Regional Misunderstandings

[lowspark]

There is definitely a disconnect between Mexican food -- that is, authentic food from Mexico -- and TexMex, which we generally call Mexican. They are really two entirely different things.

[Shopaholic]

My aunt once told us she was having an even catered "Argentinian style".
To most people I know "Argentinian" means meat, and a lot of it - namely steak and asado.
The closest thing to meat there was tunafish.

OK, now I want asado...

[Itza]

A similar situation... Re Fish & Chip shops.

I grew up with one idea of what a fish pattie was and what a fish cake was.

When I left home and moved out of the area (the first time), I was in my new local Fish & Chip shop. I asked for a fish pattie but the woman had no idea what I was asking for. So I pointed to what I knew it to be and asked what it was. She said it was a fish cake. That was no fish cake that I knew of! So I pointed to what I always knew to be a fish cake and asked what it was. She said it was a rissole. 

I haven't been to a Fish & Chip shop here yet to see what they call their food.

[kherbert05]

Everyone in Texas either


acts like JR Ewing or


Rides around in white robes and dunce caps. I have a Canadian cousin, who's wife is from Jamaica. When they have layovers at Intercontinental - she refuses to leave the airport and if possible insists the family stay behind security the whole time of their layover (sometimes over 24 hours). She honestly believes they will be lynched for being a mixed marriage if they step out of the airport. She continues to believe this even though her kids are good friends of sis and I and she knew Dad and trusted him with her kids for 30 years. Some of the kids in family hearing this insisted her marriage wasn't the mixed one, my parents' marriage was the mixed one (Protestant/Catholic instead of Irish/Jamaican)


Another time I got punched for burning boats. Apparently a 10 yo from Texas is personally responsible for idiot racists and their terror tactics. (I was playing with an assortment of different cousins of different races and religions at the time. They came to my defense which resulted in quite a dust up. None of us recognized the name of this group and had to ask our parents what it was when we arrived home after the fight.)

Ordered enchiladas got quesadillas at a "Mexican" restaurant on PEI. (younger cousins loved the place and insisted we go.    ) I don't like quesadillas ate but choked them down after I'm from Texas and these are not enchiladas didn't work.

Heard the all Texas is scrubbrush and cacti thing. No there are lots of Trees in East/Gulf Coast. Lots of water too.

 Galveston Island was abandoned after the 1900 storm and no one lives there.

 In a Houston bookstore Prince Edward Island is a make believe island created by LM Montgomery showing the worker the island on the map did not change her mind.

[Slartibartfast]

If you ask for a hot tamale in my hometown, you will get what the rest of the world calls a sloppy joe.  It does have spices, but it's not at all "hot" other than in the thermal sense.  If you ask for "chili" it will be a mildy spicy mixture of hamburger, macaroni, sometimes beans, and usually things like corn or artichoke hearts.  I love it, but people who expect chili to be spicy and tomato-based are often surprised!

[Thipu1]

Oh, Slartibartfast.

The dish you describe was known in my youth.  It would have been called 'American Chow Mein'. Let's try to figure that one out.

[Slartibartfast]

Now that I'm thinking about it, that actually sounds really good for dinner . . .

*leaves to go rummaging through the pantry*

[Slartibartfast]

Oh, Slartibartfast.

The dish you describe was known in my youth.  It would have been called 'American Chow Mein'. Let's try to figure that one out.

It does make sense - "American Chow Mein" makes it clear we can't blame any other nationality for this dish 

[Thipu1]

On a cold and snowy or sleety day American Chow Mein can be just the thing you want to eat.  It can smell great while it's cooking and cozily steam up the windows. 

Dang, we were thinking of thawing out some home-made pea soup for dinner.  Now, I'm considering checking the pantry for elbow macaroni. 

[Slartibartfast]

We were out of macaroni, and out of canned tomatoes, so I'm sitting here eating hamburger/corn/beans/artichoke with salt and pepper and not much else.  Not what I was craving, but it's close enough    It's proof I really need to get to the grocery store, though . . .

[Bethczar]

We had a student from the South who transferred to our high school. He was amazed to find that Wisconsin was hot in summer. He thought it didn't get above 70 here.

[Slartibartfast]

We had a student from the South who transferred to our high school. He was amazed to find that Wisconsin was hot in summer. He thought it didn't get above 70 here.

Ha!  (Wisconsonian transplant to Alabama here.)  From the other side, I never understood the whole "summer nights are romantic" phenomenon until I moved down here and discovered it's pleasant weather outdoors at midnight.  In Wisconsin the evening is still usually pretty cool all year round - not cold, necessarily, but not "Wow the mugginess went away!" like it is down here 

[mmswm]

North Dakota is flat.

Okay, so parts of North Dakota are very flat.  The Red River Valley is, in fact, the flattest bit of land on earth, but that's only a small part of the state.  The rolling hills of the prairies in the eastern and middle part of the state, and the Badlands in the west are anything but flat.

[Slartibartfast]

North Dakota is flat.

Okay, so parts of North Dakota are very flat.  The Red River Valley is, in fact, the flattest bit of land on earth, but that's only a small part of the state.  The rolling hills of the prairies in the eastern and middle part of the state, and the Badlands in the west are anything but flat.

There was a humorous article published in an otherwise prestigious peer-reviewed journal in which the researchers did an electronic topography of a pancake and an elaborate statistical summary of the topography of Kansas and concluded that yes, Kansas is actually close to 100 times flatter than a pancake.  I'm guessing it was one of those "We have the equipment so we did the experiment, and since we did the experiment, why not write it up and see if they'll take it?" and then it actually got published 

ETA: found it! http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume9/v9i3/kansas.html  Includes lines like "Some readers may find the comparing of a pancake and Kansas to be analogous to the comparing of apples and oranges; we refer those readers to a 1995 publication by NASA’s Scott Sandford (3), who used spectrographic techniques to do a comparison of apples and oranges."  Also, their conclusion: "After many hours of programming work, we were able to estimate that Kansas’s flatness is approximately 0.9997. That degree of flatness might be described, mathematically, as “[dingdangity] flat.” "

[Thipu1]

Did this paper appear in the 'Journal of Irrproducible Results' by any chance?

It sounds like something right up their alley.