this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2025
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Recipes
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A place to exchange kick-ass recipes. Either your own, or links to ones you've found and tried (and which worked) online, or tweaks to classics.
This community isn't for gourmet meals or Michellin stars, it's for real recipes people actually use and love.
Also, no cuisine gatekeeping here, please. If you love pineapple and strawberries on pizza, or mushrooms and jellytots in carbonara, them you do you!
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LA native here, I've also traveled a lot, including to Chicago.
If we're talking about food, then I think there are two or three legitimate complaints about LA.
LA is huge and spread out. If you want to get the "best" of whatever genre of food I guarantee we have it. But throw in geography and traffic and you're talking about driving an hour or more to get it. This is fun once in awhile, but it gets tiresome. Chicago and NYC definitely have a leg up on us for accessibility, mostly due to density.
High end fine dining is a weak spot for us. We've recently started climbing up the Michelin list, but NYC and Chicago also have us beat in this category. Conversely, how often do you want to drop $500 on a meal? Michelin stars are great, but that's not how most of us eat when we go out, so they're sort of overrated.
We don't do cheese like the Midwest, I'm convinced no one does. Do not order curds or poutine here, you're going to be disappointed.
IMO we excel in the $ to $$ price range. Food trucks and random planchas on the street will turn out food that blows your mind, and they're literally everywhere. We also do well in the organic/healthy and locally grown categories.
I haven't been to LA but I'll also add, in the late 20th century a culinary movement sprung from California focused on fresh ingredients cooked simply. And as someone from the Midwest that's what a lot of us think of LA food as. And crucially: we're ass at it.
Primarily though its not to our tastes. Midwestern food, in addition to being influenced by the abundance of animal agricultural products, is also heavily influenced by the harsh winters. Food is high fat and hearty. Lots of canned and preserved foods. Its the mid century soup ad recipes that worked well enough to last.
All Midwestern critiques of LA food (such as oop) needs to be seen through that lens. Most midwesterners haven't been there. They aren't thinking guacamole, thats just ordinary food to them. They're thinking fish tacos as prepared in St. Paul, some vegetables that were shipped across the country before being wood fired, and a bitter salad with a light vinegarette. It's seen as fancy, unsatisfying, and generally unpleasant. And even worse, its all that while conforming to negative stereotypes they hold of Californians.