Different Food Customs in Different Countries

“Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own countrymen, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies, but untraveled minds.”

Charles Caleb Colton

We recently took a trip to Scotland to visit our friends who live there.  While there, we took a road trip with them over to the Isle of Skye, and then on to Ireland.  One of the things that struck me on this trip is that as Americans, we eat differently than they do in the United Kingdom, and for that matter, in other parts of the world.  We call things by different names, and we have different customs, even when it comes to food.  I have always known this, but discussing some of our differences with our friends called it more to my attention.

Breakfasts were probably the most different for me.  At home I sometimes have a piece of toast, sometimes oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins, sometimes a muffin or a scone, or sometimes fruit with yogurt.  Those are typical breakfasts on a normal day.  Very occasionally we will have an egg and bacon, and rarely will we take the time to make French toast or waffles.

Full Irish Breakfast with beans and blood pudding

While in Scotland and Ireland, however, we were served full breakfasts according to their idea of breakfast, which included a fried egg, a piece of ham (which they called bacon, but would not be anyone in this countries idea of bacon), canned beans, cooked tomato, 2 sausages, toast, and sometimes a small cold pancake or a piece of soda bread, and of course quite often it came with blood pudding.  Way more food than I could eat, beside the fact that although I like beans well enough, they are not my idea of breakfast food.  The blood pudding I found rather tasteless, and the idea of it wasn’t appealing, although I did give it a try.

One morning porridge was on the menu and I ordered that.  It was similar to oatmeal, which I usually eat with brown sugar and raisins.  When I mentioned this to my Scottish friends, they were horrified.  They would never eat anything like that with their oatmeal, they just salt it.

Cranberry Yogurt Sultana
that I had in Scotland

And when I suggested one morning that we have scones or muffins for breakfast – well, it’s just not done.  Scones or muffins are for afternoon tea, never for breakfast.  I personally would consider a muffin or a scone a perfect breakfast, and would probably never eat either later in the day. They have scones either midday, or after dinner, more like a dessert.  We seldom eat anything for dessert unless we have company over, but I do like desserts.  But to me a dessert is more like cake, ice cream, cookies or pie.

Now, I’m not saying that I didn’t enjoy eating on this trip, I just found it interesting that we have such different ideas about when food should be consumed, and how.  I have to say I ate more bread and potatoes than I do at home.  And the potatoes were usually either in the form of fries (which they call chips), or boiled (and served dry, without butter).  And sometimes they are served alongside pasta dishes, which to me would stand alone or with a salad, but not with another starch.  Different ideas in different cultures.

Enjoying a Shandy in Scotland

One of the interesting things I found, is what they call lemonade.  I discovered that I loved to drink Shandies, which is half beer or ale and the other half is what they call lemonade.  What I found out is that their lemonade is a clear, sparkling liquid which doesn’t necessarily contain any lemon.  When I asked why they call it lemonade, I was told that they just do.  And it is sold in the stores that way, but it seems to be basically 7up.

George's Caesar Salad in Ireland

Salads do not seem to be a big part of the diet in many countries.  I do miss those while traveling.  It is hard to find good fresh salads on the road.  We did get some good salads in Greece, but they are not the same as a Greek salad here.  For one thing, there is seldom lettuce in a salad in Greece.  Their Greek salad is tomatoes, cucumber, green pepper, red onion, a little olive oil and some herbs, and lots of feta cheese.  I did love their salads there, and now that is how I make a Greek salad at home.  And in Spain, the salads were liquid in the form of Gazpacho, which is a cold soup, but it has the ingredients of a salad.  I love Gazpacho.  There were not a lot of salads on the menus in the pubs and restaurants in either Ireland or Scotland.  My husband did have a Caesar Salad one night in Ireland, with salmon and bacon on it.  He said it was quite good.  But that was an unusual offering. 

Sweet and Sour Fish Dinner in Beijing, China

 I do love to try new foods wherever I am traveling, and have been fairly adventuresome.  In China I ate just about everything, where as some of my fellow travelers refused to try some things that were served.  When we lived in the Philippines I know I probably ate dog and monkey, because both are commonly served in the villages, but when we were invited out to the village for a special event, we were the guest of honor, and it would have been rude to refuse to eat something, so I thought it best not to ask what anything was, because if I knew it was dog I wouldn’t have been able to eat it.  And I have tried other regional foods, such as haggis and blood pudding in Scotland, squid in its own ink in Croatia (which was quite good, but it looked like a pile of black rubber bands), baby octopus in noodles in Singapore, and tofu cookies in Japan, among other things.

Times for meals are also different.  In many European countries you would never eat dinner before 10PM.  When in France or Spain, that is when we ate dinner, because that was their custom.  But I have to say, it is hard to eat that much just before bedtime, so we tended to stay up much later, just to give dinner a chance to digest.  In Scotland our friends referred to dinner as tea time, even though we didn’t necessarily have tea with the meal, but it did tend to be at around 6PM, which is when we usually have dinner here.

So, different customs and different foods in different countries.  That is what travel is all about, learning how other people live.