What have you noticed about food in the U.S.? What have you found most interesting, surprinsing or different about American food and food culture?

A Bite of America

 

Exploring the food of a country should be, I think, one of the best ways for those who come to this country for the first time to assimilate themselves into its culture. I have found in these two months there are many differences between American food and the food in my home country.

Fast or Slow

Before I came to America, my general impression on Western food from books and televisions is that fast food occupies people’s life – as people are often busy with their business, study or many other things every day, they like to finish everything including eating as fast as possible to save time. After I came here, I find that though the pace of life in America is not so fast as I imagined before, still there are a lot of fast foods with high amount of sugar, salt and calories. Compared with the traditional foods in my home country which are elaborately cooked, fast foods, which in most cases are fried in oil, can make people feel full with just a smaller amount of intake. On the other hand, it is really faster to prepare fast foods, thus making it a solution in case people are really busy. For example, I have laboratory sections in early afternoon of Mondays and Wednesdays, while my classes end late in the morning. On these two days of a week, I like to have many French fries for lunch in dining halls, while on the other days, I prefer spending more time enjoying the delicious food from bars of different dining halls, the ice creams, fruits, and snacks.

Cooked or Uncooked

One strange thing I find about America food is that people like to eat vegetables uncooked, especially in salads. It really takes me some time to get accustomed to it, because in my home country people like to eat cooked vegetables and to cook vegetables in a lot of ways (The first time I try the uncooked vegetables I even feel like they have a taste of grass… >.<). I think it may because Americans think it should be healthy to eat vegetables “as they are in the fields” to maintain more nutrition and prevent the loss of nutrition from cooking in high temperature. Fortunately, the uncooked vegetables are now not so strange to me. I find if I mix them with a little yogurt instead of much salad sauce, it can be very delicious!

P.S. The name A Bite of America is derived from a famous Chinese documentary television series A Bite of China which first aired on 2012. This series of documentary introduces the history of Chinese food culture and eating and cooking of food in the daily life of Chinese people.

Written by: Xingyu Zhou

What have you noticed about food in the U.S.? What have you found most interesting, surprising or different about American food and food culture?

 The first thing I noticed about the food in the United States is that it was not disgusting as I was expecting. It is actually pretty good! Still, there are some differences with my home country that can’t be forgot.For example, I really miss bread, and by that I mean real French baguettes. Here, you can tell just by the look and the touch that the bread isn’t softy, crunchy and tasteful like French bread. When I say I missed my bread… But to be fair, given clichés on French food, I kind of felt forced to write a little about how I miss French food; but still, bread is life!

When you’re new to some place, there are things you don’t understand because you’re not familiar with the uses. There are probably a lot of absurd food things in my home country from an American point of view, but I had the most incredible and uncomprehending time when I found a weird packet of unidentified food in my freezer. It turned out to be chicken, but I’m still in a WTF-state; I don’t understand how it can be chicken and what happened with it.

  Seriously, how is that chicken? 

(photo by Fannie Dauphant)

 

Among the other things that surprised me is the size of everything. And it’s not just the case about food: it’s the same for cars, buildings, … But let’s go back to food. First, the dishes are much larger, so you eat more. Food portions are also bigger, which makes sense but can also be a bit stupid when you don’t have enough place in your fridge to keep your 5L milk container. Besides, in the United States, eggs are white, not brown! A small difference that can be very surprising when opening the box.

Surprise! (photo by Fannie Dauphant)

Another very surprising thing is the biscuits. I mean, the cookies. Indeed, here, you won’t have many choices if you want biscuits: “diet-conscious” biscuits, cookies, or oreos. Cookies are so important that the supermarket section is even called “cookies” and not “biscuits”. You better like cookies!

One last thing that very caught me by surprise is the price of the food in the supermarket. I was very happy not to have meal plan, saying to myself that it will allow me to save some money. Wrong! Very very wrong, especially if you try to buy a $7 Camembert!

Written by: Fannie Dauphant