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[Oct. 19th, 2015|01:42 am]
Jason
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Hotel in Prague ("Adria") has more reasonable internet. In Berlin google maps would take a good 30s-1m to load all the tiles. The bathroom smelled really gross at first and was not fixed by running the fan for a couple hours, but applying internet advice item #1 ("run the shower, because maybe it's sewer gas coming up through the shower"??) maybe helped? If it recurs we will try internet advice item #2 ("light a match").
Old town is very old town. I was told Prague was well-preserved by not being bombed in WWII, but it seeing is believing. Twisty cobblestone roads and big squares with big ol' fussily-architectured giant buildings.
Dinner last night was some nice beef goulash with dumplings. K and I have a running joke-argument about the semantic boundaries between "noodle" and "dumpling" because apparently in polish (or maybe just her dialect? not sure) noodles are things that are not filled, and dumplings are filled. So the doughy balls that came with the goulash (and kopytka and spätzle, for that matter) are plainly noodles. For me (and I think most english speakers? no looks like I might be in the minority based on replies) 'dumpling' is more about shape? It so happened that the spätzle we had a couple days ago was noodle-shaped, but I've had versions of it before that I'd be more tempted to call dumplings. (I see the wikipedia page says "soft egg noodle or dumpling") Chicken soup with dumplings has unfilled blobs of dough. Even like orzo seems like something that's only marginally 'noodle' (even though I do call it 'pasta'). |
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(Deleted comment)
Fascinating data! I would call gyoza dumplings --- for my idiolect, for all x . filled-dough(x) implies dumpling(x), though not the converse.
Orzo for me is neither dumpling (because it's not thick enough, as you say, to be thick enough to have itself as filling, i.e. DOES NOT REACH CRITICAL DUMPLE) nor noodle, because "noodle" feels like it requires a minimum of long wibbliness that orzo lacks. I think even, like, penne and rotelle and such are very marginal for "noodle". But all of them (incl. orzo) are pasta, because pasta just feels like it's about substance and not shape.
I agree with the long wibbliness being a defining quality of noodles. David calls all pasta "noodles" -- I just quizzed him with, "Do you consider tortellini to be noodles?" and he answered, "well, the noodle part is." To me, noodles are spaghetti and fettucine and tagliatelle but not farfalle or rotini or orzo. Long fusili bucati yes, but regular fusili no.
I would definitely not call spaetzle "noodles." Maybe, like, "pasta curds" if I were trying to explain it? Or "boiled dough chunks."
I guess I usually think of dumplings as filled, but then again I know I say "filled dumpling" when I'm describing pierogi, so.
what is your stance on pappardelle? Though wide, it seems long enough to be noodle to me, but if you chopped it up into squares, it would be less noodley.
I didn't grow up eating American-style unfilled dumplings (and in fact I don't think I've ever had them at all), so I too find it confusing that they are called dumplings.
Well that is a problem you should fix, chicken soup with dumplings is great.
I think you and I generally agree on dumpling definition. I would also tend to think that spätzle is more dumplingy than noodly.
I would say that the thing that makes a(n unfilled) dumpling is the fact that you drop the globs of raw dough into the soupy substance, whereas with pasta you shape it into some well-defined shape first. | |
