Interesting overview in “The Week” over the problem that Bill Clinton presents to Hillary. When he goes out with her on the campaign trail and basically introduces her to the crowds, the crowds absolutely love him. He gets them incredibly stoked. Then Hillary comes out and basically puts them to sleep with her combination of policy wonk attitudes, canned speeches, and an inability to project any sort of warmth or true connection with the audience. So the question becomes, is he doing her more harm than good?
I dunno: At least people remember the “getting stoked” part, so that’s something. Memory can be a tricky thing: Later on they might just recall the warm feeling that suffused them from Bill and attribute it to the entire proceeding, rather than focusing on the fact that Bill was jazz and Hillary was Muzak.
PAD
• 
Poor Mike. Inconvienence him with facts and he calls it snarling.
That you would think that Hillary’s senate victory can be attributed to simply New Yorkers “parleying her husband’s infidelity into a senate seat” indicates a slight disconnect with reality.
This mental block you have against Hillary seems to be far beyond the usual and normal disagreement over politics. You seem to feel a need to deny truths which are evident to anyone. What will you do if she wins–cover your ears and sing Jimmy Crack Corn for 4 years (maybe 8)?
But ok, I think we’ve made our points. I think Hillary is doing very well and will win. You think she is very vulnerable and will not win unless she stops taking lobby-dollars. Time will tell.
We’ve known the Alaska Way Viaduct could come down in an earthquake (and has cracks in in it now); the 520 bridge is too small and needs updating.
Yet the anti-tax fools keep blocking tax increases, the NIMBYs keep blocking construction, the esthetics want a Perfect Solution…
And let’s not forget the Mayor who’s hëll-bent on replacing the Viaduct with a tunnel — next to Puget Sound — behind a seawall that’s being damaged by nematodes — with no escape routes if things go wrong — in a city where, during the storms last November, a person drowned after getting stuck in his car in flooding under the Aurora Avenue bridge — for at least a billion dollars more than would be required to simply replace the Viaduct…
…and he can’t see anything wrong with that plan…
Den : “Edwards’ problem is that he’s been pegged as the rich lightweight. At this point, more people probably know how much he’s paid for a haircut than they do his stance on Iraq or healthcare. He’s tried to position himself as the champion of the poor, but Sean Hannity and other radio gasbags have effectively neutralized his ability to even be taken seriously on it.”
That’s one of the things that amazes me about the sheer stupidity of a portion of the electorate. Edwards gets knocked as being a rich lawyer and as being privileged. His haircut became some kind of symbol of how he couldn’t possibly relate to the “common” people. The thing was (as you touched upon in your posting) that the people whipping this idea up, while claiming to represent the common man themselves, are all overpaid gasbags with multi-million dollar book, radio, newspaper and TV deals. Hëll, Rush, who banged away on Edwards haircut as a sign of being out of touch with the common people, has boasted on his radio program about the fact that he won’t pump his own gas and always pulls into the full service pumps. And this was while people were complaining about the $3.00+ gallon of gas price from the early summer.
Never underestimate the stupidity of some people or at least the desire to believe what they want to believe no matter how hypocritical or contradictory.
Den: “Answer: Their political enemies all attacked them by go after their wives. I’ve often wondered why that tactic is so popular among the he-man macho republicans. “
Which, as victims go, puts them in the company of Reagan, Bush the 1st and Bush the 2nd.
Bill Mulligan :”But ok, I think we’ve made our points. I think Hillary is doing very well and will win. You think she is very vulnerable and will not win unless she stops taking lobby-dollars. Time will tell.”
Which also points out the sheer stupidity of another portion of the electorate. Hillary got roundly booed for stating that she will not refuse to accept lobbyist’s cash, a portion of the Democrat’s voting block goes goofy and then all the Democrat candidates go and pander their butts off to a lobby sponsored debate. The AFL-CIO is, like it or not, a lobbying body. Teachers, doctors, nurses, police officers, fire-fighters, etc. are all groups that the candidates, all the candidates from both sides, run to for public endorsements and money. The same people jeering Hillary because “lobbyists” = “Big Business” are the same people saying that all of those groups I mentioned, as well as others, need more and better representation, money, support, etc. All the candidates that are sticking it to Hillary over her comments are the same candidates running to kiss the backsides of those same groups, those same lobbying bodies, for money and endorsements.
Makes you wonder who’s worse…
Are the politicians worse because they’re so transparent in their hypocrisy (due either to their own stupidity or the belief that we’re that stupid) or are many of the voters on both sides worse for being that stupid, allowing themselves to be that blind and mindlessly regurgitating every bit of nonsense that they’re feed via the sound-byte?
Sorry, but Edwards and Obama are playing verbal games when they say they don’t accept money from “lobbyists.” According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, “While they don’t accept money directly from federal lobbyists, Edwards and Obama are not above benefiting from the broader lobbying community. Both accept money from firms that have lobbying operations, and Obama in particular has tapped the networks of lobbyists’ friends and co-workers. Obama, a former state senator from Illinois, has long accepted money from state lobbyists.”
When Hillary is perceived as being dishonest, she gets slammed. When she’s honest, she gets slammed. Some people want to eat their cake and have it, too.
Frankly, I find her stance on lobbyists refreshing. While I too would prefer that lobbyists were taken out of the picture, at least she has the guts to be up front about what she’s doing. Obama and Edwards are being mealy-mouthed twits.
Jerry, it’s the zealots who act this way and it’s mostly just because they will say anything to get their candidate elected, even if it directly contradicts what they said the day before yesterday. Some of these folks are like those people you see who root for a college sports team and actually take it personally when they lose (or act like they were out on the field performing feats of valor when they win). They’ve invested too much of their own personal identity into others.
Did anyone watch the gay issues debate last night? Not a great format and surely there was no reason Melissa Ethridge needed to be one of the questioners…the last thing we need is to encourage the cult of celebrity…but to their credit some of the questioners really held the candidate’s feet to the fire (although I wish more of them in all of the debates would just repeat “You’re not answering the question” when the candidates go off topic, as they do on virtually every opportunity.)
Richardson is probably wishing he’d gone fishing with Biden and Dodd instead of showing up. They asked him if he thought homosexuality was a choice or bilogical. he said choice. You could almost feel the temperature in the room drop. I was witing for a buzzer to sound. Bleeerrrgh! “Oh, I’m sorry. The correct answer was “Biological”. Thanks for playing, here’s some swell parting gifts.”
Zealots… Idiots… Mindless twits… Pretty much just different names for the same thing. Like I told Megan over on the spider bite thread, we like to confuse the issues so much that way. It’s kind of like what I was telling Myers the other day. He says Northerner, some say Yankee and I say uncultured, collinearly deprived city monkeys. Same thing really.
He says Northerner, some say Yankee and I say uncultured, collinearly deprived city monkeys. Same thing really.
As much as I want to agree, being a transplant to Dixie and all, I can only reply: Boiled Peanuts.
What. The. Hëll.
Jerry Chandler: “He says Northerner, some say Yankee and I say uncultured, collinearly deprived city monkeys.”
Jerry, the Civil War ended over one hundred years ago. The North won and the South lost. Get over it.
P.S. Jerry, there is a joint in Upstate New York called the Dinosaur BBQ, and they have the second-best ribs in the world. My girlfriend does the first-best.
P.P.S. It’s not my fault that you live in a log cabin with a dirt floor and have neighbors named “Billy Joe” and “Wanda Mae,” and that indoor plumbing has yet to make it your way. Please don’t take out your frustrations on us northerners.
That’s “Bobby Joe” and “Wanda Lee”.
Notherners… Can’t even get the simple things straight.
“Boiled Peanuts.
What. The. Hëll.”
Boiled with a little Tabasco sauce thrown in for good measure? Food. Of. The. Gods.
Dinosaur BBQ
Hmmmm….. Northern BBQ. Dinosaur BBQ? Appropriate name.
Old, dried up, fossilized and rightly considered extinct.
~8?)
As much as I want to agree, being a transplant to Dixie and all, I can only reply: Boiled Peanuts.
What. The. Hëll.
Amen, Brother Mulligan, Amen. Although, considering my area’s contribution to haute cuisine is minute steaks drenched in Whiz, who am I to talk? Hey, even culturally, I can’t contribute, considering the abomination that is haggis.
My girlfriend does the first-best.
Now we HAVE to get together, Myers. Your girlfriend makes hers, my wife makes hers, you and I get the salad together or something, then we FEAST!
Hey, don’t be dissing the Philly steak “wid whiz”!
Then again, as a Penn Dutchie, I just have too things to mention:
Scrapple (made from what they’re NOT allowed to put in hot dogs).
Shoo-Fly Pie (Might as well just dump a whole jar of sugar down your throat.)
But, getting back to the losers, I mean, south, all I have to say is that you can dress up pig entrails with an exotic sounding names like “chitlins”, and it’s still pig entrails.
“He says Northerner, some say Yankee and I say uncultured, collinearly deprived city monkeys. Same thing really.”
Yet after 34 years of looking for a wife who does he choose?
A Born Yankee, and for that comment he will be loosing out on my collinearly skills until he reevaluates his opinion on northern food.
Hey, I never said that Northerners were bad people. They’re good people at heart and they have their finer points. Why, some of my best friends are Northerners.
I just think that Northerners have no truly great culinary contributions to American cuisine to claim as their own. They are the disadvantaged and underprivileged of the culinary world.
Just the facts, Mam.
Besides, it’s hard to pick on me over marrying a Northerner when the Northerner in question…
1) Left the North behind to move to the South.
2) Eschews both Northern and modern techniques in cooking. Jenn fails to mention that her cooking is almost 100% down home Southern Style cooking.
3) Thinks that the best kitchen to have built into a new home is a Old Colonial (see: Old Southern) style kitchen.
4) Was brilliantly intelligent enough to marry me. ~8?)
How can I knock any of that or be knocked for it?
I’d say #4 is most important from your perspective…
“Shoo-Fly Pie (Might as well just dump a whole jar of sugar down your throat.)”
I’m not sure that Shoofly Pie should count against the south. While it’s grouped into “Southern” food items, it’s actually of Pennsylvania Dutch origin.Pennsylvania is as far north as NY & NJ.
How much do they love their Shoofly Pie up north? “I break for Shoofly Pie” is the official bumper sticker of the state of Pennsylvania. You can look it up on the state’s website.
http://www.state.pa.us/papower/cwp/view.asp?A=11&Q=454359
“I’d say #4 is most important from your perspective…”
Hey, I saved the best for last.
As with your snarling, the facts you provide do not disqualify anything I say and, by definition of inconvenience, do not inconvenience me.
…which you demonstrate by not disqualifying anything I say. Feel free to continue to refer to my take on anything without offering an alternative explanation.
Criticizing Hillary for taking corporate money and opposing unions do not go hand-in-hand. It’s categorically wrong to suggest no union ever went on strike against a corporation.
As far as I know, Hillary Clinton is still the second largest recipient of political contributions from the same health insurance industry that sank her attempts at reform in 1993. When Edwards challenged the candidates to forgo money from Washington lobbies, and she responded by saying the lobbies she takes money from don’t influence her, she earned her boos.
It’s not my fault that you live in a log cabin with a dirt floor
What? Why didn’t anyone tell me this? I’ve been sweeping the dámņ thing for years and it never got cleaner…d’oh!
Boiled with a little Tabasco sauce thrown in for good measure? Food. Of. The. Gods.
What Gods are those? Cthulhu?
What’s the matter, Mulligan? Afraid of a little spice?
Yeesh, you gotta pity the Mad Mikey Merry-Go-Round of Illogic and Dodging. All that cutting and pasting just to say that it’s categorically wrong to suggest something that wasn’t said or suggested (the dodge and strawdog) while simultaneously missing entirely (by either mental deficiency or deliberate trolling) a point made that pretty much everyone else got.
Sad and pathetic really…
I’m not sure that Shoofly Pie should count against the south. While it’s grouped into “Southern” food items, it’s actually of Pennsylvania Dutch origin.Pennsylvania is as far north as NY & NJ.
Um, yeah, I know, so is scrapple. You see, I am Pennsylvania Dutch in origin. That’s why I said “as a Penn Dutchie . . ” in reference to those foods and then said, “But, getting back to the losers, I mean, south . . . ” when I brought up eating pig entrails.
Maybe I wasn’t clear on that point.
Chitlins is one of the few foods that actually smells far worse than it tastes…it doesn’t taste good at all but it smells exactly like what I imagine a boiled sneaker would.
Sorry. I thought, as most people do class Shoofly as Southern, that you were putting it in the Southern Food column.
Plus, there is a more Southern style version (Montgomery pie is similar to a shoofly pie and often identified as such) that is even more sickly sweet. Yuck.
Review the text I’ve bolded (again). You presented criticizing Hillary’s corporate ties and supporting labor as incompatible. Emphasizing the compatibility of challenging corporate excess and supporting labor interests is an appropriate response. No merry-go-round necessary, Coercive-Authority-Figure.
The description “boiled sneaker” is far, far too polite for what they smell like and for what the kitchen smells like for two days before and three days after they’re served.
Mad Mikey Merry-Go-Round of Illogic and Dodging, let me explain context to you. When you take one sentence from an entire paragraph or post, you lose context.
Hhmmmmmmm… No… Not going to work…
Too adult natured of an attempt to explain. That would never work with him…
Let me explain it to you in a manner that you might actually get. To crib from Spider Robinson’s Callahan novels…
Breast feeding:
It’s vital to a newborn baby, but it’s fatal for an elderly cardiac patient. Context is everything.
There, I got juvenile sexual content and abuse to the elderly into the example. Both things that you excel at posting about. That should help you understand things for a change.
Now, please go away. You’re very boring and you’re leaving slime all over everything.
I’ve been misunderstood, maligned, threatened with starvation (hey, I can use the diet) and had violent physical harm threatened upon me via cast iron fry pans.
I merely stated my opinion. Others chose to voice their opinion. I partially agree with some, but I feel that I must plead my case.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, how are you today? We come together to discuss an issue of utmost importance. The issue is food. Specifically, the issue is the status of the undeniable culinary underprivileged status of those in the North.
It’s not their fault really. They’re not bad people. They just have to suffer the curse of having no truly good “Northern” cuisines.
BBQ was mentioned earlier. There’s a good starting place. Say that word out loud. Role it around in your mouth a moment. Let it drift slowly through your mind.
*BBQ*
Quick, what did you think of in terms of regions or styles? New York style BBQ? Hardly. Try Texas BBQ. Maybe North or South Carolina BBQ? Georgia on your mind? How about somewhere in the lower Mid-West? But the North?!? BBQ cooked in a Northern style!?!?! Never in a million years.
And, ladies and gentlemen, how often do you hear in any given week someone lovingly or nostalgically discussing comfort food as “good old fashioned Southern style” food or cooking? Now, how often in any given year do you hear someone lovingly or nostalgically discussing comfort food as “good old fashioned Northern style” food or cooking? I’ll wager that you’ll hear the one far more times in any given week then you’ll hear the other in any given year.
Now think as well about good foods or styles of food. What have we thought of? Smithfield hams? Southern. Chesapeake Bay Blue Claw crabs? Southern. Texas Chili? Southern. Good country cookin’? Southern. Cajun cooking? Southern. Tex-Mex? Southern. Key LIme Pie (and it’s yellow, not green) and related products? Southern. Mexican. Very Southern.
Yeah, the North has had a few minor successes here and there. The cheese steak sandwich, New York style steak, clam chowder and a few dairy products here and there. And the South does have its fair share of misfires. Chitlins, pig snout, cow-brain sandwiches (thank you, Germany) and stuffing spring to mind. But does it equal out in the end? Hardly.
Why, Northern food doesn’t even seem American to most. Think of the quintessential American icons of food. What have we got? Southern foods. And you wash ’em down with a lot more Southern style lemonades or ice teas then you do New York Style Cream Sodas.
But that’s not to say that Northerners can’t learn to overcome this gastronomical nightmare of theirs. God knows they try. Look at New York. Restaurant after restaurant springing up to serve fine foods to the people. Only, what are they mostly? Why, foreign or Southern based cuisines.
Have you ever seen a really popular restaurant in the books that billed itself as a fine Northern Style (outside of the odd steak house) cooking establishment? No. They’re all foreign cuisine or Southern style restaurants. And in that desire to create these restaurants, the North quietly admits that it’s regional cuisine is, at most, second best when held up to the standards of the South.
But, as I said, they learn and they try. Look at, again, New York. How great must be the demand for good food that so many restaurants can be opened with such fanfare for the famous Southern Style chefs establishing them there? It’s dámņ sure greater then the demand in the South for Northern Style restaurants or cooks.
And speaking of chefs, care to name a few famous ones?
Paula Deen, Cat Cora, Bobby Flay, Justin Wilson, etc. All Southern style cooks. There are others that are famous and popular, but rare is the Northern food specialist. They’re almost all either Southern, non-regional specific or Foreign.
Hëll, even the best foreign foods seem to be Southern. Just look at Mario Batali. Mario is the king of authentic Italian eats. But have you ever watched his show? He’s not only foreign in his influences, but he most often prepares food in the manner it is done in Southern Italy. And who has embraced him more strongly even then Northerners who want his upscale eateries in their home town? Southern NASCAR fans.
Well, this just goes to further underscore the point in ways I had not really considered before. Look at Europe. Think of the best foods from Europe. Now look on the map. They’re all from the Southern end of Europe. Head North and what do you get? English “food” (for lack of a better word) and haggis. Now, you get some really great beer and ale from there, but it’s not hard to see why it’s so good and so strong. They had to have something to kill the taste that the “food” left in their mouths.
Basically, while the people of the North may in fact be fine people, admirable people, their food is, at best, second rate. They only wish that their foods were as good as fine Southern foods and they, rather delusionally, proclaim for themselves the ownership of the best foods only after importing it from some fine Southern region.
Pity the Northerner, my friends, pity them.
But don’t pity all of them. some wise up. Look at this thread.
Bill Mulligan, self described transplant to Dixie, wised up and moved South. And just look at the character of the man. Creator of fine entertainment and educator of young minds. A fine human being.
My wife. Smartened up, packed her things and traded NJ for the South. Got even smarter and moved to Virginia. Loves Paula Deen and loves good old fashioned Southern cooking.
Who trades the South and its wonders for the North? Why, again, look at this thread. Hillary the Carpet-bagger and her husband the philanderer. Again, we got the better end of the deal.
Look beyond this thread. Young(ish) Southerners migrate North and open fine dining establishments, become gifted thespians and add character to their new home. Older Northerners retire to the South and screw up major presidential elections.
But I’m getting off point and leaving food behind. Back on track…
No, the South, despite its flaws, has arguably more benefits to lifestyle then the North. But the one thing that is truly inarguable is that THE SOUTH is a gastronomical paradise when compared to the North.
Do you believe differently? Do you feel that I’m wrong? Well then, why not put your money where your food is. Plead the case of the best regional food you’ve got. Don’t simply attack the worst of others, but rather put forward your region’s best. You’ll lose, but you may as well try.
I would also recommend…
http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=7478153&style=movie&BAB=E
… or…
//store.foodnetwork.com/shop/product.asp?product_code=MER5159&department_code=1&category_code=158&subcategory_code=288&search_type=subcategory
… if you just have to have the viewmaster. Great for fans of food, educational entertainment, comedy, trivia and motorcycle road trips.
~8?)
If anything else you’ve said disqualifies my interpretation of the bolded text my response applies to, then yes, you can demonstrate I’ve taken what you’ve said out of it’s context. You can’t demonstrate I’ve left out any such qualifier, therefore your criticism doesn’t apply to me. n ≠ Rocket+Science
So the breast-milk that nourishes newborns is toxic to the elderly? And I excel at posting about abusing the elderly? Jerry, are you not well?
When you have only coercion by name calling, the pouring of disgust, and now, apparently, libel left to resort to, that’s how you let everyone know you can’t handle the real deal. I didn’t ask you for this thunder, but thank you all the same.
Jerry, be all that as it may, and though I may have denigrated our beloved cheesesteaks above(please note, it’s all one word) there are times that nothing satisfies like either a Brooklyn pizza or a Cajun cheesesteak from Julio’s, and NOTHING satisfies like a nice egg cream. Never had a decent one outside New York state. Hardly had one outside NYC. Also, go far enough north, and in addition to the chowder, there’s a delectable concoction with the unfortunate name of an Awful Awful. It’s awfully good. And consider this–while Southern food, good though it is, it’s all regional. Whereas, Philly’s got the cheesesteaks and the hoagies on Amoroso rolls, Chicago’s got the deep dish, New York’s got the pizza and who can forget Nathan’s hot dogs? And the malt vinegar on the fries? MAN, they’re good. All the North’s good food is centralized around specific areas. And barbecue is VERY southern, from Hispaniola, I THINK, could be wrong. Now, here it is, after midnight, and now I’m starving! Thanks a LOT, Chandler!
Not sure what region the hamburger is most associated to but in Minnesota a little mom and pop bar has made it the best hands down. Matts has the Jucy Lucy (correct spelling), two patties with molten cheese in the center. Fear the cheese!!
Also we have a couple pizza joints I would put up against any New York style or Chicago deep dish in a New York minute (sorry)
Last but not least, all these are even better with an awesome hand-brew beer and you just could die and go to heaven.
“it’s the zealots who act this way”
It also seems that it’s they who get the most press. It’s as though if you’re not a true dyed in the wool passionate-and-arguementative 100 per cent True Believer in whatever causes the base believes in you just don’t get any attention. Instead of just trying to appeal to the candidate’s own people, I’d like to see more reaching out to everyone going on. Instead of all this polarization, let’s have the national equivalent of the old “Dig we must for a greater New York” campaign.
Pat,
Matt’s in South Minneapolis?
I had a co-worker who was from that area who used to rave about them and the Jucy Lucy. He also used to mention the Eight club(?) that had its own version of the Jucy Lucy.
The man was in love with that burger. I’m not sure that he loved his wife and kids as much as that burger.
Yes Jerry, thats the place.. Wow, word of mouth is the best advertising.
The other place your co-worker was talking about might be the 5-8 club.
The two of them (Matts and 5-8) have kind of a rivalry going about who was first and of course who is better.
In a pinch 5-8 will do but if your able go to Matts.
Rob Brown: “If the U.S. does it alone, yes, it is. Rightly so, if they’re doing it over the objections of the majority of the rest of the world.”
The majority isn’t always right, Rob.
Rob Brown: “No, it isn’t, and I have to disagree with anybody who says that. I’m not even sure I’ve heard anybody aside from pundits say that sort of thing. I feel that anything as major as taking military action against a country like, say, North Korea should be done with the U.N.’s approval and the participation of the majority of the U.N.’s members (including the U.S.) or not at all.”
The U.N. lacks the moral authority you ascribe to them. This is a body that appointed Libya — LIBYA! — to chair the 59th session of its Commission on Human Rights. This is a body whose Secretary General, Kofi Annan, flushed his credibility down the toilet by making unfounded allegations that Israel deliberately killed four U.N. peacekeeping soldiers while shelling Lebanon.
Moreover, each of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — China, France, Russia, the U.K., and the U.S. — has a “veto” power, thus rendering the U.N. toothless on issues of global security.
Rob Brown: “You simply do not fire the first shots in a war, you do not make preemptive strikes, you do not kill civilians, no matter what, period.”
Passivity can be just as “evil” as aggression, particularly if by passivity you allow an aggressor to cause suffering to others. I hate bringing up this cliche, particuarly because so many people wrongly draw parallels with Iraq, but had someone been willing to fire the first shots at Nazi Germany a lot of suffering might’ve been prevented.
By the way, Rob, I must disabuse you of the misperception that you can avoid killing civilians during wartime. Just not possible. War is not clean, precise, nor surgical, despite what some would have us believe.
Iraq was a mistake because our intelligence was bogus. President Bush put pressure on the intelligence community to tell him what he wanted to hear, and we are now paying the price for his hubris. On the other hand, if we had real actionable intelligence that Osama bin Laden was in striking distance in, say, Pakistan, I’d say it would be more immoral to hold back than it would be to take the chance and attack.
Rob Brown: “If Canada ever did that under any circumstances, even after taking a nuclear strike, I’d be ashamed to be Canadian. It is simply not right, and it is more acceptable to be killed than to do something evil to prevent your death.”
More “acceptable” to you, perhaps.
I agree that the war in Iraq was a mistake, and a costly one for not only the U.S. but for the Middle East as well. On the other hand, I cannot go so far as to call my nation “evil” nor am I ashamed of my country on the whole. An unprovoked attack on civilian targets, such as those strikes perpetrated by Al Qaeda agains the U.S., qualifies as “evil.” The toppling of a brutal regime that has on more than one occassion threatened and harmed its neighbors as Iraq had done may be misguided, even arrogant, but it doesn’t rise to the level of “evil.” Not unless you want to strip that word of all meaning.
Bill Mulligan, self described transplant to Dixie, wised up and moved South. And just look at the character of the man. Creator of fine entertainment and educator of young minds. A fine human being.
I blush.
Actually, I only moved down south because that’s where my wife was. I suppose we could now compare and contrast the qualities of Southern vs Northern women but really, Jerry, my Coercive-Authority-Figure friend, haven’t you dug a deep enough hole for 1 day? 🙂
Back to food….
One area where the North clearly shines is in the not insignificant area of Making A Decent Pizza. It is noted with horror that in many southern towns the best pizza will actually be from Dominoes or Papa Johns or some other franchise. In contrast, my hometown of Saugerties New York, in addition to having given the world the finest inker of all time and all around great guy in the person of Joe Sinnott, also has at least 3 mom & pop joints which make pizza that makes the best pizza in Sanford North Carolina taste like drywall smothered with leftover Chinese medical waste.
True story–my first day at college in Missouri. My dad and I, after a long drive to move me into the dorm, stop by a place that had the temerity to advertise NEW YORK STYLE PIZZA. After ordering, the watress asked us “Do you want cheese on that?”
…
Not “Do you want EXTRA cheese?” No, to her cheese was an option!!! The mind boggles.
New England and New York clam chowder, when done correctly, are divine. There has to be a clam in every spoonfull. Some places just wave a picture of a clam over a pan of soup and call it clam chowder. If there is an actual live clam in in the soup, eating your chowder crackers like that old Abbott & Costello routine, all the better.
Maple syrup, maple sugar, anything maple.
In the area of exotic vittles ‘n critters the South wins hands down–milder temperatures ensure year round scavenging. The north does have porcupines though, with a fat content that has saved many a starving mountain man/lost hiker (it was not rare for folks way back when to starve to death even though they were stocked full of venison–the lean meat did not contain enough fat for survival). Nettle soup is good. Dandylion wine, not so much.
Southerners eat parts that Northerners use for fish bait. At the local KFC they actually put on the sign WE GOT GIZZARDS. In New York that would have as much appeal as WE GOT RATS or WE GOT A 62% ON OUR LAST HEALTH INSPECTION. The gizzards are, in fact ok, but there is always one part of it that one can chew on for the rest of the day without any apparent effect.
I will make one, lonely complaint about a southern food that I, alone, seem to hate. Biscuits and gravy. When I first saw it on a menue I had visions of Grandma Mulligans delicious brown gravy smothered over a big ášš bicuit. Mmmmmmmm. What I got was a big ášš biscuit smothered in…well, it looked like carpet paste. It congealed as I watched. I could feel plaque building up in my arteries just from the act of poking it with a fork. I scraped off the paste and ate the biscuit, ignoring the hurtful jeers and derisive stares of the other people in the dining hall, all of whome looked at me like I wasn’t born with a full set of chromosomes.
Brown gravy–yummy yum. Off-white gravy-yukko poo. But that’s just me.
Iconic American foods? Let’s see now, that would be hamburgers, French fries (or, as Jefferson’s chef called them at a state dinner, “potatoes prepared in the Belgian style”), Chicago-style pizza (and its lesser cousin, the New-York-style), and fired chicken. Of those, one is associated with Southern cooking.
There is, of course, no school of cooking known as “Northern-style” – possibly because Northern cooks aren’t so miserly about passing along their recipes. (Of the many, many excellent recipes my mother-in-law, from Atlanta, has on hand, she has passed on to my wife, her own daughter, precisely two – sweet potato souffle, and her eggnog recipe.)
OTOH, Bill Mulligan, the gravy in biscuits and gravy should be made from meat drippings, preferably from the fried pork or ham that should be accompanying the dish. Sounds like you got someone who figured they could fob plain old flour-based gravy off on the ignorant Yankee… 🙂
And to my mind, the worst offenders for using fishbait for food are the American noveau riche. Caviar is bad enough, but when supplies from the Caspian Sea beluga were running short, someone actually invented what they called “salmon caviar”. Now, down at the local sporting-goods store here in Washington, you can indeed buy jars of salmon roe – because it makes great fish bait! Spread on crackers, not so much…
Real caviar is actually veryverygood–I worked with a Russian scientist at a lab and rightbefore he left for home he treated us to his secret stash of Russian caviar (Not at all fishy), Russian sardines (tasted like sardines) and Russian Vodka (Smooth as liquid silk, I finally understood how they could drink it straight).
On an unrelated note, go see STARDUST. Very sweet and charming, nice effects, good acting (though DeNiro plays it a bit broadly), but the theatre was far from full and I don’t know how long it will be playing.
Pat,
The word of mouth had help. We were listening to PHC and somebody on the show made a remark that started him talking about it. Granted, once he started he didn’t stop for three weeks and every officer on the shift will remember the name “Jucy Lucy” until we die…
Bill Mulligan,
You got rooked on the gravy, dude.
“One area where the North clearly shines is in the not insignificant area of Making A Decent Pizza.”
Been trading talking points with my wife?
“It is noted with horror that in many southern towns the best pizza will actually be from Dominoes or Papa Johns or some other franchise.”
Ok, I’m a born Southern boy from Virginia and even I would throw up if that was the case. Only the lazy people settle for that crap. The smart ones search out the hole in the wall joints that know how to do it.
I found a place a few years back that looks like nothing from the outside, but it smells like heaven on the inside. One of the two chefs still only speaks Italian with badly broken English. They do great pizza. Even my picky NJ born wife has given them her stamp of “almost as good as I could get at home.”
“Jerry, my Coercive-Authority-Figure friend, haven’t you dug a deep enough hole for 1 day? 🙂
Oh, I don’t know. I was joking around and pulling Myers leg, half joking and tweeking all the Northerners here after that and ended up with a Good Eats thread (well, maybe a Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives thread.) How can that be bad? Hëll, I may even learn about a few good hidden, hole-in-the-wall dives with great food for future road trips.
Jonathan (the other one),
Where on Earth did you learn your icons?
“Of the many, many excellent recipes my mother-in-law, from Atlanta, has on hand, she has passed on to my wife, her own daughter, precisely two – sweet potato souffle, and her eggnog recipe.”
Not everyone is like that. I’ve got a large book full of recipes that go back to my grandmother. Jenn has two or three books full that go back to hers. I’ve also got some New York friends on shift who tell the same story about their Northern families.
Oh yeah, it’s a classic routine for the Matriarch to withhold an ingredient or two to ensure that when anyone else tries to make the beloved family dish it isn’t quite as good as Aunt Mildred’s. Sometimes it gets ridiculous–I know that Aunt Mildred used tomatoes in her spaghetti sauce, no matter what the recipe says.
Actually, the recipe I would seriously consider sacrificing a finger for is my Uncle Ed’s Rice Pudding. Now, rice pudding is generally the last thing I would suggest ordering. Bad rice pudding, by which I mean 99% of all rice pudding out there, is terrible. Imagine taking some Jello Instant Vanilla Pudding and just mixing in white rice. Ok, you have now made a better rice pudding than what I’ve suffered through trying to recreate the experience of eating Uncle Ed’s. He made it from scratch. He soaked the raisins in something for a whole day. When it came out of the oven there were little brown areas on the crust and the smell would waft through the mansion he owned in Lake George. Usually he would serve a small portion of it to my sister and I warm, right from the oven, after extracting a promise not to tell anyone else of his largesse.
This is not mere nostalgia–I’m telling you this rice pudding would have promoted world peace. Gone now. Nobody ever thought to ask to have him write it down. Like so many things we love in life it was too easy to just assume it would always be there.
Bill,
If you’re game for another try, my wife and I can send you one of her family’s recipes. It’s from scratch and from the same general area.
Dude, I would be forever grateful.
I could feel plaque building up in my arteries just from the act of poking it with a fork.
See, but that’s sometimes a good thing. Back when I was in high school, I had a buddy who’s family had only been in Virginia a short time after moving up from Georgia. His dad used to make breakfast in a way that would terrify doctors and put the fear of God into fitness freaks.
He’d get pork fresh from the local deli, grind it himself, add spices, a little egg white and just a touch of a strong beer and then let it sit in the fridge overnight. The next morning, he’s pop some from scratch biscuits into the oven after brushing the tops with melted butter. After they were in the oven and well on their way to being done, he’d pull out the pork, make a number of small, round patties and throw them onto a large, cured cast iron fry pan. Just before the last batch of sausage was done, he’d throw everybody’s eggs into the fry pan and add some more pepper and a pinch of salt.
Now, without wiping the pan, he’d pour the excess grease that had drained off of the cooked sausages back into the pan, take the finished biscuits out of the oven and pop them into the fry pan. He’s then give ’em a quick flip to make sure that both the tops and the bottoms of the biscuits were a thin, fried, crunchy layer of oh-my-dear-god-goodness. They’d be served with a sweet honey-butter that he mixed himself.
The only healthy thing on the plate would be the greens. And those were drenched in salted butter themselves.
See, that’s an example of good old fashioned, country style Southern cooking. It’s also a good explanation of why so many Southerners die from a coronary by 55.
The U.N. lacks the moral authority you ascribe to them.
Not that I disagree with Bill’s points on the U.N., but it’s it hypocritical for the Bush regime to constantly both denigrate the U.N. for being worthless (which it is) and yet still invoke flouting of U.N. resolutions as justification for the Iraqi invasion?
BTW, how did a thread on the democratic party debates devolve into an argument over which region has better food?
Not that I’m going defend Pennsylvania Dutch cooking that much, because, as I mentioned, it’s mostly shoofly pie, scrapple, and pork n’saurkraut. On the other hand, life without Lebanon bologna isn’t worth living.
And it’s pronounced “Leb’nen”, not “Leb-a-NON”.
Den — it is absolutely hypocritical for Bush to justify his actions in Iraq by citing U.N. resolutions while also disregarding the U.N. when it suits him. Unfortunately, Bush is not alone in his hypocrisy — pretty much all of the major world leaders treat the U.N. the same way.
Den,
What, would you prefer it if it disolved into a zombie thread again?
Hm. Considering that from Jerry’s list of “good food or styles of food”, the only thing I might think of – other than ham, in general (dunno if I’ve had Smithfield), and fried chicken, if that would be included in “good country cookin'” – is key lime pie, and only, only if it’s green, I think he and I, at least, are clearly in an area of different tastes when it comes to “great” foods.
Thank you for your Illogic & Dodging.™
Luke,
A man who doesn’t love Cajun food is a man who cannot be trusted. I’m pretty sure that’s a quote from the Bilble, I just can’t remember which section at the moment. And I’m pretty sure there’s a line in there that makes it a stoning offense to not love Chesapeake Bay Blue Claw crabs.
Repent now, least it be on your soul later…
(Makes sound like Benedictine Monks chanting…)