Please write proper measurements - Page 3

Oh HELL yes! I know people who can screw up Kraft Mac 'n Cheese!!

No doubt Debi. My hubs... his family... let's just say they'd be in trouble if they were asked to cook their way out of damp tissue paper, let alone a paper bag!

But you know, this brings us around to something I've been pondering for a long time... obviously food is so subjective, whether something is *good* or not is all about the person eating it (to an extent). So, I have to guess that my inlaws feel that they are good cooks, KWIM? They are used to the way they cook, they cook for how they like to eat, etc. It's not their fault that I'm such a friggin' gourmet snob. And maybe they don't actually like my cooking! Maybe I use too many herbs, garlic, seasoning, FLAVOR for them. Maybe they actually LIKE bland. (That's the only thing I can figure...)

And maybe, maybe they don't realize their cooking is not very good. My SIL says that my lasagne is not 'real' lasagne when I use cottage cheese instead of ricotta. Any living human that has tasted my 'fake' lasagne has wanted to eat until their stomach exploded, then clean it up and eat some more! She made her 'real' lasagne on Saturday and had us over... worst dry, grainy lasagne ever. I'm sure she thought it was amazing because it had ricotta in it. I couldn't even eat it. It was B...A...D...! But, I bet in her mind she really thought she showed me what real lasagne is. And maybe in reality I'M actually the bad cook. Even though people actually pay me for my food. Yah, ok, I'm guessing I'd be out of business if I were a bad cook.

Can someone shut this broad up? Hehehehe.

Melvira, yours is a post that can be applied to the great mix vs scratch debate, too. It's not that mix or scratch is better ... it's the talent of the cook. It's not that mix or scratch is better ..... it depends on what the person grew up on and what they like, or maybe even that they've never been exposed to one or the other.

I worked with one lady who figured the "just add water" pancake mix wouldn't taste as good as the one where you add the egg, oil, etc. She tried it and was amazed that she couldn't tell a difference.

I know others who have never had made from scratch food and they are amazed at how much they like it.

They'd never been exposed to the "other kind" before on either side of the argument.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEBI

That can actually be confusing for Americans now, too, as I keep seeing new butters in the grocery store - half sticks (what the ???), more and more European butters are coming in and a few are slightly off weight than our traditional 1/4 lb. sticks we're used to so that old "one stick of butter" in a recipe isn't gonna cut it anymore.

Absolutely Debi! And I have to say... with me there is NEVER a 'just add water'. Not because I don't believe in them, but because I have to add seven things to it to put my stamp on it and make it this fantastic scratch tasting *thing*. And trust me, it works. People can't tell it ever started as a mix. And on the opposite side... I will make something from scratch that seemingly could've been accomplished with a box of Hamburger Helper, but you'd better believe it's twenty times better! My 4.5 year old is so cute when he asks me to make him "Home made Chuck E Cheese"! Over-the-top adorable. But he's a junior gourmet. He can tell when it's mommy's scratch or doctored cooking.

I have my great grandmother's cookbook and it's really a trip going through it when you see ingredients like: half an eggshell of Milnot (not sure that's still around) or a good heavy hand of flour. She was a phenomenal cook and baker (oh, Lord, the pies!!!) but I'll never for the life of me figure out some of her recipes. Sure makes for some fun and memorable reading tho!

Thank you for this post as a great deal is "lost in translation' from one country to the next. I transplanted here 18 yrs ago & still come across things I don't know how to interpret. In general the US uses alot of prepared/packaged foods in comparison to other parts of the world.

Lomfise,

For condensed milk, try stores that sell Asian and/or Middle Eastern foods. There is an American store in central Malmö called Gray's (about a 20 minute walk from the central station right up the pedestrian street). They also sell canned pumpkin there.

As far as coffee creamers, jello, instant pudding and all that crap, why would you even want to put that in a cake? There are plenty of delicious cake recipes with real ingredients!

lomfise, do you know how jealous I am that you could just pop over to Copenhagen for shopping? I'd trade that over instant pudding any day.

As for e-numbers, I bet must Americans don't even know what that means! It seems so many Americans are so used to the artifical flavors and colors that they don't like the real stuff when they get it.

That being said, I don't want the government monitoring what I can and cannot eat that closely. If someone wants to eat stuff that's bad for them, that's their own business.

A British friend asked me what the expiration date is on my ketchup, and I said I had no idea, I never check the expiration date. She was horrified!! What a light bulb moment for me! As soon as I got home, I checked and it was for a year! Their ketchup expires in weeks.

This will not change unless the American public starts demanding fresher products. But the bottom line is money, are Americans willing to accept smaller amounts instead of super size gallon jugs of money savers that will last months or years on the shelf? Will we say NO to genetically modified foods, just because it grows in larger quantities? Injected hormones in cows? Hormones in the milk we drink?

Since living overseas for the past 13 years, I have realized how much we are persuaded into buying more than necessary by the American food corporations, our shopping carts get larger and larger because our food lasts forever on the shelf, we can get away with buying such quantities. Our refrigerators are also getting bigger to hold all of that food. In Japan, their shopping carts are hand baskets. They have a frame with wheels and you place your shopping cart onto the push frame and there is your grocery basket. (This is actually how ours started out in the 50's until a grocer realized his patrons would buy more if they had a larger basket and invented the grocery cart with wheels.) Japanese buy in very small quantities and put it in their very small refrigerators. Here in England, their refrigerators are a more reasonable size that works for their lifestyle of shopping for fresh serveral times a week. In Germany, they have meat markets, fruit market, and bakeries, where most shop as the British do several times a week or daily for bread. I have never ate so well as I have overseas. I do like their way of life. I have had the pleasure of going into European bakeries and will never forget the smell of that lovely fresh artisan style bread.

Just my personal observations...

Edited for spelling...

Here in England, pudding is a dessert molded of sponge or bread or which can also be savory, so it's not necessarily "dessert", it just depends on how they use the word. What we call pudding, they call custard. They do sell sachets of custard as well as pre-made custards at Asda (Walmart) here in the UK. I have seen many American products on the shelves here in the UK as well as in Japan. They have Betty Crocker at Sainsbury's, a grocery store chain here. I will have to look specifically for the jello gelatin, but I think I have seen it as well.

They do not carry canned solid packed pumpkin in grocery stores here. But do have a good variety of canned vegetables and beans. It is a special order item and there are American companies online that sell American items to cater to Americans that live here, but can't shop on military bases. They do sell a variety of whole baking pumpkins all over my village during the season. I live in a farming community, so I can stop anywhere in the village and pick up fresh from the farm produce or free range eggs at their driveway and leave the money in a box or tin! I have brought pumpkin muffins or cupcakes to my friends in my sugar paste class and they loved them. They just said they don't bother with pumpkins because of the process, but would use it more often if they had the pumpkin in a can. Interestingly enough, the solid packed pumpkin was disappearing off the shelf in September and I was having a very hard time getting it at the commissary for months!

For my little grocery store in the village, I have been so impressed with it! I can get sushi! They have an amazing variety of world foods in that small store. I am just amazed by it. They even have a Mexican food section! It's all the Old El Paso line. Oh and they even carry Dr. Pepper! The world food market is getting more global and is evident in this small village grocery store.