hannah | Culture clash.

I'm back at the house after one of the worst meals I've had in a good long while. Some people I knew said they were going to a local restaurant for dinner after class, so I wanted to be spontaneously social and went with them. I liked chatting as we walked over, but as soon as we walked into the place I should've just had a water, stayed ten minutes, and left.

Ostensibly, the place is a Pittsburgh landmark, but I can't understand why. Pimanti Brothers is a sandwich-based restaurant, and the more I stayed, the more uneasy I got. Before the food came I talked to the other people at the table, remarking this wasn't a restaurant for a Jew at all, and found out one of the people - a smart, fun woman in an acclaimed library science program, in her early twenties - had never heard of lentils and didn't know what they were.

Every sandwich, every single one, had cheese on it, even the sardine sandwich. Every sandwich comes with potato fries and cole slaw on it, unless you ask for it without. That could be tasty, but the fries were large and soggy, and the cole slaw was too flavored with vinegar to taste like anything else, and the turkey I ordered had too much pepper to taste like the animal it came from. Terrible, terrible, terrible food. I'd have been happier going straight to the house and making a lentil-tofu dish I'd been looking forward to trying out for a while. So much happier. Now I feel like I should throw up and just go to bed hungry because what I ate was so bad. It's really, really tempting, and I know how much throwing up hurts and how bad it tastes.

They don't have places like Pimanti Brothers where I come from. I don't eat at places like that. When I cook for myself I eat bok choy and turnips and parsnips and fennel and sweet potatoes and organic meats and local milk and aged hard cheeses and good food. I should've taken everyone someplace that serves that.

Seriously, who the hell wants soggy french fries in their sandwiches?

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Seriously, who the hell wants soggy french fries in their sandwiches?

I love them. But then... you have pointed out before that I am not a food person.

If the fries had been smaller, they would've been good - but big, soggy fries aren't something I can enjoy with any ease. Maybe I should've gotten more ketchup.

Just the description sort of makes my stomach hurt.

Bluh.

Of course, my tummy hasn't been very happy since I woke it up at 5:45 a.m., and I am currently sipping some Shiraz to help soothe it. I've found mild stomach upsets usually respond well to red wine, and I like the taste a heck of a lot better than Pepto-Bismol or Mylanta.

It's not like Pittsburgh doesn't have good food. This place seems to make its living serving food that could be good, but doesn't make the effort.

Food is a very individual thing, and culture makes a huge difference in one's ability to enjoy certain specific foods.

I enjoy very much the sort of food you eat: bok choy and turnips and lentils and local milk and organic meats. I also enjoy the sort of food served at the Primanti Brothers. I was raised in the culture where the Primanti Brothers' sort of food was considered a treat - not something one ate every day, more like birthday cake. A special occasion thing. My neighbors ate much as you eat, keeping Kosher and eating foods that were either local, or shipped from warmer climes than Michigan (like Israeli Kibbutz-grown oranges and pomegranates.) Both your type of food and the Primanti Brothers' food contain nutritional value and can be used by the human body as fuel. You enjoy the former, and do not enjoy the latter. The solution seems obvious.

There's no point in being angry. Just skip eating things you do not care for.

I've had a few conversations recently on how what one eats is as much a statement about one's culture and lifestyle as it is what they enjoy consuming.

Some of this post was written for the personal novelty value - I rarely get angry, so this was something of a way to indulge in the emotion rather than let it stew or try to ignore it, which is probably what I should do next time.

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I should apologize for the post, shouldn't I? I should. Fuck, I should know better.

Edited 2010-01-22 02:16 (UTC)

Geez, NO NO NO! I'm not telling you that your post is offensive. I'm trying (and apparently failing) to convey that it's really really okay to go along to the restaurant, sit with friends, have a glass of water or perhaps order maybe a cup of tea to be socially ingesting something, and skip eating with them at a place where you find the menu items to be unpalatable.

Anger is not an unacceptable emotion. But it's often an unpleasant experience for the one feeling the anger. I was simply offering a solution to getting the angry feelings, next time. *shrug* I'm sorry it came across as criticism.

It's all right. I was in the rapid depression tailspin after anger I always get and wasn't in a very objective headspace - it's not an emotion I really know how to deal with. I should know better about anger by now, really.

In retrospect, I should've ordered a soda and then gotten something else nearby, but I'm still learning about coping with novel situations on the fly. Now that it's happened, and I've gotten the emotion out of my system, I'll know what to do next time.

I love fries on bread! Over here, fries on bread is called a chip butty. I'm not big on soggy fries/chips, though. I prefer them crunchy. I only like them soggy if they've been made soggy with vinegar. But chip butties are also extremely unhealthy.

I'm with you: nothing beats GOOD food. Good, as in healthy and tastes good.

If they'd been crisper, smaller, or crisper and smaller, I would've liked them more. As it was, they tasted like shredded potato and didn't add much to the sandwich.

I eat a lot of garbage, and that sounds gross to even me.

The weirdest part was I saw how the parts could've been good: crisp fries providing crunch, meaty turkey, finely shredded cole slaw. But it didn't come together for me the way it did for everyone else.

Ugh, soggy fries are just *wrong*.

I'm starting to hate restaurant food in general. We mostly have to cook from scratch these days as you know, so we don't go out much. When we do go to restaurants, I notice the food gets more blah each time.

For many people (not me though) food is just fuel, and the quality of it is less important than the quantity.

Also for many people (and this does include me) choice of food has little to do with culture, so I find your reaction interesting and informative.

I'm willing to bet there are places you would dislike as much back home, it's just that no one you know there would go to one.

Culture clash.

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