Your National Dish Of Shame

[Biggirl]

Ah, I see. There is actual danger involved.

[silenus]

I’ve seen them on some Food Network show, or the like. Can’t easily find an on-line cite yet. Probably some episode of Triple-D.

[terentii]

@Spoons

I got a hot dog from a street vendor in Switzerland.

First thing I noticed at the stand was that the foot-long buns were impaled on steel spikes that were warming the buns. Then, when I asked for one, I was asked if I’d like ketchup and mustard. “Yes, both,” I replied. A bun was taken off its spike, and a squirt of ketchup went into the bun. Then, a squirt of mustard. Then, the wiener was inserted.

I paid, and settled down to enjoy my lunch. It was great! Really, not any different from a North American hot dog, except the first half tasted of mustard and the second half tasted of ketchup. Not what I expected, but a nice, tasty experience nonetheless.

Yep, these sound like the ones I had in Moscow.

[lobotomyboy63]

@pulykamell

Now there’s a dish of shame. Mac and cheese on a hot dog? Where do they do that? Why do they do that? I mean, clearly, it’s a matter of “because they can,” but still.

@silenus

Probably some episode of Triple-D.

Years ago, I swear there was a program like Triple D that showed pizza variations. In each case, a standard sort of pizza was prepared—red sauce, cheese, maybe some meat and veggies—and then they put different things in the center. One was sauced spaghetti. Well that’s not too far out there, since both are Italian. Another was mac and cheese. Um, on a pizza? Another was chili—the stew, not just the peppers. Wow. And it seemed like they were all named for cities, like Cincinnati-style or Buffalo-style. My WAG is that if you like both things separately, maybe you’ll like them together.

@pulykamell

Or just something some food magazines and bloggers make up for content?

Quite possible.

[carrps]

@terentii

Kraft sandwich spread with chopped-up pickles!

Gawd, I hated that stuff. It was a nasty combination of too sweet and too processed tasting. I’d only eat Best Foods (i.e. Hellmans) mayo. If I wanted any pickly flavor, I’d chop up part of a real dill pickle.

[terentii]

If you don’t care for baloney fresh out of the package, you can substitute slices of the processed ham found in the lunchmeat section of the supermarket.

[pulykamell]

I’ve actually seen Mac and cheese pizza at at least a couple places. And yes — why?

[Treppenwitz]

Sometimes - even if you know it isn’t a smart idea - you just have to google it. I swear there’s a site out there that leads with:

27 Best Mac and Cheese Pizza Recipes

The fact that there’s one, that’s awful. Twenty seven??

j

[DrDeth]

Yeah, when I was a kid, that was one of my “go-to” school lunch options. Wonder bread, baloney, mayo and a tad of yellow mustard. A small bag of Fritos, and a Hostess cupcake made it well balanced.

@lobotomyboy63

Every once in awhile as a treat, mom picked up smokie links instead of hot dogs and mmmboy!

Yes Smokie links and Kraft Mac & Cheese= dinner staple!

[terentii]

@SciFiSam

Some older working-class households over here still reminisce lovingly about dripping on toast, which sounds similar to the Hungarian fat on bread thing except without any spices. Literally the dripping from fat served on toasted white bread. It was always poverty food, is thankfully a thing of the past, and has never made its way to even the most hipster cafe (or greasy spoons, either).

I remember my dad eating “grease bread” whenever mom cooked pork chops for dinner. He would just take a piece of white Wonder Bread and sop up all the lovely rendered fat on his plate or in the pan. This was ca. 1959, when we were still together as a family.

I sometimes do the same thing today, though I quit eating Wonder Bread long ago.

Wow, this thread is almost a year old!

[Blindmellowjelly]

I believe America’s Shameful addition to culinary at this point in time is incredibly flimsy, whimsy, mountebank, Snake Oil, hippy food science that has no true scientific merit. Gluten…Bullshit!, MSG… Bullshit! Lactose…Bullshit! Fats… Bullshit! Carbs…Bullshit!

[Kimstu]

However, that’s not so much a culinary trend per se as a form of… folk medicine, I guess? And it’s definitely nothing new in American culture:

The United States seems to undergo dietary whiplash every decade or so, and it has been that way since the inception of dieting in the 19th century. […]

The following decades saw the rise of the grapefruit diet (1930s), which promised weight loss if a grapefruit was eaten at each meal; the cabbage soup diet (1950s), which allowed the indulgence in as much cabbage soup as one could consume; and the macrobiotic diet (1960s), based on a Japanese diet of soy, brown rice and vegetables. […]

And while on the surface, fad diets appear to be about “health” or a desire to achieve physical perfection—or at least get as close to it as we can—Adrienne Rose Bitar, author of Diet and the Disease of Civilization, thinks there’s more to it than that.

“Diets,” she writes, “stand in for the bigger debate about history, salvation, nature, money, power … and all the other ideas that make the world worth thinking about.”

A “National Dish of Shame” is almost the opposite of that concept. It’s not about aspirational bullshit science designing misguided error-riddled systems of what people ought to eat. It’s about specific dishes that people in a particular region want to eat, even if most other food consumers the world over would consider it revolting and unhealthy.

[Folacin]

@terentii

I remember my dad eating “grease bread” whenever mom cooked pork chops for dinner.

A common weekend lunch while growing up in the 1960’s was “gravy bread”. Mom would warm up the left over gravy from Friday’s supper and spoon it onto a couple pieces of white bread (white bread being pretty much the only bread in the 1960’s).

I always considered it a treat, on par with leftover cake frosting on saltine crackers.

[pulykamell]

Same with me and my folks in the 80s. Whenever my parents made their version of goulash (basically, just a straightforward stew – their version wasn’t specifically Hungarian with lots of paprika, but it was Eastern European in origin), my favorite bit was to take slices of Polish or Lithuanian rye bread, tear it up into squares, and dip it into the gravy with a fork. Oh, was that so good!

[pjd]

@Biggirl

Jamaican patty with cheese

Mmmmmmmmm. I want to try that !
Apparently, i can get them from Tesco (damn - i just got back from there !)

[Velocity]

Taiwan’s dish of shame is black chewy sweet balls (“pearls” or “bubbles,” the kind in bubble milk tea) on…pizza.

[griffin1977]

Britain has a few to choose from but a chipp butty or beans on toast are probably the leading contenders (the Scots have the deep fried Mars Bar(

[SCAdian]

@pulykamell

@silenus

Seems like the logical step to me. How many of us grew up eating mac & cheese with chopped hot dogs in it?

Not I. We get tuna and peas in ours.

Ditto.

[Smid]

@griffin1977

Britain has a few to choose from but a chipp butty or beans on toast are probably the leading contenders (the Scots have the deep fried Mars Bar(

They don’t. Nobody in Scotland eats that. It was made up for tourists.

Let me put that completely into context. I’m from Scotland. I still have friends in Scotland. I have Scottish friends in England. I have Scottish family.

I guarantee you not a single one has eaten a deep fried Mars Bar.

[Jasmine]

Poutine: “Poutine is a dish of french fries and cheese curds topped with a brown gravy.”