Nah, leave it alone. With all the anti-French sentiment rampant in the USA, I'm all for using as many French words as I can, just to piss off Dubya. See my quotation by Hermann Goering in the quotations thread.
"French fries" are now officially called "Freedom Fries" in the U.S. House of Representatives as some moron's way of assaulting the French. It's just this sort of ignorance that can make me deeply ashamed to be an American.
I thought that Tina Fey on "Saturday Night Live" had the right take on this news item in their "Weekend Update" segment this weekend:
"In a related story, in France "American cheese" is now known as "Idiot cheese."
An NPR editorial made the very intelligent suggestion that since the French see American cuisine in terms of pigs eating at a trough (and God knows they're right far more often than they're not in this regard) if we really wanted to stick it to the French linguistically (as if this would make any difference at all) we should name more crappy American foods for the French instead of the opposite. As this editorial pointed out, when we dropped the name "French fries" for those overpriced, under-nutritional, mass-produced, greasy, calorie-ridden potato slivers, there were almost as many French citizens dancing for joy in the streets as there were when they were liberated from the Nazis!
"In a related story, in France "American cheese" is now known as "Idiot cheese."
Having tasted those two "delicacies" known as American Yellow and American White I can't say I disagree. They bear as much resemblance to decent cheese as Bud does to beer.
As for Cheez Wiz - is it for eating or mending the holes in the soles of your shoes ?
Hrrmph! As I have said in a previous post, we do have some wonderful cheeses, though. What do you expect from a processed cheese? I hate that they named it "American cheese", rather than "processed cheese".
As for Cheez Wiz - is it for eating or mending the holes in the soles of your shoes ? =================================== I once knew a feminist who squirted it into her knickers as an anti-molestation device.
The pinnacle, my dear Graham, is in my home state, Wisconsin! And, honestly, we do make wonderful cheeses. Don't listen to these people! Wisconsiners aren't known as "cheese heads" for nothing. (If any of you Brits haven't seen the swiss cheese hats that Wisconsiners often wear when watching sports, well, you're lucky!)
At any rate, Chicagoans have a knack of making fun of my home state, and I must stick up for it! To be perfectly honest, Wisconsin hates Illinois (and especially Chicago) as well. They post their state policmen along the freeways, watching for speeders with Illinois license plates.
Of course, it would be uncharacteristicly non-chauvinistic of me were I not to point out that Stilton is the "King of Cheeses".
Still handmade; still only made in six dairies; still one of the only cheeses in the world with its own certificate of origin (like Champagne) Cheese known as Stilton can only be made, from local milk, in the English counties of Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
Richard English
Posts: 8038 | Location: Partridge Green, West Sussex, UK
quote:Originally posted by Kalleh: And, honestly, we do make wonderful cheeses. Don't listen to these people! .
I'm sure you do but I think you'd have to agree that anyone basing their opinion of American cheese on American White, American Yellow (which as I understand it is American White with yellow food dye added) or Cheez-Wiz is likely to be less than favourably impressed.
When I was travelling around the States the speed of my journey meant that I had little time to go seeeking good shops and ended up doing most of my food shopping in chain supermarkets and while there were some exceptions most of them seemed to stock little more in the way of cheese than this unholy triumvirate of processed yuck.
It really is like American beer - there is some excellent stuff out there if you know where to look for it but the product that most people choose represents the worst end of the market. To use an Americanism - "go figure".
OK, I did go figure, and it adds up to eating here in the USA being a habit, not a ritual. It is something for marketers to exploit, not for human beings to venerate.
quote: Cheeselogs - who knows what a cheeselog is?
A cheeselog is different types of cheeses blended together with spices. Then it is shaped in the form of a log and usually rolled in chopped nuts. Served with crackers at boring parties, I highly recommend it!
Posts: 1412 | Location: Buffalo, NY, United States
Interestingly, Graham, they don't have a "Wisconsin" cheese, per se. However, Wisconsiners do make cheese (e.g. cheddar, brick, swiss, etc.) in creameries, and it is absolutely wonderful. Buying cheddar cheese in a Wisconsin creamery, rather than in the local grocery store, is much like the difference between Budweiser versus Fuller's 1845!
Interestingly enough, Cheddar Cheese is probably the most maligned of all cheeses since it is a simple, yellow cheese with no markings or special texture. Thus, anyone who makes a simple yellow cheese tends to call it Cheddar.
Unfortunately the cheesemakers of Cheddar did not register the name and so few know what real Cheddar tastes like unless, like me, they have been to the village of Cheddar and tried it there.
Richard English
Posts: 8038 | Location: Partridge Green, West Sussex, UK
Some time ago (decades ago) I purchased the Time-Life books on Foods of the World and was experimening with various recipes. The Italian recipe I had chosen called for three different cheeses whose names I have long since forgotten. At the local (Colorado) supermarket I was searching for the required cheeses when a young couple passed by the Dairy Section and headed up an aisle with their shopping cart. When she looked at her shopping list she told him, "I forgot to get cheese. Get some cheese, please."
"White or yellow?"
"Who cares?"
Posts: 6708 | Location: Kehena Beach, Hawaii, U.S.A.
:
To be perfectly honest, Wisconsin hates Illinois (and especially Chicago) as well. They post their state policmen along the freeways, watching for speeders with Illinois license plates.
