My supermarket is having an "American food week"

[Christina]

WTG Spike, you beat me to it by a mile

I am curious if I may scylla, what about Betty Crocker or any other product (aside from a flag maybe) makes it pretty obvious it's American? I ask because I've never had the pleasure of visiting the UK. Some day I hope. (I'd go just to listen to the lovely accents... although I guess technically it would be the Americans who have the accents? )

I like to go to "England" in Epcot just to talk to people and swoon over their accents. Oh, AND the fish and chips!

[Mary Kay]

My daughter had to write a recipe for Kindergarten. It went something like this:
Get a cake, do Betty Crocker things to it and let mommy cook it at 75 o'clock. (she meant 350 degrees)

[Cori]

Awe I wish I could send you some food Scylla..I'm from Cajunland. I have to say the food here is really good. Of course you'd hate me once you started gaining weight lol.

[Kendra]

This IS a great thread. . . but I have to agree that this is not really representative of American food! I mean, we eat burgers, yes, but that looks like circus food-- even the wrappers!

In Nashville, there's a huge Indian community and we have lots of Indian restaurants and they are all really really good. And, we have a few ethnic groceries, but not too many. Thankfully, we have a great Japanese one and a great Indian one that's not too far.

What we don't have is a great Chinese restaurant, believe it or not. We have one that we've discovered, but only one. The rest of them are chinese buffets and those are never really good.

We do have lots of good sushi/japanese restaurants, though, and a huge amount of Mexican restaurants, too.



We're eating scallops tonight, btw.

[scyllabub]

what about Betty Crocker or any other product (aside from a flag maybe) makes it pretty obvious it's American?

I'm going back to the 1960s when anything with "cookies" or "muffins" on the end of it had to be American, and then there were those dreadful cup measurements which, to this day, I haven't learned to cope with (but lots of other Brits can, it's just me). We had a pet grocery shop in Plymouth that sold quite a lot of US stuff, including beautiful, luscious tinned peaches - at a price.

I'd go just to listen to the lovely accents

We've got some really ugly regional accents, and the predominant "middle class" accent among younger people is now "estuary", meaning Thames estuary including Essex, where the Chavs originated , it's contaminated by Cockney and Australian (from the popularity of that soap... um, Neighbours). The sound of "oo", long or short, has almost vanished: eg, book is veering towards beck, too towards tew and the French tu only longer. (We'd need to learn phonetics for me to explain it properly.) My accent is neutral-ish, with early influence from my Cornish mother, Irish father, and 1950s BBC English (Cornwall was a big influence on the development of the American accent, I understand, ahrrrr. The tin-miners who went out there.)

Forgive my rant, but I feel almost bereaved when I listen to the young folks these days

Of course you'd hate me once you started gaining weight lol.

Too late, the damage is done

that looks like circus food-- even the wrappers!

It's far from an up-market store, but they do try

scylla

[spike]

I'm a great fan of Aunt Jemima although I am perfectly capable of making waffles/pancakes myself; also Bisquik for biscuits with fried chicken. On trips to Boston I come back with packets of the different Lifesavers we can't get easily here, small size paper coffee basket filters, Oh! Henry bars, Graham crackers for lemon meringue bases. But my idea of heaven would be to live next door to a lobster pound in Maine and eat freshly cooked lobster with drawn butter until I could eat no more.......

I adore Wal-Mart, there are tools I have never seen in this country (especially for miniature making). Every kind of ruler, Minwax, I wander round the aisles for hours.

Oh, following on from scyllabub, my pet peeve is the upward ending to every sentence - turning it into a question. That has come straight from 'Neighbours' and has now been absorbed into the culture - I find it irritating beyond belief. But then I am a grumpy old woman.

[scyllabub]

Oh, following on from scyllabub, my pet peeve is the upward ending to every sentence - turning it into a question. That has come straight from 'Neighbours' and has now been absorbed into the culture - I find it irritating beyond belief. But then I am a grumpy old woman.

It was in my mind at the time of writing

I'd love to have Wal-Mart here, but you know what they say... "Be careful what you wish for" I moan enough as it is about all the good-old things we've lost.

I was looking at Grumpy Bloggers: The World of Complainers Unite Against Stupidity this morning (came across it by accident) but it's obviously not run by the Late Great Alan Coren or the regrettably getting-on-a-bit Richard Ingrams, it's very down-market

scylla

[Kendra]

Oh, following on from scyllabub, my pet peeve is the upward ending to every sentence - turning it into a question. That has come straight from 'Neighbours' and has now been absorbed into the culture - I find it irritating beyond belief. But then I am a grumpy old woman.

Oh gee! There's an area in the US that does that. . . Pittsburgh, PA, and Youngstown, Ohio. . .. they do this, too! Or used to, at least, years ago. I know regional accents change so I don't know if people here still speak like that, but they most likely do in Youngstown. I lived in Pittsburgh for about a year and knew someone in that area of Ohio, too, that I used to visit sometimes. It would drive me crazy listening to that.

And, the midwest-- Wisconsin and Minnesota-- also have an interesting speech pattern, too.

But, my husband is from Boston. And, he doesn't have most of his accent, I'm glad to say. His sister, though, has the most HARSH speech I've ever heard in my entire life. OMG. . . it's almost an assault on one's ears when they hear her. No Rs ever. Really, most people in Boston proper don't speak like this actually-- the speech is more prevalent on the outskirts. Still, she does and it's just really hard to listen to without cringing.

Here's something my mom used to keep drilling into us: In very many areas of the US, these words are pronounced identically: Merry, Marry, and the name Mary (they are all pronounced Mary) . Every time she heard us doing that when we were growing up, we'd have an pronunciation/enunciation lesson!

[Kendra]

I'm a great fan of Aunt Jemima although I am perfectly capable of making waffles/pancakes myself; also Bisquik for biscuits with fried chicken. On trips to Boston I come back with packets of the different Lifesavers we can't get easily here, small size paper coffee basket filters, Oh! Henry bars, Graham crackers for lemon meringue bases. But my idea of heaven would be to live next door to a lobster pound in Maine and eat freshly cooked lobster with drawn butter until I could eat no more.......

I adore Wal-Mart, there are tools I have never seen in this country (especially for miniature making). Every kind of ruler, Minwax, I wander round the aisles for hours.

Oh, following on from scyllabub, my pet peeve is the upward ending to every sentence - turning it into a question. That has come straight from 'Neighbours' and has now been absorbed into the culture - I find it irritating beyond belief. But then I am a grumpy old woman.

Do you know that when the Puritans came here, they didn't realize that they could eat lobsters? There were so many lobsters then, that they'd literally be climbing onto the shore. So, the Puritans would gather them all up and have big bonfires to kill them all. . . they didn't eat any of them the first few years after their arrival.

I couldn't find reference to that, but I did find this, and it's interesting. LINK

You know, my daughter adores those Penguins. .. the chocolate coated biscuits/cookies by McVities. We used to be able to get them here (as an imported product), but our store stopped carrying them! Still, we like the Aeros and the Cadbury flake bars-- both of those aren't sold here!

And, my husband loves Shepherd Pie. So, occasionally I make that.

[spike]

A few years back when Marks & Spencer had a small food store in Victoria (or Vancouver, can't remember which) I bought some of the smaller food items, biscuits (cookies to you), small cakes, some pastry things, crisps (chips to you) just to compare with how I know they taste in the UK. They were completely different in texture and taste. Now what is the point of that - why bother to buy from an English store if it's been formulated for Canadian tastes. I felt like going round the customers and telling them not to buy this rubbish....as it turned out the place closed shortly after and I believe M&S has now withdrawn from the Canadian market.

On a completely different track, I used to live in Tunbridge Wells and commute to the City (I just got in on the last of the steam trains). In the station there was a sign on the wall 'tickets must be shewn' - I loved that sign, olde english.....gone now along with the steam trains.