14 Comments
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Laura Kidd 💌 Penfriend's avatar

"The crisps and biscuits are already here." Love this!

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Caroline Smrstik's avatar

Uh oh, you might have just inspired me…

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Lucy Pepper's avatar

UH OH, yes please!!

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Peter Domican's avatar

My 13th is do not eat if there is any chance that you may visit a friend's parents house around mealtime. I've made this mistake on a number of occasions, been virtually tied to a chair and force fed a huge meal which cannot be refused.

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Lucy Pepper's avatar

it’s the meaning of life, Peter

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Sarah A. Hoyt's avatar

Right, one thing you didn't mention: bread MUST be eaten with every meal. When setting the table, bread is the first thing that goes on the table. I shall quote my grandmother, "Comida sem pao nem no inferno a dao." (They wouldn't serve a meal without bread, not even in hell.)

Also bread has magical properties. If for some reason you need to eat a lot (don't ask me why!) you eat it with bread "to push it down" leading to the famous exchange, "Hey, pa, podias comer uma vaca?" "So com muito pao para a pushar p'ra baixo." "Hey, dude, could you eat a cow?" "Only with a lot of bread to push it down."

And on that, if you take your normally brought up American kids to Portugal, you find you need to teach them to be quite forceful with "Nao obrigado!" (No, thank you.) This is accompanied with a hand gesture down and out. Because if you're not forceful, and don't do the gesture, and just whisper nicely, "no, thank you," everyone from street vendors to your grandmother will assume you really want to buy/eat the thing. (My poor kids.)

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Skyler the Weird's avatar

My parents were of the Great Depression. They had bread with every meal as children as it was relatively inexpensive and filling so we had bread with every meal also. We also had mayonnaise sandwiches for lunch as that had been normal for them.

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Peter Domican's avatar

Likewise with bread but not the mayonnaise.

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Lucy Pepper's avatar

I’m in talks with my other half to ban bread from the house for a week, as an experiment. It’s not going well. :)

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Liza Debevec's avatar

My Slovenian grandmother would use the French word ordinaire to mean sth was vulgar/lacking good taste. She would say "so and so is ordinaire" with contempt for the so and so...

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Lucy Pepper's avatar

Slovenia and Portugal, separated at birth

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Liza Debevec's avatar

Must be why I feel rather comfortable here.

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Lucy Pepper's avatar

Haha yup

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Max Brauer's avatar

Check out this delightful double-feature of France for Americans which I just glued together.

Falling on dumb and deaf ears, for sure. The details don't matter, but the vibes definitely do.

https://streamable.com/yw0zm7

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