I am "Burger" ...

Hear me roar.

Congrats yumbo~, I'm hot on your heels bud!

Great Achievement!! Keep those posts coming! We ought to hold some kind of special ritual when someone achieves a new level of communication here...Maby sacrific a "Pig in a Pit" !!!

Dearfolk,
Hear me galumping up behind y'all! - I'm catching up. This is fun, educational, and good writing practice.
Peckingly, Ort. Carlton in lovely Athens, Georgia.
P. S. I have the Helen Reddy 45 on the original Capitol "target" issue AND the second-pressing red-and-brown label, too. Hmmm. Sometime I'll propose - if not start - a post linking various foods to corresponding records. Anyone else interested?

I made it to burger!!!! woo hoo! (said in best Homer S. voice)

I'm almost there too ! just a couple of more posts !!!

Ah heck, why not just go ahead and get it out of the way. Less pressure now !

It is a heady feeling, isn't it. Kind of like seeing your name on the graduation list ! Keep up the good work , all of you. This forum is evolving into quite an interesting place. I like to read the 'likes and dislikes' of the contributors...It becomes a pattern that helps me form an image of foodies everywhere.
Perhaps this is because the best of the breed are located in a specific area... Sausage favorites tend to be centered in the Urban North, BBQ in the Pit form is a rural, or small-town Southern speciality. California is more than the joke I have considered it in the past, It does occupy a strong place in the pattern, with entries all it's own.
I thank Jane and Michael for helping tie all these individual regional items into the 'melting pot' (pun intended) we seem to be enjoying here.

Mayor's right. There used to be a guy who called himself something like "the food detective," who claimed he could pinpoint exactly where you were from, and what your ancestry was, if you described to him exactly what you ate for Thanksgiving. Most people just say "the usual," but of course that is totally different region to region, state to state, neighborhood to neighborhood. I didn't know how regional my own tastes were until I moved away from Chicago and realized that not everyone enjoyed Italian beef, Vienna hot dogs, and shrimp de jonghe.

To me, that's one of the most interesting things about regional food differences: how most people just assume what they eat is "the usual" ... until they move away and can't find it any more. Sheesh, it took me only about 20 years of living in Connecticut to come to appreciate the deep fried hot dog as something that only we in the northeast can enjoy whenever we want.

Sorry, to those of you with dial-up connections! At this moment, I am in desperate need of a one-megabyte hot dog

HEY MICHAEL you're dripping grease on my post
A friend of mine completed his PhD in Linguistic's with a study of the relationship between dialect and geography/location of the speaker. His major contribution to society as I see it, is that at a party or gathering, he will wander around chatting with folks and in general being sociable. Then after making the rounds for a time, he will be able to describe the location where the guests grew up within roughly 50 miles! We like to try to set him up with a ringer...the Military Brat who traveled a lot as a small child, or the 'fish out of water' example. It never works, the guy is uncanny at his ability to narrow the dialect to specific locations. I suppose the 'Food Detective' is the same kind of person. Hopefully the regional differences will survive in this day of uniform blandness in many areas of our culture.

"California" cuisine (and our political climate) is a joke indeed, but I live right in the heart, the San Joaquin Valley, which is like this huge cultural blend like you wouldn't believe. Even more so than the north and south of our state. The little town near here where I grew up, had a strong German and Japanese population, along with the hispanics, but not much else. I moved 45 minutes away, and I can experience authentic African cuisine,American Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Korean ,middle Eastern, East Indian, Armenian, just to name a few. Unfortunately, we are in severe lack of authentic Jewish delis, real eastern pizza, and strangely enough, really great chinese places (out of 100 chinese places, only 1 or 2 are not drek).

Jennifer
Even up in Raisin country, the California 'Attitude' comes thru. If you have ever seen the Steve Martin Movie"L A Story" you will have seen one of the best descriptions of the special touch that California gives to it's own 'Food'
If you haven't seen the film, go rent it sometime.. The humor of Ken and Barby and friends ordering coffee is something you must see to believe.
TRUE STORY Time,
We stayed the night at a little motel in Hurricane, Utah a few years ago...near the entrance to Zion Nat'l Park (in November). While having a cup of coffee and toast at a hole in the wall cafe occupied by us and 3 or 4 local old geezers and the one waitress, a Black BMW w/neon pink trim and California tags roared into the parking area outside. It was about 35 degrees or so outside, overcast and a pretty miserable day. Out jumped Skip and Buffy and the 2 kids, in tank tops and flip-flops. They came in, sat down and proceeded to order just about everything on the menu, keeping the waitress running back and forth with requests for every extra they could find. The kids didn't like anything, so their orders sat untouched, The parents got tired of arguing with them and after a few bites, decided the food "sucked", (Their loud and vocal descriptor)...So they demanded a check, stiffed the waitress with no tip, and got really upset when she had trouble breaking a $100 bill to cover the $40 worth of food...It was still very early in the morning and she didn't have much change. The locals pooled their resources to help her, taking some additional scorn from the Yuppies. The visitors then took off in a cloud of flying gravel as they hurried to their rendevoux with nature, or whatever. As things settled back down to normal, one old guy commented to another " XO@#XO*#@ Californians"! I was glad my truck was parked back at the motel, or we might have been lynched by the "Over the Hill Gang".
That's when I really noticed that I was not a typical L A person!!

Now Al, here in the heart of Cali, we are really a less conceited bunch, mostly farmers and family types, and we all vote properly. It's those darn LA and SF people that give the state its bad name. Personally I come from a long line of Okies and I'd surely rather be eating there, where you can get a decent chicken fried steak.

Jen,
I have one branch of the family who have been in the Visalia area since WW II. We used to go to Baseball games to watch the Visalia Oaks play. I think in the long run this country will play a great price for allowing the best agricultural land in the U S A to be turned into sprawling housing subdivisions. I used to have a difficult time convincing my Desert-grown students that AG was the largest cash producing industry in the Golden State.
al

Love you guys. Proud to be a Canadian Hamburger.

I'm still a Junior...... I guess I am the baby of the family.

Keep going Charlie, only 45 posts to go !!!

quote:

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Originally posted by Al-The Mayor-Bowen

Jen,
I have one branch of the family who have been in the Visalia area since WW II. We used to go to Baseball games to watch the Visalia Oaks play. I think in the long run this country will play a great price for allowing the best agricultural land in the U S A to be turned into sprawling housing subdivisions. I used to have a difficult time convincing my Desert-grown students that AG was the largest cash producing industry in the Golden State.
al

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Mr Mayor, I live about 40 minutes north of Visalia..and you are correct about the importance of agriculture..for goodness sakes it's the foundation of what we live for here on Roadfood.

quote:

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Originally posted by Michael Stern

Sorry, to those of you with dial-up connections! At this moment, I am in desperate need of a one-megabyte hot dog

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Oh no. Don't apologize. That's lovely the way it is. Really.

'xcuse me. Gotta wipe the drool off my keyboard.....