I live in Norway. I can confirm this. Norwegian food
Comment on My culture also loves music, dancing and telling stories
floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
For many cultures food is just nutrition, something that you have to do. This doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate good food, but it’s not the same as cultures where there is a lot of importance on both the food and the context of consuming it with others
Berengaria_of_Navarre@lemmy.world 3 days ago
merc@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
That’s a great video.
Windex007@lemmy.world 3 days ago
People keep making this broad assertion and then not following up.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but if there are many cultures for whom food is merely nutrition, could you name one?
From an anthropological standpoint, I’d be fascinated.
Like, this thread is full of jokes about how some cultures have shitty food, but that subjective assessment is very different than the idea that food’s mere purpose is nutrition. It implies it has no ceremonial use.
So, of the many, just even tell us one.
Miaou@jlai.lu 3 days ago
When everyone but you thinks your food is shit, it probably is.
See e.g. Germany
Zombiepirate@lemmy.world 3 days ago
German food is incredible; I didn’t even know hating German food was a thing. Gimme those sausages, sauerkrauts, cheeses, cold cuts, schnitzel and hot potato salads every day.
The breads, cakes, chocolate, and pastries are next-level too.
herrvogel@lemmy.world 2 days ago
See, you highlighted why the German cuisine is not that great. There’s simply not much variety in what you just listed. The German cuisine is kinda shallow, focusing mostly around the same stuff. If you’re not that into cheese or meat, then that’s 75% of the German cuisine eliminated.
One thing “food countries” have in common is that their cuisines have variety. Go to Spain or Turkey or China, and you’ll be drowning in mouth watering options no matter what kind of food you like. Hard to say the same for countries like Germany or the NL or Denmark or whatever. Yeah they can be very good at what they do, but they just don’t do a whole lot.
floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
There’s several mentioned in this thread. Among them, Scandinavian countries, England and the US, and I don’t disagree
Windex007@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Food has ceremonial and ritual value in all of those places, it is not merely a vehicle for nutrition.
floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Sure, I never said it doesn’t. Just that it is not a centerpiece of the culture. The fact that Americans have a big Thanksgiving dinner once a year isn’t comparable to the approach that the French/Italian/Greek/most Asian cultures have towards food on a daily basis
SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 3 days ago
And you can basically divide these cultures by latitude. Like in Europe the further north you go the less people care about gastronomy. Since these cultures were formed around food scarcity and pure survival, since they had very harsh winters ( before global warming), and the days up north are short in the winter. And before you go “but China and Japan”. Beijing is on the same latitude as Madrid and Tokyo is even further south, so that still tracks.
skisnow@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
The Chinese for “how do you do” translates as “have you eaten yet?”
merc@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
And what’s the correct formulaic response to that?
skisnow@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
I’m not actually sure. I’ve always answered it at face value, but I’m not a native speaker. I’ve probably been committing a faux pas, like disagreeing with a British person when they say “lovely weather today”.
merc@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
English has a rote greeting in “How are you doing?” But, you can respond with anything from “great!” to “oh, okay”. It would be a big faux pas to take that as an opportunity to launch into all your medical issues. Maybe in Chinese it’s ok to respond honestly, but just not to assume someone is actually asking you if you want to eat something.
Eq0@literature.cafe 3 days ago
Absolutely. And in the less extreme variants, there are cultures for which good food is the base of socialization - you mostly meet up for dinner or similar - and others where good food is the exception, happening for big occasions and parties but not an every day occurrence.