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Post by En on Dec 10, 2003 10:55:38 GMT -5
Food's a big deal in my da's family. They get worried about you if you don't want to eat at least one serving of each of the 17 courses. This gets a bit silly, but of course, they're farming people; they used to work out of doors 16 hours a day, 6 days a week, so they needed loads of calories. Now, the very few who still farm do almost all of the work with one monster tractor that plants 48 rows at a time. They don't keep livestock, so they don't have to muck stalls, pitch hay, or move stock from one pasture to the next; there just isn't nearly the physical labour anymore.
Me, I don't mind the 17 courses, because I was blessed/cursed with nearly murderous metabolism and must eat at least 5-course meals in order to stay conscious.
Mum's family have a more recreational attitude toward food. Does it taste good? Is it fancily prepared? Is it inventive? Is the recipe exotic? Have you ever had escargot? Da's family is more like, is the meat tender? Have you had enough? Who did the oyster casserole this year? (nobody ever asks the question I'm dying to know the answer to... why do we eat oyster casserole on hols at all? We're Iowans, for pete's sake... LANDLOCKED!)
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Post by KoNeko on Dec 10, 2003 11:10:57 GMT -5
(my next question would be- where do they get the oysters from then? )
Bah. 15 courses? En, you'd love a big family reunion with me then. Try doing the whole Chinese Banquet crap where you HAVE to eat at least one serving of all 25 dishes, or people will be offended! Well, that's usually because there's this whole "everyone brings a couple of dishes" thing, so we end up with massive amounts of food. And explaining (western) vegetarianism to a family of flesh-eaters isn't always very welcome, because almost all Chinese meals have meat in them, and if you eat around the meat then people will get offended... really, Chinese people get offended easily I think.
(Hehehe, Will, we had a kids table as well and it was me, my cousins and my sister and I was usually the oldest kid so I had to do all the "get food from the big table and give it to the little kids" stuff. It's still like that now, even though my youngest cousin is 12. :
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Calantha
Gryffindor Alumni
My name is Luck, this is my song, I happened by when you were gone
Posts: 4,493
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Post by Calantha on Dec 10, 2003 16:53:47 GMT -5
For the holidays, my Nan and Grandma cook and refust to let anyone bring or help with the meal. We don't have courses really. We have tables. Soup and salad on one table, deserts on another, hot on another, cold on another and you just pick whichever you'd like to eat. I personally like it this way because I don't usually eat very much and have to prepare myself days in advance for big meals and some of the things fixed I just can't eat because I don't like the taste. Not can't, won't.
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Post by Nie on Dec 10, 2003 20:01:50 GMT -5
I know what you mean, Cal. Since my surgery I don't eat as much as I used to in one sitting and sometimes can hardly eat anything at all on some days. So I basically eat when I'm hungry and don't when I'm not, cos I find that if I try to make myself eat food when I don't want it I end up sick. So I'm guessing I'll just spend Christmas picking, which lucky for me is possible with our family.
*is glad she doesn't have to eat oyster caserole for Xmas *
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Post by Will on Dec 10, 2003 22:33:49 GMT -5
Ha! Courses? What’s that? There’s no such thing in my family. Everything is all on one table and everyone digs in. Then, after awhile, my aunt brings on her famous Jell-O. Mmmm… Good stuff.
Oh, I have an Uncle on my dad’s side that’s sort of vegetarian and most everyone on my mom’s is vegetarian as well. Therefore, we have a lot of veggies to eat. They make sure of it.
Hmmm… I don’t know about oyster casserole… but I’m rather fond of seafood in general… blame my dad.
-Cheers- I’m going to Lake Tahoe on the 27th through 29th! Mom’s brother’s family will be joining us, as well as a family friend!
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Post by En on Dec 12, 2003 14:54:59 GMT -5
Oh, don't let me make it sound like we're classy and serve the courses separately In Iowa, a "course" means a "dish," or maybe that's just my family -- nah, we don't do salad, then soup, then entree, or anything like that. There are just 17 different kinds of food getting passed around, though nobody wants to pass the dinner rolls past my brother because he eats them all, ditto deviled eggs past my da or the fruit salad past me (there's another one. How in denial did they have to be not to know I'd turn out gay?! :
My grandmother always does the majority of the cooking, though she will let the adult women in the family help when it comes time to put all the food in dishes and take it to the table, and she'll make the kids, whichever ones are around, set the table; and she'd let anyone wash the dishes afterward.
I like seafood too, but... not in Iowa. Give me shrimp when I'm in New Orleans, but something about the thought of shrimp in Iowa having travelled 2500 miles in an eighteen-wheel lorry on a 38* day in August only to be thrown in a freezer for three months just doesn't make me hungry.
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Calantha
Gryffindor Alumni
My name is Luck, this is my song, I happened by when you were gone
Posts: 4,493
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Post by Calantha on Dec 12, 2003 15:22:32 GMT -5
I am particular about seafood as well when it comes to being away from the water. And I only live two or so hours away. And when we lived near the Bay, I didn't like anything caught out of it...the pollution there is awful and they have warnings up about eating the fish and crabs in certain areas.
When my family vacations in North Carolina, we always go to a crab house on the strip. That's normally the only place I'll eat crab or shrimp other than when I'm at like...Red Lobster or something or when my parents buy lobsters alive and then cook them. Note, I can't be in the house when they cook them *shudders at the screeching*
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Post by En on Dec 12, 2003 15:28:36 GMT -5
I never really got into lobster. I'm so hypocritical; I won't eat lobster, or oyster, or other kinds of shellfish out of the shell (or claw or tail) because it's too much work, but I love pomegranates, which are the most laborious food in the world to eat
Now that I'm thinking about it... I wonder if my great-grandmother made oyster casserole just because seafood in Iowa is a rich people thing. You know, from way back -- poor people couldn't afford the import costs, let alone ice to keep it preserved. And my great-grandmother was always trying to rub my other great-grandmother's face in the fact that she didn't think my other great-grandmother's son was good enough for her daughter
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Post by KoNeko on Dec 13, 2003 12:59:24 GMT -5
I got put off seafood at an early age- in Hong Kong when I was a kid, they had these open air market things, which is basically a street full of live animals and stores where butchers chop up whole pigs/cows/sheep in front of you and stuff. So... anyway, we always had steamed fish, because yeah, I think it used to be a rich people's thing too. (Apparently poor people just ate eggs, because they had lots of protein ). And usually my mum would go and walk around the market and stuff personally, because usually other people would get their maids and stuff to do it, so she could get better deals with the fishmongers/butchers etc. and she'd go and point to a fish she wanted when it was in the tank, and then the guy would get this big metal hook and stab the fish with it and hook it out, gut it and descale it while it was still alive and then we'd take it home, where it would slowly die in the plastic bag on the way. I avoid the markets when I visit my parents at all costs.
Cal, do lobsters really screech? That's so disturbing.
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Calantha
Gryffindor Alumni
My name is Luck, this is my song, I happened by when you were gone
Posts: 4,493
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Post by Calantha on Dec 13, 2003 14:00:13 GMT -5
Well...I'm not sure whether the lobster, itself, is screeching when you put it down in a pot of boiling water, or if it is the steam exiting the lobster. All I know is that I can't be in the house when the cook it because it makes me sick on my stomach. But yeah, it's this screeching noise. I always end up thinking about my parents putting my hermit crab in the water and it making a screeching noise. So it's better if it's prepared when I'm not around.
En, I have never cracked the shell or anything on a crab, it's always done for me because I don't like knowing it was one time alive. Yeah, my backwards explanation. Pomegranates are my Nan's favourite so we always split one when I'm with her.
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Post by Will on Dec 14, 2003 21:31:24 GMT -5
Oh, don't let me make it sound like we're classy and serve the courses separately In Iowa, a "course" means a "dish," or maybe that's just my family -- nah, we don't do salad, then soup, then entree, or anything like that. Oh, is that what you meant? I see.
Rich people food? Well, I guess seafood can get a bit costly. Crabs and shrimp were always great. Just recently, I started to like oysters, clams and such. And hey, squid isn't as bad as it may sound.... Lobster, I still can't get used to. I don't know... it just doesn't taste all that great.
There's this one Chinese restaurant that my family loves to dine in. They have the tanks of fish and other seafood, right? Well, one day, we were eating our lunch and in comes this group of people, waiting to be seated. They were standing right next to the tanks... The cook walks over to one of the tanks, catches a fish and chops its head off near the soon-to-be-ex-customers... Oi, I felt so bad.
Now in China Town...
Hey, speaking of China Town. Is there a certain place your family likes to go just for fun? Downtown? A specific store? Cafe? Park?
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Natz
Ravenclaw Alumni
Posts: 4,269
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Post by Natz on Dec 15, 2003 6:05:53 GMT -5
I think that i would find it disturbing if i heard a lobster screech. Those poor people sitting next to the tank where they kill all their fish. In my family as far as i can remember we have never had a kids table. I think this has something to do with the fact we stayed at home for christmas until we were about eight and 10 and then we started going to my grans for boxing day and it has continued like this ever since. We don't have seventeen courses. We usually have about five but they are big portions and my gran always says i don't eat enough and no one in my family knows what a small portion is. I'm having a problem on the ancestor map i can't find wales on england. I need to post on ireland as well. Past that i'm not too sure where my family came from. Does anyone know any sites where i could try and go back further?
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Calantha
Gryffindor Alumni
My name is Luck, this is my song, I happened by when you were gone
Posts: 4,493
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Post by Calantha on Dec 15, 2003 10:12:26 GMT -5
Crabs also try to escape the pot you're cooking them in because...you know...you're only suppose to cook shellfish alive.
Um, I know that there are a few sites but I'm not sure of the addresses for them Natz. When I did an ancestor hunt I went to the local library in my hometown and they had a record of certificates in their archives, I'm not sure if that's something all libraries do or not.
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Post by KoNeko on Dec 16, 2003 8:35:35 GMT -5
Willow, my family is usually the one ordering fish to be executed... I hate how they show you the fish/crab/shrimps etc. in a big plastic box when it's clearly struggling to stay alive and flapping around and gasping once you've picked it, and then it goes into the kitchen comes back out later on a plate. It always makes me feel really sick, just watching them do it.
Cal, you want to hear a really horrible crab-execution story? (I'm sure you don't, but anyway...) there's like, a Chinese way of preparing the crabs that my mum uses once you've got them from the market, and they're usually alive but they tie their claws together so they can't pinch you. So... you take this crab out and put it in the sink full of water (where it will try to scuttle away) and (this is the gross part)- you stab two bamboo skewers or chopsticks into the joint behind its back legs to pierce its bladder so you won't be cooking a pot full of crab pee. It's so horrible, and then after you've done that, you can throw the crab in a pot of boiling water, where you can hear it scuttling around in the pot trying to escape the heat.
As for where my family likes to hang out when we're together (which is usually only around Christmas)... heh, my dad has like, a favourite steak house (!!) which he's been taking us to since it opened about 10 years ago... and because he works heaps, we usually make it a casual family gathering on his lunch breaks or something if we are going to see him during the day, otherwise the whole family sits together for dinner, plus the dogs who wander around in the back waiting for someone to pass them a piece of food.
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Post by Will on Dec 16, 2003 22:56:42 GMT -5
-shudders- That's awful... I have never seen live anythings get killed infront of me. Even that time with the fish. I didn't actually see its head get chopped off... My mom, she's a vegetarian so she refuses to by live fish or crab. They have to be dead or she won't cook it. ((Thank goodness)) I don't think I could stand watching or hearing it for that matter.
I have been trying to get my whole family to go watch a musical up in San Francisco. No luck so far. Either they are too lazy, busy, or they just aren't willing to pay that much money to watch a performance. I say it's worth it, but no, they still won't go. Asians and their money saving. I admit that I have the same problem sometimes...
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