The whipping cream dilemma
One thing that clearly separates the Swedish student culture from the American, has to do with food. In Sweden, most students cook their dinner themselves. While cooking they use their stove, the microwave oven is used more rarely. Many students cook their dinner from scratch, but there are also those who use different kinds of mixes. When arriving in the U.S., it was my plan to continue cooking just like I did back home. Well… I haven’t.
The Americans that I know does not cook like the students in Sweden. First of all, I learned the hard way that when someone offers you food, they probably mean candy and cookies. Second of all, most of the time my friends eat at fast food restaurants. They hardly ever cook – when they are preparing food in their apartments, they eat frozen ready-cooked food which they heat up in their microwave ovens. Is this a healthy lifestyle?
Yesterday, I and another Swedish girl, cooked dinner for a few of our American friends. We made my favourite dish – chicken and vegetables in a sauce of cream and Dijon mustard, served with rice… Mmmm! But that’s not the point… The thing is that we had bought whipping cream, cream that you whip yourself. Some of our friends had never heard, or even seen this. They were just familiar with products like cool whip or already whipped “cream”. It is scary when these “fake” products are taking over the market, resulting in low awareness of the actual, natural product.
February 21st, 2006 at 9:18 pm
I would love to cook my own food. I just don’t have the time. I already barely have the time to get fastfood or heat something up between classes, papers, work or assignments. Rest assured that people in American are aware that food consumption is a problem. But home cooked meals are unfortunately luxuries that most college students cannot afford. And I know what whipping cream is and I must say that it is much better than the fake stuff.
March 2nd, 2006 at 7:25 pm
I absolutely agree with you and I am from Oklahoma! I am also used to home cooked meals, that is how I was raised at home. I try to cook but the fact is, I am too tired at the end of the day. I really need to find some easy recipes that I could make that wouldn’t take too much of my time. However, I can honestly say that I have heard of whipping cream. By the way your chicken and rice dish sounds fantastic.