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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2831 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 26, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Why is food waste just turned a blind eye to in Asian cooking? Here are a few recent ones I can think of.

  • Ramen broth. Does anyone ever actually finish the entire bowl of broth? Do we need the noodles to swim in the broth as opposed to just idk have enough broth to still sip, but not throw out 3/4ths of it? After all all the work of making ramen is just making the broth.
  • Same for pho.
  • All the dips they bring out in a Middle Eastern restaurant. Yeah, I have never seen anyone finish all the dips.
  • All the greens and pickles they also bring out in the middle eastern restaurants.
  • The banchan in Korean restaurants. Once again, no one finishes all of these.
  • All that fucking oil that certain Sichuan dishes come with. I once got served a fish that was swimming in a salad bowl full of oil.
  • All that hotpot broth!!, does every table need a dutch oven sized amount of broth? I'm sure a small saucepan is more than enough for the amount of broth you actually need to cook an average hotpot serving.

I understand broth for the most part is made of scraps and is cheap. But this is just money sitting on the table. You can solve itt by.. serving smaller portions. What about not wasting food on principle? I've not noticed such obvious food waste in western cooking, even though I am sure a lot of it is happening behind the scenes.

I understand trying to not waste things probably has diminishing and probably negative returns past a certain point, but is that a fact of the universe or just an excuse that we are okay with accepting ?

In a similar vein, in 2024, do we not have the technology to produce deep fried results without wasting vats of oil? Deep fried foods are significantly improved by using better (more expensive) fats such as olive oil, butter or beef tallow. If we could get deep fried results without using a barrel of oil, we could have better fats as the default. It won't show up in the GDP figures, but it will be increased QOL.

The way it was explained to me by Chinese friends was that excess == wealth. Chinese have grandparents who at different times couldn't buy enough food to eat, and parents who were restricted in the amount and quality of ingredients they could buy. So using ingredients extravagantly feels like a celebration of wealth and comfort. Similar story from Korean friends. Metal bowls and chopsticks were only available to the nobility, so they became a symbol of prosperity and class. Similarly, only the nobility had the money and ability to secure a wide enough variety of dishes to completely cover the table as is often done even in Korean homes. I'm sure that once famine and extreme poverty have mostly passed out of living memory people will question the need for such portions.

Re. the other comments on ramen broth -- you really shouldn't drink a lot of ramen broths. Tonkotsu, shio, and shoyu broths typically have a ridiculous amount of sodium, not to mention grease. Most Japanese also don't drink the broth and I think they many would consider someone who did a bit low-class and gross. There are however some more recent health conscious places (often targeted at women) that serve smaller bowls of ramen with totally drinkable broth (usually vegetable or chicken based). I try to find those since I love the broth.

My family regularly drinks broth though not to the bottom. Maybe we're low class and gross? Also my favorite ramen shop will bring up to two waves of extra noodles to plop hot into the broth if you find you've finished but have lots of soup and plenty of appetite left.

Man, I wish ramen places in my area did that. I always have way more broth than noodles, I would love to get some more delicious noodles with it.

Here is the shop (it's a chain). The best thing on the menu is the 野菜ラーメン (vegetable ramen) with soup 濃いめ (stronger or thicker) and the noodles 片面 (firmer). And this is from a guy who is a meat eater. I just haven't found any ramen better.

Edit: The Menu

Yum. Those prices would tempt me to go there often! Where I live you'd pay 2-3 times more. ;(

Sadly (though not surprisingly), it doesn't look like they have any US locations. But hey, I'm hoping to visit Japan in the next few years so hopefully I can check them out then!

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