You aren't supposed to eat it like that!

[SheenaGreena]

koreans don't serve enough lettuce at the table, you are right. They also don't serve enough meat, but that is a different thread altogether. That's why I only eat korean bbq at my parents house and never at a restaurant. You probably save like $20 and get WAY more food. It also helps that my parents have a garden outside of: green onion, lettuce, young garlic, and lots and lots of ggaenip (size of my face)

I'll give; what's ggaenip? And is the size of your face measured with or without the finger? (Ducks and runs very far away!)

Edited because my fat fingers f**k up regularly!

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ggaenip is perilla leaf. Its very similar to shiso, except much bigger with a slightly different flavour.

size of my face measured with or without the finger? huh? you mean my middle finger? I'm confused. Let's just say that the leaf is pretty damn big - bigger than a shiso leaf

[Syrah]

My daughter loves mayo sandwiches, just mayo & bread nothing else. At first I told her no you need something else on the sandwich - at least a piece of cheese. But than I thought about it, it's not so different than a buttered roll, so I made it for her. Hey maybe she'll out grow it she's only 5 

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I used to eat those. I loved them! I still am heavy handed with the mayo, but I haven't had one of those in years.

[Endy']

if he's older, you're supposed to grab the glass with your right hand and grab your right wrist with your left hand.  Then you turn to the side to down the shot.  Since he is older, you should always pour for him as well...never let him pour himself a drink. 

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hmm...I think the message he was sending was that he was uncomfortable with that level of formality (he's only 2 years older). I'd heard about the turning to the side / covering your mouth thing before too, but I thought that was a more extreme level of politeness (older relatives / significant other's parents / etc.).

and I think the finger/face comment was a reference to your avatar...

[phaelon56]

The first time that I served my legendary smoked ribs to my current (and forever ) girlfriend I put a steak knife at both her place and mine on the table.

She quipped (she is African-American): "PLEASE don't tell me you cut the meat off ribs to eat them!"

I assured her in no uncertain terms - that I'm not THAT white - the steak knife is just to separate the individual ribs from the 1/4 rack slabs!

[SheenaGreena]

if he's older, you're supposed to grab the glass with your right hand and grab your right wrist with your left hand.  Then you turn to the side to down the shot.  Since he is older, you should always pour for him as well...never let him pour himself a drink. 

←

hmm...I think the message he was sending was that he was uncomfortable with that level of formality (he's only 2 years older). I'd heard about the turning to the side / covering your mouth thing before too, but I thought that was a more extreme level of politeness (older relatives / significant other's parents / etc.).

and I think the finger/face comment was a reference to your avatar...

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sometimes I forget that I'm picking my nose in my picture

[LB Howes]

Ok, ok, soy sauce on rice is bad, but how about butter on rice?  I bet all the Asian(Chinese) restaurants around here have to stock butter.

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Where's "around here"? Around where I am, I doubt there's a single Asian restaurant (Chinese or otherwise) that has butter for the rice, but I'm in Japan...But I don't even know of a single Chinese restaurant back home (Winnipeg, Canada) that would give you butter for your rice. Butter on jasmine rice would definitely be a sin.

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I think most Chinese would tell you it's a sin.

I cannot imagine both together. Actually, I can and it makes me feel a little sick.

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OK I'm a sinner but only with short grain sticky rice. But only under certain circumstances, and only in the privacy of my home!

I put shoyu on leftover rice, and have done it since I was a kid. It was a perfect afterschool snack, and today my sons sometimes eat it as their afterschool snack.

Lest you think I'm creating a dynasty of rice sinners, I have taught them that to arbitrarily drown your rice in shoyu during a meal is very bad manners, it insults the cook because it assumes that the food is improperly seasoned so must be made edible with copious quantities of shoyu.

[judiu]

if he's older, you're supposed to grab the glass with your right hand and grab your right wrist with your left hand.  Then you turn to the side to down the shot.  Since he is older, you should always pour for him as well...never let him pour himself a drink. 

←

hmm...I think the message he was sending was that he was uncomfortable with that level of formality (he's only 2 years older). I'd heard about the turning to the side / covering your mouth thing before too, but I thought that was a more extreme level of politeness (older relatives / significant other's parents / etc.).

and I think the finger/face comment was a reference to your avatar...

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It was indeed a reference to your avatar and certainly no offense was ment! Sorry if my wise ass typing fingers said something rude..

[miladyinsanity]

Ok, ok, soy sauce on rice is bad, but how about butter on rice?  I bet all the Asian(Chinese) restaurants around here have to stock butter.

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Where's "around here"? Around where I am, I doubt there's a single Asian restaurant (Chinese or otherwise) that has butter for the rice, but I'm in Japan...But I don't even know of a single Chinese restaurant back home (Winnipeg, Canada) that would give you butter for your rice. Butter on jasmine rice would definitely be a sin.

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I think most Chinese would tell you it's a sin.

I cannot imagine both together. Actually, I can and it makes me feel a little sick.

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OK I'm a sinner but only with short grain sticky rice. But only under certain circumstances, and only in the privacy of my home!

I put shoyu on leftover rice, and have done it since I was a kid. It was a perfect afterschool snack, and today my sons sometimes eat it as their afterschool snack.

Lest you think I'm creating a dynasty of rice sinners, I have taught them that to arbitrarily drown your rice in shoyu during a meal is very bad manners, it insults the cook because it assumes that the food is improperly seasoned so must be made edible with copious quantities of shoyu.

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I really could have phrased it better: I don't have a problem with soya sauce directly on the rice. I have a problem with both butter and soya sauce at the same time.

I do the soya sauce thing if I'm eating coconut rice.

[zeffer81]

I grew up eating rice with ketchup and thought it was TOTALLY NORMAL until friends started coming over and looking at my family like we each had two heads! However, we liked it that way--is it such a crime? Barring the possibility of offending someone for eating something the "wrong way," I feel we, as a diverse society, should be able to eat what we want how we want. Some of us choose to learn about the eating norms and practices of other cultures and have chosen to pursue that knowledge, while others choose to create a food item that is personally satisfying to them. What's so bad about that?

[sazji]

I spent a lot of time with Cambodians and among their table manners two things stand out - 1, never get rice from your plate via your spoon into a common dish, and 2, take a bit of a dish and eat it with your rice before taking something else. Loading up your plate is considered very rude; it's as if you are hoarding / trying to get things before someone else does. I understand this is the traditional way of eating in Thailand as well though I haven't been there. And now it drives me nuts when I go out with American friends for Thai and as soon as the food arrives, everyone starts loading up their plates from everything. I keep my mouth shut though. Actually the "proper" way is more logical as well because many of their sauces are quite runny and if you load up your plate, you just get lots of mixed-up sauces.

Another thing that bugs me with some Americans at asian places is, they hardly eat rice. I really like rice! So I'm enjoying my rice with dishes and I go for a dish but it's all gone because they've wolfed it all down with no rice. So I guess I'll have to start loading my plate...

Pizza with a fork. Yeah, they do it all over Europe. I use the knife and fork when I'm with other people, but when I'm back in the US I do feel a nice kind of comfort in being able to freely pick up a slice of pizza and eat it out of hand!

[WHT]

What's so bad about that?

Ketchup on anything other thaqn french fries is wrong!

[jumanggy]

What's so bad about that?

Ketchup on anything other thaqn french fries is wrong!

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Speaking of the great Philippine free-for-all...

Ketchup is/can be put on burgers, fried fish, spring rolls, hot dogs, fried chicken, vienna sausages (scratch that-- ANY sausage), SPAM, ham, fried eggs, pork chops, meat loaf. Plus anything that touches a frying pan.

My mom had a story about how ketchup was relatively new to them in the 60's when she was a child (I'm sure that can't be accurate, as it should have been introduced early in the century, during the American occupation). They enjoyed it so much that they ate it plain with rice.

[SuzySushi]

What's so bad about that?

Ketchup on anything other thaqn french fries is wrong!

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Speaking of the great Philippine free-for-all...

Ketchup is/can be put on burgers, fried fish, spring rolls, hot dogs, fried chicken, vienna sausages (scratch that-- ANY sausage), SPAM, ham, fried eggs, pork chops, meat loaf. Plus anything that touches a frying pan.

My mom had a story about how ketchup was relatively new to them in the 60's when she was a child (I'm sure that can't be accurate, as it should have been introduced early in the century, during the American occupation). They enjoyed it so much that they ate it plain with rice.

←

A lot of Japanese children like eating rice doused with ketchup. The older generation is horrified!

[muichoi]

One thing that bothers me is when Americans (OK, my parents; but I've seen other people do it, too) take cheese or pâté and *spread* it on a piece of baguette. You're supposed to cut a chunk and place it on a smallish broken-off piece of the bread and eat the thing in one bite. Smearing it across the bread is really bad form.

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I've heard about this rule, but never understood why it's bad form.

I can see the logic behind many other manners rules (e.g. elbows on

the table may crowd others, etc.) but what's the why of this one?

thanks

Milagai

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It's entirely logical-apart from anything else, by 'spreading' it we destroy the carefully achieved texture. It also looks awful-there is a similar tendency here to want to make everything into sandwiches. In France they also understand that cheese is eaten with a knife and fork, which is a great relief.

[zeffer81]

What's so bad about that?

Ketchup on anything other thaqn french fries is wrong!

←

Speaking of the great Philippine free-for-all...

Ketchup is/can be put on burgers, fried fish, spring rolls, hot dogs, fried chicken, vienna sausages (scratch that-- ANY sausage), SPAM, ham, fried eggs, pork chops, meat loaf. Plus anything that touches a frying pan.

My mom had a story about how ketchup was relatively new to them in the 60's when she was a child (I'm sure that can't be accurate, as it should have been introduced early in the century, during the American occupation). They enjoyed it so much that they ate it plain with rice.

←

A lot of Japanese children like eating rice doused with ketchup. The older generation is horrified!

←

Who ever knew I was channeling my inner Japanese child?

[Kouign Aman]

Ketchup on anything other thaqn french fries is wrong!

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Abomination! Chips* should be eaten with lashings of vinegar and salt!

*(French fries, to you Yanks)

[Kerry Beal]

What's so bad about that?

Ketchup on anything other thaqn french fries is wrong!

←

Speaking of the great Philippine free-for-all...

Ketchup is/can be put on burgers, fried fish, spring rolls, hot dogs, fried chicken, vienna sausages (scratch that-- ANY sausage), SPAM, ham, fried eggs, pork chops, meat loaf. Plus anything that touches a frying pan.

My mom had a story about how ketchup was relatively new to them in the 60's when she was a child (I'm sure that can't be accurate, as it should have been introduced early in the century, during the American occupation). They enjoyed it so much that they ate it plain with rice.

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The last Philippina nanny would put ketsup on top of pasta that had tomato sauce already on it.

[coquus]

Ketchup on anything other thaqn french fries is wrong!

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Abomination! Chips* should be eaten with lashings of vinegar and salt!

*(French fries, to you Yanks)

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No, no, no, Pommes Frites should be eaten only with Sauce Mayonnaise-ahh!

[SheenaGreena]

this doesn't really exactly pertain to this post, but I will share anyways:

yesterday I went to whole foods in search of some italian sausage and hoagie rolls and I went to the one in newton, ma (if any of you are familiar with that, its a pretty affluent neighborhood). I don't usually go to this one, but my boyfriend and I were in the neighborhood.

don't worry I'm getting to the point.....Since it's around lunch time, we snuck to the cheese/salad bar/bread section to see if we could grab a few samples of cheese (they only provided samples of olives that day). I didn't see any samples of cheese but I did see a guy walking around with his pants HALFWAY DOWN HIS ASS WITH NO UNDERWEAR ON. I saw about 2 inches of hairy crack. I snickered and shuddered at the same time. He was walking around with samples of food (where were they from? you will soon find out). He was taking samples of EVERYTHING from every salad bar/food bar/soup bar. He kept taking the paper bowls for the soup and spooning out soup for himself as well as scooping out prepared food from the salad bars. I'm surprised nobody said anything?

So if you are in any grocery store or public area, please do not go around taking samples when you are not supposed to with 2 inches of your butt crack hanging out

[jumanggy]

The last Philippina nanny would put ketsup on top of pasta that had tomato sauce already on it.

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Oh my! Well, she's gotta be a little homesick. Many, but not all, recipes of spaGEEti (TM Giada) served at parties here (especially fiestas and children's birthday parties) have ketchup in them. So much so that some canned spaGEEti sauces are labeled "Sweet Style," thus making it more economical, not that people still don't add ketchup to them.

I've been known to put ketchup on pizza. OHMYGODDON'TSHOOTME! I forgot about that. It's not rare here. I usually do it at Shakey's to cut the oiliness and the saltiness, or when the pizza from last night has turned cold and rubbery.

When I went to Venice a few years back, I ate a pizza while walking, which I later found out wasn't nice, so I'm not doing that again. Thankfully, no one sneered at me.

[prasantrin]

Speaking of the great Philippine free-for-all...

Ketchup is/can be put on burgers, fried fish, spring rolls, hot dogs, fried chicken, vienna sausages (scratch that-- ANY sausage), SPAM, ham, fried eggs, pork chops, meat loaf. Plus anything that touches a frying pan.

My mom had a story about how ketchup was relatively new to them in the 60's when she was a child (I'm sure that can't be accurate, as it should have been introduced early in the century, during the American occupation). They enjoyed it so much that they ate it plain with rice.

←

I don't remember much ketchup being used in our food when I lived in the Phil. (79-80). I think our maids used to eat rice with soy sauce and oil on it, but no ketchup.

I do remember once visiting some Filipinos, and being served spaghetti sauce that had been made with *corned beef*! The canned stuff! It was pretty gross, but because we were guests, I had to finish it. Yuck!

[insomniac]

Speaking of the great Philippine free-for-all...

Ketchup is/can be put on burgers, fried fish, spring rolls, hot dogs, fried chicken, vienna sausages (scratch that-- ANY sausage), SPAM, ham, fried eggs, pork chops, meat loaf. Plus anything that touches a frying pan.

My mom had a story about how ketchup was relatively new to them in the 60's when she was a child (I'm sure that can't be accurate, as it should have been introduced early in the century, during the American occupation). They enjoyed it so much that they ate it plain with rice.

←

I don't remember much ketchup being used in our food when I lived in the Phil. (79-80). I think our maids used to eat rice with soy sauce and oil on it, but no ketchup.

I do remember once visiting some Filipinos, and being served spaghetti sauce that had been made with *corned beef*! The canned stuff! It was pretty gross, but because we were guests, I had to finish it. Yuck!

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well, our Filipina housekeeper and her son who is our foster son in the U.K. HATE ketchup but adore canned corned beef and spam and Mitchell eats it makanan if no-one is around (including my husb.) I can't convince him that ketchup is the favoured beverage of Aussies, ergo delicious......but as an 11 y.o. he is a pretty mean cook

[Marky Marc]

The last Philippina nanny would put ketsup on top of pasta that had tomato sauce already on it.

←

Oh my! Well, she's gotta be a little homesick. Many, but not all, recipes of spaGEEti (TM Giada) served at parties here (especially fiestas and children's birthday parties) have ketchup in them. So much so that some canned spaGEEti sauces are labeled "Sweet Style," thus making it more economical, not that people still don't add ketchup to them.

←

Here in Seattle we call that spaghetto

[XiaoLing]

The last Philippina nanny would put ketsup on top of pasta that had tomato sauce already on it.

←

Oh my! Well, she's gotta be a little homesick. Many, but not all, recipes of spaGEEti (TM Giada) served at parties here (especially fiestas and children's birthday parties) have ketchup in them. So much so that some canned spaGEEti sauces are labeled "Sweet Style," thus making it more economical, not that people still don't add ketchup to them.

←

Interesting...when we were kids, my mother decided to make spaghetti with meat sauce. Well, since we didn't know any better being first generation Chinese immigrants and all, my mom decided that ketchup was tomato sauce. (which I guess it kinda is) So growing up I ate and loved my mom's speghetti and meat sauce made with ketchup, pork, onions and rigatonni. It might sound weird but it's actually very good.

[jumanggy]

Here in Seattle we call that spaghetto

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OK, it's gotta be a little wrong to laugh at that. Is it okay? Because

(Oops-- didn't mean to turn this into the ketchup thread.)

XiaoLing, I don't see anything wrong with that either-- despite it probably being cloyingly sweet (however, all my favorite Chinese dishes have sugar in them, because deep inside I am eight years old). By the way, isn't "tomato sauce" the name for ketchup in Australia? (fleeting recollection)