I think austro-bohemian cuisine would be more accurate for describing Mehlspeisen, or am I mistaken? Nothing against a good stereotypical Hungarian goulash, BTW, but your Schmarrn would be very much welcome indeed at the moment.
And talking about cultural imports, the story of the croissant is fun. I always wonder if it’s well enough documented, and if there are probably dissertations on the subject…
You are probably right on the Mehlspeisen bit it’s very Bohemian. But you are wrong on displacing Austro-Hungarian Cooking from its throne. Thanks to the Ottoman Invasion and Occupation of the 16th century Hungarian cooking is peppered with peppers and soaked in honey.
Seriously though, I always found it fascinating how much the demarcation line for European desert culture coincides with the boarders of the Ottoman Empire . Here are a few examples of what the Hungarians made of that rare flour sugar combination. The final one is called fánk, very traditional at this time of year for carnival. The real good ones are all air inside unlike the adulterated US version.
EDIT bcs spell checker refuses to acknowledge the existence of languages other than English it is fánk not funk not fan not rank not…
On one hand, I grew up watching TV in the 80s and the messages that was transmitting 1980s culture to me. 1980s culture, if you’ll recall, was extremely homophobic, very sexist, awkwardly trying to not be so blatantly racist, and probably laced with antisemitic messages I didn’t even pick up on. My daughter laughed at me for saying men could have long hair and always refers to Rainbow Dash as “he” (because she’s athletic?!?). She doesn’t watch youtube at all, let alone unsupervised.
On the other, Twitch streams and youtube videogame content are a minefield because there are no filters, for sure. Maybe Friends was crazy homophobic but the homophobia was screened to be relatable to a homophobic culture. A lot of “Ew, buttsex!” but not a lot of “We’d better start building death camps.” On uncurated, unfiltered content you can get serious extremists. The internet is not a safe space for kids the way that Saturday morning cartoons were. Sure, Saturday morning cartoons were probably objectively terrible, but they were terrible in a controlled way that aligned with the terrible culture they arose from.
Okay, I will not talk about my new favourite as it would be cruel: A bakery here is heavily into Turkish-Bavarian cross-over cuisine and fills böreks with fruits, Bavarian cream and similar.
Literally the cover of the Atlantic this month. [citation provided]
The sexism is rampant because no one wants to destroy the social structures that put them at “low-status” they just want to rearrange it so that they get to be king of the castle. So they recreate the structures and put themselves on top and women and minorities end up on the bottom.
Re: Hollywood. If you think women are unaware that this is happening I invite you to watch the documentary “Searching for Debra Winger” (2002!!)- trust me when I say this WE KNOW!
For those of us with chronic pain that is only a positive. There is research into using it as an analgesic. The only potential downside is that it is rated at 16 billion scoville units (pure capsaicin is only 16 million).
The last few years of Gamergato and Pathetic Puppies. Elevatorgate. 4Chan. Isaac Asimov. Harlan Ellison. Virtually every piece of “golden age” SF ever written.
I wouldn’t intend to de-throne even Elisabeth Windsor. Thrones are an awful lot of fun, aren’t they?
That said, I can recommend some Portuguese fine bakery, had my best eclair chocolat in a small town in the Pyrenees and was speechless about Pierre Hermé’s macaroons (and someone even told me i missed out on the really good ones), love the variety of German cakes, immensely enjoy italian desserts and especially their almond fine bakeries and ice creams, had the most amazing pistachio baklava from Israel alongside with fresh Carpaccio del cedro, the best Maracuja Dulce de Leche pudding from a Brasilian colleague, nearly missed my train twice over Belgian tartes in Brussels and FUCK I need a chocolate fix RIGHT NOW!
I won’t put any above the other. No throne in sight. But I would for sure try that stuff you posted, to form an opinion on it. It might look form the above that I have a sweet tooth, but actually very many desserts and cakes are to sweet for my taste.
And, last not least, don’t despair: even England had its fair share of delicious sweets, or so am I told. There is always high teas for your, friend!
I like what I’ve heard of her stuff, but I’ve also been known to listen to classic noise industrial or straight up noisescaping stuff like Merzbow… YMMV, of course!