4 ms·

I grew up in another country where Jamaican patties were popular and ordering a 'beef patty' would never get you a burger patty unless you were in a burger join

by gomoboo 2mo ago

I grew up in another country where Jamaican patties were popular and ordering a 'beef patty' would never get you a burger patty unless you were in a burger joint. Same as in Toronto; asking for patty (or beef patty) will 99% of the time get you a Jamaican patty.

gruez 2mo ago
>>Not being from Toronto, never in a million years would I even think of that as a visitor. >I grew up in another country where Jamaican patties were popular [...] Have you considered the possibility that Jamaican patties aren't universally popular and the fact that the two of you came from cities with a significant Jamaican diaspora doesn't invalidate the experience of the person who probably came from a city that didn't?
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- beedeebeedee 2mo ago
  I’m from New Haven and if you went into a place and asked for a beef patty you would get a Jamaican beef patty, not a burger. It may not be everywhere, but pretty much every city I’ve lived in that is the case
  - cwillu 2mo ago
    If you ask for a beef patty here, the server will look confused, and then bring you a hamburger patty on a plate
    - dataflow 2mo ago
      Anecdote: I asked for the "mushroom burger" on their menu at an airport years ago -- I didn't want meat and it had nothing indicting meat in the listed ingredients that I checked -- and they brought me a hamburger beef patty with mushrooms on top. Imagine both of our surprises when they brought me the plate and I was like uhm I think that's another table's order? Well it turns out, at least to that restaurant (idk about the rest of the locality), that was considered a mushroom burger. Elsewhere in the same country (and even Googling it now), a mushroom burger means a vegetarian burger with a portobello mushroom or such as the "patty". Like how a salmon burger means the patty is made of salmon, or a veggie burger means the patty is made of veggies. I sat there looking dumb and the waiter thought (like everyone here) that I was some idiot who didn't know what a burger was. Now I'm not suggesting they need to regulate what "mushroom burger" means across the locality too, but I couldn't have been the first one to get caught off-guard by this, and the whole incident never needed to happen either. At least in an airport where people from all over stop by, I seriously wouldn't think that only a racist or anti-meatatarian/anti-vegetarian dictatorship would impose some common-sense rules to prevent confusion or food/time wastage arising from cuisine-"unculturedness".
      - ta988 2mo ago
        I once ordered a vegetarian burger in some kind of trivia bar of a big american city. It came with bacon... When I asked they said: "but nobody ever complained about having bacon in it". there are alternate realities out there. Even in the deepest small town I had never seen that.
      - robocat 2mo ago
        A mushroom burger is a normal order at a takeaway in New Zealand: the usual beef burger, but with added mushroom. Note that there is often a rather restricted choice for vegetarian or vegan food (unless you pick your place carefully).
      - sokoloff 2mo ago
        If I ordered a mushroom burger (especially as my preferred “mushroom and Swiss burger”), I’d be surprised if it came without the beef patty (the burger part). It’s not that I can’t understand that the other exists, but my brain is wired to think of mushroom as a topping/adjective and burger as the noun.
        dataflow 2mo ago
        I've seen the meat version plenty of times too, it's not like I couldn't understand that either. That was the entire reason I checked the ingredients, which had never failed me until then. Restaurants normally list something about the meat if it's there... but not always. Which I point out here because there are people saying "just check the ingredients" and, no, this clearly happened despite that. And which I also point out because the same people arguing "just check the ingredients" would get mad (possibly even more so) if you actually agree and decide to require reliable ingredient lists. P.S. The top result I see for "what is a mushroom burger" on Google is meatless: https://www.recipetineats.com/swiss-mushroom-burger/ https://www.recipetineats.com/swiss-mushroom-burger/
      - antonvs 2mo ago
        I can’t think of many places in the US where “mushroom burger” doesn’t mean a beef burger with mushrooms. Maybe in a vegetation or vegan restaurant. Now if you asked for a mushroom veggie burger, that would be different.
- arjie 2mo ago
  All of that may be true and yet it seems overly prescriptive for a state authority to determine the name of food. After all, a cheesesteak is not a steak but a sandwich. Regional variations on names are quite reasonable. On the other hand, Canadians are a prescriptive culture. In Montreal, for instance, they are very strict about street signs and so on. Perhaps it is just how things are done by that people.
  - dataflow 2mo ago
    > After all, a cheesesteak is not a steak but a sandwich. I don't know if you're not seeing the obvious or deliberately ignoring it, but the rather-salient differences between those are that (a) "cheesesteak" being one word rather than two tells you it might be a different thing, and (b) "cheesesteak" (or even "cheese steak" by itself) do not carry a single universal meaning different from the rest. You know, unlike "beef patty", where even Googling it now doesn't show Jamaica in the top result. If you want something to compare against, this is like banning people businesses from calling soymilk just "milk". Nobody minds if you sell soymilk or Jamaican beef patties. They're just asking you not to actively hijack terms that carry significantly different meaning to millions/billions of other people. It's not that hard and it's not some sort of totalitarian flex to have rules like this. With HN being what it is, they'd probably call banning that anti-veganism.
    - antonvs 2mo ago
      > If you want something to compare against, this is like banning people businesses from calling soymilk just "milk". Big Dairy got to you, huh. There’s nothing wrong with referring to other kinds of milk as milk. If anything, cow’s milk should be clearly labeled as such, if we’re following the approach of identifying ingredients properly.
      - neuroticnews25 2mo ago
        How would you define milk?
        2mo ago
DwnVoteHoneyPot 2mo ago
If I got a jamaican beef patty instead of a hamburger beef patty, i think that would be close enough. But I have serious issues with the term "sweetbreads".

by gomoboo 2mo ago

gruez 2mo ago

>>Not being from Toronto, never in a million years would I even think of that as a visitor. >I grew up in another country where Jamaican patties were popular [...] Have you considered the possibility that Jamaican patties aren't universally popular and the fact that the two of you came from cities with a significant Jamaican diaspora doesn't invalidate the experience of the person who probably came from a city that didn't?

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
beedeebeedee 2mo ago
I’m from New Haven and if you went into a place and asked for a beef patty you would get a Jamaican beef patty, not a burger. It may not be everywhere, but pretty much every city I’ve lived in that is the case
- cwillu 2mo ago
  If you ask for a beef patty here, the server will look confused, and then bring you a hamburger patty on a plate
  - dataflow 2mo ago
    Anecdote: I asked for the "mushroom burger" on their menu at an airport years ago -- I didn't want meat and it had nothing indicting meat in the listed ingredients that I checked -- and they brought me a hamburger beef patty with mushrooms on top. Imagine both of our surprises when they brought me the plate and I was like uhm I think that's another table's order? Well it turns out, at least to that restaurant (idk about the rest of the locality), that was considered a mushroom burger. Elsewhere in the same country (and even Googling it now), a mushroom burger means a vegetarian burger with a portobello mushroom or such as the "patty". Like how a salmon burger means the patty is made of salmon, or a veggie burger means the patty is made of veggies. I sat there looking dumb and the waiter thought (like everyone here) that I was some idiot who didn't know what a burger was. Now I'm not suggesting they need to regulate what "mushroom burger" means across the locality too, but I couldn't have been the first one to get caught off-guard by this, and the whole incident never needed to happen either. At least in an airport where people from all over stop by, I seriously wouldn't think that only a racist or anti-meatatarian/anti-vegetarian dictatorship would impose some common-sense rules to prevent confusion or food/time wastage arising from cuisine-"unculturedness".
    - ta988 2mo ago
      I once ordered a vegetarian burger in some kind of trivia bar of a big american city. It came with bacon... When I asked they said: "but nobody ever complained about having bacon in it". there are alternate realities out there. Even in the deepest small town I had never seen that.
    - robocat 2mo ago
      A mushroom burger is a normal order at a takeaway in New Zealand: the usual beef burger, but with added mushroom. Note that there is often a rather restricted choice for vegetarian or vegan food (unless you pick your place carefully).
    - sokoloff 2mo ago
      If I ordered a mushroom burger (especially as my preferred “mushroom and Swiss burger”), I’d be surprised if it came without the beef patty (the burger part). It’s not that I can’t understand that the other exists, but my brain is wired to think of mushroom as a topping/adjective and burger as the noun.
      - dataflow 2mo ago
        I've seen the meat version plenty of times too, it's not like I couldn't understand that either. That was the entire reason I checked the ingredients, which had never failed me until then. Restaurants normally list something about the meat if it's there... but not always. Which I point out here because there are people saying "just check the ingredients" and, no, this clearly happened despite that. And which I also point out because the same people arguing "just check the ingredients" would get mad (possibly even more so) if you actually agree and decide to require reliable ingredient lists. P.S. The top result I see for "what is a mushroom burger" on Google is meatless: https://www.recipetineats.com/swiss-mushroom-burger/ https://www.recipetineats.com/swiss-mushroom-burger/
    - antonvs 2mo ago
      I can’t think of many places in the US where “mushroom burger” doesn’t mean a beef burger with mushrooms. Maybe in a vegetation or vegan restaurant. Now if you asked for a mushroom veggie burger, that would be different.
arjie 2mo ago
All of that may be true and yet it seems overly prescriptive for a state authority to determine the name of food. After all, a cheesesteak is not a steak but a sandwich. Regional variations on names are quite reasonable. On the other hand, Canadians are a prescriptive culture. In Montreal, for instance, they are very strict about street signs and so on. Perhaps it is just how things are done by that people.
- dataflow 2mo ago
  > After all, a cheesesteak is not a steak but a sandwich. I don't know if you're not seeing the obvious or deliberately ignoring it, but the rather-salient differences between those are that (a) "cheesesteak" being one word rather than two tells you it might be a different thing, and (b) "cheesesteak" (or even "cheese steak" by itself) do not carry a single universal meaning different from the rest. You know, unlike "beef patty", where even Googling it now doesn't show Jamaica in the top result. If you want something to compare against, this is like banning people businesses from calling soymilk just "milk". Nobody minds if you sell soymilk or Jamaican beef patties. They're just asking you not to actively hijack terms that carry significantly different meaning to millions/billions of other people. It's not that hard and it's not some sort of totalitarian flex to have rules like this. With HN being what it is, they'd probably call banning that anti-veganism.
  - antonvs 2mo ago
    > If you want something to compare against, this is like banning people businesses from calling soymilk just "milk". Big Dairy got to you, huh. There’s nothing wrong with referring to other kinds of milk as milk. If anything, cow’s milk should be clearly labeled as such, if we’re following the approach of identifying ingredients properly.
    - neuroticnews25 2mo ago
      How would you define milk?
      - 2mo ago

DwnVoteHoneyPot 2mo ago

If I got a jamaican beef patty instead of a hamburger beef patty, i think that would be close enough. But I have serious issues with the term "sweetbreads".