Food Culture of America

1.Introduction
I went to Minnesota this summer. My host family is Doug and Monica. I examined foods there. I expected American people would eat too much everyday. I also expected that they would like fast-food and they wouldn’t like cooking at home. I was influenced by TV. I wanted to know whether this is true. I also wanted to know about food of event. For example, Birthday party, Thanks giving day and parties. I actually went to a lot of parties in Minnesota. I went to their family’s birthday party, block party and Thanks giving day. I cooked a lot of foods on Thanks giving day. I’ll tell you about that in detail later.

2. American food culture in Minnesota
2.1 Breakfast
Monica is a vegetarian. So she cares a lot about food. She likes fresh food, especially vegetables. My host family’s food life was different from what I imaged. My host families eat very simple dish at home. Then, break fast was mostly bread, cereal and fruit. I toasted bread by myself. Fruit was very fresh. They often eat peaches, mangos and apples. The fruit was very juicy. I was surprised at such a simple break fast. I thought Japanese break fast is luxury.
2.2 Lunch
Next, I had lunch at Bethel University every day. It was buffet style. I could choose any foods that I like. They were a lot of fresh vegetables with some dressings every day. Most lunches were like a fast-food, for example, pizza, hamburgers and chickens. It was different from Japan. For example, they were very big and taste was strong for me. Also there were a lot of juices and desserts. Drinks were mostly juice. I missed Japanese tea. Dessert was always too sweet. I was surprised at a cheese cake because the top of it was fresh cream and strawberry jam on the cheese cake. I thought fresh cream and strawberry are too much. I thought these thing made people get fat.
2.3 Dinner
Next, dinner was very simple at home. But Doug wasn’t vegetarian. When my host mother goes to yoga class, he cooked dinner. He is good at cooking. I always ate vegetables and eggs at night there. For example, Salad, stir fly and omelet. I helped my host family’s cooking, so they taught me how to make these dishes. Ingredients of stir fly are mash room, fennel, potato, roast duck, garlic, onion and zucchini. Roast duck is Chinese meet. It was meat of can. I’ll tell about how to make this stir fly. First, cut potatoes and boil it. Next, stir fry all the ingredients with olive oil. My host father said, this is summer time menu. I thought the stir fly looks like Japanese stir fly. But the ingredients are unusual for me. My host family likes stir fly very much. So I ate this dish twice a week.
We also ate eggs very often. I said that I like egg. After that, they used eggs very often. My host father cooked omelet many times. He said that this omelet is called Frittata. Frittata is Italian omelet. Ingredients of Frittata are eggs, tomato, pepper, garlic and salt and pepper. It was different form Japanese style omelet. I’ll tell about how to make this omelet. First, mince all of the ingredients and mix all of them into a bowl. After that spread it on a small flying pan. Finally, turn it. I liked this omelet because this omelet is very easy cooking. I ate this omelet with bread. It was very simple dinner when I took dinner at their house. But when my host family took me to eat out, it was big dinner. When we eat out, I couldn’t finish eat all dish. Eat out was matched my American impression.

4. American food of evens
4.1 Thanks giving dinner
First of all, thanks giving day was very hard day because cooking thanks giving dinner was started from early morning. I helped cooking the dinner with my host family. Thanks giving dinner were turkey, cranberry, sweet corn, mash potato, bread and salad. I’ve never seen turkey before. It was so big. My host family cut it and stuffed some ingredients. The ingredients are stuffing, onion and celery. Stuffing is like a crouton. They stuffed all of ingredients and closed turkey’s stomach. After that it burn on an oven. I couldn’t help it because it was hard for me. They showed me how to make a turkey. I helped make a dressing. It was very delicious dressing. I put a touch of the dressing on the salad. When my host mother put strawberry on the salad, I was surprised because she used a fruit to salad. I hate salad with a fruit. But I sometimes saw salad with a fruit in Minnesota. I thought that American people likes salad with fruits. I ate thanks giving dinner with a lot of people. I like sweet corn the best. The dinner made me full. I couldn’t eat anything after the dinner.
4.2 Birthday party
I was invited to Noelle’s birthday party. Noelle is my host mother’s niece. She became 20 years old at that time. The birthday party dinner was barbecue. There were some meat and vegetables on a dish. We took a spit and stuck some meat and vegetables with a spit. Noelle’s father burned our spits. We ate our spit in the yard. I thought American people likes eating outside because when I had block party, they ate outside too. I don’t know why. After eat barbecue, we ate a cake. The cake was fruit tart. We sang “Happy birthday” song and gave Noelle birthday card before eat the cake. The cake wasn’t too sweet and delicious. It was not so big dinner of birthday party, it was not matched what I imaged.

5. Japanese Food in Minnesota
There are some Japanese restaurants in Minnesota. My host family took me “Kikugawa”. This restaurant is a very famous Japanese restaurant in Minnesota. Ichiro sometimes visited there. We ate Sushi and tempura. Sushi was smaller than Japanese. Moreover, almost menu were expensive. I told my host family that I can eat sushi only 1 dollar in Japan. They were surprised to hear that. Also my host family had Japanese rice at home. They sometimes eat it at night. They buy Japanese rice at a Japanese commodity store. There are so many Japanese foods. For example, nori, wasabi, natto and mirin. One day, I cooked Sushi with some students. We cooked Sushi roll. We rolled Japanese omelet, vegetables and natto. My host family said, “I could eat natto with a nori”. Our host family said “Susihi was very delicious. I thought that Japanese food is popular in Minnesota.

6. Conclusion
My American impressions of food change after I went to Minnesota because my host mother was a vegetarian. It was unusual for me. But I could know about vegetarian there. She cared a lot about her health. So she teaches yoga twice a week as an instructor. I thought that it is important to care about health in America, because there were a lot of foods in America. So we should choose good food for our health. Also I could know about Japanese food in Minnesota. My host family said, “Japanese food are healthy.” As one of the reasons why Japanese foods are popular in Minnesota, it is healthy. If Japanese food is not so expensive, it will be more popular in America.
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