Nasser and I had our third meeting today. On a cold, somewhat rainy day there is not a lot of better things to do than hot coffee in a coffee shop while talking with a very interesting person. We did not talk about religion this time, but instead mainly talked about food. The hardest part of the discussion: choosing my favorite restaurant in all of Fort Worth and describing American food.
I ended up choosing Yucatan Taco Stand as my favorite restaurant; I love food that comes from pretty much any place south of the Red River: tex-mex, mexican, latin american, etc... Nasser's favorite restaurant in Fort Worth is Texas de Brazil. That brought us to the topic of meat. We found out we both love fish, and we are both also a little picky when it comes to meat: I don't like the taste of most red meat or pork, and Nasser doesn't like any cold meat, even lunch meat. I learned that in Saudi Arabia, they cannot eat any animal that eats other animals. From that I taught him the words "carnivore" and "herbivore."
It is also interesting how simple things change in various parts of the world. In Saudi Arabia, lamb is one of the most common meats and beef is not eaten very much over there. It is the opposite here; he was surprised when I said I liked lamb and that my mom sometimes uses it in cooking.
Also, we both don't like spicy food, love Indian food, but nothing spicy.
How does one define American food? The stereotype is hamburgers, pizza, and fries, which yes I would consider American food, but in reality American food is a blend of everyone else's food. We are called the "melting pot" and our food definitely fits the name. Nasser asked what my mom normally cooks at home; pasta, casseroles (that needed a definition), meat, other american food? It is just so hard to summarize...
But in the end, assuming I got the description/translation correct: Nasser loves Jello and really wanted to know why it is not served in restaurants. I just didn't have an answer for that.
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