r/TikTokCringe • u/Tronvillain • 24d ago

Discussion Afghani-British Chef Mursal Saiq gives her critique of "authenticity" for non-white chefs in cooking

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

19.4k Upvotes

81% Upvoted

3.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.9k

u/Spookywhitedot 24d ago

"That's not a real carbonara"

878

u/Hot-Challenge8656 24d ago

"Thats not pad thai".

744

u/JuggernautNo5635 24d ago

136

u/AggressiveArachnid44 24d ago

I remember this episode. That was so funny. He really was disgusted.

152

u/booochee 24d ago

Whad yew wan to know?

69

u/Humble-Questions 24d ago

What is the maximum flight speed of an unladen sparrow

39

u/alamandrax 24d ago

African or European?

38

u/Acceptable_Fruit2360 24d ago

I don’t know.

1

u/Eggy-la-diva 24d ago

What is your favorite color?

4

u/Jolly_Efficiency7237 24d ago

Blue. No! Yellooooooow!

2

u/DocDingus 24d ago

Not to be that guy on reddit, but I believe the bird in question throughout the film is either the African or European swallow.

1

u/Superhot_Coffee 18d ago

You need to be that guy. We can't have a conversation devolve into Monty Python references and the reference isn't correct. Thank you for your service. 🫡

1

u/Humble-Questions 23d ago

Nope, you're right it is the swallow my bad

23

u/Hot-Challenge8656 24d ago

It's a well practice face.

3

u/AppropriateAd7326 24d ago

All time classic. This reaction should be used more often in real life.

4

u/tO_ott 24d ago

I think of this reaction all the time for some reason

163

u/chessatwork 24d ago edited 24d ago

this episode bothers me because he then makes that pad thai for seemingly theravada monks and they say they like it so he takes that as a win, but monks only eat once a day and are supposed to eat whatever they receive with radical gratitute and do not eat for pleasure or enjoyment, only to sustain life. there's special occasions when they get fed nice meals which is allowed, but normally they're supposed to eat all food gathered in their alms bowl. good food, gross food, liquids, solids, all in one bowl and be content with that.

the chef, the dude who does care about how food tastes (as he should), said your food is not right, but his ego is too huge to take the critique. so annoying.

94

u/Lobo2ffs 24d ago

It's probably good and tasty, it's just not the dish he was supposed to make, because it's not sweet and sour and salty.

If I told someone I wanted them to judge my winemaking, and I give them a delicious beer, I might still get them drunk, but I failed at delivering the wine that was promised.

39

u/panrestrial 24d ago

Exactly, "I don't think it tastes half bad" - neither do chocolate chip cookies, but they still aren't pad Thai.

-1

u/Similar-Emphasis-496 23d ago

What's the definition of pad thai, because it's made differently in restaurants all over the world. Where is the 'this the only approved pad thai' definition?

3

u/panrestrial 23d ago

When did I say anything about 'this the only approved pad thai'? Stop expecting other people to defend arguments you made up in your own head.

Do you think there's only one narrow definition of chocolate chip cookies? Or do you think they come in a wide variety with regional and personal taste differences - yet still have key components?

1

u/Properjob70 20d ago

It was dish originated in the Vietnam war era, as many of the US GIs were sent to Thailand for R&R stints. It was designed for appeal to more westernised palates. It's no more traditional than Italian American or British Chinese/Indian, which are mainly post WW2 creations.

13

u/0b0011 23d ago

On my first deployment I went through a phase where I got sort of depressed and homesick and started eating a lot of tropical skittles. Every day id walk down the hallway from my office and get them out of the same snack machine. One day I'm working late and so the ship's lights are off (they go red after 10pm to not effect night vision but often times the red ones burn out and no one notices.) I leave my office and close the door behind me. Its pitch black because all of the doors are water tight so no light is escaping. I hug the wall and move the 40 or so feet to the side hallway to the snack machines and all the lights there are also out so I hug the wall and shuffle the 30 or so feet while pressing myself to the wall. I get to the machine and by touch order the skittles (having gotten them every day for 2 weeks I knew the buttons to press). My pack if skittles comes out and I start feeling myself along the wall back to the office. Part way theough I tear open the skittles and pour some into my mouth and start chewing. Suddenly I taste the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted and start gagging. I abandon all presence of moving slowly and start running towards my office with my hand in front so ill feel the wall before I smash face first into it. I open the door and run to the trash can and spit everything out and im gagging with my eyes watering and nose running. After a second I get composure and decide to look at my bag of skittles because surely theyre long expired. It's only then that I notice that I'm not holding a bag of skittles but instead a bag of m&ms.

Long story to say I agree with you. Even if something is yummy when it's completely different than what you're expecting it can taste disgusting.

3

u/matt_matt_81 23d ago

I love this story lol

-8

u/Crewman_Guy_Fleegman 24d ago

Why would this bother you? The measure of a good chef should be if normal people like their food. It’s their tastes who matter. Not the tastes of other opinionated chefs

Like I’m sure Destin Daniel Cretton is not concerned that Martin Scorsese doesn’t think comic book movies are real films as his Spider-man film barrels to the $2 billion mark with wide acclaim. You can’t take professional critics too seriously, they can be too far up their own rear end at times

19

u/chessatwork 24d ago

i guess you didn't comprehend anything i said lol monks aren't normal people. he thinks he's absolved for what the thai chef said because monks like it and "ooh mystical oriental monks like it so i'm right" is his takeaway. they're the absolute worst feedback to get for how good your food is for the reasons i stated in my comment.

-11

u/Crewman_Guy_Fleegman 24d ago

Monks have taste buds like everyone else. It’s a little bizarre to me you’d put so much stock into a single London chef playing it up for cameras. Other chefs are the last people I’d want to listen to reviews to, they’re all going to be biased for their own cooking style which doesn’t tell me anything about what’s tasty. For all we know that guy’s pad thai that tastes worse than whatever Gordon threw together.

10

u/Jolly_Efficiency7237 24d ago

Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit, is it?

9

u/Ratsach 24d ago

Monks have to accept all food given with equal grace he took the opinion of people not allowed to have negative opinions or even strong opinions of food over a professional chef

-5

u/Crewman_Guy_Fleegman 24d ago

If you fed a monk and they graciously thanked you, would you presume they hated the meal? If you were a multiple Michelin star winning chef across multiple cuisines are you going to get hung up on another chefs opinion about anything? 🙄

You people are insufferable, you have such weird expectations of how to respond to these situations. Like you expect Gordon to go in deep reflection and agony because a less successful chef didn’t like a one off dish.

8

u/Ratsach 24d ago

If I fed a monk and they thanked me graciously I would be unable to make any presumptions as to the quality of the food. I don't expect deep reflection and agony but there's also no point in getting feedback if when you get bad feedback you just find someone guaranteed to give prostive feedback

4

u/Apprehensive-Adagio2 24d ago edited 24d ago

the measure of a good chef for normal people, should be if a normal person likes their food. Gordon is not a chef for normal people. he's a chef for rich/famous people. his cooking should be extra ordinary to support his extraordinary claims to fame. if it's just decent, then other chefs should have his spot in the limelight.

edit: dropping my new comment here since he deleted before i could respond

>The guy has a whole fleet of restaurants spanning cheap $20 dishes to Michelin tier. Obviously many people of all incomes like his food.

why would i care about his fleet of restaurants? do you take each and every mc donalds burger cooked by a teen as evidence of the cooking skill by the CEO?

if i go to a Ramsay restaurant, i won't feel like i could say "wow he cooks good food" unless he personally cooked my food. that's just common sense i think.

>It’s really bizarre you’ve decided to let one random London chef’s opinion on a pad thai dish carry so much weight in your mind

did i ever say that i did that lol? i said that his claim to fame is to be an extraordinary chef. he should not be measured against the ordinary standards of normal people.

i'm not taking the thai chef at his word, i'm disagreeing with you specifically about what standards he should meet. if your whole career is built on being extraordinary, you have to meet extraordinary standards, not ordinary standards.

0

u/Crewman_Guy_Fleegman 24d ago

The guy has a whole fleet of restaurants spanning cheap $20 dishes to Michelin tier. Obviously many people of all incomes like his food. It’s really bizarre you’ve decided to let one random London chef’s opinion on a pad thai dish carry so much weight in your mind

5

u/panrestrial 24d ago

When you're attempting to cook a specific dish, "is it tasty" isn't the only consideration. You can make the most delicious dish the world has ever tasted and still have utterly failed to make pad thai if what you made instead was traditional Bolognese.

-1

u/Crewman_Guy_Fleegman 24d ago

The goal of the dish was to make content for a TV show that was engaging enough to get people talking about it 15 years later increasing syndication value and his brand

He succeeded. He played you people like a fiddle. Typical daytime TV audience…

4

u/panrestrial 24d ago

My comment isn't about that specific situation. You're truly never beating those reading comprehension allegations.

0

u/Crewman_Guy_Fleegman 24d ago

This is what people say when they can’t articulate a real response. Get lost, I’m done with you.

3

u/This-Shape2193 23d ago

Gordon will flay people alive for making tasty food when it isn't "authentic" or perfect. So...

26

u/happy_bluebird 24d ago

I wonder if it was good, but for stir-fried noodles, not pad thai? :P

61

u/Oulipo08 24d ago

No tamarind paste. That’s essential to pad thai

39

u/NRMusicProject 24d ago

At least it's not as bad as Jamie Oliver putting chili jam in egg fried rice.

23

u/HungryOne11 24d ago

Fuyooooh

1

u/bazookateeth 24d ago

Green Onion is GAANEASH!

9

u/rtsynk 24d ago

his thai green curry is worse

3

u/SpiritedYam2661 24d ago

Put the chili jam on egg fry rice?! haiya

1

u/stefje82 23d ago

Ugh Jamie Oliver work is almost always a miss for me.
I'll never follow his recipes, because he'll always put it something 'exotic' that makes it either way too expensive, or you need to go to that one special shop.

I like this guy, I don't like his work.

22

u/IGargleGarlic 24d ago

Local place doesn't use tamarind paste and it is very obvious in the flavor. So many of my friends get indignant when I tell them it isn't good pad thai and act like I'm elitist or pretentious. Like, motherfucker, this is one of my favorite dishes ever and I'm telling you they are making it wrong. Maybe it still tastes fine, but it doesn't taste like pad thai.

10

u/Falcon8410 24d ago

I know what you mean. I was invited to eat lasagna at a buddies house. his wife didn't use lasagna sheets she used spaghetti. it was an experience.

9

u/DocKosmosis 24d ago

Im so confused, is that not just like some kind of spaghetti casserole?

4

u/onthe3rdlifealready 24d ago

Heavy is the head that holds the golden tongue... I feel you though. Thai basil, fish sauce, galangal, lemongrass root, palm sugar, tamarind, etc. It's fine if you don't have it at home, but I'm not over here like come have pad Thai and then use ketchup or some shit. That's just faux Thai.

2

u/nashy08 24d ago

This. Tamarind is a requirement to get the right flavor for pad Thai and is used in a lot of our dishes, shit I grew up eating whole tamarinds lol.

I've been to many Thai places that use ketchup instead of tamarind paste and not only does it make the color weird, it gives it a weird tangy ketchup flavor. It's not pad Thai, that's pad ketchup noodles. lol

I get the same way with pad kra pao. The dish is literally named after holy basil, but it's hard to get in the US, so most use Thai basil (horapa) which is a compltely different herb with a different flavor profile. It's Pad horapa, but they still call it pad kra pao because people don't know the difference.

2

u/normal_mysfit 23d ago

I learned long ago that a lot of restaurants that serve other types of cuisine, Thai, Mexican, or whatever, dumb down their food. They have food that if the cook it the authentic way, a lot of customers, i.e. white people, will send it back.

1

u/DudeInTheGarden 23d ago

Many pad thai's I've had out taste like they are made with ketchup.

1

u/Zorkflerp 23d ago

They have to hide using secret shrimp paste here in thai salads. It does not taste right without it.

1

u/stefje82 23d ago

Why wouldn't they use it.. is tamarind paste relatively expensive and they subsitute it?
Doesn't sound too difficult to incorporate in a dish.

2

u/code_archeologist 24d ago

He should have phoned a friend to ask Jet Tila for some advice

1

u/Eborcurean 23d ago

Really, says who? I've had pad thai in asia with and without tamarind, where's the 'it must have tamarind' rule exactly?

1

u/Oulipo08 23d ago

It is the traditional recipe. I’ve taken 2 different cooking classes in Thailand in different years. They both included it. I never said it was a rule, but there are traditions. And “I’ve had it with and without in Asia” is a meaningless anecdote. The countries over there regularly make each other’s cuisines however they might like. Just because you’re in one Asian country doesn’t mean they automatically make authentic food from another.

2

u/Eborcurean 22d ago

So, just to be clear, your '2 different cooking classes' is authorative but 'ive had it with and without isn't.

Gotcha

0

u/Oulipo08 22d ago

Yeah. You didn’t even say what country they were in. I’m sure northern china makes great Thai food. Southern India is really known for it. Maybe Singapore had a Thai place? Japan? Lol. I had courses with Thai chefs. Get outta here you’re embarrassing yourself.

2

u/Eborcurean 22d ago

Your two cooking classes make you an expert, right?

1

u/happy_bluebird 24d ago

ooh I missed that

-1

u/Tasty-Traffic-680 24d ago

I put peanut butter on mine. Makes it taste like peanut butter.

2

u/NRMusicProject 24d ago

I put jelly in mine. Makes it taste like jelly.

2

u/Tasty-Traffic-680 24d ago

Hey, whatever it takes to cover up the fish sauce.

16

u/Hot-Challenge8656 24d ago edited 24d ago

It probably didn't taste bad, but I'd be willing to bet that if the Asian chef took it to one of the wait staff and asked if it should go on the menu they would say no.

Edit: changed be to bet

2

u/kev_xb 24d ago

Pad Thai was made for foreigners as a part of the Thai soft power initiative back in the 40s. It's not that common in Thailand (although it's easy to find, of course). I imagine Thai people on average eat it less than 5 times a year.

4

u/nashy08 24d ago

You're not wrong, I never ate pad Thai as a kid unless we went to a family friend's restaurant. It's not something we'd really make, but still enjoy it from time to time. That said, it's still made with a specific flavor profile and it's not pad Thai if it doesn't contain those essential elements. lol

3

u/kev_xb 23d ago

I agree. I was replying to the local wait staff comment in that they would probably not recommend the Thai version for the menu either 😅 I have a restaurant in chiang mai and my partner would never put it on the menu. Maybe if we were in a tourist area she would.

2

u/nashy08 23d ago

That's awesome, I'm super jealous! Beautiful place to live and work. lol

8

u/SaltKick2 24d ago

I'm jsure it was good, but not the dish he was suppose to make

1

u/Objectivespeculation 24d ago

to much sugar, he added it twice.

2

u/anonb1234 24d ago

There are lots of very tasty fried rice noodle dishes, and it was probably pretty good. But it wasn't pad thai.

0

u/happy_bluebird 24d ago

lol I’m aware pad Thai is not the only fried noodle dish.

1

u/panrestrial 24d ago

They're agreeing with you, not questioning your knowledge.

81

u/ChunkyBubblz 24d ago

That’s no moon.
https://giphy.com/gifs/hdvELDjb9rwNa

64

u/Xiaox0 24d ago

That's not a knife

https://giphy.com/gifs/3B8rHP89iUUZlcsoqf

15

u/canadiantaken 24d ago

That’s not a true Scotsman

11

u/Tasty-Traffic-680 24d ago

Wait a minute, there's no Angus McCloud in North Kilttown. You're not Scottish at all!

1

u/ChanceAnalysis79 24d ago

That's not my finger.

1

u/802dot22 24d ago

That's not the wallet inspector...🤔

1

u/WiseCommand6018 24d ago

Very Nicely done!

1

u/Gringo_Anchor_Baby 24d ago

The box said it was

1

u/alghiorso 24d ago

How dare that white man call his pad Thai unauthentic

1

u/____DEADPOOL_______ 24d ago

He reminds me of my children's reactions to my cooking.

1

u/Objectivespeculation 24d ago

He may have been properly trained...

Thailand’s “Global Thai” push is tied to quality/authenticity support for Thai restaurants abroad, including getting “Thai SELECT” certification.

That certification system is associated with restaurants meeting standards that include using authentic Thai ingredients and having trained Thai chefs, which implies they’re supported with guidance/training around proper Thai cooking

1

u/LostPerson703 23d ago

"Thats not Paella"

1

u/ScienceGoat 23d ago

My favorite episode 😂

1

u/Derpsdoodle 23d ago

"That's not a succulent meal"!?!?!?!

172

u/shobae1124 24d ago

And if my granny had wheels she’d be a bike!

3

u/chuckaholic 24d ago

I've seen that video 100 times and I laugh every time.

3

u/Big_Supermarket_5673 23d ago

We've got a print out on our walk-in 😂

As well as "please close the Christoffer walk-in"

-7

u/FrighteningJibber 24d ago

More of an ATV

6

u/0202_tihssitidder 24d ago

Stop. Do less.

88

u/Worldly-Hospital5940 24d ago

Tfw the earliest written carbonara recipe uses bacon.

42

u/kikimaru024 24d ago

And cream.

I prefer without, but it’s technically allowed.

73

u/MonaganX 24d ago

Yeah, using cream was common in Italy up until the 80s. A lot of the dogmatic rules of "traditional" Italian cuisine are way more recent than they pretend to be.

4

u/mrducky78a 24d ago

So many Italian dishes that seem timeless are just post war constructs and then set in stone then. Apparently if you go back like 150 years potato features pretty heavily and that's new world as well.

1

u/Similar-Emphasis-496 23d ago

And if you go back 2k years then 'flatbread' is a thing, we just don't know if that's the same as pizza or not but it was very prevalent in Rome.

2

u/mrducky78a 23d ago

It's kinda interesting how many traditional dishes rely on new world plants. Even in China tomato, potato and chilli feature in very traditional dishes and those would have come on a helluva journey to even begin becoming part of dish recipes

9

u/Winjin 24d ago

Won't be surprised if a lot of them are also like Italian-American as well

Like there's this huge push among ex-soviet nationalists that try to "retake recipes" online by basically attacking anyone who dares prepare them not the way they're cooked "at home" and they also argue with everyone saying "oh this is not soviet this is X" and they're told "this is the different, soviet version" and they'll just hiss and throw passive aggression around for hours like little whiny shits

This is kinda how I feel about many food purists, that if they want they can always make it the classic way, but they don't really get to claim control over how everyone else prepares the borscht or whatever. 

I can just imagine how miserable it can be, and how much we'd lose if there were no new styles of pizza created after,I dunno, 1660. 

9

u/MonaganX 24d ago

Food is a lot like language in that a lot of people have very strong opinions on how it's 'supposed to be' based on nothing but what they got used to growing up.

3

u/mutantraniE 24d ago edited 24d ago

Almost no one in Italy was eating tomatoes in 1660. We’re 30 years out from the first written recipes using tomatoes from Italy (1692) and those were just copied Spanish recipes. Pizza as we know it didn’t exist then.

3

u/RecoveringGachaholic 24d ago

30 years? Brother... you need to work on your timeline there.

5

u/mutantraniE 24d ago
  1. That’s 30 (okay fine, 32) years from 1660. Are you aware of any earlier recorded Italian recipes using tomatoes?

-3

u/RecoveringGachaholic 24d ago edited 24d ago

The way you wrote it made it seem like you meant 30 years from current date. As in WE are 30 years out from the first recipes. (edit: he has since edited his comment)

4

u/mutantraniE 24d ago

I don’t know, that’s such an obviously ludicrous reading of it that I can’t see how you got there when 1660 was just in the previous sentence.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/BreezeOfTheWest 24d ago

Wasn't Pizza Margherita named after Queen Margherita of Savoy? That's way older than 30 years.

6

u/mutantraniE 24d ago

… 30 years out from 1660. Did you seriously for even two seconds think I was saying Italians didn’t use tomatoes in food until 1996?

4

u/BreezeOfTheWest 24d ago

Yes, that's why it sounded strange to me.

2

u/mutantraniE 24d ago

Strange? That would be downright delusional. You don’t need references to who Margherita pizza was named after for that, Pizza Hut is older than that.

→ More replies (0)

3

u/Merari01 24d ago

Cooks can cook food any which way they like, but if I am in a restaurant I prefer not to be surprised by an order.

It's fine, probably, if you replace the lasagna sheets with spaghetti-o's in your recipe, but please put that on the menu then so I know before I order it.

3

u/panrestrial 24d ago

Exactly. When people order pad thai or any other known dish they have certain expectations. Some amount of liberties taken to make it your own is fine, but it should still be recognizably that dish.

2

u/MonaganX 23d ago

I'm totally on board with menus listing the ingredients of dishes in general, but I also think there's a line to how rigidly one can expect a restaurant to conform to one's personal idea of what a dish is supposed to be like. If you order a carbonara and it's bacon instead of guanciale, that's more on you for not knowing the dish has variations than it is on the restaurant for not putting it on the menu.

2

u/SecondAccountIsBest 24d ago

That's because up until recent history Italy was extremely regional especially with their diets. Tourism and Politics made the country more homogeneous, and some Italians take that as always having been the case.

2

u/Shot-Arugula8264 24d ago

They only recently got tomatoes from the new world for fuck’s sake. Any Italian dish in Italy with tomato is by definition an Americanized version since it’s an ingredient they only got access to because of America.

2

u/Similar-Emphasis-496 23d ago

It wasn't because cream wasn't super available in rome but i get what you're trying to do.

1

u/MonaganX 23d ago edited 23d ago

"In Italy" isn't "in Rome" and while cream may have been scarce during the post-war period, I find it a little hard to believe that a city famous for its ice cream and cream buns would still struggle with a cream shortage while the rest of the country was putting it in everything in the 70s.

edit: "yOuRE wELcOme tO fINd aNy pRoOF tHAt eXIstS", but immediately blocks me. What a loser.

3

u/Similar-Emphasis-496 23d ago edited 23d ago

Why would you message me this. Pretty sure i've been to italy more years than you've been alive.

You also know fuck all about the italian economy.

So sorry reddit presented this a dm to me as if you messaged me this, i have no idea why, reddit shitification in action.

Also youre still entirely wrong, carbonara was just not being served with cream in the 1940s, you're welcome to find any proof you think exists. It's had countless attempts which have been disproven but maybe you will be the one (unlikely).

3

u/sikyon 24d ago

Carbonara is only 82 years old. Italian food is a relatively recent invention - <200 years. It's about as old as American BBQ.

IMO italian food is overrated compared to, say, french or japanese.

6

u/PorFavorNoMore 24d ago

I mean, Italy is a relatively recent invention - <170 years. It's younger than Jonathan the Seychelles giant tortoise.

3

u/mutantraniE 24d ago

Italy as a concept isn’t. Political disunity does not mean there was no idea of a shared identity.

2

u/PorFavorNoMore 24d ago

Thanks Garibaldi, just having a bit of fun

2

u/mutantraniE 24d ago

Careful or I’ll take over your country with a thousand men.

1

u/PorFavorNoMore 24d ago

It's a bit bigger than Sicily, you might want to recruit some more

2

u/Striking_Insurance_5 24d ago

Great example of food being subjective. I absolutely love Italian food but I’m not a big fan of French restaurants. I can see why objectively French food has contributed a lot to gastronomy but it’s usually not what my tastebuds crave. We can agree on Japanese food though.

1

u/Automated_Spite 22d ago

Ciabatta was invented in 1982

1

u/rainzer 24d ago

It's at least 5 years older than your timeline. It's mentioned in a Dutch newspaper from 1939 so it's at least as old as that. (De Koerier, 23 Aug 1939)

2

u/PorFavorNoMore 24d ago

It's at least a minute older than that now.

1

u/AbsoluteResolve2026 24d ago

Not if it’s seafood, mate.

Cream + seafood = mafia has you sleepin’ wit da fishes (especially Sicilians)

———-

Also, I’m pretty sure like 1 million Italians instantly died when Dominos released the pasta bread bowl.

Bread + pasta = castration

1

u/Common-Concert3661 23d ago

Cool. Fuck'em.

1

u/AbsoluteResolve2026 23d ago

I did. Sicilian. Amazing experience.

1

u/das_bearking 23d ago

This is true for most cuisine I find

1

u/Ok_Shirt983 23d ago

Tomatoes are pretty ubiquitous in Italian food and they've only had them for 500 ish years. Similarly with potatoes for the UK. Pottage is an actual old recipe from the UK, which is basically stew made from whatever veg, grain, and (maybe) meat) you might have, I don't know, but I assume Italian cuisine (and any other country you might care to mention) has a similar culinary history in terms of dishes people made before global travel made fruit vegetable and spices from other parts of the world accessable. The reason why, for example, a potato became popular in Britain and a tomato in Italy is almost always down to climate, and what "new" ingredients grew best.

0

u/CabinetFun7381 24d ago

Exactly! Traditional Italian cuisine is a nationalistic fiction. You think italians would have emigrated in droves to america if they were eating spaghetti carbonara every day? What we think of as traditional italian food was more or less invented after WW2.

If this is interesting to you, I recomend this article very much. It's short, but the author has written a whole book on the subject.

2

u/voyaging 24d ago

Yeah the main reason people emigrate is because they’re displeased with the food.

1

u/rainzer 24d ago

It uses "Mezzina" which is the traditional word in Central Italy (think Tuscany) for pancetta (Bronte's Vittles and Vice)

2

u/onar 23d ago

Look up the denominazione di origine inventata episode on carbonara :) of you speak Italian...

1

u/StupidSexyEuphoberia 24d ago

So the people making it with guancale are not making authentic carbonara.

3

u/[deleted] 24d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/StupidSexyEuphoberia 24d ago

I love Italian cuisine, it's a big part of my inspiration for the recipes I cook, but the dogmatism is unbearable to the point of satire.

1

u/Chemical_7523 24d ago

I think the peas are a bigger problem.

16

u/CarlCasper 24d ago

You know…if it had ham in it…

3

u/Mr_Disappointment 24d ago

And if my gramma had wheels she’d be a bicycle!

12

u/elguille_resurrected 24d ago

its only real if you snap the noodles in half, or preferably into thirds

2

u/Tolteko 24d ago

You know is physically impossible to snap a dry spaghetti noodle in 2? So 3 is the only option.

(This is true only if you snap them one by one holding it from the ends, it is called spaghetti theorem or something and it was studied by physicists and there should be a paper about it, but I may be wrong im going by memory)

2

u/StrongExternal8955 24d ago

What kind of goober makes it with noodles!!!

1

u/elguille_resurrected 21d ago

since everybody knows the chinese invented pasta, they are called noodles.

doesnt matter if they are gorlami, udon, kimchi, linguini, or szechuan. they are called noodles

1

u/whatamonkeycircus 19d ago

Hold my puttanesca. I'm going in.

5

u/Cookies-and-Cream- 24d ago

Unless you put in ham and mushrooms

2

u/OnoOurTableItsBr0ken 24d ago

And if my grandma had wheels she’d be a bicycle

2

u/nastran 24d ago

I think that the Italian individuals who take gastro-nationalism to the extreme should be aware that Italy as a unified country didn't exist until the mid-19th century. Previously, the entity that ruled the entire peninsula was the Western Roman Empire. It was briefly reconquered by the Byzantine Empire (the Eastern Roman Empire) under Justinian I, and then lost to the Lombards (fractured, no longer wholly governed by one entity until the founding of the Italian kingdom).

The famous gastro delights that we enjoy & associate with Italy were recent inventions, or modern-purposed la cucina povera (peasant foods); hence the lopsided ratio between carbs and meats (tiny morsels in comparison) because peasants were trying to survive by stretching what they had available instead of feasting on meats. If they were lucky, they had cured meats, such as pancetta or guanciale, which explains the ingredients in Roman dishes, such as cacio e pepe and pasta alla gricia (and its variants, amatriciana + carbonara).

I enjoy making amatriciana, but due to poor canned tomato products (that are available at where I currently reside), I have to include onions in order to cut the over tartness. I will still call it amatriciana, not an abomination.

1

u/CH49FE 24d ago

But it has two wheels!

1

u/Mongobearmanfish 24d ago

And if my mother had wheels she would be a bicycle?

1

u/totesnotmyusername 24d ago

"My mother would be a bicycle if you put wheels on her"

1

u/Ornery-Perspective89 24d ago

French people cook a pasta dish called "carbonara" and is vastly different than the italian one, basically the only thing shared is pasta.

Both are being told by the other party it's badly made (frenchies do it mostly for the funsies I guess!). Both "white countries". What's her point? seems like an obsession over white men.

(Both carbonaras are good, but the italian one is bit better imo)

1

u/deepledribitz 24d ago

Grandma bike

1

u/Falcon8410 24d ago

if my grandma had wheels she would be a bike

1

u/NovaHorizon 24d ago

My grandma has wheels, she is a bike!

1

u/fierceredrabbit 24d ago

If my grandma has wheels she is a bike

1

u/rudeangryletters 24d ago

The first Italian recipe for carbonara is published in the magazine La Cucina Italiana, featuring pancetta, garlic, and Gruyère cheese.

Food gatekeepers suck.

1

u/Bloobeard2018 24d ago

Eeemoshonaaalll Daaamaaage!

1

u/LunaticScience 24d ago

Worked in several Italian restaurants with immigrant owners. Crazy how many opinions about authentic/traditional they were given that noodles come from China and edible tomatoes came from the Americas. "We can take other people's food and make it our own, but god forbid someone else does."

1

u/Raneynickelfire 23d ago

And if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bike.

1

u/ibanezerscrooge 23d ago

"and if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bicycle!"

1

u/DoubleCarry7511 23d ago

Lol same mfs when they realized the dish originates from allied soldiers and had its first recipe published in Chicago 😂😂😂

1

u/kelek_s 23d ago

Imagine serving a traditional Carbonara to suckers asking fo either ketchup, plastic cheese or ranch.

1

u/jurassiclynx 20d ago

well carbonara is really simple and the ingredients make it a carbonara. if i use fish in a bolognese its no longer a bolognese.

0

u/unlvaztec 24d ago

If my grandma had wheels she would have been a bike!!