Do Americans not cut their sliced bread sandwiches?

[BurntBroccoli]

I've often noticed that Americans on TV never seem to cut their sandwiches in half ) or quarters like British people.
Is this a thing? Does it depend on the filling?
Do some of you not cut your sandwiches?

Thinking sliced bread type of sarnies here, not baguettes or paninis etc.

Twinkies are a great concept but terrible in practice, the fake cream is nauseating. There was a British style fish & chip shop in NYC that did a deep fried Twinkie and it was actually delicious. The cream melting into the sponge worked surprisingly well. Alas it closed. Other places do them now. The thing Scottish chip shops and American state fairs have in common is that they'll try sticking anything in hot oil!

Usual spread for bagels is cream cheese, but you can get butter as well (long experience with NYC bagel shops speaking). If you're getting lox (smoked salmon) with your bagel, cream cheese goes better. Interesting note, American Jews associate bagels with dairy food (cheese & smoked fish) while the traditional British filling eg in the old Brick Lane beigel shops is salt beef. (If you go to the kosher bakeries in NW London the fillings will not be meat, though.)

You put cream cheese (Philadelphia) on a bagel.

Or you make something like a tuna melt bagel. Sliced tomato, tuna mixed with mayo (of course), processed cheese slice, toasted...DH had a loyalty card.

We get Twinkies too, but really, I would not waste your time searching one out to try. Unless you like really over sweet processed cake with fake cream. I mean they don't even get kept in the fridge and they have (supposed) cream inside. We get all sorts of flavours of them as well, strawberry, chocolate, duo (so like vanilla and strawberry). The only positive to them is that they are individually wrapped so you could take them camping or in the car for an emergency food type thing. 😂

The only positive to them is that they are individually wrapped so you could take them camping or in the car for an emergency food type thing. 😂

But there are so many other much nicer individual cake bars available (I can still picture the checkout when dd was doing her DofE!)

I was going to ask about washing machines, how many kg would the average top loader take?
And do they wash as well as the front loaders ?

A friend and I discovered US things like Hostess Twinkies in a speciality shop in London years and years ago (way before these things were easily available in the UK). We too were full of anticipation, as we used to read US glossy magazines and wonder what these marvellous goods could be like.

Let's just say we didn’t go back to buy more Twinkies. And the same goes for candy corn, which is just solidified sugar in the vague shape of a corn kernel, as far as I can see.

There are 😂 But it's the only positive I could think of.

I found corn dogs not that long ago in the frozen foods section.

I had to get them to try, as I have seen so many of these in movies.

Like you, I won't be doing that again.

Swedes generally don’t either. My ex UK Swedish friend is an exception - she really likes a cup of tea.

I am not terribly fond of corn dogs but what is interesting is what's popular here now are Korean style corn dogs. Which actually have a rice batter but they still call them corn dogs. (Korean style fried chicken is also popular.)

Candy corn is an evil trick made of wax. It regularly appears on lists of worst Halloween candy, along with circus peanuts (fake banana marshmallows shaped like peanuts) and Necco Wafers (taste like fruit flavoured antacid tablets, or as my friend says, "contains 200% of your RDA of chalk" -- the flavours haven't changed in about 150 years so they still have clove ones) Canada has this awful gum called Thrills that proudly advertises "It still tastes like soap!" on the packet. Also, in the US Smarties aren't chocolates, they're also fruit flavoured chalk (Rockets in Canada). Beware!

Washing machines: the capacity is advertised by volume rather than kg so this is a hard comparison. I had to do some research! So a Bosch European washer has a capacity of 70 L or 2.4 cubic feet, and claims it can do 10kg of laundry. My American size washing machine has a 4.5 cubic foot drum, but I really don't think it can do 20kg. Back when European washing machines advertised a 5-6 kg capacity nearly 20 years ago (I remember buying a 6kg Bosch!) maybe an American one could do double but I don't think so now, and you're not supposed to pack the drum tight so the clothing has room to move. Mine is big enough to clean a (UK) super king duvet comfortably. You can get Bosch and Miele European style machines if you really want but they are expensive. When Americans only had top loaders I could see installing those in an apartment as the washer and dryer stack, but new American front loaders do as well (in small spaces, the laundry is often stacked in a closet). Americans are divided on whether they prefer top or front load some people swear the front loaders don't clean as well as top, but I think they are fine. It might be because older top loaders use loads of water and front loaders are high efficiency machines that use less water. Also, traditionally, American washing machines and dishwashers use the water from the hot water tank, with no heater; the two things together mean that traditional top loaders do a load really quickly. The new machines have heating elements to boost it from tank temperature to a hotter one, so you can do a sanitise wash. But the lower water usage and hotter temperatures mean a much longer cycle.

(American ovens are also bigger -- standard size is 30"/76cm. This part I like)

@knitnerd90 is clove what the black necco wafer is supposed to be ? Yuck...

I have family there with counter height front loaders, I believe they're Bosch.

Electric kettles were rare about 20-30 years ago but have taken off in Sweden in recent years - my nearest white goods store has a whole aisle of them.

Our top loader was big, but it was quite hard on clothes (although a lot of washing powders were pretty harsh).

I liked the idea of a stacking washer and dryer (might have to build that into my perfect utility room). Our US laundry was just a cupboard off the kitchen.

I had a top loader that was already in the house when I moved to Sweden. I have never hated a washing machine more! Jersey clothing was forever getting ripped because it would get caught in the locking mechanism on the top of the drum on the spin cycle. I could not wait to replace it with a front loader.

You can yet stacking systems built into very small spaces. I've just had one installed in an old cupboard space - 75x80cm

Or trying to convince us that Americans don´t park their car right outside whatever apartment block/shop they are visiting...

@BurntBroccoli Thank you for this thread!

I'm in the UK, grew up with stones, lbs, ounces, learned metric when kids were little so as not to disadvantage them (but still have to convert back for me visually - I can 'see' 4oz butter but not 110g, but my way works for me!)

I'm fascinated by cups - I tried conversion charts for US recipes, then bought cups, but it seems there are different volumes to 1 cup? I think I saw domestic to commercial difference US, and possibly Australasia difference too? My current cup is 237 ml. Not a problem if everything is in cups, but if there's a stick of butter, perhaps weight in the recipe too...I'm not usually baking though, so probably not too critical, but still fascinated!

I prefer weight for e.g. onions, so it doesn't matter how finely chopped, but do rather like cups for flour and similar!

Lol, I still can't bring myself to try Kraft Mac n Cheese after nearly four decades here.

I lived for years among a Greek Cypriot community, and they didn’t weigh anything either. Recipes (usually in their heads) were ‘a glass of this, 2 glasses of that’ etc.

That would have made sense when hardly anyone would have had kitchen scales.

I like different measurement methods for different things ... being a 63yo scientist I'm happy with imperial and metric, and my sojourn in the US left me also ok with their 'customary units' and cups. I developed a high fibre chocolate banana muffin recipe which for some reason uses a mix of cups, ounces and millilitres ... and an egg.

The American cup is a measurement though, its,a setof cooking/ baking cups ,not just random cups from the cupboard

I know, but measuring in ‘glasses’ like they did would work the same, with a standard size glass.
I don’t suppose most people had sets of measuring ‘cups’ 100 or more years ago, but they managed anyway.

I used liquid and dry measuring cups and measuring spoons for years. When I started baking more, I mainly switched to weights. It's not hard to go back and forth. As long as the ratios are maintained, you will have the expected result no matter what kind of measurements you use.

I did grow up cooking with level, rounded and heaped teaspoons/tablespoons/dessert spoons any size! My tsp now is a measured 5 ml, with leeway! And cups...Such a fun thread, thank you @BurntBroccoli

This post is making me nostalgic for a place I’ve never lived in!

I love the States and grew up devouring US fiction, especially Judy Blume, and did American Studies at Uni.

But speaking of sandwiches and American culture, I can believe we’re on page 14 and no one has mention peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! I was so perplexed as a teen wondering what that was.

On the brown bags, aged 20 in the 90’s, I had a boyfriend in NYC and visited expressly to buy groceries and walk around carrying the handle-less paper brown bag 😁

Do any Americans recognize the cinematic bag trope, or are you too used to it? And did you eat PBJ growing up?