Baking on Both Sides of the Atlantic: Food and Culture

[Athena]

Scone/Skon, Biscuits/Cookies, Bicarb/Baking Soda, Metric/Imperial, etc.

Let's talk about baking and food and other differences on both sides of the Atlantic. Other Commonwealth and English speaking country examples are encouraged as well.

Similar to the US/UK thread that was in Doctor Who, we can overanalyze the English language and what really is the correct way to pronounce "scone".

[ceebee]

Thanks Athena!

As a Brit, I know my biscuit is your cookie. And my cookie, is a lot like yours - but only the big chewy kind....But what is your biscuit? I read it was something akin to my scone. In which case what is YOUR scone?!

Edited August 21, 2015 by ceebee

[Rinaldo]

As a Brit, I know my biscuit is your cookie. 

Sometimes. But other times your biscuit is my cracker. From GBBO I have discovered that the words "cookie" and (just occasionally) "cracker" are also used in the UK as I would use them. What's the dividing line for when you would use one of those words in preference to biscuit? -- is it just to refer to my uncultured American usage? I know that differentiations that seem obvious in one country aren't so in the other. (I discovered when I lived in London in 1973 that what I called an aisle separating parts of an audience, was called a gangway. And then I tried to use the word myself, only to be greeted with a horrified "Not in a church!!")

 

Other single words with divided meaning:

 

Pudding (this one I knew).

Pie (the nuances of this are new to me as I watch the show).

Dessert (which to me is an all-encompassing category, but I'm now encountering it as a specific kind of baked item)

 

And words we share with essentially the same overall meaning, but they have different categories:

 

Sugar (icing, demerera, muscovado -- and I suspect that none of these are exactly equivalent to the types I know)

Flour (strong, etc.)

Cream (double? pouring?)

 

Part of it is that I'm a hopeless anglophile, who really wants to know all about all this.

[larapu2000]

I think American scones are much sweeter than English scones.  English scones benefit from the clotted cream and preserves, American scones can be eaten without any accompaniments.  Our biscuits are less sweet than your scones and we often use buttermilk as a flavor.  The best thing we do with our biscuits is pour delicious sausage gravy over them for breakfast.

 

I think, in general, American desserts must be sweeter than their British counterparts, as everyone and their brother were bitching about how sweet American pies were during that one challenge.  Your biscuits are much less sweet than almost all of our cookies.  I'm not even sure there's an American counterpart or version of Leibenz or Digestives.

 

I'm curious why the English are so obsessed with raspberries.  Are they always in season, or do they grow particularly well there?  Almost every week in the GBBO, there are multiple raspberry desserts in each round!

 

Also, you say basil wrong.

Edited August 21, 2015 by larapu2000

[shandy]

Mispronunciations - Can I vote for Worcestershire Sauce? Bay Staters get this right, but very few other people do. 

 

Food differences - Gravy - in England brown and mysterious, in the US gravy is sauce . A neighbor always called her special red ragu her secret gravy.

 

I once had fries/chips  and gravy from an English 'chippie' in York. I was expected a gorgeous poutine-like rich meaty flavor, instead it was  hideous salty brown goop. I had nicer gravy in England, but was always suspicious of it afterwards until a taste test had been conducted.

[ceebee]

Crumbs! Can of worms...

So. British definitions - to the best of my knowledge...

Biscuit is the umbrella term for everything from a cracker to a cookie.

A cracker, to me would be without sugar. The kind of thing you might eat with cheese. It would have to snap. At one end it might merge into savory wafer... A crispbread qualifies as a cracker.

A cookie is probably a term that has seeped in from the U.S. and covers the bigger, chewy end of the biscuit spectrum, although they could also be crunchy, but likely to be fatter than a biscuit. You wouldn't call a thin, snappy biscuit a cookie.

A digestive biscuit (something a bit like a Graham cracker, I understand) is a biscuit not a cracker. It isn't overly sweet but does have some sugar in. You might pair it with strong cheese, make it into crumbs for a cheese cake base or dunk it in your cup of tea.

This recipe makes yummy, light, flaky digestives. Overwork the dough and they will be hard. https://www.epilepsy.org.uk/involved/involved/fundraise-events/teabreak/celebs/recipes/gary-rhodes/digestive-biscuits

I use wholemeal spelt instead of wheat flour which gives a nutty taste.

Back later for flours and sugars!

Edited August 21, 2015 by ceebee

[Athena]

I'll preface with my background and experiences: I'm a Canadian that lived in the UK and Europe for a couple of years. I bake and use recipes from both sides of the Atlantic. I primarily still watch UK and non-North American food shows.

Here is an article about cooking terms across several Anglophone countries.
 

Sugar (icing, demerera, muscovado -- and I suspect that none of these are exactly equivalent to the types I know)
Flour (strong, etc.)
Cream (double? pouring?)

 

We actually had a discussion about this last season in Small Talk. I find the Brits are more definitive about their sugars which is great as a baker. Here, it's mostly white, light brown, dark brown, and sometimes raw.

 

Flour is mostly differentiated by the fact there is self-raising and plain. Strong flour is similar to any "bread flour" we have here. It's all about the gluten/protein. Ian was using "00" flour in Bread week. This flour shows up in UK recipes when making pasta or other low protein products. King Arthur in the US sells this as "Italian flour".

 

Cream. The major difference is that North Americans use the percentage more. Brits like their cream (and they should) so they generally use single or double cream when baking. Single is 5-18% and Double is whipping cream ( > 35%).

 

To continue the pronunciation thing: I generally try to say things as they would be in the original language especially for French things. However, if you are saying it to a group of strangers or people unfamiliar to you, they would think you are being pretentious. As the word has been adopted in the English language or certain region for so long, the locals are accustomed to it a certain way.

 

Something I've learned with traveling is that it's just easier to mimic how locals say something no matter what your own or the original context is because it will make them understand you better. Will you sound exactly like them? Probably not, but they'll feel more relaxed and open with if you do things their way. In countries where English is not the first language or where it's been adapted slightly with the culture (Hong Kong, the Philippines), the locals will understand your meaning more.

[larapu2000]

I'll preface with my background and experiences: I'm a Canadian that lived in the UK and Europe for a couple of years. I bake and use recipes from both sides of the Atlantic. I primarily still watch UK and non-North American food shows.

Here is an article about cooking terms across several Anglophone countries.

 

 

We actually had a discussion about this last season in Small Talk. I find the Brits are more definitive about their sugars which is great as a baker. Here, it's mostly white, light brown, dark brown, and sometimes raw.

 

Flour is mostly differentiated by the fact there is self-raising and plain. Strong flour is similar to any "bread flour" we have here. It's all about the gluten/protein. Ian was using "00" flour in Bread week. This flour shows up in UK recipes when making pasta or other low protein products. King Arthur in the US sells this as "Italian flour".

 

Cream. The major difference is that North Americans use the percentage more. Brits like their cream (and they should) so they generally use single or double cream when baking. Single is 5-18% and Double is whipping cream ( > 35%).

 

To continue the pronunciation thing: I generally try to say things as they would be in the original language especially for French things. However, if you are saying it to a group of strangers or people unfamiliar to you, they would think you are being pretentious. As the word has been adopted in the English language or certain region for so long, the locals are accustomed to it a certain way.

 

Something I've learned with traveling is that it's just easier to mimic how locals say something no matter what your own or the original context is because it will make them understand you better. Will you sound exactly like them? Probably not, but they'll feel more relaxed and open with if you do things their way. In countries where English is not the first language or where it's been adapted slightly with the culture (Hong Kong, the Philippines), the locals will understand your meaning more.

 

I think we're seeing more sugar varieties here in the US-sanding sugar, raw sugar, turbinado, superfine, etc, especially in non-metropolitan areas, but yes, I totally agree that using the right sugar makes all the difference in the world (for example, using ALL brown sugar in chocolate chip cookies makes them chewier).

 

I'm an ape as well when it comes to phrases and words, but I'm pretty sure the way Brits say "basil" is a long and elaborate prank on the rest of the world.

[ceebee]

Ha ha! Interesting discussion on basil here.. http://foodmuseum.typepad.com/food_museum_blog/2004/09/you_say_basil_a.html

but no one seems to have any explanation for where the crazy bay-zul pronunciation stems from. Clearly not from the original Italian or French words! ;-)

Someone asked about raspberries. Yes, they grow well here and yes, we love them. I'm having some home grown ones for my pudding tonight. That would be 'pudding' as in a synonym for dessert (the sweet course at the end of a meal).

Athena - thanks for the sugar and flour synopsis. I read that muscovado sugar (which is very dark 'soft' and molasses-y) is named after a corruption of Spanish/Portuguese words meaning 'inferior grade' (because it was less refined and they liked their sugar white way back when).

Edited August 21, 2015 by ceebee

[ceebee]

I think American scones are much sweeter than English scones.  English scones benefit from the clotted cream and preserves, American scones can be eaten without any accompaniments.  Our biscuits are less sweet than your scones and we often use buttermilk as a flavor.  The best thing we do with our biscuits is pour delicious sausage gravy over them for breakfast.

 

I think, in general, American desserts must be sweeter than their British counterparts, as everyone and their brother were bitching about how sweet American pies were during that one challenge.  Your biscuits are much less sweet than almost all of our cookies.  I'm not even sure there's an American counterpart or version of Leibenz or Digestives.

 

I'm curious why the English are so obsessed with raspberries.  Are they always in season, or do they grow particularly well there?  Almost every week in the GBBO, there are multiple raspberry desserts in each round!

 

Also, you say basil wrong.

Do the biscuits you serve with gravy have sugar in or are they a savory?! My favorite scones are cheese and herb (that would be herb not 'erb!) eaten warm with butter. I think you can put savory scones on top of a meat stew and bake in the oven. (A cobbler? Or is that something else?)

It's about 25 years since I visited the U.S. but I don't recall if things were much sweeter, but perhaps I just didn't have much of that stuff. Brits I know who live in the States do whinge about the bread and the bacon being sweetened though, so perhaps Americans are a bit more sweet-toothed in general.

Raspberries are in season from about June through to October. Yum-scrum, diddly-bum.

[Athena]

Do the biscuits you serve with gravy have sugar in or are they a savory?! My favorite scones are cheese and herb (that would be herb not 'erb!) eaten warm with butter. I think you can put savory scones on top of a meat stew and bake in the oven. (A cobbler? Or is that something else?)

 

Biscuits in the US are similar to scones, but more of a neutral taste I find. They are often served on the side for meals, for gravy etc. Yes, you can put them on top of stews or cobblers. In which case, they can be scones too. Scones can be both savoury and sweet on this side.

 

As always, things vary a lot by regions both in the UK and in the US. Not only in pronunciations, but in definitions.

 

I love raspberries!

[Rinaldo]

The biscuits-and-gravy thing is really a Southern US thing (though no doubt individual people elsewhere have developed a taste for it, as with grits). The US restaurant chains that advertise "home cooking" know to emphasize biscuits-and-gravy in the southern states, and leave it out in the Northeast or Midwest. (Both biscuits and gravy may be on the menu, but not together.)

[shandy]

Athena, are scones more well known in Canada? Some the of best I've had were in an Irish place in Niagara-on-the-Lake (though expensive!).

 

When I came back to the US I was disappointed in the bread and cheeses. Even though I was a pretty poor student in London and then in France (Rennes) I could buy some crusty bread and sharp cheese, together with pickles for a reasonable price- I felt like a Lord. 

[Athena]

Athena, are scones more well known in Canada? Some the of best I've had were in an Irish place in Niagara-on-the-Lake (though expensive!).

 

I love scones and they are fairly common here I find. Canada has more recent British emigrants compared to the US so certain baking traditions have carried over. Niagara on the Lake is a really gorgeous town, but since it caters to tourists a lot, it can be very expensive.

 

Yes, I miss a lot of the bread and cheese selection when I moved back here too. I use to eat bread and cheese all weekend when I lived in France.

[ABay]

Food differences - Gravy - in England brown and mysterious, in the US gravy is sauce . A neighbor always called her special red ragu her secret gravy.

Let me know if I'm misinterpreting, but you seem to be saying that "gravy" means any kind of sauce in the U.S. That's not really the case. For most in the U.S., gravy is a specific, thick, brown, meat-based goo. If it's red and goes on pasta, it's not gravy, it's pasta sauce or spaghetti sauce. Similarly, cheese sauce, white wine sauce, pan sauce, and so on are called sauce and never gravy. Google images of gravy and you'll see what I mean.

[Pallida]

I regularly see Biscuits and Gravy on menus along the West Coast of the US as well.  I prefer my biscuits with butter and jam/jelly over country gravy though :)  (But I do like country/chicken fried steak with white gravy...)

 

In regards to "gravy," I have heard "Sunday gravy" in the US referring to a tomato-based sauce, but I was under the impression that was an Italian (Italian-American?) term.

[ABay]

My impression is that gravy for red sauce is not only almost solely an Italian-American usage, but also limited to the northeast, especially New Jersey.

 

OK, just when I think I understood pudding v. dessert, I was watching an early series and got all confused again. 

 

Basil and Herb are men's names, and basil is an herb (Ba-zil and *H*erb are men's names, and bay-zil is an erb).

[bybrandy]

I'm from the south but don't enjoy gravy on my biscuits.  I don't enjoy gravy generally.   Biscuits are buttery and flaky and warm and delicious.  I eat mine just plain if hot or with butter and jam or with cheese and meat for a breakfast depending on the mood.    

 

Gravy is not synonymous with sauce.   There are Italians who call their red sauce/ragu gravy but that is not a general US thing.  For most in the US gravy is brown and made from pan drippings.   However, biscuit gravy is usually white and made with sausage in the south.  

 

Are biscuits and gravy served with brown gravy outside of the south?  I've never seen it that way.  

 

Here (in my particular part of the south) brown gravy goes on meat and potatoes and white gravy goes on biscuits although in my particular house gravy happens once a year on thanksgiving and even then it isn't a favorite.  This might be because I make craptastic gravy because I only make it once a year.   

 

The quality of bread and cheese has certainly improved as the artisan food movement has gained steam in America but it is still hard to get a nice really crusty European loaf and when they are baked people who sell them put them in plastic which ruins the crust.   I do  not know why they do this.   I used to beg for paper and eventually I just started baking all my crusty breads.   

 

Now golden syrup.   Please explain.   

[ceebee]

I'm not a meat eater, so gravy isn't my thing, but here in the UK it's supposed to be something you make lovingly from the meat juices. The goop mentioned by shandy up thread was probably made from 'gravy browning' which is something you buy as granules in a tub. Just add boiling water for an utterly disgusting, slightly gelatinous cheat version. *shudders*.

My mind is truly boggled by the idea of white gravy made with sausage...

Golden Syrup is pale treacle made from sugar cane or sugar beet. I think in America you probably use corn syrup which I've never seen here, though it's sometimes listed as an ingredient on things like shop bought biscuits/cookies. I'm deeply suspicious of it!

Golden syrup comes in the best tin ever (if you buy Lyle's, anyway). When the tin's empty, you wash it out, make a hole in the lid and keep a ball of string in it. That's the law.

Edited August 24, 2015 by ceebee

[ceebee]

OK, just when I think I understood pudding v. dessert, I was watching an early series and got all confused again

To me, pudding and dessert are the same thing - the sweet course at the end of a meal, although I invariably call it pudding. (Delve any further and you are into tedious and arcane class-based etiquette! Posh folk would allegedly never say dessert, sweet or afters for that course, always pudding. Dessert apparently refers to the fruit course which you might eat after pudding and for which you would have a knife and fork...)

There are puddings (desserts) which are actual... erm. .. Puddings, of course. And those which are not.

Basil and Herb are men's names, and basil is an herb (Ba-zil and *H*erb are men's names, and bay-zil is an erb).

.... but....but...whyyyy?! Edited August 24, 2015 by ceebee

[Rinaldo]

Golden Syrup is pale treacle made from sugar cane or sugar beet. 

You say that as if it's helpful! :) What is treacle in the first place? (I mean, I encountered the word at age 5, reading Alice in Wonderland, and I sort-of-know what it is, a thick sugar product sort of akin to molasses. But not really the same. And for that matter, I've only had occasion to buy molasses once in my life, for a cookie recipe, so it's not a regular part of my life.)

[ceebee]

You say that as if it's helpful! :) What is treacle in the first place? (I mean, I encountered the word at age 5, reading Alice in Wonderland, and I sort-of-know what it is, a thick sugar product sort of akin to molasses. But not really the same. And for that matter, I've only had occasion to buy molasses once in my life, for a cookie recipe, so it's not a regular part of my life.)

Ha! Sorry. Just assumed treacle was known. Treacle is a thick, slow flowing liquid sugar with the consistency of thick, but not set honey. You can buy black treacle - which I think has lots of molasses in it - or (most commonly) golden syrup. Both used in cooking. Golden syrup is sometimes used like honey on toast or bread and often used to sweeten porridge.

Edited August 24, 2015 by ceebee

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I too encountered treacle in Alice in Wonderland. I remember looking it up in the dictionary and learning it was sweet but I didn't remember much else about it until I read The Thorn Birds several years later and saw treacle mentioned again so I looked it up again and then thought DUH, I looked this up before!

[Athena]

I think dark treacle is molasses and it tastes like it. In NA, you can buy blackstrap, fancy, and light molasses. Golden syrup, dark molasses is a type of treacle. I think often when books or people in Britain say treacle, they are referring to golden syrup, but it can technically also mean molasses.

 

I like golden syrup and it's not impossible to find in Canada, but it's sold mostly in the glass jars and it's more expensive than other liquid sugar. I avoid corn syrup if I can. I buy golden syrup to use in flapjacks which in Britain are a type of oat tray bake. In the US, flapjacks are pancakes.
 

Speaking of pancakes, that word brings up different images for people of varying backgrounds.

[ceebee]

I had no idea a flapjack was a kind of pancake in the U.S.!

Pancake covers a broad spectrum for me, but the first thought that comes into my head is of thin ones made without any raising agent (crêpes, I suppose). The thick ones, I would call 'American pancakes'. I'm hazy about where a pancake stops and things like griddle cakes and drop scones start...

Edited August 24, 2015 by ceebee

[larapu2000]

Golden Syrup is pale treacle made from sugar cane or sugar beet. I think in America you probably use corn syrup which I've never seen here, though it's sometimes listed as an ingredient on things like shop bought biscuits/cookies. I'm deeply suspicious of it!

There's a difference between corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup, but there's no real difference between sugar and HFCS. I grew up on corn syrup on pancakes versus maple, but I think that's a farm/midwest thing more than anything.

Why don't you guys love peanut butter, like, at all? It's delicious.

[ceebee]

Why don't you guys love peanut butter, like, at all? It's delicious.

We do! Well, I do (so long as it's the crunchy stuff). It's not as popular here as jam, but you'd find a jar in most homes.

Something very popular to have on toast or bread here is Marmite (a yeast extract). It's a love-it or loathe-it ingredient (so much so, that to say something or someone 'is marmite' is an everyday way of saying there's no neutral ground on this). To me it tastes like a dog's breath smells. (Comes in cute jars though!)

Edited August 24, 2015 by ceebee

[Rinaldo]

I had no idea a flapjack was a kind of pancake in the U.S.!

More than "a kind of," I would say they refer to exactly the same thing here! Just regional or personal differences of nomenclature. One of Donald Westlake's books has a series of house guests entering the kitchen in the morning while someone is making pancakes, and the joke is that every single person has a different word for them: pancakes, flapjacks, slapjacks, hotcakes, griddle cakes.... 

 

Though many make them from a mix, it's not hard to make them from scratch, using the buttermilk - baking powder principle. (Of course, buttermilk isn't buttermilk in the US any more.)

 

Thanks for the help with treacle.

[bybrandy]

Thanks for asking about Treacle.  When I read the response I was very much, um.... huh.   It very much felt to me like the time some American friends were trying to explain smores indoors to some Australian friends.  The response.  That's great.  Just a couple of things?  What is a cookie sheet and what is broil?

 

I think I've had treacle all wrong in my head for years.   Who knew?

 

Yes, flapjacks are pancakes in the US and it isn't a type of pancake it is just synonymous with pancakes.  I never would have guessed they were anything else across the pond.  Will have to google!  

 

In Britain coriander refers to both the dried spice and the green leafy herb from which dried coriander is derived?  Or do you call the herb cilantro or something else?

[ceebee]

In Britain coriander refers to both the dried spice and the green leafy herb from which dried coriander is derived?  Or do you call the herb cilantro or something else?

It's all coriander. You'd say coriander seeds or ground coriander for the spice and you'd say fresh coriander (or dried) for the herb. If a recipe just said chopped coriander, it would be obvious it meant the fresh herb, I think.

[Athena]

Just a couple of things?  What is a cookie sheet and what is broil?

 

A cookie sheet is a baking sheet/pan. Broiling is grilling. A broil/grill setting is common in most ovens.

[Rinaldo]

A cookie sheet is a baking sheet/pan.

As long as this is a topic where technicalities are welcome... For most of us (me included) this equivalence is true. But one can buy dedicated "cookie sheets" different from baking sheets, with no raised lip along one or several sides (presumably to facilitate getting the cookies out with a spatula without interference).

[shandy]

here in the UK it's supposed to be something you make lovingly from the meat juices. The goop mentioned by shandy up thread was probably made from 'gravy browning' which is something you buy as granules in a tub

 

Thanks for the kind giving of context - it really wasn't pleasant. It appeared again with veggies in the dining hall from time to time, and that's when I would have to do a Döner Dash down to the Tottenham Court Road - a great memory of London days. 

[Athena]

As long as this is a topic where technicalities are welcome... For most of us (me included) this equivalence is true. But one can buy dedicated "cookie sheets" different from baking sheets, with no raised lip along one or several sides (presumably to facilitate getting the cookies out with a spatula without interference).

 

These are common in all three countries. Dedicated cookie sheets and jelly roll pans are types of baking sheets. Jelly roll pans are common in the UK I've found because people actually try making swiss rolls more over there.

[Rickster]

One thing that has intrigued me on UK Masterchef and showed up this week on Bake Off is "honeycomb", which I think is pretty much unknown in the US - and no, it's not honeycomb from a hive.

[Athena]

One thing that has intrigued me on UK Masterchef and showed up this week on Bake Off is "honeycomb", which I think is pretty much unknown in the US - and no, it's not honeycomb from a hive.

 

Part it may be that its got different names regionally: Sponge toffee, cinder toffee, sea foam, sponge candy... See wikipedia.

 

It's super easy to make with its basic ingredients. I don't even have a thermometer since I tend to eyeball and you have to act fast.

[bybrandy]

Part it may be that its got different names regionally: Sponge toffee, cinder toffee, sea foam, sponge candy... See wikipedia.

 

It's super easy to make with its basic ingredients. I don't even have a thermometer since I tend to eyeball and you have to act fast.

I was going to say none of those words are things in the US but I clicked the link and apparently they are things in other part of the country.  Who knew?  Obviously some people who aren't me.  My mom's whole family is from Washington so I'm tempted to ask them if they know sea foam.   But I've only heard her use sea foam in reference to a shade of green.

When reading the description it doesn't seem like anything I've ever had.  Might have to try it this weekend.  How would you use it once you've made it?

 

[ABay]

Sponge candy is local to western New York (Jenny's still my favorite, Alethea's next, lots of people love Fowler's). I've never found it west of Cleveland. It is not the same as honeycomb, which I've had. Sponge candy is spun molasses cubes coated in chocolate. Jenny's is my favorite because they have the thickest chocolate coating and oh my god I need to go visit my family soon. I hope they haven't figured out that I only make the 7 hour drive for the sponge candy, Father Sam's pocket bread, Greaves jam, and trip to my favorite Greek restaurant. Well. Not *only*. Mostly.

Edited August 27, 2015 by ABay

[ceebee]

Felicity Cloake in her Guardian column Makes a good exploration of the variation and provides a recipe. If you haven't come across her column before, it's always an interesting read and the comments section is often more entertaining and informative than the piece itself (the 'correct' way always being a good starting point for an argument!)

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2014/oct/30/how-to-make-perfect-cinder-toffee

I call it honeycomb or cinder toffee. Uses? Break it up and coat in bitter chocolate as a tooth-aching homemade version of a Crunchy Bar; crush and use in semi-freddo; crush and fold into good vanilla ice cream.

Edited August 27, 2015 by ceebee

[shandy]

My sister and I would eat our own bodyweight in sponge toffee on trips to Clifton Hill, on the Canadian side of the Falls. Makes me smile that carney candy is a gourmet ingredient.

 

I used to buy violet crumbles and crunchies from an import store ... but that was when my waist was a smaller number than my inseam :-S

[ABay]

Clifton Hill is my spiritual home! My tawdry, vulgar, neon spiritual home.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Clifton Hill is my spiritual home! My tawdry, vulgar, neon spiritual home.

Everyone needs a spiritual home like that! Is there glitter involved too?

[ABay]

As far as the eye can see! Which isn't very far because of the glare. There's a UFO-shaped restaurant nearby, too (out past the wax museums and hotel with "love tubs"). And to haul this back on topic:

 

Are there diners in the UK? The UFO place is more or less a diner and diners are everywhere in NY/NJ/CT area of the U.S., not so much as you head toward the midwest. They exist but not one every corner like in the NY/NJ/CT area. Let me correct that, not on every corner because most corners have a Dunkin Donuts on them, but diners are everywhere. But DD leads me to question 2: are there donut shops in the U.K., like Dunkin' Donuts and my formerly-beloved Tim Horton's? I haven't been in any part of the UK since the early aughts but I don't recall seeing either of these things.

[Rinaldo]

Mentioning doughnuts reminds me of another question provoked by past seasons. In this US I think it's fair to say that the default image of "doughnut" is torus-shaped, a ring with a hole in the middle. There are certainly variants that don't have the hole, especially filled versions, but I think this is true as a generalization. But when they've made doughnuts on TGBBO, they're always solid masses, more or less spherical, never a hole. Is this distinction true, or am I deducing with insufficient evidence?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Hee, since I inadvertently started all the brouhaha that resulted in this thread being created, I thought I would bring some of my comments over here for the non-Brits who haven't seen S6 yet can feel free to agree or disagree with me!

 

Can we talk about the way Paul (mis)pronounced prosciutto this week? At first I thought it was another weird British way of pronouncing a foreign word (GA-teau instead of ga-TEAU, Beecham instead of Beauchamp, taco with a short A, etc) but apparently it's just Paul.

 

Why is it considered pretentious to pronounce something correctly (or at least similarly to the way it's pronounced in its native language)? I am genuinely curious about this - no sarcasm or anything in my question. For me, it seems rude or discourteous to deliberately pronounce an existing word differently from its language of origin because to me that's almost like me saying, "Hi, my name is Jennifer, " and someone saying, "Oh, great to meet you, Emily." That's why I default to the pronunciation in the native language (or as close as I can approximate with my terrible accent in other languages) which is why I go with pah-sta rather than PASS-ta, etc.

 

For me there is a huge difference in the British and American pronunciations of taco, and then I realized that Mexican food is such a widespread thing that maybe we are all pronouncing it incorrectly. I asked my friend who was born in Mexico and is a native Spanish speaker how it's pronounced (heh, and with no preface at all, just a text that said, "How do you pronounce taco?" so she was hilariously confused by why I would ask such a question). She said it's pronounced tah-koe, as in rhymes with (Lake) Tahoe. Who ever thought that Taco Bell would be authentically Mexican about anything?

 

I love this show mainly because they bake delicious things without the typical reality show drama, but I also like that it allows me to learn things like pasta is pronounced differently in the UK! It's thanks to the Great British Bake Off & the Great Australian Bake Off that I learned a few years ago that baking soda (American) is the same thing as bicarb (UK & Australia). Another good one is pudding which is totally different in America vs. UK/Australia. When you see how many differences there are in little things like that in the same language but different countries, it makes me all the more impressed that immigrants have to learn the words for everything just to go shopping (especially since not everything is translated literally).

 

Despite of all interesting discussion about pronunciation, this I have absolutely no explanation for Paul's version of prosciutto this week!

[bybrandy]

Okay, my favourite (a u just for you) British foodies, what is flake?

 

I live in Texas (it isn't as bad as all that, really.  There are some really nice places here) and in Texas, as a generalization, we Americans Americanize the pronunciation of everything.   But native Spanish speakers don't.  So our many, many Hispanic newscasters (for example) will speak with a perfect American accent until they get to a Spanish word and then do a perfect accent on that word, and back to perfectly accented American.   

I don't find that pretentious at all.   

But if I did it, it wouldn't sound right.  So I don't.   

 

[larapu2000]

Bybrandy, Texas is not alone in Americanizing things.  I live in Indiana, home state of the towns of Milan, pronounced My-lan, and Versailles, pronounced Ver-sails, and the University of Notre Dame, pronounced Note-er Dayme.  Shockingly, we do have a city with a French name that's pronounced correctly, Terre Haute.  I think that one slipped past the pioneers of the time.

 

Why do English people love toast so much?  Not gonna lie, Avocado toast is like the greatest thing ever, but there are literally restaurants in London with 7-8 options of things to put on your toast.  

[Rickster]

Okay, my favourite (a u just for you) British foodies, what is flake?

 

Referring (I'm guessing, without any more context) to Cadbury Flake, a type of chocolate bar. Imagine a paper thin sheet of chocolate scrunched up into a stick with squared off sides and multiple folds. A unique flaky texture due to the folds, but otherwise basic Cadbury milk chocolate. You can find it in some specialty stores in the US.

[ceebee]

 

Why do English people love toast so much?  Not gonna lie, Avocado toast is like the greatest thing ever, but there are literally restaurants in London with 7-8 options of things to put on your toast.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Do you mean the kind of cafés that serve breakfast food? (Varies from the humble 'greasy spoon' to more brunchy sourdough-wielding fancy-pants places). Toast is breakfast or snack food, so you can put anything on it I guess - beans, cheese, jam, peanut butter, marmite (yeugh!), eggs etc. Do you not do this too? Or do you mean bruschetta type things? Crushed broad beans with feta, tomato and basil etc on griddled crusty bread - the kind of thing you might have as an appetiser or just with drinks?

[ceebee]

Flake...

http://www.chocablog.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/flake%20two%20break.jpg

I loved these as a child, now I think the chocolate's grainy and not very chocolatey.

Stick one in a cone of whippy ice cream and you have a "99".

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/aug/24/99-flake-ice-cream

(Again, not something I'd eat now, but I used to love these).

Edited September 1, 2015 by ceebee