# Your National Dish Of Shame **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [May 20, 2022, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784 "2022-05-20T19:31:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![MagicEyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@MagicEyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MagicEyes)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/181 "2022-05-23T15:23:52Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > I really think American bread pudding must be a different dish under the same name - it’s not something you’d bake custard into in the UK. Obviously people’s recipes vary, but that would be different enough to definitely have a different name. > > Here’s the BBC bread pudding recipe that basically fits every bread pudding I’ve ever eaten. [Bread pudding recipe | BBC Good Food](https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/bread-pudding-0) This is the same as US bread pudding. The custard is the milk/eggs/sugar. It’s not bread mixed with a cooked custard, if that’s what you’re thinking. A lot of it gets absorbed into the bread, so it can be firm after it’s baked. I make a richer bread pudding with lots of eggs and half-and-half, so the custard-iness is more obvious. If you have stale pastries (it can happen!), toast them a little and make them into bread pudding. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/182 "2022-05-23T15:39:04Z")
> [@MagicEyes](#): > > This is the same as US bread pudding. The custard is the milk/eggs/sugar. It’s not bread mixed with a cooked custard, if that’s what you’re thinking. A lot of it gets absorbed into the bread, so it can be firm after it’s baked. I make a richer bread pudding with lots of eggs and half-and-half, so the custard-iness is more obvious. If you have stale pastries (it can happen!), toast them a little and make them into bread pudding. 🙂 Yes, when you say custard, I think actual custard, whether used as a sauce or baked in so that it’s still custardy just a bit more solid - and it doesn’t include the whites of the eggs, just the yolks. I don’t think of whole eggs, milk and sugar when mixed in and used as part of a larger recipe as including “custard.” ---
**Author:** ![MagicEyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@MagicEyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MagicEyes)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/183 "2022-05-23T16:02:37Z")
It might not include the exact same ingredients you think should be in a custard, but it is a custard. The main ingredients are the same as this baked custard: [https://www.thespruceeats.com/easy-old-fashioned-baked-custard-3059894](https://www.thespruceeats.com/easy-old-fashioned-baked-custard-3059894) ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/184 "2022-05-23T16:12:15Z")
Yeah… ish. I really don’t think I’m alone in not assuming that cakes include custard, or a custard, just because they usually include eggs, milk and sugar - they’re just standard cake ingredients. At least in the UK - maybe in the US they call mixing those ingredients together “making a custard?” ---
**Author:** ![MagicEyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@MagicEyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MagicEyes)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/185 "2022-05-23T16:46:24Z")
🤨 I’m not sure if you’re being serious here, because cake has other ingredients that make it different from custard. The liquid part of a bread pudding has the same ingredients as a baked custard. The bread is soaked in these ingredients, and when it’s baked, there is a little bit of custard in between the bits of bread. Unless you make a very dry bread pudding. If you don’t believe me, maybe you will believe Cook’s Country—“In the best bourbon bread pudding, a rich custard envelopes the bread” [https://www.cookscountry.com/recipes/3256-new-orleans-bourbon-bread-pudding](https://www.cookscountry.com/recipes/3256-new-orleans-bourbon-bread-pudding) ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/186 "2022-05-23T17:01:30Z")
Yes, I am being serious, and also very confused now. For bread pudding there aren’t little bits of custard in between the bits of bread. It’s something you can take to a picnic and eat with a fork, like a cake, or sometimes hold in your hand. Your recipe is more like our bread and butter pudding, not bread pudding. I did put up two different recipes - they are not exactly the same, and the first one (bread and butter pudding) seems more like yours than the UK bread pudding recipe. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/187 "2022-05-23T17:13:39Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > Yeah… ish. I really don’t think I’m alone in not assuming that cakes include custard, or a custard, just because they usually include eggs, milk and sugar - they’re just standard cake ingredients. At least in the UK - maybe in the US they call mixing those ingredients together “making a custard?” Just call it “Creme Anglaise” like the French do. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/188 "2022-05-23T17:17:25Z")
> [@MagicEyes](#): > > If you have stale pastries (it can happen!), toast them a little and make them into bread pudding. 🙂 Ages ago when on the _Delta Queen_ they had cooking demonstrations by the founder of the [New Orleans School of Cooking](https://neworleansschoolofcooking.com/classes), who was quite colorful.\* He said bread pudding was a mainstay in NOLA because everybody was trying to outdo their grandmother and said it could be made out of anything, recommending stale donuts. He then told a story about a friend of his who’d been hired as a cook on one of the Gulf oil rigs wanting three can’t-miss recipes because, “there’s no place to hide on an oil rig. So I gave him the recipes for [this], [that], and bread pudding, telling him he could make it out of anything.” A month later he was back from his tour and asked how it went, he replied, “Great! They loved [this] and they loved [that],” but he didn’t mention the bread pudding. “What happened with the bread pudding?” “Well you said I could make it out of anything, right?” “… Right.” “I made it out of jalapeno cornbread and it didn’t go so well. They’d get a chunk of jalapeno in one cheek and a raisin in the other and I think it kind of confused 'em.” “So now I say you can make bread pudding out of _almost_ anything.” About then somebody in the audience said, “How about an egg and cheese savory base instead of custard?” “Hmmm,” and you could see the wheels turning in his head. \*At the beginning of each demo he’d say, “This is a three-beer demo,” and put on the counter three cans of Dixie. Sure enough, the third can was drained just when the dish was presented. ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/189 "2022-05-23T18:05:36Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > Tinned pies and Vesta curries are a very good call. I guess if some people still like them, they kinda have to continue existing, but they are hideous. I can attest to buying some of these tinned pies a couple of years back, eating one, and they’ve sat on the shelf since then. They boasted “now with more meat”. And were £1 each, so what could go wrong? Well, they were worse than I remember. They were “popular” in a time when they were a bit sparse with the meat in most of these type of items (and any type of ready meal from a number of supermarkets). Now “with more meat” meant there must have really been no meat at all before it. It was basically campbells soup inside a pie. The brand was “Fray Bentos”. I think it used to exist as a company, went out of fashion, was bought by a big company and they’ve put some out again as nostalgia. Seems they struggle with the concept of making it better. I remember Vesta curries enough to never eat them again. I remember meat like “soy meat”, something which happened with UK food back then, I don’t recall seeing that meat since. ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/190 "2022-05-23T18:20:12Z")
For your consideration of a Dish of Shame, the very cheap hamburger sandwich offered by various chains such as White Castle. (During the depression, they were five cents.) [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/aVkOzTOTLGo/maxresdefault.jpg "Here's What Really Makes White Castle's Sliders So Delicious") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVkOzTOTLGo) ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/191 "2022-05-23T18:25:12Z")
They just don’t taste cooked, not matter how long they’re cooked for. I had a landlord once who are them raw straight out of the tin, but TBH they probably weren’t that much different. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/192 "2022-05-23T18:50:21Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > I don’t see things the way you do. It’s just a different way of viewing things I guess. I would never adopt the mindset of the people who hate me, just to try and fit in. I’m not exactly saying that’s what you are doing, but it would feel that way to me. Listen to people, they will tell you who they are. If they want to call you and your kind a racial slur, as they do in Hawaii, and you just take it, well that’s your choice. Some natives might like you just for who you are, but as a group, they hate you. Wow, I don’t know where your mindset comes from, but don’t you think it is a little weird for you to say you’ve never been to Hawai’i, but you know that “as a group, [Hawaiians] hate” me? You’re pretty confident in your statements for someone who seems to have little connection to the islands. Haole is in no way a racial slur. This comes up a lot when outsiders are horrified to hear that people have a casual term for white people, and they jump to conclusions. Judy Rohrer talks about this in her excellent book, “Haoles in Hawai’i,” which is part of the “Race and Ethnicity in Hawai’i” series published by University of Hawai’i Press. She tells the anecdote of a white student from the mainland who came to do a semester at UH and was extremely insulted to be called a haole. She couldn’t get it through her had that things are different here. But they ARE different here. Of course this is not a magic paradise free from prejudice. And there are militant separatists who want to restore the Hawaiian Kingdom and reclaim all the land for Native Hawaiians. (I know one, and interestingly, he doesn’t have a drop of Hawaiian blood - he’s Japanese!) Anyway, it’s just bizarre that you claim you know so much about the topic when you’ve never lived here and as far as I can tell you’ve done no reading on the subject. Here are a couple of instructive articles on the topic for anyone who cares. Sorry, it’s the NYT so paywalled. But I’ll quote a smidgen from each. [Want to be less racist? Move to Hawai’i.](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/28/opinion/sunday/racism-hawaii.html) > Psychologists argue that “essentialist” thinking — ideas about human beings’ unchangeable essence, their inherent inferiority or the threat they supposedly pose — makes racism possible. Dr. Pauker wanted to know when children started expressing essentialist views of race. > > She found that between ages 4 and 11, upper-middle-class children from mostly white neighborhoods around Boston increasingly viewed race as a permanent condition and expressed stereotypes about other racial groups: that blacks were aggressive or, on the flip side, good at basketball; that Asians were submissive and good at math. These children came from public schools in liberal areas. They probably weren’t deliberately taught these stereotypes at home. But they absorbed them from the American ether nonetheless. > > Would children in Hawaii express the same views? Dr. Pauker repeated the study with middle- and upper-middle-class grade-school students in and around Honolulu, and was not entirely surprised to find that in Hawaii, the children, including those who were white, tended not to express the same essentialist ideas about race. They were not race-blind. They recognized skin color, hair texture and other features commonly associated with race. But they did not attribute to race the inherent qualities — aggression or book smarts — that their mainland brethren did. “They didn’t believe that race was biological,” Dr. Pauker told me. The follow up: [Is Hawaii’s Racial Harmony a Myth"?](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/opinion/hawaii-race-ethnicity.html) > even though race may be seen differently in Hawaii, prejudice clearly exists. The utopian-sounding ideas explored — the aloha spirit, Hawaii as a happy melting pot — have their own problematic history. > > And yet, I was struck by the people who, even as they pointed out Hawaii’s flaws, would return to the idea that there really is something different about the place. Ultimately, I tried to walk the same fine line that those people seem to want to walk, exploring what makes Hawaii unique without being seduced by myths of perfect interracial harmony. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/193 "2022-05-23T19:10:42Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Well, there’s custard and then there’s custard sauce. I must say the U.K. has it all over us Americans with respect to custard and custard dishes. Long before it was available in the U.S., my English mother’s brothers would ship boxes of Bird’s Custard (and other delicacies) to her yearly. Bird’s is only semi-sweet with a wisp of vanilla (not cloyingly sweet and flavored like American pudding and custard), but boy howdy is it good, especially served warm. Mom’s gingerbread & pudding, plum puddings and trifles were to die for. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/194 "2022-05-23T20:09:13Z")
No, there is usually a small piece of salt pork in every can. Better name would be “Beans with a little bit of park as flavoring”. But P&B is a great food. It can even be eaten cold out of the can. Add some chopped hot dogs or bacon, and it is a main dish. > [@CairoCarol](#): > > Haole is in no way a racial slur. This comes up a lot when outsiders are horrified to hear that people have a casual term for white people, and they jump to conclusions. _haol·e_ _/ˈhoulē/_ **noun** _OFTEN DEROGATORY_ _1. (in Hawaii) a person who is not a native Hawaiian, especially a white person._ > **[Haole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haole)** > > Haole (/ˈhaʊliː/; Hawaiian \[ˈhɔule\]) is a Hawaiian term for individuals who are not Native Hawaiian, and is applied to people primarily of European ancestry. > The origins of the word predate the 1778 arrival of Captain James Cook, as recorded in several chants stemming from that time. The term was generally given to people of European descent however, as more distinct terms began to be applied to individual European cultures and other non-European nations, the word haole began to refer mostly t... _Among Hawaiian residents who have descended from various ethnic groups who worked on the plantations (often known as “locals”), “haole” is a term used to describe people of European ancestry.[[14]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haole#cite_note-Honolulu_Civil_Beat_2020-14) The term itself can be merely descriptive, but some argue that it can be used in a way that is pejorative or discriminatory. Haole is only one of several words commonly used in Hawaii to describe various ethnicities. Technically, haole means someone who is foreign, as opposed to someone who is local. Haole has come to be a term for those of European ancestry_ My issue is that a person of Japanese ancestry, who lives FT on the islands, but not born there- would not be called Haole , but a white dude, who was born there, and whose parents were born there- would be. That makes it racist or at least racial. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/195 "2022-05-23T20:23:17Z")
Sure, “some argue that it can be used in a way that is pejorative or discriminatory.” That doesn’t mean that its everyday usage is negative. Wikipedia is often a good place to start for information finding, but I’ve seen it be wrong before (it is probably fixed now, but in the past it wasn’t that accurate for Javanese gamelan). In this case, my lived experience is very much at odds with the idea that haole is a slur. We haoles all call ourselves haoles all the time, and we don’t care when other ethnic groups call us that. To the OP, I am sorry for the hijack. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/196 "2022-05-23T20:36:51Z")
I’d nominate the various casserole dishes, that are basically noodle, a veggie, and cream-of-something-or-other glopped over it and baked at 350 for a half-hour to an hour. Specifically Green Bean Casserole. Although, adding some small bacon pieces (or small ham chunks) and actual onion, and maybe a dash of garlic, to a GBC punches it up quite nicely. But the generic, back-of-the-soup-can recipe? Blech. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/197 "2022-05-23T20:39:43Z")
For along time I also wondered about the ‘pork’ in pork and beans. And then I saw how a production line can of pork and beans is made. If I remember correctly, each can gets a hunk of fatback which renders in the canning process. So there is pork, just not visible pork. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/198 "2022-05-23T21:36:11Z")
> [@ExTank](#): > > I’d nominate the various casserole dishes, that are basically noodle, a veggie, and cream-of-something-or-other glopped over it and baked at 350 for a half-hour to an hour. Specifically Green Bean Casserole. > > Although, adding some small bacon pieces (or small ham chunks) and actual onion, and maybe a dash of garlic, to a GBC punches it up quite nicely. > > But the generic, back-of-the-soup-can recipe? Blech. As an English person, and I think I can speak for everyone in Britain and Ireland, the American use of the word “casserole” is confined to the USA and possibly Canada. And using canned soup as an ingredient is fine, if it’s a quick dinner, not if it’s an actual recipe you’d be proud about. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/199 "2022-05-23T21:37:36Z")
Many of the recipes that rely on packaged goods like Campbell’s soups were developed by the company itself, to drive sales. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2022, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784/200 "2022-05-23T22:02:55Z")
In New Brunswick, Canada, a boiled dinner includes ears of corn, lobsters and a mess of mussels. It might be the best thing ever. Curry has many meanings. However, “Japanese curry” is a specific dish. I think it is okay, if bland. But since most food in Japan is so good, almost everything else is better (providing it is unfermented). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-national-dish-of-shame/964784.md?page=11)