Can anyone in America confirm?

That or 3 sticks of butter

That and 3 sticks of butter
- And/or a pint of heavy cream.
  Although, there is absolutely amazing indulgent food in Los Angeles. There is great healthy food but it isn't all Erwhon smoothies.
- Gotta balance that out with more salt and sugar.
This one is correct.

Yes about the Midwest.

LA on the other end has an insane variety of foods, so while they have organic, vegan restaurants where everything is super healthy, they also have southern BBQ foods, steak houses, Asian foods, Italian foods, etc.

I think there's a heavier focus on organic, vegan restaurants up in the San Francisco area.

LA on the other end has an insane variety of food
This is any city, really... At least on the east and west coasts. And Chicago.
Honestly all the cali cities have pretty diverse food options, it's just that the cities are known for certain foods. If you want a specific cuisine, chances are there's still a restaurant nearby for that, granted you live in the big cali cities.
LA imo is known for korean food in ktown and street tacos but also has a lot of organics and vegan options. There's also sawtelle and little tokyo with lots of Japanese food options. There's even a decent strip of greek, persian, turkish food options.
Irvine (and Westminster) is known for mostly viet food imo
SD has a lot of coastal dining and surf n turf options
SJ is also known for viet food and mexican food but also has a sizable portion of cantonese banquet style restaurants and japanese izakayas
SF has a lot of chinese food (cantonese, taiwanese, mainland) due to the chinatown and also lots of fishery based restaurants near the ports. Japantown there is also pretty sizable and includes a variety of japanese foods.
- A lot of the old grotto seafood shops closed up in San Fran.
- Well said. Does SJ stand for San Jose?

I don't see anything about cream of mushroom soup.

oh god the cans of cream of mushroom soup and if thats not enough to bake the cube steak in, have a pack of the instant mushroom soup powder for good measure
- Don't forget the powdered french onion soup.

French cooking: add wine, cream, and butter.

And you'd better spend half a day stirring those onions on a level of heat you'd get from a cigarette lighter
- Slow cooker. 👈🏼
Universal recipe for any regional specialty
Ingredients
‑ local meat (TN: actually a slang word for meat, I don’t know the equivalent in English)
‑ local fat
‑ local booze
‑ onions
Preparation
① Sauté the meat and the onions in the fat.
② Cover with booze.
③ Let simmer for ages.
④ Serve. Grandma’s tip: it’s better the day after.
Comic by M. la Mine — reposted here
- One of the most important influences on my life and cooking was a wonderful French woman who married a Brit and settled here. Quite apart from her tendency to ask my friends and I "how many are we for lunch" and cope with any number from 3 to 30, her approach to cooking was legendary and usually involved meat, butter, wine, and cream. That said, she did once try deep fried, leftover, spaghetti and that did not work at all!

I grew up in the midwest. We survived on processed ingredients. I now live in the Bay Area.

I tell my partner that I need the shitty Kraft cheese for my grilled cheese sandwich, not the cheeses from Whole Foods or Trader Joes, because that's what I had growing up. I need the shitty ingredients for certain specific foods because I want that taste. It's not a lot of meals, but a handful must match my childhood.

the microplastics give it that crunchyness
Im not a cheese eater but I was under the impression that American cheese made a better grilled cheese because of the way it melts.
- The cheese melts faster. But I've def had better grilled cheese with, like, provolone.
  I think there is such a thing as fancy American cheese that actually tastes good, but I've never seen it or tasted it.
- That's actually correct, and a lot of people like to give American cheese grief because it comes individually sliced and packaged in plastic, but in reality it's just cheddar that has been reconstituted with extra milk. It can still be very high quality, with a uniquely creamy texture that is unmatched for a hot ham and cheese, or melting onto a burger.
- Its a different dish. American cheese is very melty but unless you go for some specialty shit or do some kitchen chemistry, its a very uncomplex cheese. It'll taste like a blend of mild cheeses, predominantly unaged cheddar. That's sometimes good, but one of cheese's best features as a food is that it's got a wide range of deeper flavors available. For the cozy familiar dish you go with the cozy familiar version. But those of us who love the depths of cheese and don't have that craving, we often prefer more fancy cheese blends
- that is true. normal sliced american cheese melts better than cheddar or other real cheese.
  the cheap individually-wrapped 'singles' melt even easier.. like velveeta does.
Kraft Singles are not cheese... Like literally, read the label, they're not legally allowed to call it "cheese."
It's a shame because there are decent American cheeses, yet people equate "American cheese" with disgusting Kraft Singles.
- "pasteurized cheese product" 🤢
The Boar’s Head yellow American cheese is a great melter and actually has some cheese flavor compared to Kraft singles.
- Honestly just better off getting a block of muenster
- Cooper Sharp American cheese is where it's at. If you know, you know.

When mom cooked breakfast, she'd collect bacon grease (as, like, supplemental butter) and add that to subsequent meals. AFAIK, it still happens, but is probably less common.

I can assure you that this is not uncommon at all xD
Cooking for two people, I do half a pound of thick cut bacon, and when it's done and the bacon off to the side, put in 6 eggs scrambled up right into the grease. I've found this is the perfect ratio of bacon grease to eggs.
- Breakfast?
I know it's bad for me, so I use it very sparingly, but I have a jar of bacon grease that gets used every so often. I'll be honest, I don't know anyone outside my family that still does it.
I'm also from bumfuck nowhere, so that could be an influencing factor on why I am the way I am.
- I don’t use it sparingly and I also have a jar of bacon grease.
  The day I learned to put a coffee filter or paper towel in the jar under the lid ring to filter the hot oil? Game changer.
  My grocery store carries “bulk bacon” which is packs of low quality fatty bacon that’s great for cooking. I buy that sometimes and the grease off a pound fills a pint jar about halfway, sometimes more.
- Isn't that basically lard and can't you just buy the lard in a jar or can?
- Good news, it's not bad for you at all compared to industrially refined oils. Enjoy your bacon grease!
I have a special container to keep bacon grease in. But I'd only use it to fry in.
- I do this! I use it in my cast iron before cooking most things I was using butter for. I mean, the grease comes free with the bacon, it would be a shame to waste it
Bacon grease has a higher smoke point, a longer shelf life, and makes veggies taste amazing. It's also high in saturated fat and sodium, but ya don't need much of it - often just a knife tip's worth. The only time we buy bacon is when we run out of bacon grease for cooking, maybe 3 times a year.
You don't have a coffee can full of bacon grease on your counter?
My grandma did this and it made pancakes AMAZING!

eh, pretty much. You should try beer cheese soup. Bet you'd never guess what the two main ingredients are.

I'd guess the main ingredient is soup. No clue what the other one could be 🫤
- They’re both soup though
When it's done well, beer cheese soup is heaven.
There's some bad stuff out there, though. I mean bad. Kwik Trip has some OK soup and some bad soup, and their beer cheese was at the bad end. I just couldn't and tossed most of it down the drain.
Soup?
Beer cheese is best served akin to a fondue, with salted soft pretzel rods to act as a vehicle to move deliciousness to the mouth.
- My wife makes an amazing Beer Cheese soup that's got sliced potatoes, chopped up bacon, slices of carrots and a couple of chopped up jalapenos and multiple blocks of high quality cheese (usually includes at least a half pound of various aged cheeses for added flavor) and a bottle or two of Spotted Cow. It's absolutely amazing and especially as the veggies soak up the flavor of the beer, jalapenos and cheese, making for an extremely rich and hearty meal with leftovers for days. And the leftover soup is always better than fresh because everything's soaked in even more flavor through being refrigerated and reheated

Cream cheese is universally beloved, even by those with lactose intolerance

I greatly dislike cream cheese
- I an horribly wrong then, I take it back and I wish to go back to when I was a baby so that I can avoid ever having made this foolish assertion.
It's the thing I miss most
It's also the thing my body hates the most

At the Minnesota State Faire last year, I had deep fried cheesecake batter. Yes, this is correct.

chocolate covered frozen cheesecake is way better. but i got banned from the state fair for complaining about the awful heat so i dont go there anymore
- Personally I don't like the frozen cheesecake on a stick because for me the best part of cheesecake is the cheesecake texture
Was it glorious?
- I don't think I'd have it again, tbh. The texture of the batter isn't for me.
  It's gluttonous as hell, though, and for state faire food, that's all that matters.
I just got a bbq pork chop on a stick and saw some local band called Slipknot when I went to the Iowa State Fair
Eh, I'd eat it. Cheesecake slaps.
You have to have spam curds to go along with it to round out the meal, and wash it all down with a pint of dill pickle or mini donut beer.

The bit about the food in LA being delicious might not be true but the second half is 100% true.

If it's in the South you have to deep-fry it as well.

Depends. It's either a pound of cream cheese or a pound of HFCS. Bonus points for adding both to a dish.

Who is using Hydrofluorocarbons in their cooking? That's probably a bad idea. Heat plus HFCs is how you wind up inhaling hydrofluoric acid.
- High Fructose Corn Syrup
- You aint from Michigan if you neva done this
Do people for reals buy HFCS for home baking? Like you can just go buy a jug at the grocery store? I've seen it in ingredients lists of packaged foods, but I've never seen the stuff itself IRL. (Gonna assume it looks roughly like syrup. Corn syrup maybe.)
- It is corn syrup. And people buy it for cooking, not just companies. Think cookies and home-made candies.

Can't speak to LA, but nah. Cream cheese is the East coast trick. The Midwestern secret is "cream of [ ]" soup. Cream of mushroom is my go to, but when I ate chicken I used Cream of it a lot too. It's useful in casserole/hotdish where a roux would be great but a real pain in the ass.

Is that Los Angeles, Latin America, or Louisiana?

Context clues tell us it's Los Angeles. I'm sure there's plenty of people who eschew sugar and additives everywhere but in LA there's the whole industry of people who have to run around weighing 15 pounds less than skinny but still appear attractive and healthy and smiley or they won't get work.
(Whereas in the Midwest, cream cheese and butter are needed daily, 10 months of the year, to prevent one from freezing solid.)
- The difference between the Midwest and LA is also how fresh the produce is. Most of the produce in the US comes from California so it would make sense that the biggest metro areas closest to the fresh veg and fruit would focus on eating healthy and nutritious foods. The Midwest is the home to some incredible cheese and ice creams, likely much more dairy as a whole. The amount of cow in Midwestern meals is what one would expect the same way proximity to the produce influences CA cuisine.
Clearly it's Latvia.
It ain't Louisiana. Nary one of them is how they cook down there.
- La: so you gotta keep cookin that roux…

and only two bucks a pound at kwik trip right now, too

I made your favorite! Deep-fried bacon-wrapped pumpkins stuffed with chive butter in a 5 gallon painters bucket of fondue.

Pumpkins? Gross, that's a vegetable

Me who just made buffalo chicken an hour ago in Illinois

https://www.budgetbytes.com/buffalo-chicken-pasta/

Recipes in the south: The secret ingredient is more butter.

That's the secret in lot of really nice restaurants as well. When in doubt, add more butter.

chinese cooking: the secret is a kilogram of sugar

Don't forget the MSG.
- that's not a secret, that's just a given. It's like salting your food.
- THE FLAVA ENHANCA!
- MSG is in like everything though, not just Chinese food.
- @Hideakikarate @Swedneck I came here to say this.
East Asian cuisine doesn't use sugar. The secret to Chinese cooking is lard, soy sauce, and high heat.
- uhhh maybe they didn't in the past but they definitely do these days, you get sauce sticky with sugar and starch slurry.

... And deep fry it

8 posts in 8 different communities in 12 minutes

Impressive

Why thank you. I do it every morning, providing content to my fellow lemmers
- We appreciate your service

can confirm. american midwest is stuck in this gross perverse 1970s style of cooking. think tuna casseroles, sour cream beef strog, and cheese broccoli

Hey now, the Midwest is at least past the jello craze of the 70s (seriously go look up some cookbooks from that era. So. Much. Jello.)
- I mean, with advertising like this, who can say it's wrong?

Sounds about right.

Sounds accurate to me.

does LA even have an original dish? afaik its only good because it hosts a lot of asian/latin food.

SoCal Mexican food is alright. I'd probably think it was more than alright, but I grew up on TexMex and it's just a bit different

From the US of A and I can tell you the Midwest is a fairy tale. It doesn't exist, it isn't real. People who think they're in the midwest are not, people who are don't think they are.

You might find multiple award winning shortbread-sugar-cookie crusted apple pie recipes in the coal/bible belts, you might find world class sashimi in LA, and you might find amazing tacos for different strokes throughout, but otherwise I really don't think you can generalize the food in such a wide and diverse nation.

For something really similar to the example you could take Banana Bread, which is cherished throughout the USA, and the secret to making it perfect and delicious is this: 1. do not use milk and vegetable oil, instead use sourcream and butter. 2. coat the pan in coconut oil or lard for a soft texture. 3. you can cook at 350 or reduce the temperature as low as 270 as long as you cook it until absolutely no batter sticks to the fork or toothpick when you poke it in the center and let cool slowly for a long time.

Where are these steps followed correctly? People with either experience or wealth, as in literally anywhere.

Agreed on the Midwest. I refuse to ever go to LA so I'm just gonna say you're 100% objectively correct that their food sucks with all the confidence of a Chicago native, because our food is better than everyone else's.

Best taco truck I've ever had was in LA.
- Best taco truck I ever had was Korean cheesesteak fusion.
  I haven't found good food trucks in my new town (I've gone mostly vegetarian and this isn't a very friendly city for that), its disappointing.
  Part of me want to be the change I wanna see in the world and partner with a local vegan place to do street tacos or something
- You should come down to Mexico. We don't do taco trucks, but there's a taco stand at every corner serving you the best tacos of your life after a night out drinking at 3 am.
What's wrong with LA?
- LA native here, I've also traveled a lot, including to Chicago.
  If we're talking about food, then I think there are two or three legitimate complaints about LA.
  LA is huge and spread out. If you want to get the "best" of whatever genre of food I guarantee we have it. But throw in geography and traffic and you're talking about driving an hour or more to get it. This is fun once in awhile, but it gets tiresome. Chicago and NYC definitely have a leg up on us for accessibility, mostly due to density.
  High end fine dining is a weak spot for us. We've recently started climbing up the Michelin list, but NYC and Chicago also have us beat in this category. Conversely, how often do you want to drop $500 on a meal? Michelin stars are great, but that's not how most of us eat when we go out, so they're sort of overrated.
  We don't do cheese like the Midwest, I'm convinced no one does. Do not order curds or poutine here, you're going to be disappointed.
  IMO we excel in the $ to $$ price range. Food trucks and random planchas on the street will turn out food that blows your mind, and they're literally everywhere. We also do well in the organic/healthy and locally grown categories.

Move a little to the southeast and its just lard added for flavor.

Confirmed

Yes, LA food is awful.

Strongly disagree.
You mean to tell me you don't like kbbq and tacos :(
- I guess I'm used to Texas where our tacos have seasoning.