Americans are so amusing..

Americans are so amusing to me, in the following salient examples.

1) When they drink coffee, they like it black, or at times, white. But no sugar. When they eat desserts, they devour them at the highest intensity in sweetness.

When the Americans take their coffee, they enjoy the aroma, taste and freshness, not so much the addition of sugar or cream. In that way, they claim that they could really discern what’s fabulous coffee or not, and what grades or even from which country and at what season of the year the crop was harvested.

We don’t normally go into that refinement of drinking a coffee. We just jump into a coffee, plunge in as much sugar or cream and devour it. So the question of sweetness in desserts is really a separate issue, unrelated to that drinking of a coffee. When they eat desserts, they do enjoy sweetness at its strongest, like that of souflay or ice cream, etc. Its strange in their behavior and explains why obesity rates sour so high so fast.

2) When they eat dinner, they are so refined in the use of fine cutlery to cut a tiny piece before placing it into their mouth. When they eat the 3-tier hamburger, they open their mouth so big as to defy gravity.

At the restaurant, food must be enjoyed with its ambient.

Americans or Westerners really feel the surroundings must blend with the occasion, and so the more formal a dinner event is, the more subdued must be its ambient, to add its formality. Usually at a black tie dinner, even the sound of a cutlery must be controlled or to be avoided totally. So, eating and using any forms of the cutlery must be very controlled, and refined.

For goodness’ sake, never drop a spoon or anything say at a French Restaurant, and all heads will swing around to look at you. Each cut of a meat must be just adequate for a quick bite and quick chewing, and so a piece must not be too big, to be chewed for a long time. That’s bad for table manner too.

Eating fast food, is different like a cowboy’s behavior, to rough it out, when you wear a tee and pair of jeans. So using the fingers to hold a hamburger to take a big bite is acceptable. But then it’s done not too obviously, nevertheless.

3) When they eat steak, you shouldn't order or eat the same. But order fish fillet instead, especially in a formal one-on-one dinner, to avoid embarrassment. Do you know why? (If you guess it correctly, you'll be my guest at a TGIF dinner at a convenient time and venue.)

When the Americans eat steak, they order a big one, like half pounder or more. They cut a big piece and eat. Their teeth are well designed to eat steak, no matter how tough it may be. They chew it very fast, and swallow it.

Out Asian teeth, except those of Koreans and some Japanese, are not designed to eat and chew tough beet steak. And so we take a longer time or too long to chew a piece of steak. This results in eating too slowly such that when the host is done, you may still have half a piece on your plate. The impression you gave would be very bad, making the host to think that you didn’t like the food or the place or whatever. But you could not explain why. This is especially so, if you talk and eat, making your speed of eating even slower.

So my strong recommendation is to order fish fillet, such that it melts in your mouth. You can control the speed as much as your American host. When he finishes his steak, you complete yours. Plates are clean and neat. You will give a good impression.

Suppose you love to eat steak, and may even miss it. Fear not, when you go back to your hotel room, order your steak as room service and slowly enjoy it over a TV program. You need to manage yourself well as a top professional or even a superb businessman, in a high profile setting. I showed many Asians how to eat their dinners in America, and this is just one good example.

4) When you ask Americans, if they eat or drink a soup, what do you expect their answers?

When in America, if you ask them, Americans if they eat or drink soup, you may get a 50-50 answer, meaning half will say eating a soup and the other half drinking a soup. But if you are in the U.K., you never drink a soup.

You only eat a soup, irrespective of a thick soup like a chowder or a clear soup like an onion soup. This is because when you eat a soup, you require an implement like a soup spoon, unlike the definition of drinking which you don’t.

Of course, in Japan where no spoons are used at all, you only drink a soup by holding a cup high and do it. This explains why all lawyers or barristers in the U.K. must keep their 24 dining terms at any one of the Inns of Courts to learn how to dine before plunging into their legal career.

I enjoyed that in 1985 when I dined at the Middle Temple, and was shown how to present myself at a table of 4, headed by a lead barrister, who showed you how to eat, how to talk and what to talk over a formal dinner, etc. They want to make sure a product of the U.K. in the field of barristers must be highly refined and well regarded in the legal community in particular and in the society in general.

I began asking people if they eat or drink a soup since 1985 when I was in HK, and so far still 50-50 based on the input of all foreigners, who spoke in native English or as a second language. You can give it a try, too!