> Eastern European food (and Mexican and some Chinese cuisines) are deeply underrated
Well, one interesting point is that native Mexicans and native Chinese would hardly recognize what we in the US call Mexican and Chinese.
As for Eastern European food, I think some of it may simply be quantity. I can't think of a single ethnic dish in my family that wasn't meant for an army and was meant for one. Even the article author talks about having made 1500 dumplings. And many of the dishes get better on the second day.
It also doesn't help that ethnic dishes tend to all have little quirks about how your mother, grandmother, etc. did it and you won't like somebody else's quirks. The author's grandmother had her own quirks to her dumplings, for example.
> native Mexicans would hardly recognize
> what we in the US call Mexican.
That's just second hand synthetic snobbery.
Even more amusing is the person down-thread who echoed some wives tale about Mexican workers refusing to eat the food in the Mexican restaurant they work at in the States. Come the fuck on.
The only people I've ever heard say these things are Americans, especially pochos trying to claw back some cultural credentials because they don't speak Spanish.
No different from any other time someone thinks loudly disliking something makes them more tasteful and authentic. Like an HNer shitting on Javascript.
I'm sure the Mexican food in Finland is fucking terrible. But let's not pretend that Mexican cuisine is some impenetrable wonder of the world, nor that Mexicans as a whole won't devour Mexican approximations with the same fervor they drink Coca Cola and queue up at Subway in their Sunday clothes.
In my younger years I worked as a prep cook at a couple fine dining restaurants in San Diego, and except for the executive chef I was the only other white guy there. We spoke Spanish in the kitchen and since I loved Mexican food and culture, I really tried to absorb as much as possible and learn recipes. As a prep cook, I would do the employee meals and the other cooks would loudly exclaim 'Tacitos de Tijuana' once I started getting it right, with perfectly made tacos just like you would find in northern Mexico. I was so proud.
But you know what they really loved? McDonald's kept running a promotion where you could get ten hamburgers or cheeseburgers for something like $2 or $5, and they would constantly make quick runs to the local drive-through at meal time, then burst in the kitchen entrance shouting and waving the McDonalds bag around. All work would stop and I would be called to bring my extra prep container of guacamole so a spoonful of that could be added to each burger and everyone would wolf them down. We're talking like ten Mexican dudes and myself, and 40-60 little hamburgers disappearing in a couple minutes. The executive chef was so disappointed and he'd just shake his head and go sit in his office.
Not really. Try ordering a "burrito" or a "breakfast taco" in Mexico. And, you will note, I was careful not to claim that either one was more "authentic".
Foods evolve as they move and are adopted. This is doubly true of "ethnic" foods. The original article is a beautiful example of this with the grandmother starting with Siberian pelmeni, adding pork to a dish while in a nominally "Muslim" area and preparing it in Chinese bamboo steamers.
With recent Mexican and Chinese immigration you now do get restaurants that are a taste of home, even in the northeast. Most of these are newer restaurants, with many patrons speaking Spanish or a Chinese language.
Eastern European food, however, is more challenging regarding authenticity once you get past the delicious dumplings. Not too many people want to go out of their way for boiled meats and cabbage, or fatty vinegary stuff in aspic. Egg salad on a hot day at the Latvian church picnic. Brrrr. I expect these cuisines to evolve the way food in the UK has, developing a new native cuisine.
Poles have some pretty delicious meals outside of pierogis. There's barscht (cabbage soup), zurek (a kind of sourdough soup), golabki (meat-stuffed cabbage leaves). Great pretzels too.
I've never had a Barszcz made with cabbage as a base. I'm not saying you're wrong - I'm not Polish. But my wife is, so we eat a lot of Polish food and visit Poland at least once a year. It's a biog country though, so it could be a regional variation.
My tips are: barszcz czerwony z pierogi (both red made from beetroot with a good pierogi), barszcz biały (white borsht - basically like żurek, but made with wheat and served with with meat and egg), żurek (a fermented rye soup), bigos (a stew made with cabbage, sour cabbage, lots of meat and sausage and other ingredients), gołąbki (as you said - cabbage leaf wrapping meat and rice filling, served with a tomato sauce), kopytka (a little like gnocchi), łazanki (like a polish lasagne, but with sour cabbage), or just something simple like kiełbasa z cebulą (sausage with onion fried.)
So much great food. This is only scratching the surface.
Few realize the breadth of dishes, and there are regional differences and food originating in different historical social classes. I haven't found any good places in the US (though I'm sure a few exist). Perhaps you'll experience some of them if visiting a Polish family. Christmas eve might be a good start where there are traditionally twelve courses. Also, soup is one of the specialties of Polish cuisine.
Polish barszcz is not traditionally made with cabbage - it's at heart a beet soup. Some variants of the soup made in Ukraine or Russia may contain chopped vegetables and sour cream, but in Poland warm barszcz is a consommé-style soup. There is also a cold variant served in the summer called chłodnik (a literal translation of which would be something like "cooler") which has sour cream in it.
Cabbage soup is called kapuśniak (from "kapusta" which is cabbage). Żurek is a fermented rye soup often called "white borscht" on North American restaurant menus. Another Polish soup worth trying if you find it on the menu and like sour flavors is zupa ogórkowa, which is a dill pickle soup.
P.s. many people from places like Poland consider themselves Central European. Some even Western European. I think this is about how they feel about being aligned with Russia, but also where their affinities lay
The EE/CE/WE labels have their uses, but I find that the way the EE label is used is more of an indicator of Western ignorance than anything else, kind of like the term "Dark Ages". In the Western mind, EE might as well be a country. England, France, Germany, Italy...Eastern Europe! It reinforces the Cold War era stereotypes that are still around, that it's just this huge, culturally homogeneous mass where everyone speaks some riff on Russian.
I'm not sure why Eastern Europe shouldn't be a valid term for talking about the countries in the east of Europe, though? After all, your own comment seems to refer to Western Europe as a group, as well.
It seems to me indisputably true that there are large groups of related countries in Europe, and as a French citizen I do not have any problem with being grouped with Western Europe. Sometimes Southern Europe even, or Latin. "Eastern Europe" doesn't seem less relevant for the countries that are east of Western Europe.
I have travelled a bit around Europe, and I certainly do feel more "at home" once I am back to somewhere west of the German/Polish border, anyway. I'd expect it to be the same (reversed, of course) for those who come from Eastern Europe.
> Egg salad on a hot day at the Latvian church picnic. Brrrr. I expect these cuisines to evolve the way food in the UK has, developing a new native cuisine.
Do you mean, adapt to fit the preferences of the native palete? No thanks, I would prefer that Lido just get forklifted into some country than to be offered a potato pancake not slathered in sour cream and horseradish…
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make? And what does quantity have to do with anything? Besides, I've had Polish dishes made in small amounts, and those made for large gatherings (I've had pierogi in both settings, but from what I hear, they are very labor intensive, so I don't know how they manage to make 1500 without!).
Well, one interesting point is that native Mexicans and native Chinese would hardly recognize what we in the US call Mexican and Chinese.
As for Eastern European food, I think some of it may simply be quantity. I can't think of a single ethnic dish in my family that wasn't meant for an army and was meant for one. Even the article author talks about having made 1500 dumplings. And many of the dishes get better on the second day.
It also doesn't help that ethnic dishes tend to all have little quirks about how your mother, grandmother, etc. did it and you won't like somebody else's quirks. The author's grandmother had her own quirks to her dumplings, for example.