Post if you love good food...

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Scotsman, I do (and I am an American - surprise, surprise!). I am guessing that the aversion to trying anything new, different or otherwise exotic may have something to do, in part, with whether or not one has travelled. I am fairly well travelled (14 countries, 44 US states) and try to eat the local cuisine wherever I go. It's a leap of faith sometimes, eating "mystery meat" (which I've done in Turkey, Mexico, Singapore, and Chile), but I believe it has opened my senses to trying new spices and techniques in my own cooking that I otherwise would not have tried. That being said, I do not care for Indian food....I've tried but just cannot seem enjoy the combinations of spices (does that make me a philistine? I hope not). I am passionate about food though...I love to see it, cook it, smell it, read about it, and taste it. If you are a reader at all, I'd suggest :"The Man Who Ate Everything" by Jeffrey Steingarten. That man has my dream job - travelling food taster! Here is a tidbit: http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/steingarten-everything.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Your list of culinary atrocities brings to mind something that happened to me a while back. I've lived in the Deep South of the US for the past 14 years. On a trip home to California, I met a friend for lunch at a small cafe in the mountains. I ordered chicken fried steak, and what looked like an omelette was delivered to my table. I expressed my confusion to the waitress, who stated "that's how we make chicken fried steak here - dip the cube steak in beaten eggs".....It was horrendous. As I was paying at the register, the owner asked how my meal was, and I told him "well, that's the most unusual chicken fried steak I've ever had.....". He said "I keep telling people that's how it was originally made! The reason why they call it that is because it's dipped in egg!". I didn't waste my time setting him straight till I got back to Atlanta. As I said I've lived in the south for 14 years - I've had 85 year old Southern ladies cook chicken fried steak for me and that is NOT how they prepared it. Pain in the ass that I am, I downloaded a recipe for REAL chicken fried steak off of Southernliving.com, including the history of the dish, and mailed it to the restaurant in CA, with the note "Chicken fried steak never has been, nor never SHOULD be, prepared such as you prepare yours. Signed, A Visitor from Georgia."

I don't know if he paid attention or not but I felt better!

I care about the food rant, too, and can't WAIT to see this movie. I agree about the tendency of folks these days to be xenophobes when it comes to food - they don't know what they're missing! I just added it to the top of my Netflix queue.

Well, I'm with you in most of what you say, but "Putting cheese on an Italian Beef sandwich" is not a culinary crime in my book. Overcooked, grey, greasy, soggy strips of beef on a limp bun, that's the crime! The cheese can do no further damage.

I lived in Chicago for six years and loved it, but I never understood what people saw in the Italian Beef.

Funny you should mention the Olive Garden. A number of my friends are Italian, and they "tolerate" the Olive Garden when some of their American friends want to go there. Otherwise, surprisingly enough, they prefer Fazoli's! Of course, Fazoli's is nothing like Primo's fare, but I find it interesting that the Italians I know would choose Fazoli's over Olive Garden, and I would agree with them.

This is one of my all time favorite films, and I just re-watched it tonite. I was curious to see what others' response to it is.

Big Night, Babette's Feast, Chocolat, and Like Water For Chocolate are my favorite Foodie films of all.
Eat, Drink, Man, Woman is also pretty good. I didn't care much for Tampopo, though. The first four films are de rigeur for anyone who loves food: you get Italian, French, Dessert, and Mexican (the scene in Like Water when she makes the quail with rose petals is to die!)

The prevalent theme of all of the best food films is how the creation and enjoyment of the feast is representative and indicative of one's joie de vivre; or, Food as the Soul of Life.
This philosophy works for me!

My favorite cuisines tend to the more subtle, as I find it physically painful to eat hot spices (ie. curry, chili and other peppers, and the like) Consequently, I don't enjoy much standardized Indian, Mexican, Ethiopian, or similar, to my great frustration.
However, I adore French (country and nouvelle), Italian, much of Europe, Japanese (LOVE the Wasabi!), many other Asian foods (dim sum, YUM) ... just so long as it is authentic and not the Americanized crap version.

Someone asked about calamari: I have had squid in many forms: Italian calamari, Vietnamese stir-fry, Japanese sashimi. Like any fish, it must be fresh, and not over-cooked. You can tell if it's overcooked by the feeling that you are chewing on tough rubber bands. Done well, Squid is delicate and just slightly sweet.

I also love seafood and game; I much prefer the dark fowl meat to the insipid, uninspired white chicken breast. Probably the most exotic game I've had is rabbit. Hard to describe... delicate yet very flavorful. 'Course simple is good too: oven-warmed brie slathered on Warm French bread, topped with red seedless grapes is heaven. Don't forget the wine....

Enough... I'm making myself hungry! It is also good to be friends with one's bicycle....

I was on a press junket to the Caribbean one year, and in our group was Chelsea Cooley, the Miss USA for that year. At our first restaurant meal, I ordered escargot as an appetizer. None of the other folks in the group had ever had it, and they didn't mind teasing me about eating snails. But they shut up when I suggested they try it--all but Chelsea. She was the only one who was game, and liked it so much she ordered a plate of her own. A lot of class, that girl. She'll go far.

To eat good food, regardless of its origin, is to be close to God. Some of the greatest meals I have ever had in my life are at Mom-and-Pop cafes in Third World countries. Think of Primo describing lasagna to Ann the Flower Lady.

I don't think being leery of "strange food" is an American thing -- the funniest scene in Babette's Feast, for me, was the two sisters and all their guests, accustomed to their bland native fare, poking suspiciously at the rich, flavorful French food Babette was serving them, not sure if it was proper to eat something like this! Until, of course, they took a bite, just to be polite.

I do think lack of exposure to different cultures, whether you go to them in travel or they come to you as immigrants, has a lot to do with making some people hidebound about what they eat. Even living in So. Cal. I didn't taste Phillipine cooking until my 20s when I had Phillipina co-workers who would bring the most delicious things to the company pot lucks. I've been a fan ever since and that experience did help me to branch out in the types of food I'd try.

I'm sorry to say that my experimenting led me to find that I don't like Greek cooking -- I always assumed I would, and finding out otherwise was a huge disappointment and made me wonder if something was wrong with my taste buds.