This publication was prompted by my colleague's thoughts on how to eat tom-yam “correctly”. A bowl of rice is traditionally served with it... And many bother - what to do with it, how to use it all "according to etiquette."
But the answer is simple - both convenient and use. Someone eats rice "bite" - a spoonful of soup, a spoonful of rice. Someone is adding rice to the soup. And in Tae, for example, a lot of soup... is sent to rice. Yes, yes, and that's how they eat.
Several times I heard from our tourists that the sight of them is shocking, they say, it turns out not food, but mush - although... You shouldn't go with your charter to someone else's monastery, right?
Rice in soup or soup in rice are just our preferences. Yes, purely aesthetically, it is more pleasant for us to see a neat bowl of soup filled with rice, but... This is purely our preference?
And among other peoples, drinking traditions can be completely different, even if they seem to us to be swinish.
For example, the Uzbek ritual of receiving guests - the elder, bai, guests sit around the table. The bai has a greasy oiled robe - the more oily, the higher the “social weight” of a person. No, it is not the oil on the robe that gives this weight - it's just that the oil turns out to be on it for a reason.
And so he takes bai with his fingers, rice, meat in pilaf, the fattest piece - and puts it in the guest's mouth. You cannot refuse - an insult, an insult. And then he wipes his oily fingers on the oiled robe and again - a new piece for the new guest.
For us it is strange and scary, for those who grew up in these traditions normally. about hygiene... So before eating, wash your hands. yes, they wipe the robe, but no one will eat with unwashed hands.
I don't see anything wrong with eating with your hands, by the way. In many countries, this is done - this is their right and their traditions. And somewhere they eat with the help of bread (flat cakes). By the way, it is quite convenient if you learn, and even hygienic (they wash their hands before eating).
AB here's another, by the way, a custom (or tradition) of which I myself became a victim. I was visiting immigrants from Uzbekistan.
They poured me tea all the time! I drink, they pour again. But not a full cup, but just over half. I drink again, they pour again. I can’t drink anymore, I can smell it — I’ll soon gurgle. I will not only be water, but tea.
But it turns out that if you drink poured, then you want more. If you do not want to drink, leave it. And if the guest drank tea - it is necessary to top up. Moreover, an incomplete cup is mandatory - a full cup means that the guest is not welcome and it is unpleasant to see him. An incomplete cup is an invitation to continue your meal.
By the way, a colleague, whose ancestors had lived in Uzbekistan for a long time, was accused of not being happy with guests and very greedy. Due to the fact that she habitually never refills tea "to the brim", while our traditions tell not only to drink to the bottom, but also to pour it to the brim.
“I’ve got used to it since childhood - the cup fills up to a maximum of two-thirds,” she complained, and she had no idea about the tradition of “underfilling”. - And they took offense at me and called it "swinish" ...
What am I all for? Just because. Just about the different traditions of different nations. By the way, have you come across any interesting drinking rituals?