superpeeve Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.

[Persephone Emerald]

Another good Renaissance tip for veggies is to use equal parts powdered ginger and cardimon on parsnips or carrots, then add butter. Sugar and/or fat are the secret ingredients to make most foods taste good, but carrots and parsnips are sweet enough on their own. 

Edited December 23, 2023 by Persephone Emerald

[Love Zhaoying]

10 minutes ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

Peeve: Eels.

TIL: The Indian Jones "Temple of Doom" banquet scene was snakes, not eels.  However, "Dial of Destiny" had an Eels scene.

And then there is Princess Bride:

 

[Love Zhaoying]

26 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

28 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

savory yogurt flavors

Isn't that essentially what raita and tzatziki are?

Peeve: Now I want some Lassi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lassi

[LittleMe Jewell]

Today's peeve:  TMJ pain

[Persephone Emerald]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

Peeve: Now I want some Lassi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lassi

There is even vegan Lassi make with almond milk. A bought a mango one at Grocery Outlet, though I prefer real milk yogurt products.

[Love Zhaoying]

9 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

There is even vegan Lassi make with almond milk. A bought a mango one at Grocery Outlet, though I prefer real milk yogurt products.

I just made some with lemon yogurt (sugar free), milk, and spices. I am refreshed and less Peeved thereby.

 

[Rowan Amore]

42 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I haven't seen savory cheesecake (which is actually pie), but I'd love to try that. I also think people should start making savory yogurt flavors.

Think cheeseball only so much better.   The ones my husband makes usually start with a ritz cracker-type crust.  He's done blue cheese as well as swiss cheese ones each one adding assorted other savory ingredients.  Mushrooms, bacon, olives, pretty much anything you like.

He did learn that when taking it to a family gathering to always mark it as NOT SWEET CHEESECAKE and advises to take a small sliver as it's extremely rich.

Hmm, I better catch him before he heads to the grocery store!

[Love Zhaoying]

30 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Think cheeseball only so much better.   The ones my husband makes usually start with a ritz cracker-type crust.  He's done blue cheese as well as swiss cheese ones each one adding assorted other savory ingredients.  Mushrooms, bacon, olives, pretty much anything you like.

He did learn that when taking it to a family gathering to always mark it as NOT SWEET CHEESECAKE and advises to take a small sliver as it's extremely rich.

Hmm, I better catch him before he heads to the grocery store!

Peeve: Perhaps a baked brie..(Brie baked in puff pastry, with added ingredients)

The peeve is, I should make a baked brie.  

[Ceka Cianci]

1 hour ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I haven't seen savory cheesecake (which is actually pie), but I'd love to try that. I also think people should start making savory yogurt flavors.

Speaking of yogurt..

I'm hooked on Oikos triple Zero Vanilla Greek yogurt.. Omg it's like really good sex in a cup.. hehehe

Edited December 23, 2023 by Ceka Cianci

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

Speaking of yogurt..

I'm hooked on Oikos triple Zero Vanilla Greek yogurt.. Omg it's like really good sex in a cup.. hehehe

Yep! I've been getting that brand too. 

[Ceka Cianci]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

Yep! I've been getting that brand too. 

The vanilla I have to eat it with the spoon upside down so it ends up on the tip of my tongue.. It's just like a blast of flavor that is so addictive..

I kind of have to make sure I'm not eating it around other people too.. Because it's the only way I can really enjoy it, because I'm sure I'm making all kinds of noises when I'm eating it.. lol

[Rowan Amore]

19 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Peeve: Perhaps a baked brie..(Brie baked in puff pastry, with added ingredients)

The peeve is, I should make a baked brie.  

He makes that too with apricot preserves.  

[Ceka Cianci]

I make these really big tortilla pies that my boys really like..

I'll make three big batches of tortilla dough, let those rise and then roll them out and put just about anything in them that might be from leftovers..

Like from a thick stew  or some dish that I made, then mix that up with some mashed potatoes.. Then fill the center of the dough with that.. Then close the dough over the top of it all and pinch where it's tight.. Then just treat it like I am rolling and flipping tortillas until they are each about the size of a 10" frying pan.. Then just cook them each until the dough starts to bubble really well.. keep flipping until golden brown..

Then I just cut them each up like I was cutting up a pie and set them on the table..

Most times there won't be anything left before everyone goes to bed, because they will keep getting in there grabbing more..

I make pretty good tortillas too, so I think that helps..

They call it potato pie.. I just call it Leftovers..

hehehe

Edited December 23, 2023 by Ceka Cianci

[Love Zhaoying]

Pie Peeve: Anecdotally, one of my grandmothers used to say, "I'm so T-I-R-D, I've been making P-I-S all day."

 

[Orwar]

4 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

When people didn't eat meat on Friday in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, they invented good vegan and vegetarian alternatives, such as almond milk.

   My favourite recipe for medieval meat-free Church days was how Henry VIII's cooks minced fish (which was allowed) that was shaped to look like chicken drumsticks (which wasn't), and T-bone steaks shaped out of coloured sugar. This was before he chucked out the Catholic church from England.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

7 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

When people didn't eat meat on Friday in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, they invented good vegan and vegetarian alternatives, such as almond milk.

Vegan wasn't really a thing in that era, and what people ate on 'meatless' days was often FISH, and dairy products. Stuff like Almond milk was EXPENSIVE, only the rich could afford to use it, fad diet stuff.

Most vegans would have died, of malnutrition and /or starvation, there were NO refrigerated Boeing cargo planes shipping in fresh salad from the other side of the world. You slaughtered most of your livestock in Blood month and turned them into preserved foods like, sausages, salami, Parma ham, pate, black pudding, you turned eggs and flour into "paste" as a cheap alternative to pottery, and cooked fatty salty meat in paste shalls, so the clear jellied fat acted as a preservative., you made jams and pickles.

A common ingredient was "stock fish", dried salted fish, similar to the stuff used today in Jamaican cooking. Fishermen from Bristol were catching cod off the Grand Banks, more than a decade before Columbus, and packing it in barrels of salt to ship back to England.

 

Vegans in winter in Mediaeval Europe = Dead men walking.

 

 

[Zalificent Corvinus]

3 hours ago, Orwar said:

   My favourite recipe for medieval meat-free Church days was how Henry VIII's cooks minced fish (which was allowed) that was shaped to look like chicken drumsticks (which wasn't), and T-bone steaks shaped out of coloured sugar. This was before he chucked out the Catholic church from England.

They were often referred to as "subtleties" and were very popular even on Meat days as entertainments between the real courses at banquets.

There was much use of sugar icing, "marchpane" ( marzipan ), and lots of spices. Castles built of marzipan and sugar icing with hard rock candy stained glass windows, with a candle in side for illumination, tiny cannon that actually fired pinches of gunpowder etc, fish courses made of sweet puddings, meat courses made of fish, etc.

Bland tasteless food was mainly reserved for the sick since it was thought to be better for them, hence "Blank Mange" White food.

 

[Marigold Devin]

30 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

They were often referred to as "subtleties" and were very popular even on Meat days as entertainments between the real courses at banquets.

There was much use of sugar icing, "marchpane" ( marzipan ), and lots of spices. Castles built of marzipan and sugar icing with hard rock candy stained glass windows, with a candle in side for illumination, tiny cannon that actually fired pinches of gunpowder etc, fish courses made of sweet puddings, meat courses made of fish, etc.

Bland tasteless food was mainly reserved for the sick since it was thought to be better for them, hence "Blank Mange" White food.

 

I never heard that blancmange was for the sick. I've always only known it as a rather nice sweet dessert that resembled coloured and flavoured custard. We had cooks in the staff canteen of my first workplace (1979) who were "adventurous" in that they would attempt to oomph up these basic desserts. Unfortunately they often failed. What they called coffee bake (which I presume was meant to be a kind of coffee flavoured meringue) we younger staff nicknamed crispy topped diarrhoea as it was always runny and brown in the middle (*shudders*), and what was meant to be strawberry blancmange with melba sauce looked pretty nasty too and we called it open heart surgery. 

When I am poorly I tend to go for comfort food which is most definitely bland; chicken soup, mashed potato, rice pudding, semolina pudding. 

I hope I dream about living in a castle built of marzipan. That would be rather lovely. 

Peeve: that I have no marzipan in the house and now I am craving it.

Edited December 24, 2023 by Marigold Devin

[Persephone Emerald]

55 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Vegan wasn't really a thing in that era, and what people ate on 'meatless' days was often FISH, and dairy products. Stuff like Almond milk was EXPENSIVE, only the rich could afford to use it, fad diet stuff.

Most vegans would have died, of malnutrition and /or starvation, there were NO refrigerated Boeing cargo planes shipping in fresh salad from the other side of the world. You slaughtered most of your livestock in Blood month and turned them into preserved foods like, sausages, salami, Parma ham, pate, black pudding, you turned eggs and flour into "paste" as a cheap alternative to pottery, and cooked fatty salty meat in paste shalls, so the clear jellied fat acted as a preservative., you made jams and pickles.

[snip]

There were many fasting days, which were days without red meat or foul. Fish and milk products were generally fine to eat on these days. Fish was hard to keep though, so most people didn't have access to it unless it was salted and dried. The main diet of peasants was veggies, beans (especially peas), bread, cheese, grain porridge, eggs, some chicken, rabbit, pork, sheep or goat meat. Beef and venison were mostly for the rich. Peas porridge was a common staple, basically what we call mushy peas or split pea soup now, so it could have a bit of meat in it for flavor.

Edited December 24, 2023 by Persephone Emerald
added rabbit

[Krystina Ferraris]

Almonds were expensive and only grown in sunny climates. Like grains, nuts were also hard to preserve and often would grow moulds and ergot, hence many medieval stories of “possessions” (unfortunately usually women were the victims, men also were affected by the same toxins but they just had the crazies instead 🤦).

If you were a peasant in central or Northern Europe I’d bet you’d have very little bread, as we intend it. It was probably rye bread if you were fortunate enough to get your hands on some flour.

There were many weird medieval burials discovered in central/eastern Europe, a couple even in Venice, of women buried with a brick or other stuff in their mouths. The so called “vampire burials” or nachzeher where the corpse decays and it appears to chew through the shroud.
The remains were examined to understand the cause of death and their lifestyle and this gave valuable insights on the diet of these unfortunate souls. The bricks in the mouth were indeed to prevent “biting” but the poor souls weren’t vampires (sorry @Orwar 😜) just died of the plague or other diseases.

Turns out the diet of these medieval/renaissance peasants was mostly vegetarian. Even vegan if you want to call it that way, in the sense that they had little to no meat of any kind or animal products like milk or cheese.

Their sustenance was mostly boiled root vegetables, oats or rye, legumes and fruit (very little). For those close to water some fish like carp or similar (yuck).
Little to no salt or spices.
So this diet combined with dirty water and poor sanitation led to various pathologies like scurvy, scabies, ergot or other toxins poisoning, trachoma, typhoid, dysentery etc 

All in all a very bleak existence 😞

Edited December 24, 2023 by Krystina Ferraris

[sirhc DeSantis]

Yule food pet peeve. In thirty years and two continents I still can't find a decent beef suet.  Not that I ever would have it in the house but I always whinge when making mince pies - even when I am doing the vegan thing. Its the principle of the thing, dagnabbit.

[Orwar]

11 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Fish was hard to keep though

   Err, no. Stockfish was one of Scandinavia's main exports throughout the middle-ages, and it can last for years. Fish can also be made to last for a very long time via salting, smoking, graving, or pickling (we've got herring jars in the cellar that are around 10 years old and still fine to eat, just the other week I ate herrings from a jar that we made in 2015 - no modern, synthetic preservatives involved). Besides, a fair amount of fish during the medieval period was sold alive in barrels and slaughtered when they were to be cooked, especially to supply castles and monasteries that were further inland. 

[Rowan Amore]

Hasn't fermented fish been around for a couple thousand years?  Not that I'd eat it but someone must.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Rowan Amore said:

Hasn't fermented fish been around for a couple thousand years?  Not that I'd eat it but someone must.

I like its pre-historical depiction in the novel, "West of Eden". The effect of the fermented fish on people was adorable.

Peeve: As a vegetarian, I don't miss fermented fish except in things like "fish sauce".

[Rowan Amore]

11 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I like its pre-historical depiction in the novel, "West of Eden". The effect of the fermented fish on people was adorable.

Peeve: As a vegetarian, I don't miss fermented fish except in things like "fish sauce".

I just remember watching Bizarre Foods and them eating it.  I did find this so it's much older than I'd thought.  

Fermented fish is a traditional staple in European cuisines. The oldest archeological findings of fish fermentation are 9,200 years old and originate from the south of today's Sweden.

Wonder if @Orwarhas any 9000 year old fish in the cellar?