The food and drink thread

[HighlyIrregular II]

I lived in NYC for over 50 years and never had a cannoli. That didn't bother me until I moved. I recently had my first cannoli in PA. I bought two small ones from Giant supermarket, The inside of the shell had chocolate coating and the package said vanilla cream, but the ingredients said cheese, so it was vanilla flavored cheese. No idea if that's what a normal cannoli has, but it tasted like a creamy, less fluffy cheesecake and it was very good.

During my move, my food acquisition methods changed and I ordered from Dominos. First time they cancelled, no reason given. Second time they pretended like they were doing quality control, then I watched the map as they drove towards me, then turned around, then they called to say they're out of salads. Then I received my food with hot buffalo sauce instead of the BBQ sauce that I ordered. I have to read the confirmation screen more carefully because I know I unselected the buffalo sauce. It's not that I don't like spicy, but I don't like whatever flavor buffalo sauce has.

I tried root beer for the first time in years, but not normal root beer. It was Olipop root beer. It got bad reviews. The ingredients aren't even so healthy. Didn't taste bad, exactly, but judging from the reviews it's not like real root beer. My vague recollection of root beer taste backs that up. I think it's the third or fourth time I've had root beer since the late 70s.

[Catoptric]

The oldest cookbook known:

Edit: This is the oldest from the book: Ancient Mesopotamia Speaks Yale Babylonian Collection

Professor (Bill Sutherland) Tries Cooking Nearly 4000-Year-Old Babylonian Recipes And Shares How They Tasted
https://www.demilked.com/cooking-ancien ... utherland/

Three Babylonian Recipes From 1600 BC You Can Make At Home Today
https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifac ... es-0010531

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Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome - Apicius (1st century AD)
https://annas-archive.org/md5/d225a6ed9 ... 971abddb51


Files below 1 mb don't require a paywall.
https://chomikuj.pl/superarrow/Books,2


Some vintage cookbooks (public domain)
https://archive.org/details/cbk

In addition is this MSU Library online
https://d.lib.msu.edu/fa

Among them is 'The Boston Cooking School Cook Book' from 1896s' (later known as Fannie Farmer Cookbook after the original author is a version my Mom still has.) The newer version would be The Fannie Farmer Cookbook (13th ed, 1994) by Marion Cunningham (though the original still holds up exceptionally well.)

A similar book would be 'Meta Given's Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking' (named after the Author) which was originally published in 1949 as a 2 volume version but a single volume (1500 pages) can also be found (though it seems the publication for these was limited enough to where people just assumed it only had 2 volumes,) which in addition to a 'Family Cookbook' and a revised (abridged?) cookbook encyclopedia that might differ. I suspect some similar confusion occurs with Julia Child's books.

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Some of the more interesting ones (and I swear the mid-century cookbooks were more enlightened and compelling.)

The Art Of Chinese Cooking (1956) Charles E Tuttle Co
https://archive.org/details/the-art-of- ... e/mode/2up

Metropolitan (Life Insurance) Cookbook (1964) by Unknown still looks excellent today
https://archive.org/details/Metropolita ... 5/mode/2up

And this Ukrainian cookbook is imitating amanita muscaria mushrooms (Recipe for Mock Mushroom Salad is on Pg 4 right side)
https://archive.org/details/1975ukrstr/page/n3/mode/2up



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Food science cookbook:
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking (2017) Samin Nosrat
Cook This Book: Techniques That Teach and Recipes to Repeat (2021) Molly Baz
The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science (2015) J. Kenji López-Alt
On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen (2004) Harold McGee
New Cooking School - Advanced Fundamentals (2022) America's Test Kitchen
Food (Sci) Indian - Masala Lab (2021) Krish Ashok
Food (Sci) Spice Science and Technology (1998) Kenji Hirasa, Mitsuo Takemasa


A really good list of cookbooks
https://www.tastingtable.com/694352/ess ... ome-cooks/


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I've been getting a little carried away with cookbooks partly because you never really know how useful something will be, and I have an "all or nothing" philosophy with things I get into.

A big issue is the cookbooks are becoming grift economics, and I've been wondering if it's even legal for someone to make a reference to a popular cartoon, TV, movie, or book series and brand it as a product from the series (and not bother putting something like "unofficial" on the cover.) I came across a Family Guy cookbook and when looking it up assumed an "official" version was released and possibly a cease and desist (from publishing or profiting off the series,) because the authors entire collection of books became unavailable.

Lauren Perry
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Lauren-Pe ... abled=true

It turns out that the book that now shows up is from an author doing the exact same thing:

Joel Rollings
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Joel-Roll ... abled=true

Both contain very much the same recipes (and perhaps she just started using his name to publish since she had some legal restriction applied to publishing such books?) Does satire allow to profit off popular culture material the same way that adapting ideas and claiming they are your own likewise permits similar leeway (or a gray area?)

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Anyway, I would suggest some cookbook series:

- Larousse Gastronomique, Junior League of (*town or area*,) Joy of Cooking, Food52 series*, Williams-Sonoma books, Hello! series (though crappy ebooks,)
- America's Test Kitchen has a lot of decent books (such as Cook's Country TV Show 16 series version book, and the main show now has a recent edition) though I've never watched television since this started airing. It also goes by Cook's Illustrated and has decent baking books.
- Anything 'Copycat' or 'Top Secret Recipes' can be fun to mess with.
- Themes such as Star Trek, Tolkien, Game of Thrones, Elder Scrolls, Witcher, or something historical like Aubrey-Maturin novels, can be interesting, along with eras of warfare such as war or major monarchies and their recipe books.
- (pro level) 'Modernist Bread' or 'Modernist Cuisine' (which has a 5 book series for each topic with an additional 6th called the 'Kitchen Manual," which is the actual book of recipes without all the useless filler) and alternatively has a 'Modernist Cuisine at Home' single-volume book which some have referred to as a toe stubber with mostly useless sous vide recipes. The actual books comprising the sets are helpful (such as eyeing the dough consistency for how it's used) and are considered more for professional chefs.
- CIA Chef 5 volume cookbooks (Culinary Institute of America)
- Authors specifically
Professional textbooks or skill level: Wayne Gisslen, Paul Bocuse,
Consumer-level: Craig Claiborne (American with French gourmet,) Louise Davidson, Bruce Aidells (focuses on meat,) Nika Standen Hazelton (Swede-American,) Julia Childs (of course), Olia Hercules (Ukraine-Russia, etc.) Irma S. Rombauer (Joy of Cooking fame,) Brother Avila-Latourrette (Monastery--mostly soup and vegetarian--Cookbooks)

Restaurant (or something such as 'Plantation' or historic setting) Cookbooks :

- A Seasoned Chef - Le Cirque (1987) Jean Vergnes
- Maman
- Dumpling Galaxy
- Biscuit Head
- Bookbinder's Restaurant, Old Original (1961) Charlotte Adams
- Moosewood Restaurant has an original (1996) and New Classics (2001) amongst other books by Clarkson Potter
- Market Restaurant (2016) Carl Schroeder
- Restaurant Martin (2015) Martin Rios
- Santa Fe Restaurant (1979) Jim Douglas
- Veselka Cookbook (Ukrainian Restaurant) (2009, NYC) Tom Birchard & Natalie Danford
- Gramercy Tavern (2013) Michael Anthony
- Cafe Boulud (1999) Daniel Boulud
- Waldorf-Astoria (It has 2 different cookbooks--apparently where the Empire State Building now stands the original one was located, and since then it's taken on new versions) The Golden Anniversary came out in (1981) Ted James and Rosalind Cole and the newest is (2006) John Doherty & John Harrisson. They also have an old and a new bar recipe book.
- Santa Cruz (Ca) Cooks - Restaurants (2004) Kathleen Driscoll Hallam (and similar areas like Monterey Bay, have a collection of area restaurants and recipes.

Some favorites (though I'm not sure I would consider all of them useful) :

Maw Broon's - a gift to my dear daughter-in-law, -- Jeannie Broon (2007)
The Connoisseur's Cookbook (1965) Robert Carrier
Margo Oliver's stew & casserole (1975)
King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary (1992)
Upper Crust - Homemade Bread the French Way (2021) Marie-Laure Fréchet
Country Cookbook, Farm Journals (1972)
Llano County (TX) Family Heritage
Sassafras, Ozarks Cookbook (1985) Junior League of Springfield
Our Best Cookbook, Wisconsin Restaurant Association (1993)
Civil War Cookbook (1993) William C Davis
A Taste of History - 10,000 years of food in Britain (1993) Brears, Peter
(Dutch Oven) One-Pot Meals (2019) Louise Davidson
Vatican Pontifical Swiss Guard recipes (2016)
British Isles Cookbook (2017) Annette Yates (also wrote a 'Best of' version 1/5 the size)
City Tavern - Birthplace of American Cuisine (2009) Salter Staib
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (2011) Marcella Hazan (Easily one of the best Italian cookbooks)
366 Menus and 1200 Recipes (2005) Prof Baron Brisse

Some decent types of cookbooks: Comfort Food (Cajun/Creole, slow cooker, Meat Pies, Soups,) Ukrainian or Russian, Austrian or German,

Some future topics I want to focus more on (though I already have a few on the topic):
Panini,
Sushi (I'm not entirely impressed by most of the books)
Vegetables (Indian will probably be a good starting point, though it also looks like the name Yotam Ottolenghi is a good starting point)
indigenous (and sometimes you need to find foreign language books, such as for Tamales)
Camping and cast iron
Brasseries


For brewing (or beverage)
Brew Your Own Big Book of Homebrewing (though things like Anchor Steam Porter requires a double-decoction to properly replicate. . .)
Home Brewers Guide to Vintage Beer (1800 to 1965) - Ronald Pattinson - Quarry Books (2014)
(professional level) Brewing Science A Multidisciplinary Approach (2016) Michael Mosher
Homebrew Classic Series
Kombucha & Co - Kefir, Jun, Ginger Beer, Honey Mead, etc (2020) Felicity Evans
Artisan Soda Workshop (2012) Andrea Lynn
Complete Soda Making (2012) Clarkson Potter
Elements of Cocktail Technique (2014) Jeffrey Morgenthaler.
Cocktail Codex - Fundamentals, Formulas, Evolutions (2018) Alex Day
Chocolate and Coffee Bible (2007) Catherine Atkinson

For the "Outdoorsy" (hobo hipster wannabe)
Forager's Feast (2016) Leda Meredith


Note, Some file sizes can differ from 15mb vs 250mb with very negligible differences (such as image quality slightly reduced.) Sometimes a basic PDF can be better (though because many such books use a different page size, a 1000 page book might look pretty weird, though still better than EPUB or AZW3, and any file has the potential to have broken indexing.) And though you will rarely come across zip/rar collections, I did come across a trojan virus called Script/Phonzy.A!ml which was contained in a standalone folder which attempted to activate when I opened it (and I sort of expected something like that which is why before and after, it reaffirmed my suspicion to avoid such files.)


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I just realized that something like this exists (basically a drill press food processor used to smooth frozen ice cream or gelato.) Not sure a manual press couldn't somehow be used, but it seems both cool and stupid/gimmicky. . . It seems like the sort of thing you would buy when watching the home shopping network after a night of insomnia where an existential crisis takes over. I also now realize where the game Earthbound seems to have gotten the idea to make a central part of the game revolve around trout (frozen?) yogurt, and the thought of frozen fish being pureed into a puree seems as repulsive and glib as much of what only a glib superficial gourmet market would find appealing.




I completely forgot about Showbiz Pizza (I remember going their in the 90s and was surprised at how similar it was to Chuck E Cheese, as apparently it was founded by the same dude who was a founder at Atari.) Both restaraunts inspired the Friday Night's at Freddy's.

Another restaurant concept that no longer exists is Crystals Pizza and Spaghetti, which seemed to have also been headquartered in Irving, Texas.



Seems that the Showplace animatronic band is on display at an Illinois museum:


And a Chuckie Cheese in California decided to keep there ugly things as well.



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[HighlyIrregular II]

I wanted to make a cherry pie (my favorite) from cherries that don't have artificial color, because red food coloring isn't healthy. I wanted a popular brand of pie filling and I found Duncan Hines Comstock Original Country Cherry, but it got bad reviews. Then I found Lucky Leaf, which they have in my local supermarket. I never made a pie before but this seems super simple. I'm thinking about the best way to use the graham crackers on top. I could shape them into circles with a grater and enlarge the holes with a knife, and maybe scallop the edges, or just crumble them.

Ugh...I think I need corn starch to thicken the syrup. I'll read up on cherry pie recipes. I saw one last night and I know they thickened the syrup. I want it to be like actual cherry pie filling.

cherry pie ingredients.jpg (367.89 KiB) Viewed 5006 times

[HighlyIrregular II]

Chow fun is scarce in Chinese take out places in Lehigh Valley PA. I just found out it's less popular than chow mei fun in general, not limited to PA. In the chicken chow fun that's familiar to me, that they have in NY, the noodles have a thin brown sauce. The chicken chow mei fun that I got in PA was seasoned but had no sauce. It was white. Disappointing. I should start making my own. It's pretty easy.

[HighlyIrregular II]

Someone's Facebook group is trying to pass this off as the perfect pizza. In the discussion he says it's from Long Island (which adjoins Queens (Queens is part of NYC (I wonder how much people know about NYC))). It's certainly not typical NYC pizza. Most people in that group are falling for it but even if you don't know pizza, look at how it's cut - the cuts stop in the approximate center. None of the cuts go from end to end. It looks like AI. Aside from the cut, it looks like Allentown pizza, which I stopped buying because it looks gross to me.

pizza.jpg (269.66 KiB) Viewed 1547 times

[Catoptric]

I was only familiar with the name Hoya, because it's the company that makes camera lens filters.

It's the Japanese word for 'Sea Pineapple (aka Sea Squirt, because when pulled up from the water it squirts out water.)

https://fb.watch/urybympPK9/

It's not a plant, but a sea creature, and must be eaten really fresh.

It looks pretty disgusting, actually, and I could imagine it being the basis for the 'Barnacle' in Half Life 2 ( https://bogleech.com/halloween/hall22-halflife .)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_pineapple

[HighlyIrregular II]

I think Papa John's pizza is good but I don't want burn marks on the cheese because it's not healthy. I ordered a pie with 2x mushrooms, 2x peppers, and spinach, hoping it would totally cover the cheese, but it didn't come close. I don't want any meat toppings. Not sure what to do. Order twice that much topping? I may try it.

[starjots]

Red Chile 2 2024.jpg (203.18 KiB) Viewed 1056 times

Bought a bushel of red chile from a local farm stand. Usually you get green chile fresh in this form and roast it, peel the skins, and chop it up. Red is usually sold as dried pods or even just ground up powder because fresh red chile doesn't last very long before it starts to rot or dry out.

The advantage of fresh red is that, like any ripe fruit (red chile is just ripe green chile), it is sweet. Everything made from this stuff is extra tasty. I plan on making and freezing enchilada sauce, making some chile rellenos and maybe saving some chopped up.

[Madrigal]

Red Chile 2 2024.jpg

Bought a bushel of red chile from a local farm stand.

These look sooo good!

I'm thinking I might have to start cooking some new things, I was told my cholesterol was high and that my tryglicerides are off the charts.

[Catoptric]

I found an oversized noodle package for $2.50 and was a bit surprised by what I found. Literally 8 plastic envelopes filled with different ingredients, with the directions specifying putting the noodles in prior to boil (with an option of soaking for 1 hr prior, or just waiting until it heated up and then waiting 8-9 minutes.)

Dumping the water out then set aside for the final 500ml. All the ingredients were in Chinese, so I had to kind of guess which was with confirming with Google Lens to translate, which even then when it referred to tofu, it was 'Yuba' in translation, which wasn't familiar. It also included a bean curd cut lengthwise and had specific directions about when you added in various sequences.

In addition to the translations, I was aware it focused on a mushroom base, but the actual name of it was 'Snail Noodle.' The brand name was No.Wang. . . And Google translate seemed to interpret some of the letters as 'No Money.' Pretty decent though.

This is an alternative package by the same brand, but fairly similar.


A rough summary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luosifen

Sold at 99 Ranch Market (A Chinese/Taiwanese grocer.) When looking up online, it seems to go by various translations; from River Snail, to Happy Snail, to Snail Overlord. . . It might be Hǎo huǎn luò which translates to english as "Falling so slowly?" I see why so many products made in China have such terrible English, or seems like an actual Alien named it. They seem to have tried different approaches to marketing, and the closest my package resembled is this: https://hiyou.co/products/hao-huan-luo- ... -plus-400g

Oddly, the package on the store's website I bought it from looks a bit different. . .
https://fresh.99ranch.com/products/happ ... ce-noodles

Some odd things are the peanuts weren't even roasted (they are toxic when not roasted,) and I should have drained the bamboo shoots in case they weren't properly prepared before packaging and not drained (since they can contain toxins, which is why only pandas eat raw bamboo, or else you will die without boiling and soaking, and draining the water.) I'm sure it's safe, but it does make me have second thoughts with the peanuts.


So. . . It really does use river snails?

"Luosifen is a popular Chinese dish of rice noodles in a broth made from river snails and pork bones, plus pickled bamboo shoots and other ingredients. The snails are used to make the broth, not eaten directly, and the dish is known for its unique smell and flavor."

Mine really did say No.Wang at the top of it. Other examples:



It's the first I've ever noticed or heard about fen snail being used in broth, and if I saw these in the past, they must have kept them in a different section of the store (generally when I shopped at 99 Ranch Market, I was looking at the frozen dumplings.) They have been known to have a cheaper version of Shin Ramen noodles, which was around the time Rancho Cucamonga (city in California) started a factory and made an inferior version of the ramen (previously, the flavor packages were a bit more bold and interesting, and I suspect the packages are also smaller and contain more msg than usual.) These ones are a bit more interesting, though I wonder if the people that actually know what they are buying are avoiding it because they know it contains snails?

Found it. . . Not being sold anymore?
https://www.waiyeehong.com/noodles/inst ... r?cPath=37&