My wife puts Tabasco sauce on her pizza, while I am convinced that an Italian person dies every time she does that. Help us sort this out, please.
laughs Japanesely They have a dish here called something like Napolitan that’s a ketchup-based sauce on spaghetti. IIRC it was partly born out of post-war food shortages and trying to make something Western-ish by a hotel in Yokohama. It became its own food, however, and lots of people love it.
I am always amazed by how the japanese are often times very willing to experiment and be inventive in terms of melding their own culinary culture with foreign ones, considering the isolationist and conservative history and reputation they have overall as a people.
To me, that simply says that food really is one of the universal languages.
I’d love to try this dish if just for experimentation, although I suspect it wouldn’t be something I’d have more than once lol
Have you read the story of Panko breadcrumbs?
It came from food and fuel shortages in WW2 where the ingredients for bread but no ovens or equipment to cook it into anything. One guy hooked a bunch of dough up to a car battery and electrocuted it and created a crustless loaf with a weird texture. He also discovered this weird texture made for great even sized crumbs with a uniform colour and after the war ended decided to turn it into a business.
As I understand it, it was created by a hotel chef trying to find something to feed foreigners (mostly soldiers) very soon after the war, so it’s kinda different.
Tempura and Pan (bread) come from the Portuguese. They did start growing hot peppers like many after they got here via either the Portuguese and/or Dutch following the Columbian Exchange.
Much like there’s American Chinese food, there’s also Japanese Chinese suited to their tastes. Pizza is probably the most prominent examples: mayo, corn, etc. pizza is common here.
Ketchup + sour cream + grated Trappist cheese (cold) mixed with piping hot pasta is godlike though. Was a staple during my childhood.
We were poor.
Yeah, no judgement here, when one is poor they gotta do what they gotta do, and ketchup is probably cheaper than decent tomato sauce in some parts of the world I would imagine.
That said, I am willing to bet that the same pasta but with actual prepared tomato sauce (that means put it on the stove, let it simmer, add some salt, maybe a bit of pepper or a pinch of chili flakes if you like, and a drop of EVO oil when it comes off the heat) in place of ketchup would be even better.
Although in your case, the ketchup recipe likely brings back happy emotions relating to your childhood which, after all, are also part of the food experience. Cheers!
But no comment in the sour cream?!
Tbh Hungarians eat everything with sour cream.
It was the staple of Hungary during socialism and probably still is. Supposedly 70% of all cheese purchases are Trappista.
It’s very similar to what North Americans would describe as basic cheddar.
