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The Trite Food List


JPW

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The adjective "blistered" pushes them strongly into the trite category.

Indeed...from The Post's food section today, about the Inn at Little Washington growing more of its own foods,

"In the dining room, their worlds happily collide: on a plate of mild shishito peppers eaten with your fingers like candy — the skin smoky and blistered black after time in a scorching hot pan,..."

Stop! Stop!

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"In the dining room, their worlds happily collide: on a plate of mild shishito peppers eaten with your fingers like candy — the skin smoky and blistered black after time in a scorching hot pan,..."

Stop! Stop!

Every time I hear something described as "blistered" I think "it'll be weeping pus".

Therefore, I do not want to eat it.

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Brussles sprouts. You really can't get away from the little bastards any more -- I've had them in three diferent restaurants on two coasts in the last eight days. I blame the twin curses of "seasonal and local" -- what else is green in December (besides kale)? -- and "hurt me" foodie-ism ("sure, the unwashed masses don't like rat spleen, but gourmets like me can't get enough"). The fact that they're inevitably roasted, coated with pork fat and glazed with whatever the chef thinks will best mask the flavor is proof that, in the end, Brussles sprouts are still the horrid little death balls you hated as a child.

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Brussles sprouts. You really can't get away from the little bastards any more -- I've had them in three diferent restaurants on two coasts in the last eight days. I blame the twin curses of "seasonal and local" -- what else is green in December (besides kale)? -- and "hurt me" foodie-ism ("sure, the unwashed masses don't like rat spleen, but gourmets like me can't get enough"). The fact that they're inevitably roasted, coated with pork fat and glazed with whatever the chef thinks will best mask the flavor is proof that, in the end, Brussles sprouts are still the horrid little death balls you hated as a child.

Next time you see David Chang, knee him in the balls then.

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I agree, I think collard greens should be the next Brussels sprouts AND Kale- I can't hate kale, though, I've only just begun to like it, & it's so cheap (uh, I mean sustainable)...but almost anything you can do w/ the aforementioned greens, you can do w/ cabbage, it just won't sound as good...

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I agree, I think collard greens should be the next Brussels sprouts AND Kale- I can't hate kale, though, I've only just begun to like it, & it's so cheap (uh, I mean sustainable)...but almost anything you can do w/ the aforementioned greens, you can do w/ cabbage, it just won't sound as good...

My favorite childhood dish my mom made (she was half Croatian) that would be tough with brussels sprouts was Staffed Cabbage (with ground beef and rice), and canned tomato puree I believe. I so loved Stuffed Cabage Sundays, and I miss my mom. :(

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I don't remember eating cabbage at all as a child (maybe I'm blocking it out), but I love it now, even coleslaw which I couldn't stand when I was younger (of course, I prefer my own coleslaw, which is not sweet). I tried out a stuffed cabbage recipe(similar to your Moms) on my family, as I recall they liked it, but these days, they all eat different things, so it's not much fun to cook for them anymore...(ok, DH & son can & will eat anything quite happily still).

My mom is going in for knee replacement surgery on New Year's day, I'm trying not to worry too much.

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I agree, I think collard greens should be the next Brussels sprouts AND Kale- I can't hate kale, though, I've only just begun to like it, & it's so cheap (uh, I mean sustainable)...but almost anything you can do w/ the aforementioned greens, you can do w/ cabbage, it just won't sound as good...

Local kale goes for $28 to 34 a bushel and a 1/9th per case. Kale from restaurant Depot goes for $13 for the same. Sustainable kale is HARDLY cheap. We use local kale year round except for when it is not available: height of summer heat and when there is a lot of snow on the ground. But it is at its best right now.

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I think collards are a different veg all together than cauliflower.

I picked up a garbage bag! full of collard greens the size of elephant ears, kale and spinach from the Mt. Vernon market the day before Thanksgiving (closing day for the season).

The freshness was so amazing, that I could parse out my decisions on what to make with them for a couple weeks.

Spinach=creamed spinach on turkey day

Kale=caldo verde in turkey stock made with carcass and necks

Collards=braised

When it comes to greens, I think brussel sprouts are the current "darling".

And that's cool by me B)

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A young, eager-beaver food blogger-cum-gastronaut visiting Philadelphia for the first time and writing about how they nonchalantly walked into Gino's and ordered their cheesesteak "wiz wit" is akin to Michael Landr...Barbara Billingsley posting a P Funk video (live, funk uncut, under the stage lights, when they're all sweaty and real) in order to make an urgent, yet gritty, intellectual statement that resonates with our people, and is trite.

Doin' The Bump (with Provolone), Livin' on N. Quincy St., Jonesin' for a Luther at GBD,

Varry White and the T.K.O.

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Bacon has gone beyond trite, and is now something other than that. I'm not sure there's a word to describe it in the English language, but whatever it is is analogous to describing Michael Jordan as an "All-Star."

Seriously, when you're out at a diner in Bumfuck, don't you just as often get sausage, or pay that extra dollar for country ham?

I'm convinced that the pork belly financiers are responsible for this "Bacon is God" mantra that has played out on the internet over the past several years. Pork belly financiers or communists trying to subvert our nation.

"When I was young, bacon wasn't something that was cool; it was just something we did."

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brussel sprouts, trite. bacon, post-trite. (i'm just waiting for someone to add hamachi kama, uni, and quail eggs to the list... :-) )

it's easy to recognize the ubiquity of ingredients and say that you're sick of seeing it on menus everywhere. i'm just curious, however, if the forum is saying that these innocent ingredients are now something you don't want to ever see on a menu again. or that you can appreciate the ingredient if it's used well and thoughfully.

Doesn't the trite or cliche really only bother when a chef goes to absurd lengths to convert an already great dish (like say, brussels sauteed in bacon fat) into something that is purely a product of the ego and forgetful of taste?

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Doesn't the trite or cliche really only bother when a chef goes to absurd lengths to convert an already great dish (like say, brussels sauteed in bacon fat) into something that is purely a product of the ego and forgetful of taste?

That's my gestalt, with bacon being the most abused and overused ingredient. It's. Bacon.
And cupcakes, because they mostly suck and f*ck you for charging me almost $4 for ONE.
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"When I was young, bacon wasn't something that was cool; it was just something we did."

Crispy strips of bacon with an order of eggs, on a BLT, or to replenish a bit of salt after finishing an ultra (or to help a hangover on its way) are never trite, all other applications most definitely trite.

Oh, and there is a special place in hell for anyone that puts bacon aioli on a menu.

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Fucking Cauliflower, it's on every menu everywhere. You know it!

and "Nasturtiums" or pansies as we called 'em when mom was growing them..

chive blossoms, and anything from the Ideas in food blog.

I may take this down in a bit. I'm a bitter man lately

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These are two completely different flowers and not even in the same genus.

Hey now, looks like yer right smarty pants. funny thing is when you buy them from the purveyor they send you a mixed box-labeled nasturtium. apparently nasturtium is orange. pansies come in many colors. other than that, same shit. I should have said "edible flowers"

What is the "natural habitat" of Kimchi I wonder...

IHTTAALY

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Hey now, looks like yer right smarty pants. funny thing is when you buy them from the purveyor they send you a mixed box-labeled nasturtium. apparently nasturtium is orange. pansies come in many colors. other than that, same shit. I should have said "edible flowers"

What is the "natural habitat" of Kimchi I wonder...

IHTTAALY

Nasturtiums come in many different colors.

The natural habitat for kimchee it is quite large and varied, but does not include pizza or hotdogs.

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Sounds like poor combo rather than tripe. I really enjoy a lobster roll with kimchi, but I'm Asian and I love Chinese pickled veggies and stinky tofu.

Something can be good and still be trite - kimchi is moving into the pork belly/bacon territory of things overuse to the point of triteness.

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I would say that over the past two or three years, the number of servers that I have heard say, "Everything is better with bacon!" would likely be in the dozens. Some things are indeed better with bacon, but other things (like a bacon martini that I had at Restaurant 3 once) are most definitely not.

Please note that I pretty much loved everything that I ever ate at Restaurant 3, but the bacon martini was not one of them.

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Something can be good and still be trite - kimchi is moving into the pork belly/bacon territory of things overuse to the point of triteness.

As is the wildly overrated Sriracha, a garbage hot sauce that can't even spell things correctly on their label.

Yes, I like it, but it is trite, and 20-something chefs are using it everywhere (along with kimchi).

That said, typing this is literally making me salivate for a good, spicy bowl of pho.

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As is the wildly overrated Sriracha, a garbage hot sauce that can't even spell things correctly on their label.

Real Sri Racha sauce (from Thailand, where the town of Sri Racha is located and where the sauce was invented) is much better than the rooster version, which is made by Vietnamese in California.

Shark brand and Sriraja Panich are both really good brands. Ingredients are fresh chilli, water, sugar, fresh garlic (not garlic powder like the rooster), salt and vinegar. No preservatives or anything else and the type of chilli is different from the red jalapenos used in the American version. It is sweeter, but also hotter if you get the bottles labeled "strong". The flavor is much more balanced. I believe it's aged briefly as well.

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As is the wildly overrated Sriracha, a garbage hot sauce that can't even spell things correctly on their label.

Yes, I like it, but it is trite, and 20-something chefs are using it everywhere (along with kimchi).

That said, typing this is literally making me salivate for a good, spicy bowl of pho.

I must be behind the curve, because I've been ensorcelled with this Sriracha mayo sauce* lately, here squeezed onto a flatbread pizza with pesto, sausage and caramelized onions.

8732643838_cc25d63738.jpg

... and eggs, melts of many kinds, grilled chicken, fried shrimp...

*recipe recently requested from a 20-something chef :lol:

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Nasturtiums come in many different colors.

The natural habitat for kimchee it is quite large and varied, but does not include pizza or hotdogs.

Not blue. Indeed Kimchee does not belong on pizza, hot dogs go on pizza. I imagine that Kimchi could be quite good on a hot dog however, Kraut is fermented cabbage, just not spicy. Slaw is cabbage, seems to me hot dogs and cabbage are pals.

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I'm afraid at this point, "wood fired and brick oven" pizze, or is it pizzas, may very well be trite, certainly hackneyed, especially in DC where they seem most often to be made by low wage immigrants with no real interest in the craft.

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Sriracha mayo and bacon are perfect foils to cover up otherwise lazy cooking with fat, heat and/or salt. If they're all over the menu, more than anything I consider that a red flag that it's quite likely a sloppy kitchen.

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Sriracha mayo and bacon are perfect foils to cover up otherwise lazy cooking with fat, heat and/or salt. If they're all over the menu, more than anything I consider that a red flag that it's quite likely a sloppy kitchen.

An addendum: if bacon is beyond trite, what is applewood-smoked bacon?

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recently, i came across a menu that included a description of the dish with "oven roasted bacon"....

perhaps that's not apt for a trite list. but it certainly is for the bullshit list, which i think would be much more fun to read through.

I think it's a subset of trite food. The bacon is cooked before served, as I assume it is in the vast majority of applications and describing the manner in which you cooked it?

So what? Who cares? Can anyone tell oven roasted bacon from pan fried bacon from bacon cooked in cow fart fumes?

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recently, i came across a menu that included a description of the dish with "oven roasted bacon"....

perhaps that's not apt for a trite list. but it certainly is for the bullshit list, which i think would be much more fun to read through.

I think it's a subset of trite food. The bacon is cooked before served, as I assume it is in the vast majority of applications and describing the manner in which you cooked it?

So what? Who cares? Can anyone tell oven roasted bacon from pan fried bacon from bacon cooked in cow fart fumes?

Check out The Spare Me Book.

AKA the cow fart fume thread.

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^ Possible non-sequitur alert, but I've been thinking about this one lately. Where are they getting all this apple wood? How many more apple trees can there be that are ready to be cut down?

Trees get pruned every year, and in commercial orchards are replaced after a decade or so, when they are less productive. Since the wood is sold for smoking as chips and chunks, it all gets used--small branches to whole trees.

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Actually, in all seriousness, oven-roasted bacon is a good thing. At least if it is done in the way ATK recommends, it is my understanding there is less fat absorbed, but that could just be my memory justifying it. ;)

And it is quite tasty and crispy. Also easier to clean up as you don't have to deal with fat splatter all around the stove. We've used the ATK oven roast method for years, though we don't really make bacon at home any more. Can't really see the benefit on a menu unless my memory IS correct and the fat grams are fewer...

I think it's a subset of trite food. The bacon is cooked before served, as I assume it is in the vast majority of applications and describing the manner in which you cooked it?

So what? Who cares? Can anyone tell oven roasted bacon from pan fried bacon from bacon cooked in cow fart fumes?

my point wasn't so much that there is a problem with cooking bacon in an oven. it's big time saver and very practical. the problem is with the manner in which someone decided a dish would sound more appealing if they included the words "oven roasted" to "bacon" in the description.

it's a superfluous gesture and it doesn't provide any helpful information for the diner because true to Monavano's point, bacon is basically going to taste like bacon regardless of how it's cooked. cow fart fumes, however, are a very serious source of methane gas (a potent greenhouse gas that is thea source of climate change). so if bacon were cooked using methane sourced from a cow, i'd be totally down with this. *that* would be a useful dish description.

i suppose this is more appropriate for the Spare me thread.

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"I'm having the pasta dish with bacon"

"OK"

"The bacon is oven roasted, so..."

"Holy Hell! Why didn't you say so in the first place? I'll have what he's having!".

Basically all that description does is tell the diner the means by which the bacon fat is rendered, which doesn't seem like the most highly useful information. This description in a restaurant makes me think they're just taking advantage of how they may cook bacon anyway, since it's probably most efficient for them. So they figure they've got a win-win.

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Real Sri Racha sauce (from Thailand, where the town of Sri Racha is located and where the sauce was invented) is much better than the rooster version, which is made by Vietnamese in California.

Shark brand and Sriraja Panich are both really good brands. Ingredients are fresh chilli, water, sugar, fresh garlic (not garlic powder like the rooster), salt and vinegar. No preservatives or anything else and the type of chilli is different from the red jalapenos used in the American version. It is sweeter, but also hotter if you get the bottles labeled "strong". The flavor is much more balanced. I believe it's aged briefly as well.

Serious Eats just published the results of their Sriracha taste test. They agreed with you about Shark (came in second to another Thai brand named Polar), but disagreed concerning Sriraja Panich. I am sure that if the rankings were done by someone who is Thai or steeped in Thai food the results might be different.

http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/06/taste-test-the-best-sriracha.html?ref=title

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