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Comment by zaphod12 | Hacker News Reader

Wait...what on earth is American paella?!?!?!

Paella actually has a lot of variations all over spain, and it was a very "what do we have on-hand" kind of food!

My relatives in Madrid have chorizo, shrimp, shellfish, rabbit, chicken, sausage as far as meats I've seen in the paellas they've made.

Chorizo, shrimp, shellfish, and chicken is by far the most common they make. It may also make sense that the paella that "caught on" in the states just hails from a different region of Spain. So "American Paella" may just be closer to a non-valencian paella.

> Paella actually has a lot of variations all over spain, and it was a very "what do we have on-hand" kind of food!

I'm sorry but that's not true at all. Paella allows for some variations, but there's a clear line separating paella from "arroz con cosas". Just because it has rice and is cooked in a wide and short pan doesn't make it paella.

> My relatives in Madrid have chorizo, shrimp, shellfish, rabbit, chicken, sausage as far as meats I've seen in the paellas they've made.

I don't think you can call an orange juice "paella" just because "that's how you cook it".

Paella Valenciana might be that restrictive, but paella… that ship sailed long ago. Paella can even come with orange juice if you are inventive enough (it ought to have orange reminiscences due to The Need to cook it with naranjo wood).

And that “clear line” is source of endless discussions, so not so clear it seems!

Or mayo for that matter?

Also pizza pepperoni might be an American / Ninja Turtles thing, but I've seen plenty of genuine Italian places that make them with variations of small salame which are very close...

No way you get salami on a pizza pepperoni in Italy, unless you're in a tourist place where they know what Americans expect when order this.

Mayonaise in France/Belgium will have 0 sugar.

Mayonnaise in the US also has zero sugar:

https://smartlabel.unileverusa.com/048001213487-0001-en-US/i...

It does have some sugar, it's just very small amounts:

https://smartlabel.unileverusa.com/048001213487-0001-en-US/i...

I do wonder how the addition of a tiny amount of sugar, less than the amount of added salt, could even be noticed... let alone enough to request the "real" American version

Click the ingredients tab in your link and you will see sugar listed. You aren't seeing it on the nutrition label because the FDA allows you to pretend there is no sugar as long as you have less than 1g of sugar per serving.

So, make the serving size small enough, and almost anything can show no sugar on the nutrition label.

I believe you can also use the term "sugar free" as long as you have 0.5g or less sugar per serving.

The serving size is 1 tbsp which is a reasonable amount for one serving. It’s a negligible amount of sugar.

The pepperoni pizza thing is not people 'demanding' something different, it's just people incorrectly translating the menu and getting something other than what they where expecting.

And does mayonnaise anywhere have sugar in it.

Helmans does - from the Unilever site:

> Soybean oil, water, whole eggs and egg yolks, vinegar, salt, sugar, lemon juice, calcium disodium edta (used to protect quality), natural flavors.

I’ve had “pepperoni” pizza in Italy at a place where nobody spoke any English. It was filled with locals, not tourists. They had one kind of pizza: whatever they decided to make that day. For a few days it was what I, as an American, would call pepperoni. I don’t remember the local word for it, but it wasn’t pepperoni.

I’m not a fan of typical American mayo, but I’ve never seen it with sugar.

The 'confusion' is that the word "peperoni" in Italian is a bell pepper, so if you see that word on an Italian menu you'll be getting something with bell peppers which might not be what you wanted.

Italians absolutely have pizzas that Americans would recognize as a "pepperoni pizza" (two p's), it just won't be called a "peperion pizza" (one p)

Diavolo? The deep frozen stuff I use as 'base' for additonal topping are called that here in Germany. Basically pizza salami in spicier with some added red onion rings/pieces and those bell peppers in red, green, whole if small, cut in pieces if larger, it varies with the brand/type.

From what I can tell, all the major brands of mayo in the US have some sugar. Though it is not a lot compared to its much sweeter descendant, miracle whip.

I wasn't clear, I'm not talking about "pizza pepperoni" literally, I am talking about pizza with some kind of salame or sausage on it. I know that pepperoni is not sausage in Italian, what I mean is that a pizza with some kind of sausage on it is not a total bastardization of an Italian concept, since it's quite a common topping throughout the country.

Interesting bit about mayo that I've noticed, there's a Japanese-style mayo that's common in Asia. It's made with egg yolks, rice vinegar or apple cider vinegar.

It's much sweeter in taste than Western-style mayo which is made with whole eggs and distilled vinegar.

Personally I find the asian-style mayo far too sweet and "rich", I much prefer the lighter western-style mayo.

You will often see japanese style mayo used on sushi rolls in American sushi restaurants.

It usually features shrimp and chorizo, while the classic Valencian paella has chicken and rabbit. (There are many regional paella variations but don't tell a Valencian that.)

Eh, this feels kind of like saying some country doesn't do stew right because they use local ingredients.

So chorizo is a local American ingredient? Americans expect chorizo on their paellas because that's one of the few things they know about Spanish cuisine. It's just like them expecting Italians to only eat pizza and pasta, when that's a very small part of the Italian cuisine.

Probably with chorizo.

Jambalaya.

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