How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks | Hacker News Reader

How marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks

thehustle.co

114 pointsAnon84156 comments

From the article, Americans eat 55 million pounds of fish sticks per year, so Americans eat on average 1/6 of a pound of fish sticks per year, which is like... on average half of Americans have fish sticks once a year? That hardly sounds like a staple. Compare to, the average American eats 222 pounds of red meat and poultry in a year.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/americans-meat-consump...

Edit: for another random entertaining comparison, Americans consume about 2 pounds of asparagus each, every year. So about an order of magnitude more than fish sticks. https://www.agmrc.org/commodities-products/vegetables/aspara....

If you go by the net weight and box dimensions on https://www.walmart.com/ip/Gorton-s-Crunchy-Breaded-Fish-Sti... that's equivalent to a cube 160 feet on each side (packaged volume of annual US fish stick consumption). Not disagreeing with your point, but interesting to visualize the scale of consumption.

As a cube it would sit on roughly half or an American football field. On an everybody-else-football pitch it would cover the whole thing about 32 m deep. It’s both a tremendous amount and also absolutely nothing depending on your point of reference.

There are around 24,000 high schools in the US. I'll take that number as a proxy for the number of football fields, because, while some high schools don't have one, there are also quite a few which are affiliated with college/universities or municipalities.

So that's about six cubic yards per football field, or about enough to fill a couple of standard freezer sections at a supermarket.

We can conclude from this that football players don't eat fish sticks very often, or there wouldn't be any left for anyone else!

> on average half of Americans have fish sticks once a year?

It's probably a lot less spread out than that. Some people might like fish sticks. But in my mind, they're something that people give to kids. I haven't had one in decades. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that a large majority of purchased fish sticks are not purchased by someone who intends to eat them.

Averages aren't really good metrics for statistics that don't fall on a bell curve, like with a lot of consumables. Take alchohol [0] consumption, if you look at raw numbers the "average" American drinks quite a lot per day, but it turns out the average American probably doesn't drink much at all.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think...

It's like they say: the average American is half male, half female, and has 1.9 children.

It actually varies by year and region with a slightly higher than half percentage being male https://ourworldindata.org/gender-ratio

No, not in the US. Most Americans are women. China and India skew the global percentages.

I think my parent comment's point, that the premise "marketers convinced America to eat fish sticks" hasn't actually been shown, stands. Sure, the average doesn't tell us much, but it does tell us that consumption is really, really low. The more you push consumption levels up to realistic amounts for some people, the more other people you have to admit will never touch a fish stick in their lives.

The modal American is the more correct term I guess. Mode is a type of average, so it works out.

I think what we're getting from this is that the modal American doesn't eat fish sticks in a typical year, since the mean American eats half a serving.

It's likely that modal group is so large that the median American doesn't eat any in a typical year, either.

For the record: I have eaten 0 fish sticks in 2020, so far, and expect that the record will stand.

I think the average American doesn't understand averages.

Certainly tends to be popular with kids in the UK as a quick and easy dish: Put them under the grill (broiler), heat some backed beans, butter some bread, fruit for desert, and there's a reasonably nutritious fast food lunch once a week that can be prepared in a hurry.

On numbers:

A quick search [1] suggests 1.5 million fish fingers are eaten per day in the UK (18 per second).

A US search was less easy, but at 25,000 tons per year, and 26 grams per stick, that'd be the equivalent 2.6 million fish sticks consumed (purchased, I suppose) per day in the USA, which on a per-capita basis is interestingly much less.

[1] https://www.intrafish.com/marketplace/youll-never-guess-how-...

It’s mostly seen as a food for kids in the US too.

All the food that US sees as "for kids" is stuff that I dont want kids to eat too much.

Nobody has to feed their kid or themselves that crap. Unfortunately, many people are just fine pressing some buttons on a microwave to feed a family.

I don’t like feeding my kid any baby food, even organic, but we make the majority of it.

On the other hands most US adults eat what many would deem kids food...

The cynical take is that many US adults never really grew up

Oh, fish sticks = fish fingers?

I assumed they were like crab sticks, but mixed fish.

Amusingly, crab sticks are usually made of pulverised white fish and starch. They don't actually contain any crab.

Surimi also contains chicken egg protein. I guess for emulsifying. Surimi might contain crab, but then its a very small % (the legal requirement).

I bought real (river)crabs at Ikea. Needs a lot of time to get rid of the ice, and its a bit messy and tricky to eat (take your time!), but I found it delicious. The flavor is unlike anything I ever had, and the texture is pristine and delicate. After a while, it even becomes fun to dismantle them. Though the very first one got my glasses full with... whatever it was.

As for fish sticks, I know the brand we got contains Atlantic cod. Its a very cheap fish, and quite frankly it tastes disgusting (had it out of oven while cooking on budget). However the sticks add structure (crisp/bite and salt I suppose) to the otherwise bland fish which remind me of rotten fish, so they make it edible. Our daughter (2) loves them, and they can easily be prepared in an airfryer or oven. They might be a bit salty though.

Normal Atlantic cod I'd rather just feed my cats. Even with seasoning I still find it barely edible, and I just got this rule with fish (and shellfish) if it smells or tastes something remotely resembling rotten, I don't eat it. Cause as kid I ate enough of that already. Plus I generally eat my foods seasoned, with herbs and spices. Dill, for example, goes great with a lot of fish.

Yeah, I wouldn't buy something sold as 'fish' fingers personally. If I wanted them, you can (at least in the UK) also get 'cod fingers', 'haddock fingers', perhaps others (e.g. hake) rather than minced fish surprise.

Are the crabs you purchased from Ikea crab legs or more like crayfish (aka crawfish, craydids, crawdaddies, crawdads, freshwater lobsters, mountain lobsters, mudbugs, or yabbies.)?

Red crayfish, they were quite small. Not a gigantic lobster (would love to try that too). My ex-girlfriend had hermit crabs as pets. These were smaller, and they sometimes attacked or ate each other (when vulnerable without shell due to losing skin), which put the cycle of life in perspective. Still felt a bit odd.

Ikea wouldn't sell the crab sticks. Cooked crayfishes are part of the swedish culture. They even have a summer party (kräftskiva) based on eating those. My father caught a lot also when he was young.

Pretty much any fish will be decent as a fillet. Pretty much nothing you get in a fish stick or processed product is going to be any good because if it were it would have been made into something higher margin. Fish sticks are the hot dogs of the ocean.

Huh I didn't know that, or that they were Japanese ('surimi') - I've only ever had or seen them in France.

(Not that I've been to Japan, but I'm English, so not having seen them here I just associated them as being a French supermarket snack.)

> I didn't know that, or that they were Japanese ('surimi') - I've only ever had or seen them in France.

Could be a coincidence. Naomi is a very traditional Hebrew girls' name, and also a Japanese girls' name.

For other confused Britons.

Fish sticks = Fish Fingers != seafood sticks

If you said fish sticks to most people in the UK, they'd think you were talking about these:

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/287149425

A common gastro pub lunch time dish here in the UK is a posh fish finger sandwich, usually hand made fish fingers in a crusty white bread with a tartare sauce.

https://images.squaremeal.co.uk/cloud/article/9374/images/be...

Posh Fish Fingers = Fish Goujons

https://www.tatler.com/article/new-rules-of-social-engagemen...

What's Hancock's Golden Rule?

Edit: seems to be the "rule of six". Best exceptions are country sports: hunting ("scaring the horses") and angling ("revising our knots"). Worst exceptions: canoeing/kayaking (too reminiscent of american beer) and gymnastics (unless one is the Duke of York?).

At least tesco tells the truth. In the US those would be called imitation crab sticks. Where imitation would be in a small font that isn’t noticeable at first glance.

Crab flavored cod sticks.

Almost always pollock in the US, but yeah.

https://www.google.com/search?q=imitation+crab&tbm=shop

More generally labeled as Krab.

Yeah, we call it "kay-rab" to avoid confusion.

This fails to demonstrate that "imitation would be in a small font that isn’t noticeable at first glance". It's always prominent, and often part of the single most prominent piece of text on the package.

https://www.google.com/shopping/product/8945736565554256086?...

For the financially distressed you can also make a serviceable fish finger sandwich with toasted and buttered thick white sandwich bread and a scrape of Pataks curry paste.

Iceland do 28 “prison grade” fish fingers for £2, and you can ‘cook’ them in a microwave for the same time it takes to do the toast.

This USian was quite a few decades old before realizing that Four of fish and finger pie might not be a strange British delicacy.

Heh...I assume you do know the meaning now. Got a chuckle when I learned that as well.

The only fish sticks I eat are the ones my kid doesn't. Perhaps it's not accurate to say that marketers convinced people to buy them for their kids.

If I want an easy to cook seafood meal I'm just throwing a frozen tilapia fillet in the oven with some garlic and butter.

Seafood? Tilapia are freshwater fish...

"Seafood, edible aquatic animals, excluding mammals, but including both freshwater and ocean creatures." Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Picking words apart and applying literal interpretations to their component is often a bad idea. Language rarely works that way.

Totally agree, but GP may not be a native speaker.

That's a bizarre definition:

Cambridge English dictionary: "animals from the sea that can be eaten, especially fish or sea creatures with shells"

Merriam Webster: "edible marine fish and shellfish"

These are much more reasonable definitions, more line with modern usage. I doubt you will find any dictionaries that mirror your Britania definition.

I grew up in and have lived near the land of 10,000 lakes (MN) almost my entire life and not once in my 35+ years of life has anyone referred to fish out of those lakes as seafood. Ever. In fact people around here I feel would be utterly confused if you did. I wouldn't fault him with not following Encyclopedia Britannica exactly.

Huh? In MN, WI and the upper peninsula of Michigan I have sat in multiple restaurants that had a seafood section in the menu that proudly claimed fresh caught (insert nearest great lake) fish. Maybe not so much in Central Minnesota, but I have definitely seen this in Duluth, and I doubt that the average Minnesotan would be confused by calling lake fish seafood. Although if we are being truly pedantic I suppose that the great lakes would more properly be considered inland seas.

If someone said they didn't like seafood, or even had a seafood allergy, would you happily serve them a freshwater fish and expect them to eat it?

Yes, but I chose the word "seafood" because I wanted to broadly refer to all fish and edible aquatic animals, and I figured people would know what I meant since the discussion wasn't really about where the fish are from.

I couldn't think of a better word that refers to cuisine involving animals that live in the water.

That's because there isn't one. Fish of any kind is generally considered to be seafood.

Agreed. Fish sticks must be a regional thing, maybe East Coast where more fried fish is common. The only cheap fish of this sort that I see around the Portland area isn't fried, it's tilapia.

They are an alternative to chicken nuggets that could fill another day on the school lunch menu and also for parents whose kids would only eat bland brown things or who didn't want to cook. Almost no one really intentionally eats them.

People who wanted fish and wanted it simple would go with canned sardines, canned tuna, or canned salmon made into salmon patties. Those who wanted fresh fish and were willing to cook would just get fresh fish and cook it however they wanted.

How often do you see fish sticks on a gourmet restaurant's menu? If you ever see it on a restaurant's menu, it'd be in the "kid's meals" section of a cheaper restaurant, next to or in place of chicken nuggets. If people actually wanted them, it wouldn't just be tucked away there.

Made me wonder how good fish sticks would taste, made from fresh fish, newly ground, (i.e. not breaded fish filet!) and some kind of really nice bread crumbs and eggs for the crust.

Isn't that just over complicating fish and chips?

I ate these quite regularly as a kid. We were poor, and fish sticks were cheap protein.

Then a few decades went by when I wouldn't eat them at all.

Then I married someone who grew up on an island and couldn't understand why I don't eat more fish (I live in Dallas!). So now fish sticks are back on the menu. And still pretty cheap!

Fish sticks w/BBQ sauce and some peas was one my staple meals in college. I still occasionally crave it, but probably only act on that craving ever other year or so.

This is literally the same thought that I had upon reading that statement.

I figure, if they come in boxes of roughly a pound each, two for a "family size" bag, and a "regular consumer" would eat it once a week (or 52 times a year). So that leaves 1 million "regular consumers", or 250,000 families who consume it regularly. That's not very many at all. I wouldn't be surprised if scrapple or some other obscure regional food sold more annually than fish sticks.

I bet that most fish sticks are sold to fast food joints, and I would not be surprised if most of that consumption occurs during lint.

The article also says that 64.4 million pounds of fish sticks were sold in in 1955, which means it's dropped quite a bit since then (and that was still under half a pound per person per year).

US population in 1955 was half the present population, though, so the average US person actually ate fish sticks at least once a year in 1955.

Under half a pound is adjusting for the lower population. 65m pounds of fish sticks and 156m people.

It's completely possible that Americans snort more cocaine than that per year.

I feel fairly confident that the average American doesn't snort a sixth of a pound of cocaine each year.

At just over 1g a week, it's not out of the realms of possibility, taking into account those who abuse it. I've unfortunately known people who could use that much in a week.

Oh for sure I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that there is someone somewhere who goes through a sixth of a pound per year. In fact I'm sure there are people.

What I absolutely do think it's out of the realm of possibility that the average American does. Something like 2% of Americans use cocaine.[1] That figure is probably extremely imprecise, but it barely matters because even if it was 20% it would require that the average user was going through a gram a day.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine_in_the_United_States

Germany consumes 27 fish sticks (2 pounds) per year and person. So I do not know if the American marketers where successful.

https://www.br.de/wissen/fisch-fischstaebchen-alaska-seelach...

I can confirm I never had fish sticks in the US since moving here for college, but I've had lots of fish sticks during my childhood in Germany.

Probably 100 pounds per year per child...

In Germany, Captain Birdseye (Iglo) TV spots ran on heavy rotation, so much that there was serious backlash when parents bought other brands, (e.g. house labels from supermarkets). My parents tricked me by guarding an older Iglo packaging and then swapping it before putting it into the fridge.

Can confirm this was also the case in The Netherlands.

As a child. fish sticks from "Kapitein Iglo" where a delicious treat.

Other fish sticks were not to be consumed.

Yes, I did know them as ‘fish’ exclusively before I dared to try sliptong, haring and paling; never ate a fish stick after that in my life.

I saw that as "222/55" = 4 (almost exactly) and then notice the text that shifted the the unit scales significantly. Mixing numbers with non-boilerplate text is confusing.

> "Where else but in this nation could one freeze processed whitefish into a brick, cut it up into deep-friable strips, and ship it to a landlocked region like Kansas for immediate consumption?"

How about anywhere else in the world? I know fish-sticks were pretty popular (and heavily marketed) in Netherland in the 1980s. They may have been invented in the US, but they exist elsewhere.

I remember they used to be somewhat popular with kids. Whether that was because of the marketing or because it's a convenient form (boneless and fried), I don't know. Adults generally prefer slightly more 'real' fish.

Fish sticks weren't even invented in the US, it is a British thing (called "fish fingers" there), and the earliest recipes date back to the 19-00s.

Wow. I'm from New York, and have never once in my life even seen a fish stick, much less eaten one, and I went to public schools my entire education until college.

The only reason I've ever even heard of them in the first place was that famous South Park episode about Kanye misinterpreting them as "fish dicks".

So this is fascinating to me... but who does eat them? Is it a geographical thing, or class thing?

It's a class thing, and definitely a midwestern thing. I ate them as a child because they were dirt cheap and I could make them on my own. Often, I ate mine with a box of Kraft Mac & Cheez. The modern equivalent is probably frozen chicken nuggets.

You've probably seen them at restaurants. Something like the Fillet-o-Fish. Other fast food joints offer similar items during lint.

They aren't bad. As is typical with frozen, deep fried food, they really don't taste like anything. So I wouldn't really go out of your way to try one. The IQF fish fillets you can get in the grocery store are better in every respect.

I think you mean Lent, the 40-day (minus Sundays) season when traditional and mainline Christians give up a physical pleasure, like red meat or chocolate, as a sign of repentance and devotion. Not lint, the detritus that comes out of the clothes dryer, from the word linen.

New startup idea: the lintless dryer.

Yes, that's what I meant. I haven't been to church in decades, so I haven't seen Lent spelled out in a long time.

Just curious, do you speak English with an accent that has the words Lent and lint pronounced the same, or nearly the same? For example, do you pronounce "pen" and "pin" identically? The sounds are close, but in some accents the words are pronounced exactly the same.

Grew up in Ohio. I pronounce pen and pin the same way unless I am purposely trying to not, then I think I try to make pin a little more nasally but still pretty much sounds the same.

Lent and lint always sound the same.

> They aren't bad. As is typical with frozen, deep fried food, they really don't taste like anything. So I wouldn't really go out of your way to try one. The IQF fish fillets you can get in the grocery store are better in every respect.

If you have a food-processor and a herb-pantry, you can make your own fried fish with far superior tasting breading.

1. Bread selection: choose a bread that doesn't burn: fried oil is very high temperature. White-bread is fine, "Hawaiian rolls" are terrible. Various home-made breads are great.

2. Toast the bread, a few slices is all you need for a few slabs of fish.

3. Use a food-processor to break the bread into breadcrumbs.

4. Herbs: any combination that tastes good. I use Basil, Oregano, Rosemary, Salt and Pepper, take nibbles of the concoction until it tastes good.

5. Flour the fish with your right hand, drop it into egg+milk mix with your left hand, then drop the fish into breadcrumbs with your right hand. (Right hand dry, left hand wet)

6. 30-minutes in the refrigerator

7. Fry the fish, you're done!

----------------

Its not as easy as fish-sticks though. Pull em out, put them on a baking sheet and cook. But the breading-process for good-tasting fried fish is easier than I expected.

Depends on the brand. Some of them are pretty neutral, like a cheap knockoff of fish and chips. Others are much more fishy tasting, which I would not describe as a good thing.

I loved them and still eat them occasionally even though I know they're bad for me. I was a latchkey kid and microwave meals were pretty easy for my mom to get me.

Microwaved bread crumb batter? Not even toaster-ovened?

> that famous South Park episode about Kanye misinterpreting them as "fish dicks"

It was the other way around in that episode. Kanye was not understanding the joke, and people kept teasing him for it, until finally he decided to accept his destiny as he saw it from what everyone was saying and he moved into the sea to live with the fishes.

Anyway :p

> but who does eat them? Is it a geographical thing, or class thing?

Fish sticks are definitely popular here in Norway, and you can find them in pretty much every grocery store, in the frozen food department.

For frozen food and dry goods you can find even the unpopular ones are pretty much every grocery store.

I've had them. My grandma would buy them sometimes when we were kids. I don't really like them. They're kinda like frozen processed chicken nuggets with a fishy flavour and a softer inside texture.

I grew up in Queens NY and fish sticks were a staple for school lunch

> So this is fascinating to me... but who does eat them? Is it a geographical thing, or class thing?

I've eaten plenty of fish sticks growing up in Germany. No idea if it's a class thing, though. I don't see why rich people wouldn't eat fish sticks, but then again I'm not rich.

I still eat them sometimes as an adult :).

>I don't see why rich people wouldn't eat fish sticks

Because in the US fish sticks are normally deep frozen, low quality, bland tasting, mass produced, supermarket fair...

Think Hot Pockets but with fish (if we can call the bland fish remains and industrial byproducts inside those things "fish")...

It's weird how there's a stigma against frozen food when it's usually of much higher quality and retains much more nutrients and vitamins than any other form of conservation.

And unless you live near to the coast, fish always almost gets frozen. It just doesn't keep for more than a few days unfrozen, even at 0°C to 2°C.

Also, fish sticks are usually made from fish, not from "remains" or "byproducts". The fish are gutted and frozen into blocks right on the factory ships. They are cheap because much of their weight is breading, and the fish used for them are less popular.

They are a cheap, fast-to-prepare food which suits people on a tight budget and people with limited time, for example when both parents work. They appear a bit healthier than meat equivalents.

Rich people can buy fresh fish if they have time, or takeaway if they don't.

(Thinking when I last ate fish fingers has me realise what a difference my dad's change of job made, when I was about 12.)

Fancy seafood dishes often contain fishbones, the good thing about fish fingers is that they are relatively safe for children.

Some kids like them. Parents get it because they want to have their kids eat some fish, because fish is healthy, and this is a kid-friendly form.

I think that's the pragmatic success of this food and not really related to marketing.

The healthiness of fish is cancelled by the batter to make it palatable.

Why fish sticks and not battered broccoli sticks or steak sticks or battered anything else sticks?

NYC lifer here. Never ate them either. Never saw them in public school either. I knew a few kids who did because they came from a "frozen foods family" who were into buying a lot of frozen foods in bulk because it was cheap and ket for a while. They also tended to like the other little frozen junk foods like bagel bites, hot pockets and pop tarts. My mother forbade that kind of stuff.

If we ate fish it was usually white fish fillet from the super market or fish market.

> There is perhaps nothing more quintessentially American than the fish stick.

This person has clearly never heard of baseball, apple pie, or mass incarceration.

There are many cultural variations. Three countries in Europe love fish particularly (Portugal, Lithuania and Spain).

Portugal kitchen is heavily based in cod, and compete directly with fish fingers. Is the same product, just more expensive.

Lithuania has freshwater species like pike, and specially carps as a staple product engraved in their culture, it seems. They eat also cod and other marine fishes like herrings.

As Spain has more km of coast than the other countries in Europe in several seas (except Russia that is also an Asian country), uses a wider range of species including things that many UK, US and Central Europe people would find probably disgusting (limpets, mussels, sea snails, sea urchins or even anemones).

Trying to convince a german friend to eat octopus for the first time is always a lot of fun for us, muahaha! :-=

In those countries knowing how to prepare fish dishes is normal and included in the cultural DNA (there is not a psychological barrier), and cod sticks are just so-so. Another possibility among many options and seen as a lower quality replacement for the whole product or the salty cod fillets. Here is mostly a niche food for introducing children to eat fish, but there are easier possibilities widely available (mussels in a can, or tuna, for example).

Unfortunately, buying octopus in The Netherlands means either buying "Calamares" which turn out to be deep fried rubber rings, or buying pre-cooked tentacles for €10 per 100g, which turn out to be rubber as well.

There is hardly anything as delicious as properly prepared octopus.

What I find truly odd is that, at least in the upper midwest of the US, carp is almost universally considered a trash fish. Sure, it is a bit of a pain to clean and fillet, but it tastes great.

Also, wouldn't Sweden and Finland also count as European countries that consume a lot of fish? I've never been, but I grew up around a lot of Swedish immigrants, and fish seemed to be a large part of their traditional diet.

I agree that carp is not particularly appreciated in Southern Europe. I don't know why. Is mostly a slavic thing, I suppose.

> Wouldn't Sweden and Finland also count as European countries that consume a lot of fish?

Probably, but Baltic's Sea situation is complicated (there are some seriously contaminated areas and lots of comb jellies) so many seafood is imported, expensive and sometimes of substandard quality. Salmon is everywhere and is excellent, but finding good shellfish or cephalopods at good prices is more complicated. If I'm not wrong the offer is mostly Salmon, Cod or Herring.

Iceland has a particularly high per-capita consumption also, but their population is just too low to have a big impact versus the rest of Europe.

From my non-expert point of view, the kitchen in North and Central Europe is very Americanized. I suppose than the high ratio of early emancipation in Nordic countries support fast-food adoption. From France to the South is a different world.

>There is perhaps nothing more quintessentially American than the fish stick.

uh....

There must be hundreds of things that are the most quintessentially American thing while also being popular in the rest of the world.

The only thing I can come up with about which you could credibly say that "there is perhaps nothing more quintessentially American", is American Football. Literally the entire rest of the world plays regular football instead. There are American Football leagues outside the US (or there is at least one), but my impression is that they rely very strongly on American athletes who couldn't quite make the NFL.

Everything else that feels quintessentially American (apple pie, fast food, ketchup, fish sticks) is less quintessentially American than that.

The statue of liberty? Cowboys? Rodeos? Hollywood? Superhero movies? Gun shows? Harley-Davidson? McDonalds? For-profit healthcare? Putting flags on everything? Greeters in stores?

You've got a few good ones in there. The Statue of Liberty comes from France of course. I believe Australia also has cowboys, but I can imagine the culture around it, including rodeos, is very American.

The others? Well, maybe. Most of them are not strictly limited to the US, but the US does tend to put a very unique spin on them. For-profit healthcare exists elsewhere, but medical bankruptcy might well be strictly limited to the US.

I'm willing to settle for medical bankruptcy being the most quintessentially American thing.

Much to my surprise when I moved here, Canada has cowboys and rodeos too

Putting flags on everything is definitely not just an american thing.

It's not exclusively American, sure, but it's far more American than fish sticks. Americans love flags.

The best superhero movie, Dredd, is British.

> Greeters in stores?

Quintessentially walmart. Can't say I've seen any other store do that.

Rodeos are Spanish/Mexican in origin.

The Spanish version is somewhat ancestral at this point. Mexico... It's generally hard to pick Mexican and American cultures apart from one another. The Rodeos didn't migrate, the border migrated.

Cowboys and rodeos are just as Mexican as they are American.

Cowboys and Rodeos exist in a bunch of places (Australia, Brazil, etc.) but...

For the purpose of Cowboy/Rodeo culture, Mexico and the US are (figuratively) the same country. That is, there was a cowboying cultural region and a border got put down the middle of it very gradually. Texans were cowboys before they were american, californians, etc.

Half of those are unique entities which arent "quintessentially American, they just are American.

You even have a saying "as American as apple pie". Everyone makes apple pie. Apples were domesticated 5000+ years ago in China and the apple pie was documented at least as far as 1380, in England. I find it hard to believe nobody else was making apple pie, even earlier than that :-)

My grandma made apple pie and she was Romanian and had never been more than 200 km from her village. She definitely didn't learn the recipe from US TV shows :-p

The saying, "American as apple pie," was never meant to imply Americans invented apple pie (earlier Americans knew it had long existed in Europe for example), rather, that Americans have had a traditional fondness for it, it became a part of our culture. That level of fondness doesn't exist across all cultures. When people would say that, what they meant is it represented a staple of American culture, something Americans commonly liked (with the saying typically being projected at another object that Americans had a fondness for, to express that sense).

As American as beer? As American as cookies?

From other countries it still sounds like a weird saying. Dutch people love apple pie every bit as much as Americans do. Apple pie is something quintessentially loved by people all over the world. From my (Dutch) perspective, cheesecake is far more specifically American than apple pie. I love cheesecake, but it's not as rooted in my tradition as apple pie, and feels more like an American import.

Peanut butter

> As William Bradford, the first governor of the Plymouth colony, wrote in a letter in 1623, “If ye land afford you bread, and ye sea yeeld you fish, rest you a while contented, God will one day afford you better fare.”

I am pretty sure that what he wrote was ‘If þe land afford you bread, and þe sea yeeld you fish, rest you a while contented, God will one day afford you better fare.’ The letter which is sometimes confused for ‘y’ is actually ‘þ’ (thorn), which in current English orthography is written ‘th.’

Me, I þink þat we should go back to using þ.

It won't take off until it gets a glyph that looks more th and less y or pb.

its IPA symbol is θ

For Brits: This article is about Fish Fingers

Luckily South Park had prepared me!

Fish sticks are definitely hit or miss with Americans. When I was young I had friends who served and ate fish sticks but my family didn't and neither did any of our relatives. We ate fried fish all the time but it was typically fresh caught from a river or lake.

I remember eating fish sticks as a kid in the late 70's when we were poor. Not sure if it was cheap store bought or a government thing. We also fished a lot and ate that. This is probably why I still have a visceral, somewhat irrational "poor people food" reaction to fish dishes. Does irritate the heck out of my Dad to this day that both his kids have the same reaction. He loves salmon, so not cheap.

I once heard a story from a Newfie: they were poor, and always had lobster lunches. Rich kids got peanut butter sandwiches.

World Ends At Midnight Tonight! (12:30 in newfoundland)

Bonus lyric: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-rB0pHI9fU&t=95

I would have thought you wouldn't like fish because you had too much of it, but 'poor people food'?

What is a ""poor people food" reaction"? Do you not eat food that's eaten predominantly by poor people?

Where I am from, anything fried in batter is considered poor people food and indeed I avoid it but mainly because I do not like fatty taste like that.

I was poor, we ate a lot of fish, did I mention we ate a lot of fish. Got money, started eating other things, internalized that fish is "poor people food". Yep, irrational, but some things just get burned into your mind as a kid.

Fried breaded fish are fine. My experience with fish sticks is a soggy/mushy thing that was baked in the oven. You have to be told beforehand that it is fish.

Fish fingers in my part of the world. Great story.

Are fish sticks the same thing as fish fingers then?

Yes.

Not gonna lie, fish sticks are a guilty pleasure of mine. :)

Same here. But only when smothered with ketchup and ranch!

I smother mine in tartar sauce. ;)

As a fellow connoisseur: Make them yourself. Ramsay has a recipe. Much, much better. I didn't even know that was possible, or allowed. I expect to be clubbed to death by an angry white bearded fish sticks peddling boat captain any minute now.

Well now that you wrote that here... 'Big Fish Stick' is going to be on your ass like tartar sauce on a crab cake.

I have something fun to try in the kitchen this week, good info, thank you!

A friend of mine grew up calling them squarefish for some reason. It's like an abstraction of fish.

Slightly off topic, but reminds me a little of the story of Norway managing to market salmon to Japanese as sushi option.

https://www.npr.org/2015/09/18/441530790/how-the-desperate-n...

This is a great story. Not necessarily for the story, but for the gall of Norway insisting on teaching Japan how to eat sushi. Next up: Poland explains to America that they've been doing ribs wrong.

I think it was more serendipity re lots of salmon available to export, and large potential market if hurdles can be overcome...

Win, win all round!

I noticed that the supermarket near my house has a separate freezer section for seafood (maybe it needs a different temperature than the main freezer?). About half of it is fish sticks or some other kind of fried fish/shrimp (mostly carbs on the nutrition info), and the other half is fried fish fillets of various kinds (a lot more protein). I was curious what a good frozen fish fillet to buy would be, that would be easy to cook and healthy. It’s not an ingredient I have any experience with.

I would recommend salmon, if you like the taste. Very healthy, cooks quickly, can be made a number of ways.

Salmon if you get it, here in the Nordic it is considered high class food, usually expensive.

Fish sticks are one of the cheapest sources of meat. They're like chicken nuggos but somehow have an even worse ratio of fried breading to meat. A large chunk of Americans prefer to not eat fish, aside from Salmon. But I wouldn't go thinking there's anything special about fish sticks.

That being said, I have a hazy memory of, as a broke college student, thinking I should buy fish sticks because fish is good for you and my diet was bad and it was affordable...

It was a regular purchase for me when I was struggling to make ends meet, and I know I wasn't the only one. Anything to add more variety. Cheap fishstick sandwiches with bakery outlet bread, mayo and hot sauce. Maybe some lettuce if I was feeling a little uptown.

It wasn't until I got into looking at macronutrients that I realized this meal was mostly low quality carbs & fats. Nonetheless, for some reason I still have semi-fond memories. The power of marketing indeed.

Fried crispy in oil, sprinkled with lemon, and a side dish of steamed peas and bearnaise sauce they are delectable.

Best use of fish sticks I know of is fish tacos. I don't like the usual fish taco sauce, so I use a remoulade, and treat them as if they were shrimp poboys. I also use flour tortillas, just because I like them better than corn, and the corn tortillas always break on me. (Every once in a while, I'd get excited to try fish tacos at a restaurant and end up being disappointed. This went on for decades. Subbing flour tortillas for corn and remoulade for the usual fish taco sauce makes fish tacos work for me.)

Make remoulade ahead of time (something like, mayo, sour cream, tartar sauce, hot sauce, pickle juice and horseradish mixed is what I do... or better yet, look up how to make a proper remoulade). Shred some cabbage. Make a pico de gallo.

Make the fish sticks (or breaded fish fillets if you want to get fancy) as per directions (typically, bake in oven at 425 for 20 minutes, flipping once).

Assemble fish tacos:

1. Heat flour tortillas directly on burner to char them slightly. (do not skip this step!!!) Keep them moving, a pair of tongs helps here.

2. Apply a slathering of remoulade

3. Put some shredded cabbage on

4. Put fish sticks/fillets on.

5. Put some pico de gallo on.

6. Squeeze some lime juice on (do not skip this step).

Chow down.

Would they be better with fresh fish fillets battered and fried for the occasion? Yes, but who's got time for that when you're wondering what to make for dinner and you happen to have some fish sticks in the freezer.

Because the fish sticks are incorporated into a fish taco with all sorts of other delicious ingredients, the lameness of the fish sticks as compared to a proper piece of fried fish is reasonably disguised, and the sum of the parts is in my experience pretty damned delicious. Before I hit upon this fish-stick-taco idea, I hadn't had a fish stick in decades, but I've made these twice in the last month and now they're in my regular rotation.

> Where else but in this nation could one freeze processed whitefish into a brick, ...

Probably plenty of places. E.g. UK has the fish finger:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_finger

Love how marketers get to pat themselves on the back for every product that does well. I'm unconvinced that marketers had anything to do with this, as fish sticks are, I think, a natural extension of hot dogs and hamburgers.

Did they? 55 million pounds seems like error margin next to amount of chicken nuggets

As per statistics Fish is good for healthy heart

Wow, fish sticks on the rise?

I was delivered to the wrong galaxy, that’s for sure.

... or the iphone

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