How did bland ass food become the hallmark of cuisine for white middle-class americans? I mean, fuck, just oven roasting those breasts would make them taste… I say this as a white dude from Canada
Racism. Honestly. Spices were seen for peasants and came from foreign lands. Over the generations it just became normal to come from a family with bland ass food.
Edit: I’m wrong, and I learned something new!
Spices were associated with rotting food, because they were often used to cover up the flavor of overly game-y meat — at least that was common in the U.S. .
I don’t think you can blame people for eventually realizing that if a piece of meat has a suspicious amount of spice on it, it might just make you sick. You also can’t blame someone for being averse to the flavor afterwards — spice kicks twice, and if that second kick is also associated with one of the most violent shits you’ve ever taken… well you get the picture.
That being said, I do love spice. Not a terribly huge fan of the second kick, but such is life.
Poor people using spices to cover rotting food is a complete myth falsely attributed to the Middle Ages. Spices were incredibly expensive and a luxury limited to the upper class - anyone rich enough to afford spices did not have to worry about rotting food.
The actual reason for the perceived blandness of White American food is basically the converse of this. Stereotypical white suburban food is probably closest to mid western cuisine.
The mid west was uniquely isolated from Spanish, French, or Italian influence (which were heavier in tastes), lacked international trade to get any spices, and as the nation’s bread bowl specialised in and received lots of subsidies for growing staple crops, like corn.
Ethnically, its white populace is overrepresented by more Anglo ethnicities, like the British, German, and Nordic, which also had more, shall we say, limited palates.
Spices Were Used to Mask the Taste of Bad Meat in the Middle Ages? - https://culinarylore.com/food-history:spices-used-to-cover-taste-bad-meat/
Hey just two things.
Firstly, the word your looking for is Germanic not Anglo, Anglo basically means English since it’s one of the founding tribal groups that became the English alongside the Saxons and Jutes, calling the Germans Anglo is like calling the French Aragonese sure they both speak a Latin descended language but that’s cause they are linguistic cousins.
Secondly, as someone descended from both inland Southern and Northern stock Southerners fucken love spices compared to my kin who take more after our Great lakes or Northwestern Appalachian ancestors. So yeah that part checks out.
Oop, I meant Anglo, as in the the shortened version of Anglo Saxon (basically Germanic).
Anglo-Saxon is not just Germanic it is very specific to medieval England since the Anglo-Saxons were just the proto-English. The Angles were never particularly relevant until their migration into Britain and their mainland counterparts were almost entirely absorbed by the ancestors to the Danes by the 700s. The term you are looking for is WASP, which stands for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant which does have more of a pan white meaning here in the US and does cross over into the assimilated Germans, Celts, and Latins since it’s a term for a specific cultural grouping rather than an ethnic one.
If it seems like I’m getting weirdly annoyed about this that’s cause I am. I like anthropology and history, clumping together people descended from every damned Germanic nation and calling them fucking Anglo-Saxons is absurd. By that logic Romanians, French, and Italians are all Castilian. Words have meaning and while that meaning may shift let’s not misuse specific anthropologic and historical terms.
I respect the pedantry, but I was trying say that I was using the “Anglo” - which in casual speech is short for the casual “Anglo-Saxon”, itself short for White Anglo Saxon Protestant.
I remember I had this exact same conversation IRL, and we determined that the confusion and somewhat jargony nature of the latter two terms (especially since WASP isn’t well understood outside the US) was why people in casual speech just use the ambiguous “Anglo”.
Semantics 🤷♂️
Honestly, that checks out — thank you for the info!
How did bland ass food become the hallmark of cuisine for white middle-class americans? I
I’m pretty sure it didn’t, it is just something people like to say on the internet.
As someone who moved from one country to the other, Canada’s food is sooooo much better than the US’s by comparison
I’m certain this varies wildly by region. The US, and Canada, are both massive.
Northeast and Southwest US have incredible food.
No idea. I’m having wings and tacos on Sunday.
A lot of people saying it isn’t real but it’s definitely a thing among some populations. It’s a holdover from the literal puritans who thought that simple, bland food was virtuous and heavily spiced or seasoned food was excessive and sinful. Over the years that aspect has kind of fallen away but there are still some groups of white protestants (primarily the “WASPs”- White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) who culturally prefer relatively bland food.
More or less the same way fried chicken ‘became the hallmark of cuisine’ for black Americans: it’s a stereotype, simple as that.
5 min rice. Cause as a white person I can tell you. White people generally don’t know how to cook rice.
I was taught by my Vietnamese neighbor when they brought me some left overs and I proclaimed. “How did you get this rice cooked just like at a restaurant.? Every time I’ve tried to cook rice it’s just this big ol sticky gooey mess.”
She’s like. “I have a rice cooker. I’ll show you how I do it”
And that was when I learned that you have to rinse the rice first. And I’ve never bought a bag of rice that said to do this in the instructions. How would we know?
Thank God for my neighbor. I’ve been telling other white people.
So many now ask me. “Dani. How does one make rice that doesn’t turn into a big soggy clump?”. They see ive gained some elusive secret that’s forbidden to our kind. I tell them the secret is. RINSE THE RICE.
I have always cooked rice in a pot (family from Louisiana, they literally grow rice there) but when I met my husband he was so mystified by dry rice, he’d been using microwave bags of rice.
I rinse long grain rice, and brown rice, but soak short grain sticky rice, and for some dishes, saute dry rice in butter or olive oil before cooking it. One of my kids used to cook it like pasta in a lot of water then drain it, I don’t think this is a one right way situation.
Puerto Rican food is delicious for sure. My DIL says it’s “saucy not spicy”.
You’ll actually find rice instructions that say not to rinse the rice if you don’t want to wash away some of the nutritional benefits. I’ve had mixed success with the rinsing, I’ve made near-perfect unrinsed rice and soggy clumpy nastiness from rinsed rice. I think it’s more about controlling the water ratio and the heat. I’m currently on the “boil water, add to rice, and bake” train as I’ve had the most success with this method. However I’m also usually making rice for 60 people at a time and don’t have an industrial rice cooker, you just can’t do the “bring to a boil, simmer, and cover” method with that much rice. Or I can’t anyway.
And that was when I learned that you have to rinse the rice first.
That’s a myth actually, you don’t need to do it. It comes out completely fine without washing the rice. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3CHsbNkr3c
The rice cooker makes a difference though. They are pretty interesting from a technological perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSTNhvDGbYI
I knew that second link was going to be Technology Connections, hah.
That has not been my experience. Also I don’t have a rice cooker. If I don’t rinse it, it becomes a big gooey mess.
I recommend using a rice cooker, but it’s also possible to get good results with a regular pot and appropriate heat/fluid levels.
I don’t rinse my rice for the rice cooker and it comes out perfectly fluffy and pleasant each time. I do however stir it a little, such that the grains don’t stick together after having poured in the water.
huh. i don’t rinse the rice but i get the same “hey, no one makes rice like he does” talk around the white people water coolers. it’s just following the rice:water ratios and using a little oil and salt.
are you rinsing until the water is clear or just a quick rinse? because my electric pressure cooker makes a damn good rice cooker i’m not changing that part of my method.
I rinse in the pot. Add water, mix it around, drain, repeat until mostly clear. The more the better, but mostly clear already takes five or more rinses. Finally I do 1.5x the rice weight of water (400g rice and 600g water is my usual recipe size). Then I set the pressure cooker to 4 minutes and let it naturally release pressure once it’s done.
Rinse until clear. That’s what my neighbor taught me. Also I use a regular non stick sauce pan with a lid. I don’t have a rice cooker.
Basically boil with a little butter . Then turn to low heat. Cover. And after about 15 min, it’s perfect.
As a fellow cracker ass cracker, all the bags of rice I buy tell my dumbass to rinse the rice first
Weird. I mostly buy mine from aldi. Maybe those brands just leave that out.
Or I’m wrong because I’ve only looked on basmati and jasmine rice… which I never manage to prepare correctly for what’s it’s worth
You are missing out. Those are the best ones, imo.
That Mac & Cheese was bothering me a lot. Behold, “pernil y arroz con gandules”!
That’s because it’s a picture of BBQ instead of pernil. Pernil with some fried plantains and pigeon pea rice(can’t think of actual name) is amazing.
Pernil with some fried plantains and pigeon pea rice(can’t think of actual name)
Fried plantains, if ripe are “maduros” and if green, pressed and double fried, are “tostones”.
Pigeon pea rice is “arroz con gandules”.
See the whole “invading a sovereign nation and kidnapping it’s leader” could make a lot more sense as a heavily slurred order for “McDonalds” that was then tragically misinterpreted as “Maduros” but we all know the only culture in the White House lives RFK’s armpits.
Perfect! What are those nuts on the salad!
They look like sunflower seeds to me
Okay, that chicken looks disgusting, but really. Minimalist cooking celebrating the ingredients without leaning into spices is a whole thing. Sashimi? Cong you bing? Tamago gohan? Spaghetti aglio e olio? Fresh bread or “new potatoes” with butter? Finnish salmon soup (clear or creamy)? How could you not appreciate those just as much as a well-seasoned flavor bomb?
Also to defend european cuisine, yes chicken is boring, that’s why actual European recipes would also drown it other stuff: coq au vin, arroz con pollo (Spanish variant), frango piri-piri, chicken paprikash, Kyiv chicken…
If you are purposefully leaving food unseasoned to experience its natural flavor, you are fine.
We are talking about people scared of a lil paprika in a situation that clearly calls for it.
Edit: all the dishes you named as unseasoned… they all have seasoning except sashimi and buttered potatoes. Soy sauce, garlic, and Sichuan pepper are seasoning/spices. And Sashimi is typically eaten with soy sauce AFAIK.
Nothing in this meme makes fun of European cuisine. It makes fun of a very specific subsection of White people in the U.S. who would watch the TPUSA halftime show instead of Bad Bunny.
I know, it’s mostly the comments making fun of “bland european cuisine” that got to me; plural, so didn’t respond under one. The meme doesn’t even mention Europe. Sorry, should have been clearer.
And sure, you can say that soy sauce is spice, or that the scallions and sesame oil in scallion pancakes are a spice, or that the soup portion of french onion soup is nothing but spice… Personally, I think in those cases what you call “spice” is one of the ingredients being celebrated (or in the case of soy sauce, sometimes just a way to add liquid salt). Such as in the case of spaghetti aglio e olio, garlic is the thing (along with quality ingredients), whereas in spicy foods it’s nearly always about the balanced spice blend. Even in something like chili, the peppers play a smaller part.
Oh it’s chicken!
I thought it was ranch dressing or something. Just big globs of it.
Boiling chicken isn’t celebrating it. This is also more more about anglo cooking in the USA.
Hainanese chicken rice would like a word. The most basic version of this dish has 3 ingredients: boiled (technically poached) chicken, rice, and salt. It’s exactly a celebration of the flavour of a high quality pasture-raised chicken (ideally a heritage slow-growing breed).
Yes, it’s usually garnished with chilli sauce, cucumbers, and even tomatoes. But the central component of the dish is boiled chicken.
…do you really think we don’t know this? Do you really not get the joke? How sensitive do you need to be to see this and think it’s an anti-white thing, not a Diversity vs Racists thing?
It’s not “sensitivity”, it’s simply pattern recognition. In the US, unseasoned/bland food has been a crack made at the expense of ‘white people’ specifically, for a very long time on the Internet.
It’s literally and specifically attacking the blandness that are Turning Point USA racists and you’re taking it as an attack against white people food in general. Your skin is so fucking thin I can see right through it.
I fully agree that there’s a lot more white food than boiled chicken but this is targeting the people who find ketchup to be spicy. Take a big ol’ deep breath.
Yes but racism funi
Just needs a piece of broccoli a tortilla and one other thing
What on earth is this about?
Toilet Paper USA (The propaganda network of old bleedy neck) is doing a counter show to the super bowl half time show because, well I don’t actually know their verbal reasoning but I’m pretty sure it’s racism or some other inane reactionary response.
The joke I saw is, “They’re mad that brown people have the right to exist, so they’re doing their own kkkickoff.”
