blamebrampton | A case in point ...

So, there we were, having a chat on a friend's LJ about the differences between the US and the UK for purposes of a self-Britpicking list, with participants from both sides of the pond and beyond and frequent diversions into baiting and comedy from all sides, and apparently it has become a source of Flocked Drama.

Consider the argument very carefully: At least one American is very upset that British people prefer to be depicted in accurate ways.

And if you can't see why that's a bit dodgy, replace the word British with any other nationality.

I don't want to overstate the case, because really, it doesn't culturally oppress us the way that some other cultures have been oppressed by this sort of thing, since we don't deeply care and we had an Empire first. And while the original source of the complaint is a preference, it's certainly not a sine qua non, and we read heaps of stuff that gets us wrong, and some of it is good and some is crap, and really, at the end of the day we still pronounce and spell aluminium in ways that are scientifically logical, which in itself is enough. But, honestly ...

Interestingly, one of my points of difference was a tendency to soap-opera-like over-reactions in fiction. Clearly I drew the line too narrowly.

AND I left off the fact that it the entire United States has been the subject of mass-brainwashing to accept caffeinated flavoured beverages as coffee. Though I see Starbucks has dropped the word from their logo, truth in advertising at last!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

tee hee... well your interjection gave me a smile, because (to generalise ) I very much doubt there is a single English, Australian or New Zealander who would ever describe what they put in their tea as "cream". This particular term is of great curiosity to me... if Americans call what we call milk, cream... what do Americans call what we call cream? Americans must get a real shock when they visit our neck of the woods and ask for cream in their coffee and not only get actual coffee, but actual cream in it!

I want to know, too! I can never order anything dairy in the US because I am so hopelessly confused. The girl at the Starbucks in LAX told me that she thought half-and-half was the closest thing to normal milk, but another American friend recently told me that she thought it was closer to single cream.

1/2-1/2 tastes more similar to cream than US milk, I think :). Milk in the US is this really, really strange tasting liquid that gave me a bit of a shock the first time I downed it—and not necessarily in a good way; I was a brave and polite little trooper though and finished it!!!!! :D I still miss my imported Australian milk from the days when I was little—that milk, I personally think, tastes more like cream here :DDDDD.

OK, what we need to do is all go to the shops and write down the fat content of each dairy product and then compare and contrast. I feel certain we can come up with useful data!

That's a good idea. I'd be curious as well. Words like half-and-half thoroughly mystify me because last time I was in a foreign country and had to learn that term, it referred to ground meat that had been mixed together from pork and beef.

I will launch the great dairy decoder as soon as I have a bit of time!

:) Just for the record then, in this country, we have the product called 'milk' that has a 2.8% fat content, 'fatty milk' which is of 3.6% fat content, and um... dunno what to translate it to, perhaps 'lean milk' that has a 1-1.5% fat content. There is the apocryphal 0%-milk but I don't think anyone sane buys that. These names are mainly just for labelling purposes. We usually just call all of these 'milk' and refer to them by the fat content when differentiating is required. We have whipping cream (20% fat and all sorts of additives) and coffee cream (about 10% fat).

No one here would ever think of putting any of these into tea.

Now I'm just very curious about what you call milk! I mean, I'm not a milk drinker, but when I put it in things (my chai from Starbucks, for one, heh) it's always 1% or Fat Free, which is the closest you can get to water and still be white. From reading your comment I'm assuming I would get a very rude awakening asking for milk in your neck of the woods and ending up with your version of buttermilk, which is so very milk it would probably make me gag. :p

Normal Australian milk is about 4% fat, British milk is very slightly less, often about 3.6%. Wikipedia tells me that raw milk is just under 4% naturally, which could be true, from memory of milking, pouring into a bottle, sticking in the stream and drinking later. 1% is most of the way to skimmed for me!

Ah. Okay, in looking at the chart American whole milk is about 3.25% fat, which would be a little less than British milk, but definitely noticeable next to Australian milk. American Half and Half looks to be 10 - 18% though, which would probably be strange for just drinking to any of the people who drank the classes of milk mentioned above.

I must be alive, I learned something today. ♥

Putting in my $0.02's worth, here in Germany we have something called "coffee cream" that has anything between 8 and 16% fat content. Full milk has 3.5/3.8%, full cream 28 - 32% fat content.

At a restaurant, you'd get this "coffee cream" for both tea and coffee; Starbucks here uses either full or semi-skim (1.5%) milk, IIRC. (Nobody would even THINK of offering or asking for anything below that; skim milk (usually 0.3%) has become even rare in the shops.) In private homes, it varies -- pretty much anything goes from milk over condensed milk to full cream.

In Switzerland Milk is 3.5% fat, normal runny cream is 35%. Gruyere cream is the "creme de la creme" and I think is about 40%.

Well, you can get "crème double" here (ca. 40% fat, very custard-like consistency, but not quite as firm as the French product of the same name) -- and it's COMPLETELY different from the UK's double cream.

A case in point ...

Re: An interjection

Re: An interjection

Re: An interjection

Re: An interjection

Re: An interjection

Re: An interjection

Re: An interjection

Re: An interjection

Re: An interjection

Re: An interjection

Re: An interjection

Re: An interjection

Re: An interjection