When I go to public places for food, I have two choices:
1. Bright lights, loud music, bird chattering atmosphere where a glass of water
is available upon request. Food is ok & prices are $$.
2. Dim lights, no loud speakers or music, a glass of water is brought to the table
and the waiter "waits" until you ready to order. Food is very good but takes longer.
Prices are usually $$$$$.
One is for "eating" the other for "dining".
I know what to expect from each and enjoy them for what they are.
So, get the Döner Kebab and settle down at a relaxed park-bench, which you like.
Veal cutlets -- breaded and fried in a skillet -- are a staple food of the Era that seem to have completely dropped out of sight. Any diner or lunchroom menu you look at from 1920 into the 1960s will feature a breaded veal cutlet served with tomato sauce for 50 cents to a dollar twenty five. It was never, ever called "veal parmigiana," it was just a breaded veal cutlet served with tomato sauce that obviously came out of a Number 10 can.
I must've eaten my weight in those things each year up until the late '90s, when suddenly I couldn't find the premade frozen ones in the store anymore. These came four to a pack, were thin meat encrusted with a yellow-orange breadcrumb batter, and were exactly like the kind I remember from "Mary's Restaurant," our little nondescript downtown lunch place when I was a kid. Heat up one of those, pour some Prince's tomato sauce over it, and there's your dinnah. But you can't get them anywhere now, and if you want veal in a restaurant it's a high priced speciality item served with an accent and an attitude.
I remember veal cutlets and, exactly as you said, it was in the '90s when they seemed to fade. That was also the time that the animal rights groups started promoting the anti-veal / anti-killing calves (or, more evocative, "baby cows") story. I am not opining on that at all, but am (I believe) factually tying that campaign to the fade of veal cutlets as a staple. I have no evidence of that as all this is based on my twenty-plus year old memory. But I do remember my friends who were sensitive to these issues all of a sudden talking about veal and "baby cows" in the '90s.
Baby ribs in the butcher shop.
Scared the "beegeebees" out of me as a kid.
I always sort of assumed the ones I was eating had very little actual veal in them -- probably more elderly bulls all ground up with extenders and then given just a whisper of genuine veal for the sake of the name. They certainly didn't look like the actual veal meat you find now in the premium section of the butcher's case.
I ate "menudo" as a kid.
Spicy...but I liked it.
Later years I found out what it was and where it came from.
I'll just leave it at that!
Btw:
Shut your eyes Fading Fast
You don't want to read what LizzieMaine has eaten with
regards to these types of foods!
Baby ribs in the butcher shop.
Scared the "beegeebees" out of me as a kid.
When I get in the mood.
I'll make a big deal preparing meatballs, spaghetti and garlic bread.
Sipping wine in-between while fixing it.
I don't drink alcohol on a regular basis and sometimes I burn the
garlic bread.
Nevertheless, I enjoy it.
Although at times, I feel a little down in that it took longer to prepare it
then eating it.
Usually don't eat three meals a day. I eat in small amounts all the time.
Facebook videos of food being prepared makes me hungry.
Also movies where the actors are eating.
Watching the "Godfather" I think of Fading Fast and New York..
and those small Italian diners.
"Jaws" = LizzieMaine!
With regards to seafood.
I always sort of assumed the ones I was eating had very little actual veal in them -- probably more elderly bulls all ground up with extenders and then given just a whisper of genuine veal for the sake of the name. They certainly didn't look like the actual veal meat you find now in the premium section of the butcher's case.
We didn't have such a thing in any of our local stores when I was little, but if we had, my mother certainly would have told me that they came from actual babies, and used that as a threat to keep me in line. (She did used to threaten to sell us to the baby oil factory...)
Is US-gastronomy offering old-fashion brew/broth with "royale"/Eierstich, today?
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=brühe mit eierstich&qs=n&form=QBIR&pq=brühe mit eierstich&sc=0-9&sp=-1&sk=
There is a nationwide chain of hamburger restaurants called Fuddruckers, and one of their selling points is that their beef is fresh and never frozen. When they opened their first restaurant here in southern California in 1979, to reinforce this point they placed their in-house butcher shop right by the front entrance so the customers could watch the beef being prepared for their meal(s) while they waited in line to place their order. Now, when I say "butcher shop", I mean they had actual sides of beef hanging in plain view and employees in blood-smeared white smocks carving them up. My friends and I joked about it as if we were choosing a lobster--"I'll have that one in the back with the big, brown, sad eyes..."--but the butchers and their shop were gone after a couple of months because so many potential customers complained about it before leaving to eat elsewhere. Good burgers, but their nearest location is now a 10-mile/30-45 minute drive away so we only eat there if we happen to be in the neighborhood.Baby ribs in the butcher shop.
Scared the "beegeebees" out of me as a kid.
A larding needle is a hollow skewer with a substantial handle and a very sharp angled tip which is used to thread strips of seasoned suet or smoked and heavily seasoned pork belly (bacon) through lean roasts or lean fowl (such as pheasant). The "Lardoons" so inserted into the meat tenderize, moisten, and season it. While pheasant is commonly hunted in our county I find these small, dry birds to be more trouble than they are worth. Besides, I do not care to clean the b*gg*rs. A loca Amish chicken is more flavorful, and they come already cleaned (and never contain shot!)
A properly larded roast of venison is a bit of trouble, but is tasty, moist, and tender when aged and larded (or larded THEN aged, as I do it). The only problem is the space occupied in the ice box for the aging roast, but in Michigan hunting season is late enough in the year that a roast may usually be aged in a closed container out of doors. Of course when a roast may be had free of charge one is not concerned about a little extra effort.
With whole pork loins selling for $1.39/lb this week who needs "expensive" meatballs? I made mock Veal Parmagana over spaghetti last night. It is a nice thirty five minute dinner;
After lunch (or the evening before) take four small boneless pork loin chops (cut 1" thick from the small end of the pork loin) and pound them out as thin as possible. They will at this point be the size of dinner plates. cut into halves, dip in flour, then egg, and then seasoned crumbs. Put on a plate, cover, and refrigerate until dinner time.
When preparing dinner, preheat the oven to 350 degrees, fill a large pot with salted water for the spaghetti in the usual manner, and heat a large frying pan or saute with a lump of lard in it nearly to the smoking point. Very hot lard is not absorbed to any extent by the breading and so the cutlets are lower in fat when cooked in this traditional fat than when cooked in, say, Crisco. While the spaghetti is boiling (and your favorite prepared sauce is heating) fry the cutlets till nicely browned (about 2 minutes a side) and set them when done on a plate in the oven with paper towels between the cutlets to absorb any last bits of excess fat.
When the spaghetti is done, plate, cover with sauce, place a cutlet on top of the sauce, put a couple of tablespoons of additional sauce on the cutlet and place a slice of cheese (mozzarella, provolone, or muenster work best) on top. Place the finished plates under the broiler to brown and bubble the cheese. A propane torch with a flame spreader works just as well and does not heat up the plates.
Prep time for the pounded and breaded cutlets is about 12 minutes. Cooking time including prep for the spaghetti is less than 25 minutes.
A meal for six or seven which uses about 1 1/4 pounds of $1.39/lb meat.
The same cutlets, when not cut into pieces, make excellent Schnitzel. For Schintzel a al Holstein prepare spaetzel with nutmeg, fried in butter, a little red cabbage (rotkohl) and an egg broken atop the schnitzel, just set under a medium broiler, makes another lovely quick meal.