[HN Gopher] Pizza rolls and the meaning of midcentury food
___________________________________________________________________
Pizza rolls and the meaning of midcentury food
Author : danso
Score : 122 points
Date : 2023-03-31 14:33 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.snackstack.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.snackstack.net)
| jbmny wrote:
| I never knew pizza rolls had such history. I assumed they were
| just an obscure and unremarkable snack before their breakout role
| in Mr. Plinkett's Star Wars prequel reviews.
| pbronez wrote:
| This article is an interesting complement to the "age of average"
| article that was trending here a few days ago. In the late 60s
| folks wanted to be a bit different, pushing against the
| conformity of the 50s. And they did that in part by... buying
| novel frozen food? Fast forward and this is essentially Trader
| Joe's whole thing.
|
| The rise in pizza popularity post WWII was a harbinger of
| cultural globalization that has now started to feel like
| homogenization.
|
| I'm fascinated by the interplay between individuals, societies
| and consumerism. Be unique like everyone else!
|
| Still that feels like a weak take. Where's the line between
| lemmings and spreading best practices?
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > In the late 60s folks wanted to be a bit different, pushing
| against the conformity of the 50s. And they did that in part
| by... buying novel frozen food?
|
| Home refrigerators were still fairly new. A quick google
| indicates that "a refrigerator in the home" became a standard
| thing in the US in the 1940s. 1960s seems a bit slow (maybe the
| war got in the way?), but not every innovation is instant, and
| in this case the "innovation" is not the refrigerator itself,
| but the "frozen pizza rolls", second-order effects, the
| structuring of new products around the common availability of
| the home refrigerator. The platform precedes it, just like you
| don't have a mass-market app store before the iPhone.
| User23 wrote:
| Before refrigerators people used iceboxes which accomplished
| much the same thing.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Pizza is an interesting thing. What they had in southern Italy
| before the war was very different and didn't have tomato sauce,
| etc on it. It was a street food for peasants. There are
| accounts of Italian-American GIs working their way through
| Italy and surprised that the pizza they were used to back in
| America did not exist in Italy.
|
| A lot of food we think of as being from a small place and then
| globalized is sort of marketing. A lot of stuff was created
| after WW2, associated with a country, and globalized.
|
| Not to pick Italy but carbonara is an example of this. Invented
| by Italian Americans. The first accounts of it existing are in
| cook books published in America. Old Italians have no
| recollection of it pre-war.
|
| But it was characterized as "authentic Italian" and it soon
| became the national dish of Rome, and modified to its current
| state today. Before recent times people were not killing enough
| pigs to make pork jowl universally accepted as the "authentic"
| protein in the dish.
| robg wrote:
| Great read, love the story of entrepreneurship meets American
| culinary cross overs. Are there other examples of this phenomenon
| around the world, where street food is commoditized and makes
| literal billionaires?
| ricardobeat wrote:
| I think you'll find hundreds of examples all around the word,
| it's a common story in Japan, Brazil, Europe, India, probably
| every country has at least one.
|
| What sets the US examples apart is the "entrepreneurial" aspect
| of creating an entirely made-up food category, resulting from
| the availability of industrial machinery and marketing trends.
| There is little connection to to street food or concerns about
| authenticity.
| politelemon wrote:
| This was a nice focused read. I've never had pizza rolls and just
| checking, my local supermarkets don't have these either. They'll
| likely forever stay as a stereotype-point of US culture from a
| distance, much like the red party cups.
| ilyt wrote:
| I now kinda want to buy a roll of pizza dough and just... make
| hi-end version of them
| konfusinomicon wrote:
| if you do cross paths with them, go for the pepperoni flavor.
| they are hands down the best one. and definitely don't cook
| them in a microwave, arrange on a circular pan in the shape of
| a smiley face in a not preheated oven at 420 for 12 minutes or
| you see one start to explode. if you don't have enough to make
| the full face, your doing it wrong.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Pretty unhealthy... check. Easy to overeat and long term screw
| up your body without intention, especially with kids who have
| no defenses... check. Pales dramatically in taste when compared
| with real food (TM), aka cheap junkfood category... check. Yes,
| confirming stereotypes.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| I opened Pandora's caloric box as a teenager when I learned
| that I could deep fry pizza rolls.
|
| Fortunately they've changed the recipe lately, to make them
| better for air-fryers, and now I don't feel the same urge to
| deep fry them.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| Pizza rolls, Steak-umms, and Chef Boyardee pizzas were basically
| survival food in the 80s as many of us were left to fend for
| ourselves for days at a time during the school week.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Why couldn't you just make some food?
| cratermoon wrote:
| Too time consuming. With the microwave, you can have pizza
| rolls in 5 minutes. Less, if you don't mind the experience of
| alternating between still almost frozen and mouth-burning
| hot.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| There were usually never any other ingredients in the house
| and we'd never learned how to cook. YouTube wasn't a thing
| yet.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Before youtube was invented there were these things called
| "books".
|
| Also, most things come with some sort of cooking
| instructions, like pasta or rice or whatever.
|
| Is it unusual that my parents (and pretty much all my
| friend's parents) made sure we grew up knowing how to cook
| and eat really good food? Maybe it's a UK vs US thing,
| maybe it's because the nearest "convenience stores" were a
| couple of hundred miles away.
| dustymcp wrote:
| coming from uk "really good food" means heating the beans
| and browning your toast without burning it :)
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Why do British hate food?
|
| Some of the recipes remind me of the matpakke video. "But
| not too exciting or tasty!"
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JlNmeVK_zLg
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| No-one eats "beans on toast", it's a made-up thing.
| twic wrote:
| I eat beans on toast.
| thrashh wrote:
| People who cook were exposed to it.
|
| People who like soccer were exposed to it.
|
| People who like working on electronics were exposed to
| it.
|
| Rarely does anyone do stuff independently. You saw
| someone else do it and that's what got you into it. It
| has never mattered that libraries existed. Libraries are
| mostly for researching something that you've _already
| taken an interest in_. A library is literally massive.
|
| If you and your parents emphasized cooking, then that's
| good. But you know, a really rich family would expose
| their kid to everything while a poor one wouldn't. And
| what you get exposed to determines your life's path, so
| that's how the cookie crumbles.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| There's also the point that as an early grade-school aged
| child, you haven't learned how to learn.
|
| We look back and say "I'd just go find a book, read it,
| and then try some practice runs."
|
| To an 8 year old, that sequence of events in response to
| not knowing something is completely alien.
| artimaeis wrote:
| I don't think most of us who identify as "latchkey" kids
| had a ton of parental guidance around the house. Often
| there wasn't anyone around to teach us to cook anything
| outside of the relatively child-proof microwave.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| My wife's kids love the toaster oven, because she taught
| them it was almost impossible to burn the house down
| with, so they felt safe.
|
| Which is weird, because I never used one as a kid.
| Toaster, yes. Toaster-oven, no.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| As a male American latch key kid in the 80s I learned to
| cook and made dinner for my parents and myself most
| nights. There was a ton of cooking shows on PBS to learn
| from. You can only watch so much Robotech/Voltron and
| play so many Commodore games. All of my friends made good
| food too.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Remember when "youtube" only came on that big glass thing
| in the corner and only had a few dozen things on it, and
| you had to wait for the right thing to come round?
|
| Sure, I know you do...
| cratermoon wrote:
| In the US, girls learned how to cook, starting with Easy-
| Bake(tm) Ovens. Boys learning to cook? Sissy stuff. Boys
| learned to heat up pizza rolls and play CoD.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Huh? I did my own laundry starting from like 10, and
| cooking the family dinners most nights (until I reached
| high school and football practice got in the way). Not
| sure what 'US' you are talking about, maybe the
| generation before the 80s?
| cratermoon wrote:
| > maybe the generation before the 80s?
|
| Yeah, I overstated the reality for rhetorical effect, but
| it also would depend on what part of the US. Gender roles
| have changed in some places, but not so much in others.
|
| > until I reached high school and football practice got
| in the way
|
| That says a lot about US culture right there.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I got a lot of flak for wanting an Easy-Bake Oven as a
| boy. My mom was a habitual Burner of Things. Never could
| quite figure that out. I just wanted to make a brownie
| that wasn't rock hard crust, you know?
|
| I received similar pushback for taking both Home Ec
| classes. It was really the only way out of the latchkey
| kid diet, which, yes, was primarily sandwiches, Steak-
| Umms, and so on.
| no_wizard wrote:
| My dad was a 30 year army reserve veteran (served in both
| the Gulf War and Afghanistan) I would consider him to be
| a typical American "mans man" and definitely made a point
| about my brother and I learning how to cook, because its
| how you make a good impression on the in laws and girls
| you care about (his words, more or less).
|
| I credit this with why I know how to cook as well as I
| do. We grew up poor by most standards in the US, but my
| uncle was a butcher, both grandparents were farmers, so
| the one thing we had access to was fruits, vegetables and
| good meats.
|
| Its also why I think i never learned good portion control
| as a child and still have trouble maintaining a healthy
| weight (among other reasons I won't get into here), we
| made very good savory food _all the time_ because its
| what we had. We had to cook, as take out wasn 't an
| option, and frozen foods weren't cost effective the same
| way for us (due to familial professions, we had access to
| things most people don't in this way).
|
| That's the irony. I feel like I grew up with blander
| foods I'd be less inclined to eat them so much growing
| up, feeding a long habit of food being comfort.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Dude how are you going to get a girlfriend if you can't
| invite her over and make her dinner?
| ashwagary wrote:
| Girls can eat pizza rolls.
| cratermoon wrote:
| That's why nice sit-down restaurants with tables for two
| exist.
| toast0 wrote:
| Try reading a cookbook without knowing how to cook.
|
| Wtf does medium heat mean? How about simmer?
|
| They're great if you've got a basic understanding of
| cooking, but not for getting that basic understanding.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| There's a glossary of terms in the back.
|
| If you're functionally literate, you can figure it out in
| no time.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _a glossary of terms in the back_
|
| No classic cookbook describes how to listen for medium
| versus high heat.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Here's the secret - you don't need to!
|
| "Medium heat" is when the ring is half-way up. "High
| heat" is when the ring is all the way up.
|
| I knew shit like this when I was nine years old, because
| I knew what words like "medium" and "high" and "heat"
| meant.
|
| This whole thread is just reinforcing the impression I
| have that Americans are just permanent children, forever
| eating scaled-up versions of the children's menu.
| majormajor wrote:
| Hah, "medium" - based on if the recipe ends up where it
| should - has been in a different place on the ring on
| pretty much every brand of stove I've ever had.
|
| Sure you can hack around and get something ok regardless,
| but...
|
| > maybe it's because the nearest "convenience stores"
| were a couple of hundred miles away
|
| Gosh, what a wild idea that that would lead to a
| difference! Combine that with parents without enough free
| time to be home much in the first place, the rapid
| availability of processed food that lasts longer and is
| ready faster, and advertising campaigns that innundated
| people with these and didn't mention the downsides of the
| new shit... why are you being so smug about just
| happening to grow up in a different environment?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| > _" Medium heat" is when the ring is half-way up. "High
| heat" is when the ring is all the way up._
|
| Gas or electric? Small or large burner? Cast iron or
| steel pan?
|
| Kudos to you for being an exceptional nine year old cook,
| but it's objectively true that most cookbooks are written
| assuming basic cooking knowledge, the kind one would get
| from a parent who had time to cook with a child.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _"Medium heat " is when the ring is half-way up. "High
| heat" is when the ring is all the way up._
|
| This hasn't been true anywhere I've lived, except my
| current house, where I adjusted the gas. In Cupertino,
| high barely summers. In New York, quarterway turned will
| sear and instantly burn dry powders. (Also: I grew up
| overseas.)
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _" Medium heat" is when the ring is half-way up. "High
| heat" is when the ring is all the way up._
|
| This is incorrect.
|
| Medium is when the surface of the pan is around 350degF.
| High is when it's around 450degF. (Low is 250degF.)
|
| How to _get_ and then _maintain_ the surface of the pan
| at that temperature is probably one of the trickiest
| skills there is for people to learn. Because obviously if
| you put an empty pan on the middle of your gas burner
| dial and just leave it there it will quickly heat up to
| ultra-hot (550degF+). While if you dump a bunch of watery
| vegetables in there to saute it will just go down to like
| 150degF and not heat up further.
|
| In the end setting the right burner strength to maintain
| your desired temperature is a _crazy_ nonlinear function
| of heat, pan temperature, pan material (both conductivity
| and thermal mass), food quantity in pan, food
| temperature, food water content, and lid on /off. That
| you learn through just a lot of trial and error,
| involving a lot of listening for sizzle and seeing
| bubbles and browning and feeling for radiant heat with
| your hand. Not by setting the dial to a particular
| setting.
|
| If you want to know why so many people have difficulty
| doing something so "basic" as frying an egg, this is why.
| If you want to know why part of the interview to cook in
| a restaurant is also quite often... just to fry a single
| egg... that's why. (It's "fizzbuzz" for cooks.)
|
| Also, please don't do things like insult entire
| nationalities here. It's very much against HN guidelines.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| You can be watching tv while the microwave is running
| though
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| If someone had been there to tell my eleven year old self
| to just buy a cookbook, I suppose my problems would have
| been solved!
| astura wrote:
| With what ingredients?
|
| My parents didn't keep non-frozen and non-boxed food in the
| house.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| I was a latchkey kid at an age where I wouldn't have been
| allowed to use the stove or oven, let alone whip up a meal.
|
| I could have made a salad, but not many 8 year olds would
| choose those over bagel bites.
| leetrout wrote:
| Buddy the chef boyardee pizzas are a sham today. I _loved_
| them.
|
| Today they do not even include cheese in the box.
|
| I wish they would sell the sauce with the mini pepperonis in a
| jar by itself.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| What a scam. That cheese was critical. Agreed on the sauce
| and the mini pepperonis.
| rolenthedeep wrote:
| I grew up in the 90s, and I've never heard of Chef Boyardee
| pizza. It sounds _dire_
| [deleted]
| nullstyle wrote:
| You would be totally wrong.
|
| My Mother's pizza is famous amongst my friends and family. It
| is started from the chef boyardee pizza kit and surprisingly
| little has changed in her version.
|
| My brothers and our childhood friends are all in our 40's and
| 50's now, have had pizza all over the world, and momma pizza
| still ranks.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Wait until you find about Imos.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I was dragged there by some work colleagues in Kansas City.
|
| They were super excited and insisted we go.
|
| The conversation went like this "This pizza isn't really
| that good." "I know! That's the great thing about it!"
|
| Imosholm syndrome is real.
| jhbadger wrote:
| Exactly. These were foods for US "latchkey kids" in the 1970s
| and 1980s, not "midcentury" (think _Mad Men_ early 1960s)
| foods. During this time the rise of having two working parents
| (or because of rising divorce rates, a single working parent)
| combined with inflexibility of employers to allow "flex time"
| as they often do today, meant that many children often had to
| prepare their own meals. So simple frozen foods were common as
| even a grade school child could prepare them.
| [deleted]
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| 70s was not latchkey kids. I was a kid then. We roamed the
| streets.
|
| 80s? I don't know, wasn't like that for me. I knew some kids
| maybe where it was like that for them, I felt sorry for them.
|
| From my perspective, obviously a limited perspective based on
| the time I grew up, the 1970's was the best time to be a kid
| in the history of kids.
|
| We roamed the streets, 10 years old, running wild in the
| streets.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I think latchkey just means that kids were often home when
| a parent wasn't, or was sleeping.
|
| So latchkey kids could also roam the streets.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latchkey_kid
| terran57 wrote:
| My mom worked a split-shift (3 hours in the morning, and 5
| hours in evening Wed-Sun). My dad was in the army and was
| deployed to far-away lands for a significant portion of my
| life between 8-16 years old. My mom hired a couple of
| "minders" - but the first one made a baby in our bathroom
| with her boyfriend, and the second one did nothing but
| watch TV and sneak some shots of whiskey between TV shows
| (on the three networks then available). Long story short, I
| was left to my own devices a lot. My mom tried to make
| dinner for me - but sometimes (being a growing boy) I was
| just really hungry - so chef-boy-r-dee pizza was a staple -
| at least until I learned that one could phone in an order
| for pizza and have it delivered! Now we were cash-poor, so
| when wanted spending money, I'd have to go house-to-house
| to ask if they needed their lawns mowed. I'd get somewhere
| between $5 or $10 depending on the lawn size and would use
| the money for pizza delivery once or twice a week. Pretty
| amazing to think about it - a kid between 10-15 years old
| being left alone for hours a day and having to go house-to-
| house to mow lawns for extra money! (let's not forget it
| was the 70s so things like bike helmets, seat belts and
| non-smoking areas didn't exist either).
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Ten dollars for a lawn?
| lowdest wrote:
| Latchkey didn't mean locked up at home, rather it meant the
| child was returning home alone after school and in
| possession of the home door key.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I was 10 in the 90's, and it was the same. Maybe it's
| regional.
| jhbadger wrote:
| Same here. But the meaning of a "latchkey" kid is a kid who
| has to unlock their door to get in their home (because
| nobody is there when they get home from school) -- this is
| independent of the concept of a "free range kid" (who may
| or may not have a parent at home but are just allowed to
| roam)
| jerbearito wrote:
| Were they frozen pizzas or kits that you had to prepare?
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| Kits. That was the fun thing about it, you'd mix the dough,
| and add the cheese and sauce. If you were lucky, there were
| some leftover scraps in the fridge that you could use to add
| as toppings. Learned the basics of making pizza that way.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Lol, for my generation it was hot pockets.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| That jingle will forever be seared into my brain. Well
| played, marketing.
| maxerickson wrote:
| They aren't the same thing because they are quite a bit more
| costly, but a butcher somewhere in the region makes circular
| frozen sliced steaks for sandwiches. So much better than Steak-
| umms.
|
| Similar to what you would get from a butcher for frozen philly
| cheese steak sandwiches, but not the same.
| datavirtue wrote:
| I had generic wheat flakes, and if I was lucky, 2% milk.
| tomrod wrote:
| That is my latchkey experience as well.
| JackFr wrote:
| Mustard sandwiches.
| bandyaboot wrote:
| Now that's austere. I usually at least had some bologna I
| could slap in there.
| sacnoradhq wrote:
| Oh lord, there's no such thing as a "self-made man" or "pulling
| oneself up by their bootstraps". It takes one or more rich
| investors or already having money, customers, employees,
| partners, vendors, and distributors taking chances on them. To
| deny this is to give oxygen to the mythologies of
| hyperindividualism is "good" and success is "achievable" in a
| vacuum of solitude. It's a lie that denies the credit to those
| who assisted in the amassing of wealth.
|
| https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/pul...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger
|
| https://ideas.time.com/2012/09/07/the-myth-of-bootstrapping/
|
| https://www.democracynow.org/2023/3/29/alissa_quart_bootstra...
| mypornaccount wrote:
| I mean it sounds like this guy kind of is? People do actually
| win the lottery.
| sacnoradhq wrote:
| That's a dumb argument with survivor's bias. The lottery is
| external to them and present vanishingly-small winnings to
| people at random without affirmative agency.
|
| People who participate in lotteries are statistically poorer.
|
| https://journalistsresource.org/economics/research-review-
| lo...
|
| https://themillionairenextdoor.com/2011/09/any-
| economically-...
| mypornaccount wrote:
| Are you an AI who can't understand metaphors?
| sacnoradhq wrote:
| That's rude and unhelpful.
|
| Read the linked material. The metaphor of bootstraps was
| an impossible and Quixotic feat like perpetual motion
| that became coopted as a celebrated mythology of "self-
| made". There is no such animal, friend.
| ilyt wrote:
| It was in the 50's, not now. The world looked a bit
| fucking different than now.
| sambapa wrote:
| I'm part of the Totino's lifestyle, I'll admit it
| rektide wrote:
| The brand died to me after they stopped making Buffalo Chicken
| flavor pizza rolls.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| i have to admit the faze ones taste kind of like that (but
| are still nit very good)
| twic wrote:
| I'm in the UK, never had a pizza roll, still not entirely clear
| on what one is, but when i was a teenager i did eat a lot of
| McCain pizza-rollas, which were a sort of soft bread roll filled
| with pizza topping which you warmed up in the microwave. They
| were pretty good, probably packed with E-numbers, and a welcome
| addition at a time before my dad had learned how to cook.
|
| Seen here as part of the broader family of snack-rollas, which
| had other fillings that weren't as good:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBW1HQmxgIo
|
| They stopped making them decades ago.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Pizza rolls are like a fried dumpling with pizza filling (meat,
| sauce, cheese) on the inside. Better if you bake in oven, but
| almost everyone will microwave. As sad as that turns out,
| they're actually very good in a high artificial kind of way.
| I'm surprised they didn't make it to the UK; it has UK written
| all over it.
| kentonv wrote:
| > The VP, in turn, assigned the task to Beatrice (Luoma)
| Ojakangas, by coincidence, the older sister of the engineer who
| had developed the egg roll machine for Chun King.
|
| Beatrice is my aunt! (And the inventor of said egg roll machine,
| Eugene Luoma, is my uncle. He also invented the zip-it drain
| cleaner and all sorts of other clever things.)
|
| Beatrice kind of hates talking about Pizza Rolls. She'd rather be
| known for her many cookbooks and other culinary work, not that
| trash. Jeno merely paid her an hourly wage to come up with
| different egg roll fillings and pizza was one of the ones she
| tried. No royalties or anything.
|
| I love pizza rolls, though.
| dauertewigkeit wrote:
| They seem similiar to meat pies, empanadas and other savoury
| pastries, except too small to be convenient.
| wil421 wrote:
| They have a big brother called a hot pocket that's like a nasty
| meat pie. Both will get nuclear meltdown hot and will burn your
| mouth.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Bonus, if you microwave them, you end up with parts of the
| crust that are still tooth-breakingly frozen.
| jrootabega wrote:
| They're more convenient to share with a group, and eat with one
| hand.
|
| And easier for little kids to eat.
| Hippocrates wrote:
| You're supposed to gobble down a large bowl of them, like
| jellybeans.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| , burning your mouth on the first few in your haste.
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| The small size makes them easier and quicker to cook (less
| likely to burn the outside and leave a frozen center).
|
| As they're pretty strictly meant to be eaten at home the need
| for a plate of them isn't a big deal.
| indymike wrote:
| I think my kids, if left to their own devices, would survive on a
| diet of cup-o-noodles, air-fryer cooked pizza rolls, pop-tarts
| and wash it down with Monster. This also reminds me of the diet
| of many junior developers.
| leroy-is-here wrote:
| Pizza rolls were my introduction to Ranch addiction.
| sublinear wrote:
| Cold ranch dressing from the fridge was the solution to the
| boiling lava hot pizza roll problem apart from biting the
| corners to let the steam out.
|
| Most microwaves have "sensor" modes these days though and you
| don't need to suffer that experience anymore if you're willing
| to wait a couple more minutes.
| memalign wrote:
| How do you use sensor modes to cook pizza rolls?
| sublinear wrote:
| There's a pizza mode. It works. I dunno it's basically
| magic. Also sensor modes on microwaves tend to work better
| when the food isn't frozen.
|
| To quickly defrost I will usually stick a bag of pizza
| rolls in some hot water in the kitchen sink for a minute
| and if I want them crispy I will finish them in a toaster
| oven or air fryer.
|
| Anyway my point was just that as an adult capable of basic
| food prep it seems silly I ever burned my mouth on pizza
| rolls even though the microwaves were dumber back then.
| naet wrote:
| Interesting article but please stop disabling default behavior
| like mobile pinch to zoom! One of the image captions says "if you
| squint you can make out the list of flavors"... squint is too
| accurate when I can't zoom in.
| raydev wrote:
| Oh wow, this hits me hard. I legit have very fond memories of
| meticulously arranging pizza rolls on a plate to minimize gaps
| (pizza rolls packing problem), and eating them with a giant glass
| of Quik chocolate milk.
|
| I then moved to Canada where Totino's does not exist and mourned
| my loss for years, because that specific type of "tiny calzone
| with egg roll container" didn't seem to exist up here. Only in
| the last few years have I seen an equivalent Canadian pizza roll
| from Pillsbury (Pizza Bites) and they happen to be decent. And if
| Canadians are reading and confused, I am not referring to those
| gross "pizza pops", they are not the same.
|
| In response to the article, I'm shocked to learn Totino's didn't
| invent the idea and they existed all the way back in the 60s. At
| least from the 90s, I don't recall any other brands being
| available besides Totino's except Great Value?
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Wow, "pizza roll" refers to something very different here in
| Australia (a bread roll with cheese and bacon on top).
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| Speaking of mid-century food, I don't recall pizza rolls in my
| house growing up, but Pop-Tarts (toaster pastries) were a new
| thing that I had a goodly share of. Very handy to eat on a cold
| morning before going out to deliver newspapers door to door.
|
| Pop tarts are also a bastardization of some other more
| traditional food but I don't know which right now.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop-Tarts
| hamstercat wrote:
| Hindbaersnitter? It's a danish dessert with raspberry filling
| and icing on top. It's very much a better pop tarts.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Well, it's a member of the fruit-filled tart family, I suppose,
| like the Norman Tart, etc.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_tart
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| On a nostalgic whim I bought some Pop Tarts recently. The
| amount of filling and icing has dropped dramatically and they
| tasted awful as a result.
|
| If you look at how they apply the icing you can clearly see how
| they started putting less and less on each pop tart. I don't
| buy these things because I want to eat the crust!
| gizmo686 wrote:
| I had a similar experience a few years back.
|
| Then, on a more recent whim, I bought some store branded
| toaster pastries from my local grocery store, and they were
| exactly the Pop Tarts I remembered.
| kraussvonespy wrote:
| I'm finding the same with other products too. There are a
| bunch of Aldi generic foods (like Mac & Cheese, tortillas,
| salsa, corn chips) that I like the taste of better than the
| more expensive name brand. Does this mean that the brand
| name has been reducing quality over time where the generics
| have been sticking more to their original recipe?
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Genenerics often have better overheads because the
| company takes profit on more points of the production and
| supply chain.
|
| They're also producing products in almost every aisle of
| the supermarket and gain an economy of scale on things
| like only needing a single one of eg house style for
| every product.
| kraussvonespy wrote:
| Maybe just another derivative of the turnover or pocket pie?
| Empanadas, pasties, calzones, bierocks/Runzas, samosas all fall
| into the turnover category. Alton Brown's Good Eats had at
| least one show on turnovers and some of the different ethnic
| variations.
| maxerickson wrote:
| I would guess from pie iron sandwiches more than from an oven
| baked pastry.
| yareally wrote:
| Strudel?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strudel
| KAMSPioneer wrote:
| Ahh, this reminds me of Toaster Strudel, of which I ate more
| as a child than I did Pop Tarts.
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| One unremarked aspect of pizza rolls that I suspect is a
| universal "kid growing up in the US" experience is burning the
| ever loving hell out of your mouth with one as the the outside
| cools pretty quickly while the inside is molten for much too
| long.
| rythmshifter wrote:
| And the clever novelty of biting off one or two tiny corners to
| allow that heat to escape to some degree.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Also if you thought you were clever and cut one in half to
| let it cool, then you would only find a sad shell of a pizza
| roll with all its guts leaking out into a congealed mess of
| cheese and pizza goo.
| exar0815 wrote:
| Living near the dutch border, you get "kaassouffle" in a lot of
| places. Its basically breaded, deep fried gouda cheese. While I
| love them, I always warn friends tasting them for the first
| time - they can really ruin your mouth.
| twic wrote:
| Kaassouffle is great and i don't know why it hasn't spread to
| higher-altitude parts of the world. I found the key to eating
| it safely was to have a glass of cold beer to hand.
| gattilorenz wrote:
| In italy something very similar (sofficini) is quite
| common, but associated to kids food.
|
| They also sell them with various additional fillings, such
| as cheese and ham, mushrooms, mozzarella and tomato
| (becoming something like Pizza rolls, I guess)... i always
| wondered why there's really only one type of kaassouffle,
| really.
| subpixel wrote:
| I still burn my mouth on hot pizza more than half the time I
| eat it! Because it is worth it.
| jrootabega wrote:
| Microwave burritos iterated on that tradition by ensuring that
| you could pick exactly one of:
|
| 1. contents erupt from the corner like a volcano in the
| microwave
|
| 2. burrito unrolls itself during heating
|
| 3. mostly ice cold inside (although some ice cold spots will
| still happen in #1 and #2)
| manachar wrote:
| Or:
|
| 4. Learn how to use the power setting of the microwave to
| ensure even heating.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I've found that a good happy medium is to put something in
| the microwave for half the recommended time, then move it
| to the oven for half the recommended oven time.
| nemo44x wrote:
| There are hybrid microwave/oven combos today that
| essentially do this. They run a low microwave function
| while also baking your food.
|
| They're commonly called "speed ovens". I have one and
| it's a nice thing to use for various things.
| saalweachter wrote:
| It was life changing when I learned that if you set the
| stove correctly, it's almost impossible to make a bad
| pancake.
| wincy wrote:
| Ah yeah slow heat for longer trick. Like if I cook a
| steak in the oven for an hour at 250 then throw it on the
| grill people think I've become some master chef.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Once I figured out that cooking is mostly optimizing
| water while hitting the desired through-doneness and char
| points, my food markedly improved. Everything about low
| and slow makes a lot more sense then!
| treeman79 wrote:
| Adding water to pan for Bacon is a new hack. One guy did
| a bunch of experiments to see what worked and scientific
| reasons why.
|
| https://youtu.be/PCW6dlBD-_g
| fsckboy wrote:
| whhaaat? i cook a steak for 1/2 hour in the oven on 200,
| and sear it in a pan (don't have a grill, am jelly) and
| sometimes risk over-cooking it?
|
| with pancakes, while you don't want it tooo too hot, you
| do want a hot pan to sizzle fry some crispy edges on
| there. i like a little "crack" of the crust, not a steamy
| on the outside cake.
| fsckboy wrote:
| what? whether it's a great or only a good pancake is
| decided in the batter phase. bad pancakes come from
| whatever that flavor of instant cake mix is called, cake-
| plasticine.
| klyrs wrote:
| No, you can _definitely_ ruin perfectly good batter on a
| griddle that 's too hot or too cold.
| saalweachter wrote:
| Yeah, if you've ever heard jokes about "the first
| pancake"[0] or burnt your pancakes when you get
| distracted by the rest of breakfast, do yourself a favor
| and set your griddle to 325F/160C.
|
| Your pancakes can sit at 325F for a long time before they
| burn, and that alleviates the fear of burning that leads
| you to flip that first pancake too fast.
|
| [0] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=The%2
| 0First%...
| wincy wrote:
| Good point.
|
| Do you think I could get rid of my electric stove in my
| kitchen, then use that plug and buy a 4000W microwave to
| get it to heat up even faster instead?
| jrootabega wrote:
| I think you misunderstand the mindset of microwave burrito
| eaters.
| thrashh wrote:
| I microwave a burrito 'cus I want a burrito now.
|
| Mouth be damned.
| rascul wrote:
| For two burritos in my microwave:
|
| 1. Position burritos on plate so the fold is on top and
| facing out
|
| 2. Microwave on high for 1 minute
|
| 3. Turn burritos over so fold is on bottom and facing in, so
| that if the fold busts it stays on the plate
|
| 4. Poke three sets of holes in top of each burrito with fork,
| evenly spaced
|
| 5. Microwave on high for 45 seconds
|
| I have fine tuned my microwave burrito skills over the
| decades to have a perfectly microwaved burrito that is both
| not cold and doesn't burst. Problem is, there's no 45 second
| button on the microwave, so I usually press 2 for two minutes
| (if I give it a few seconds it'll start on it's own) and I
| try to make it back in time. I don't always get it and the
| ends might bust just a little bit.
| realjhol wrote:
| In the UK we had Pop Tarts and McDonalds Apple Pies for that.
| indymike wrote:
| Add about 200degC to the filling temperature and you capture
| the difference.
| girafffe_i wrote:
| [dead]
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