Someone hadda start a new string, so I took it upon myself! There was too much 'clicking' involved to get to the latest post on "Oddities". Wow, I AM lazy[:-)]
Have we ever had the 'gravy or sauce' discussion here?
Having been married to a woman of Sicilian heritage, I now know that what you put on pasta is gravy!
Thank God you reset the clicks Geezer. I hate un-needed clicks!!!
I have Zero, Zippo, Zilch, Nada, no Italian heredity, so it was always "sauce" while growing up. Heck, it even said "sauce" on the can and my mother made it every single Wednesday, just like Anthony's mom did in the North End.
Then... there was the young lady I met at work who's ancestors went back to Florence. I think Florence is where they make blonde Italians because she sure was one. Oh, and from that point on.... it was Gravy for me.
By the way, did you ever notice how much better the gravy tastes the next day?
It was indeed 'sauce' for me also when I was growing up, and of course every Wednesday. Haven't thought of that for ages. Wonder where that "tradition" came from? (Was it 'franks and beans' for you on Saturday night?)
And although the gravy was always delicious, specially after smelling it 'cooking' for hours, it was indeed even better the next day ('course I'm a leftover lover anyway, while strangely my late mother-in-law and wife were not, so I got 'em all! No complaints there.)
PS Still like my salad at the beginning of the meal though
Here's what I can remember Geezer.
Sunday
Roast Beef dinner, everyone in the dining room at 2:00PM.
Anything before 4:00PM was dinner, anything after was supper.
Monday
Leftover Roast Beef from Sunday,
Tuesday - Liver or Kidneys - (Boy did I hate Tuesdays)
Wednesday
Prince Spaghetti Day !!!
Thursday - Left over spaghetti.
Friday - "Date Night" for Mom and Dad (every kid for themselves)
Saturday - Franks and Beans
Pretty close, except for Tuesday, which was casserole night. (Liver was a big no-no because everybody hated it I still won't eat it. Disgusting. And now they say not to eat organs. We were right the whole time!), Thursday, which was chicken night, and Friday, which was fish, because at that time we couldn't eat meat on Friday.
Did anyone else have that horrible canned brown bread served as a side dish with the franks and beans on Saturdays? Awful stuff.
You bring up liver, I hated it. My mother and aunt would cook it with bacon, it was like eating a piece of shoe leather. There was always an argument over it as all that I would eat was the bacon. Then I married my wife (an Italian)and she cooked it in tomato sauce ( it was never gravy in her house) and I lover it.
I remember that brown bread. Luckily, it was considered an "additional" side dish so we weren't forced to eat it, unlike Liver or Kidneys, which were required.
And Fossil, I'm not sure you can compare the "innards" of the 40's and 50's to today. I don't think they had the chemicals and pesticides back then.
The most tragic part?.....
I had to give up eating that green stuff inside of Lobsters. An English muffin, a little butter and topped with the green stuff. Now that was a treat!
Old Guy! I don’t get it! You hate liver but you like the tamale from lobster??? Disgusting! I still love the brown bread in a can and indian pudding that my mom used to make.
We had liver and onions once a month and we all had to choke it down. Lots of iron my mom said. But right up there with liver was this “salad” that my mom used to make with lima beans and yellow wax beans. I want to gag just thinking about it! Must be a French thing!
The answer is very simple. There is a 90% correlation between what something looks like and edibility.
I can't eat kidneys because they look like some little kid's kidney.
I will gag to the point of 'dry heaves' if someone tries to force a cauliflower down my throat because cauliflowers look like squirrel brains and are just as crunchy.
The tamale not only sounds like an elegant Mexican sauce (or should it be gravy) but it actually tastes good and in no way resembles a lobster's liver.
You should try my recipe the next time you're attending a Lobster Party:
Cut English muffin (the ones with nooks and crannies) in half.
Cut butter cubes (1/2 Table Spoons)
Heat Frying pan, put butter cubes in and put muffins on top of Butter cubes.
Heat 5 minutes, remove and spread lobster green stuff.
Eat in front of party attendees, and call them 'chickens' if they won't try it.
Although I certainly didn't agree with it at the time, I have come to learn that one of the best things my parents did for me was to make me sit at the dinner table (for as long as it took) until I finished eating what was put in front of me. Now there is almost nothing that I do not eat AND enjoy.
HOWEVER, there was one exception (and it seems to be somewhat common on here), and that was liver. I would sit at that table until bedtime, but I just would not eat it, and will not to this day. Not sure if it was actually the taste, but maybe more the texture, because the VERY few things that I do not particularly care for (but will eat to be 'polite') seem to be because of texture.
I do indeed remember the canned brown bread with every franks and beans meal, and although I would not now buy it for myself, I wouldn't 'push it away' if served to me.
(Once in a great while when I'm in that aisle, I'm tempted to even try Spam again, but have yet to do it!)
I have to agree with you on texture, Geezer. Here's three examples: Peas, Beans and Carrots. If uncooked, as a kid, I would happily eat as many as you want me to. Cook them, and they become warm, soft and soggy. And aren't uncooked veggies better for you anyway?
Looks like someone's been rattling the cage over at the School Committee string. I have no idea what a Yik Yak is but apparently it is something that involves Melrose Kids and anonymous internet boards and bad behavior.
Honestly, where in the world do they learn this stuff?
I have been reading that string, and if what some of the people are saying is true, it indeed sounds pretty bad.
They're not learning it from we 'old farts' I don't think [:)]
Irish but married an Italian, so his mom taught me that a meat based tomato sauce (like the one with meatballs, sausage, pork, etc,) is called gravy - typically the "Sunday gravy". The non meat based, like a marinara is called sauce. Now I'm hungry...
Oh, and my mother in law was Sicilian, so maybe it's a regional thing. I still love brown bread - toast it, put butter and dip it in the beans.
I think what 'hurts' mutton, is it's name!
"Hey, ya want some mutton?" Just doesn't sound like a meal you'd cross the street for. (Not saying it isn't good!)
Muttonhead
Eat haggis. Vomit. Apologize.
I probably shouldn't feel or say it, but I am not sad that Fred Phelps is GONE !
You really do learn something new every day. We're gonna have to start calling fossil "MacFossil".
This article is about the Scottish dish, Haggis:
Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally encased in the animal's stomach and simmered for approximately three hours.
Sounds delicious and there's even a picture of the finished product at this location:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggis
Thank you Mac'F!
I'm feeling REALLY silly for complaining about brown bread now.
And Geezer, I couldn't agree with you more. Especially when he started protesting at our service men's funerals! Service men who had absolutely nothing to do with that sicko's warped mind.
And if you can't handle the haggis, we'll whip up some blood pudding for you, which is truly disgusting.
Then, there's this gem:
Tiết canh is a traditional dish of blood and cooked meat in northern Vietnamese cuisine. The most popular is tiết canh vịt, made from raw duck blood and duck meat.
The freshly drawn blood is collected in a bowl, and prevented from premature coagulation by mixing it with some fish sauce of certain proportions, usually three to five soup spoons of fish sauce for one quart of blood. Finely chopped meat such as cooked duck innards (such as gizzards) and duck meat are put in a shallow dish along with a sprinkling of crushed peanuts and chopped herbs such as Vietnamese coriander, mint, etc. The blood and fish sauce mixture is then diluted with some watery broth left from cooking the meat and/or gizzards to promote blood coagulation, then quickly poured into the prepared meat dish. After the blood has set, the finished dish resembles a pizza. The finished dish can be kept cooled in the refrigerator, which allows the blood to maintain its coagulated state, when immediate consumption is not called for right away. If the dish is removed from the refrigerator and left to sit at room temperature for a while the blood will return to a liquid state.
I'm never going to ask about Scottish restaurants again.
Speaking of Scots - and this was enormous surprise to me - one of my kids is an ancestry.com fanatic, and she traced one small line on my father's side back to the Murray clan, through Sir John Murray, Knight of Philipaugh, to Freskin de Moravia (Freskin of Moray), all the way back to a guy named Áengus Fert Mac Feideilmid, born in 350AD, who may have been a Druid. That explains a lot!
I never really paid much attention to this stuff, but this is fascinating. Other famous relatives: King George I, King Louis XVII, Winston Churchill, and Lady Diana.
Henceforth, you will address me as "Your Majesty" or "Sire".
I know what you mean on that history stuff.
My grandmother connected the dots on our family way before it was fashionable to do so. We arrived in Boston on June 7, 1635 aboard the Planter. We owned a lot of land in Lexington at one point. Boy, I wish I had inherited that! But no luck. A couple of us fought on the Lexington Green, that day. I just love going back and reading the info Gramma put together. It fascinates me, but it also puts some people sound asleep.
Here's an interesting factoid from my family:
Average number of children born per family in the 1630 - 1700's ?
Answer: 11 (but of course, there's a reason for that)
I have an Ancestry.com account, and it is indeed a lot of fun, and very interesting. I have "found" (and then met) a cousin I never knew I had!
I have also determined that I am distantly related to General John Stark, of NH, who came up with the "Live Free or Die" slogan, one that I admit I have always thought was/is 'a little extreme' [:)]
I've heard of Ancestry.com but never went further than their home page, since I already had a family tree (via my Gramma).
So let me ask the question...
Is it free? No hidden costs? Do I have to pay to sign up? All this identity theft stuff you hear in the news scares the "shi t" out of me.
Just ask'in...
It's free for a "trial", but that gets you far enough just to wet your appetite and want to do more. That's sorta the "hook". It's not cheap, and a yearly renewal fee, but for me it's worth it. I even paid the extra to expand it to world databases, as opposed to just the US.
As I recall, the info you provide to 'sign up' isn't identity theft type info (other than of course the credit card info to pay) and your account is of course username and password protected. As I recall there are also 'settings' so that no one else can "see' your tree, unless you want them to.
One of the interesting features is that their search engine looks for info even when you're not, and gives you "leaves" to look at for potential 'family matches/info'.
OK, I'm interested. One last question.... So you pay for the first years membership and then there is a renewal fee at the end of the year.
Question: Do you initiate the payment of the renewal fee? Or did they set something up where they would process the charge for you, since they already have your information and if you didn't want to renew you would have to tell them?
Sorry about that, I had forgotten how expensive it is, cuz it is just charged to my credit card each year (with advance notice to "opt out", of course).
I admit that it is probably a bit much for someone who is just going to use it periodically, but I might, and I emphasize 'might', have sorta "let my username and password slip" to some of my relatives who then could do their own family trees/research. If I did do that, it was of course due to the early onset Alz, and not on purpose!
Only to the extent that I know her 16 great great grandparents, LOL.
Ok, so we all know that toilets flush in the opposite direction when you are below the equator and storms go from east to west instead of west to east as they do up here.
So, does a curve ball curve in the opposite direction like all the other things do? And if so, how hard would that be to hit?
It's very hard, especially since you're standing upside down.
I don't know beans about throwing a curveball, but can't pitchers throw it to curve either way they want?
Yes and no. When a right handed pitcher throws a curve, he puts about a 45* clockwise rotation on the ball when he releases it by sharply snapping his wrist and forearm. The human wrist rotates to the outside much more efficiently than to the inside. The ball will break sharply down and to the left. You can put some counterclockwise rotation on it causing it to break "weakly" to the right, but that's called a screwball, and it's really hard on the arm. To get a ball to rise slightly and fade to the right, it's much easier to hold the ball with two fingers covering the seams. That causes the ball's rotation to be reverse. You see the same thing with a golf ball, which will actually rises over the plane it was launched at. It's the dimples that cause that, since it has no seams like a baseball to alter the airflow over the ball.
Holy cannoli Fossill, are you really Bill Nye?
Nope. Did some pitching - in another lifetime.
I'm still trying to figure out how they can upside down pitch.
Hmmmmmm, a pitcher, eh? Are you Bill Lee?
LOL Geezer.
Bill Lee was my immediate thought too... well... after discarding Elbie Fletcher that is.
I am a little out there, but not nearly as far as Bill Lee.
OG, picture a globe. If you're standing below the equator, aren't you standing upside down? I guess it depends where you're looking from.
Referring to another string (yes, I do read the others!).... I admit it, I had no idea what "PFMs" meant, so I asked one of my older nieces. She hesitated a bit to tell me, but did.
I guess maybe the times we grew up in were indeed "quieter and gentler" (or maybe I was just VERY naive/sheltered) cuz I don't remember even using that word 'til I was in college, lol.
So it's not Personal File Manager?
Ok, well then I need a hint.