Eating in America

A big deal here in the US is food. At first I thought it was just us, because we could indulge in such luxuries as a delicious Taco Bell dinner for less than $2 per person for the first time in five years. Then I noticed that there’s something different about the average American town and the way people here relate to food. It might have to do with the way the capitalistic American society functions in general, and the fact that money is at the very center of most everything. This again might just be my odd perspective, because I grew up in a socialist country, but I can’t help but noticing the abundance in advertisement, commercials, salesmen that call and come to the door, shops that are open 24/7/365, restaurants, stores and giant malls that do anything to make you buy as much as possible as often as possible. Nowhere else in the world have I seen little electrical motor vehicles with carts attached to them available to shoppers in a grocery store. And nowhere else in the world (and here I’m getting to my point) have I seen so much food on an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Today we went to the Golden Corral for dinner. Noticeable was the amount of really overweight customers, and I have probably been to the Golden Corral before, but it may be because since then I’ve seen poverty and misery in Africa that one doesn’t easily forget, or maybe I just don’t remember, but this time I was absolutely struck silent by all the food laid out. People were filling up plate after plate, and there was no end to it. As negative as I might have sounded in my introduction to this particular phenomena, it was in my view really, really amazing; different types of shrimp, steak, various styles of fried chicken, pot roast, ham and meatloaf, a huge salad buffet, a Mexican buffet, pizza, pasta, mac & cheese, baked and mashed potatoes, all kinds of vegetables, fresh strawberries, melon and pineapple, baked fish, stews, rice, and a huge dessert buffet; all this for less than $10/person. American food culture truly is, in this way, both revolting and fantastic at the same time.