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Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-11, 18:27
by loqu
I don't know if it's related, but what we Andalusians call almuerzo has the generic name comida in other parts of Spain (for example, Catalonia and the Valencian Land), while their almuerzo is our desayuno.

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-11, 19:22
by linguoboy
loqu wrote:I don't know if it's related, but what we Andalusians call almuerzo has the generic name comida in other parts of Spain (for example, Catalonia and the Valencian Land), while their almuerzo is our desayuno.

Comida seems parallel to dinner, i.e. the largest meal of the day, whenever this takes place. In Mexico, as in Spain, this was traditionally the midday meal. Among US Spanish speakers, who have adopted the American habit of eating their largest meal in the evening, the lighter midday meal is lonche.

IIRC, in most of Spain almuerzo is the equivalent of "elevenses", i.e. a late-morning snack to bridge the time between desayuno and comida. So if that's what Andalusians call desayuno, then what name do they use for the first meal of the day?

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-11, 20:12
by loqu
We call both of them desayuno. Lots of people don't do the first desayuno and eat first at mid-morning, maybe that's why. That mid-morning snack can receive different names though, some people call it la tostá (because it usually consists in toasted bread with something). But nobody around here calls it almuerzo, that would be just too confusing.

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-11, 20:14
by linguoboy
loqu wrote:We call both of them desayuno. Lots of people don't do the first desayuno and eat first at mid-morning, maybe that's why.

Why does everyone get a second breakfast but us?

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-11, 20:19
by vijayjohn
linguoboy wrote:
loqu wrote:We call both of them desayuno. Lots of people don't do the first desayuno and eat first at mid-morning, maybe that's why.

Why does everyone get a second breakfast but us?

We barely even eat one breakfast! Why bother with two? :lol:

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-11, 20:22
by linguoboy
vijayjohn wrote:
linguoboy wrote:
loqu wrote:We call both of them desayuno. Lots of people don't do the first desayuno and eat first at mid-morning, maybe that's why.

Why does everyone get a second breakfast but us?

We barely even eat one breakfast! Why bother with two? :lol:

Actually I was expecting someone to say, "Because you already eat half the food in the house for your first breakfast," given this is what Europeans think our first meal of the day looks like:

Image

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-12, 5:56
by Varislintu
So the joke in LoTR when one of the hobbits asks "What about second breakfast?" seemed like a valid concern to most of the world, and not funny at all? :D

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-12, 12:44
by loqu
linguoboy wrote:Actually I was expecting someone to say, "Because you already eat half the food in the house for your first breakfast," given this is what Europeans think our first meal of the day looks like:
http://i.imgur.com/ASO3EV5.png

That was most hilarious :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

But yeah, we think of English and American breakfasts as something like that.

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-14, 5:52
by mōdgethanc
Only Americans would eat that much bacon. Everyone knows that in Canada it would be a huge plate stacked with peameal, and in England it would be sausages.

Here's an interesting question: In your culture (that includes regional cultures, like of North America) is breakfast typically sweet, savory, both, or neither? North America has both, sometimes in the same meal, which I find weird. Prime candidate: pancakes and sausages with syrup doused all over both. Blech. I'd rather have shredded wheat.

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-14, 6:26
by Koko
I'm not fond of syrup over my meat. Anyways, when anyone in my house takes the time (ie, decides not to be lazy), we usually make eggs and (if there's some) bacon with toast. Otherwise it's a simple two-pieces-of-toast breakfast or cereal. And of course any desired drink could accompany; my preferred beverage is coffee. I'm pretty sure this is fairly common too (as is exaggerated by linguoboy's picture minus the gun).

I myself often make french toast and eggs when I'm alone (which I'm usually proud of).

Yep, it's boring :P

ETA: I usually skip breakfast though, given I don't get out of bed till quarter to or sometime past eleven. Plus, eating just toast is boring and for school I can never force myself to get up early enough to make it. It's not too big a deal anyway: I'm generally lax on how I care for my body weight-wise and really couldn't care less if this could kill me. I'd rather take advantage of my high metabolism while I have it.

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-14, 8:46
by Johanna
mōdgethanc wrote:Here's an interesting question: In your culture (that includes regional cultures, like of North America) is breakfast typically sweet, savory, both, or neither?

In Sweden it's usually not very sweet, the typical breakfast consists of an open face sandwich or two with butter and hard cheese, ham, or sausage, and maybe a little lettuce and/or a slice of cucumber or tomato or similar depending on how healthy one wants to feel. The only sweet topping any sane person would ever use on a sandwich would be marmalade, often in combination with cheese, but in my experience marmalade is way more popular with kids than with adults.

Many have some yoghurt too, and these days people usually go with those sweet kinds with berries and quite a lot of added sugar, but if they don't they put in some sugar and/or jam themselves. Still, yoghurt is pretty sour to begin with, so the sweetness is there but it doesn't take over. Some have filmjölk instead of yoghurt, but it has lost a lot of ground in the past decade or so.

Eggs are quite common as well, the most common way to prepare them is to simply boil them and either slice them and put them on your sandwich or eat them as is with salt or kaviar. Or you make an omelette or scrambled eggs, but then you usually skip the sandwich completely.

Porridge hasn't gone out of style completely, the most common being oatmeal, both because it's perceived as healthy and because it takes about three minutes to make so it's almost as little work as making a sandwich. You usually have it with jam of some sort, but sugar and cinnamon is not too unusual either. And milk, always milk.

Edit: I forgot cereal with either yoghurt, filmjölk, or milk, maybe because I haven't had any for years :P It's not as common as sandwiches, but way more so than porridge.

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-14, 11:39
by Aurinĭa
Johanna wrote:Some have filmjölk instead of yoghurt, but it has lost a lot of ground in the past decade or so.

:<3: :yum:

IMHO, filmjölk is among the - if not the - best food Sweden has to offer. But you can't get it in Belgium. :( Unless you feel like paying triple its Swedish price (or more) and going to Brussels every time you're out of it, to a Scandinavian shop catering to eurocrats.

Breakfast here consists of bread with savoury (usually cheese) or sweet (jam or chocolate spread), or first savoury followed by sweet; or milk/yoghurt with breakfast cereals. Most adults drink coffee with breakfast. On Sunday, it's traditional to get Danish pastry.

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-14, 15:03
by linguoboy
How hard is it to make your own filmjölk?

Real Quark is nigh-impossible to find in Chicago, so I keep telling myself I'll learn to make it at home, like German hausfrauen of a generation or two back used to do.

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-14, 16:20
by vijayjohn
mōdgethanc wrote:Only Americans would eat that much bacon. Everyone knows that in Canada it would be a huge plate stacked with peameal, and in England it would be sausages.

To me the American one looks kind of like sausages with so much bacon covering them that you can't even see the sausages themselves, only their roundness. :lol:
Here's an interesting question: In your culture (that includes regional cultures, like of North America) is breakfast typically sweet, savory, both, or neither?

Definitely savory. Malayalees don't traditionally eat anything sweet without something savory to go with it, except fruit and I guess yoghurt, so even if not everything you're eating is savory, you do have to be eating something savory anyway. The only sweet things I can think of Malayalees ever having for breakfast are this (which I invariably drown in this) and bananas mixed with this (which I strongly prefer to eat with this; if nothing similarly savory is available, I might even refuse it altogether). Note that the ways I just said I eat those things are traditional ways of eating them.
I'd rather have shredded wheat.

I regularly have shredded wheat. :D It goes really well with savory bread rolls.

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-14, 19:55
by Johanna
linguoboy wrote:How hard is it to make your own filmjölk?

No idea, but my grandmother did sometimes when they still had a cow, so not very is my guess.

Edit: I googled a bit, and it looks like you need to buy some from the grocery store to get the right bacteria, but once you have that, you can keep making new batches indefinitely. https://husmorsnyckelknippa.wordpress.c ... -filmjolk/

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-15, 11:18
by Varislintu
Johanna wrote:Some have filmjölk instead of yoghurt, but it has lost a lot of ground in the past decade or so.


We have fil and we have mjölk, and yoghurt of course, but I'm not entirely sure what your filmjölk is. At least if it's not sourmilk (surmjölk/piimä).

I'll definitely try some if I have the chance.

EDIT: I did some research and people seem to be saying that filmjölk doesn't exist in Finland, but that it's close to our surmjölk.

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-15, 14:04
by Aurinĭa
Varislintu wrote:EDIT: I did some research and people seem to be saying that filmjölk doesn't exist in Finland, but that it's close to our surmjölk.

Basically, yes. Surmjölk is a bit more liquidy than filmjölk (and filmjölk is just that bit nicer).

I have a yoghurt machine, but it doesn't work very well, and anyway I'd succeed in letting the filmjölk go off. Sometimes I eat a lot and sometimes not; with yoghurt it's easy to get some from the shop and start again, with filmjölk it wouldn't be.

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-15, 15:50
by Johanna
Varislintu wrote:We have fil and we have mjölk, and yoghurt of course, but I'm not entirely sure what your filmjölk is. At least if it's not sourmilk (surmjölk/piimä).

I'll definitely try some if I have the chance.

EDIT: I did some research and people seem to be saying that filmjölk doesn't exist in Finland, but that it's close to our surmjölk.

And to add to the confusion, filmjölk is the longer, more official name for the product, fil is what you'll hear in everyday speech... Is your fil our långfil maybe? To us it's a kind of filmjölk, like how Greek yoghurt is definitely yoghurt but still different from the regular kind.

Aurinĭa wrote:I have a yoghurt machine, but it doesn't work very well, and anyway I'd succeed in letting the filmjölk go off. Sometimes I eat a lot and sometimes not; with yoghurt it's easy to get some from the shop and start again, with filmjölk it wouldn't be.

The recipes I found, one of which I linked to, said that you could simply use only a tiny portion of the filmjölk you buy to make your own, and then freeze the rest in case you need it for making more :) So if you buy one litre you should be able to make quite a few batches completely from scratch, and then add to that that during the periods you eat a lot of it, you don't touch the bought stuff but make it from your own... :)

Also, no machine needed :)

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-15, 16:13
by vijayjohn
My parents always make their own yoghurt and FWIR don't use any machinery other than an oven and a microwave.

Re: Eating habits

Posted: 2015-08-15, 17:26
by Johanna
vijayjohn wrote:My parents always make their own yoghurt and FWIR don't use any machinery other than an oven and a microwave.

To make your own filmjölk according to the recipes I found:

1) buy from a grocery store or get some from a friend.

2) mix a little with ordinary milk that you got from a store. 15 ml filmjölk per 1 litre milk.

3) leave it out in room temperature over night.

4) you're done :)

5) if you want more, save the last tablespoon or so once you've eaten almost all of it and use it to make another batch.

No microwave or oven as long as you keep to pasteurised milk, which is what grocery stores sell these days :)