So this happened..

CattOfTheGarage

VintageFeline wrote: »

CattOfTheGarage wrote: »

In the UK macaroni cheese is very common as a main meal. We don't really serve it as a side dish.

Here, "pasta" has become the generic for Italian and other European pastas. We use "noodles" mainly for East Asian noodles and understand it to mean something long and thin - the idea of "lasagne noodles" is puzzling to us. Our lasagne comes in rectangular sheets the size of a small envelope.

According to the old cookbooks, "macaroni" used to be the generic term for pasta, both here and in the USA. I think that's how it's used in Italy, though I'm not sure of that. We now use it to mean small, smooth, tube shaped pasta only and will usually differentiate - if we cook, say, fusilli or penne as you would macaroni cheese, we call it "cheesy pasta".

In Scotland we use almost exclusively elbow macaroni, but I gather in England they tend to use straight macaroni. Nutters.

Gosh, I'd never stopped to think about the north/south divide and style of macaroni! But you're right, in the boxed macaronis the English one is straight and the Scottish one the crescent moon shape! I'm going to go looking for macaroni when i'm the supermarket today (I'm from Scotland but live in London now).

Not just the boxed ones. Marshall's is the macaroni of choice in the land of Burns, and Marshall's is elbow shaped. You can't get it dan sarf. I first realised this when I saw a recipe for macaroni cheese in a Jamie Oliver book, and the macaroni was straight. "what's this?" I thought. I'd never seen such a thing before.But apparently it counts as normal down there.

You have my sympathy.

ladyreva78

stevencloser wrote: »

tomteboda wrote: »

Interestingly, every nation has different standards regulating cocoa, cocoa fat, and sugar content of chocolates. That's why chocolate from Germany is quite distinct from, say, Belgian chocolate, and you can immediately taste the difference between English and Italian chocolate.

The American standards are unique, allowing for more diversity in chocolate products, which is largely a product of no company having had much influence as most of these regulations are actually industry-protective.


Personally I prefer the San Francisco chocolates, particularly Guittard, and Swiss chocolate (which has many similarities).

I'll pass on German and Italian chocolate any day.

Oh, and I like Hershey's . But it's not my favorite.

I like my German chocolate.

I'll make sure to send it your way next time someone gifts me a box... At least that way I don't have to throw it out.

lemurcat12

Francl27 wrote: »

VintageFeline wrote: »

Took me the longest time to realise that when noodles was mentioned on American shows it could mean any type of pasta and not what we call noodles which would the thing used in Asian food.

Lol yeah for me noodles and pasta are two different things...

They are now generally in the US, I think.

They weren't when I was a kid in the '70s and '80s -- at least where I lived (not a large city) pasta was a subset of noodles (and rarely called that).

Oh, and to me now macaroni means the elbow stuff, not the straight stuff.

VintageFeline

CattOfTheGarage wrote: »

VintageFeline wrote: »

CattOfTheGarage wrote: »

In the UK macaroni cheese is very common as a main meal. We don't really serve it as a side dish.

Here, "pasta" has become the generic for Italian and other European pastas. We use "noodles" mainly for East Asian noodles and understand it to mean something long and thin - the idea of "lasagne noodles" is puzzling to us. Our lasagne comes in rectangular sheets the size of a small envelope.

According to the old cookbooks, "macaroni" used to be the generic term for pasta, both here and in the USA. I think that's how it's used in Italy, though I'm not sure of that. We now use it to mean small, smooth, tube shaped pasta only and will usually differentiate - if we cook, say, fusilli or penne as you would macaroni cheese, we call it "cheesy pasta".

In Scotland we use almost exclusively elbow macaroni, but I gather in England they tend to use straight macaroni. Nutters.

Gosh, I'd never stopped to think about the north/south divide and style of macaroni! But you're right, in the boxed macaronis the English one is straight and the Scottish one the crescent moon shape! I'm going to go looking for macaroni when i'm the supermarket today (I'm from Scotland but live in London now).

Not just the boxed ones. Marshall's is the macaroni of choice in the land of Burns, and Marshall's is elbow shaped. You can't get it dan sarf. I first realised this when I saw a recipe for macaroni cheese in a Jamie Oliver book, and the macaroni was straight. "what's this?" I thought. I'd never seen such a thing before.But apparently it counts as normal down there.

You have my sympathy.

Marshall's, that's the Scottish pasta I was racking my brains for! I am indeed deprived down here. No snowballs either (though my aunt did send me some once). At least we finally have tatty scones now though.