13 ms·

The Underrated Pleasures of Eastern European Dumplings

129 points by CraneWorm 9y ago

JBReefer 9y ago
Eastern European food (and Mexican and some Chinese cuisines) are deeply underrated - they belong in the same category as French or Japanese, but long-held prejudices devalue them. It's a pity, but it also means you can get an _amazing_ meal for cheap in Greenpoint.
- ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
  Just curious where you are located. I've lived in Las Vegas, The Bay Area, and Salt Lake City and Mexican Food definitely gets the appreciation it deserves here. My favorite restraunt Utah doesn't even serve Mexican food... they serve "Imperial Aztec Cuisine from Mexico City"
  - lainga 9y ago
    I think Brooklyn (as in Greenpoint, Brooklyn)
  - bluGill 9y ago
    I live in Iowa. Lots of Mexican restaurants where native Mexican's serve good food. However if you have actually been to mexico you will know it is only vaguely related to Mexican food as served in Mexico. If you speak Spanish to the help they will admit they don't eat the food where they work because it isn't like home.
    - inferiorhuman 9y ago
      So what do they eat?
      - bluGill 9y ago
        They probably go home and cook their own meals most of the time. Just like most people who can't afford to eat out for all their meals.
        inferiorhuman 9y ago
        Ah, I'm curious because it's not uncommon to see some restaurants and bars patronized by food service folks. SFGate periodically runs "where do the chefs eat" type human interest stories from time to time.
    - gastrmedox 9y ago
      I've heard the same comment from Mexican immigrants, but for different reasons. A Mexico City expat friend of mine derides all Mexican restaurants, even the higher-class ones are just "ok". I suspect that Mexican dishes highly according to the part of Mexico, but experience in higher quality Mexican restaurants in DC leads me to believe there is also a huge quality difference.
      - bluGill 9y ago
        There are definite regional differences according to my wife She grew up just a couple miles from Mexico so a vacation in Mexico wasn't a long trip, plus the random Sunday "lets go to the other side of the river for lunch and cheap sugar" trips that are possible when the country is that close. I have never lived close enough to Mexico as to make it the trip a non-event and so I don't have personal experience to report)
    - Symbiote 9y ago
      On a long road trip across the southwestern USA when I was a child, we went into a Mexican restaurant in Yuma, Arizona, where no-one spoke any English. Fortunately, the owner's teenage daughter came home for lunch, and she spoke English, but she didn't know translations for what was on the menu. My mum asked her what she was having for lunch, and then asked for the same. The girl translated for her father, he grinned, and brought the best meal of the trip. Unfortunately, we had no idea what it was called.
  - inferiorhuman 9y ago
    > I've lived in Las Vegas, The Bay Area, and Salt Lake City and Mexican Food definitely gets the appreciation it deserves here. I disagree, and I'd look to the words of Bayless and Bourdain. Mexican food in the Bay Area, at least, is almost entirely taquerias.
    - ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
      I'll give you that The Bay Area is actually significantly behind Salt Lake City, and Las Vegas. But I would try Lolinda if you are craving different. https://www.yelp.com/biz/lolinda-san-francisco?osq=meixican+Restaurants https://www.yelp.com/biz/lolinda-san-francisco?osq=meixican+...
      - inferiorhuman 9y ago
        Funny thing about Lolinda, one of their line cooks stabbed some guy to death. I was on the jury and man did that case reaffirm my cynicism towards our judicial system. There are a handful of less casual Mexican places in the Bay Area, but not many (Tres Agaves and Nopalito come to mind). Lolinda is actually Argentinian, not Mexican, though.
- malvosenior 9y ago
  I think you're right about Eastern European food. Mexican and Chinese do have high end representation. It's pretty paltry on the East Coast but you can go to Rosa for Mexican in NY or Red Farm for Chinese to see examples of high end. Of course there are lots of places in Mexico or Asia where you can get extremely high end cuisine of that type. I have very little experience with Easter European food (but love it!) so can't say if it's the same in its native region but I bet it is.
  - bllguo 9y ago
    GP noted that "some Chinese cuisines" are underrated. Emphasis on "cuisines." China is huge - food can be divided into 8 regional cuisines. In the US you mostly see 2 - Cantonese and Szechuan - and no, Chinese-American doesn't count! There is a lot that people are missing out on. I haven't been to Red Farm but some cursory searches show it's categorized as Chinese-American cuisine.
    - bobthepanda 9y ago
      You can actually find some of the best Chinese places these days in college towns with high Asian populations.
- kleiba 9y ago
  When I lived in California, Mexican food was cheap and almost always delicious. Where I currently live (somewhere in Europe), Mexican food is always expensive, sometimes good, but most often mediocre. I am yet to have an amazing and cheap Mexican meal over here.
  - icantdrive55 9y ago
    If someone held a gun to my head, and told he to open a restaurant with my meager saving; I always felt it would be a take-out burrito place. I don't think I've ever met anyone who didn't like a burrito, or pizza. My point is I think a clean burrito joint would go over practically anywhere. It needs to be clean, and the portions need to be generous, and the owner needs to keep an eye on the business.
    - PeterisP 9y ago
      In many parts of Europe kebab shops have taken the role that burritos and such occupy in Americas; the dishes are a bit different in ingredients and taste, but they're similar enough in the business details & way of consumption to be pretty much replacements for each other.
      - freeflight 9y ago
        In some places, there's pretty much a kebap shop over-saturation, at least in Germany. Luckily these past years a lot of the "US food" has become way more popular. Tons of "artisan burger" restaurants and burrito/taco shops popping up. US-style food trucks, with all kinds of different offerings, also have become very popular.
        stevenwoo 9y ago
        The BBC covered the kebab situation in Germany last year. http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170203-germanys-favourite-fast-food http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170203-germanys-favourite-...
- bsder 9y ago
  > Eastern European food (and Mexican and some Chinese cuisines) are deeply underrated Well, one interesting point is that native Mexicans and native Chinese would hardly recognize what we in the US call Mexican and Chinese. As for Eastern European food, I think some of it may simply be quantity. I can't think of a single ethnic dish in my family that wasn't meant for an army and was meant for one. Even the article author talks about having made 1500 dumplings. And many of the dishes get better on the second day. It also doesn't help that ethnic dishes tend to all have little quirks about how your mother, grandmother, etc. did it and you won't like somebody else's quirks. The author's grandmother had her own quirks to her dumplings, for example.
  - Zigurd 9y ago
    With recent Mexican and Chinese immigration you now do get restaurants that are a taste of home, even in the northeast. Most of these are newer restaurants, with many patrons speaking Spanish or a Chinese language. Eastern European food, however, is more challenging regarding authenticity once you get past the delicious dumplings. Not too many people want to go out of their way for boiled meats and cabbage, or fatty vinegary stuff in aspic. Egg salad on a hot day at the Latvian church picnic. Brrrr. I expect these cuisines to evolve the way food in the UK has, developing a new native cuisine.
    - your-nanny 9y ago
      What eastern european food have you eaten? P.s. many people from places like Poland consider themselves Central European. Some even Western European. I think this is about how they feel about being aligned with Russia, but also where their affinities lay
      - bobthechef 9y ago
        The EE/CE/WE labels have their uses, but I find that the way the EE label is used is more of an indicator of Western ignorance than anything else, kind of like the term "Dark Ages". In the Western mind, EE might as well be a country. England, France, Germany, Italy...Eastern Europe! It reinforces the Cold War era stereotypes that are still around, that it's just this huge, culturally homogeneous mass where everyone speaks some riff on Russian.
- lkrubner 9y ago
  This should be emphasized. Back in 2009-2011 I lived in Brooklyn and me and my friends would bike up to Greenpoint, and I would have a great lunch for $10. People should especially go the restaurants where the people mostly speak Polish, and English is a second language for them.
  - gastrmedox 9y ago
    Hamtramack in Detroit also has great Eastern European food, or did in the 80s and 90s. Many families in Central Michigan and Upper Michigan even have paprikash, goulash, and dumplings for the occasional meal. Btw the sausage in Hamtramack is fing awesome. If only Detroit could export its food like Brooklyn does. Detroit-style pizza is just so much better than yours ;)
  - subpixel 9y ago
    My office was in Greenpoint until 2010 and sadly all the truly great places we loved are long gone, with much of the Polish community.
- dzhiurgis 9y ago
  I’d suggest trying / making Lithuanian zeppellins. They are heavy, but good. Especially if you nail bechamel sauce!
- adamsea 9y ago
  Agreed. Mexican cuisine in LA is a whole nother level, whether street food or fine dining.
- bradleyjg 9y ago
  > It's a pity, but it also means you can get an _amazing_ meal for cheap in Greenpoint. Any specific recommendations if I'm going to make the schlep on the G?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- deepsand 9y ago
  The final episode of the Netflix series Ugly Delicious [1] holds a 'face-off' between Asian dumplings and Italian stuffed pasta. Although quite tongue-in-cheek, they mention that similar foods exist in many cultures. I recommend the series as they tackle themes regarding the prejudice against certain cuisines, as mentioned by OP. Warning, you'll be hungry after and during each episode. [1] https://www.netflix.com/title/80170368 https://www.netflix.com/title/80170368
- montyf 9y ago
  > they belong in the same category as French or Japanese Huh? French food I can understand, though I don't have much of a taste for it, but Japanese food is terrible -- I was there for two weeks. A lot of foreigners are deeply disappointed when they travel to Japan, especially by sushi (though I found a couple of good sushi places). However, by far the best food in Japan is found in Chinese-style restaurants. Chinese food completely eclipses Japanese. Eastern European food is fantastic. It completely spoiled me and my gf -- we couldn't stand the much-loved Spanish tapas when we went there. And Poles make as good or better pizza than Italians. And then we went to Asia and found ourselves in a whole different ballgame. > you can get an _amazing_ meal for cheap in Greenpoint I completely sympathize -- Polish food is rewelacyjne when you're used to shitty American food.
  - laumars 9y ago
    It's all just down to personal preferences. On balance I much prefer western European food to eastern European despite having polish grandparents who used to cook amazing pierogi.
  - realusername 9y ago
    > Huh? French food I can understand, though I don't have much of a taste for it You probably have not tried the ones you like, I'm french myself and there's so much variety in France it's impossible to try everything, I probably know less than 50% of the regional specialties despite being native. There's very few national dishes unlike most other countries.
  - ericd 9y ago
    Do you like beef? Japan produces some of the best beef in the world. Or it might just be your taste, but many people disagree with you about it being objectively bad.
- ivan_gammel 9y ago
  Just in case you are living in NYC, try Teremok - it's a Russian fastfood chain which just started expansion to USA, that I cannot wait to see here, in Berlin. I'm always going there in Moscow to eat some blini.
- sametmax 9y ago
  It's not about taste. It's about diversity. Almost all countries avec a few good dishes. What used to make france a great place for food is that you could it a different delicious dishe every day of the year if you wished so. The food quality is seriously going down in my country though.
baybal2 9y ago
Eastern European dumplings are Mongolian dumplings, Mongolian dumplings are Chinese dumplings ;)
- Density 9y ago
  They've evolved as they traveled through the cultures! I've had all of them and there are very distinct differences. Mongolian dumplings are very similar to steamed Chinese dumplings, but strictly with ground beef or mutton. Eastern European dumplings are smaller, usually boiled and made in bulk.
defen 9y ago
If anyone here lives in Portland OR...go to Kachka and have the sour cherry vareniki. Everything there is great, but those in particular are incredible.
- Stratoscope 9y ago
  Alas, I'm some distance from Portland. But I looked at some recipes and those sound really good, and not hard to make: https://www.google.com/search?q=sour+cherry+vareniki https://www.google.com/search?q=sour+cherry+vareniki
- coddingtonbear 9y ago
  Ahh -- I've wanted to go for a while to try to relive some study abroad experiences, but they at one point had a really sketchy health report that soured me on going. That was long enough ago now that I'm not worried about it; thanks for reminding me that it exists!
- Itaxpica 9y ago
  Bonnie Frumkin Morales, The chef at Kachcka, released a cookbook recently which is a must-buy for anyone remotely interested in Russian cooking. Everything I’ve made from it has been a gem.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
cylinder 9y ago
Disappointing how HN seems to have gone all-in on being a “mental floss” site.
- icebraining 9y ago
  It always had some tendency for that; pg's own submissions could in part be classified as such: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=pg https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=pg
- magic_beans 9y ago
  Did you actually read the article? It's written beautifully, and includes what looks like a delicious recipe. I myself never realized the similarities between Chinese and Eastern European dumplings, but there is a fair amount of overlap, especially with regards to soup dumplings! HN sourpusses could use a bit of home cooking -- a juicy dumpling full of pork belly and butter would lighten any mood!
- dang 9y ago
  Today does have a couple more outliers than usual but if you look back at previous front pages at archive.org, you'll see it hasn't changed all that much. Five years ago today there was an article on Stonehenge, a Kickstarter for a feature film, and a "my best life hack" piece: https://web.archive.org/web/20130425093132/https://news.ycombinator.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130425093132/https://news.ycom... It's part of the mandate of HN to cover an assortment of everything, not just tech and startups, so long as it gratifies intellectual curiosity (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). That's one of the best things about HN, in my view, so I hope it doesn't change. Can dumplings gratify intellectual curiosity? Of course they can!
crispinb 9y ago
Bon vivant trivia, tribal sneers, celeb gossip & huffy etiquette advice seems to be about all the wealthy inner city is interested in these days. Shame the infection has spread here.
- greatquux 9y ago
  What?
  - mastax 9y ago
    Somehow, even an article about dumplings is offensive.
    - crispinb 9y ago
      Not offensive. Boring and trivial.
- graycat 9y ago
  Yes, the OP started out with travelogs and stories about how great my great grandmother's dumplings were. At least the OP omitted the stuff about have to stir the pot counter clockwise or the food will be no good! :-)!! Finally, in this thread, no one has mentioned the recipe! I saved a copy of the OP, but only because of the recipe. The recipe was well written in places, e.g., the measurements. Good! At least the recipe left out the stuff about needing sour cream butter and adding flour until the dough "feels right": If I already knew that much about the dough, I wouldn't need the recipe! Points about the recipe: (1) Use pork shoulder or pork belly. Really? In the US pork belly is raw bacon and nearly all fat. Pork shoulder has much less fat and, in some hogs, can be quite lean. So, those two sources are not nearly the same. I happen to have some pork loin, very lean, and some US bacon, nearly all fat but with standard bacon flavor. So, I should mix in by weight maybe 15% bacon? (2) Fold the dough to make an infinity symbol. Really? As a mathematician, I understand the infinity symbol, but I can't visualize how to take a circle of thin dough and make an infinity symbol. An instructional picture is needed. (3) Master the dumpling pleating folding technique. I'm willing to do that, wanting to do that, waiting to do that; now teach me how to do that! Or is not explaining that just one of the secrets of kitchen hazing for newbies??? Somehow such issues are standard in recipe and cookbook writing. E.g.: At one time I subscribed to the Time-Life series Foods of the World. Finally I wrote them a letter cancelling the subscription. I got back a letter from some Time-Life person with hurt feelings. Their point was that they were showing lots of really good foods. They were. My point was that they were also showing me travelogs with colorful stories about the cultures and with beautifully done, often full page, photographs of smiling faces, peasant costumes, interiors of high end Paris restaurants, gorgeous landscapes, and spectacular displays of what looked like fantastic foods: All of that made me want to learn to cook such foods! But the emotional grabbing got in the way of the instructional part: For instructional pictures, they had only a few and they were small. E.g., I saw lots of dumplings from Eastern Europe, Russia, China, etc., but nothing at all on how the heck to fold the dumplings! There was a fantastic Bavarian Black Forest Cherry Cake, but after many hours in the kitchen, with lots of money on groceries, there were two research problems, (A) getting the chocolate curls on the sides of the cake and (B) getting whipped cream strong enough to serve as cake filling and frosting. After hours, I got a good solution to (A) and a partial one to (B). And there were other issues, e.g., the cake was basically an egg foam with coca powder and nearly no flour so took some special handling. All the books in the series went on this way -- "bait" with lots of gorgeous emotionalism and then a "switch" with far too little instructional rationalism. For an explanation of this bait and switch stuff, I conjecture that in cooking writing, editing, and publishing, there are many more English majors than chemistry majors!!!
your-nanny 9y ago
We make pierogi every Christmas Eve. It's a lot of work.
- hinkley 9y ago
  Mrs T’s sautéed in butter with some bacon bits is a lot less work and still pretty tasty.
danharaj 9y ago
One day I'd like to eat a flight of dumplings from all countries that have something that could be construed as a dumpling.
fouc 9y ago
Speaking of Eastern European food, what do you folks think about schnitzels?
- eps 9y ago
  That's an Austrian dish.
  - vetinari 9y ago
    At the time, Austro-Hungarian empire controlled a big chunk of Eastern Europe. So they both have schnitzels, though the Austrian version is veal and the EE version is pork. In the end, it is a variation of Italian dish.
- ido 9y ago
  schnitzel is austrian, and therefor central european!
Slavic 9y ago
Stopped at "... varenyky, the Ukrainian version of what in Poland are called pierogi...."
wslh 9y ago
Adding Kreplach to the list: https ://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kreplach
efrafa 9y ago
We have those dumplings in Slovakia too, they are called “pirohy”. They are pretty delicious but its a lot of work. I also think that food is slowly dying as most of the people I know don’t make them any more.
- psynapse 9y ago
  Australian living in Slovakia here. Shout out for Bryndzové halušky.
throwaway84742 9y ago
Pro tip: since fairly recently, Trader Joe’s carries fairly authentic Pelmeni in the US. They have a little less meat than Pelmeni would usually have, but other than that they’re surprisingly good, even by Russian/Ukrainian standards.
Markoff 9y ago
they are no more eastern European than Chinese, European pierogi it's pretty much same stuff as Chinese jiaozi, so the title it's misleading
- koliber 9y ago
  You're right that pierogi, and in fact all dumplings, and even pasta, originate from China. However, they are different. The differences may be subtle to someone who is not familiar with them, enjoys generalizations, or lacks taste buds. The world of dumplings literally spans the globe and is extremely varied! You can put different things in them. Even if you look at "meat stuffed dumplings", you can use different types of meat, that is prepared and flavored in different ways. The dough can be made of different types of flour and with ingredients in different proportions. They can be boiled, deep fried, pan fried. They can be eaten by themselves, or doused in butter, fried onions, sour cream, bacon bits, or who knows what. The choice of stuffing is tremendous, spanning meat, cheese, potatoes, fruits, and mushrooms! Don't even get started on different shapes, which are also an important part of the meal. It's like saying "bread is bread" and throwing croissants, sour rye, and cron-bread into the same proverbial basket. Technically true, but does not add much to the conversation.
  - jerry40 9y ago
    How it is possible to know who invented any sort of food? You never can be sure.
- gandhium 9y ago
  European (and British) tea is just a version of Chinese tea, but differencies in tea culture are huge.
galfarragem 9y ago
Cuisines are like languages: all are good when you understand them, the difference is that some are easier to get into (e.g. Italian food or English language) than others. They evolved slowly over the centuries and what was not worthy would not stick. When you arrive in Poland its cuisine can be very difficult to get used: pierogi (dumplings with potato or cabbage inside.. hardly ever meat!), sour soups, overcooked cabbage.. but then you start to discover sauces, creative salads, breaded fried stuff, sophisticated cakes and you realize that their cuisine is just as good as others. Portuguese Açorda(1) is literally old bread inside hot water with herbs, a bit of olive oil and eggs. It looks austere but if you imagine yourself some centuries ago with only these ingredients, I challenge you to make something better. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A7orda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A7orda
passiveincomelg 9y ago
It's a little further east than Ukraine et al but I absolutely love the Taiwanese dumpling chain Ba Fang Yun Ji Dumplings (https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g13808671-d10191409-Reviews-Ba_Fang_Yun_Ji_Dumplings-Zhongshan_District_Taipei.html https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g13808671-d101...).
dimitar 9y ago
My grandmother used to make awesome blueberry dumplings (вареники з чорницею) which were served with smetana (a type of sour cream) and they were wonderful! My teenage-girl cousins would make room in their diets to just a piece - I can only imagine the willpower needed! The blueberries were locally picked from the Carpathian mountains in Ukraine and very fresh. Next up in Eastern European and Middle eastern cuisine - Cabbage rolls!

129 points by CraneWorm 9y ago

Eastern European food (and Mexican and some Chinese cuisines) are deeply underrated - they belong in the same category as French or Japanese, but long-held prejudices devalue them. It's a pity, but it also means you can get an _amazing_ meal for cheap in Greenpoint.

ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
Just curious where you are located. I've lived in Las Vegas, The Bay Area, and Salt Lake City and Mexican Food definitely gets the appreciation it deserves here. My favorite restraunt Utah doesn't even serve Mexican food... they serve "Imperial Aztec Cuisine from Mexico City"
- lainga 9y ago
  I think Brooklyn (as in Greenpoint, Brooklyn)
- bluGill 9y ago
  I live in Iowa. Lots of Mexican restaurants where native Mexican's serve good food. However if you have actually been to mexico you will know it is only vaguely related to Mexican food as served in Mexico. If you speak Spanish to the help they will admit they don't eat the food where they work because it isn't like home.
  - inferiorhuman 9y ago
    So what do they eat?
    - bluGill 9y ago
      They probably go home and cook their own meals most of the time. Just like most people who can't afford to eat out for all their meals.
      - inferiorhuman 9y ago
        Ah, I'm curious because it's not uncommon to see some restaurants and bars patronized by food service folks. SFGate periodically runs "where do the chefs eat" type human interest stories from time to time.
  - gastrmedox 9y ago
    I've heard the same comment from Mexican immigrants, but for different reasons. A Mexico City expat friend of mine derides all Mexican restaurants, even the higher-class ones are just "ok". I suspect that Mexican dishes highly according to the part of Mexico, but experience in higher quality Mexican restaurants in DC leads me to believe there is also a huge quality difference.
    - bluGill 9y ago
      There are definite regional differences according to my wife She grew up just a couple miles from Mexico so a vacation in Mexico wasn't a long trip, plus the random Sunday "lets go to the other side of the river for lunch and cheap sugar" trips that are possible when the country is that close. I have never lived close enough to Mexico as to make it the trip a non-event and so I don't have personal experience to report)
  - Symbiote 9y ago
    On a long road trip across the southwestern USA when I was a child, we went into a Mexican restaurant in Yuma, Arizona, where no-one spoke any English. Fortunately, the owner's teenage daughter came home for lunch, and she spoke English, but she didn't know translations for what was on the menu. My mum asked her what she was having for lunch, and then asked for the same. The girl translated for her father, he grinned, and brought the best meal of the trip. Unfortunately, we had no idea what it was called.
- inferiorhuman 9y ago
  > I've lived in Las Vegas, The Bay Area, and Salt Lake City and Mexican Food definitely gets the appreciation it deserves here. I disagree, and I'd look to the words of Bayless and Bourdain. Mexican food in the Bay Area, at least, is almost entirely taquerias.
  - ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
    I'll give you that The Bay Area is actually significantly behind Salt Lake City, and Las Vegas. But I would try Lolinda if you are craving different. https://www.yelp.com/biz/lolinda-san-francisco?osq=meixican+Restaurants https://www.yelp.com/biz/lolinda-san-francisco?osq=meixican+...
    - inferiorhuman 9y ago
      Funny thing about Lolinda, one of their line cooks stabbed some guy to death. I was on the jury and man did that case reaffirm my cynicism towards our judicial system. There are a handful of less casual Mexican places in the Bay Area, but not many (Tres Agaves and Nopalito come to mind). Lolinda is actually Argentinian, not Mexican, though.
malvosenior 9y ago
I think you're right about Eastern European food. Mexican and Chinese do have high end representation. It's pretty paltry on the East Coast but you can go to Rosa for Mexican in NY or Red Farm for Chinese to see examples of high end. Of course there are lots of places in Mexico or Asia where you can get extremely high end cuisine of that type. I have very little experience with Easter European food (but love it!) so can't say if it's the same in its native region but I bet it is.
- bllguo 9y ago
  GP noted that "some Chinese cuisines" are underrated. Emphasis on "cuisines." China is huge - food can be divided into 8 regional cuisines. In the US you mostly see 2 - Cantonese and Szechuan - and no, Chinese-American doesn't count! There is a lot that people are missing out on. I haven't been to Red Farm but some cursory searches show it's categorized as Chinese-American cuisine.
  - bobthepanda 9y ago
    You can actually find some of the best Chinese places these days in college towns with high Asian populations.
kleiba 9y ago
When I lived in California, Mexican food was cheap and almost always delicious. Where I currently live (somewhere in Europe), Mexican food is always expensive, sometimes good, but most often mediocre. I am yet to have an amazing and cheap Mexican meal over here.
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  If someone held a gun to my head, and told he to open a restaurant with my meager saving; I always felt it would be a take-out burrito place. I don't think I've ever met anyone who didn't like a burrito, or pizza. My point is I think a clean burrito joint would go over practically anywhere. It needs to be clean, and the portions need to be generous, and the owner needs to keep an eye on the business.
  - PeterisP 9y ago
    In many parts of Europe kebab shops have taken the role that burritos and such occupy in Americas; the dishes are a bit different in ingredients and taste, but they're similar enough in the business details & way of consumption to be pretty much replacements for each other.
    - freeflight 9y ago
      In some places, there's pretty much a kebap shop over-saturation, at least in Germany. Luckily these past years a lot of the "US food" has become way more popular. Tons of "artisan burger" restaurants and burrito/taco shops popping up. US-style food trucks, with all kinds of different offerings, also have become very popular.
      - stevenwoo 9y ago
        The BBC covered the kebab situation in Germany last year. http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170203-germanys-favourite-fast-food http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170203-germanys-favourite-...
bsder 9y ago
> Eastern European food (and Mexican and some Chinese cuisines) are deeply underrated Well, one interesting point is that native Mexicans and native Chinese would hardly recognize what we in the US call Mexican and Chinese. As for Eastern European food, I think some of it may simply be quantity. I can't think of a single ethnic dish in my family that wasn't meant for an army and was meant for one. Even the article author talks about having made 1500 dumplings. And many of the dishes get better on the second day. It also doesn't help that ethnic dishes tend to all have little quirks about how your mother, grandmother, etc. did it and you won't like somebody else's quirks. The author's grandmother had her own quirks to her dumplings, for example.
- Zigurd 9y ago
  With recent Mexican and Chinese immigration you now do get restaurants that are a taste of home, even in the northeast. Most of these are newer restaurants, with many patrons speaking Spanish or a Chinese language. Eastern European food, however, is more challenging regarding authenticity once you get past the delicious dumplings. Not too many people want to go out of their way for boiled meats and cabbage, or fatty vinegary stuff in aspic. Egg salad on a hot day at the Latvian church picnic. Brrrr. I expect these cuisines to evolve the way food in the UK has, developing a new native cuisine.
  - your-nanny 9y ago
    What eastern european food have you eaten? P.s. many people from places like Poland consider themselves Central European. Some even Western European. I think this is about how they feel about being aligned with Russia, but also where their affinities lay
    - bobthechef 9y ago
      The EE/CE/WE labels have their uses, but I find that the way the EE label is used is more of an indicator of Western ignorance than anything else, kind of like the term "Dark Ages". In the Western mind, EE might as well be a country. England, France, Germany, Italy...Eastern Europe! It reinforces the Cold War era stereotypes that are still around, that it's just this huge, culturally homogeneous mass where everyone speaks some riff on Russian.
lkrubner 9y ago
This should be emphasized. Back in 2009-2011 I lived in Brooklyn and me and my friends would bike up to Greenpoint, and I would have a great lunch for $10. People should especially go the restaurants where the people mostly speak Polish, and English is a second language for them.
- gastrmedox 9y ago
  Hamtramack in Detroit also has great Eastern European food, or did in the 80s and 90s. Many families in Central Michigan and Upper Michigan even have paprikash, goulash, and dumplings for the occasional meal. Btw the sausage in Hamtramack is fing awesome. If only Detroit could export its food like Brooklyn does. Detroit-style pizza is just so much better than yours ;)
- subpixel 9y ago
  My office was in Greenpoint until 2010 and sadly all the truly great places we loved are long gone, with much of the Polish community.
dzhiurgis 9y ago
I’d suggest trying / making Lithuanian zeppellins. They are heavy, but good. Especially if you nail bechamel sauce!
adamsea 9y ago
Agreed. Mexican cuisine in LA is a whole nother level, whether street food or fine dining.
bradleyjg 9y ago
> It's a pity, but it also means you can get an _amazing_ meal for cheap in Greenpoint. Any specific recommendations if I'm going to make the schlep on the G?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
deepsand 9y ago
The final episode of the Netflix series Ugly Delicious [1] holds a 'face-off' between Asian dumplings and Italian stuffed pasta. Although quite tongue-in-cheek, they mention that similar foods exist in many cultures. I recommend the series as they tackle themes regarding the prejudice against certain cuisines, as mentioned by OP. Warning, you'll be hungry after and during each episode. [1] https://www.netflix.com/title/80170368 https://www.netflix.com/title/80170368
montyf 9y ago
> they belong in the same category as French or Japanese Huh? French food I can understand, though I don't have much of a taste for it, but Japanese food is terrible -- I was there for two weeks. A lot of foreigners are deeply disappointed when they travel to Japan, especially by sushi (though I found a couple of good sushi places). However, by far the best food in Japan is found in Chinese-style restaurants. Chinese food completely eclipses Japanese. Eastern European food is fantastic. It completely spoiled me and my gf -- we couldn't stand the much-loved Spanish tapas when we went there. And Poles make as good or better pizza than Italians. And then we went to Asia and found ourselves in a whole different ballgame. > you can get an _amazing_ meal for cheap in Greenpoint I completely sympathize -- Polish food is rewelacyjne when you're used to shitty American food.
- laumars 9y ago
  It's all just down to personal preferences. On balance I much prefer western European food to eastern European despite having polish grandparents who used to cook amazing pierogi.
- realusername 9y ago
  > Huh? French food I can understand, though I don't have much of a taste for it You probably have not tried the ones you like, I'm french myself and there's so much variety in France it's impossible to try everything, I probably know less than 50% of the regional specialties despite being native. There's very few national dishes unlike most other countries.
- ericd 9y ago
  Do you like beef? Japan produces some of the best beef in the world. Or it might just be your taste, but many people disagree with you about it being objectively bad.
ivan_gammel 9y ago
Just in case you are living in NYC, try Teremok - it's a Russian fastfood chain which just started expansion to USA, that I cannot wait to see here, in Berlin. I'm always going there in Moscow to eat some blini.
sametmax 9y ago
It's not about taste. It's about diversity. Almost all countries avec a few good dishes. What used to make france a great place for food is that you could it a different delicious dishe every day of the year if you wished so. The food quality is seriously going down in my country though.

baybal2 9y ago

Eastern European dumplings are Mongolian dumplings, Mongolian dumplings are Chinese dumplings ;)

Density 9y ago
They've evolved as they traveled through the cultures! I've had all of them and there are very distinct differences. Mongolian dumplings are very similar to steamed Chinese dumplings, but strictly with ground beef or mutton. Eastern European dumplings are smaller, usually boiled and made in bulk.

defen 9y ago

If anyone here lives in Portland OR...go to Kachka and have the sour cherry vareniki. Everything there is great, but those in particular are incredible.

Stratoscope 9y ago
Alas, I'm some distance from Portland. But I looked at some recipes and those sound really good, and not hard to make: https://www.google.com/search?q=sour+cherry+vareniki https://www.google.com/search?q=sour+cherry+vareniki
coddingtonbear 9y ago
Ahh -- I've wanted to go for a while to try to relive some study abroad experiences, but they at one point had a really sketchy health report that soured me on going. That was long enough ago now that I'm not worried about it; thanks for reminding me that it exists!
Itaxpica 9y ago
Bonnie Frumkin Morales, The chef at Kachcka, released a cookbook recently which is a must-buy for anyone remotely interested in Russian cooking. Everything I’ve made from it has been a gem.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

cylinder 9y ago

Disappointing how HN seems to have gone all-in on being a “mental floss” site.

icebraining 9y ago
It always had some tendency for that; pg's own submissions could in part be classified as such: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=pg https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=pg
magic_beans 9y ago
Did you actually read the article? It's written beautifully, and includes what looks like a delicious recipe. I myself never realized the similarities between Chinese and Eastern European dumplings, but there is a fair amount of overlap, especially with regards to soup dumplings! HN sourpusses could use a bit of home cooking -- a juicy dumpling full of pork belly and butter would lighten any mood!
dang 9y ago
Today does have a couple more outliers than usual but if you look back at previous front pages at archive.org, you'll see it hasn't changed all that much. Five years ago today there was an article on Stonehenge, a Kickstarter for a feature film, and a "my best life hack" piece: https://web.archive.org/web/20130425093132/https://news.ycombinator.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130425093132/https://news.ycom... It's part of the mandate of HN to cover an assortment of everything, not just tech and startups, so long as it gratifies intellectual curiosity (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). That's one of the best things about HN, in my view, so I hope it doesn't change. Can dumplings gratify intellectual curiosity? Of course they can!

crispinb 9y ago

Bon vivant trivia, tribal sneers, celeb gossip & huffy etiquette advice seems to be about all the wealthy inner city is interested in these days. Shame the infection has spread here.

greatquux 9y ago
What?
- mastax 9y ago
  Somehow, even an article about dumplings is offensive.
  - crispinb 9y ago
    Not offensive. Boring and trivial.
graycat 9y ago
Yes, the OP started out with travelogs and stories about how great my great grandmother's dumplings were. At least the OP omitted the stuff about have to stir the pot counter clockwise or the food will be no good! :-)!! Finally, in this thread, no one has mentioned the recipe! I saved a copy of the OP, but only because of the recipe. The recipe was well written in places, e.g., the measurements. Good! At least the recipe left out the stuff about needing sour cream butter and adding flour until the dough "feels right": If I already knew that much about the dough, I wouldn't need the recipe! Points about the recipe: (1) Use pork shoulder or pork belly. Really? In the US pork belly is raw bacon and nearly all fat. Pork shoulder has much less fat and, in some hogs, can be quite lean. So, those two sources are not nearly the same. I happen to have some pork loin, very lean, and some US bacon, nearly all fat but with standard bacon flavor. So, I should mix in by weight maybe 15% bacon? (2) Fold the dough to make an infinity symbol. Really? As a mathematician, I understand the infinity symbol, but I can't visualize how to take a circle of thin dough and make an infinity symbol. An instructional picture is needed. (3) Master the dumpling pleating folding technique. I'm willing to do that, wanting to do that, waiting to do that; now teach me how to do that! Or is not explaining that just one of the secrets of kitchen hazing for newbies??? Somehow such issues are standard in recipe and cookbook writing. E.g.: At one time I subscribed to the Time-Life series Foods of the World. Finally I wrote them a letter cancelling the subscription. I got back a letter from some Time-Life person with hurt feelings. Their point was that they were showing lots of really good foods. They were. My point was that they were also showing me travelogs with colorful stories about the cultures and with beautifully done, often full page, photographs of smiling faces, peasant costumes, interiors of high end Paris restaurants, gorgeous landscapes, and spectacular displays of what looked like fantastic foods: All of that made me want to learn to cook such foods! But the emotional grabbing got in the way of the instructional part: For instructional pictures, they had only a few and they were small. E.g., I saw lots of dumplings from Eastern Europe, Russia, China, etc., but nothing at all on how the heck to fold the dumplings! There was a fantastic Bavarian Black Forest Cherry Cake, but after many hours in the kitchen, with lots of money on groceries, there were two research problems, (A) getting the chocolate curls on the sides of the cake and (B) getting whipped cream strong enough to serve as cake filling and frosting. After hours, I got a good solution to (A) and a partial one to (B). And there were other issues, e.g., the cake was basically an egg foam with coca powder and nearly no flour so took some special handling. All the books in the series went on this way -- "bait" with lots of gorgeous emotionalism and then a "switch" with far too little instructional rationalism. For an explanation of this bait and switch stuff, I conjecture that in cooking writing, editing, and publishing, there are many more English majors than chemistry majors!!!

your-nanny 9y ago

We make pierogi every Christmas Eve. It's a lot of work.

hinkley 9y ago
Mrs T’s sautéed in butter with some bacon bits is a lot less work and still pretty tasty.

danharaj 9y ago

One day I'd like to eat a flight of dumplings from all countries that have something that could be construed as a dumpling.

fouc 9y ago

Speaking of Eastern European food, what do you folks think about schnitzels?

eps 9y ago
That's an Austrian dish.
- vetinari 9y ago
  At the time, Austro-Hungarian empire controlled a big chunk of Eastern Europe. So they both have schnitzels, though the Austrian version is veal and the EE version is pork. In the end, it is a variation of Italian dish.
ido 9y ago
schnitzel is austrian, and therefor central european!

Slavic 9y ago

Stopped at "... varenyky, the Ukrainian version of what in Poland are called pierogi...."

wslh 9y ago

Adding Kreplach to the list: https ://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kreplach

efrafa 9y ago

We have those dumplings in Slovakia too, they are called “pirohy”. They are pretty delicious but its a lot of work. I also think that food is slowly dying as most of the people I know don’t make them any more.

psynapse 9y ago
Australian living in Slovakia here. Shout out for Bryndzové halušky.

throwaway84742 9y ago

Pro tip: since fairly recently, Trader Joe’s carries fairly authentic Pelmeni in the US. They have a little less meat than Pelmeni would usually have, but other than that they’re surprisingly good, even by Russian/Ukrainian standards.

Markoff 9y ago

they are no more eastern European than Chinese, European pierogi it's pretty much same stuff as Chinese jiaozi, so the title it's misleading

koliber 9y ago
You're right that pierogi, and in fact all dumplings, and even pasta, originate from China. However, they are different. The differences may be subtle to someone who is not familiar with them, enjoys generalizations, or lacks taste buds. The world of dumplings literally spans the globe and is extremely varied! You can put different things in them. Even if you look at "meat stuffed dumplings", you can use different types of meat, that is prepared and flavored in different ways. The dough can be made of different types of flour and with ingredients in different proportions. They can be boiled, deep fried, pan fried. They can be eaten by themselves, or doused in butter, fried onions, sour cream, bacon bits, or who knows what. The choice of stuffing is tremendous, spanning meat, cheese, potatoes, fruits, and mushrooms! Don't even get started on different shapes, which are also an important part of the meal. It's like saying "bread is bread" and throwing croissants, sour rye, and cron-bread into the same proverbial basket. Technically true, but does not add much to the conversation.
- jerry40 9y ago
  How it is possible to know who invented any sort of food? You never can be sure.
gandhium 9y ago
European (and British) tea is just a version of Chinese tea, but differencies in tea culture are huge.

galfarragem 9y ago

Cuisines are like languages: all are good when you understand them, the difference is that some are easier to get into (e.g. Italian food or English language) than others. They evolved slowly over the centuries and what was not worthy would not stick. When you arrive in Poland its cuisine can be very difficult to get used: pierogi (dumplings with potato or cabbage inside.. hardly ever meat!), sour soups, overcooked cabbage.. but then you start to discover sauces, creative salads, breaded fried stuff, sophisticated cakes and you realize that their cuisine is just as good as others. Portuguese Açorda(1) is literally old bread inside hot water with herbs, a bit of olive oil and eggs. It looks austere but if you imagine yourself some centuries ago with only these ingredients, I challenge you to make something better. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A7orda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C3%A7orda

passiveincomelg 9y ago

It's a little further east than Ukraine et al but I absolutely love the Taiwanese dumpling chain Ba Fang Yun Ji Dumplings (https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g13808671-d10191409-Reviews-Ba_Fang_Yun_Ji_Dumplings-Zhongshan_District_Taipei.html https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g13808671-d101...).

dimitar 9y ago

My grandmother used to make awesome blueberry dumplings (вареники з чорницею) which were served with smetana (a type of sour cream) and they were wonderful! My teenage-girl cousins would make room in their diets to just a piece - I can only imagine the willpower needed! The blueberries were locally picked from the Carpathian mountains in Ukraine and very fresh. Next up in Eastern European and Middle eastern cuisine - Cabbage rolls!