Fish Head Curry

We enjoy eating fish head curry. But not the Westerners in general or the Americans in particular. Do you know why?

Since America is a very rules-based society, for written and unwritten ones, a lot must be learned by everyone making an inroad into their social environment. Even Americans themselves don’t know some answers when we ask them why? They have taken things too much for granted, since America is the world’s most advanced society, vis-à-vis the rest of the world, ROW.

Now, the basic unwritten rule about eating in USA, is that anything that goes into the mouth, must not be taken out of it. It must go straight down the gullet, strictly defined. And so it makes sense for chefs to make sure what DC has said accurately, that fish bones, shrimp shells, chickens bones, etc. must be removed before placing them on the table.

So when we eat in USA, in any restaurants, you can feel 100% at ease in eating anything and everything, safely without any worry. This is especially for children not so much for adults, since they would take anything and just eat it, without any singular consideration a for a fish bone, etc. It’s also very impolite to eat something and then take something out of the mouth. If you ever need to do this unwelcome act, do it most unobtrusively, with a handkie if you could or excuse yourself to walk away for a moment. This is part of the  table manners, in a restaurant especially a Western one.

The rationale is simple, when you are to eat in a restaurant, you are only to enjoy the food so provided by chefs who are the experts in that field. Not you. You pick what to order, and when presented, it must be fit for personal consumption, and not otherwise. This is unwritten, but if flouted could get someone into a jail! The same could be said of all restaurants in Europe and in Japan, only exception in Asia. That’s why the menu is so accurately written for you to read and take note of what’s to order and eat, and at what cost to you, only.

You’re not expected to be able to decide what’s to pick out from your food, and toss it out. Probably, it may impair your health or cause you a safety hazard. In some way, this is regarded as a ‘soft’ society by Asians in USA. Now, they don’t expect accidents to occur in your food, and so preventive is the best course. Of course, if indeed an accident occurs, you can take the restaurant to court, and the chef too, and claim all the sufferance and costs due to you.

Now, if this happens in a typical restaurant in Asia, people as consumers would blame themselves for being too careless or any other reason, but nobody will make a claim or think of making a claim from the restaurant. Why not? In law, what you purchase must be of merchantable quality, such as the canned drinks, canned food, shirts, medicine or cars, etc, meaning it must serve your specific needs based on the terms as written or unwritten. Why should the food you eat in a restaurant be any different?

So, Americans can enjoy the fish curry, just like we do, if there is no bone in it. It’s not the issue of being hot and spicy, since the Mexican foods could be even more so.

Make sure when you order something from the menu, try to eat it all and get your plate clean, or almost clean. Lay the cutlery by the side or on the plate as the case may be. So you must understand what restaurant to go into and what to order from menu. If in doubt, order less, not more than you could eat.