Frieda, nothing as lewd as a 'electro lolicon' and I still don't understand what it actually is either in the vulgar or cookery sense but
in the US you use the term 'broil', which I suppose comes from the French and we say 'grill' for cooking 'under' a high heat chops, steak etc.
You also use the term 'skillet' where as we say frying pan. Although I think skillet would have been used in the past.
I'm sure more will come to me.
I have to go and 'roast' a leg of Welsh lamb for Sunday lunch. This will be served with roast spuds (mashed are not served with roast meat over here) runner beans (string in the US?) carrots and squash grown from seeds sent by US cousins and until recently almost unknown in the UK . . .same with pumkins etc.
For pudding . . . over here dessert usually implies a fancy cold/icecreamy type of concoction . . .perhaps a plum 'crumble'.
Sorry this is probably more than you wanted or needed to know :-)

And OT Frieda I will TRY to send you an email.

Quite a list for electro lolicon! I was afraid to click on most of them for fear of getting even more sexual spam than I already get. (And why do I get any?)

But here is a great site for food history. They promise to answer any questions so give it a try and let us know. (Look in the upper right for the question link.)

Here is a link that might be useful: The Food Timeline

Vee, can I come to lunch at your house? Oh, wait. You've already had your lunch. Drat!

Your roast leg of lamb, roast spuds, runner beans (yep, they're called string beans or just green beans in the U.S.), carrots, squash, and crumble sound delicious. Homestyle British cooking is a fond memory of mine. Thinking about it, my English landlady didn't serve mashed potatoes with her roasts either, but I don't think the fact ever registered with me. British cafe and restaurant foods and cooking, on the other hand...well, I'm afraid they usually proved the cliches right.

English friends poked fun at me for calling peas English peas -- many Americans do because we need the qualification as we have black-eyed peas, field peas, purple-hull peas, cream peas, lady peas, crowder peas, and Chinese peas.

I grew up calling a skillet a frying pan, or more usually a fry pan. My family, and most in our region, also called the evening meal supper instead of dinner, reserving the latter for a fancy meal or when we wanted to sound la-ti-dah.

Yes, broil in the U.S. means cooking "under high heat" as you say. But there are differing opinions in various regions about what grilling is. Usually it means cooking on a barbecue grill, outdoors, or on a similar device, indoors, with a very good ventilation apparatus. However, some folk say they "grill" hamburgers, and such, on a griddle as they would hotcakes.

Vee, I checked my email. Don't know if you've tried yet, but in case you have, I'll let you know there's nothing there from you.

An interesting, to me, 'food' thing I found when reading Farmers Boy by Laura I Wilder about her husband growing up in the country in up state New York. Not only was the vast amount of food that weighed down their dining table amazing but the fact that they seemed to have everything out at the same time. There were no 'courses'.
Does anyone know if this was a common thing at the time in the US, or does it still go on today? Come to think of it, in her book that describes the train journey the family made from Plum Creek 'out West' to join their father, LIW mentions they had a meal at the 'hotel' by the railroad station and again she says that all the food was laid out 'at once'.
Maybe it was the same over here, although I think it would have been in pre-Victorian days.
Frieda re. dinner/supper etc over here the word 'dinner' is still sometimes used for the mid-day meal, and often for 'school dinners' which are getting much flack at the moment . . . poor quality/junk ingredients/only hot meal many kids get etc. It seems the later people eat at night the more likely it is to be called 'dinner' (and folk often don't sit down until 8-9 o'clock), supper used to be a snack eaten last thing at night, after what is always called 'tea' in this part of the country and 'up North' as you will remember. Not to be confused with 'afternoon tea' which everyone at RP knows all about!

Frieda, hang on for the email. I will ask DH about you sending photos via the computer. I presume you have a digital camera and the photos are loaded onto your computer? A simple (hollow laugh) way to send them is via google's 'picasa' program.

The American farm family had no courses. Everything is on the table at once. My small town relatives always loaded everything on the table before you sat down. Grant Wood's painting of threshers shows this kind of table.

The meals served at the Amana Colonies in Iowa are served this way. When you sit down the "sour" dishes are on the table and then they bring the hot dishes all at once. Dessert is not brought till the end though.

Farmer Boy was really my favorite of the series. I think because it had so much detail of the life back then, and I SO romanticized "the olden days".

The meals in boarding houses were also served this way. As in Look Homeward Angel and some of Jack London's books.

Vee, just to agree with what Granjan said. Often when I was growing up, my family would vacation in the mountains of North Carolina and also in North Georgia. There, the table literally "groaned" with all the various dishes laid out on it. In summer, there was a bounty of fresh vegetables, with string beans a popular staple, many kinds of corn, fresh biscuits, and several pies. Another popular dish would be fresh garden ripened tomatos, which some ate with salt, others with a touch of sugar. No, I think these folk would have laughed or looked at you strangely if you inquired about "courses." Ditto for the country-style eating in the Pennsylvania Dutch country, in my later experience. (enormous servings, too, because those people do hard physical labor from dawn to dusk).

I don't know how old the recipe is, but I have one for Chocolate Chess Pie given by an "older" woman at the office back when I was a "younger" woman that calls for half an eggshell of milk.

I grew up on a farm, and we all still put all our food on the table at the same time, except for dessert that is brought in after the meal. I never thought of this as being unusual; here it is just called "family style." At big family dinners, the food is served buffet style because there is no way any table could hold it all.

Carolyn, you posted the Chocolate Chess Pie one time and I remarked on that half eggshell of milk. Let me tell you: I made that pie, very carefully measuring the milk in the eggshell -- my older son, who is an excellent cook, observed this and thought I was bonkers -- but it worked beautifully. It's soooo good! I love your raisin pie recipe too.

Granjan, another Iowan here.

My grandparents, both sets, always put everything on the table, except the desserts (there was never just one) -- those were on the sideboard. My mother, however, decided to serve three courses: soup or salad as the starter; then the main dish, starch, vegetable (with bread); and dessert. I think she got the idea from the "gracious living" thing that was popular in the late 1950s. She even did the tablecloth, cloth napkins, candles and flowers bit for a while -- can't remember why it ultimately fizzled, though.

As a child I was a notoriously picky eater and only gradually did I learn to like a lot of different foods. I had to adjust or otherwise I would've starved, being a journalist and constantly in places where most of the food was completely unfamiliar to me. But when I did become a more adventurous eater, I thought wowee! this is life. Unfortunately that only lasted about ten years, and now I mostly get my food kicks vicariously, by reading cookbooks and lingering over descriptions of food -- notice above how I had to copy Vee's lovely roast lamb menu. Food threads are always such a pleasure.

Frieda, off hand, I would think your mother's elegant table fizzled because she got tired of ironing tablecloths and napkins. Or maybe no one appreciated her efforts? What a change from that to so many homes where a meal is fast food in front of the TV. No wonder kids don't have any manners. Our city offers classes to teach social graces to young people.

I just read that old thread with the chocolate chess pie recipe! As a newbie here I've been looking at some of the old threads to see what the range is. And anything with food grabs my attention. (I got here from the cooking forum.)

Caroly your recipe is very similar to my favorite chocolate pie recipe. Never called it chess but that is a correct description, unlike the more typical chocolate pie which is pudding-like. (And I don't care for.) Mine doesn't have the milk. I'll have to try your version this year. I always make that pie with my nieces for Thanksgiving since the girls don't like pumpkin or pecan.here they are with my sister at our annual pie bakng session.
{{gwi:2117406}}

Licking the bowl is their favorite part!
{{gwi:2117407}}

Vee, I have skillets as well as frying pans - skillets are the heavy cast iron ones, frying pans the normal thin ones, even here in the UK. At least that's what I've been told!

And Carolyn, my daughter is gradually working her way through your cookbook, with our full encouragement! She phoned me from her holiday in France demanding that I buy ingredients for Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies ready for her return...

If any of you are interested in strange words, give this site a try.

We always put everything on the table at once too. Soup, when it served, was usually the main item for that meal, not a separate course. Thick and hearty with corn bread or biscuits. Serving dishes of food were passed from person to person with the children being seated where it was easy for an adult to help them. You wanted seconds on anything, you asked, and the bowl was passed.

There was no such thing as a green salad that required a separate plate. Potato or macaroni salad, or cole slaw would be put on the plate with the other foods.

One of our most famous restaurants is listed in travel guides, Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House. The food is place on the table "family style" and the bowls are passed around. Each table holds about 10 people, usually strangers to each other. It's a big tourist thing. But the food is excellent.

I think the meal with different courses would not be possible in homes where there were no servants. Either that or the woman (or women) would be constantly getting up and down.

Here is a link that might be useful: weird words

Have just been listening to the BBC's 'Today' prog. Among the usual bad news, politics, what the papers say etc, there is always a short 'religious' spot.
This morning it was the turn of the very funny and gentle Rabbi Lionel Blue.
He told the tale of his old Russian Granny who's main kitchen tool was an axe and a pile of clean rags.
He always ends with a 'Jewish' joke.
Today's was about his Mother and a group of Jewish ladies sitting round the tea-table.
"How have things been with all of you?" asks Mother
"Oh God" says the first
"Woe" says the second
"Help" the third groans
"Oivey" mutters the fourth
"Well" says the hostess brightly "Now we've discussed our children's problems lets have a slice of honey cake and strudel"

Agnes, if Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House is in Savannah, I have eaten there, and it was wonderful. I thought I heard it had closed, though.

Anyanka, I meant to add that I envy your daughter being young enough to absorb all those calories. I've been asked if I've made everything in that book. My answer is no because if I had, I'd be dead of a heart attack and buried in a double-wide trailer.

Carolyn, Mrs. Wilkes died and there were a few months when her restaurant was closed until the family could decide what to do with it. I am happy to say that they decided to reopen and it is doing even better than before. I think they had to do some updating on kitchen equipment, refrigerators, etc. before they could start up again.

Carolyn, Rhianna is thin as a twig. My husband and I, however, are getting fatter by the minute... Main reason being that she loves baking much more than she loves eating the results!

The ultimate choc chip cookies are delish, by the way.