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Mixed race couples - what do you eat?
Oct 26, 2008 04:15
  • GAFFER
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There is a vast difference between Chinese and western food, not only in ingredients but also in the way it is served. For instance, a traditional Chinese meal would consist of several different dishes which are shared. A traditional western meal is usually served as one dish and everyone eats (if you are lucky) the same meal. I would like to ask mixed race couples if they eat the food of the country they live in, or compromise between dishes from each country. Does the partner who cooks the food (trying not to be sexist here) learn how to cook the food from their partners country?
Oct 26, 2008 11:43
#1  
  • CARLOS
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We eat Chinese way. Of course, because Finland is a northern country we can´t produce very much different vegetables and fruits here, but we try to find suitable ingredients anyway. I have sometimes cooked western way, but it definitely hasn´t been any succee, although my relatives and friends enjoy eating my cookings.

Anyway, I don´t mind because I like Chinese food.

Carlos
Oct 26, 2008 16:41
#2  
  • YINDUFFY
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I think you have it backwards. When my Chinese wife cooks a meal it is a one-dish meal. Dinner can be only soup or only dumplings. Sometimes it is fried vegetables with bits of meat or scrambled eggs mixed in.
Western dinners always have meat, vegetables and starch ( potatoes, rice, bread etc.) and a beverage. The food items are cooked and served separately. My wife serves one bowl meals and does not eat from a dinner plate.
Oct 26, 2008 20:41
#3  
  • GRIZ326
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We usually each Chinese food. Yesterday though I prepared wild blue grouse and fried eggs for breakfast. It was a real Montana meal: the blue grouse flew into a big window in our house and our chickens provided the eggs. :-)


Oct 27, 2008 03:00
#4  
  • GAFFER
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Yinduffy,
Yes I agree when cooking for two you are probably right, but if eating out or having dinner with friends there will probably be several choices available, served on the table together. Perhaps fish, pork, chicken and vegetable dishes, and usually a soup. In my experience the Chinese will mix these. In the west a "dish" will include several things such as meat or fish with a selection of vegetables. A normal UK meal would probably consist of two or three courses; a starter, main course and desert (US have different names). At a grand dinner there maybe be several courses, sometimes five or six, but not all on the table at the same time.
Oct 27, 2008 20:24
#5  
  • YINDUFFY
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Gaffer,
As a mixed race couple, I refer to the daily meals we have at home not when we are visiting or have guests or eating out. When we have "Western food" as a main dish, my wife will always make a dish of a vegetable stir fried in oil. Example: tonight we had steamed lobster and she made stir fried celery to go with it!
Oct 28, 2008 00:44
#6  
  • DODGER
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I find Chinese food difficult to eat for breakfast so I stick with cereal or bacon and eggs with toast and marmalade which I prepare myself.
My Wife usually cooks the evening meal which used to consist of at least three dishes and a bowl of rice. I just can’t eat this amount of food on a regular basis.
How she eats as much as she does and stays slim is completely beyond.
Dodger.
Oct 29, 2008 04:34
#7  
  • XIAOXIAO
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Dodger, you can try fermented soybean milk and deep fried dough rings.

Oct 29, 2008 11:36
#8  
Dodger, I found out eating Chinese style I actually lose weight.
Alan
Oct 29, 2008 12:02
#9  
  • GAFFER
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I agree about breakfast and losing weight. Breakfast can consist of leftovers from the previous dinner (experienced staying with (kind of) inlaws). Eating breakfast in restaurants seems popular in the city (morning tea?) I quite like the "cereal" which is similar to our porridge, and the small (steamed?) breads. However, we did find Kellogs Cornflakes in a supermarket :o)
NB a note for visitors from the UK. Don't expect Chinese Tesco to be even remotely like UK Tesco :o)
Nov 2, 2008 11:47
#10  
  • FIFTYPOUNDER
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In an attempt to answer to gaffer's original question,my fiance and i are planning to 'mix and match' the styles of food as and when the mood takes us. It is something we talk regularly about asI love to cook many styles of food and she wants desperately to look after me with good food.Also it will be heavily influenced by what we can grow in my garden as to what we eat most of .
We will be living together in February 2009 (visa success allowing) so maybe i am not qualified to answer yet?

I just want to say also,when i visited my fiances' relations in ji xi,we ate lunch from several bowls. Beijing duck,the local prepared style of duck(far superior),runner beans and of course dumplings. All of it was beyond delicious,the meats were re-served for the three days we were there until they were used up. To my great surprise i could hardly eat nearly as much as my fiances' aunt who is nearly 12 inches smaller than me. When i am at home in the uk i am a voracious 'foodie' and am used to putting away large platefulls of food. I was completely baffled,as were my fiance and her aunt,as to how a guy of my considerable size can eat so little in comparison.....
I have not been able to eat the take away rubbish we call 'chinese food' here since my return,it is just an insult to the food i ate during my visits and we never really ate in any expensive restaraunts.
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