“We No Longer Cook For Her” – People Are Sharing The Food Crimes In Their Country
by Benjamin Dzialdowski · BuzzFeedWhile I'm firmly in the 'you do you' camp for food pairings and preferences, recently, Juxajel asked r/AskTheWorld, "What is considered an absolute 'food crime' in your country?" so we thought we'd share some of the top responses.
1. "In Korea maybe most people are pretty chill about food rules, but breaking instant noodle blocks or cutting noodles with scissors is our version of snapping spaghetti in front of an Italian."
2. "Drinking beer from the wrong glass. Every beer brand has its own glass. There are hundreds of different glasses. Every bar has the right glasses for the brands they serve. They’ll apologise if they’re out of glasses for the beer you want."
3. "Eating a chocolate orange like it was an apple. When I saw that video I dropped my monocle into my tea cup!"
4. "Korea, China, Japan, and Vietnam: Sticking chopsticks vertically into a bowl of rice. This act symbolises death and funerals, and it is regarded as something done only for food offered to the dead. This is a common etiquette across Vietnam and the three East Asian countries that adopted Chinese ancestral ritual formalities. In Korea, specifically, sticking a spoon upright into rice is seen as akin to erecting a tombstone, which can be interpreted as summoning ghosts or ancestors."
5. "Beans on toast without sufficiently toasting the bread. Wild."
"Reminds me of my mother-in-law. She wants to sometimes serve toasted bread with dinner (I don't know why), and she toasts it well beforehand. So you have cold, semi-toasted, limp pieces of bread."
6. "Paella served at dinner time: please don't. Paella is only served at lunchtime."
"Our dinner is late, so we usually don't have many carbohydrates (rice, pasta, or, for some people, even pizza) for dinner. That is the reason why.
I guess there are many things we don't mention to tourists, lol. This is like the sangria topic: we don't drink it. We prefer tinto de verano, which is related but not exactly the same."
7. "Maple-flavoured syrup – straight to jail."
8. "Ketchup on poutine."
"Shredded mozzarella cheese on poutine."
9. "In Kyrgyzstan, serving wrong part of animal to the wrong guest may lead to a multigenerational feud."
"Yes, every bone has its own place in the hierarchy and a corresponding level of importance. In most regions, the lamb's head is considered the most prestigious part and is served to the most honoured guest. However, in some regions the custom is reversed: the head is given to the youngest guest, who is then entrusted with carving it and distributing pieces to the children at the table.
The next most important piece is a pelvic bone. Next – thighs, shoulders, ribs, tail fat, neck, usually served to women guests.
Lower legs and feet are for young boys to have their alchiki – ankle bones – to play with afterwards.
The lamb's head is important. Horse heads, on the other hand, are not served at all, but horse meat has its own prized cuts, which have no equivalent in lamb. Beef cuts carry less ceremonial significance, perhaps because cattle have traditionally not been regarded as ritual animals in the same way that sheep and horses are.
Guests' hierarchy is determined by age, kinship, social status and occasion-specific roles. The bride's grandparents are most important at the wedding hosted by the groom's family, for example. Or the eldest son's in-laws are more important than the younger son's in-laws despite being younger, etc.
Quite complicated sometimes, so it's not uncommon to check with elderly relatives to get it all right.
Chicken shared at a family dinner – girls receive wings to fly away, boys have drumsticks to stay firmly.
Smth like that."
10. "Seeing the reply of ketchup on pizza, I think ours is ketchup on steak."
"We have a friend who does this. As in she brought a bottle of ketchup with her to our home when we cooked steak (lovingly seasoned and grilled), and slathered it in the stuff. We no longer cook for her."
11. "Momo with mayonnaise. Yes, I'm looking at you, India! How dare you sully our precious dumplings like that! As a Nepali, having momo with anything that's not spicy is just unfathomable to me."
12. "In the US we are such a culinary polyglot that, outside of sanitation, nothing is a food crime to everyone and at the same time everything is a food crime to someone."
13. "Putting in the milk before removing the teabag."
14. "Generally speaking, we have the mentality that what you eat is your business... with one notable exception: quesadillas without cheese. So, in the vast majority of the country, cheese is not optional. It's in the fucking name. And yet, people from Mexico City think it's optional through, like, a million different bullshit justifications. It's the equivalent of ordering a cheeseburger and having them ask you, ‘with or without cheese?’."
15. "Putting the jam on before the cream when eating a scone."
"Depends whether you're in the presence of a Devonian or Cornish person. At my auntie's funeral tea in Plymouth, there were both. I cut the scone in half and did it both ways."
16. "Adding minced meat to vine-leaf dolmades."
"It's the opposite with cabbage-leaf dolmades, where you need minced meat.
Tzatziki that is either watery or has random herbs, ending up as something like mint yoghurt. Allowed materials are olive oil, garlic (lots), strained yoghurt, cucumber (strained too, to remove excess water), salt. Optionally some white vinegar and, at most, a little dill. Anything else is not acceptable, especially not in the capital."
H/T to Juxajel asked r/AskTheWorld for having the discussion!
Any more to add? Let us know in the comments below!
Additional thumbnail credits: NBC