Re: OT: Junk

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003, Joe wrote:

> From: "Tristan McLeay" <zsau@...>
> > *I don't know what the sell in the UK, but in Australia, it isn't a
> > fish-n-chips shop unless they sell fish and chips (and other things in
> > batter), souvlaki, hamburgers, dimsims and springrolls.
> >
>
> Over here, all Fish and Chip shops are run by greeks.
Ours used to be (hence the souvlaki), now they seem to be run by Asians.
Seems to be an immigrant-of-the-day thing.

> They sell fish,
> chips, battered things(that's pretty much anything, they sell battered Mars
> Bars, appparently a Glaswegian invention),
I've seen those for sale, never bought one though.

> kebabs(that is, meat in a pita bread), pies(Chicken and Mushroom,
> Steak and Kidney, and Beef and Onion), and sausages.
Sausages? That sounds odd. With pies I'd expect pasties and sausage
_rolls_, but not sausages. (You can't sell pies without pasties and
sausage rolls!)

> I don't know what a souvlaki is.
My impression is that if they come from Greece, they're souvlaki, if they
come from further west, they're kebabs, if they come from America, they're
wraps.

> Or, for that matter, a dimsim.
I wouldn't have a clue how to describe them. The Macquarie Dictionary
defines them as
        dim sim
            /dIm sIm/ n, a dish of Chinese origin, made of seasoned meat
        wrapped in thin dough and steamed or fried. [? Cantonese tim-sam
        snack]
I couldn't find any defn at either m-w.com or dictionary.com, so either
Americans don't have them (hard to believe) or call them something else.
I've heard it rumored that they're actually Australian inventions
masquerading as Chinese foods, but for that to be true, there must be
brainwashing sessions before Chinese come to Australia. They can be
steamed or fried; with the former treatment the outer covering is
off-white and soft, with the latter, it's an orangey-browny color and
hard. They're roughly cyllindrical, about 2 cm diameter and 4 cm length.

(BTW: hamburgers with the lot include beetroot and pineapple and possibly
bacon and eggs (as in they mightn't be on the lot, but they are options).
If you feel like a good hamburger, you make your way to a fish-n-chips
shop, not a McDonalds.)

--
Tristan                  <kesuari@...>

Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still
be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement.
                -- Snoopy

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