> but a TON of countries simply do one dish for the whole meal
Can you provide some examples? I can't think of any.
It's not Latin/South American, it's not European, it's not Chinese, it's not Japanese, it's not like anywhere I've been in Africa, and it doesn't match my knowledge of India or the Middle East.
Nor can I imagine any country where "dinner is squash" makes much sense. Squash has almost no calories, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to center a meal on.
Cuisines often have occasional meals that are complete enough to be eaten as a single dish -- some kind of protein-mixed-in-with-carbs like lasagna or paella or chicken stroganoff. But these seem to be exceptions in the cuisine, rather than the rule.
Could you elaborate with some specific countries where the one-dish pattern is the norm?
Not parent, but as an example zucchini boats are pretty popular in my area of the Midwest as are stuffed peppers.
A zucchini boat is basically just zucchini stuffed with meat, cheese, tomato, onions, and spices. That's the whole meal. Stuffed peppers is basically the same thing, but with peppers instead of zucchini.
Oh for sure. I guess I think of both of those as being ground beef dishes rather than zucchini/pepper dishes. They're kind of like hamburgers but swapping out the bun for a vegetable. Maybe it depends on your ratios?
Is the "center of the meal" the part that provides the most volume and mass, or is it the part with the most calories? My lunch today was a full pound of bok choy (raw weight), 2 Tbsp avocado oil, 4 oz of steak, and 1 oz of cheese. kulahan and bigtunacan might say bok choy was my meal, but consistent with your observation, it provided only 9% of the calorie content.
If you go to Ethiopia, for instance, it's very common to have one dish that everyone eats from. Also common in the Middle East. You'll see it in some Chinese communities, but it tends to be more rural - once a nation develops and they enter a more globalized market, this tendency seems to fall off.
To be clear, I didn't mean that it was literally a single dish, I meant that instead of trying to compliment your meal properly with a matching veggie, because you're only making one thing. As long as it all makes sense together in the bowl/plate/hand, it works.
I grew up on Lebanese food. While in a restaurant you may have many side dishes, at home it was more usual to have one dish. That said, going to a less fancy restaurant, it wouldn't be weird to grab a plate with nothing else, like at home.
Some examples of things we'd eat as the entire meal:
* Fatteh/tisi'yeh, a dish made with a layer of bread, then boiled chickpeas, then yoghurt, and topped with some toasted pine nuts, melted ghee, paprika. Sometimes in a restaurant, this is part of a larger spread of food.
* Any variety of kebbeh (there are many). We'd eat this with bread. In a restaurant, kebbeh would not be the singular dish.
* Various things referred "tabakh" (lit. cooking lol) which we'd usually eat with rice or burghal (crushed wheat) cooked with vermicelli noodles. You can then say that's multiple dishes, but it's kind of like bread. Examples: bazala (peas, carrots, maybe potatoes, coriander in a tomato sauce) on rice, fasulya (white beans in a tomato sauce) on rice or burghal, al-asiyeh (potatoes, carrots, corriander stew) on burghal, spanegh (spinach, minced meat, pine nuts) with rice, and many others. Most of this is sometimes cooked with diced lamb of shredded chicken.
* Lahm bi ajeen (minced meat cooked with onions and molasses on dough with pinenuts) would be sufficient a meal, sometimes perhaps with a quick salad. Not a complete meal in a restaurant typically.
* We were more than happy to throw diced lamb (skewered with some onions), kafta, or chicken on the barbecue and eat with bread, maybe a garlic dip for chicken, occasionally with a salad, occasionally throwing some potatoes or similar vegetables on the barbecue. In a restaurant, a barbecue dish would have many sides.
* We'd pan fry some diced lamb in ghee, drizzle some pomegranate molasses and eat with bread.
* Pan fried potatoes with eggs on top, eaten with bread.
* Pasta cooked in yoghurt + coriander and garlic.
* A leafy green like spinach called sili', not sure what it is in english, cooked with black eye beans, then a squeeze of lemon and eaten with bread.
* Foule which is just fava beans stewed, we'd eat with bread. Squeeze of lemon. Maybe some pickles, olives, tomato, and cucumber on the side. In a restaurant, this'd probably be part of a wider breakfast spread.
All this is to say, it was normal to serve food from a single pot or tray and eat with utensils or bread, or from two pots placing rice/burghal on the plate then scooping the "tabakh" on top.
All said, my parents grew up poor, so that background could reflect our norms. (edit) We also did not grow up around much family, so large gatherings were uncommon for us, which differs from typical Lebanese culture.
All those look very familiar to me. There been a Lebanese community in my small Canadian city for years some as far back as 1900 others from 1970s, 1908s depending on what cause them to come here.
I knew a couple from south Lebanon "Si and Sue" Haddad. Si would make me cardamom flavoured coffee and some baklava. Sue made the food eggplant always seemed to be on the go.
Very friendly and a very wide range of food, a great culture to grow up in.
Can you provide some examples? I can't think of any.
It's not Latin/South American, it's not European, it's not Chinese, it's not Japanese, it's not like anywhere I've been in Africa, and it doesn't match my knowledge of India or the Middle East.
Nor can I imagine any country where "dinner is squash" makes much sense. Squash has almost no calories, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to center a meal on.
Cuisines often have occasional meals that are complete enough to be eaten as a single dish -- some kind of protein-mixed-in-with-carbs like lasagna or paella or chicken stroganoff. But these seem to be exceptions in the cuisine, rather than the rule.
Could you elaborate with some specific countries where the one-dish pattern is the norm?