• crashfrog@sopuli.xyz
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    1 month ago

    “Well, you know, Irish cuisine has a lot of potatoes in it.”

    Joke fucking explained. How do you figure the guy’s going to be on the spot, exactly?

    • Twiglet@feddit.uk
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      1 month ago

      I guess you never heard of the potato famine then, which was a type of genocide visited upon the Irish by the British. Hence the 'sudden’jump from potatoes to bombing hospitals.

      That’s the source of potato jokes people crack about the Irish.

      • crashfrog@sopuli.xyz
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        1 month ago

        I’ve heard of it. It happened in the 1800’s on another continent. Can you explain what it has to do with eating potatoes?

        • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          It is the link between irish people and potatoes.

          The joke wasn’t about potatoes it was about the link between irish people and potatoes.

          • crashfrog@sopuli.xyz
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            1 month ago

            Irish cuisine has a lot of potato dishes. Because they were cultivating potatoes.

            • Kaity@leminal.space
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              1 month ago

              Because the british bought all out their food sources, subjecting them to a famine where they had to grow potatoes to survive.

              • crashfrog@sopuli.xyz
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                1 month ago

                No, the famine happened after. You’ve got it backwards.

                The famine was started because of a widespread potato blight. It’s not called the Potato Famine because that’s all they could eat; it’s called that because that’s what they couldn’t eat.

      • jaycifer@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        “I guess I don’t know. Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it.” With a look on his face that clearly shows confusion at why you spent two whole responses about something as insignificant (in his mind) as potatoes. Everyone else probably has similar looks.

        For small talk like that you get one response on the topic. If someone said I should order potatoes because I’m Irish I’d lean so far into it, adapt an obvious accent, and say “Oh I do loove me potatoes.” If I wanted to backhand him a little I’d tack on “Except during the famine when there were no potatoes. Those were daark days” to the first statement. There’s enough humor in the accent to cover the callout mass starvation he probably unwittingly referenced.

        • Letstakealook@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          Well played, though I doubt some Israeli making genocide jokes is going to be that familiar with Irish cuisine.

            • sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip
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              1 month ago

              … Hummus is a popular staple of cuisine all over the eastern mediterranean and much of the middle east.

              The word ‘hummus’ itself is from Arabic.

              Hummus is not particularly unique to Israel.

              You’ve apparently heard of hummus but you don’t know much about it.

              • crashfrog@sopuli.xyz
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                1 month ago

                Hummus is not particularly unique to Israel.

                Potatoes aren’t even native to Ireland.

            • Letstakealook@lemm.ee
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              1 month ago

              Not necessarily, and if they have, they might not know the ingredients. Even hummus, many people don’t know what it is made from. If someone is making a joke about genocide and forced to quickly switch gears to a culinary discussion, I doubt they’d play it off so well. They might, but I doubt it.

              • crashfrog@sopuli.xyz
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                1 month ago

                People pretty generally know that the Irish cook with potatoes, as a result of the Potato Famine and the resulting Irish diaspora. People are extremely likely to have interacted with people whose name and descent are Irish.