Food in AH

I think that it had been argued that the rise of protestanism and anglicanism changed the culinary habitudes of the northern europe countries - the spîces and such where associated with the 'decadant' papist church, and so on. Blender food, as a form of humility and such, where favored.

In an ATL where the church reformed, the Protestanism movement didn't appears, maybe the cuisines of England, Germany, Netherland, Scandinavia and such would look different quite, closer to the latin europe.
 
It occurs to me that in any TL with an independent Confederate States, dietary patterns in the USA might be significantly different than OTL. Imagine a USA where fried chicken, grits,sweet potatoes, okra, fried catfish, crayfish, gumbo, BBQ, and Tex-Mex were considered foreign foods, possibly even tainted by their association with an unfriendly foreign state. Perhaps US food would come to resemble English cooking even more than it does in OTL (basically bland northern european fare) with "good southern cooking" only available in large cities also containing Chinese or French restaurants. Perhaps in the USA "southern" fastfood would be marketed mainly as "exotic" african-black slave food.

Imagine "Popeyes" or "KFC" with an Aunt Jemima or Unlce Ben's like mascot, cashiers in slave/servant garb.

Perhaps in this world, someone took the Scottish origin of fried chicken, and that world's analogue of KFC has a Scottish motif. Someone could also use an Asia motif, and the fried chicken tastes more like something you'd find in a Thai or Indian eatery.
 
It occurs to me that in any TL with an independent Confederate States, dietary patterns in the USA might be significantly different than OTL. Imagine a USA where fried chicken, grits,sweet potatoes, okra, fried catfish, crayfish, gumbo, BBQ, and Tex-Mex were considered foreign foods, possibly even tainted by their association with an unfriendly foreign state. Perhaps US food would come to resemble English cooking even more than it does in OTL (basically bland northern european fare) with "good southern cooking" only available in large cities also containing Chinese or French restaurants. Perhaps in the USA "southern" fastfood would be marketed mainly as "exotic" african-black slave food.

Imagine "Popeyes" or "KFC" with an Aunt Jemima or Unlce Ben's like mascot, cashiers in slave/servant garb.

Actually, I see no reason why this would make Italian food LESS popular in the North. Even Greek and Eastern European food could do more to catch on in a Union that lacked the South.
 
A "No-Ottomans" timeline would be very distopic. No croissans, perhaps also no coffee, or coffee regarded as an "ethnic drinking" from Africa.
 
A "No-Ottomans" timeline would be very distopic. No croissans, perhaps also no coffee, or coffee regarded as an "ethnic drinking" from Africa.

The cuisines of Greece and the Balkans would be different.,... No baklavas for them, no gyros maybe, no kebab, etc.... The things that spread in the conquered territories and got local adaptations.
 
Indeed.... Just need more immigration from there. Perhaps if the Philipines become a full colony/state, as more caraiban islands?
 
Indeed.... Just need more immigration from there. Perhaps if the Philipines become a full colony/state, as more caraiban islands?

I was thinking statehood for the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Cuba in a TL where the war with Spain happens years earlier.
 
In the world where the unfortunate contretemps of 1776 never happened....

Lyons Imperial Tea houses - a branch to be found on almost every high street of the Imperial Dominions.

Shrimp-u-like - the exciting antipodean hot grill palace

Harry's Pie and Mash - the food that made the Empire great

Pemmican Palace - for that authentic indian taste

Pig'n'Poi - pit cooked pork with poi, it's pig and it's purple

and

MacDonalds - freshly caught wild scotch haggis with bashed neeps and tatties "Run the Empire, Eat like home"
 
I came up with KKKFC a long time ago in alternate newspapers. They have restaurants throughout the CSA (which includes part of the Caribbean) I guess they'd have different fried chicken and other items.
 
I'd like some tempura for an appetizer, anti-pasta salad, chicken and dumplings for soup, and a tri-tip and a twice baked potato, and some garlic bread too:D
 

Hendryk

Banned
I think that it had been argued that the rise of protestanism and anglicanism changed the culinary habitudes of the northern europe countries - the spîces and such where associated with the 'decadant' papist church, and so on. Blender food, as a form of humility and such, where favored.

In an ATL where the church reformed, the Protestanism movement didn't appears, maybe the cuisines of England, Germany, Netherland, Scandinavia and such would look different quite, closer to the latin europe.
That reminds me of a movie, "Babette's Feast", which showed the culture clash between the French Catholic and Scandinavian Calvinist styles of cooking. A woman refugee from the Paris Commune shows up in 1871 in a remote village on the coast of Jutland in Denmark and is taken up as houseservant by two kind-hearted elderly ladies. The local lifestyle is austere, based on a strict interpretation of Calvinist dogma--people eat bread and soup and little else. The Frenchwoman adapts to it as best she can, but one day she wins the lottery and decides to thank the community by preparing for them a lavish five-star dinner. The night before, the villagers have nightmares about the ungodly temptations of decadent Papist cuisine and take the feast as a trial to their faith. At the end, they've all come to enjoy the food on its own terms, and realize that the shared pleasure of eating can be conducive to brotherly love as well...
 
I think that it had been argued that the rise of protestanism and anglicanism changed the culinary habitudes of the northern europe countries - the spîces and such where associated with the 'decadant' papist church, and so on. Blender food, as a form of humility and such, where favored.

In an ATL where the church reformed, the Protestanism movement didn't appears, maybe the cuisines of England, Germany, Netherland, Scandinavia and such would look different quite, closer to the latin europe.

Partly, but the disappearance of lavish spicing also has to do with other factors. In the course of the 15th and 16th centuries, European medical science changed its view of dietetics. 'Heating' the food (in a humoral sense) was no longer considered essential, and thus 'cold' foods did not need spices added. At the same time, the price of spices dropped while the rising population and worsening agriculture altered the balance of luxury. in the 16th and 17th century, pepper and nutmeg became affordable to more and more people while animal fats and meat became less and less so. Changing fashions also played a role, and the purist ideals of grande cuisine (which to this day are a leaden corset on our tradition) actually come from Catholic France. Without a Reformationb, you would probably see more indigenous freshwater fish cookery and a less pervasive use of bacon and lard in Northern Europe, but I doubt the medieval proliferation of luxury spices would survive. It was already on its way out in the 1500s.
 
Wouldnt the food be better without the Ottomans. Have the Europeans occupy it by ASBs and make it peaceful (MORE ASB). Then there will be more exchanges in recipies.
 
Let us also remember that many food stapels came from exotic land first.... The so-italian tomato is from mesomarica as the ubiquitous chili peper, the simple potatoe from the Andes, sugar from India.... If you change the conquests, rules, trade routes, discover roads, you will change the diets and the cultural diffusion of such items.

A world where America is not discovered or later would have none of those staples yet in the old world, and earlier, stronger trades with Asia would have seen maybe sugar, rice and tea along earlier medieval, perhaps even roman empire, by example.
 
If the POD goes back far enough, you could have entirely different foods. I mean, some wild plants and animals could have been domesticated that never were in OTL. Think of all the edible wild plants and animals that exist - there must be potentially thousands of new foods.

Even with a POD as recent as 1930, I think fruits and vegetables would look and taste different. My wife is a keen gardener, and recently got a catalogue of "heirloom" vegetable seeds i.e. vegetable varieties that existed in a time before supermarkets. Considering tomatoes alone there are ones that are white, pink, purple, yellow, orange, green, black, stripy or blotchy and round, oval, ridged, cone-shaped or squarish. Other vegetables have similar varieties. She has grown some of these vegetables and they have much more flavour than anything you would buy at a supermarket.

Here's the webpage of an online heirloom seed company, with pictures of all the weird vegetables.

Also, there are loads of foods that are marginalised in OTL - eaten only by one or a handful of cultures. For example, cloudberries grow in Britain, but how many British people have heard of them? In Scandinavia, though, they are a "normal" fruit.

There are also foods that have gone extinct, like the Roman herb silphium (which became exinct through being so popular that all of it was harvested and eaten by the Romans). And of course, the Dodo.

This page has two essays on alternate cookery.

The food writer Jeffrey Steingarten once wrote that Visigoth cuisine was the last undiscovered cuisine of Europe. Well, it's still undiscovered - I can't find anything about it on the internet. There must be other "historical" cuisines that could still exist in ATLs. The Romans were gourmands and apparantly liked very spicy and strongly flavoured foods - food in a "Roman Empire Survives" timeline where the Romans have have chillies, chocolate, vanilla etc. could be delicious.
 
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