently but it was really great the couple of times I went.
I LOVED Turkish food. There’s a great kebap place – Musa Usta Adana Kebap Salonu, right off Istiklal Caddesi in Istanbul. I had the most heavenly adana kebaps there, with plenty of yummy bread to soak up the juices. Cost 10 lira. Yum yum yum!
Mississippienne, thanks for reminding me of kebaps! My mouth is watering already! I haven’t had a good one in ages. Have you or anyone reading found any in America? I’ll stop there on my next trip…otherwise it’s a hop to Anatolia for a kebap and rugs.
There’s a pretty good book on Laotian cuisine called Ant Egg Soup, by Natacha Pont Du Bie. It’s a culinary travelogue about Laos. It’s not the best writing, but the food descritions are great. The first thing she ate was laap, which is a salad of raw or cooked meat, chilies, lime, and a fermented fish sauce. There are a couple of Laotian restaurants here that I should try.
You can get balut at the Asian grocery store I go to. I haven’t tried it.
There’s a type of Chinese food called ‘Indian Style Chinese’, of (i think) Hakka. There are a few places in Little India that make it. It’s supposed to be really interesting and good. I, alas, always get waylaid into the place with the fantastic naan and butter chicken.
I remember reading a description of traditional Aborigine bread, which was basically flour and water, made into a very thick brick, and then buried in hot sand to cook. It didn’t sound great.
Has anyone else read Hungry Planet- How the World Eats? It’s fantastic. A Cook’s Tour is pretty good, too.
Oh, yeah- everyone ought to eat butter tarts. Butter tarts are amazing.
Here in the bay area of California, we have a large pacific islander population, including many Hawaiians. As a result, we’ve seen a proliferation of Hawaiian “plate lunch” joints. The formula for plate lunch is two scoops of rice, one scoop of macaroni salad and an entree. The entree is wildly variable - it can be hamburger patty with egg and gravy, grilled mahi-mahi, Hawaiian style BBQ chicken, Korean style BBQ ribs, fried Spam, fried linguica, or just about anything at all. Hawaii’s diverse population of people who came to work in the sugar cane and pineapple fields all contributed their culture’s cuisine to the mix. And nobody makes macaroni salad like a good plate lunch joint. I’ve tried and tried and can’t duplicate this simple thing.
Oh, and don’t forget that most heavenly snack created in Hawaii: Spam musubi. It’s a block of plain rice topped with a slice of fried Spam, and the whole thing is wrapped in a wide belt of nori seaweed. Sounds weird, but it’s completely addicting.