Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I talk italian whenever possible and we discuss baking a fair amount.
Maybe Daniel we need to have you posting more talk. Let's even it out!!!
Come on start talking...

It's easy to lump all Asian food together instead of distinguishing between Japanese, Thai, Korean, Chinese, etc.

I just cruised the past three pages and found that there were just as many "European" as "Asian" if we're going to get continental about it.

Seems really focused on this North American cuisine, if you ask me (including Mexico & Canada).

If we're complaining, I think there's far too much pork on Serious Eats. Not to sound speciesist.

I believe DanielJ was commenting on the Home page and not the Talk section.

I really enjoy the "Asian-themed" posts, because I've seen so many other places handle the subject matter less well and in a manner that's not as nuanced nor as fun. I think quantity-wise, it's actually more balanced and the effect is that the site doesn't treat Asian/Asian American food as some weirdo, exotic thing.

This also just reminds me of Aziz Ansari's bit on Slumdog Millionaire - at around 1:30 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO6oNlierSQ

I too think there's more than enough variety. I actually really like the Asian food-themed posts because it's cuisine that I find super difficult to cook and very interesting. Like bento boxes, how awesome are those?

I love Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, etc., etc, but I find I need a lot of help cooking foods from those regions. I've tried many Asian S.E. recipes with great success.

I've been reading for a while (lurking), and the same thought had crossed my mind, but I thought posting it would be kind of incendiary. I love Asian food, of whatever provenance, but I do feel like I'm not quite seeing as many other areas of the world covered - South American, Middle Eastern, African, whatever. I'm not certain if this is because there is ofreader interest (presumably, SE has the traffic logs for all the articles) or because there isn't anyone willing to cover them, or what. The articles that are posted are very useful, though.

So I went back and read over the recipe entries so far this month. The "Cook the book" feature is focusing on a Japanese cookbook so that might seem why it's leaning towards "Asian" lately. I use quotes because there's a lot more to Asia than just China and Japan and I really hate that it's such a general term to cover such a continent that has such vastly different countries. Unfortunately this happens whenever we use a continent to denote a cuisine. Even food in the US varies from region to region and even state to state (if you need proof, ask people from different states what "barbeque" is).

But so far this month there have also been several French, Italian, and Mexican recipes posted. It seems this is because there are regular contributors to SE that focus in these areas. Are there other voices out there that can share their insights into other cuisines? I can help out if you want to know about Spanish/Gallego dishes.

hahaha!
@ginger, I think we just had the same thought process and posted 1 minute apart.

Never enough. I like to see articles on different kinds of cuisine and a wide variety of foods outside of what we're familiar with.
I'm "Asian" and I'm always finding new and interesting things from those articles.

I'd welcome a glut of articles about other world cuisines, too ::hint hint::

I think cooking any type of Asian food is a polarizing thing.

On one hand, you have folks who are totally into it. They have the (many) ingredients, they understand the work involved, and they understand the technique. I'm not really one of those people.

On the other, you have folks who WANT to do it. But they see lists of lots of ingredients they think they'll only use minimally over time, they see the prep work, they see the heat and pan requirements, and get a little intimidated.

At that point, it's easier to get take-out. Why do you think take-out or delivery Asian food is so popular? It's predictably decent, zero effort, and doesn't leave ingredients (that you have no idea how to use again, unless you make a ton of Asian food) sitting in your cupboard.

Am I saying that's the right way to approach it? No. To each his/her own. I just think that's what's going on with Asian cooking in American kitchens. Maybe it's different in non-American kitchens.

I really hadn't noticed an abundance of "Asian" themed articles but as I was reading thru the posts I was intrigued by @betteirene's reference to Weber cuisine. I have never heard of it and I hope you can enlighten us.

Oh-you did say Italian-sheesh-i'm still not quite awake, I guess

Yeah seriously, where's the white people food? I want my America back!

Sorry, I meant "bánh mì." I suck.

@gingergin - I don't think anyone has said that all "Asian" cuisine is the same. I think the point made is that not all cuisine on that continent is the same and so wrapping it all under the same umbrella name of "Asian" is incorrect.

I've loved the Asian entries, and have learned some great things about dumpling making. So grateful, as dumplings are one of my first loves and I basically have to make them because of paucity of local availability. Got some great advice on fried rice, too. I'd rather see specific requests for more of something, rather than less of something else. As pooch says, you can change the channel.

Skip things that don't hold your interest. I don't bake, but I find it pretty easy to click pass those posts.

When you say Asian you mean bacon and cupcakes, right?

I wrote that "Weber" was a cuisine to differentiate it from barbecue. I meant grilling and outdoor cooking, because barbecue has a specific meaning, depending on where you're from and what you like.

And yes, hillbilly food is a category of its own. It's different from Dixie cooking, except for the fried green tomatoes. My husband is a Hatfield from Mingo County, WV. They sure do eat different from us Yankees. Venison on Thanksgiving, deer sausage (fresh and dried) and venison jerky, squirrel, chicken sometimes, a lot of pork in all its forms, almost no beef, fish or seafood. Biscuits (the dough is made from self-rising flour and milk, gets patted onto a cookie sheet, is scored into squares and then has a stick of melted butter poured on top before baking) and gravy (made from deer sausage). Tomato gravy (roux, evaporated milk and chopped tomatoes) goes on top of whatever isn't covered by sausage gravy. Tomatoes and green beans and pinto beans are the predominant vegetables, all cooked with a pork product.

That's how it used to be when the boys were little and we'd go visit the kinfolk. But a while back, the top of the mountain was removed for a new highway, and a WalMart Supercenter went up. So now they don't need to keep canned milk on hand; they can also have two "aigs" for breakfast and "Co-cola" pretty nearly every day, not just for special occasions. I just hope the deer jerky doesn't get replaced by packages of Oberto jerky.

His sister, BTW, is married to a Mexican. We call their kids "chili-billies."

I dont know about Asian food, but, it seems like SE has a stiffy for lentils. Kind of like Neil(the hippy) from the young ones.

Never thought there were too many Asian-themed articles. What I do notice is A LOT OF articles about Shake Sham, I mean, Shake Shack.

Also consider that one of the most well-known adages about writing is "Write what you know," and there are a couple of writers at SE who happen to know cuisines from that region rather well (e.g. Michele Humes, Chichi Wang). There are also writers whose specialties in other regions and cuisines (Kerry Saretsky for French/North African, Gina DePalma with Seriously Italian, etc., etc.), it's just that here in the States, we tend to think of those as "more" different than the "Asian" cuisines are, so we see that and think that having one post about Japanese food and one post about Vietnamese food in the same day is two posts of "Asian food," while one post about French food and one of Italian is just that, posts about foods from different regions.

At the end of the day, it would be nice to have specialists in every single cuisine imaginable at SE, but realistically speaking, that isn't possible. And personally, I would rather see a glut of well-informed articles about a certain set of regional cuisines than one of poorly-researched ones, devoid of meaningful content, included solely for the purpose of some superficial sheen of "diversity."

what CanadianFoodieGirl said.