Flavors of the Past: Classic Recipes vs. Modern Blasphemy

  • Thread starter Thread starter Evo
  • Start date Start date
Click For Summary
SUMMARY

This discussion critiques the trend of modernizing classic recipes, emphasizing that such alterations often result in dishes that bear little resemblance to their traditional counterparts. Specific examples include a chicken cacciatore recipe that substitutes tofu and mango chutney, and a "cheesy breakfast baklava" that incorporates Italian sausage. Participants argue that these reinterpretations dilute the essence of the original recipes, leading to confusion and frustration among culinary enthusiasts. The consensus is that classic recipes should be preserved in their authentic form, as they are cherished for a reason.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of traditional Italian cuisine, specifically Chicken Cacciatore.
  • Familiarity with classic pastry techniques, particularly in making baklava.
  • Knowledge of vegetarian cooking and its implications on traditional recipes.
  • Awareness of culinary terminology and the significance of ingredient authenticity.
NEXT STEPS
  • Research authentic Chicken Cacciatore recipes to understand traditional preparation methods.
  • Explore the history and ingredients of baklava to appreciate its cultural significance.
  • Investigate vegetarian adaptations of classic dishes and their impact on culinary traditions.
  • Learn about the importance of ingredient integrity in recipe development and naming conventions.
USEFUL FOR

Culinary enthusiasts, chefs, food historians, and anyone interested in preserving the integrity of traditional recipes will benefit from this discussion.

Evo
Staff Emeritus
Messages
24,032
Reaction score
3,276
Food blasphemy!

I've noticed it's become trendy to take well loved, traditional recipes and create "updated" versions of them. I've also found that the "updated" version is usually not even close to the tasty original and can actually be quite revolting, if not frightening.

I was looking for chicken cacciatore recipes online. This I thought was a no brainer, chicken, a marinara type tomato sauce, mushrooms and olives, served over pasta.

Instead I find "In our updated version of the classic Chicken Cacciatore, we have substituted tofu for the chicken, mango chutney for the tomato sauce, chilled and poured over a bed of mung bean sprouts". :confused:

It's like the "cheesy breakfast baklava" recipe I found. That's NOT baklava! (although I admit as a cheese and phyllo dough recipe it looked quite yummy).

And the "chocolate mousse" recipe that contained peach puree and no chocolate. :bugeye:

Come on people. There are traditional, classic recipes that should be made in a certain way with certain ingredients. Once you change that, you can no longer call it by that name.

Like my friend's frozen "meatless chicken and vegetables" dinner. I think "meatless" might mean there isn't really any chicken in it. Is it legal to call it chicken?

It's like non-alcoholic wine. Uhm, maybe that would be GRAPE JUICE? Except it's packaged in a wine botle and costs 10 times more than grape juice. :rolleyes:

I guess my rant is brought about by the destruction of some very old, out of print cookbooks I had and I'm trying to find the REAL recipes and all I'm finding are these bastardized imitations.

Am I the only one that thinks classic recipes are classic for a reason?
 
Last edited:
Physics news on Phys.org
Evo said:
I was looking for chicken cacciatore recipes online. This I thought was a no brainer, chicken, a marinara type tomato sauce, mushrooms and olives, served over pasta.

Instead I find "In our updated version of the classic Chicken Cacciatore, we have substituted tofu for the chicken, mango chutney for the tomato sauce, chilled and poured over a bed of mung bean sprouts". :confused:

Just like chicken cacciatore - only different!

ay yi yi!
 
Does anyone know of a Mexican restaurant that still fries their own taco shells? I've noticed lately that even the better restaurants are using those crappy preformed shells that taste like paper.
 
Bad, bad, bad!
 
Cheese baklava??!


People have been saying the world is going to hell...but until now I didn't believe them.:eek:
 
I'm hungry...again.
 
G01 said:
Cheese baklava??!


People have been saying the world is going to hell...but until now I didn't believe them.:eek:
I kid you not. The only ingredient this shares with baklava (which is a sweet desert pastry) is the phyllo. :rolleyes:

Cheesy Brunch Baklava

INGREDIENTS

1 lb. Italian sausage
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped red bell pepper
2 cups (8 oz.) Sargento® Fancy Mozzarella Shredded Cheese
1 cup Sargento® Part-Skim Ricotta Cheese
1 egg, beaten
16 sheets (about 1/2 pkg.) prepared frozen phyllo pastry, thawed
Non-stick cooking spray


DIRECTIONS

Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Baking Time: 35 minutes
Serves: 8

Cook sausage, onion and red pepper in large skillet over medium heat until meat is brown and crumbly; drain and cool. Combine Mozzarella cheese, Ricotta cheese, egg and sausage mixture; set aside.

Spray 13x9-inch baking dish with non-stick cooking spray. Trim phyllo sheets to 13x9-inch. Working with one sheet at a time, (keep remaining phyllo covered), spray eight sheets with cooking spray.

Place phyllo pastry into prepared baking dish. Spoon filling over phyllo. Spray remaining 8 sheets with cooking spray and layer over filling. Using a sharp knife, cut into 8 squares. Bake, uncovered, in preheated 400°F oven 35 minutes or until golden brown.

http://www.sargentocheese.com/recipe/recipeDetail.jsp?recipeId=436
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Evo said:
I kid you not. The only ingredient this shares with baklava (which is a sweet desert pastry) is the phyllo. :rolleyes:

Baklava is delicious. The only problem with it is that if you eat a 1in. X 1in. square you automatically have rotted teeth.:rolleyes:

Italian Sausage in Baklava...AHHH!...Might as well make apple pie with meatloaf in it, or tofu gyros, or chick pea falafel...o wait...that last one is correct. Now I'm all confused!
 
Interesting, I never knew Baklava was popular in the west.
 
  • #10
There are traditional, classic recipes that should be made in a certain way with certain ingredients. Once you change that, you can no longer call it by that name.
Indeed!

Baklava is a sweet pastry made of layers of phyllo dough filled with chopped nuts, usually walnuts or pistachios, and sweetened with sugar or honey syrup.
Honey is better than sugar.

Anything other than those ingredients - it is NOT baklava!

Now there is something called banitsa which is similar to the Cheesy Brunch Baklava, but banitsa is primarily phyllo and cheese without the meat. Sausage is OK, but thinly sliced prosciutto is better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banitsa
 
  • #11
Evo said:
Instead I find "In our updated version of the classic Chicken Cacciatore, we have substituted tofu for the chicken, mango chutney for the tomato sauce, chilled and poured over a bed of mung bean sprouts". :confused:

Um... we have vegetarians today. Thought about that?

I wouldn't eat that though. Sounds gross.
 
  • #12
JasonRox said:
Um... we have vegetarians today. Thought about that?

I wouldn't eat that though. Sounds gross.
The point though, is that it's no longer cacciatore. Cacciatore is a traditional rustic stew with meat, tomato sauce, mushrooms and olives.

It's not chocolate mousse if it's made of fruit and no chocolate, it's not chicken if it doesn't contain chicken. But I see this happening all over the place. People taking a recipe and changing all of the ingredients so that the end product has nothing to do with the original.
 
  • #13
Astronuc said:
Now there is something called banitsa which is similar to the Cheesy Brunch Baklava, but banitsa is primarily phyllo and cheese without the meat. Sausage is OK, but thinly sliced prosciutto is better.
Actually, it's closer to spanakopita, at least that's not a sweet desert.
 
  • #14
JasonRox said:
Um... we have vegetarians today. Thought about that?

Then why not call it tofu with mango chutney sauce? Why call it chicken cacciatore when it has no chicken and nothing resembling cacciatore?

Those are the types of vegetarians I cannot understand. If you crave meat so badly you have to pretend everything is still meat, then just eat meat. Our hospital cafeteria is horribly guilty of this, serving such dishes as, "Meatless meatloaf." :confused: Why not call it a vegetable loaf? Though, I do find it more amusing when the name appears more like, "Vegetarian Meatloaf." Does that mean the meat comes from vegetarians? I mean, maybe they're nice and tender from being grain-fed, but... :rolleyes:

If you're creative enough to come up with a new recipe, think up a new name to go with it. I mean, that tofu dish actually does sound kind of tasty to me (or would if I liked tofu...but I can appreciate the concept), it's just that it's not even close to chicken cacciatore; it shouldn't even be called tofu cacciatore, because it's not even just a substitute of tofu for chicken.

Hmm...meatless chicken...does that mean it's made with the bones, beak, and feathers? :biggrin:
 
  • #15
Pity. A chef who reuses an existing name for an entirely different dish is missing a golden opportunity to be recognized as creator of this new dish. As a chef (which I am not) I would coin a new name for every new creation I come up with and become famous as its inventor. My cookbooks might sell much better.
 
  • #16
out of whack said:
Pity. A chef who reuses an existing name for an entirely different dish is missing a golden opportunity to be recognized as creator of this new dish. As a chef (which I am not) I would coin a new name for every new creation I come up with and become famous as its inventor. My cookbooks might sell much better.

Chicken Out-of-Whackatore? :biggrin:
 
  • #17
radou said:
Interesting, I never knew Baklava was popular in the west.

I don't know how popular it is across the US, but it is definitely common where I'm from.
 
  • #18
Mango chutney in cacciatore and Italian sausage in baklava? :confused:
 
  • #19
morphism said:
Mango chutney in cacciatore and Italian sausage in baklava? :confused:
Frightening, isn't it.
 
  • #20
Math Is Hard said:
Chicken Out-of-Whackatore? :biggrin:

Right on! Doesn't it just scream "eat me"?
 
  • #21
When I first married my now ex-husband, he asked me to make some of his favorite recipes his mother made. One was "chop suey". I absolutely could not imagine this New England matriarch doing a chinese style stir fry, so I asked her for the recipe. Here are the ingredients -

ground beef
Campbell's canned tomato soup
1 green bell pepper
macaroni

:confused: :bugeye:

Another dish he wanted was goulash. Ok, this I made quite often before I met him, with chunks of beef, and lots of paprika. Nope, not according to his mom. Her ingredeints for goulash -

ground beef
tomato sauce
oregano
macaroni

:confused: :bugeye:

Wait, that's chop suey! :smile: Or no, it's a spaghetti sauce poured over macaroni and then cooked in a deep skillet until it forms a gloppy mess.

Of course the scariest "goulash" recipe is this one I just found.

12 ounces whole wheat macaroni (or other small pasta like bowtie or rotini)
1 lb lean ground beef or ground turkey
1 small onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 stalk celery, sliced
1/2 cup frozen sweet corn
1 (14 ounce) can kidney beans
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 (14 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon italian seasoning
1 tablespoon paprika
1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

The only ingredient this has that is actually in authentic goulash is the paprika. Therefore, any dish that contains paprika can be called goulash.
 
Last edited:
  • #22
G01 said:
I don't know how popular it is across the US, but it is definitely common where I'm from.

Are you from the Balkan?
 
  • #23
radou said:
Interesting, I never knew Baklava was popular in the west.
It has gained in popularity in the US, you can find it in most pastry shops now.
 
  • #24
Moonbear said:
Those are the types of vegetarians I cannot understand. If you crave meat so badly you have to pretend everything is still meat, then just eat meat. Our hospital cafeteria is horribly guilty of this, serving such dishes as, "Meatless meatloaf." :confused: Why not call it a vegetable loaf? Though, I do find it more amusing when the name appears more like, "Vegetarian Meatloaf." Does that mean the meat comes from vegetarians? I mean, maybe they're nice and tender from being grain-fed, but... :rolleyes:
:smile:

If you're creative enough to come up with a new recipe, think up a new name to go with it. I mean, that tofu dish actually does sound kind of tasty to me (or would if I liked tofu...but I can appreciate the concept), it's just that it's not even close to chicken cacciatore; it shouldn't even be called tofu cacciatore, because it's not even just a substitute of tofu for chicken.
Plus cacciatore is "hunter's style", it's a hunter's stew. I don't know how many people hunt tofu here in the US.

Hmm...meatless chicken...does that mean it's made with the bones, beak, and feathers? :biggrin:
Moonbear, you are a riot. :smile:
 
  • #25
Evo said:
Plus cacciatore is "hunter's style", it's a hunter's stew. I don't know how many people hunt tofu here in the US.

:smile: Well, you just never know.
 
  • #26
  • #27
Evo said:
4 bananas
chocolate

:!) I absolutely adore everything where chocolate and bananas act together.
 
  • #28
Moonbear said:
I do find it more amusing when the name appears more like, "Vegetarian Meatloaf." Does that mean the meat comes from vegetarians? I mean, maybe they're nice and tender from being grain-fed, but... :rolleyes:
That's hilarious! :smile:
 
  • #29
That's why I never eat baby food.
 
  • #30
turbo-1 said:
That's why I never eat baby food.
:smile: :bugeye: :eek: