Food Culture in Asia vs the US
Submitted by Michelle Ewton
People need to eat to survive, that’s just a basic fact of life. Unless you have some medical condition where you can’t eat, but that’s besides the point. Every country has their own cuisine and culture around food that makes them unique to others. In Indian food you’ll find strong and hot spices. Mexico is known for their bright food made from simple ingredients cooked masterfully. When you think of the US, you think of comfort food that you can always fall back on.
Chances are, if you’re going to a western restaurant in the US, a waiter will hand everyone a menu before going around the table asking for what each person wants. They’ll get their plate of food, and you’ll get yours. Maybe you steal a bite from them if it looks delicious enough, but for the most part you’ll just eat whatever you ordered. If you go to an Asian restaurant though, you’re more likely to find dishes that are served family style. One or a couple people order, and the food gets served on large dishes that go in the middle of the table for anyone to take. In Asia, food is often seen as something you share among people that you care about, whether it be your family or friends. In America though, eating is less about the food and more about being with whoever you’re eating with. Maybe it’s a form of individualism that run\s deep in American culture as compared to the group mentality of Asian cultures. For both cultures, we use food to connect with people. It’s just the way that we do that is different.
Where I would give the US the upper hand is in diversity. Yes, there are many types of Asian cuisines with thousands of different dishes in each one of them, but you typically can’t find as many different types of dishes in the area. If you walk down Main Street, you’ll find not only American restaurants selling classics like pizza and burgers, but also vegan-friendly, Mexican, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese restaurants too. The one downside to so much diversity though is the lack of diversity on menus. It’s hard to reach outside your comfort zone, so many times people order the same things because it’s familiar. This encourages restaurant owners to stick to dishes that are popular, not showing as much range. There’s so many different Vietnamese dishes that I would love to have, but is hard to find in America no matter how many different Vietnamese restaurants I go to. The US has a lot of food diversity, but if you want a lesser known dish, you might have to make it yourself.
With the growth of the internet and platforms like Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Tiktok, Asian food has become popular. Just a couple of years ago, if you brought a lunch box to school with curry or stir fried tofu, other kids would call your food nasty or stinky. There are some foods that I could never get behind—bittermelon—but if I said something about a food looking weird in front of my parents, they would say that I was being rude. Food is food, and if someone likes it then respect that. If someone says that your favorite dish is weird then you’ll feel sad. That’s another difference between Asian and American food culture. In Asian cultures, you’re taught to be grateful for your food and to not be wasteful. In the US, food is labeled weird unless it goes viral and everyday there are tons and tons of pounds of food waste.
In some ways, food culture can be similar in the US and Asia. We use it as a social thing, having dinner with a date to get to know them or having dinner with your family to strengthen your bond. At other times, they’re very different, like with respecting food. The conversation around food is definitely shifting as people start getting introduced to new foods, but slowly. Yesterday’s ick are now today’s yums. The food that people were making fun of yesterday are the same foods that are all the rage and people are looking up recipes to make it themselves. Okay, maybe not all of them, but some. Funny how yesterday it was stinky and today it’s trendy.
