Fresh Walnuts

[cashew]

Fresh walnuts are here! Yay! Summer!

I just realized America is a fricking food desert, which is shocking given how much flat arable land is in its borders. Anyway, point is, fresh walnuts are delicious! Yes, peeling it is a PITA, but the yummy crunchy sweet flesh is so worth the effort. Aaaah, yummy food.

Uh...yeah, that's all. Just have to squee about delicious food that I can't get in the US.

Comments

[tanithryudo]

The country isn't old enough to develop its own food culture. Most of its cuisine comes from immigrants, with most changes/innovation stemming from the industrial revolution (eg. fast food).

CA is at least good for fresh fruits, I guess.

[cashew]

I feel like the USA really ought to have at least stolen some food ideas from all the immigrants they've brought in over the last 250 years. But somehow they managed to turn good food into fast food and it's like...why?

California does have fresh fruit, thanks to it belonging to Mexico about 180 years ago, no doubt. That and all the Asian immigrants.

[tanithryudo]

I mean, the evolution of cuisine isn't usually some planned top-down activity. It usually takes place from the bottom up, and is heavily culturally influenced. The USA didn't develop good cuisine for the same reason UK is known for bad food... because they were the drivers of the Industrial Revolution, and the general populace was focused on working their butts off. Thus fast and cheap became the main goal for dining, something antithetical to developing good food, and thus resulting in the fast food culture.

CA's fruits are more like because of its climate and the fact that fruits sell for more than crops...

[cashew]

UK bad food is kind of baffling, given that their history goes back way further than the Industrial Revolution. Plus, it's not like their European counterparts didn't industrialize and yet France, Italy, Spain, Greece, etc. all still have famous foods. Hell, even Germany still has passable food and a couple of decent things they stand out for (sausages and beer being two German-famous food items).

Meanwhile, England has...fish & chips, which is just another form of fast food. (And there's curry, but they stole than from India...)

Anyhoo, I'm not sure I fully buy "Industrial Revolution" as the answer to why a country has shitty food culture.

[tanithryudo]

France specifically I think was a top down effort to create an "elite cuisine".

Anyway, I would rec this channel on bilibili. Talks a lot about the development of different cuisine in different places. Of course, I'm not taking it as the ultimate source of truth or anything. But the author has done some research into the topics presented.

(I'm also interested to hear your take about their edition on Beijing cuisine. :p)