WASPy American food

The food matches the people.

They don't want any calories...hard to make something taste good with no fat, no salt...without bacon fat or butter, it won't be good.

Yet somehow Japanese, for example, are thinner, and the food is tastier.

What are WASP staples?

Because they use little to no spices or herbs, OP. Also, their heritage is from England, and we all know about British food...

Maybe they will use a bay leaf or two, if they are feeling especially adventurous that day.

Because their mothers don't know how to cook!

If you can't appreciate any flavor or spice from a young age, your palate is probably doomed into adulthood.

I have a work friend who I love dearly, but her 'palate' is the most unadventurous of anyone I've ever known. Even pizza is 'too ethnic" for her, so bar the door when it comes to Mexican, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, etc. Planning lunch with her on payday pretty much meant we were heading to Bob Evans or some pancake place.

One of the things I have found very interesting to contemplate is that so many of the herbs and spices we associate with Middle Eastern or Indian cooking were well known in Medieval France. As they developed the classic French cuisine, they pretty much abandoned things like cumin, coriander and galangal. The Dutch have a cheese flavored with cumin (pretty awful, to my taste) and other European cultures use plenty of caraway and dill, but the French tend to avoid them. Yet, French cuisine, in its purity, is one of the great cuisines ever developed.

So there's some other element there that distinguishes a bland cuisine with a rich cuisine with an essential 'purity' to it. I think there's an element of Puritanism, that doesn't think enjoyment of life's pleasures (like sex or dancing or drinking) is a good thing.

One thing I have noticed with WASPy friends is that they almost all, bar none, have food issues, whether it be allergies to nuts or shellfish, or strong baby-taste aversions to things as mundane as parsley or cumin, etc. I have never seen this elsewhere in the world. It's a uniquely WASPy phenomena.

[quote]I think there's an element of Puritanism, that doesn't think enjoyment of life's pleasures (like sex or dancing or drinking) is a good thing.

You're onto something here. I grew up in the Seventh-day Adventist faith, and even within the belief system there's a spectrum between liberal and conservative. One of the more conservative Universities in Tennessee doesn't serve spicy food because, as the prophet Ellen G. White said, [bold]"In this fast age, the less exciting the food, the better. Condiments are injurious in their nature. Mustard, pepper, spices, pickles, and other things of a like character irritate the stomach and make the blood feverish and impure."[/bold]

She also believed that spices encouraged sexuality, which was a big no no.

A friend of mine who's originally from Kentucky told me about inviting an Italian-American college friend to come home with her for a family visit. When they got back to school, her friend told her that her mother served " bad Protestant food."

With my dad, it's salt and pepper and that's it. Once he found onion in a stew and threw a fit.

how can you live like this, WASPs ?

This is why they have been trying to rule the world for the last 400 years. Taking no pleasure from simple things leads to power madness.

Well the tasty spices didn't grow in England. The more flavorful or hot spices required sun and heat to grow. Their palate adapted. And if they did have access it was wildly expensive. Use sparingly.

Strong spices were in hot counties where the meat would go off quickly and needed flavors to drown out the rancidness.

Northern countries salted and/or smoked their meats.

R9 is spot on. Food issues almost entirely affect only WASPs, no offense. I've never known, in my own personal experience, an Italian with crazy food allergies and gluten or cheese intolerances.

In the old movie Die, Die My Darling Tallulah Bankhead's character is a psycho religious nut and when she serves food to her victim it's totally unflavored as something or other in the bible says people shouldn't flavor their food. I don't know. I saw it once many years ago but I think it was something like that. It makes sense if someone has some kind of psycho things going on chances are they got it from the bible or their interpretation of it anyway.

That chicken breast at OP looks like a flavorless pie of shit.. wtf willingly eats like that?

R14, yup. Mike Pence-Exhibit A

I was once in this bagel store in Park Slope Brooklyn NY, a very well to do area of Brooklyn. The place if always full of WASP, Yuppie moms with their blonde blue eyed children and the nanny of course because god forbid these stay at home women take care of a kid on their own. Anyway, this one is sitting at the table while the nanny goes to get the food for them and herself and comes back with a sesame bagel for herself and the bitch mom pitches a fit that the nanny is trying to kill the little bastard by bringing sesame seeds near him. I mean screaming at this poor woman and then grabs this woman's lunch and throws it in the trash. Meantime the kid is fine, no reaction at all. I got my order and left but the owner or manager was trying to calm the bitch down as I left just shaking my head. I'll bet that kid (about a year old) had no allergies whatsoever but will grow up thinking he's allergic to everything. I mean how would anyone know if a child that young was allergic to sesame seeds. Do those seeds come out of her tits with her milk or in the kid's formula or in baby food? Did the kid grab a handful of sesame chicken from a Chinese take out order? These bitches are all the same no matter what part of the country they come from. Bet the mom makes the nanny pay for her own food and probably didn't replace the food she threw away. On average a bagel with tuna or turkey or anything on it costs 8-9 dollars at this place. A bagel and just cream cheese is 5 dollars. I only ever get uncut bagels with nothing on them at a dollar a piece. In NYC if the store cuts the bagel, even if they put nothing on it you pay tax. If you get it whole it's only the price of the bagel. I'm sure the poor nanny couldn't afford a second lunch.

Casseroles are an American staple I never understood.

R22, I worship casseroles. I could live off them.

It depends on the casserole. Homemade quality mac and cheese is okay, green beans with canned mushroom soup and canned onions isn't, at least to me.

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What is waspy food. Sorry I am not a wasp and I not sure what you are refering to.

Roasted chicken and white bread? Steamed Vegetables and tuna tartar?

White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. But you are in the right ballpark.. dry chicken breasts, roasted vegetables, etc. Nursing home food.

I'd argue this doesn't apply to Southern WASPs.

Southerners know how to cook

Classic WASP is Annie Hall ordering a pastrami sandwich on white bread with mayo.

This is so funny. My partner is New Jersey Italian and I've learned to cook being with him. I guess I didn't realize my ignorance of flavor is cultural!

He is painfully embarrassed when ordering my sandwich at a deli: turkey and Swiss with lettuce on a white baguette. Like, genuine shame.

shitty, garbage food

[quote]What are WASP staples?

Martinis. Why, they are their own food group, deah.

chicken breasts are just terrible. ugh

[quote] I have a work friend who I love dearly, but her 'palate' is the most unadventurous of anyone I've ever known. Even pizza is 'too ethnic" for her

Is she a WASP?

OP is a silly racist who thinks there ever was such a thing as "WASPs" and American food in her lifetime.

A WASP would pride herself on her knowledge of French food and wine, would "try anything once," and would be sure to know the latest items to stock. She would also perhaps prefer blander food in her own home, but it would include good soups, good beef and plenty of ham. She would have the money to buy chickens, which were a relative rarity for others well into the 1920s and beyond. And she would be using all manner of game animals, because WASPs love their hunting. This means plenty of geese, ducks, pheasant and quail at least. And if she were a proper homemaker she also would ensure her kitchen staff (at least a cook and scullery maid) would know about preserves, jellies, jams, marmalades, canned meats and other home stores.

And a WASP in the South would have a black cook, so there would be plenty of additional fare - with spice and herb savvy - the family would appreciate.

Christ, the idiocy here. I'm not a WASP but I have been surrounded by them. Only the cheap fools had a stupid wife, a bad cook, and indifference to quality of life, well affordable.

[quote] as the prophet Ellen G. White said

I don't remember him from the Old Testament. Enlighten me.

[quote] Homemade quality mac and cheese is okay

What's "mac"?

I take it R31, he is ordering in an Italian hero shop. LOL, yeah your sandwich might get a raised eyebrow. But you should get to eat what you like. Personally I'd rather have turkey and Swiss than a bunch of piled on Italian cold cuts that leave a greasy feel in my mouth. It's not even a health thing. I'm okay with ham but I don't like the really Italian ones where you can see the fat in the circle of meat. I'm not a big fan of Italian cheeses either. I do like making crisps out of real Parmesan. They take about 10 minutes in the oven and it's like crackers without any carbs. I also like the way some Italian restaurants make lemon chicken and I like the lemon sauce also on the spaghetti that comes with it. I don't like red sauce. But that's about it.

Oh and I'm not a WASP. I'm a NY Jew of Hungarian decent way back about 4 generations ago. Now I do like a nice Kosher Deli sandwich, on rye and with mustard and a good Dr. Brown soda. But mostly I'm a tuna on white, cheese burger deluxe type of guy, simple foods. Oh and I do like Chinese food. What would Christmas be for a NY Jew without having Chinese food, :).

[quote] of Hungarian decent

Ranch dressing is the answer to everything!

No, you really don't r5 or you wouldn't make such a fatuous statement. You've very obviously never been to England. The British use of spices and herbs goes back to Roman times. Pasta is in Elizabethan cook books, mac and cheese is an English invention. They had an empire that spanned the globe, do you really think they didn't import spices?

[quote]Yet somehow Japanese, for example, are thinner, and the food is tastier.

The Japanese (followed closely by Koreans) have an extremely high rate of stomach cancer.

But at least they are thin.

[quote]He is painfully embarrassed when ordering my sandwich at a deli: turkey and Swiss with lettuce on a white baguette. Like, genuine shame.

With mayo, right?

Salmon Aspic, of course---but never in August.

[quote]He is painfully embarrassed when ordering my sandwich at a deli: turkey and Swiss with lettuce on a white baguette. Like, genuine shame.

Not sure what's wrong with that sandwich. What kind of exotic processed meat and bread combo are the truly cultured eating?

Hogs head cheese on rye, R47.

Salt is a spice to a WASP.

R46 that looks like the sphincter of an alien with hemorroids.

I've actually learned quite a lot from this thread. Thank you, DLers! WASPy Americans can, of course, include the 'elites' as well as 'poor white folks', both from the North and South, so there will be different experiences. One of the best things about learning history is realizing how cyclical things tend to be: how the human world seems to expand, then contract, then expand again. It's a bit of comfort during these very troubled times. Knowing that Classical Romans used a huge variety of herbs and spices, which were lost during the Dark Ages, but re-introduced to Europe by the Crusaders, returning from the Near East, then losing those connections once again, and the new world of (RE-) discovery in the last few hundred years. The idea that Classical Rome imported cloves and nutmeg (both only native to Indonesia and only grown there at the time) two thousand years ago just shows how cultures ebb and flow over time.

I agree that Southern WASPS are a whole other thing. When I was a kid i the sixties, we had a black housekeeper who cooked the most exquisite fried chicken and other soul food delicacies my father would have rather cut out one of his golf memberships than let Ardelia go(if times were tight.) Southern WASPS love their barbecue more than they love Jesus, ad of course, 'cue is a gift from AAs as well.

There's always a sliced ham or turkey (but nothing to put on it), deviled eggs, 2 or 3 different potato salads, some sliced bread and sliced cheese in case anyone wants to make a sandwich, sometimes a bowl of cut-up fruit (but the strawberries have no flavor or sweetness) and several bottles of wine, all different and inappropriate. Later, out comes the ice cream and a plate of cookies (bought at Costco, not homemade). They leave the ice cream out and by the time you get yours, it's too soft.

.....

What about egg salad?

Honey, a scoop of Duke's mayonnaise will improve any recipe.

My mother is Italian-French, raised in a good food-centered family, and willingly adopted wasp/bland food habits. She hates garlic, rosemary, and wine. She steams veggies with no seasoning or sauce and then complains they are awful and she only eats them for health reasons.

Louisiana is the food capital of USA

Creole, Cajun, seafood, and Southern soul food are all available and in abundance...

Yankee WASP's eat oatmeal. Southern WASP's eat grits.

What is the food in OP's picture?

I agree with R36 that OP is wildly off-base. If you want to talk about bland ethnic cuisine, hands down it's American-Jewish - with the single exception of chicken soup. Everything else is an over-oily or dry tasteless mess.

The lack of spice is a class affectation. Spices were used to cover the smell of spoiled meat and old produce. So not using spices meant that you could afford to buy fresh food. That's why WASP cooking was de-spiced compared to others. They still do that with the enemy now being "processed foods." They will buy fresh even if it means wastage or a bland seasonal menu.

The most disgusting American food is coleslaw. Wtf kinda travesty combines shredded cabbage, mayo, a vinaigrette, and sugar together? This is something both the whites and the blacks eat

And we wonder why our kids hate vegetables.

Are Catholics better cooks than Protestants?

Do you have any particular Catholics and Protestants in mind r65? Would that be a random Catholic from El Salvador vs a Southern Californian Protestant? Simple northern hemisphere vs Southern Hemisphere? Left handed vs right handed?

Well I'm not a WASP, and I'm not even American. But I am white, and a farmer. Growing up we grew our own vegetables/fruits/legumes and bought entire slaughtered cows from our cousins and grains from our other cousins (we were a wool farm). Dinner at my house would be seasonal vegetables (boiled), beef or lamb meat, bread and butter. Salt and pepper were our only seasonings. It was definitely due to availability. We didn't eat seafood because we were 600km from the nearest ocean. We didn't eat pork because nobody had pigs because they are filthy animals, and we didn't eat chicken because we reserve them for their eggs. Only on a special occasion would we have chicken. Every sunday we had a roast (lamb and potatoes). When I went to live in the city for a few years, I cooked exactly like I had eaten growing up. I tried all sorts of foreign and ethnic food, but frankly I don't like it. Curry tastes like shit to me and anything with a million spices just tastes like any old piece of garbage put on a plate. It's just how my taste buds have developed, and I am perfectly fine being "bland" and "Boring". Also, there is the stereotype that spice-laden food like South America and Indian is because the meat and vegetables are so off and rancid they need to cover up the flavour.

Also, when you grow your own meat and vegetables, it's insulting to mask the flavour with herbs and spices. When you eat carrots or pumpkin or spinach, you want it to TASTE like carrots or pumpkin or spinach. If I grew an assortment of vegetables and gave my own slaughtered animal to a chef who made it into a curry, I'd be offended. It's like saying "this shit is so gross and unfresh I need to cover up its flavour with a shit ton of spices". It's like if you painted a picture for someone, and they went over it with red paint before hanging it up saying "NOW it looks good".

Interesting how in the US some ethnic cuisines survive and mutate, like Italian while others wither away like Irish and English.

[quote] The food matches the people.

You mean white, doughy, disgusting and toxic?

Their "Mexican-type" food is a bowl of Fritos topped by a scoop of unseasoned fried hamburger covered with Campbell's tomato soup.

I don't know how to break this to you, R62 but your mother or grandmother or whoever prepared Jewish food for you was either a shitty cook or hated being stuck with the cooking so it came through in the food. Litvak fook has onion, garlic, dill, caraway, paprika, cinnamon, poppyseeds, vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper, parsley, bay leaves and more for seasonings. It's peasant food for sure but it can be delicious if well-prepared. A lot was overcooked because it was kept on the oven throughout the sabbath because turning on the oven constituted work. By the way, I had two grandmothers who had emigrated from Eastern Europe. One hated her family and was totally twisted--her food was the garbage R62 describes. The other one was a lovely woman and everything she made was amazing. I realized that bad food was my grandmother's way of saying "fuck you." There were probably a lot of Jewish women who felt trapped and took it out on the food they prepared.

Another i hate white people thread . Fuck off OP.

Maybe if whites weren't so fucking deplorable there wouldn't be so many threads detailing why they suck.

r67, I agree with the points you've made. That's why I tried, upthread, to distinguish between classic French cuisine and American WASP cuisine (which is really too big a generalization). When you want simply the taste of the best, freshest ingredients, there's little need got lots of other seasonings. In the summer, I buy corn and tomatoes and other vegetables at the local farmer's markets, and they're perfect just served with the minimum of seasonings (salt and butter for corn on the cob, salt and pepper (and maybe a bit of olive oil) for tomatoes. When I'm driving out in the country, many farmers sell their own home-raised eggs: the best scrambled eggs ever! But, right now, during the winter, it's pretty much super-market shopping for me, and that changes things a bit. And I can't help, after being introduced to the stuff as a teenager by some Vietnamese co-workers, to using hot sauce of some type on almost everything.

Why do people on this thread cook their own food?

[quote] Another i hate white people thread . Fuck off OP.

Grow a backbone, precious snowflake. I'm Italian and OP, which according to DataLounge, means I'm not "white white," not that I give a shit, but this thread was meant as a dig in response to the "Chicken Parmesan" thread where WASPs totally trash Italian-Americans, saying some of the nastiest things ever.

So I guess you bitches can dish it out and trash everybody else, but you can't handle it when somebody else pokes a tiny bit of fun at you?

Yes, the "Chicken Parmesan" thread has turned into a prelude for WW 3, rivaling cut versus uncut as a DL flashpoint.

oh camon, R78, it till hasn't reached the horrors of the Lasagna thread!

Thy mainly eat other insects.

I'm the first one to go after the imbeciles that post the white-adjacent and anti-Italian threads, but you're a dick, OP.

That may have been true 30 years ago. Now, most WASPs eat ethnic food. My 80 year old mom loves Thai and Indian.

I knew this was as a response to the Parmesan thread. The WASP rejects always have to slam WASP's to make themselves feel better.

WASP women didn't have to cook. They didn't have to waste their beautiful minds on peasant work

R82, if you're about 60, you're certainly not ancient.

I'm going to say that what the OP really hates is White American food. French food is epic, and what a lot of people consider "French" is usually a bastardised version of haute-cuisine - which itself is very unlike, say, Provencal or Lyonnaise. Provencal cooking is pretty close to what some would call Italian cuisine - Provence is where dishes like aioli, tapenade, fougasse and the infamous bouillabaisse come from and it's clear to see where the Italian influence comes in. The French love good, high quality (and preferably cheap!) ingredients, and some regions use spices and herbs in abundance. What dreck is being served up to the OP is usually an echo, a shade of some random regional dish (say, a daube - usually made with cheaper cuts of beef, vegetables, garlic, herbs and red wine - which has had the more "exotic" elements taken out (good bye, garlic!)) and overcooked/under seasoned. A good daube shouldn't be spicy, but it should be damned rich, where the wine seeps into every single vegetable and bit of meat, where the herbs are the traditional "herbes de Provence" (itself a mix, usually containing marjoram, thyme, oregano, and savory) and not just any old mouldy herbs you can grab from the cabinet. Take out the herbs, remove the red wine and you've got something more White American - a beef casserole, which you serve up with those oh-so-quaint "biscuits" and probably overcooked vegetables.

Then there's British food. Granted, traditional British cuisine isn't as famous as French (how could it even compete!), but there are slivers of British cuisine that are startling. Take, for example, traditional Scottish food - something I know about, as I'm a Scot (wahey! And no, I don't give a fuck about your ancestors) Scottish food is littered with dishes that use huge amounts of pepper and we love our herbs and other seasonings. Hell, even one of our cheese is rolled in black pepper (hello, Black Crowdie!) Even foods like haggis can be a bit "nippy", and you can't make square sausage without spices! But, in comparison, the food isn't as...zingy as southern French, Italian or even Spanish cuisine (you people need to learn the difference between Latin American and real Spanish food), just purely because spices weren't that easy to come by - but herbs were.

But, yeah, what a lot of people are describing above is White American food - cheap, overprocessed, full of fat and lacking in flavour, richness and colour. Hell, even Native American food is light-years ahead in flavour and taste (one of my favourite things to make for team lunches is a Three Sisters stew - which is gorgeous in its simplicity and taste - and either frybread or cornbread).

Native American cuisine! Now that's something i would like to know more about!

R84

Thank you, but in Gay World 56 seems ancient to me.

I have previously mentioned dining at WASP restaurants as a child in NJ. Usually a set menu of appetizer-main-dessert, with three or four choices of each. So, you might have a glass of tomato juice, a main dish of broiled fish, mashed potato and green beans, and a dessert of chocolate cake. Today, roughly the same things would be made using a bit more creative items, such as rosemary chicken or green tea ice cream.

We didn't feel we lead deprived lives, it was what we were used to.

Sounds like Chanticleer, R87, somewhere north of rt. 22 in central New Jersey.

There were a slew if those places, R88. Llewellyn Farms in Morris Plains was a bit daring, offering chicken livers for an appetizer.

The most I use pepper and salt sometimes nutmeg sometimes herbes de Provence also sometimes garlic !and fresh parsley ! when you see the chefs they use so much spicy stuff I wonder you even taste the nartural taste of your veggies anymore ! They throw in so much in their food that I wonder they even have tastebuds ! When I cook a beef casserole I use dark abbey beer of Belgium and ongnion and musterd !

ongnion

musturd

Actually, R91, it's "oignon."

Actually, R91, it's "musturd."

The one ingredient I think sets American food apart from everything else is sugar. In all it's disguises, in all it's forms, sugar is squeezed into so many dishes where it has no business being. How did we end up like this? Was it manufacturers replacing more expensive ingredients with sugar so we now expect the taste?

R69 steaks, roast dinners, pies, mac and cheese, stews, casseroles, all the staples of plain American cooking are from the British Isles. Why would you say it's withered away? Ridiculous.

I'd say they've withered because Americans fuck everything up - hello, chop suey! - and think they're "improving" it when in fact they're making it sweeter, or crowding it with unnecessary flavours. I mean, shit on a shingle, the US is the country that pioneered adding *canned soup* to casseroles. I mean - ew?

People who say "mac and cheese", "chicken parm", "veggies"... should be shot.

I agree, R97. It seems to be a uniquely dumb Yank thing - "oh, let's make some mac 'n cheese!" You can actually hear the N instead of "and".

I lived in coastal cities all my life, but moved to Pittsburgh in 2000, where I first heard "mac." It is also the place where I first encountered that green bean and mushroom soup excrescence some serve [italic]en casserole [/italic] at Thanksgiving.

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R97 & R98: Fucking Americans shorten EVERYTHING! (I'm American I can say that). The worst is the goddamn wine snobs with their fucking cab and merl and zin and cab and zin. Then, as noted upthread, are the foodies and their mac and parm and healthy brekkies.

There is a restaurant in my town called The Nugget. I recently heard someone refer to it as "The Nug." I'm sorry, but that's taking cutesy-precious way too far.

"Brekkie" is English, R101, not American.

Merl rhymes with hurl, which is what I'd do if I heard that in person. Cab and zin are commonly used, though cutesy.

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I call it that, too, r11! And the very few times as a kid I ate lunch with a friend, we had bland food and only water to drink, no exceptions.

As an Italian-American I felt pity.

Sorry r72, but Jewish food kind of bland too. Other than a pastrami sandwich, most non Jews do not seek out that type of food. That is partially why the Jewish delis in NY are dying out. Plus a lot of it so very unhealthy. High fat content, and perspectives like Nitrites for pastrami so it stays pink.

I grew up with Italian on one side of the family and Mexican on the other. Bland WASP food seems strange to me, like it been white washed for flavor as food for the elderly.

[quote] I knew this was as a response to the Parmesan thread. The [bold] WASP rejects [/bold] always have to slam WASP's to make themselves feel better.

Gimme a break, bitch! I have never, not once, in my lifetime ever met a single Italian-American anywhere who has ever wished that they were a WASP, much less ever felt rejected from a culture that they never wished to be a part of in the first place. If anything, we are criticized for self-identifying too much, or differentiating ourselves, or holding onto our roots and "not assimilating enough." So, at least get your criticisms and stereotypes in the right order...

There's just no soul, no flavor, no happiness in the food. I grew up in a Latin and black household, but I went to school with many white(WASP) kids. I spent many nights over their houses wondering why they had such unimaginative and predictable food. They also seemed to have less animated households in general, but that's just my perception. The laughter is controlled and it reads in the food and culture.

There are some VERY salty people here tonight! What's wrong Tony? Didn't the nasty old queens like Mama's famous meatball sub?

Wasp food tastes like dog shit, but it's still better than Scandinavian or Nordic food.

Are curries big in the US and Canada? Brits love their curries and Chicken Tikka Masala was developed in England rather than India. An interesting contrast to the more bland dishes. There are a lot of Indian restaurants in Australia, but Chinese restaurants are significantly more prolific, although a friend from China says nobody eats foods like Sweet and Sour Pork in China.

Yes and no, r112. In the US, white Americans got the reputation of eating at ethnic restaurants and complaining that the food is "too spicy" or "seasoned". There is a comedian with a funny joke about that, pertaining to YELP. It happened a lot in Indian, Jamaican, Thai places. In recent years they have become more accustomed to it, but I think many restaurants have to adjust to the "American" palate. Indian restaurants are all the rage now.

I know my great-grandfather's family, who were staunch Quakers, forbid the use of any spice other than a LITTLE salt. Everything was either boiled or roasted.

lmao! just for those of you who have no clue WTF is going on!

I've read every post, and I think everyone knows what's going on. You sound like the idiot r115

Awwww, isn't that cute, R116?

I agree about White American Food having no joy or love in it (but then, what do you expect when they consider haute cuisine to be dumping a can of mushroom soup into a dish with some mealy potatoes and chicken bits and calling it a casserole?) Cookery is too often portrayed as a chore, a punishment, a slave-task in American media and very rarely as something that can bring joy. There is nothing - nothing - like the smell of making your own masala blend, nothing like that moment when you realise you've successfully made caramel for the first time, or when you first taste your own tapenade or aioli. Yes, yes, you can buy these things - but then, if you buy them, you're a lazy slut who probably thinks that peeling a carrot is punishment. And you can't hide behind the plea of "But I don't know how!" - cunt, please. That there's the internet. Get on it, learn something and go cook something. Something that doesn't require an ejaculation of mushroom soup from a can, mind.

And no, no, no. Dump Cakes and Dump Dinners aren't fucking cooking. It's SHITE. You're a SHITE PERSON for inflicting them on your family. Begone with you!

[quote]Chicken Tikka Masala was developed in England

It's the Chicken Parm of Indian food!

Dinner at the DL Frau Lounge!

The joy of smelling masala blend? R118? Have you ever lived in a Sydney apartment? Because I can assure you, there's absolutely NO joy about smelling Indian food.

[quote]Because I can assure you, there's absolutely NO joy about smelling Indian food.

Because I can assure you, there's absolutely NO joy about smelling Indians.

Fixed that for you.

[quote]I agree about White American Food having no joy or love in it (but then, what do you expect when they consider haute cuisine to be dumping a can of mushroom soup into a dish with some mealy potatoes and chicken bits and calling it a casserole?) Cookery is too often portrayed as a chore, a punishment, a slave-task in American media and very rarely as something that can bring joy. There is nothing - nothing - like the smell of making your own masala blend, nothing like that moment when you realise you've successfully made caramel for the first time, or when you first taste your own tapenade or aioli. Yes, yes, you can buy these things - but then, if you buy them, you're a lazy slut who probably thinks that peeling a carrot is punishment. And you can't hide behind the plea of "But I don't know how!" - cunt, please. That there's the internet. Get on it, learn something and go cook something. Something that doesn't require an ejaculation of mushroom soup from a can, mind. And no, no, no. Dump Cakes and Dump Dinners aren't fucking cooking. It's SHITE. You're a SHITE PERSON for inflicting them on your family. Begone with you!

R118, I have been a white American my entire life and I have never cooked like the person you're describing. You are the "SHITE PERSON" in this conversation, you fucking cunt.

just because you don't, R123, you don't think there are a ton of people who do?

r124 I don't worry about what other people cook, and even if I did, I know more people who cook and eat the way I do than I know the kind of people you think every American is. So take your relentless twaddle, roll it up in an omelette, and eat it (with ketchup, dontcha know), "SHITE PERSON."

Salt and pepper are their "secret spices"

lol. This thread is gold! But in order to truly appreciate it, you need the context of the "chicken parmesan" thread.

R125 ladles out her pasta, the poor delicate shite-flower. Don't give her garlic bread! It makes her randy and that's how she got knocked up by her daddy, the Pastor!

I like shit on a shingle aka chipped beef on toast. My family was originally from Peru so I was accustomed to things Americans might find unappealing but when i started going to school with these super waspy kids and went for visits to there homes i found it very nice. Parents not yelling and eating together at dinner. For old times sake i will occasionally buy the chipped beef that Stoeffers makes frozen.

My mother-in-law is Italian-American, a terrible cook, and she has the blandest tastes. Everything is TOO SPICY to her

The last time she came to visit, my father-in-law cooked a wonderful seafood sauce for pasta. He knows the rest of us love spicy food, but had to tone it down to keep her happy. Just basil and a tiny bit of black pepper. During the meal, she took two bites before spitting her food into her napkin and berating him, "IT'S TOO SPICY, FRANK, TOO SPICY. YOU KNOW I CAN'T EAT SPICES, FRANK. AND IT'S NOT GOOD FOR THEM, EITHER!"

Mind you, it's not that she "can't" eat spices. She just doesn't like spicy food and refuses to understand how the rest of us can eat spicy food, let alone enjoy it.

When my partner had minor throat surgery and was told not to spicy foods for a few weeks until it healed, you should have seen the triumphant look on her face. All the way home, she kept poking me in the arm and saying, "See, I told you! NO SPICES. Don't put ANY spice in his food FROM NOW ON. IT'LL KILL HIM. And it's not good for you, either! I TOLD YOU SO!"

Wow, lots of morons going on about "bland white people food."

Yet Thanksgiving dinner is an iconic and beloved feast. Okay....

Your mother-in-law is a strange anomaly, R130.

Good for the Italians for shading the bland WASPy types and their bad, flavorless food!

R131, I've had WASP versions of Thanksgiving. It's not good, especially after you've experienced other Thanksgiving meals. With Thanksgiving, it's not necessarily about the dishes, but how they're prepared.

R131 - yes, it's amazing how you Mid-Western abortions can squeeze eighteen different types of lard into your cooking. You should win an award for that, you pathetic shit-snorter.

I spent part of my childhood in the upper midwest US. My mother cooked Amish. Her food was not seasoned much, but it tasted good. There were breads and noodles and vegetables and salads and roasted, boiled or fried meat, lots of pork/ham, lots of vinegar, home-canned things. Plenty of boiled or marinated vegetables but no lettuce salads. Almost always cake or pie. No broccoli. There was no Mexican or Italian food.

The neighbors ate very bland food like boiled fish with margarine, boiled macaroni with margarine, boiled potatoes smooshed with a fork with margarine, and canned vegetables. They did eat a lot of casseroles/hotdish. Some of these are not bad. I still make one with chicken and tater tots. I also remember a "chili" made with tomato juice, hamburger, canned kidney beans and sometimes macaroni.

Later I lived in France and ate a lot of shit-tastic food (and some good food also). It surprised me about the bad food though.

A lot of WASP-ish food scene seems to be about body & pleasure denial, which is perhaps also behind a lot of the anti-sex comments on DL.

I grew up with WASP and Scandinavian food. Here's a secret: My mom wanted all food to have no flavor to make sure she never ate it.

She looks like Jane Fonda to this day and lives on broth, cherry tomatoes and the occasional egg.

WASP families always have a nice liquor cart though.

Food is a necessity, not entertainment.

Besides, when you feed people well they tend to stay and drink your booze.

My family was German-American, and my mother's father died when she was young (before they had Social Security). Her mother helped keep the family afloat by working as a cook/maid/housekeeper for some of the 'better families'. My Mom always told me that my Grandmother was a real gourmet cook, and learned a lot from her, but she always admitted she couldn't hold a candle to my Grandmother's cooking. But my mother made sure her family had asparagus and artichokes when in season, and good rib-eye steaks several times a year, and all summer long, we had fresh corn-on-the-cob, string beans (always cooked with onions and ham), fresh tomatoes and watermelon. I read someone upthread mention that cole-slaw was an abomination: my German-American version was made with cider vinegar and bacon (and no mayo) just as my Mom's potato salad was seasoned with vinegar and bacon (again, no mayo). I've had to to explain to my best friend (former lover) how German food is often sweet/savory (think Sauerbrauten) to help him understand my tastes, just as he's tried to make me understand his (I'm sorry; I really try, but I can't summarize, but he's always liked my cooking). Cook well for yourself, and take care of yourself and your health. Cook well for others, and enjoy what it feels like to feed other people and feel the appreciation for a welcoming meal. Don't count on it, but those occasional shout-outs really do a soul some good.

It's a bundt cake? Bun? BUNDT! Ohhh...bunk?! BUNDT!!!! BUNDT!!!!

Sweet Jesus - how did we get to 140 posts about wasp food without MAYONAISE being mentioned?

R139 that sounds like our family version of coleslaw and we're not German - I wonder if it's a Northern European thing to not have mayo?

(I only like homemade mayonnaise, jarred stuff just doesn't taste right to me)

R137 You just described my mother to a Tee.

Considering all the crappy news out there...DL food threads are always wonderful diversion.

bump

WASP women (any women really) from upper middle class up to wealthy/elite families need to stay thin or else they are total outcasts to the family and sent to fat camp. No man in those ranks is going to look at them twice. It's why these women absolutely dread pregnancy, use surrogacy as an option, or deliver at 7 months before the fat really comes in. With body image pressure this extreme when the female form is actually designed to carry weight, it's no wonder women starve themselves or intentionally keep their food bland.

The opposite is true for the poor and working class. Fat women are basically royalty, and savory dishes are the only magic and joy they can actually bring to an economically stressed or impoverished family so they cherish in that one gift they can deliver

R146, there are plenty of Southern WASP women, and I can assure you, those women are far from thin...

Southern WASP women don't count.

For a REAL discussion on REAL food, and not Purina Dog Chow, please find your way to the Greek Food thread...

R147, that's because Southern whites are mostly poor. That's why I said weight is a class issue.

What about Laura Bush? There are rich white WASP's in the South especially in Texas and they manage to stay rail thin by staying away from the deep fried and unhealthy food. Being skinny is very important when you are in a woman that's in moneyed circles. It doesn't matter what the region is.

Yes! Chicken breasts are optimum WASP, as in banana bread.

Also, toast with jam. Always a white, mass-produced loaf.

[quote]when you see the chefs they use so much spicy stuff I wonder you even taste the nartural taste of your veggies anymore ! They throw in so much in their food that I wonder they even have tastebuds !

Oh, simmer down you tedious Nancy. R90 dislikes food with Asians spices because he is convinced they are used to disguise the taste of the meat. Not because it is rancid, but because he is sure the meat is dog or cat.

Don't forget the Watergate salad!

Why do WASP moms always have a World Famous signature dish? Which is always "inhaled" by her husband and kids?

"They always beg for my World Famous Potato Salad at church potlucks! The tsp of sugar just sends it over the top. Mix in some naughty diced bacon and they'll inhale it!"

It is very possible to eat delicious food and stay thin. If the objective of bland, boring food is to remain thin then they've still been doing it wrong for centuries. Delicious certainly doesn't have to mean a full stick of butter and deep fried.

True WASPS do not care about food, Gin and Vodka are the only real priorities

Truth r156. Wasp women of a certain age subsist on estrogen pills and vodka. That's as close to a potato as they'll get. Gin in the summer.

A meat, a starch, and a vegetable are a MUST at any WASP family dinner table.

I am WASP and a bit frustrated with your throwing about these stereotypes. WASP women eat regular meals like everyone else. Moreover, other than my alcoholic great uncle, I have rarely encountered drunk WASPs; you make the whole group seem like the daughter in law Marion from Waiting for God.

R150 it's a class money thing much more than an ethnic thing.

Although, that said...in big cities, certainly New York everyone of a certain class and up (espcially under a certain age, I'd say under 50) is a bit of a foodie now.

So maybe instead of eating purposely bland food they're almost obsessed with eating really good food - just less of it and/or working out like crazy or juice cleanses to "make up" for it.

I actually think that mentality is far more common these days among the well to do - WASP or no WASP. Only difference being WASPs as a whole still like to drink more.

Sounds to me like one of the only redeeming highlights of WASP food & drink was still originated by an Italian... 😀

My WASP(that describes her waist as well as her ethnic origins) was renowned for her dinner parties for10-12 in our home in Virginia in the sixties. Everyone craved an invitation, and we had a governor, a few Episcopal Bishops, a handful of Fortune 500 CEOs(who were married to her sorority sisters at Duke) as well as tour golfing legend Sam Snead as regulars at her soirees.

Her basic menu was simple, WASPY and horrible.

Charleston Artillery Punch along with basic highballs and cocktails

Fruits de mer served in scallop shells

Beef Stroganoff or Turkey Tetrazzini(I am fighting the urge to hurl just thinking about it)

asparagus spears

Sherry Trifle

She did the cooking herself in the day before the party, but she always had a uniformed maid to serve and a pianist to tinkle the ivories in the background. She was a regular Pat Buckley/Nan Kempner of the Piedmont.

WASP dinner parties...kill me now.

Coming out of the play Full Gallop, with Mary Louise Wilson as Diana Vreeland, my ex said in awe, "She never moved her jaw the whole time!" I replied that she reminded me of my grandmother that way.

My mother made that R153. I never knew that it had a real name other than Green Stuff. She also made Waldorf Salad a lot, and some cottage cheese and mandarin oranges abomination.

Basically there was a lot of salad, most of it either gross/unappetizing, or plain and undressed.

Orange gelatin salad

All I can say after reading this thread is thank God for Italians, Mexicans, Asian immigrants, etc. for bringing some actual flavor to the American kitchen.

WASP dinner parties are okay as long as you eat before you go and have a designated driver.

The first time I slept over at a WASP household I was 7 or 8. Dinner was shrimp salad. There was just cold shrimp, tomatoes and lettuce on the plate. I was very confused, but I kept my mouth shut, chewed the food, and spit food into my napkin. Needless to say, I went to bed hungry. For breakfast, Swedish pancakes. Sorry, not plural. One Swedish pancake, paper thin. My mom couldn't have come faster. I begged her for McDonald's or pizza on the way home. By the time we passed the 2nd McD's she finally relented. I'm not saying that McDonald's is anything special, but I was essentially starved.

What seems off to me is that WASP food seems to be food from what 1950 to 1970? But other types of food have been around for how long? Hundred years? Here is a menu from a dinner party held by President Calvin Coolidge. I can' t imagine a better example of a WASP.

Canape of Anchovies

Cream of Celery with Toasties

Celery Olives

Aiguillette of Striped Bass Joinville

Potatoes a la Hollandaise

Medaillon of Spring Lamb, Chasseur

Asparagus Tips au Gratin

Breast of Chicken a la Rose

Waldorf Salad, Mayonnaise

Venetian Ice Cream

Assorted Cakes Coffee

Apollinaris White Rock."

Please send President Coolidge my regrets.

I hate those stinking hairy little fishes. I hate Striped Bass. I don't like my potatoes smothered in anything and I can take or leave lamb. As for the rest, Meh...I'd rather have a another WASP classic, ham steak with a circle or two of canned pineapple, mashed potatoes and peas and a couple of those small little dinner rolls with butter, basically white bread shaped like a roll. If the ham and pineapple are too sweet I'll pass on dessert as I don't want to puke at the table. They can keep the booze. I'll have a glass of cold milk just like Wally and the Beav.

Is it customary for WASP types to have guests over and not serve or at least offer any food?

More than once, I've been over to WASP friends' homes and if they are generous, they'll have store-bought hummus and chips, or even worse, a store-bought tray of vegetables with ranch dip.

R173 If you like Triscuits and port wine cheese spread(Wispride usually) you are in luck.

Triscuits ARE indeed WASP. In addition to those with cheese spread, there may be mixed nuts as well. My mom had been known to take my brother and I out for dinner by hitting a couple of art galleries for finger sandwiched and soda pop.

OMG, lol at that absolute monstrosity at R173's link!

I don't know about WASP homes, but that abomination finds its way into every single office potluck, and it just sits there, untouched but for a single carrot or celery stick that someone has taken a nibble of. The absolute height of laziness and lack of imagination!

R172 – I'll eat at your house anytime! Ham steak with pineapple, mashed taters, peas and dinner rolls–it really doesn't get any better than that, and no, I am NOT being sarcastic. Only instead of milk I'd like a Coke® out of the fridge, please. No ice.

I'd never really thought too much about the fact that there even IS food that's WASPy, until a few years ago there was a potluck for someone's birthday or something at the police department where I work as an officer. There was the usual potlucky-type grub – various salads, chips, dips, a couple of casseroles, and some glop involving quinoa. One of the dispatchers with whom I am tight, whispered to me as she set her bowl on the table, "Watch this. This whole thing is going to be gone in five minutes."

And it was. People saw Cathy's potluck offering and swooped down on it, taking every last morsel. And what WAS this delicious dish that everyone wanted?

Tater Tots.® I shit you not. Cathy had brought a couple of large packages of frozen Tater Tots to work, and just prior to the potluck, she microwaved them. To say they were immensely popular would be an understatement.

Tater Tots out of context can be a wonderful thing. As finger food at something like a potluck, they're out of their usual boring element. They're not messy to eat, they're tasty and you don't need any utensils to eat them. And what better way to celebrate one's WASP heritage than by chowing down on Tater Tots?

R172 - Really you look at that menu and then jump to a ham steak with a pineapple rings? Missing my point entirely. This thread isn't about WASP food it is about food from a time period.

[quote]This thread isn't about WASP food

You may want to read the headline again, r178.

R178 agree. Just like there is French food from a certain time period. La Caravelle era vs Jean George era, etc.

You can do this game with almost any type of cuisine. People don't eat chop suey or fettuccine Alfredo anymore, either.

R171, what, oh what, is cream of celery? It sounds like a dressed up name for mush.

My best friend is a hardcore WASP and she calls her taste in food "meat & potatoes". She gets extremely embarrassed when we go to dinner because she realizes she has the food palate of a 5 year old and acknowledges that it's weird.

I dislike tater tots, which aren't WASP, but middle American.

I love cream of celery soup. I also like cream of cauliflower which my mother called "creme Du Barry." Not as WASPy as vichyssoise in the 60s, but close.

Oh please, what nonsense "WASPs have food issues."

The most idiotic "all natural. No additives, no gluten, no food coloring" person I've ever met is italian, her Italian/Puerto Rican daughter is the same. They won't even use sunscreen or have clothing or furniture that has non-natural material and won't allow plastic in the house.

My son hates spice, sauce, gravy or any kind of condiment. No ketchup, mustard, mayo,, whipped creams, sprinkles. Butter is the only thing he will add to anything (like pasta-- no sauce allowed. Only butter). He's Asian.

His friend growing up was Jewish. The only things his friend would eat were pancakes/waffles, pizza bagel bites, peanut butter sandwiches and miso soup. My nephew refused to eat any Chinese or other Asian food except for white rice. Me -- I hate fish. I will only eat sole or flounder and it must be breaded and fried. My father wouldn't touch any seafood at all; he was German.

I have Irish relatives who eat kimchee

I love spicy food but can't eat it anymore because of medication. My mouth is dry all the time and my tongue is super sensitive and burns easily.

R184, are you 10? Do you think the thread meant every person in the world?

Someone is being awfully defensive at R184...

To recap as to what happened in this thread for those who are lost: Somebody started a chicken parmesan thread, which quickly exploded into tears, arguments and fighting about recipes and mothers, as most Italian-American food threads do on DL. I think some WASPy poster was particularly nasty or bitchy about Italians. OP of this thread took issue with a WASP, of all people, criticizing anybody's food, since WASP food is so incredibly bland and awful. Hence, the creation of this thread in retaliation. And there you have it! First food fight thread of 2017! Any other questions?

"WASP food" is hardly the worst. What about Indian or Arabic? How can they even stomach it? Surely by the time it reaches the table, the stench has ruined their appetite? I've tried a few curries and liked none of them. I won't even touch that kebab meat festering on the room temperature stick for hours of a day.

Personally, I think WASPs only have Russians to thank for not having the worst food.

Indian and mediterranean/middle eastern food is delightful, spicy and full of flavor. I think you not liking it, R188, speaks more to your bland palate, and kind of proves OP's point.

Well look what autocorrect did there for all the oh dear trolls to jump on...well im preempting them.

I think a lot of people here are conflating "food issues". - which can range from being very particular to outright eating disorders to some kind of weird hybrid - to the old school WASPs who just didn't really care about food, either way (a species I may say that is becoming increasingly endangered - food obsession and fetishization has taken over Almost all ethnic and socioeconomic types).

The typical WASP anorexic of the 50s to 70s, say, just barely ate because she didn't care much about food. The typical anorexic of today (whether WASP, Jewish, or whatever) is a total food obsessive who plans her whole day over what she is or isn't going to eat, and is very rigid and particular over what in fact she will eat, since she spends so much time obsessing over food.

R188, you are just awful if you think Indian food is horrid. We know you grew up on tuna casserole and cottage cheese on crackers.

Soup is the ultimate WASP dinner-especially New England clam chowder

Flyover WASP Fraus love things like deep fried butter on a stick.

Macaroni Salad, this shit was served at school lunch growing up.

And this shit for dessert, Ambrosia Salad with marshmallows.

R192 Nope, Aussie. I grew up eating lamb shank and potatoes, steak and salad and roast chicken with veggies. No casserole or seafood in my town.

So, R188/R197 - what, no kangaroo? Did a dingo eat your baby?

Oh, and R188/R197 - the word you're so desperately searching for is "vegetables". "Veggies" makes you sound like some fucking sunburnt sandgroper who masturbates over a picture of Pauline Hanson. I bet you've got an underbite big enough to sit a wombat in comfortably.

R194 You are insane.

A WASP frau would not touch fried food. It is common and it is what fat poor people eat, and precisely why the poor people become fat.

I came home from school when I was in grade school and I asked my mother if I could try some fried chicken like I had seen one of my classmates had in his sack lunch that day. You would have thought I had asked for a pipe and some opium.

My mother literally went on a rant about the difference between "us" and "them" which even then I saw as classist and cold. We were living in a somewhat backwards area while my father constructed and started up a large chemical plant, and she was not about to let the locals country ways derail her predetermined rigid path for me. Soon I was off to Rosemary Hall.

Was it just Rosemary when you went or was it Choate-Rosemary?

what would you expect from people who drinks MILK with their dinner?

Just Rosemary Hall.

I'm old.

Same here, R200. As a WASP in NJ I first encountered fried chicken around the age of 10 when a friend's mother from Louisiana made some. My mom wouldn't begin to know how to make it, although we did have Shake and Bake on occasions. She loves Indian and Thai food these days. The kind of WASP bias against ethnic food pretty much died out with my grandmother's generation.

Lol r203. I feel your pain. Had some friends in college who went to Choate-Rosemary and that was in the mid-70s.

I grew up in Southern California in the 1950s and '60s, yet I never ate a taco or other Mexican food until I was in high school. My parents thought that only Mexicans ate Mexican food, and that by eating it ourselves we would be crossing the social line. And lot of other WASP parents apparently believed this too, because none of my Anglo friends ever ate it either. There was nothing mean or vicious in my parents' Mexican food boycott, it was that nice WASP families just didn't eat enchiladas or tamales. We weren't gardeners or motel maids.

But when I discovered Mexican food, it was with a vengeance. Where the fuck had they been hiding this stuff? The day I tried my first enchilada at a restaurant, I was hooked for life. To this day, my favorite food is Mexican. And if I ever have a hankering to revisit my WASPy food roots, I'll whomp up a nice plate of S.O.S. or a tuna casserole.

I'm WASP and never had either SOS or a tuna casserole. Just lots of meatloaf, hamburgers, pork chops, ham and roast chicken.

R202, good point. That was always weird to me on television. Why milk? Gross.

SOS aka Shit on a Shingle is not excusivly a WASPy food. It real roots are from the military in WW2. How do you feed thousands of men on a ship for almost nothing? Cheap canned meat, turn it into a sauce that resembles gravy, pour it over a piece of white bread. These days it can be done well and kind of comfort food with good meat, good bread and real cream sauce.

Or it can be done badly like it originally looked:

I think R210 loos delicious!

R210, is that called cream chipped beef too?

I would punch the woman who served me the shit in R209/R210's posts. That looks like cat vomit mixed with milk.

That was my mom's reaction in seeing biscuits and gravy for the first time.

New Yorker here: did any natives or visitors ever go to Swifty's? It closed just over a year ago.

They created much better versions of this era WASP food that we're all fetishizing here. And it attracted the same crowd (same owners as Mortimers - which had terrible WASP food).

I loved the place. Essentially, it was great comfort food but you also felt civilized and social at the same time. It was Quest Magazine's wet dream, basically. And if I ever had room, their desserts happened to be great - as someone who likes good, old fashioned American desserts (but homemade and good quality).

But that kind of illustrates the difference - like I said above, that kind of WASP who doesn't care about food is an endangered species. Even if they still want food of that style to feel like a throwback, they want much better versions of it. A restaurant like Mortimer's with their barely edible food could never survive today - not at those prices. Hence Swifty's - even though now closed, but it had a very good run and was always packed (the landlord fucked them, as what usually happens in these situations).

"I'm a Scot (wahey! And no, I don't give a fuck about your ancestors)."

You must be adopted, then.

I am descended from a long line of odd the boat WASPs. In the 70s and 80s my mother made some sort of meat, vegetable and starch -- potato, rice or occasionally buttered egg noodles. And a green salad with bottled dressing. Dessert on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night only. Mom's "company " meals were chicken cordon bleu, standing rib roast, Cornish game hens or lamb chops. The only time I can recall having pasta besides egg noodles was when she made Fettuccine Alfredo, following the recipe on the Ronzoni box. It gave my father a gall bladder attack so we never had it again. I remember when Hamburger Helper first came out and we begged her to try it. She did and it was awful. Even the dog wouldn't eat it. We ended up having omelets that night. Besides bottled salad dressing she made everything from scratch and is a good cook, though not very adventurous.

Funny, bottled salad dressings contain such unhealthy fake shit yet they taste better than most homemade I've tried, not just mine but other people's too. I think from so many years of eating crap my body rejects real food.

Succotash!

At my WASP New England school, we had no fried chicken, but we did have fried clams

There is a very broad definition of WASP that transcends class. There's UES, Bronxville, Rye, Fairfield Co. WASP, poor redneck Southern/Appalachian WASP, Charleston society WASP, and middle/working class WASP all over the country. Class is going to vary what WASP food means, but definitely an interesting thread!

R221 - you must feel as though Anne Tyler has mined your background for her story ideas.

r221 "Bronxville" looks so lonely without "anti-Semitic" in front of it.

Haha yes that part of my family does have its understated quirks, R222. It's hard to explain. I don't know if it is a unique Baltimore thing or if Tyler just happened to be a someone living there to capture it, but her writing about people living on the "wrong side" of a nice WASPy neighborhood is real.

I'm italian so you can imagine how i feel about WASP food. But clam chowder is heavenly, i'll give you that.

I always thought Catholics were the WASPs of Baltimore.

I grew up and still prefer most of what you call WASP food. I had no idea it was hated by so many.

I have one of my favorite WASP dinners in the oven: Roast chicken with onions, potatoes, carrots and green beans. It smells delicious!

Onions? That sounds a bit suspect.

Hahahaha r229.

WASP here--West Coast, but descended from the Puritans--and, actually, the food in my house was pretty good. WASP food is pretty simple, so quality and skill matter. My father knew how to make a great roast, which made up for the endless boiled or baked potatoes, frozen green peas and salad. My grandmother knew how to make a great pie crust. We did start branching out when I was a kid--the whole California Cuisine thing was starting--but I still appreciate and make decent WASP food. We occasionally had fried food: potatoes, oysters and chicken--but there are some long-ago southern roots in my family, so maybe there was a fried-chicken pass as a result.

I do remember thinking the food at other WASPy people's houses mostly sucked--so decent WASP food is probably more the exception than the rule, but it can be done.

--one meat, one green vegetable, one starch. Bon appetit.

Green? We had carrots every so often.

Roast chicken WASPy?

We were poor, so I grew up eating hot dogs, pork and beans, mac n cheese, lots of potatoes. I had a friend in HS whose family was upper middle class and I was shocked at the "restaurant food" they had at dinner time. Roast beef, roast pork, steak, non-canned vegetables. Their house was the first place where I ever ate a salad. Dinner at their house was AMAZING to me.

I love that kind of food. It seemed WASPy to me.

I don't understand eating foods that are so hot that they burn and all you can taste is burning heat. I like to taste the food, not a burning mouth.

Awww, that's cute r234.

Too many people conflate "white American" with " WASP." Catholics are not WASPs. Irish certainly are not. Neither are French or Scandinavians, and certainly not Slavs or Jews. Germans can be, but that is pushing it. It generally refers to Protestants of British, primarily English descent. Hillbillies in Appalachia are "Scotch-Irish" aka Ulster Scots, which is another example of how it gets murky. In general parlance it refers to descendants of early English settlers.

[quote] Yet somehow Japanese, for example, are thinner, and the food is tastier.

Japanese are not afraid of iodine and Vitamin B12 from seafood.

WASP is a class thing, that does NOT include hillbillies, nor what in New England would be called "townies".

disgusting

Waspy Easter menus please.

A hard-boiled egg with a touch of sea-salt.

You mean deviled eggs with paprika, right?

shitty food

Don't forget the meal drink of choice: water.

Plus, American WASP meals are characterized by their sparseness---like, five slices of lunch meat for a lunch for four. Diluted Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup.

I'm invited to some friends' house for Easter. The vegetable will be either, I am told, peas or succotash. Bleagh! THAT is WASP.

Give me cuisine from all corners of the Mediterranean, thank you.

R188, Arabic (N. African, Middle Eastern) and Indian (kind of like generalizing about Chinese) cuisines are incredible!

Mmmmm ..... I haven't made any Indian food in a long time. After Easter!

R68, Don't be so haughty about disliking the vast majority of the world's great cuisines, which don't eschew herbs and spices used to enhance, not "mask." (We have refrigeration now.)

My first boyfriend was from Illinois. He told me how his grandfather believed that the spice pepper "makes you mean." Fortunately, he didn't adhere to that bullshit.

R18 Yep!

R85 Please talk cuisine to me while you fuck me.

fine dining basically died during prohibition on account of the chefs leaving for greener pastures. "traditional" Waspy cuisine simply holds on to that shitty period in culinary history

R118 = Little Miss Martha Stuart

^ Stewart

My friend Bunny Bixby up in Greenwich thinks mayonaise is a spice.

R221 you forgot about these bastions of old family WASPS - Mainline Philadelphia and BOSTON!

R219 Succotash is a Narragansett word for a dish of corn and beans that was a staple of Southern New England Native American diets long before WASPs got here. But yeah, WASPs loved succotash (Bird's-Eye brand) in the 50s-70s!

Would someone link the Chicken Parmesan thread please? I searched it but nothing came up with that title. Thanks!

R245

One Christmas, my mother dished out four plates of food, washed the pots, and then we ate. She announced, "There's cookies later!"

She hates lima beans (as do I) so we never had the dreaded succotash.

BURP!!!

I think originally it was reverse snobbism (or maybe original snobbism). Didn't have to care about the car you drive or the food you eat. You had money. Or breeding. Indulgence was vulgar. You had no need of the base diversions - you had money. (Yes, your old sweater was cashmere, but it had genuine moth holes. You could afford not to care.). Saltine crackers, mayo, the sacred hamburger, the sacred hot dog. I think steak is the ne plus ultra. Casserole. Cereal. Scrambled eggs. Canned tuna. Grilled cheese. Toast. Who needs any other food?

Agreed, that's a dying breed since restaurant mania, but still.

I didn't grow up WASP, but Irish-German, and food was pretty basic in my home. My mother made the table look fabulous but the cooking was tone deaf. My dad took it over at some point and it got much better. But still. When I moved to NYC and had Jewish and Italian friends, I couldn't believe the obsession over food. The actual discussion about it. I remember my first old fashioned Italian Thanksgiving at a friend's - freaking lasagne AND London broil. How did they do it? Or the woman who cut my hair (she did really well - worked at Bumble & Bumble), conferring earnestly for a good five minutes with her assistant about what they should order for lunch. Not in any snobby way, just very earnest about the components of each choice, how much each idea made them light up, etc. (Neither was fat.)

I remember driving a Jewish guy to an Irish wake and him asking what the food situation would be when we got there. I told him there would be a dead body on display on one end of the room at at best, peppermints in a glass dish before you entered that room. But guaranteed a bar across the street if he did get hungry. I used to feel superior to people who got really excited about food and thought about what would be a good choice for dinner, but I've totally changed. I think cultures that prioritize it know what they're doing.

Lunch.

Dinner is served. Yum.

WASP Easter--ham or lamb, peas, boiled new potatoes. Strawberry shortcake if you're among WASPs who can cook. The important thing is to have a roast beast.

r260, I think you have a point. Stoicism. The lack of feeling or enjoyment that really good food can bring a person. It's easy to dismiss people who care about food......until you've experienced food that leaves your feeling nourished or really enriched, in some way. Then the blinders come off.

My mother in law's easter dinner reminded me of this thread.

R263's sumptuous Easter spread