cultural chasms

[bixaorellana]

I was strongly reminded of the differences in eating habits around the world just now.
I went to the tiny store next to my house to purchase pan tostado. There wasn't any, so I bought a loaf of regular sliced wheat bread, commenting that I could toast it myself.
The grocer then shared a really amazing story with me. He said that when he was young he worked as a servant in the home of a lady who had a machine that toasted bread! He described the slots at the top to put the bread in, the fact that one only had to push a lever to start the toasting, then, incredibly, the bread bounced up out of the machine when it was finished toasting. He repeated the popping up part in case I wasn't sufficiently impressed the first time.

As I returned home, I realized that I have never seen a toaster for sale in Oaxaca, nor in the home of any local person. Wow.

[lagatta]

Isn't that interesting, in a country that doesn't seem so culturally or geographically remote.

[Deleted]

A number of years ago, I dined at the residence of an American friend who was in turn friends with one of the vice consuls at the American embassy in Paris (I remember that her name was Marilyn!). Shortly afterwards, the vice consul was transferred to the American embassy in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. On her very first trip back to Paris, the very first "necessity" that she needed to buy was a toaster.

I have never owned a toaster in my life. (However, I do have a countertop oven, so I can grill bread if ever I want to.)

[lagatta]

Countertop ovens are great for making toasted sandwiches with cheese and other nice things on a piece of baguette. I don't have one of those slot-type toasters either, I find their use too limited.

[Deleted]

One of our Swiss friends should appear to explain the rösti divide.

[bazfaz]

Forget toasters.
I have heard there are some people (be prepared to gasp) who won't eat savoury food cooked with fruit.
Right. I knew you'd all (bar one) be amazed.

[rikita]

i don't like toasted bread that much. i like sandwich makers though were you grill the bread and at the same time make cheese with it... unfortunately i don't have one, and the one my bf has is always dirty.

people here always think that i am weird for making sandwiches with bananas and melted cheese in my microwave. and then they get mad at me for telling them how nice guinea pigs taste...

i think one of the things the hardest to understand for germans when going abroad is why in so many countries people refuse to eat real bread, and instead say "bread" to some white stuff that consists mainly of air.

[bixaorellana]

Another cultural divide ~ around here it's easy to buy large bundles of fresh basil or rosemary, and you see them growing in many yards. But -- they're not used in cooking! Even though both herbs are European introductions, they are mostly used for healing by shamans, as part of the bundle of herbs used to swat someone in a traditional steam bath, or stuffed into vases and displayed in every business place, large or small. Basil is more used for the latter than rosemary.

[lagatta]

Oh, that is bizarre. I don't see how anyone could refrain from eating basil.

Mmm, good German bread. I was sorely disappointed in Dutch bread, thought it would be like German bread (knew it wouldn't be like French or even Belgian bread) but it is very soft and a bit fluffy, even in its rye incarnations, and I can only stand it toasted. A lot of it resembles the crappy kinds of British or North American bread. I bought the loveliest little organic miche of bread with walnuts at a small organic market in a square in Cologne, as well as delicious organic cherries. Yum.

But a friend of mine in Germany assures me that there is a lot of crap industrial bread there now, just as there are crap industrial baguettes in France.

[Don Cuevas]

One of the biggest cultural chasms I had to bridge was when my family moved from Connecticut to missouri when I was in my later teens.

I had grown up always thinking "gravy" was the brown or red, stock-based thickened or unthickened juices that accompanied a roast or pot roast.


When in one of my first visits to the Good Ol' Boys' Cafe, I was totally flummoxed to get a plate of biscuits and a small bowl of thick white sauce, with sausage bits in it, when the waitress brought me the "Biscuits and Gravy" I'd ordered.




By the way, this is SO WRONG! (Coconut Gravy!)
tinyurl.com/n87hcf

[bixaorellana]

I ordered stewed tomatoes in a restaurant in Norfolk, Virginia. When I took the first bite I was horrified. I called the waitress over and discreetly told her that a mistake had been made -- that sugar had been put in the tomatoes instead of salt. She looked confused, but took the dish away. I found out later that the savory dish I knew as tomatoes stewed with celery and onions was cooked with sugar and cinnamon in that part of Virginia.

[bjd]

Yum, Germany has the best bread. One of the things I missed most when I moved to France was good rye and other Central European type breads that I had grown up with. I had lived in Toronto in a neighbourhood with lots of European immigrants, so it was easy to find good bread, coldcuts, etc.

I still am not impressed with French "charcuterie" and although it's easier to find various kinds of bread now, I really enjoyed my trip to Berlin last year for the food. That's the kind of thing I make an effort to find when I visit Canada too.

[spindrift]

Toasters and especially kettles are difficult to find in India, Nepal and Kenya.

[lagatta]

Well, there are a lot of French food things I'd miss in most parts of Germany (yes, they are available now, but at a premium and not as good). And I do like the current bread in France - now there is a lot of artisanal bread and organic unbleached baguettes - but indeed the range of breads in Germany is exceptional.

spindrift, toasters is not surprising, but kettles? They are the most efficient way of making tea if one has electricity, and people in those countries drink tea.

[Deleted]

Huge chasms between North and South USA when I first moved here. Appears less so now , although it is probably more adaptation.
The gravy thing as DonC. mentioned still have not adapted to.
Iced tea already sweetened (sickenigly so!)took a while to get past
The use of condiments finally figured out and ordered properly.
I'm sure there's many more but can't remember at this moment,mostly having to do with food preparation and presentation.

[auntieannie]

Here in the UK, I was horrified to see grated cheese in salad. I mean, I do put cheese in my salad, but I chop it... extremely different taste and all!

Also, more and more I notice that Swiss girls are usually used to cooking food and here it is widely accepted that some people won't cook at all, using instead take away or ready made frozen food in turns. And the girls (caution: generalisation!) drink as much as the men usually here.

Roesti divide, Baz? I believe foodwise it is not so much a roesti divide as a roesti alliance or a puzzle of micro-regional cuisines.
In general terms, in the Swiss German part they are influenced by Germany in the Swiss Italian part they are influenced by Italy and in the Swiss "French" part they are influenced by France.

[bixaorellana]

I have to say that both DonC & Casimira make it sound as if the only gravy in the US south is white gravy. Not so!

[Deleted]

I have personally never seen white gravy, although I have seen numerous photographs of it. It doesn't shock me at all due to the ubiquitous bechamel sauce in France.

(But France doesn't have a word for gravy -- it has 'sauce' and it has 'jus' instead.)

[bixaorellana]

I never saw white gravy until I was in my teens. It's pretty regional, although I think biscuits & gravy has sneaked onto menus all over now.

Gravy pretty much doesn't exist here, in Oaxaca, anyway. It's confusing and exotic to the locals --
"So, you put this on top of puree de papas [potatoes], correct?" They are certainly not immediately seduced by it.

[Deleted]

Jun 13, 2009 16:09:30 GMT bixaorellana said:

I have to say that both DonC & Casimira make it sound as if the only gravy in the US south is white gravy. Not so!

Didn't mean to but that photo did kind of remind me of my initial and still lingering reaction to it poured over "steak" that had been fried.
Sauces here in the South are referred to as gravy,I still get confused. I guess I will always be a Yankee at heart.
Seafood preparation here far surpasses the North I find. Northern seafood is much more bland. I do miss bay scallops,lobster and clams though. My mother was a superb cook.

[rikita]

during my exchange to oklahoma, it really surprised me that a 50 year old man would drink sweet drinks like coke or pepsi or dr. pepper or similar, and play silly computer games. in my world, grown ups just didn't do that then... of course, by now i know lots of adults who do, but when i was a kid, my dad and my friends' dad's all used their computers for work, and drank beer or wine.

it also surprised me when for new year's we had apple juice rather than champagne. even people who normally never drank had some champagne for new years at home...

and that sometimes, when my host mom didn't have time to cook, we had sandwiches and potato chips for dinner! potato chips to me was something i ate as a snack to the dislike of my mom, who kept telling me how unhealthy they are... definitely not a meal...

and sausages or similar things for breakfast is something i could never get used to...

[bixaorellana]

I love hearing Rikita's take on stuff in the US that I always took for granted.

Rikita, what religion were your hosts? That's probably why they didn't drink anything alcoholic. In some churches grape juice is used instead of communion wine.

Sandwiches and potato chips are fairly common as a quick meal.

What surprises me is that you were surprised by sausages for breakfast. I would have thought that, of all countries, Germany would definitely eat sausage at breakfast. What do you all eat for that meal?

[rikita]

yeah of course, they didn't drink alcohol for religious reasons and i had known that before. but at new years it was still strange for me - like, the fact that you hit the glasses together but without alcohol in it... they were from church of christ... yeah they also used grape juice at church, forgot about that, but they sometimes do that here too, so people who for whatever reason don't drink alcohol aren't left out... but what was weird at church was, that they had the juice in tiny plastic cups on a big cup-holder and each took their own cup. for me, part of the purpose of communion is that all drink from the same cup (the preacher turns it a bit for each person, and then wipes it clean once it has been turned around completely).

for breakfast here it varies - one common thing for sunday is bread rolls, and boiled eggs... else, bread, and most people have sweet stuff on it like nutella or marmalade, though some have cheese or salami rather (like me). also quite common is yoghurt, or müsli (cereals)...

when i was a kid we would often eat those sweetened cereals with chocolate or something from the supermarket... these days i often have fruit, or bread with cheese or with avocado... also sometimes i make porridge...

[hwinpp]

I think it depends a bit on your location within Germany.
In the north, where I come from the typical breakfast of a farmer would be a 'Bauernfruehstueck', farmers' breakfast.
Sliced potatoes, onion rings, bacon and eggs sauteed in lard. If they don't have that it will be 'Mettbroetchen', crispy rolls with half an inch of minced pork covered with thick onion rings and salt and pepper. Definitely meat plays a big role. Not to mention all the sausages and hams that are regular staples at breakfasts.

Actually even in the south a traditional Sunday breakfast/brunch would be a 'Weisswurstfruehstueck'. This is a pork sausage that uses veal and pork skin and is heated in hot water. You eat it with pretzels, a special grainy sweet mustard and wheat beer.

[bazfaz]

I was in Tennessee and went to a rural cafe for breakfast. The whole concept of "biscuits and gravy" was alien. The waitress explained the biscuit part, which I could grasp. But she could see my bewilderment about the gravy (I was thinking of the brown stuff that accompanies roast meat). Patiently she explained:"You take some grease - you know what grease is?" Indeed I know what grease is - it is something the axle of the car needs to run smoothly. The white stuff I was given had considerably less taste than axle grease would have.

[spindrift]

Lagatta - Indian and Nepalis use pans to boil water....not even saucepans since they don't have a handle.

Here is a real cultural chasm.

This is a cooking stove I photographed on a trek up the Langtang Valley, Nepal.



Note that wood below provides the heat.

[Deleted]

I would like to donate a kettle or two for you to give to your friends in Nepal. Thanks for sharing this spindrift, these reminders of how grateful I need to be more often.
I think of all the "stuff" that people discard of in so many wasteful ways and then something so basic (to us) as a kettle and the many uses it could serve.

[spindrift]

Thank you Casimira. I will ask if kettles are available in the markets of Kathmandu.

I forgot to mention that Indians make tea by boiling water, tea, sugar and spices in small pans. They let it boil for a long time so a kettle would be of no use to them for tea-making although I'm sure they could find other uses for it.

It was the same story in Nairobi. When I first arrived with my new Indian husband to his home in that city, there was no kettle. Of course there are plenty of kettles for sale in Nbi - it's just that his cook never used them. (And also didn't know how to make toast).

[spindrift]

Also in the Langtang Valley - this is how washing-up is done. Bear in mind that it's nearly 12,000ft up there and it's freezing cold. The boy is washing the dishes in icy water that's coming out of a hosepipe; otherwise he'd had to use the stream.
Probably there wasn't one nearby.



Note the rhododendrons in the background. It was late April/May.

[lagatta]

spindrift, yeah I figured they used pans, but kettles are more efficient in terms of energy used, and in your case the energy used involves a lot of hard, back-breaking work getting wood and feeding the little stove.

There is so much "stuff" here that even poor people can access it through junk sales and stuff thrown away when people move or are sick of some of their excess stuff. It is kind of upsetting.

But closer by, I find those Bible Belt Americans very perplexing indeed. Jesus didn't drink sweet fizzy soft drinks, or change water into Coca-Cola...