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INTRODUCTION
Have you ever stopped to really think about what you and your family eat every day and why? Have you ever stopped to think what other people eat? In the movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, there are two scenes in which the two lead characters are offered meals from a different culture. One meal, meant to break the ice, consisted of insects. The second meal was a lavish banquet that featured such delicacies as roasted beetles, live snakes, eyeball soup, and chilled monkey brains for dessert. Some cultures eat such things as vipers and rattlesnakes, bush rats, dog meat, horsemeat, bats, animal heart, liver, eyes, and insects of all sorts.
The manner in which food is selected, prepared, presented, and eaten often differs by culture. Americans love beef, yet it is forbidden to Hindus, while the forbidden food in the Moslem and Jewish cultures is normally pork, eaten extensively by the Chinese and others. In large cosmopolitan cities, restaurants often carter to diverse diets and offer “national” dishes to meet varying cultural tastes. Feeding habits also differ, and the range goes from hands to chopsticks to full sets of cutlery. Even when cultures use a utensil such as fork, one can distinguish a European from an American by which hand holds the implement. Subcultures, too, can be analyzed from this perspective, such as the executive's dining room, the soldier's mess… or the ladies' tea room, and the vegetarian's restaurant.
Often the differences among cultures in the foods they eat are related to the differences in geography and local resources. People who live near water (seas, lakes, and rivers) tend to eat more fish and crustaceans. People who live in colder climates tend to eat heavier, fatty foods. However, with the development of a global economy, food boundaries and differences are beginning to dissipate: McDonalds is now on every continent except Antarctica, and tofu and yoghurt are served all over the world. [5., 324]
The aim of the course paper is to identify two absolutely different types of cuisines and to analyze the right behavior during the meal.
The subjects of the work are features of national cuisine and table manners.
The object of the course paper is the wide range of dishes, the comparison of Ukrainian and American cuisine and table manners.
The objectives of the course paper are as follows:
· to compare the Ukrainian and American cuisine;
· to study the wide range of dishes which were mentioned in the course paper;
· to review table manners;
· to analyze recipes of different dishes;
· to identify the origin of some meals.
While researching there were used the following methods of investigation: analysis of books, magazines, descriptive method and comparative analysis.
The structure of the course paper is caused by the consistency of research. The course paper consists of introduction, chapter I, chapter II, chapter III, conclusion, references and resume.
Chapter I. Various American cuisine
The popular view outside the U.S.A. that Americans survive on cheeseburgers, Cokes and French fries is as accurate as the American popular view that the British live on tea and fish'n'chips, the Germans only on beer, bratwurst, and sauerkraut, and the French on red wine and garlic.
This view comes from the fact that much of what is advertised abroad as “American food” is a very pretty flat, tasteless imitation. American beef, for example, comes from specially grain-fed cattle, not from cows that are raised mainly for milk production. As a result, American beef is tenderer and tastes better than what is usually offered as an “American steak” in Europe. When sold abroad, the simple baked potato that comes hot and whole in foil often lacks the most important element, the famous Idaho potato. This has different texture and skin that comes from the climate and soil in Idaho.
Even sometimes as basic as barbecue sauces shows difference from many of the types found on supermarket shelves overseas. A fine barbecue sauce from the Southside of Chicago has its own fire and soul. The Texas has a competition each year for the hottest barbecue sauce (the recipes are kept secret).
America has two strong advantages when it comes to food. The first is that as the leading agriculture nation, she has always been well supplied with fresh meats, fruits, and vegetables in great variety at relatively low prices. This is one reason why steak or beef roast is probably the most “typical” American food; it has always been more available. But good Southern-fried chicken also has champions, as do hickory-smoked or sugar-cured hams, turkey, fresh lobster, and other seafood such as crabs or clams.
In a country with widely different climates and many fruit and vegetable growing regions, such items as fresh grapefruit, oranges, lemons, melons, cherries, peaches, or broccoli, iceberg lettuce, avocados, and cranberries do not have to be imported. This is one reason why fruit dishes and salads are so common. Family vegetable gardens have been very popular, both as a hobby and as a way to save money, from the days when most Americans were farmers. They also help to keep fresh food on the table.
The second advantage America has enjoyed is that immigrants have brought with them, and continue to bring, the traditional foods of their countries and cultures. The variety of foods and styles is simply amazing. Whether Armenian, Basque, Catalonian, Creole, Danish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, traditional Jewish, Latvian, Mexican, Vietnamese or what have you, these traditions are now also at home in the U.S.A.
There seem to be four trends in America at present, which are connected with foods and dining. First, there has been a notable increase in the number of reasonably priced restaurants, which offer specialty foods. These include those that specialize in many varieties and types of pancakes, those that offer only fresh, baked breakfast foods, and the many that are buffets or salad bars. Secondly, growing numbers of Americans are more regularly going out to eat in restaurants. One reason is that they are not many American women do not feel that their lives are best spent in the kitchen. They would rather pay a professional chef and also enjoy a good meal. At the same time, there is an increase in fine cooking as a hobby for both men and women. For some two decades now, these have been popular television series on all types and styles of cooking, and the increasing popularity can easily be seen in the number of best-selling specialty cookbooks and the number of stores that specialize in often-exotic cooking devices and spices. [2., 52]
A third is that as a result of nationwide health campaigns, Americans in general are eating a much light diet. Cereals and grain foods, fruit and vegetables, fish and salads are emphasized instead of heavy and sweet foods. Finally, there is the international trend to “fast food” chains, which sell pizza, hamburgers, Mexican foods, chicken, salads and sandwiches, seafoods and various ice creams. While many Americans and many other people resent this trend and while, as many are expected, restaurants also dislike it, many young, middle-aged, and old people, both rich and poor, continue to buy and eat fast foods.
Hot Dogs
Tad Dorgan, a sports cartoonist, gave the frankfurter its nickname in 1906. Munching on a frank at a baseball game, he concluded that it resembled a dachshund's body and put that whimsy into a drawing, which he captioned “Hot dog”.
Sausages go all the way back to ancient Babylon, but the hot dog was brought to the U.S.A. shortly before the Civil War by a real Frankfurter - Charles Feltman, a native of Frankfurt, Germany, who opened a stand in New York and sold grilled sausages on warmed rolls - first for a dime apiece, later, a nickel.
The frank appealed to busy Americans, who - as an early 19th century comment put it - tend to live by the maxim of “gobble, gulp and go”. Nowadays Americans consume more than 12 billion frankfurters a year.
Hamburgers
Modern hamburgers on a bun were first served at the St. Louis Fair in 1904, but Americans really began eating them in quantity in the 1920s, when the White Castle snack bar chain featured a small, square patty at a very low price. Chopped beef, tasty and easily prepared, quickly caught on as family fare, and today hamburger stands, drive-ins, and burger chains offer Americans their favorite hot sandwich at every turn.
The history of the hamburger dates back to medieval Europe. Early German sailors brought a Tartar dish of shredded raw beef seasoned with salt and onion juice from Russia to Germany. The lightly broiled German chopped-beef cake, with pickles and pumpernickel on the side, was introduced to America in the early 1800s by German immigrants in the Midwest. [4., 67]
Doughnuts
It was early Dutch settlers and the Pennsylvania Germans who introduced the yeasty, deep-fried doughnut to America. To the Dutch it was a festive food, eaten for breakfast on Shrove Sunday.
Legend has it that doughnut got its hole in 1847 when Hanson Gregory, a lad later to become a sea captain, complained to his mother that her fried cakes were raw in the center and poked hole4s in the next batch before they were cooked.
During World War I, when the Salvation Army served them to the troops, doughnuts really took off as popular fare. Since then, coffee and doughnuts become a national institution. Stores sell them plain, sugared, frosted, honey-dipped, or jam-filled.
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