Think On It

How much is enough? The information load.

November 18th, 2007

Sometimes I feel inundated with facts, clues, offerings that pour in through my computer at plus or minus 50,000 bps.

Here, for example, is a really interesting look into international cuisine. The members are from absolutely everywhere, but most of the ideas are written in English of varying quality. It will not surprise you that some of the worst English comes from places where it is the mother tongue. Maybe familiarity does breed contempt. The quality is spotty, too. There are an enormous amount of semi-homemade and tinned soup ideas, none of which I even bother with. This morning there was a “Tuscan potpie” that I looked at just because I never heeard of any Tuscan eating potpie. Why is it Tuscan? It has canellini in it! Boh! But it’s made with canned biscuits which would confound any Tuscan I know.

Most of what is posted is derived from cookbooks, TV and blogs, but you might otherwise have missed it, so that doesn’t count that much. There are a number of professional chefs and caterers there, too. It’s all offered up free once you’ve registered. Maybe it’s Facebook for cooks. One interesting thing you can do is describe what’s in your kitchen, or describe what you feel like eating, i.e., spicy, sweet, hot; then the generator will serve you up a list of dishes that fit what you’ve got or what you want to taste. There’s even a page for Italian Speakers and their foods.

How can you keep up with the stream of that or any other changing content website? My answer is Bloglines. There are other agglomerators, but this was an early one and the one I use, although I turned down the new version because I couldn’t work it out in five minutes.

This is what I see, however. Bloglines will show 200 offerings per feed. Group Recipes will often go way over 200 in a single day. Even BBC World headlines can top 200. I choose to sift through and choose which ones to open in a new tab. When you newly subscribe to a feed it will show the latest 10 feeds. That feels a bit more manageable.

Then there are sales notifiers. Whoooo! And are they ever a sticky bunch. Miss the check off saying you don’t want email from them and you are their pal forever, with ads offering things you don’t want for prices that leave you breathless, and not in a good way, as long as there is life on Planet Earth.

It must be the 2007 version of those glossy catalogs that used to choke my mailbox in another country another time.

Entry Filed under: recipes, internet

4 Comments Add your own

1. Mary | November 18th, 2007 at 1:22 pm

I use bloglines too and it comes in very handy. As for the recipes, I’ve also seen numerous ones that are very hokey. Like you said, anything with cannellini beans in it gets labeled as “Tuscan”. But then, anything with spinach gets labeled “florentine” and anything with feta cheese is “Greek”. It doesn’t matter if anyone from that area ever even heard of such a recipe (like Tuscan potpie - HA!). Crazy, isn’t it?
2. admin | November 18th, 2007 at 1:52 pm

How about those canned biscuits? Think they’d be a big seller at the Coop or the Famila?

OTH, a lot of Italians think all Americans eat are hamburgers and maybe wurstel.
3. Mary | November 19th, 2007 at 10:03 am

I do think American cuisine is taking a nosedive though. There are entirely too many convenience foods and people are eating too much junk. O was amazed when we went to the states last year and went into a grocery store. Due to the lack of butcher shops, he’s convinced no one eats meat unless it’s already prepared and frozen, despite the meat counter at the supermarket. I have a hard time convincing him that just because he saw all that junk doesn’t mean that it’s all anyone eats.
4. admin | November 19th, 2007 at 1:27 pm

You know, we have 6 or more butcher shops here, and still the supermarket meat counters are busy. We no longer have a polleria, but one butcher does sell local turkey, cutting off what you ask for while you wait and at a stunning price. We have two pescerie, but again, the supermarkets are busy.
The only stand alone shops everyone seems to use are the pasticcerie and the fresh pasta shops.
The covered market is busy and so are the booths at the street markets, but there’s still a lot of produce flying off the supermarket bins.
Maybe it’s different down there?