I am just waiting for a post disparagingly referring to 'foreign muck', which one of my aunts always talked about.
All these foreign foods are just as good for you as anything we are familiar with. They have been basic foodstuffs in other countries for thousand's of years, even if they are unfamiliar in the UK.
When this thread started I thought it was about those hundred of extra flavours that recipes require today, smoked paprika, chilis by name, special kinds of rice, 15 different pastas, 3 different types of soy sauce. Instead it has been about sticking to traditional recipes and not sampling the various new food stuffs and cuisines that have come to us over the last 50 years, which I find rather sad
I am perhaps fortunate that in my childhood we lived in the Far East and mainland Europe and my father was immensely curious about food, so, back in the 50s, curry, goulasch, risotto, Chinese fried rice and pasta were all every day recipes in our household. My mother was an excellent cook.
I get fed up with recipes requiring a teaspoon only of 8 different special ingredients costing £ 15 at least, if you do not have chinese fish sauce, golden soy sauce, plum sauce and several other flavour inducers already in the larder,
But when it comes to the new foodstuffs; butternut squash, courgettes, aubergines, sweet potatoes, quark, parmesan, I can't sample them fast enough and love the recipes in magazines that introduce these foodstuffs to me.