ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
The fancy-pants Spanish Tapas Restaurant in Melbourne will serve you a tin of anchovies because that's how they do it in Spain. (Maybe they put them on a plate for you - I've never bothered to find out)

Next up: Scott's rant against cans of tomato paste in Italian cooking 

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
So?

 BlueHeronDruid wrote: 
You're just trying to get me to go Full Rant for the rest of the week...

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
Careful now. You'll get raked over hot coals by the "start with Betty Crocker cake mix" people.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
 slowly

 Skydog wrote: 
It's funny how some things like Minute Rice become tradition in old world recipes. Justine's lefse recipe demands Potato Buds. The thought of which makes Norse gods drop their hammers and walk slowly home.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
I like sticky white rice best. I know, I'm really plain and simple that way.

In defense of Minute Rice, first of all yep it's bad but my wife makes the best German Cabbage Rolls with Minute Rice, you'd love it
 

 Lazy8 wrote: 
So the experiment went as planned...

Hey I never let a good rant get in the way of ....much. I like rice. I like brown rice a lot. With chicken gravy. I like white rice for dessert with butter and brown sugar. Paella. Risotto. Sushi, whatever. Jasmine Basmati CalRose. Mm.
 

 islander wrote: 
Lutfisk in Swedish. I remember seeing the salt-cod stacked against the outside of grocery stores before Christmas. Looked fascinating, but the taste... well there's a reason it's only served as a Christmas tradition.

I mean, why turn food into soap? 

 Skydog wrote: 
It's not the taste, it's the texture (says the fan of sushi).

 islander wrote: 
actually I'm all in, sounds interesting at least and I know for damn sure without tasting it it's better than haggis

 Skydog wrote: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutefisk
It's a weird Nordic preservation technique that uses Lye to prepare/preserve fish. A similar process is used to make hominy from corn. Lutefisk is much more of an acquired taste... 

okay I'll bite, what is lutefisk?

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
I'm with you on the Hominy fanwagon, but this is sort of like saying lutefisk is just whitefish. I don't really care though, give me a big scoop with a lot of pork in it too.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
no man not from me, hominy was a staple in our house when I was coming up

I was taught how to cook basmati rice by a lady from Iran, we used to be neighbors. At the bottom of the pot it gets crusty and if you do it right it will fall on to the plate in one peice.
Vida called it tahdig, I just looked up the term because I was never sure what she said, and the children would get it
I looked up a pic for you, I can do this and I make great basmati rice now.
.
 

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
What tasty food would be distusting if eaten over rice?

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Basmati is probably my favorite type of rice.    I don't think I had Minute Rice until I was in college; I remember the ads on TV but my parents never bought it.  They always made some sort of 20-minute dry rice (Carolina or Goya?).  A few years ago I had a discussion with some folks who claimed that people shouldn't eat corn.  It started as a GMO debate then one of them claimed she believed that humans were never really meant to eat corn.  I told her that thousands of years of indigenous peoples of the Americas would probably beg to differ, then smoothly exited the conversation (to eat some chips and salsa).

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
Back when I still had a kid in the homeschool co-op I taught a unit on food—what the world eats. I tracked down the world's 10 most popular starch crops and brought samples of each in and we made small batches to taste. Most of the grains went into little tortilla-like pancakes but I brought 4 different kinds of rice. I usually have at least that many in my cupboard, more around Thanksgiving.

The biggest hit of the day? Basmati. By far. I swear half the kids went home that night and refused to eat Minute Rice ever again.