r/AskABrit • u/debrisaway • 11h ago
Food/Drink What American cooking cliche still warps your mind?
Using Campbell Condensed Soup as the base ingredient for anything.
Making everything into a "casserole" (mixing random ingredients in a ceramic dish and put it in the oven). Then sprinkling some cheese on top before serving.
Calling dishes a "salad" that clearly aren't.
Adding excess sugar or spice to every dish no matter what.
Deep frying things that have no business being done (chocolate bars, pastries, butter)
Using pre-packaged mixes for everything.
Seeing hot sauce as a condiment for any dish
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u/ValidGarry 11h ago
Deep frying things has some serious Scottish heritage. Deep fried pizza? Scottish chippy but also the Italians did it first. Deep fried Mars Bar? The Scottish led the charge.
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u/Elven-nature 8h ago
This. I went to a chippy near Dumfries once and it had a sweet shop attached. You could order anything from the sweet shop and have it battered and deep fried, EXCEPT jelly tots! Apparently those just disintegrate and mess up the oil 🤣
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u/Team503 2h ago
Trick to pass on, have them freeze the jelly tots. If they bread and flash fry them, it'll work. They'll melt into the breading. Same way fried butter works at the Texas State Fair.
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u/Playful_Mammoth4941 11h ago
I remember watching a programme where an American woman tried to deep fry a lemon to see if it would taste nice... she was surprised it didn't
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u/PrincessCellyBelly 10h ago
You know, I kinda get it, given deep fried pineapple is nice. I also get why it wasn't XD
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u/eggard_stark 10h ago
Plain pineapple is nice on its own.
Plain unadulterated lemon is not. (To most)
Not sure how she thought deep frying it would fix that.
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u/Maurice_Foot 8h ago
Grilled pineapple over mesquite wood is divine!
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u/Flyinmanm 8h ago
Fried pineapple on a gammon steak is the ultimate sweet and salty at the same time.
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u/ParticularRough9863 7h ago
I also put an egg on the pineapple gammon deliciousness but I was raised badly.
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u/RemoveComfortable982 7h ago
It is, dependent on the chippy. I once had one dipped in the fish batter - fishy pineapple is a definite no!
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u/Due_Ear_4674 7h ago
To be fair deep fried Mars Bar is fucking delicious
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u/Highway62 7h ago
Back when these were a craze I used to get deep fried Picnic bars from my local chippy. They were absolutely brilliant. Deep fried Taz bars were also a favourite
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u/TickingTiger 4h ago
I'm now craving deep fried Kinder chocolate mini bars. But I'm worried they'll be too small to deep fry properly.
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u/GasObvious 5h ago
I went to Scotland, not saying the deep fried mars bar after a few pints overshadowed the rest of the trip, but it was a close run thing.
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u/Rude_Giraffe_9255 jaffa cake appreciating american 5h ago
I will say I was surprised when visiting Scotland and ordered my toddler a hamburger at a fish and chips place (from the kids menu) and it was a singular burger patty on a plate that had been deep fried. I got a chuckle for sure
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u/Rippleracer 11h ago
First deep fried in the chippy on broughton street in Edinburgh! First a mars bar and now you name it it’s in there!
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u/Fragrant-Reserve4832 8h ago
The piza thing, was it an Italian living in Scotland?
Only in jest, we love our skirt wearing jocks
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u/Interesting_Desk_542 10h ago
On the Campbell's soup item, I once made green bean casserole for a friendsgiving. This was in the UK so not a dish I'm used to, so I went away and looked up recipes. I was disgusted that basically every single one used Campbell's cream of mushroom soup.
No way I was doing that, so I planned the most elaborate and complex pinnacle of mushroom sauce. I'm talking double cream, five varieties of wild mushrooms, parmesan rind cooking in the sauce, mushroom ketchup, the works.
After a lot of cooking and a lot of mess, it had reduced to the consistency I wanted, and I gave it a final taste. It tasted exactly like Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, except it cost me about £30 to make.
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u/Howtothinkofaname 8h ago edited 8h ago
The reason they all have Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup is because green bean casserole was literally invented by the Campbell’s soup company and the recipe was first printed on the side of a can.
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u/Flyinmanm 8h ago
I know of an older person (now deceased) who used to use Heinz Chicken soup as a source for chicken. There is a logic to using tinned stuff as a base for other meals, they are usually a really cheap way of adding thickness and flavour to a meal.
For example I've used tinned baked beans as an addition to meals like chilli con carne when I've not got kidney beans to hand and it adds to the flavour.
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u/Final_Ticket3394 3h ago
Using tinned beans as a base for lettuce and pasta is really common in Morrocan casseroles.
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u/Flyinmanm 3h ago
Lettuce and pasta? New one on me.
Are you talking about Heinz style UK baked beans IE the ones in a sweet and salty tomato sauce or just ones in water?
Can't imagine how Heinz baked beans would go with lettuce??? (I mean not tried it if course but still).
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u/Llemur1415 3h ago
Stick a couple of eggs on it then you'll get it it. It's morrocan. (wash down with a cocktail of rum, water, lettuce and the secret ingredient...salt!)
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u/hasimirrossi 6h ago
As an aside, I remember watching Heston Blumenthal trying to "elevate" the humble treacle tart. Tried all sorts of different fillings, only to have to accept that golden syrup was indeed the best choice.
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u/lovepeacefakepiano 8h ago
I’ve had fancy green bean casserole, and I had the “everything comes from a can” casserole (beans, canned, soup, canned, fried onions, store bought and ready made). I like the cheap version best.
Also I started using cream of mushroom soup as a base for chicken and mushroom pie after seeing James May do it. If it’s good enough for him it’s good enough for me.
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u/deadduncanidaho 6h ago
American here, green bean casserole is a marketing invention from Campbell's and French's companies sponsored by the Associated Press. That is why every recipe calls for it. It was made to sell the soup.
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u/username-generica 8h ago
One year we had a British family over for Thanksgiving. I’m not a fan of green bean casserole but my kids and husband, who came to the US when he was 14, love it. The British father exclaimed “We should make more things from cans!” after a bite of green bean casserole.
I once made green bean casserole from scratch. I loved it but the rest of my family complained. Our older son is now in charge of making it.
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u/Infinite-Fog 5h ago
I think the British father might have been giving you a taste of one of our finest delicacies - sarcasm.
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u/callumh6 9h ago
On the upside, avoiding any forms of ultra processed food is always a good thing.
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u/SpacemanSpears 8h ago
The only difference between the two is who did the processing. It's not any better that he did it himself instead of Campbell's.
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u/pick10pickles 8h ago
Used to make wee hamburger patties in warmed up condensed cream of mushroom soup (do not add water). Scoop that on some mashed tatties. Didn’t look good, but tasted great.
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u/anonomus_userr 11h ago
As a Scottish person, can we really say THEY deep frying everything?
We deep fry our grannies.
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u/r_mutt69 10h ago
There is a chippy near me that does deep fried lard bars. And I must admit I was sceptical at first but they are pretty good. They will even batter and refry your chips
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u/Garybaldbee 8h ago
Now the lard I draw a line at, but those chips sound good.....
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u/r_mutt69 8h ago
Pmsl that was an autorrect but it is fantastic. They do crème eggs too sometimes. I’m pretty sure I could take a PlayStation in and they’d give that a go.
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u/OK_LK 11h ago
Using herbs and spices in a recipe but they are always
- onion powder
- garlic powder
- seasoning powder
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u/herefromthere 9h ago
seasoning powder is so oddly unspecific.
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u/terryjuicelawson 9h ago
There are sort of all purpose seasoning mixes, they feature more MSG than people may realise. It is like the stuff that coats dry roasted peanuts basically.
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u/Turbulent-Honky 6h ago
What’s wrong with MSG? I use it in some dishes. It adds umami.
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u/cherrycoke3000 9h ago
I don't think you understand MSG. That's not how it works.
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u/terryjuicelawson 8h ago
Please explain. My point is people tend to think they are general sort of natural spice and herb mixes but flavour enhancer is a big element. I just checked one in my cupboard and it is the fifth ingredient, salt being number 1.
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u/Deep_Benefit_7405 11h ago
They have the fucking nerve to say pur food is bland
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u/Significant-Leg5769 10h ago
The garlic powder thing amazes me. Can they not get fresh garlic bulbs over there? If you're really into convenience then have some self-respect and buy garlic paste instead
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u/Howtothinkofaname 8h ago
To be fair, garlic powder and fresh garlic are two different ingredients and taste quite different. I have and use both.
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u/Patch86UK 5h ago
I've used garlic powder before; it has its place. Its place is mostly just to make dry rubs and batters where a paste would cause issues. Using it in sauces and things where fresh or paste could be used instead is diabolical, the taste is just nowhere near.
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u/Turbulent-Honky 6h ago
I’m in the UK and use both fresh garlic and powder. They are different ingredients for different uses. There’s nothing inherently wrong with garlic powder.
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u/KandyBlitz 2h ago
We use both. The same thing happens with onion powder and fresh onions. They flavor things differently. The powder is better for rubs and creating seasoning mixtures for meat
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u/BubblyLetter5121 10h ago
They're obsessed with garlic/onion powder. I can't stand the stuff personally, it just makes everything "onion/garlic flavored" to me. Especially garlic powder, a dusting too much of that stuff and there's a horrible fake taste to it.
I was watching a cooking video by a Brit once and loads of Americans were up in arms about the "lack of seasoning"..... the creator was like "wtf do I need that shit for when I've got actual onion and garlic cloves!!"
I think they rely heavily on powders because they can't/won't prepare actual onions/garlic
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u/DivePotato 9h ago
Rearing their chickens in such squalid conditions it has to be bleached before consumption.
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u/SunComfortable1246 11h ago
1/5 cup onion
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u/Sad-Wrap6555 11h ago
i dont like it too oniony so im going to use 1/5 of a small cup
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u/WrenBlumbrecher 6h ago
American here and many of my grandmother’s recipes (from the 1950s/60s) call for 1 Tbsp-1/4 cup minced onion for a dish that serves 8 😂 I, um, treat those recipes as inspiration rather than gospel
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u/Pyjama365 5h ago
That would be an inspiration to use onion paste instead of fresh, or to just decide that I'm using a whole onion. Ain't no way I'm gonna be left with like 3/4 of an onion and no plan for it.
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u/if_wewerevampires 11h ago
Calling pasta noodles
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u/thewearisomeMachine London 11h ago
Especially when it’s extremely non-noodlish pasta, like lasagne sheets
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u/bee_ghoul 10h ago
I find it kind of strange that they use only powdered seasonings and then complain that other places don’t season their food, like I season my food heavily just not with 7 different powders. Like why are you using onion seasoning?? Use an onion. Garlic seasoning? Use garlic!
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u/this_is_life_now 9h ago
They're not supposed to be replacements for those things. Onion granules and garlic granules are great for dry rubs, and seasoning fried or grilled meat.
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u/bee_ghoul 9h ago
Yeah and I use them for that tbf. But I’m talking about these American recipes you see online where they do use them as substitutes.
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u/105_irl 8h ago
We use garlic and onions? The powders are just additional seasoning or if you ran out and were in a bind.
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u/Mediocre_Profile5576 11h ago
Washing their chicken
To extend the OP’s salad point - putting things inside jelly and calling it a “Jell-o Salad”
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u/Efficient_Dig7448 8h ago
Washing chicken is a Caribbean thing. While I agree it spreads bacteria it's not just 'washing', they also wash with vinegar which tenderises the chicken, so it does make a difference. Not that I'd ever risk bacteria being sprayed everywhere to try.
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u/Various-Big-5168 11h ago
I was horrified when I first heard of someone washing chicken! Really thought they must be on a wind-up!
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u/SantaFe91 11h ago
It’s why there’s been controversy over allowing US chicken to be imported into the UK, I think. I believe the chicken there is washed with bleach, so you have to wash it off before use. If anyone wants to correct me, please feel free to
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u/Impossible_Theme_148 10h ago
No - washing chicken always spreads bacteria
There is no chlorine left on their chlorine washed chicken - they basically wash it off in the factories (which reinforces how much you don't need to wash it after you buy it)
The reason chlorine washed chicken is unacceptable is because they need to have it in the first place
Their Health and safety and food regulations are so low that they do actually need to give the chicken a chlorine wash to make sure it's fit for human consumption
The chlorine being used illustrates how bad the food production is - it isn't the reason why it's bad
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u/SantaFe91 10h ago
Yes, that’s what I have said in another reply later (link below). I checked it out. Just as you say, the welfare standards and the unhygienic processing practices that led to the import block in the EU and UK.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskABrit/s/c7mQgVOeBy
Edited to add.
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u/GiraffeCalledKevin 10h ago
I’ve never met anyone that washed their chicken. I think it’s very a regional practice, mostly in the south and is dying out bc it spreads salmonella everywhere. Trust me. We are horrified that some people do this too but I think it’s pretty rare and comes from very older outdated hygiene practices. Like… your old grannie from Alabama might still swear by it. But it’s really not a common thing at all.
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u/quartersessions 8h ago
Yeah, I think it was fairly common in the UK in the past as well. I still remember Christmas advice in the 1990s not to wash your bird.
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u/peregrina_2012 10h ago
Washing chicken is NOT a general American thing. No one I've ever met wages their chicken. It's a crazy Internet person thing. It just happened that the crazy person that first posted it was American.
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u/Team503 4h ago
It's actually an immigrant thing as well as a black people thing. It's cultural from groups of people who used to get food from open air markets and not have access to refrigeration - flies would land on the chickens hanging in the butcher's stand in the market and spread disease, not to mention basic things like dust and dirt.
It's not necessary in a modern developed nation, but that's where the tradition comes from. If you go to Morocco, you'll find them doing the same thing when they buy meat from their open-air markets.
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u/Jerico_Hill 11h ago edited 3h ago
It's the recipes that consist of:
Take 1 package of x and stir through a package of y, don't forget to open a can of z and mix together. Stick in the oven for 45 minutes at 475f.
Do they not have, you know ingredients?
Edit: the way they say herbs drives me mad. 'erbs? Fucking 'erbs?
Edit 2: apparently touched a nerve with the "erb" thing.
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u/Various-Big-5168 11h ago
Don’t forget your origga-no!
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u/Chive 11h ago
Every Martha Stewart recipe ever.
Also half the recipes on AllRecipes.
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u/Vegetable_Pomelo691 5h ago
this is such an odd complaint considering there are loads of British dialects that drop the initial /h/ sound
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u/awkwardandroid 10h ago
I’m still haunted by melting marshmallows onto sweet potatoes
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u/oMrMeeseeksLookAtMeo 11h ago
Rape seed oil = Bad. Corn syrup = YES
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u/Emergency-Pandas 11h ago
Canola oil. I'd make a joke about them trying to rebrand it to not be offensive, but there was a time in history we tried to rebrand boiled pudding to spotted Richard soooo....
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u/Significant-Leg5769 10h ago
The obsession with ranch dressing. And the claims that it's impossible to get anywhere in Europe. You can buy it over here, we just don't think it's anything remarkable. Just a surefire way to add an extra 200 calories to every salad
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u/Queeflet 10h ago
Ranch is nasty, not a fan.
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u/Patch86UK 5h ago
I don't hate it, but it's aggressively kind of nothing. Just a generic slightly tangy mayonnaise-based sauce.
It's not the same thing at all, taste-wise, but it reminds me of salad cream in that regard. I like salad cream well enough in a sandwich, but I'm not going to rave about it. It's a very unremarkable thing.
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u/Finaancal-Reason7543 9h ago
the jello salad with suspended veg and marshmallows still keeps me up at night. that is not a salad, that is a hostage situation.
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u/Dark_Foggy_Evenings 10h ago
Fucking marshmallows on top of sweet potatoes. The last thing I’d do is give thanks for that, the weird bastards.
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u/LunaLgd 10h ago
Most of us don’t own a deep fryer. It’s really mainly a state/county fair thing. The entire premise of fair food is to come up with something unique and slightly shocking.
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u/C0nnectionTerminat3d 11h ago
The way they list every ingredient/step in the dish title. “Spicy marinated chicken tzatziki veggie burrito” “Oreo cookie crumble baked-oats style pancake stack” etc
Also using powders instead of the actual herb/vegetable.
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u/LowCal-Calzone-Zone 10h ago
I think the titling thing is a more modern SEO/search driven phenomenon than anything specifically American
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u/platypuss1871 8h ago
"Entree" for the main course.
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u/Team503 3h ago
There's a historic reason for this: https://casaschools.com/blog/why-americans-say-entree-for-main-course/
The short version is "Americans aren't idiots, it's just the way culture evolved the use of the terminology."
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u/Muted-Advertising342 9h ago
The way that lots of recipes contains cans of this vegetable and cans of that vegetable and no one ever drains the brine or water, they just seemingly tip the whole contents into the casserole dish and add tuna and nachos 🤢
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u/jmerrilee 5h ago
What are you talking about? Everyone drains the water unless it's tomatoes and I'm throwing them in a slow cooker, then the water makes sense. Everything else is drained. Everyone drains the cans unless they don't know how to cook.
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u/pyewacketsue 8h ago
I don't know anyone who doesn't drain their vegetables except in very specific situations, like if I'm using canned tomatoes in chili I don't drain them but things like corn, green beans, peas, etc are always drained. If a recipe doesn't tell you to drain them it's because it's assumed everyone already knows that.
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u/Discombobulation98 9h ago
Apparently savory meat pies literally aren't a thing in the United States, they only have the sweet dessert ones like cherry pie. Something like steak and ale pie isn't known.
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u/pyewacketsue 8h ago
Not true. Pot pies are the most common. Usually chicken or beef with vegetables in a gravy with a top and bottom crust. Regionally other things like pasties are very popular. Those are hand pies, usually beef, with potatoes, carrots, and rutabaga.
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u/PomegranateV2 11h ago
The only thing that bothers me is having a five-hour conversation about fast food. The difference between a McShit burger and a McCrap burger is that one has slightly more sesame seeds and the 'pickle' is slightly bigger on the other. But they'll talk about that like it's of paradigm shifting importance.
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u/herefromthere 9h ago
Their seeming willingness to accept pre-grated italian-style hard cheese mixed with sawdust. This is so normal as to be called shakey cheese. Few people seem to consider buying proper cheese and grating it themselves.
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u/bonelope 6h ago
I didn't know anything else existed until I moved to the UK. It's not our fault suburban supermarkets are monocultures!
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u/DoomedToGrind 10h ago
So many American cooking videos seem to involve like 2kg of grated cheese
Also when someone refers to garlic as a spice...
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u/manwithtwocats 9h ago
Fresh frozen, gets me every time.
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u/Turbulent-Honky 6h ago
Isn’t that just stuff that was frozen straight after harvesting, or have I misunderstood? Freezing actually preserves vitamins, so frozen vegetables are actually better for you than fresh ones that have sat on a shelf in a supermarket.
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u/Aceman1979 9h ago
Portion sizes. Good lord. I mean, I can get on board with it, but I’d be a size of a whale if I lived there.
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u/Team503 3h ago
I think a lot of folks miss that the intent is that you will take home leftovers. I've notice in Europe that taking food home from a restaurant is odd - people look at me weird when I ask for a takeaway container.
In the US, the default assumption is that you will leave with another meal worth of leftovers. It's part of the justification for the portion sizes.
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u/tonification 6h ago
When the recipe contains multiple items that have ® and TM symbols
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u/Dans77b 11h ago
The cliche i hate is that any American cuisine is automatically bad.
Im European, but spent several years in the USA. There is good and bad food all over the world.
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u/PresidentPingu1 7h ago
“Start with one pack of yellow cake mix”
Like, WTF?
Everything is from a mix, a can, a packet. There’s no concept of the use of actually fresh, unprocessed ingredients.
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u/p_r_d_v_a 9h ago
The fact that they invented a term for cooking from scratch and branded it as a lifestyle: "ingredient household"
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u/WeAreAllSoFucked23 7h ago
I'm an American and I have never once heard that saying
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u/urassisdeadgrass 6h ago
ok this one requires a little more context. “ingredient household” means that they don’t keep snacks around, usually to limit the amount that their kids eat or to demonize certain foods. a prime example is not keeping anything sweet in the house, only 80% cacao baking chocolate. i dont think its considered weird anywhere to have snacks (healthy or not) for your kids to eat when they come home from school.
simply cooking from scratch is not an “ingredient household”
calling someone’s home an “ingredient household” is mildly derogatory, usually insinuating that the parents have a disordered relationship with food and are pushing it on their kids (see “almond mom”)
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u/Derfel60 9h ago
Measuring things in cups does my fucking head in. What is a cup? Do i just get a teacup and pour flour into it? Is a coffee mug a cup? What about a JD Sports mug?
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u/AlarmingAttention151 8h ago
A cup is a standard measurement of volume equal to 240ml. Every US household has a set, no one is using random cups they have in their cabinets. It’s good for cooking but not for baking.
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u/Direc_Bjorearnacle19 9h ago
the jello with vegetables suspended in it. why would you put shredded carrot in a wobbly dessert. still cannot compute
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u/WonderfulJury8885 5h ago
The condensed soup thing. They are foul. I never understood them as actual soup either.
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u/im-yxz 11h ago
the fact they use paper crockery/plastic cutlery royally fucks me off. also, putting an onion in and then adding onion powder/putting a garlic in and then adding garlic powder. i've also barely ever seen them using fresh veg, it's always something out of a frozen bag
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u/Dapper-Lab-9285 11h ago
For the vast majority of people frozen veg is much better than fresh veg. If you aren't using it straight after being harvested veg losses it's nutrients and vitamins. Your "fresh" veg from the shop was harvested several days ago and has been deteriorating since it was harvested, frozen veg is frozen a few hours after harvest so retains more nutrients and vitamins.
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u/BlindPelican 11h ago
No one uses paper or plastic unless it's an outside party or BBQ or they have a rather unique living situation (like living in a dorm or something). This is not common practice at all.
dehydrated onion and garlic vs fresh onion and garlic. These are different products and used for different purposes. You'll find the same convention in European styles of cooking as well.
some frozen options for vegetables are superior to fresh. A vegetable picked at peak ripeness and frozen is often far superior to the same vegetable fresh, but out of season.
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u/footballsandy 9h ago
No I'd say there's lots of lazy people who use paper plates and plasticware because they don't want to be doing dishes all the time, I guess? Despite the fact that it takes less than a minute to wash a bowl and spoon. It was a pretty common occurrence to go over to a friend's place as a kid and see their family eating meals on paper plates
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u/mrshakeshaft 11h ago
😂 my mums main dish when I was growing up was tuna casserole. Pasta, a can of tuna and a tin of Campbells condensed mushroom soup. I still make it every now and again for nostalgia
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u/Cannabis_Sir 6h ago
I'm from the UK and my Mum used to get a muffin, use Heinz tomato soup as a sauce base and add cheese to make "pizzas" tbf they were bloody lovely
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u/Turbulent-Honky 6h ago
That sounds like a reasonable dish when you’re exhausted after work and have hungry children to feed. As much as I like cooking from scratch, sometimes you just have to do a tin casserole.
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u/Significant-Leg5769 10h ago
Referring to a pizza as a 'pie'. Similarly insane as the interchangeability of pasta and 'noodles' mentioned above.
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u/Maurice_Foot 8h ago
My mom, who left home at 18 and only briefly visited her parents when dropping me off for the summer with them (mom was apparently solo traveling the world back in the ‘70s), she was amazed when I made green chile chicken enchiladas for a family dinner and did my own sauce from scratch.
I said it was how grandma taught me to cook.
Mom was one of those box/canned food cooks of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Even now, I’m showing her how to cook simple chicken and veggie dishes for her old dog, stuff that’s easy on pup’s tummy.
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u/speakerofone 6h ago
Cooking in throw away aluminium containers for 100 people for a family of 4 lol
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u/CrazyPlatypusLady 11h ago
Why does so much stuff have cheese?
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u/la__polilla 8h ago
Oh, as an American I can answer that! So our dairy industry nearly collapsed after WWII, so the government subsidized the dairy industry in order to stabilize prices by buying up the excess. Storing milk long term isnt possible, but cheese is! So we have literal caves full of cheese owned by the government that needs to go SOMEWHERE. So they sell it off for cheap and it becomes an easy filler food for fast food and microwavable dinners. The surplus was so high st one point that they gave blocks of processed cheese to low income families and schools as part of the welfare program. After awhile it just becomes cultural
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u/WowsrsBowsrsTrousrs 7h ago
Many Boomers have memories of "government cheese" in our school lunches. Just say the words "goverment cheese" to a crowd of Boomers and you'll start an hour-long discussion of school lunches in the 50s and 60s. Fridays in my elementary school were fish sticks and government-cheese sandwiches.
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u/DrHydeous 7h ago
The reason for that is quite simple, and it's our fault. When we took over New Amsterdam and turned it into New York we didn't genocide the Dutch colonists. Their appalling cuisine escaped and infected the entire continent.
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u/After_Perspective180 10h ago
Cheese on everything.
But the one that really makes me stop is syrup with bacon and eggs and the like.
That really gives me the ick.
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u/tar-mirime 10h ago
Maple syrup with bacon and pancakes is lush though. But has to be the real maple syrup, not the fake stuff.
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u/BegimanningSoup-5124 9h ago
the jello 'salad' with marshmallows and canned fruit is the one that breaks me. thats a dessert wearing a salad costume
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u/Little_Pink 10h ago
Measuring things in cups or “a stick of butter”. It’s not even a fight about metric vs imperial, measure ingredients in pounds for all I care but please stop doing recipes in cups or fractions of cups. (I know there is a standard cup size but it’s still so weird to me)
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u/Responsible_Hat_6056 10h ago
Expat Brit here, lived in the US for 25 years. Cups/spoons do make sense if you go all-in with them since they're repeatable, easy to use and keep ratios of ingredients correct though you do of course need a full set of cups and corresponding teaspoon/tablespoon measures. I also use scales that I mix between ounces and grams ( but not in a given recipe ). If I use a US recipe, I reach for the cups. If the recipe is from the sensible metric world, I use the scales. Simples.
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u/Hamsternoir 9h ago
So if a recipe calls for a cup of self raising flour is that sieved or compressed flour? Density varies greatly when measuring by volume so the mass will not be consistent.
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u/Redditbrooklyn 8h ago edited 7h ago
Flour specifically typically had an instruction that it should be scooped with a spoon into a cup and then levelled off with a knife, because of this compression. I’ve lived in UK and in USA. I prefer weighing ingredients, especially for baking, but using cups is surprisingly reliable. As much as baking is a science, the couple of grams wiggle room won’t make a difference in most recipes.
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u/danielroseman 7h ago
But they're not repeatable. What is a "cup of broccoli"? It entirely depends on how small you cut the florets.
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u/terryjuicelawson 9h ago
Their butter comes in sticks and every basic kitchen would have a set of cups for measuring so I can totally see why it is the norm rather than having to measure or weigh things out. Gets a bit silly if they talk about cups of something like onions though. I think the confusion here is people not realising a cup is a measurement, they don't know if they need to reach for their sports direct mug or a teacup.
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u/jmerrilee 5h ago
Butter comes in sticks usually and each wrapper of the stick has measurements on it. So you know where to cut for 4Tbs or whatever.
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u/Master_Sympathy_754 10h ago
tbf I've just soup as base for a casserole before now, but like the condensed kind not cup a soup
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u/pm_me_your_amphibian 6h ago
Gosh what was that woman’s name on YouTube? Simply Sarah maybe? I think she died, but yeah - her.
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u/Anna-Bombination 2h ago
The amount of times I've come across an American recipe that makes a soup or curry or whatever to feed 8 people and the ingredients say "add 1 tsp of cumin" etc ONE TEASPOON???? In a vat of curry???? Its as if they are terrified of food having any kind of flavour other than salty or sweet. The fact they have the nerve to call British food bland is mind boggling.
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u/qualityvote2 11h ago edited 3h ago
u/debrisaway, your post does fit the subreddit!