So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[scottyrocks]

At least in New Jersey (a diner mecca), the diner was, when I was growing up in the '70s, most of the time, a Greek-owned family restaurant with a massive - insanely massive and varied - menu offering every dish under the sun - omelettes, steak, lasagna, slovakia, sesame noodles, beef goulash, shrimp scampi, French Toast, burgers, fries, BLTs, dover sole, clams casino, and on and on. While there were always many Greek dishes, almost every major world cuisine was represented.

The menu was several pages and in small print. And here's the thing, most dishes were good, some were great and only a few bad. The NJ diner was not a small affair with a small American-centric menu; it was usually a pretty big place with, as noted, a crazy big and varied menu. And the desserts were ridiculous - pies, cakes, pastries and cookies that rivaled large bakeries in selection, quantity and quality (as a treat, we'd sometimes "run in" to pick up a few things from the bakery to take home - and most encouraged that business).

When I see these small diners in old movies with a board menu of, maybe, twenty items - a place which I love and which NJ had some - they don't reflect for me the diners I knew as a kid. When I first moved into NYC, there were many of those exact same diners - Greek owned, big, varied menu, etc. - but, sadly, each year sees fewer of them as rent increases and "the next generation" not wanting to take over is slowly killing them off in the NYC, but I'm told, they are still thriving in NJ.

These types of diners are still rampant on Long Island, and quality can vary greatly. But there's never a shortage of places to try. Of course, I have my favorites.

 

[scottyrocks]

As for the probable origin of curry, it was most likely some regimental cookhouse where the Glaswegian cook added some local spices to liven up the mutton stew.

I buy various powdered spices, including curry, tumeric, and cumin, to liven up my chicken dishes that I eat during the week. Love that stuff.

 

[scottyrocks]

When I read that I immediately thought of the horsemeat in burgers scandal a few years ago. One of Fleet Street's political cartoonist had burgers for sale. Small size at £1:05, medium at £2:10 and the big family pack at £3:15. The caption read: They might be a good price but I'm wary of meat being sold in guineas.

For those not versed in our antiquated ways. The guinea was a unit of currency worth one pound, one shilling, which translated to one pound and five pence in our now metric currency. Despite the guinea not being in use for over a century, racehorses in the UK are still sold in guineas.

I was in Manchester many years ago, staying with friends.

I tried beef there a couple of times and both were a colossal failure.

The most memorable was a restaurant that was set up to look exactly like out TGIFridays or Houlihan's chains. Walk in, huge murals of Joe DiMaggio, Marilyn Monroe, and Humphrey Bogart on the walls. The seating style, and even the lighting, replicated the aforementioned American style of restaurant.

By the time we got to this restaurant (the American Cafe? I don't remember the name) we had been there a few days and I missing red meat pretty fiercely. We sat down, I ordered a beer that looked for all the world like a Sam Adams, called Boston Beer, and a cheeseburger and fries.

The beer arrived first, as usual. Of course, it wasn't American beer, but the barely carbonated British beer that is normal in England. Room temperature. Okay, not so bad, though, as I had been drinking Boddington Bitters, as well as lots of other new-to-me brews, for a few days, and was enjoying them. But being in a disguised-as-American restaurant, I was hoping that this would be a place where you could buy American beer. After all, I can get British beer here (just not in restaurants).

Then the meal came. Looked great! I ate a fry. Good! Then I bit into the burger. Oh . . . my . . . God. It was the same tasteless meat that I had had in a number of elsewheres.

I guess what made it memorable to this day was the surroundings and theme of the restaurant. It screamed AMERICAN! but was still in England, so okay, it was what it wasn't, or wasn't what it was claiming to be, but it was my fault for expecting the unreasonable.

For the rest of our stay I existed on fish and chips and Indian food, both of which I love.

Oh, and beer.

 

[scottyrocks]

Greek immigrants dominated the independent cheap-restaurant trade in most of the Northeast and Midwest for much of the first half of the twentieth century, to the point where the figure of the dialect-speaking "Parkyakarkus" type of Greek lunchroom operator was a prominent comedy stereotype. That stereotype still had some steam left in it as late as the 1970s, with the "cheeburger-cheeburger-cheeburger-no fries-cheeps-no Coke-Pepsi" business on Saturday Night Live.

Most of these "Greek joints" didn't emphasize ethnically-Greek food , stressing a hamburger-pork chop-veal cutlet blueplate special type of menu, but they often had names like "Athens Lunch" or "Olympia Grill," and there would usually be some kind of pseudo-Greek motif inlaid on the white tile walls and a couple of pictures of the Parthenon and the Acropolis on the walls. These places very often clustered around college campuses, and "going to the Greek's" was common 1930's collegiate slang for hitting one of these joints for a fast, cheap, generic meal.

There used to be a place in Boston near Fenway Park called Aegean Fare, which was a sort of second-generation Greek Joint -- it had the feel of one of these old-style greasy spoons, but it did serve Greek-style food alongside the more Americanish stuff. They always advertised in the Red Sox scorecard, and I always wanted to go in and see what it was all about -- but it was always too full of college kids whenever I was in the neighborhood.

The old-fashioned DINER can still be found here. I mean actual railroad car small buildings, with a full length counter, and small tables across the front, that serve simple basic dishes. There's not a lot of them around, but I can think of a couple right off the top of my head.

 

[Fading Fast]

These types of diners are still rampant on Long Island, and quality can vary greatly. But there's never a shortage of places to try. Of course, I have my favorites.

Not surprisingly, quality is all over the map in NJ as well. We had "our" favorite diner and would drive past two other not-really-good diners on the way to "ours."

In my old neighborhood in NYC, it was the same thing. I'd walk by two diners on the way to "my" diner. Sadly though, all three of those have since closed.

 

[Zombie_61]

I imagine horse is lovely - I've never knowingly eaten it, but I wouldn't say no. I enjoyed donkey immensely when I had that in Beijing - unexpectedly, it tastes like roast beef, but with a much less fibrous texture...

That's how I'd describe the alligator filet I once ate; it tasted very similar to beef, but had a softer texture. Now I'm wondering if it could have been horse meat that the restaurant was passing off as alligator.

 

[GHT]

That's how I'd describe the alligator filet I once ate; it tasted very similar to beef, but had a softer texture. Now I'm wondering if it could have been horse meat that the restaurant was passing off as alligator.

Seahorse, maybe?

 

[Formeruser012523]

For those not versed in our antiquated ways. The guinea was a unit of currency worth one pound, one shilling, which translated to one pound and five pence in our now metric currency. Despite the guinea not being in use for over a century, racehorses in the UK are still sold in guineas.

You don't know how long I've wondered how much a guinea was. Thank you.

As for horse meat. I've had plenty of "beef" being from Texas and for all I know that's exactly what it was. I don't ever want to know, though. I'll remain blissfully ignorant, thanks.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Arrrg, supermarket seem to put my favorite bio-fairtrade-instant coffee out of the sortiment! I know, "life is change". But:

I may replace with their classic coffee-powder counterpart, I'm trying right now on coffee turkish (mug-brewed).

 

[Edward]

View attachment 144189
Seahorse, maybe?

Bit small..... thouh I have seen 'em in Beijing - specifically, six on a stick, deep fried while you watch...

 

[GHT]

Bit small..... thouh I have seen 'em in Beijing - specifically, six on a stick, deep fried while you watch...

My first thought was, so gross, but on reflection, one of the most popular fare that my grandmother sold was: winkles, cockles and whelks. Cooked by steaming and then preserved in vinegar. Such seafood was very common in East End pubs right up until the early seventies. It's worth remembering that winkles, cockles and whelks are all sea snail species.

The UK had rationing after WW2 right up until 1954, the scarcest of the commodities was always meat, so butchers up and down the land sold rabbit as a sort of substitute. Rabbit stew was commonplace when I was a child. As Lizzie said, call it something highfalutin like Lapin au Vin Cuisine d'Aubery, and the foodies will be queuing up to order it, just to show their culinary credentials. But I tell you, I haven't eaten rabbit since the mid 1950's and never will either. It's very strong, tough and after all, rabbit is a rodent.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

and after all, rabbit is a rodent.

Actually, it ain't.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A British friend once told me that whelks taste like salted bits of pencil eraser, and I told him that was ridiculous. It's calamari that tastes like salted bits of pencil eraser.

The first time I went to New York, we went thru a neighborhood in the Bronx where they had a shop with skinned rabbit carcasses hanging by their ankles in the window. For some reason they still had their heads on. The horror still hasn't left me.

 

[GHT]

A British friend once told me that whelks taste like salted bits of pencil eraser, and I told him that was ridiculous. It's calamari that tastes like salted bits of pencil eraser.

The first time I went to New York, we went thru a neighborhood in the Bronx where they had a shop with skinned rabbit carcasses hanging by their ankles in the window. For some reason they still had their heads on. The horror still hasn't left me.

Have to ask the question, what made you put salt on the end of your pencil? And you have my utmost sympathetic empathy over those skinned rabbits. My missus and I were strolling through a market on the Greek Island of Rhodes, one of the traders, a butcher, had a goat's skull at the front of his display. Not a bleached white sanitised skull, but one that he had obviously butchered all the flesh off, leaving scraps of sinew, fat and muscle. What freaked me, in fact it made me jump, he had put the eyes back in their sockets. Looked like some horror movie.

Actually, it ain't.

I stand corrected:
Rodentia does not include rabbits; rabbits differ from rodents in having an extra pair of incisors and in other skeletal features. Rabbits, hares, and a few other species make up the Lagomorpha.

 

[Fading Fast]

A British friend once told me that whelks taste like salted bits of pencil eraser, and I told him that was ridiculous. It's calamari that tastes like salted bits of pencil eraser.

The first time I went to New York, we went thru a neighborhood in the Bronx where they had a shop with skinned rabbit carcasses hanging by their ankles in the window. For some reason they still had their heads on. The horror still hasn't left me.

I'm a kid who was raised in a town and who has lived in towns or cities his entire life which means food comes from a store and is usually several stages along in the processing by the time I see it. I like a little distance between the visceral reality of the farm or slaughter house and my plate for the reason you note.

As much as I love visiting NYC's (or Boston's) Chinatown, I know enough to avert my eyes at certain store windows.

 

[Harp]

My missus and I were strolling through a market on the Greek Island of Rhodes, one of the traders, a butcher, had a goat's skull at the front of his display. Not a bleached white sanitised skull, but one that he had obviously butchered all the flesh off, leaving scraps of sinew, fat and muscle. What freaked me, in fact it made me jump, he had put the eyes back in their sockets. Looked like some horror movie.

I lived in Greece for two years and came to love grilled souflaki but never tried goat head though a buddy
once ordered it at a taverna, eagerly tearing into the brains with relish. To each his own.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The fried brain sandwich was long a popular street food in St. Louis. No wonder LaRussa was so smart.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Three words: bovine spongiform encephalopathy

 

[Formeruser012523]

^^^ I'm not even gonna ask...

 

[tonyb]

Three words: bovine spongiform encephalopathy

My thoughts exactly.

Neural tissue? No thanks.