Help a visitor eat local.

sidevalve

sidevalve

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Just watched an American program [forget which] and the presenter mentioned he had tried fish and chips [good man] and then said he was offered tartar sauce !!!???!!! I mean NO !! Fish and chips is battered fish [haddock or maybe cod] deep fried with chips [not french fries] and it is eaten with salt and or vinegar and maybe mushy peas [although I admit the last American visitor we had did draw the line here - but at least she did try them]. So here is my ask - if you have a visitor or a friend from another country show them how to eat local food the local way. Don't let them be served some watered down multi-national pretend version They may like it they may not but at least they will know what it SHOULD taste like.
 
"An idea of what people in the nineteenth century meant by naming something "tartar" can be found in a recipe of Isabella Beeton in "The Book of Household Management" of 1861, recipe no. 481, "Tartar mustard", made of horseradish vinegar, cayenne and ordinary mustard."
Hardly foreign.
 
morning glory said:
I don't know when we started eating Tartare sauce with Fish 'n Chips in the UK. But I know its been going on for a while, although obviously not in all outlets. Its difficult to really decide what is really 'local' and authentic, I think. Food evolves with time.
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Between the two World Wars, to date.
 
sidevalve said:
Just watched an American program [forget which] and the presenter mentioned he had tried fish and chips [good man] and then said he was offered tartar sauce !!!???!!! I mean NO !! Fish and chips is battered fish [haddock or maybe cod] deep fried with chips [not french fries] and it is eaten with salt and or vinegar and maybe mushy peas [although I admit the last American visitor we had did draw the line here - but at least she did try them]. So here is my ask - if you have a visitor or a friend from another country show them how to eat local food the local way. Don't let them be served some watered down multi-national pretend version They may like it they may not but at least they will know what it SHOULD taste like.
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I totally agree, but it didn't come off much like a question though. If I go to another country I want to experience the local flavors. I can get the other stuff at home.

Now Our tartar sauce usually consists of a manynnaise base, and we add yellow mustard, sweet and or dill relish, and I like to add garlic powder, onion powder, and some Mrs. Dash caribbean citrus seasoning. Hubs eats this mostly. says he loves fish but has to have it slathered in this stuff! Yuk
 
Agree with this 100%. I try to get the most authentic food experiences whenever I travel - even if that means taking one bite of something and nothing more. I figure that if I'm experiencing a culture I want to experience it fully, and not a watered down fake version of it. I've tried things living here in Japan that I haven't particularly cared for, but I've tried other things that I've adored - but it's all been the real deal!
 
@cupcakechef Jealous! I love Japanese food! :thumbsup: I live in rural midwest USA and there is no authentic Japanese food here. There is one local place that has an amazing fresh seaweed salad, but I do not know how authentic it is. I do have a couple of cookbooks, but would love to eat 'real' Japanese food. I do live near an army base so there are several Asian groceries that I can get seaweed and such from.
 
morning glory said:
I do sometimes serve Tartare with fish 'n chips. And if this article is to be believed, so do some fish 'n chip shops in the UK! Albeit in sachets.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...-to-make-the-perfect-tartare-sauce-fish-chips
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OMG !! The world is coming to an end !! I still believe they should be eaten from newspaper but it seems we aren't allowed to do that anymore. :devil:I agree food evolves but if you visit Britain and want to try 'fish n chips' as opposed to 'fish with chips' from a restaurant menu it's up to us here in the UK to make sure you get it and the same applies anywhere else in the world. If in rural France and you asked for coq au vin you would be a little disappointed if it came out of a tin marked 'produce of china' or some such. We - all of us, where ever we are, need to fight this encroaching world wide grey sludge and stand up for local food how it was meant to be. What we ate in the 19th century is not really relevant - after all the fish and chips we know are an essentially British dish [never mind who invented them] and we shouldn't try to bury them in a mess of international sameness. That presenter [poor man] went back to the USA thinking he had tried fish n chips - he hadn't he had had some fried fish and some fried potatoes that he could had purchased anywhere in the world - not the same at all.
 
I have noticed that the american style almost like it needs to make things as unhealthy as possible. Fish and chips not bad enough that it's deep fried and great with salt and vinegar... let's add a mayo based sauce for DIPPING. I really do agree with @sidevalve says. If you are visiting another country. The least you could do is try that country's way of cooking. Don't just eat what you think it should be. Try the authentic way first so that you can develop a taste for real food.
 
If I go somewhere I just might want to experience the local food and culture, but above all I want to enjoy the dish. If that means I add a sauce or something I think my guest should understand that the most important thing is for me to enjoy what I am eating. I have had some fish and chips from England more than twenty years and I don't remember having any tartar with them. Now, if I visit I wouldn't mind having some as tartar goes well with fish in my humble opinion. I find when I have guest, I ask them what they like to eat and try to work with that. As a child I remember my mom and dad encouraging many to try local dishes. The truth is some dishes are best left local and if guest ask or insist, them maybe.
 
In the local fast food outlets that serve fish and chips here you are typically offered your choice of vinegar, tartar sauce or ketchup to go with your meal. I generally will use the salt and vinegar and only rarely the tartar sauce. I think in the UK in the old days it was served in newspaper. We had it that way once in Canada when I was little. I would imagine newspaper is not very hygenic and has been replaced by more modern paper!
 
kgord said:
I would imagine newspaper is not very hygenic and has been replaced by more modern paper!
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True [although it was put in a layer of plain paper first] but I and thousands of others must have eaten a lot of newspaper and still seem to be ok :wacky:
PS - I will admit ketchup is permissible - just.
 
This is how we served fish and chips in Yorkshire when I were a lad. With Yorkshire dhal and pickled onions.

fish chips peas.jpg
 
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