Ireland and UK are "potato and beer cultures".
Italy is I suppose a wheat and wine culture.
Spain, I cant decide, certainly wine.
France: potato and wine?
Can anyone draw a word map of the dominance of the potato, rice
or wheat through Europe, along with beer and wine?
--
Mike Reid
Wasdale-Thames path-London-Photos "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" <-- you can email us@ this site
Eat-walk-Spain "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk" <-- dontuse@ all, it's a spamtrap

The Reids <[email protected]> wrote:

    > Ireland and UK are "potato and beer cultures".

Depends whose household!

We almost never have potatoes as the main carbohydrate in a meal. I use
them quite a bit, in stews, curries etc. (yesterday in a Tortilla), also
as accompaniments with rice- but rarely the main thing. I suppose the
potato probably still dominates in the UK, but I wonder if that isn't
changing...


--
David Horne- www.davidhorne.net
usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk

The Reids <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

    > Ireland and UK are "potato and beer cultures".
Germany too (Austria, Hungary etc. are more wheat-based...)

    > Italy is I suppose a wheat and wine culture.
yup, though mostly in the north, corn (and to a lesser degree, rice) have
had, especially in the past, a key role in nutrition. Until the late 1950s
some parts of the north relied on little more than cornmeal for survival.

    > Spain, I cant decide, certainly wine.
wheat, definately

    > France: potato and wine?
imho, wheat. Think "baguette"

    > Can anyone draw a word map of the dominance of the potato, rice
    > or wheat through Europe, along with beer and wine?

draw an imaginary and very blurred line mid-height through france and
germany (and Poland, and so on). Below that line, wheat is the main source
for carbs (including countries from northern Africa), Above the line,
potato is.

QQG
--
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

On Sun, 03 Apr 2005 13:05:23 +0100, in rec.travel.europe, The Reids
<[email protected]> arranged some electrons, so they looked like this :

... Ireland and UK are "potato and beer cultures".
... Italy is I suppose a wheat and wine culture.
... Spain, I cant decide, certainly wine.
... France: potato and wine?

Cheese and wine !!

... Can anyone draw a word map of the dominance of the potato, rice
... or wheat through Europe, along with beer and wine?

Beer: England, Ireland, Germany (except Rhine region), Belgium,
Netherlands, Denmark, Czech Republic

Wine: Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Romania, Rhine region of Germany,
Austria, Hungary, Greece

Vodka: Russia, Sweden, Finland, Poland

<[email protected]> kirjoitti viestissä
news:[email protected] oups.com...
    > Vodka: Russia, Sweden, Finland, Poland
Russians drink vodka.

    > Ireland and UK are "potato and beer cultures".
    > Italy is I suppose a wheat and wine culture.
    > Spain, I cant decide, certainly wine.
    > France: potato and wine?
    > Can anyone draw a word map of the dominance of the potato, rice
    > or wheat through Europe, along with beer and wine?

Look at any decent Italian cookbook, and it is really only the south where
Wheat (Pasta, bread) is the main culture.
Up North it is much more potato/rice that prevails.

The Reids wrote:

    > Can anyone draw a word map of the dominance of the potato, rice
    > or wheat through Europe, along with beer and wine?

At the risk that this is just a snapshot: Iam sitting in my garden in
the Munich suburbs and just had some wonderful salmon spaghetti with a
glass of buttermilk :-)

My cellar accomodates changing beer specialities as well as some bottles
of red Bordeaux (for myself) and other wines (for guests), even if I
think the old saying

+-------------------------------------------------------+
| Wine is the stuff you drink when the beer is all gone |
+-------------------------------------------------------+

contains some truth for myself.

Je"Southern Bavaria - Beer; Northern Bavaria (Franconia) - Wine"ns
--
POTIVS AMICVM QVAM DICTVM PERDERE

chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn wrote:
    > The Reids <[email protected]> wrote:
    > > Ireland and UK are "potato and beer cultures".
    > Depends whose household!
Yes, these days I think such "cultures" are becoming less relevant,
what with increased availability of exotic food and changing
agriculture. Loads of Brits eat rice and pasta. Go to a pub for a meal
and you'll get asked "Chips or rice with that?" very often.

    > We almost never have potatoes as the main carbohydrate in a meal. I
use
    > them quite a bit, in stews, curries etc. (yesterday in a Tortilla),

Chips I suppose still keep the potato dominant to some extent. But I
agree it's rare to have them as the only carb (chip butties, lasagne
and chips anyone?).


also
    > as accompaniments with rice- but rarely the main thing. I suppose the
    > potato probably still dominates in the UK, but I wonder if that isn't
    > changing...

Mention "potato" to me and I think tasteless boiled things beloved of
school caterers. (Love the baked and roasted ones though). Ditto
"cabbage". Certainly in the last 20 years or so there's been a massive
move away from these old staples. Many people in Britain under 40 have
come to view old-style British food (shoe-leather meat; potatoes, peas
and cabbage boiled to death etc) with the same distaste as Continentals
long held. Can't say that's a bad thing.

    > --
    > David Horne- www.davidhorne.net
    > usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk

As far as drinks go, here the old boundaries still more or less exist.
Beer: Britain, Ireland, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden
plus parts of France near German and Belgian borders.
Wine: Spain, Italy, rest of France, Greece
Also whisky in Scotland and Ireland and cider in a few enclaves (SW
England, parts of N Spain and France).
Switzerland is the one that's hard to call.

Edmund

The Reids wrote:
    > Ireland and UK are "potato and beer cultures".
    > Italy is I suppose a wheat and wine culture.
    > Spain, I cant decide, certainly wine.
    > France: potato and wine?
    > Can anyone draw a word map of the dominance of the potato, rice
    > or wheat through Europe, along with beer and wine?


Potato: http://www.dpw.wageningen-ur.nl/eapr/links.htm

[email protected] schrieb:
    > Beer: England, Ireland, Germany (except Rhine region), Belgium,
    > Netherlands, Denmark, Czech Republic
    >
    > Wine: Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Romania, Rhine region of Germany,

+ Mosel, Suebia, Franconia and Saale = wine.

    > Austria, Hungary, Greece
    >
    > Vodka: Russia, Sweden, Finland, Poland
    >

"The Reids" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > Can anyone draw a word map of the dominance of the potato, rice
    > or wheat through Europe, along with beer and wine?

I once saw a map of what Americans most frequently call a non-alcoholic
carbonated beverage. It was divided into regions of "Soda", "Pop", "Coke",
and other based on responses from people on the Web.

--
Donald Newcomb
DRNewcomb (at) attglobal (dot) net

Jens Arne Maennig wrote:

    > [...]
    > Je"Southern Bavaria - Beer; Northern Bavaria (Franconia) - Wine"ns

Northern Bavaria - Franconia, that is - has more breweries than southern
Bavaria. The highest density of breweries breweries per square km in
the world is in the Franconian region that centers on Bamberg.

Of course, this is the same Franconia that has Würzburg, a city that
once attempted to ban the brewing of beer in its territory. Beer won
out, eventually, even there.
--
dgs

SeverinBohnheim wrote:

    > [email protected] schrieb:
    >
    >> Beer: England, Ireland, Germany (except Rhine region), Belgium,
    >> Netherlands, Denmark, Czech Republic
    >> Wine: Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Romania, Rhine region of Germany,
    >
    > + Mosel, Suebia, Franconia and Saale = wine.

Franconia is even more of a beer territory than a wine territory.
--
dgs

Straying a bit from the content but staying with the subject matter
nonetheless, I was thinking about food in different countries the other
day. One thing which strikes me is the unusually large number of "all
you can eat" restaurants in the US. Within a 20 mile radius of where I
live, I think I can easily find 20 all you can eat places. This is
something I didn't find in the UK, France, Spain, etc... (I didn't find
a single all you can eat places in aformentioned countries as a matter
of fact.)

Is it because I am a tourist and didn't know my way around where as in
my own hometown I am familiar with the local environment? This is
beside the fact that virtually all restaurants serve far larger
portions as compared to countries from around the world.

This naturally leads to unusually large number of obese people in the
US, a subject covered and flammed by many on this board.