The other day I did get to thinking that the insular world of rural life gives legs to some truly shitty food though. When people have big families they eat home recipes, and there's little attention paid to whether something is good or not. Church and family cookouts can be real harsh, because big families need easy, cheap cooking with whatever's in the pantry. Hope you like an "oriental salad" that's a crushed up pack of ramen, a can of tuna, soy sauce, canola oil, and cranberries (because the original called for almonds but they didn't have any) Bless them, I love my people but despite the excitement when I show up with simple grilled skewers, they will never adopt simple & tasty themselves. It's an arms race of all-in-one homeslop. The most recent one I had to muck down with the aunts: Spam, yams, and corn with shredded mozzerella sticks and crumbled cereal on top as a "casserole".

I've eaten some truly heinous things in my travels, but it grates on me that whenever you get a bunch of heartlanders together, nobody listens when you say "let's just do a good, traditional thing like a turkey dinner". That's simple, hard to mess up, and compartmentalized fare. Instead you have all the women try to share their bizarro oprah recipes where they substitute the butters and meat for canola oils and margarines (for health). "Oh I have the best taco soup recipe" no you don't sarah, you're bringing mashed potatoes. "mmmm I love doing this low-fat bread bowl, it uses rice noodles instead of" sorry sister you're steaming carrots The men will be grilling, and we're doing a scale of seasoning from left to right, your husband cannot touch the shakers

@WashedOutGundamPilot@poa.st @Humpleupagus@eveningzoo.club >The most recent one I had to muck down with the aunts: Spam, yams, and corn with shredded mozzerella sticks and crumbled cereal on top as a "casserole". what in gods holy name did i just read. dude i have never seen someone in either my family or friends families try to do some insane shit like that

I know, this is the domain of people who've had more than 6 kids for 4 generations, who eat out commercially maybe once a quarter. It's an unusual food landscape that few people seem to be aware of unless they're in it. Every culture has its acquired tastes that only seem edible if you grew up with them, american slop is just more varied so it doesn't stick as a stereotype.

@WashedOutGundamPilot@poa.st @Humpleupagus@eveningzoo.club >Every culture has its acquired tastes that only seem edible if you grew up with them, yeah like the guys that live near the north pole that eat fermented fish or in my case the people that eat fried grasshoppers tho i have to say that the american version intimidates me personally because it comes down to combining a shit ton of things, not just raw ingredients and spice but mashing together already complete dishes it scares me

Casseroles are the worst. They're beloved by the lazy because the end result is simple to make (dump in a pan, cook for 45 min) and easy to clean, which is a necessity if you have a dozen people eating at once. It's hard telling people their wife's fave recipes are actually dogshit, too. So you put on a smile and dump on the hot sauce, and listen while they tell you about how they sprung for spam instead of chicken breast even though it's half the price It's just so easy to abuse because the mix hides a lot of flavors, ingredients, and becomes a morass of mediocrity. I like foods separated so I can evaluate them, any time we get into soups and cass I know trickery is afoot. If it were good, you'd want to savor it.

what kind of fag doesn’t like casseroles?

Me. Casseroles are bad, full stop, end of. If the ingredients were so good you would savor them individually. It's lazy. It's slop. It's unbecoming. It's lesser. And you've all abused your privilege of making casseroles for too long. I'm speaking out.

I thought not liking your food touching was a toddler phase

mmmm good eatin I literally took these from the food site's top results, these are 4.5 star recipes

@WashedOutGundamPilot@poa.st @Humpleupagus@eveningzoo.club idk about casseroles since i have never seen them personally but soups can be pretty nice mom taught me how to make a mushroom soup with spices, cilantro, pork rinds and other stuff, it's pretty nice and does require some technique when it comes to preparing the ingredients

People have become proud in their laziness and ignorance, their food is a reflection of this.