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- Hacker News
- Another great example of this is the divergent paths of both pizza and mozzarella en route from Italy to the United States and Argentina respectively. To an American eye the fact that Argentine Pizza is almost cake-like in texture and the fact that mozzarella is yellow are both remarkable. Even more remarkable the fact that to the Argentina those are simply natural realitiesby redwood
- This is a lovely piece of writing. Well done.by te_chris
- thank you!by infinitewalk
- Loved the acknowledgement and irony of the maids. I used to have a Kalamansi tree and it smells amazing.by janpeuker
- Also known as Bamiya or Bamia (okra stew) among the Malay-Arab community in Singapore.by jnaina
- But is the recipe the same or different?
- Iraqi Jews had other stories of food migration.
For example there is the curious fact where due to Iraqi Jews the falafel in Israel has Amba as a condiment, originally an Indian mango chutney
by breppp - What's the deal with Amba eating in Iraq? It seems out of place as it's spicy source condiment.
Okay... There's a whole Wikipedia about this topic! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amba_(condiment)
Wow I have to tell my dad about this (he's going to not like this lol)
by greazy - > how an Iraqi stew sailed to Singapore
Spoiler: it was a stewaway.
by kazinator - Damn. That's a much better titleby infinitewalk
- > For example, the paradox of Grandfather’s axe where the handle and the blade have long been replaced
For a pop-culture reference, probably known mostly in the UK, see "Trigger's Broom".
The character Trigger is a street sweeper and is given an award by the council for using the same broom for 20 years. Later he reveals the trick to good broom maintenance is to replace parts when they start to go, and says it has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles.
by Nursie - I love these kinds of tales of cultural fusion, because they're so much the norm in human history, and yet we've got this weird idea of fixed identities, categories, and cultures - trace any food, any dance, any music or art back far enough and you're walking continents, and frequently not the ones you think.by roughly
- My favourite is the food you get in Xi'an which is pretty distinct from what you'd ordinarily consider "Chinese" food (ie Sichuanese or Cantonese)
The flatbreads, cumin and lamb dominance all speak to the Silk Road history...
by djtango - The interesting thing is, for a long time I didn't really think about it. I never thought about why I never saw this dish outside of my families dinner table as a kid, and later when I was an adult, I never really questioned what this oddly familiar but distant stew was in middle eastern restaurants.
It was only when I moved out of home and decided to try and recreate it I realized how unique it was!
Makes me wonder how many other similar stories exist in other peoples homes.
by infinitewalk - It’s interesting to note what ‘cultural staples and customs’ are actually a recent invention (in the grand scheme of things) or likewise popularized through corporations that advertised so hard that they embedded themselves into the very cultural fabric.
Cf. hamburgers being maybe 100 years old; tomato sauce being only put on pasta in the late 18th century; ‘standard Italian’ not being codified until the unification of Italy in the late 19th century (one reason why Italian-Americans perhaps say capisch instead of capisci? Some southern accents dropping the -i! [really, they’re languages——languages are just dialects with an army]), the food that we call kimchi today only popularly containing peppers starting in the 19th century; and the whole thing with car companies in the United States tearing up tram tracks and lobbying for jaywalking to be considered a crime!
by doubletwoyou - How much of that is pegged to global literacy I wonder. You won't have popular standardised recipes until chefs and homemakers are literateby djtango
- Pasta itself was not frequently consumed in Italy before the industrial revolution as it was too labor intensive and thus prepared only on special occasions.
'Real' Italian cuisine is without tomatoes (a new world crop) and ~without pasta, or any modern pizza with tomato sauce.
- Fun fact: even today, kimchi (and food in general) in North Korea is less spicy than the South, because they've basically missed out on 50 years of culinary evolution.
https://www.youngpioneertours.com/north-south-korean-kimchi/
Likewise, while Japanese cuisine is generally not spicy at all, the few outliers like mentaiko generally originate from the southern regions like Kyushu and Okinawa that traded with Korea & China.
- Sicilian-Americans drop the final vowel, food example would be "proshut" in NJ
But pizza would also be "modern"
Today's sushi is from 19th C. Edo.., allegedly one person, Hanaya Yohei
Is food.. "anti-Lindy"? (Maybe because innovations that are infectious tend to be universally beloved, quickly killing off their progenitors)