This thread is not what Hungry Onion is about. I am watching people i respect scrape across each other until sparks fly.
This is part of why Chow Hound blew up.
We all have our opinions and HO is a great place to share them.
I like all of you and i hope this thread does not go further astray.
We are a community of people who like food and hopefully that is enough to keep the sparks to a minimum.
I apologize if i have irritated more than i have ameliorated.
Is that a word?
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Ameliorate away!
A fun way to approach divisive subjects can be to turn the matter into a poll.
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I posted that and then the thought occured to me this morning, âMaybe the verbal conflict is part of what other posters enjoy about HO? Maybe I am the one that is yukâing their yum? Maybe i should just not read those back and forth type of threads?
Maybe the problem is me thinking disputes/spirited discussion are a negative.â
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It plays with the dopamine loop, and ego, to be involved in an online rumble. People take sides, they like their friends posts, a few passive aggressive comments get tossed, someone posts that they canât believe adults believe this way, etc.
I think a lot of people, myself included, get a little feistier online when theyâre dealing with other stresses or disappointments, arenât getting out much, are isolated.
Some people like trolling. Some people donât even know when theyâre trolling.
Some people get off on correcting others, as well.
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I am a middle child, so if I am not in the middle egging my siblings/neighbors on, I am trying to mediate a resolution. I spent the first 30 years of my life not realizing that I was engaging in this behaviour and even now I fail to recognize it half the time.
LOL!
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Iâd be interested to know how many views threads like this get, and I believe it is a lot more than posts. When there are no new posts that interest me, I look at the active ones, and see if there are any âinteresting pointsâ being made.
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You may be right about the contentious threads getting a lot of views and replies. I think this thread is #3 right now on active threads. If I am reading this âviewsâ page right.
Does this mean that âIf it bleeds, it leads!â?
LOL!
Sorry, I will show myself to the door.
Funny becuase I was talking about Hungry Onion on a fodor message thread about Paris restaurants and I almost added-everyone argues just like they did on Chowhound!
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Maybe I just did not notice it as much? CH got pretty vitriolic at the drop of a hat. HO has seemed to be a bit more civilized.
I am kind of spoiled. The first group that I actually posted in regularly was GM-Volt dot com while it was under the leadership of Dr. Lyle. It was the most welcoming group imaginable and flames were strongly discouraged. Which was an achievement because plug in cars were pretty controversial and the posters there pretty much reflected America, i.e. 35%/30%/35% on the political spectrum.
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I only (re)joined / started visiting this site more frequently (since its initial inception in 2015) in the spring of 2022. I canât say that I see as much drama or many contentious threads like on CH, but I donât seek them out, either. The cookware discussions - knives in particular - seem to bring out some nastiness / cockfighting I find tedious⌠but Iâm not really a gear head, so itâs easy to stay away.
I feel like in general this is a fairly cordial and friendly forum. There are posters I tend to avoid engaging for various reasons. Not being thirsty for online drama is a big one 
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Yes, I joined after CH ended but when Covid hit I didnât really check in for a couple of years. Got active on the book and tv/movie threads on fodor. Iâve re connected because we are going to London/Paris next month and wanted to check in with the foodies on the French board. Did start a small back and forth about eating steak au poivre in Paris (there seemed to be some contention that you shouldnât eat dishes in Paris that you can get in the US) but it died down after a day or so. Itâs all pretty civilized. I do laugh that this last back and forth seemed to start over the subject of potato skins and end with the question of mixing cheese with seafood.
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It hasnât ended, Just started.
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It has become pretty easy to identify the discussions that will get edgy. There are a few things that have polarizing characteristics, often under cookware. The likely candidates will be knives (stainless vs carbon, German vs Japanese vs French, and so on) and cookware (expensive clad vs other clad vs CS vs tinned copper vs CS vs CI vs CI vs ECI vs tin lined copper vs SS lined copper vs aluminum and so on). There are the lightening rod words like authentic and fusion. There are cuisine battles and favored chef battles. The battles are very rarely about ingredients, searching out the best. There is the chasm between excellent home cooks and cooks who have worked in various high end recipe. I recall a close knit and exceedingly long set of threads on CH about making Canneles. I miss that sort of thing, harmonious but with the injection of alternative ideas. I wish I could go back to it and tweak my canneles.
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Dude, give it a rest.
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I really could not define authenticity, but I have a penchant for tweaking recipes in unusual ways. I love many of the well established recipes from Western Europe, but I love to lighten ingredients, add north African or Asian subcontinent spices, for example. Authenticity, whatever it may be, seems like a way of circumscribing your craft. And any cuisine can be enlarged upon by drawing on other cuisines. My favorite burger is Mexican, Korean, and more.
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You donât have to define authenticity. The dictionary does that for you.
There is a magnificent trip report on HO by Ziggy about Portugal at the moment. If I could find a Portuguese restaurant where I live that touches that stuff, Iâd say it was authentic.
Years ago, I did go to a wonderful Portuguese restaurant in Philly (Koo Zee Doo) that has been closed for a long time now. Aside from that, my options are pretty meager.
Someday I will hit one of those Portuguese places in Newark (there are many), but the photos and descriptions Iâve seen are a far cry from whatâs in that trip report.
I believe the dictionary definition fails to capture the sense in which people discussing food are using it, chiefly because what they are trying to communicate is elusive.
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The failure in this case starts off with a basic misunderstanding.
Proof is all the notions attached to the meaning of the word, often conflating traditional and original with authentic.
I get that certain words are commonly misused. I am sure my vocabulary is greater than my understanding of its contents. But if someone points out to me I am using a word incorrectly, I donât insist Iâm right. Or blame the dictionary.
