I'm currently on only page 8 of the thread, but I'm savouring every morsel so to speak. I was surprised to find, on the first fucking page in fact, the great hatred that many of you have for Ethiopian food. And then the insults just kept flying in #metooethiopiachow
What surprised me was that so many people had an opinion on it because so many of you had tried it. I only ever saw an Ethiopian restaurant once in my life. And I made the mistake of going in there.
Yes, the food looked like a runny shit. It also tasted like it. That spongey bitter bread. I can't even...
I threw up in mouth a little bit, but that was just the smell of the fucking pungent fucking coffee they had baking out the back. God it was fucking awful. This was in Brixton, Coldharbour lane where all the wogs hang out selling 5 pound baggies of 'puff'. Say no more.
I went in with my g/f. We'd had Italian in Islington, dahling, and it doesn't get much better than that. We'd had the odd Chinese, you know how it goes.
But Ethiopian? Now that's one to put on the map. How the fuck these fuckers have managed to spread their shit cuisine so far and wide across the globe is the great mystery to me. Then again, a lof of them are jews! With jews you lose!
But still, once bitten twice shy. Never again.
I quite like the shitty Chinese food they pass off here as Chinese, but I had it a bit too authentic one day when it had a fucking human toe-nail in it which I had half-munched down on. Took the fucker back (the takeaway was literally just across the road). Got my money back, but fuck. I asked the girl working behind the counter there if she would like to come out and see a band with me. I was yound and good looking and not creepy (as I am now). She just told me she could not. She was a slave. She was not allowed to go out or have friends. It was a platonic gesture which I'm pretty sure she picked up on as well, so it's not like I was hitting on her. Quite sad. But them fucking toe-nails man... what in the fuck?
I also agree that BritBong food gets a bad rap. I'm a veggie, but I still eat like a King here. And most of the food is shit, let's get it right. But if you do eat meat, then the quality of the cuisine goes up a notch again when done by someone that knows what they are doing.
I took great pleasure in cooking in a country house that had an AGA. AGA Cookers can be a pleasure or a nightmare to cook on. The one I had was equal in both measures. But on a good day, when you got the hang of it the way a racing driver gets the hang of a new sportsmobile that is a little 'testy' then yeah, you can do it proud.
Simple stuff. All cooked from ingredients in the garden we had grown ourselves. Growing it was easy, but the fucking weeding was another matter. Another story.
Simple vegetables. Sprouts. Onions. Potatoes. Carrots. Courgettes. Plums. Blueberries. Runner beans. Spinach. Lettuce. Peaches. You get the point.
I had a particular trick I learned from my upbringing in Wales: Mashed potato with Swede! The Swede takes longer to cook - it's a different texture - you salt it slightly more than the mash - you butter it up - and you watch people's mouths melt as they eat it with either lamb or beef or game. You can't overcook things in an AGA unless it's a bit fucked or you aren't paying attention. You're lucky to get anything cooked at all sometimes - it takes ages - but that slow cook is what I think people are talking about when they say food tastes better cooked in one. Bollocks for the most part, but that might be a reason.
And I always took pleasure in cooking the meat to perfection. At the end of the day I did not care as I was not eating it. And the icing on the cake for me was the incredulity on the carnivore's faces as they demolished that meat while not being able to understand why I did not touch a drop of it. Pure heaven for me. To have my food appreciated so much, but for them to understand the person who cooked it, so little. A small point perhaps. But my pleasure was in their pleasure, as any great cook or chef will attest. And I would hardly call myself a 'cook', and certainly never a 'chef'.
Gravies and sauces were passed down and only really looked upon by me. I was a total failure at them (when attempted). But those who handed the recipes down were masters, and all I had to do to make good on most of these days was to keep stirring the pot and make sure broth/liquid did not burn. I had one fucking job! Well, that and a few other ones going on at the same time. But that was ONE FUCKING JOB that could not be afforded to be fucked up.
And who am I? No one. But I bet I could cook you British cuisine of the not so fine variety that would
make your bollocks tingle!
But the art of cooking even a medium fine cuisine of British shit is being lost. My gran used to cook a mean Corned Beef Pie. Yeah Cottage Pie and all that - great stuff. But fuck me that was something special. All it needed was a bit of Brown Sauce to get those old bollocks tingling even as a youn pre-teen.
And we had our stews, our Cawls.
Just the same as the English, the Scottish, the Irish. A fucking pot of whatever vegetables you could muster, whatever meat you could hunt down, salvage, pick on and whatever spices you could find to put in the pot. Bay leaves and all that is very nice. But pepper is good too. Don't forget there's a reason why 'Salary' is a word and why some men are worth their salt and why some men aren't.
It was old meat like mutton that went in there usually and all the better for it, to loosen it up. But fuck me, it never felt like you were missing out, like you were being deprived. And let me tell you the magic trick. Good ol' Welsh butter lathered on a fucking big chunk of Welsh White Bread. Bliss. Pure heaven. You could here Angel Trumpets and Devil Trombones when that went down your throat. And that's before you ever even got the concept that anyone before you had died of hunger, that anyone before you had to die of hunger for you to take this spot, in evolution. Before you found out there were fields of famine in Ethiopia. When we did find out in the late 70's we went and we took shit down to the post office to send there. Big fuckng boxes of it. Not everyone did. Buy my family did. And many others. Not sure how much it helped.
I guess food and 'cuisine' is not just related to the culture propagating it and the people propagating it, but the time it was put forward in. That was our time. I guess you had to be there.
And now we have a world where people argue over the most petty of matters. Still, to go in to a McDonalds anywhere is to see pigs feeding at a trough. Another story again.
To just finish off and finally shut the fuck up, I did once nearly eat Snail when in the South of France, or it might have been Paris, anyway, no fucking way, they were like fifty fucking quid and I'm talking 30 fucking years ago. I think they were taking the piss.
Personally I'm a big fan of both Italian and Indian food, cooking up my own little versions of whatever recipes I can find. I can do gourmet stuff - my risotto is to die for. I don't tend to do the big English meals now I live by myself and don't have an AGA and don't eat meat. But I'll eat good seafood now and again and I'm not so veggie I don't eat butter or eggs, so I'm good.
But yeah, Ethiopian food is the worst fucking shit in the world, and britbong food is not so bad if you eat it from the table from someone that knows what they are doing (probably not a restaurant)
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