resurrecting thread because i've been in a loop of watching youtube videos of people eat things from other countries that they've never had (mostly snacks, but some real foods too), and the unfamiliarity with ranch dressing and ranch flavored things outside the US and Canada utterly baffles me. i suppose it's like how i've never heard of brown sauce before this thread.
no, it's just made similar to mayonnaise. it's actually based on buttermilk primarily, not egg yolk. and the other ingredients are really different. ranch is made with buttermilk, salt, garlic, onions, and usually like chives or dill; mayo is made from oil, egg yolk, and vinegar usually. some people use lemon juice instead of vinegar in the mayo though.
Aaa I remember watching a video where they had British ppl try buscuits and gravy and it was so funny to watch. The biggest problem seemed to be the texture of the biscuits in the gravy, but a couple of people said they couldn't stand the flavor of it either. Meanwhile in TN I'm getting biscuits and gravy at McDonalds every morning I possibly can ahaha
I don't really get ranch dressing and the like. I dislike it most of the time though I have tried ranch flavored crisps that were tasty.
I know this is from page one, and the thread is on page twenty (but apparently still sort of talking about food recently re: tea), but as the American half of a friendship with someone who is half Mexican and half Spaniard, this Mexican culture point continues to be both hilarious and frightening in its accuracy. I tried declining Watson's food. I do not know how to explain this attempt to you other than "literally impossible". You will not be allowed to leave until you take the food.
Also yes. This was especially fun when I went out to eat with coworkers and they learned my dark secret: I have a very tiny stomach. I don't eat much at one sitting. I just do not. They were bewildered and awed and mystified and concerned about me and was I sure I was eating enough? Was something wrong? That's all I ate! Surely I could eat more! They would make sure I took a break to eat more in an hour (yes, they actually stopped work to make me go downstairs and heat up my leftovers and eat some of it before they let me resume). Poor little bird, pecking at food, if I didn't want to tell them about it that was fine but I really did need to eat. They called me a little bird for the rest of the semester.
That particular thing... drives me nuts. People have diets! People have food preferences! People are autistic and can be left starting down a plate that will taste and feel like raw chicken to eat and be told they can't leave until they eat it! A person's relationship with food is personal I have a pretty big pet peeve about being told I have to eat anything. Offer sure but this practice of making someone eat seems... horrifying? I've not experienced a lot of it but I'm not sure how I would handle it. I turn down refills in restaurants because I get nervous when asked if I 'want' anything. No I'm good I don't want anything.
Yessssss. You know my pain of not being able to eat a lot but are friends with those who are super big about eating. Also I've tended to just kind of...Gotten used to it, though that's just me personally. If anything I like the pushiness about food. It comes off as very homely and polite. And just...Nice? It's just a nice feeling when people give me more food than I can eat and they are happy that they gave me more food than I can eat and that I am full and happy. Part of it is also the socialness of the affair. Lots of people all together eating and sharing food and talking. It means a lot to me and it's part of what I consider to be hospitality. To the point where I honestly find a lack of the pushiness incredibly rude. The absolute rudest though is to offer nothing. That's a cultural thing though so eh? Which I guess is the point of the thread! As far as handling it goes...My best advice is to actually just take the food or see if you can get it brought down to just accepting a drink or something. So basically if you're visiting someone and they're offering you food that you honestly do not want just keep politely refusing until they get to the "Would you like something to drink?" part of the exchange. Then accept that. If they ask for a preference and you're not sure you could say that you are fine with what they have? Or just pick the first option if they give you actual list of options? If you are just taking the food nibble on a bit of it at least. Some of the time it's just kind of a politeness thing so just nibbling is fine. Parties are more...complicated admittedly. In that people actually expect you to eat.
@littlewhitemouse I totally understand that, and only recently in the past two years in fact have started feeling comfortable eating in front of people to begin with. I think I mostly got around it in my head finally by understanding that nobody who does it seems to intend any kind of malice? They seem to come from the same standpoint that I was, actually: I refused food aggressively because I was afraid of looking greedy or trying to take advantage of whatever they had offered, what if they only offered to be polite; they were afraid that being declined meant they weren't making sure the other person was properly taken care of (ie not hungry/thirsty/etc). Both sides just don't want to be seen as a bad person. There's also the fact that people are just used to their own cultures, like the thread title says, and get culture shock from running into someone who doesn't react in the expected way, so their reaction is just to double down on what they know and hope you go back on script because they aren't prepared and don't know what else to do. (Note that all of the above is speculation and I could be talking out of my elbow)
As someone on the pushy side of things yeah that is my fear. I'm worried that I'm not being a good host. I want my guests to be nicely taken care of and to me that means PLEASE HAVE AT LEAST MY TEA YES? I also think you're on point with the doubling down. Because it's like...What else do you do? Shit. Though I will say that part of the script often does involve just cycling through things until you settle on like at least a glass of juice.
I can totally see that. There is something really really nice about social eating but.... let me discuss further down a bit Yeah there's a whole lot of... okay, I really did grow up in the Midwestern American Hellzone of not giving things to people or really offering help or food or anything, so to me... the best way to say it is that people who don't know you offer you something as a way to smooth over a new interaction, but a friend will say 'hey dork get on the couch' and maybe give you chips because, whatever, you're just a friend lol, you don't require social niceties. You don't need anything. You don't expect anything out of me. You're a friend. Someone trying to feed me when I enter their house feels so formal. Y'all don't have to act like I'm someone important or someone who needs placated I already ate and can just sit here just fine. I wouldn't mind tea I guess. But don't you dare give me something nice or expensive how dare you waste your hard-earned money on me. America is a headtrip you guys. There's a lot of that that's insular to my area too, but I grew up in a world where you earned it and it's yours. It's possible that if you're the person giving to everyone and serving everyone food and giving your stuff away, you are the only one doing it, and there goes your stuff ;u; This would be a major reason why I'm moving south, tbh. I don't particularly like any of this but not liking it doesn't make me feel ok with taking someone's food. And what if I don't like it?? What do you do if someone wants you to eat and you don't like the food?? I literally have no idea.
Yeah that makes sense to me! That is the sort of thing I'm used to with white families in California, honestly. Anyway... If I don't like a thing and I know I don't I either politely explain "Oh, I'm just not the biggest cake person you know" or something like it and try to get the offer moved to something else. Or I just kind of...Grin and bear it? As in I don't eat the entire thing. Gods no. I do take a few bites of it though just to get through things. Which sucks, but sometimes it's all I can do. If they catch on to the fact that you don't like it be...polite about it? Granted, that varies from culture to culture in terms of how blunt people expect you to be about dislike. Generally I skirt towards being...Vague. So hrmm. A good idea would be to say that you appreciate it though, I think, and thank them either way.
It is so sweet though, so sweet and kind, giving me food even though I don't even feel that special, fucking, #blessed just, you lovely people, so, please don't be so giving ; u ;
Well, you tell them you don't care for it, if you're me. I still have no idea if that's what you're supposed to do, mind. But it's the truth, and at least I tried it, and if you didn't want to know why I stopped eating than you shouldn't have asked and we both could have let the uneaten food sit in ignored quietude. Fake edit: Or like Aondeug said, if it's a thing you really don't like, you can try explaining that it's that particularly Thing and not The Fact They Are Offering At All that you are refusing. (I don't drink beer. You will never get me to drink beer. I will make a lot of exceptions in my lifetime for foods I hate for politeness' occasional sake, but beer is not one of them. I would be happy to have a glass of plain water even if you have nothing else! But not beer.)
Is clarifying that you have a Health Issue with the thing enough to tone down the insistent giving (or get it shifted to something else?) Because that's mostly what I worry about. I would love to accept the food, I just don't want to give me s/o an allergic reaction thirty minutes later if I happen to accept the food. (And I'll admit to occasionally being One Of Those People who says they're allergic to A Thing when I'm not, because the taste of the thing is so violently offputting I would not be able to hide my reaction.)
The good thing in Brazil is to refuse the thing, but ask something else. Usually coffee, because coffee is a social lubricant - so if you're visiting someone and they offer you something you don't like, say "oh, I'm not a big fan of X/I already ate, but if you have coffee id like a cup" and then things go nice and easy. At least here in the south, where German/Italian immigration was heavy, we also have a meal around 5 if there's people visiting, with like. Bread and ham/cheese/salami/a couple options of jam, cake, and like... Things like coxinha or bolinhas - savory snacks, usually fried, and also coffee and tea and cocoa, stuff like that. Almost no one does it daily, but everyone I know does it when there's people visiting.
Mentioning a health issue with the food works in many cases yeah. At least in terms of getting it shifted to a different request.
It's awkward at events where I'm working, because I heard from some coworkers at my last job that apparently you're not supposed to eat? Because it makes it look like accepting a bribe or something? But then some of them were like, "hell yes have they got cookies? I'll take a cookie on the way out, aw yesss". like today I was at a thing where they had vanilla scones and I wanted one, and they were like "please take some food" and I had to be all "no thanks I ate before I got here" which was true but, scones,,,
