the food rant thread

[Slave To The Viking]

Is this a food rant? Maybe not. It's a food-related rant though: a griddle is flat. A flat surface. Not a ridged surface to make it look like food has been char-grilled, but a flat surface. Want to try cooking griddle cakes on a ridged surface?

No? Me neither.

A modern, ridged, existed-for-less-time-than-people-have-been-saying-the-word-"griddle" pan is not a griddle. It's a ridged pan. Or a chargrill-pan. Or something else that isn't a griddle. It's a new thing, so coin a new term rather than pinching one that's already busy meaning something else.

Why does this matter? Language evolves, of course, and words take on different meanings. I'm perfectly well aware of that. I'm not a language snob who takes superior delight in saying "Can you? I don't know if you can, but you certainly may..."

The reason it matters is because a griddle - an actual, real, what-a-griddle-has-always-been griddle - is still a chuffing griddle, and if you're trying to shop for one, it's really bloody tiresome to find thousands of listings for the WRONG BLOODY THING.

[citoyen]

The reason it matters is because a griddle - an actual, real, what-a-griddle-has-always-been griddle - is still a chuffing griddle, and if you're trying to shop for one, it's really bloody tiresome to find thousands of listings for the WRONG BLOODY THING.

Amen brother!

I was talking to someone about crumpets recently and mentioned that I cook them on a griddle. "What, one of those ridged pans?" No, a griddle. FFS.

[Slave To The Viking]

FF's actual S, indeed. Try making muffins* on a ridged thing.

As it turned out, me Ma was no longer using her old iron griddle for anything, so I scavenged it. It's nice to know that the essence of the scotch pancakes she taught me to make as a kid will be somewhere among the seasoning as I teach my kids to make them...


*English. I know the big fat cakey American ones have pretty much supplanted them as owner of the generic moniker nowadays, and I'm certainly happy enough to eat such things, but - as far as nomenclature is concerned - I still think of a muffin as being what a muffin used to be.

[mrcharly-YHT]

We bought 't youngest a pan for cooking steak.

Cast iron, ridged on one side, flat on the other. Bit small to be a proper griddle pan, no good for crepe, but not bad utensil.

(Hmm, we have so many pans, the one thing we are missing is a proper flat griddle pan)

[Mrs Pingu]

Like this one mrcharly?
https://www.nisbets.co.uk/vogue-reversible-cast-iron-double-griddle-pan/m650

[Cudzoziemiec]

Griddle combines the words grid and grille, so it's no wonder people expect ridges!

[mrcharly-YHT]

Like this one mrcharly?
https://www.nisbets.co.uk/vogue-reversible-cast-iron-double-griddle-pan/m650

Smaller, with a handle like a frying pan.

Otherwise, yes.

[Ham]

I haz had one like this and I've found it fantastic in use. Slightly narrower than the Vogue one from Nisbets, it is still perfectly useable for the odd occasion I either want to griddle or quasi-grill and stores away easier.

[citoyen]

Griddle combines the words grid and grille, so it's no wonder people expect ridges!

To me, griddle combines the words griddle and griddle, so I expect a griddle.

Out of interest, I just checked three different dictionaries - Collins, OED and Chambers - plus Wikipedia, and none of them have yet admitted the ridged pan as a valid definition of griddle, despite its apparent prevalence. The fight is not yet lost!

Interestingly, on this list of "the best griddle pans" from BBC Good Food, none of the product names include the word "griddle", so at least the manufacturers know what they're talking about. (Some years ago, I worked on BBC Good Food for a while and I would have been very resistant to allowing such errors into print.)
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/review/best-griddle-pans

[Cudzoziemiec]

They do list "deep ridges and defined lines" as a positive point, and that's only looking at the first one.

I did see somewhere "girdle" listed as a British variant of griddle.

[Flite]

I did see somewhere "girdle" listed as a British variant of griddle.

Yes as in girdle scones, which I think are like welshcakes without the dried fruit.
March 1st next week - Welshcakes will be made.

[Kim]

Griddle combines the words grid and grille, so it's no wonder people expect ridges!

To me, griddle combines the words griddle and griddle, so I expect a griddle.

This is probably the biggest revelation since I discovered the "broil" wasn't a typo.

[Mr Larrington]

It is in braille.

[Slave To The Viking]

Griddle combines the words grid and grille, so it's no wonder people expect ridges!

To me, griddle combines the words griddle and griddle, so I expect a griddle.

This is probably the biggest revelation since I discovered the "broil" wasn't a typo.

Although it's not actually a typo, broil is never going to feel - to me - like what it purports to mean. Even though I know, I don't care. I can't use it and mean it. It sounds wet.

Sort of the opposite of fricassee, really. A word that sounds so light and skippy, so crisp, so redolent of frying, fritters, sautéing and frisbees...there's no way that deserves to mean a stew of any sort.

[barakta]

Griddle combines the words grid and grille, so it's no wonder people expect ridges!

To me, griddle combines the words griddle and griddle, so I expect a griddle.

See also pulchritudinous which is an incredibly ugly word.
This is probably the biggest revelation since I discovered the "broil" wasn't a typo.

Although it's not actually a typo, broil is never going to feel - to me - like what it purports to mean. Even though I know, I don't care. I can't use it and mean it. It sounds wet.

Sort of the opposite of fricassee, really. A word that sounds so light and skippy, so crisp, so redolent of frying, fritters, sautéing and frisbees...there's no way that deserves to mean a stew of any sort.

[T42]

A pox on hamburgers!  Like Germany, Alsace has a wonderful tradition of sausage kiosks where you could stop for lunch on a ride and refuel with a merguez or rotwürst sandwich, washed down with a can of something.  Over the last couple of years the ones I usually favour have been taken over and are now run by pimply-faced youffs of both sexes flogging god-damned hamburgers.

[Slave To The Viking]

A pox on hamburgers!  Like Germany, Alsace has a wonderful tradition of sausage kiosks where you could stop for lunch on a ride and refuel with a merguez or rotwürst sandwich, washed down with a can of something.  Over the last couple of years the ones I usually favour have been taken over and are now run by pimply-faced youffs of both sexes flogging god-damned hamburgers.

The filthy bastards.

[Slave To The Viking]

I can't make decent chips anymore! Now I've finished the spuds from the allotment and have to buy them again, they're coming out a bit soft and bendy. They're OK, but it seems I have to grow the spuds to make chips that work.

[mllePB]

A cafe we visit, mainly because its attached to a farm shop & PYO, has taken to offering dog food next to the sausage rolls and bakewell tart on the counter.

OK it's only dry-ish bones, but I still find the idea a bit  being next to the human food.

[geoff]

Ordered 5 pieces of ginger root in our Tesco's click and collect today. We got 5 bags of ginger, in stuffy plastic, half rotten and mingin'.


Helpfully the bags advise "Wash before use". Needless to say it's going right back straight to Mr Tesco

Sent from my STF-L09 using Tapatalk

[ian]

Why would ginger need to be bagged?

It’s almost like they want to kill the world. I figure at this point they’re actually trying.

[ElyDave]

Plastic food packaging is a bit weird (don't take this as advocacy for putting ginger in plastic bags).  It seems counter intuitive to put stuff like broccoli in shrinkwrap, but its all a function of the extended supply chain we have these days where it sits in a depot then on the shelf.  You'd need to do the LCA (Life cycle assessment) but it may be that by reducing wastage in the chain overall, you can reduce the life cycle impact of all the broccoli (or whatever) that is being grown through reduced need for fertilisers, reduced use of farm machinery, reduced transport...

Growing your own broccoli would be better of course. And that ginger does look mingin'.

[citoyen]

I’ve sometimes had to resort to buying bagged ginger when the loose stuff isn’t available. It’s never as good. I don’t know if that’s because it’s less fresh but I think it’s at least partly because ginger is one of those things that really doesn’t like being bagged - seems to keep a lot longer unwrapped.

[ian]

I’ve never seen ginger in a bag. It’s effectively self-wrapped. There are some valid reasons around packaging though it ought to be a reminder that supermarkets do nothing good for us.

[Mrs Pingu]

With the previous iteration of our Bosch gas hob, I used to be able to turn the teeny tiny ring to "barely there" and cook my porridge without boiling it to deth. With your new Flame Select device I can only choose your pre set flames, the smallest of which is not low enough, effectively not solving a problem that didn't exist.