Invitations and polite eating

[Deleted]

Last night, I was over at my bf's place and he made me a curry. He knows I like them and I knew he put a lot of effort into it. The only problem was it was much too hot and spicey! But I ate most of it anyway.


Have you ever been invited to dinner at someone's house, but really didn't like what they made, but ate it just to be polite or not to hurt thier feelings?

Or would you simply say what you really thought and not eat?

[Don Cuevas]

I'd eat at least a little, just to be polite, unless it was truly gag-worthy.
If it was a side dish that you didn't like, it would be easier to skip than a main.

[Deleted]

I will almost always eat what is put in front of me, no seconds please!

[Deleted]

I like a man who isn't fussy about his food. Not much choice anyway, since I'm a crap cook!

[tillystar]

For close family or friends, I'd eat it but not be so enthusiastic incase they felt the need to repeat the dish on a regular basis.

For less immediately close people I'd always eat it and say how much I loved it. A couple of times with truely awful food I have done this and had to eat seconds

[spindrift]

I cannot bear to eat Risotto - Mushroom Risotto has to be the worst for me. People do serve it up. I am polite and so I pretend to like it or at least say nothing.

If a Japanese served me 'Natto' I would not eat it. I could not.

[Deleted]

I had to look up natto.



It doesn't look like it would be one of my favourites either.

[Deleted]

So what is 'natto' made of? It looks like bread bits dipped in honey or something...

I did finally tell my lovely boy friend that the curry was a bit too hot, it came out in conversation the other day, just so in future he knows how I like it. (The curry I mean).

Anyway, as you know I'm not much of a cook, but I want to make something special for him tomorrow, any ideas?

[spindrift]

Natto is made from soya beans - fermented. It look like and has the consistency of snot. Sorry.
I know it's excellent for good health but I can't swallow it.

Deyana - make your boyfriend Roast Chicken...with roast pots and veggies...easy.

[lagatta]

Yes, just about everyone likes a roast chicken.

I don't think I'd like natto. I don't share spindrift's hatred of risotto, but it isn't something I'm mad about, among Italian dishes. I tend not to like "gloppy" things; moreover risotto is very, very rich and not really worth the calories. I prefer a pilaf-type rice or other grain. Oh that can be rich too, especially in some of the Persian versions, but not gloppy, and worthwhile.

[Deleted]

I'm ready to try natto, but perhaps as a starter rather than as a main dish.

I don't think I have every known anybody who would invite me and serve me total slop. Not all of them have been good cooks, but that's what all of the "heat them up" items are for.

I can only think of two major invitations that I have ever had where my own eating habits were an issue.

The first time was an invitation when I was working in Casablanca and the colleague's wife decided that she would serve couscous the traditional way: one communal dish to be eaten with one's fingers. He said she had told him "this guy is in Morocco, and he is going to eat the Moroccan way or not at all." I said that his wife's attitude was perfect and that I fully approved, which I did, even if it was a bit awkward for me (especially to eat with my right hand since I am lefthanded). Everybody drank Fanta Orange with the meal except for El-Ghali and I, who drank wine (that was also just to please him, because he clearly wanted to drink wine and almost never had a chance to do so at home).

The other time was when I stayed at the house of my friend from Singapore -- actually his parent's house. This was a remarkable cultural experience for me because a lot of the house seemed so normal to me and some of it seemed so weird (it was a modern house, but the slot in the shower room was for shitting, and it was a narrow slot so you had to aim carefully as you squatted on the floor).

Oh, but we're talking about food, so what I found strange was in the morning when it was time for breakfast. "What do you want to drink?" I said that tea would be fine, because that seemed like a logical thing to request in Singapore. Okay, fine, the tea was normal, but what would I eat with it? I was offered some chapati (Pakistani flat bread) that could be dipped into a bowl of cold curry sauce. I ate it, but I must confess that it did not really hit the spot in terms of my Occidental habits.

[Deleted]

I haven't had much of an appetite lately, and that makes me want to stay out of the kitchen as much as possible. But yes, Roast chicken is easy enough and I think he'll like that, I think I will do that actually.

Lagatta, you must have tried many Italian dishes from having lived in Italy. Is it true that Italians like plain yogurt with their main meals quite a bit? In that way I think they are very similar to Indians, plain yogurt is served on the side many times. Sometimes it's spiced up.

Kerouac, eating with the fingers is no problem for me, that's how I was brought up to eat curries, and in my opinion the best way to do it. But I can understand it would feel a bit awkward if you are not used to it that way. I have never been fond of chapati for breakfast, although it's quite common.

[lagatta]

Plain yoghourt is eaten in Italy (though more in Greece and Turkey, obviously) though I've never had it served the Indian way on the side of dishes. I have some really nice thick goat's milk yoghourt now. I like it either plain or with herbs and savoury things.

I have the same problem as kerouac with polite table habits in much of the world, as I'm also left-handed. Eating with fingers no problem, but if you eat with your left hand that's as if you scratched your bum at the table (sorry).

I'm roasting some chicken drumsticks (they were out of whole legs) in my toaster oven. Plenty for me. I will probably eat them with my accursed left hand, home alone, but I do know how to handle them with a knife and fork.

In Naples, spaghetti was originally eaten with the fingers as well. Poor people didn't own forks. Table forks (unlike forks for stabbing big hunks of meat) are a fairly recent table utensil, unlike spoons and of course knives.

[Deleted]

That's interesting, Lagatta. I've got into the habit of having plain yogurt with some of my meals, to me it makes them taste better.

[Deleted]

I confess that I have been known to use sour cream the way Indians use yogurt with certain foods. (But I have also used yogurt when I was out of sour cream!)