Translations
without cultural explanation can be deceiving even for the casual tourist. While food items may seem simple to guess or
find in the most basic pocket dictionary, naïve readers may be unaware of what
they will be getting.
For example,
most cultures have meat as an essential part of any serious meal. However, the term meat left
unspecified has a clear significant for the locals that may not be known to
visitors, mainly based on the most economic and prevalent form of it. For example, in countries with significant quantities
of land water, beef is the common main course of a dinner. By contrast, if the media inn Israel talks
about families that cannot afford meat during the week, it is referring to
chicken, which is affordable to most families, as compared to beef products,
which are expensive and not especially good (granted with a few
exceptions). New Zealanders, outnumbered
by their sheep, do their best to reduce the quantity of the latter. The Chinese, often living in cramped
conditions or poor land (a high percentage of China is actually mountain or
desert), assume that pork is on the menu.
Some countries, such as France, are blessed with a rich variety and
quality of land. For them, meat is meat, i.e. derived from an animal source and
needing to be specified.
In the same
vein, it is common to eat a salad with that meat but it is not always clear to
visitors what they will get. In the
United States, lettuce with a few tomatoes is the standard fare. In the Middle East, lettuce is exotic but
finely diced tomatoes, cucumbers and parsley are served everywhere. Europe tends to have sliced vegetables,
including the basic crudités in France, which means the raw variety.
South Korea is famous for Kim Chee, a fermented cabbage based dish. For that
matter, steamed or pickled cabbage is the basic green in China (historically
because the use of “night soil”, i.e. human feces, rendered eating raw
vegetables quite dangerous).
We need our
daily bread, or so it is said, but the form of that bread can vary from country
to country. The United States generally
services some kind of white flour roll unless you are sitting in an upscale or
foreign restaurant. The baguette rules
in Italy and France, curiously enough even in Chinese restaurants. By contrast, good brown bread is available in
Germany and Holland, but has to be ordered in the former. Local Middle Eastern food, especially humus,
is automatically accompanied by pitta, a pocket bread, except during Pesach
where even Arab restaurants have matzo, unleavened bread, available for their somewhat
observant diners. India is famous for na’an and other flatbread.
Finally, locals
tend to drink different beverages. The
French love their wine with any meal, claiming with some possible justification
that it leads to better health and sex.
The Chinese are famous for their tea.
In Eastern Europe including Germany, beer is inexpensive and good though
I am not quite so confident of its positive effect on life expectancy and
intimacy. Americans, being the land of
plenty, drink everything, including milk. Once soft drinks were once the norm in Israel, but
the Russian immigration has brought with it greater consumption of alcohol of
all kinds, for better or worse.
