"Old fashioned" Foods You Admit you Like

I guarantee you that nothing like Volt existed thirty years ago. We had a group at the lab where I worked that went out to lunch every Wednesday, trying different restaurants. Not that the selection was huge. Mr. Nutrax was living in Wash. DC at the time, so we also explored places in nearby towns.

A lot of "cuisine" was still influenced by the fact that the original settlers were German, plus there was a later influx of Pennsylvania Dutch. It was very common for dinner to be preceded by an appetizer that consisted of a trio of bowls filled with cottage cheese, apple butter, and three bean salad.

There was a Vietnamese refugee family who had been resettled there and given a grant to open, of all things, a Mexican restaurant. They did a pretty good job. There was a crummy Chinese place (we took a high school student intern there once--he was from a small MD town and had never eaten Chinese food, not even canned chow mein. He ordered fried chicken.) A lot of Southern fried stuff. (I had never thought of MD as a Southern state.)

And don't get me started on the quality produce, or, rather, lack thereof.

Geez nutrax, Frederick is practically the Mid-West!

As Vinny was kind of pointing out, Frederick used to be a culinary wasteland, but not so much anymore. Several upscale places have opened that are supposed to be very good (not exactly my local dining area so I haven't tried any).

There's just gotta be something better than just good about steak tartar.
Is it really an 'Olde fashioned' food though?

#91--

All of Maryland was thought of as the South until perhaps the Second World War. Then it started migrating North. Today perhaps only the furthest reaches of southern Maryland (downstream from Washington) and the Eastern Shore would be thought of as in the south. Maybe also the far west, if West Virginia is in the south.

All of it is south of the Mason-Dixon Line, obvballs.

On a distantly related note, I had Dungeness crab a couple of times recently. Do they have some flavor sometimes, or are the ones I had typical?

All of it is south of the Mason-Dixon Line, obvballs</i>

Is ovballs an English word?

If it was "recently" as in "any time since the end of May" then you got previously frozen crab. In fact, if you ate it any time after the end of February, you got inferior stuff.

Crab season runs roughly mid-November to the end of June. (Opening may be delayed if the crabs aren't mature enough.) However, 80% of the catch is made before the end of December. That's when the crabs are at their best--biggest, heaviest & sweetest-tasting. They area traditional Christmas Eve dish in many homes, including mine. By February or so, quality greatly diminishes.

Is ovballs an English word?

"Ovballs" is YC-speak.

Ah, they should have told me that on the menus. It's still crab season here and I didn't think they might not be fresh.

Have you ever used them, Kerouac? Has anyone you know?

Does anybody still use any of those nauseating recipes that call for miniature marshmallows?

I've never tasted any of those dishes made with miniature marshmallows, but I use those marshmallows in cocoa.

Marshmallows seem to be an ingredient in much haute cuisine here in the United States. Here, William Bolcom accompanies his wife as she sings about one of her creations: Joan Morris.