I honestly didn't know what she was talking about.  I had rice and pasta and lentils and veggies and some fruit juice, and I think a container of hummus and some crackers.  It seemed like plenty of food for somebody living alone.

Then I realized that she's just not used to thinking of things that don't come in packages as "food."  Which is strange, considering where and how she grew up, but I won't go into that.

The Japanese family didn't mention a warm course either, but sashimi is a main dish.

I don't know anyone in the area who wouldn't eat a hot course at least once and possibly three times a day.

Avoiding hot food would be odd in this part of the world, especially during the nine months of the year when it's not warm outside.

makes the others jealous?

You mean french from village A jealous of the french of village B that would have been choosen?

:)

It's called The Omnivore's Dilemma, A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan, and it purportedly examines four kinds of meals, in terms of production, origin of ingredients, delivery miles, etc.  The four meals are a McDonald's meal, a Whole Foods meal, a meal from a sustainable farm and a meal foraged from the wild.  

Pollan concludes that if we are what we eat, Americans are CORN. (Chicken McNuggets have 38 ingredients - 38! - and 13 of them are corn.)

Great, another book I want.

Karen in Austin

'tis strange I should be old and neither wise nor valiant. From "The Maid's Tragedy" by Beaumont & Fletcher

I did notice that most of the families don't have alcohol on display amid the groceries, or at least not much of it -- bottle of wine here or there.  The exception is the German family, which has four bottles of wine and 20 bottles of beer.  That family also has (I think) the highest weekly food expenditure.

(The Mexican family also had what might be beer bottles next to the sodas, but it's hard to tell for sure that's what they are.)

can't really put my finger on why, it's just so....surreal

the mind is a restless monkey leaping between liana-threads, cackling while airborne, craving ever more info-nuts to crack open and masticate..

i'd love to do a 'inside john malkovitch' type day inside your perceptions, kc...

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

From one of the comments on the Amazon page:

At first glance this seems a bizarre book, loads of families with all their junk strewn out on the street and lots of pictures of them doing every day activities. I am a member of the average family of Great Britain, one of the countries featured in this book. I was 15 when the photos were taken and when the interviews, videos and documentaries were undertaken. At the time I don't think I realised the scale of the project or the impact it would have on people's conversations. When it was first published in a newspaper in Britain, our family was pictured and interviewed alongside the family from Burma; there could not be more of a contrast. Over the years it has made me realise, more and more as I read the book and talk about it, just how lucky we are in the West. I was looking at the book this morning and it dawned on me just how many of the possessions in the book have now been replaced in my parents house, bed, sofas, fridge. And we are so lucky to have the means to replace things like that with little effect on our overall standard of living and I think that the book reflects this, especially for countries such as America and Britain.

Thanks for the link!