I have lived in the USA for four years now and it has always been a struggle. A struggle with homesickness. A struggle with cultural differences. A struggle with different expectations. But I’ve become used to life in the USA and I’ve even learned to enjoy it.
One aspect of my life I still have trouble with is food.
The first time I tried sour cream in the USA I puked. It was disgusting and had nothing in resemblance to the sour cream I was used to. No words can describe my shock when my roommate found a loaf of bread that had been sitting in a cabinet for a month and had no signs of mold. At first I was curious how it was possible since bread back home lasts for no more than three days without molding. Then I realized I really didn’t want to know what kind of preservatives go into food to make it look fresh for long periods.
I never understood why people do grocery shopping once or twice a month and freeze half of the food, while one can buy fresh food every day. I never understood why so many Americans do not eat sea food. I never understood Americans’ love for frozen and fast foods. Honestly I tried – I had McDonald’s twice in my life, I went to Applebees twice, I tried KFC once and then I gave up and decided to enjoy my real food.
I have given up on explaining that my breakfast consists of cream cheese with tomatoes and bread or bread with chocolate spread (aka Holy Nutella) and fruits. Not to mention the look on people’s faces when I say that I eat my cereal with warm milk and an omelette is considered lunch not breakfast food where I come from. I don’t even want to remember my first American dinner. The one I missed because dinner here starts at 6 p.m. not at 8 or 9 p.m.
But I’ve learned to account for cultural differences. I’ve learned to ask questions. I’ve learned not to pay attention when people call my eating habits and food choices weird. I’ve learned not to preach on how often one should do grocery shopping or what one should eat.
But (yes, there is another but) there is still one thing I struggle with and that is the way Americans perceive dining settings. For many Americans, dinner is a 30-minutes daily activity that takes place in front of the TV. If family or friends gather around the dining table, the brief conversation about daily routines quickly turns into a silent contest who can eat faster, and it is usually over in 30 minutes.
Sometimes I think that Americans do not pay attention who they eat with or what they eat. It is important to provide nutrients to their systems so they can go to work the next day. The way and the form in which the nutrients get into the system are not important. The same is true when Americans dine out. They finish their meals as quickly as possible as if the food has feet and would run away from the plate.
For me, dinner or any other setting involving food is a social experience, not a mere need. It is important to savor every bite of the meal, to enjoy the smell of the seasoning, to appreciate the balance of the ingredients. What is even more important is the people involved in the setting, the conversation, the engagement, the fun. For some the 2-3 hours I spend having dinner is a waste of time. For me it is the best time of my day. Some laugh at my inability to eat alone, but I’d rather starve waiting for my roommates to get home or call a dozen people to find someone to have dinner with than eat by myself.
I do realize there must be a very logical anthropological explanation for these differences and I respect American culture. However, I wish it wasn’t the complete opposite to what I am used to. I wish I didn’t have to struggle with people’s judgmental looks every time I mention my food preferences. Until that changes, let me enjoy my breakfasts with Pan Italian and Nutella and 3-hour long dinners with happy friends.
*I realize not all American fall into my generalized opinion, and I hope no one is offended by this post.
Photo Credit: sondyaustin
This post is so interesting to me on so many levels. I grew up in a family of slow eaters. We spent at least an hour eating dinner together and talking about our days. But every element of American life discourages that… In school, we only had a half hour lunch period. You either ate in 30 minutes or you didn’t eat at all. And kids always had after-school activities until 5 or 6pm. If you plan on going out with friends or have homework to do, you eat quickly so you can do what you have to do. That’s not to mention all the evening parent meetings or evening visits to Grandma or whatever else may be going on. There’s just not enough time in the day for dinner anymore.
“I don’t even want to remember my first American dinner. The one I missed because dinner here starts at 6 p.m. not at 8 or 9 p.m.”
That’s funny – that’s exactly how my first dinner at college went. On weekends my family, who live in the New York area, would have dinner around 9pm, sometimes as late as 10pm depending on what else we were doing that day.
Meanwhile, at my school in Boston, the dining hall closed at 8pm. This gave me about an hour to find another place to have dinner in the city, because most eateries closed at 9pm during the week with the exception of – you guessed it – fast food restaurants.
Everything else you describe – freezing food, eating alone – is pretty familiar to me. My roommates and I tend to eat on our own because we don’t really have the funds to share what we cook, and different cooking times means different eating times. I do try to share when I can, and there’s nothing I like more than cooking for friends.
I cannot imagine how one finds the time or money to buy food everyday, though.
Andreanna,
to give you more reasons for concern about what we eat in the US read the following book (library would do) “Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan.
Obviously I am not part of the next great generation since I still read books.
Thanks so much for describning so accurately your food experience. As someone who lives in both Italy and the US, I have now adopted this as my own lifestyle and continue to eat this way while in the US as well as Italy. I feel so fortunate to have been able to discover and study first hand this style of eating and ‘life’- a much healthier choice and one that makes so much more sense. Because you shop daily for foods, does not mean you are spending more money, you are most likely spending- less. You buy only enough for one or two meals or just enough for that day’s meals there is less waste. It is also a much healthier way to eat. Eating fresh foods with less or no chemicals will help your metabolism to work more efficiently. Fresh foods have real flavors that can be enjoyed in moderate quantities. You need more of a ‘fake food’ to get satisfied. If you use a small sprinkling of the real parmigiano-reggiano cheese you will get the full expereince and flavor of the cheese. If you opt for the ‘parmesan’ (fake copy) cheese you will need much more to get a little flavor-which does not even come close to the real thing and is full of fillers and chemicals to make it a copycat of the real thing.
My personal home refrigerator is a small mini one ,only to place in a few products that need refrigeration- mostly small amounts of dairy products or to keep some water cool in the summertime -(this is also good for the environment because of all the energy not expended). Do you really need your supersized refrigerator to store for infinite amounts of time-supersized amounts of foods? If you only buy enough for one or two days you are sure to have less need for lots of refrigerator space-in this way it is also less expensive.
More is not always better..think quality not quantity!
I am also from Europe and I for one initially questioned why milk lasts for so long when normally it goes bad after 2 days.
Another shocking thing here is that the quality of food is so much worse.
Hi everyone,
Thanks for the comments! Sorry for my late response, but I have spent the past few days stuck at airports, trying to make my way home to real food.
@Christine, the American lifestyle really encourages these bad eating habits. It is unfortunate. But the quality of food is not the same. There are so many chemicals and preservatives in the food here. Not to mention the fact that fruits and vegetables don’t smell like real fruits and vegetables. If you close your eyes and eat a tomato, you can barely taste it. What is with all the trans fats? There are banned in Europe!
@Terry, I feel you and my first two years in college were the same way. Now I just cook my food. In Milwaukee most restaurants close at 10 pm and it is so inconvenient because we usually get kicked out by 10:30– only 1.5h after we have gotten there.
@JCM, thank you for the recommendation. I will check it out.
@Maria, You make great points. Fresh food is so much better. I guess Americans don’t like it because it takes so much time.
@Thomas, so true. Fruits, vegetables and meat that are genetically modified is something you will never see in Europe. Not to mention trans fats. The taste of food is just different in the USA. One of the main reasons is the desire for efficiency and saving time. But is the sacrifice worth it?
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