Evolving Recipes

Posted by Traveller, November 4, 2009 at 12:44 PM

I was sharing happy hour last night with a couple of friends, one of whom was from Serbia and the other with family in the Czech Republic. The latter was telling us about her family's kolaches, which she loved and how she and her beau looked for them while they were in teh Czech Republic, but could not find them made the same way that she had always known. Now, her family had moved across the ocean at the end of the 19th century, so she posited that in that time, the recipes and fillings had just naturally evolved, given time, distance from the source and preference/access to ingredients.

I then thought about how Irish Americans stereotypically (not always) eat corned beef and cabbage, which is a dish that I learned while living in Ireland is just not normal at all (at least in Cork, where I lived). I wanted to know if any of you have had simliar experiences, where you have discovered that a traditional food that you know/love has been changed over time from the original, "back in the old country"? Do you like the newer or the traditional versions better? What changes have you made to one, if any?

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