There are so many different regional variants of hot dogs though. A Chicago dog isn’t a Nathan’s dog, which isn’t a Cincinnati coney,* which isn’t a Texas-style chili dog,** or the hot dogs with baked beans they have in parts of New England.
*Not to be confused with a Michigan-style coney
**From Pennsylvania, not Texas
Chicago style and New York style are completely different. They can barely be considered the same food IMO. If you go Downstate you get into St Louis pizza territory, which is different than either.
When I think Illinois food, I think Italian Beef sandwiches.
But if it’s bland food you want, you can have the Illinois Horseshoe or loose meat burgers. We’ve got plenty of that, if you go Downstate a couple hundred miles first.
Except the food in Chicago is amazing. A good chicago dog is much more interesting than a basic-ass hotdog with just ketchup and mustard. Deep dish pizza was not an attempt to ‘outdo’ New York pizza, both deep dish and New York style are excellent when done well. You’re buying into the same concept that the idiots attacking the Portland burrito-makers have, that there’s some authentic and original form of food and any attempt to alter or copy it outside of its native space somehow makes it illegitimate.
It will probably take me 10 or 15 burritos before i can tell if there is any cultural misappropriation in them. better check the tacos as well just to be safe.
Yep, people have been ripping off each others’ cultures for as long as there’s been anything resembling ‘culture’ and ‘trade’. There’s no point in complaining about cultural osmosis: it’s going to happen whether you like it or not.
I actually think the opposite- when checking out a new restaurant with cuisine from another country, the first thing I look for are the ex-pats in the dining area. If they are eating there, it’s probably good. If not, it’s likely either not great or overpriced.
Exactly! I learned this from my half Chinese wife. If you’re considering eating in a ethnic restaurant and no one of that ethnicity is there then find a different restaurant.
Ugh… Maid Rite! Although IIRC that actually started in Missouri - I can’t sand those things though - if I want sloppy joe’s I’ll make 'em at home.
Ha no - not quite - I’m just complaining about the bland food here in state honestly - I love chicago dogs - I was kind of tongue in cheeking a bit because frankly I’ve never been to a place where the food isn’t at least somewhat stolen from somewhere else.
It reads to me like you’re saying that in order to be able to cook X cuisine well, it needs to be part of your heritage/descent?
Cooking isn’t some sort of dark art deeply embedded into your DNA. It’s a skill like any other. A good line cook should be able to walk into any restaurant and start making the kind of cuisine that’s on the menu to the specifications of the executive chef – and if they can’t, they better learn quickly or they will get sacked.
If you went to a restaurant and the food was bad, blame the executive chef for the bad menu, or the line cook for making a bad dish, or whomever was working the pass for bad quality control. Don’t blame where the staff is from – that’s just racist.
A couple of thoughts…
The indian restaurants in Kansas City are owned by immigrants or first generation Indian Americans. From what I can tell in finding my own recipes, the dishes are very traditional, yet the Indian immigrants I know all complain about the restaurants being bland and mild.
I also wonder if you were unknowingly being given “bland” versions of dishes in your travels in India?
I can assure you that wasn’t the case. I’ve heard that the guys from my last trip still talk about how they could take me anywhere for lunch/dinner and I’d be OK. My last day they saved for taking me to dinner at an Andhra curry place (hottest south Indian cuisine).
I also live next to a suburb with a lot of software companies, so there’s a ton of Indian people there and as such a ton of Indian restos for them to eat at.
I know I’m given bland versions in the US. I’m pasty even for a white guy, so the waitstaff always tries to talk me down to a lower spice level. Even if the waitstaff is American, and I’m ordering something benign like chicken with orange glaze.
But yeah, the curry in Naperville that @anon75430791 mentioned was the real deal.
