In our fifth and final edition of Fast Food Multiculturalism; we take a look at American Fast Food. The odd thing about any type of American fast food is that the majority of it is simply a repetition of some other culture’s food. This is not an insult in any way as Americans have taken meals from other cultures and transformed them into something completely new and different than what was previously thought of before. Fast food places originally sold hamburgers as their primary product. In recent decades, Mexican-style food like tacos and burritos, as well as pizza, have also become staples of fast food culture in America and have been transferred overseas to Europe and Asia. Common menu items at fast food outlets include fish and chips, sandwiches, pitas, hamburgers, fried chicken, french fries, chicken nuggets, tacos, pizza, and ice cream. There are a few items that are native to America that i will name though beginning with potato chips.

A potato chip or crisp is a slim slice of a potato deep fried or baked until crisp. Potato chips serve as an appetizer or snack. Commercial varieties are packaged for sale, usually in bags.

Another American favorite is Macaroni and Cheese which is a common dish whose main ingredients are cooked macaroni (often termed elbow macaroni in the US) and a cheese sauce. The commercialized version often involves powdered cheese mix instead of a more traditional cheese sauce like Velveeta or melted cheddar cheese.

Fried chicken is chicken which is dipped in a breaded mixture and then deep fried, pan fried, or pressure cooked. It can often be viewed as unhealthy because of the fatty juices that get absorbed in the process. White meat on a bone or boneless is often used and the fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken along with many imitators have commercialized the food and sold it internationally. (more…)

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One of BoobNewb’s personal favorites is a little something we like to call Cherry Coke. The great taste of Coca-Cola classic along with the smooth taste of cherry makes for a delicious and refreshing beverage. Unfortunately, it seems that Cherry Coke has been cast aside lately for other beverages that simply aren’t good enough to make the cut.While Cherry Coke was being abused by the mean people over at Coca-Cola, the marketing department got bored and decided to promote other flavours which included the so-called Vanilla Coke and C2, a less sugar-filled version of Coke that included something called Splenda, a substitute for real sugar. This has left Cherry Coke to be an endangered species and we are here to put an end to this problem right here, right now. Cherry Coke has been so badly treated over the years that there have been more sightings of the Chupacabra or the sasquatch then there have been of Cherry Coke.

With Cherry Coke no longer being sold in Canada, we decided to take a trip to the USA to figure out what the heck happened to our beloved Cherry Coke. After an hour car drive and some pretty mean border patrol dudes, we managed to reach a town in up-state New York and decided to scope out the local grocery store in search of the ever elusive Cherry Coke. We made our way up to the soda section and started our search.It seems Coca-Cola has been busy lately manipulating the flavours of its regular Coke with all of these clones like 0 Calorie Coca-Cola or Caffeine Free Coca-Cola. We almost got excited for a moment when we noticed a bottle that said cherry on it but unfortunately it was for Cherry Coke’s evil twin cousin, Wild Cherry Pepsi. Another similar knockoff to Cherry Coke would be Dr. Pepper, which has great taste but is no Cherry Coke. At the end of the line, next to the Mountain Dew , we finally discovered a few bottles of Cherry Coke.

So, the myths weren’t true. It seems that Cherry Coke still exists in the USA. Now it was the time to figure out why the heck Cherry Coke only seems to be sold in the USA and nowhere else in the world. The local grocery store clerk was of no help to us as he was unaware that Cherry Coke was only sold in the USA. It looks like we would need to dig deeper with this mystery and go online for some research.After a bit of research on good old wikipedia, we discovered that Cherry Coke is still available in certain regions of the world like the United Kingdom and Israel. Unfortunately, there is still no word on Canada which seems dumb as we’re neighbours and all and could probably bring the stuff over the border pretty easily. So here’s a shout-out to all the people over at Coca-Cola: PLEASE BRING CHERRY COKE BACK TO CANADA!

UPDATE: It seems that Cherry Coke now goes by the name of Coca-Cola Cherry in the USA after Coca-Cola renamed alot of their products in 2006.

[ratings]

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In part #4, we take a look at foods from the Middle-East as well as the Caribbean. These two regions seem to have been gaining steam recently with new immigrants bringing their culture’s foods to the west and helping to form new restaurants and fast food joints. Caribbean fast food places usually have food like fish, meat, yams and fruit. Hot peppers and lemons help to give their food a spicy edge and are the basic seasonings of their food. Lemon and hot peppers are still key ingredients in Caribbean cooking.

One of their more popular dishes is called Jerk Chicken. Jerk’ is a unique Jamaican method of preserving, seasoning and cooking meat – usually chicken or pork. The meat is marinated with a mixture of spices and peppers and traditionally cooked over a flame. The basic ingredients for a jerk flavouring are thyme, pimento, spring onion, ginger, Scotch Bonnet chillies, black pepper, nutmeg and cinnamon.

Another popular favorite in North America are patties which are typical filled with either beef or chicken. Jamaican-style meat-filled pastries are also much more spicier than typical patties.

Another popular item is rum which was filtered from sugar canes brought over by Christopher Columbus. The sugarcane is now a staple of the Caribbean diets and in most homes you will find that desserts are incorporated in to most meals with cakes, pies and dumplings and are just as important as a hot main meal.

Arabian food today is the result of a combination of Lebanese/Indian cooking and many items not indigenous to the Persian gulf region. One of the more noticeable foods at a fast food joint is called a falafel. A falafel is a fried ball or patty of spiced fava beans or chickpeas. It’s traditionally served as a filling ingredient in a pita bread wrap. (more…)

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I thought we’d place this article in the food department since it does technically deal with food. While surfing the net I’ve come across many different gadgets that deal with food that help to make our lives much more easier. Some have been important and others are downright weird. Here’s the first volume in a series of simply lazy boobnewb food gadgets to help make our lives less lazy one step at a time.

-I’ve seen electric toothbrushes but why not electric forks? This little twirling spaghetti fork spins for you and helps to twirl your spaghetti so that you can eat it in a lazier fashion. All you need is two AAA batteries an you’re all set with this little puppy.

-I love soft drinks so this little device certainly helps myself and I. It’s a sprout that attaches to the top of a 2L soft drink bottle and can be used for watering purposes in your home garden. Since most of us on this site don’t garden ; we’ll consider it a very large straw for us to drink our favorite beverage with. Cheers.

-When I was younger, I used to have a small, nice little lunch bag where I would place my sandwich, juice and granola bar inside. These days I use the trusty designer sandwich container to make myself be the coolest kid kid in the cafeteria. With this little sandwich container I can enjoy my lunch and look cool eating it at the same time.

-Sometimes i’m so lazy that I can’t give myself the will-power to go downstairs to my bar and fix myself up a drink. This is why I’ve decided to go and get my very own portable bar for the lazy bar owner out there. Now I can sit at the comfort of my armchair surfing the web and making myself a drink all within 5 feet of each other.

(more…)

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In part #3 ,we take a look at some lesser known regional foods which are gaining popularity within restaurant and fast food culture.

Indian Food

Unlike many other countries, Indian food is more of a combination of different foods as opposed to one single dish. Whereas other places serve pizza or burgers as their main foods, Indian food is better as a combination of 3 separate foods. Usually these meals consist of some type of starch, a main dish, and vegetables.

Chicken is a huge specialty in Indian restaurants since Indians consider cows sacred and can’t eat any beef products and Muslims don’t eat any pork products either.Tandoori Chicken is one of the favorite ways of making chicken in India. Tandoori Chicken is made by marinating chicken with special spices and grilling/baking it on a special clay oven.A lot of Indian foods can be eaten with your hands as well compared to other cultures where eating with your hands is less exceptable. The other really noticeable thing about Indian food is that it’s loaded up with different kinds of spices.These spices include ginger, black mustard, chili pepper,coriander and others.Other cultures like the Chinese are known for their sauces and Indian food is known for it’s wide varieties of spices used in their food. This is both delightful and hurtful as the food may taste good at first but later cause digestive problems to the person that just consumed the food. This is why ‘Paan’ can often be served with meals as the dark-green leaf of the betel-pepper plant is an astringent and is believed to help in clearing the system.Indian food also involves Chutney which is a sweet-and-spicy condiment, originally from eastern India. Curry is also used and refer to almost any spiced, sauce-based dishes cooked in various south and southeast Asian styles.Samosas are also very popular appetizers. It generally consists of a fried triangular / pyramid shaped pastry shell with potato, onion and pea stuffing, but other stuffings like minced meat are also used.Here are some well known Indian foods:

Tandoori Chicken

Chicken Tikka

Paan (more…)

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