Quote:
Originally Posted by Apache
It is a popular restaurant here. I do not eat there though. I think their food is to salty and most vegetables are over cooked.
Apache
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I do not get to eat at one much, but when I do, I enjoy it.
I have never have thought that much of anything of theirs was too salty, or that their vegetables were overcooked. I honestly think that the restaurant is just giving people (the majority of people, most of whom are Southerners) what they want.
As far as saltiness is concerned, I think that if they reduced the saltiness it would cause them to lose customers--Americans generally like their foods fairly salty, and Southerners are probably the worst about it. The only food at Ole Times, that I remember, that I thought might be a little too salty is, coincidentally, their fried okra.
It is funny, in a way, how we like many of our vegetables cooked so much that they become close to being mush. Green beans are a prime example. People raised in the Deep South or by parents native to the Deep South (I know that I'm making some broad generalizations here) won't eat them straight from a can, or even freshly picked and steamed. They need to be cooked (boiled, but just barely boiling) for
hours. When the liquid gets low, the cook just adds more water to let them boil some more. Oh, and they always have to be seasoned with some kind of seasoned pork--hog jowl, fat back, ham, even bacon--whatever the cook happens to have on hand like that.
That may sound strange to a lot of people. If I hadn't been raised in the Deep South by parents who were natives of the Deep South, I would probably think that it was strange, too.