Note to vacationing non-Americans: while it’s true that America doesn’t always have the best food culture, the food in our restaurants is really not representative of what most of us eat at home. The portions at Cheesecake Factory or IHOP are meant to be indulgent, not just “what Americans are used to.”
If you eat at a regular American household, during a regular meal where they’re not going out of their way to impress guests, you probably will not be served twelve pounds of chocolate-covered cream cheese. Please bear this in mind before writing yet another “omg I can’t believe American food” post.
Also, most American restaurant portions are 100% intended as two meals’ worth of food. Some of my older Irish relatives still struggle with the idea that it’s not just not rude to eat half your meal and take the rest home, it’s expected. (Apparently this is somewhat of an American custom.)
Until you’re hitting the “fancy restaurant” tier (the kind of place you go for a celebration or an anniversary date), a dinner out should generally also be lunch for the next day. Leftovers are very much the norm.
From the little time I’ve spent in Canada, this seems to be the case up there as well.
the portions in family restaurants (as opposed to haute cuisine types) are designed so that no one goes away hungry.
volume IS very much a part of the american hospitality tradition, and Nobody Leaves Hungry is important. but you have to recognize that it’s not how we cook for ourselves, it’s how we welcome guests and strengthen community ties.
so in order to give you a celebratory experience and make you feel welcomed, family restaurants make the portions big enough that even if you’re a teenage boy celebrating a hard win on the basketball court, you’re still going to be comfortably full when you leave.
of course, that means that for your average person with a sit-down job, who ate a decent lunch that day, it’s twice as much as they want or more. that’s ok. as mentioned above, taking home leftovers is absolutely encouraged. that, too, is part of american hospitality tradition; it’s meant to invoke fond memories of grandma loading you down with covered dishes so you can have hearty celebration food all week. pot luck church basement get-togethers where the whole town makes sure everybody has enough. that sort of thing. it’s about sharing. it’s about celebrating Plenty.
it’s not about pigging out until you get huge. treating it that way is pretty disrespectful of our culture. and you know, contrary to what the world thinks, we do have one.
Reblogging because I honestly never thought about it but yeah, this lines up.
I would love to see a production of Hamlet set in the 80s, if for no other reason than to see Hamlet’s really dark wardrobe come off as even more inappropriate and weird because everyone else is wearing bright neon.
Ophelia has her hair teased and sprayed like, a foot over her head, with giant hoop earrings and the very gaudy combo of bright turquoise skirts with hot pink tank tops. She still says all the lines as written but with a valley girl accent.
Horatio has shaggy, messy hair and wears heavy barn jackets over denim shirts. He’s got ‘ACT UP’ pins all over his jacket and is clearly uncomfortable being around Hamlet’s family.
Hamlet, even wearing all black (including round black tinted glasses) is still v 80s. He has the ‘long ass bangs but real short in the back’ cut, and most of his jackets have huge shoulders to them. He listens to Don’t Fear The Reaper and Tom Sawyer A LOT. While he doesn’t have as many pins as Horatio, he does have a few Gay Lib ones.
Claudius and Gertrude are VERY 80s conservative politican. Gertrude has giant shoulder pads and helmet hair (and probably a Margaret Thatcher calendar). Claudius is all smiles and handshakes until you get alone with him, then he’s a real mean bastard.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are both decked out in neon so bright is hard to look at them. Laertes is a TOTAL young republican. Marcellus and Bernardo are security personnel for Hamlet’s parents. Osric is the MOST swishy 80s gay.
Hamlet sees the ghost of his father for the first time in an abandoned warehouse, as Come On Eileen plays somewhere softly in the distance.
How about we vote in a law that puts a cap on how long a government shut down can happen… say 20 days… before the president has to agree to a budget solution or else the 21st day congress begins the process of impreachment because civilian jobs and salaries and livelihoods are not a bargaining tool for the president to abuse is order to get their way
If you aren’t serving the people then you aren’t doing the job of the presidency and you need to be replaced
