Q4 Outside Reading Week 3 Post A

Food is a large factor in the different cultures around the world. The quote I have chosen this week deals with the traditional way of eating in Afghanistan.
"The wives and daughters served dinner--rice, kofta, and chicken qurma--at sundown. We dined the traditional way, sitting on cushions around the room, tablecloth spread on the floor, eating with our hands in groups of four or five from common platters"(85).
According to Amir, this is the traditional way of eating for him. In America, dinners are quite different. The food itself, rice and chicken, can definitely be found on American tables. As a matter of fact, rice and chicken are universal foods because in China, we eat them too. But compared to European style of cuisine, rice is not as common as in other parts of the world, and American food is heavily influenced by European cuisine along with a bit of other cultural dining. The differences come from how we eat. In America, and quite a few places around the world, we sit and eat at tables with utensils, whether that be a fork, spoon, knife, chopsticks, etc. Eating with your hands isn't as common unless of course you're eating a sandwich or pizza, not usually rice and chicken. We also don't really sit on the floor in our dining rooms. Floors are reserved for picnics outside on beautiful summer days. And lastly, family gatherings this big don't usually occur very often. When they do, they tend to be on holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter where everyone sits at one table, except maybe the younger kids, and eats together from "family styled" platters. On a normal basis, everyone has his or her own plate of food.
The ways of eating are very different in America and in Afghanistan for Amir. While the food may not necessarily be completely different (American cuisine is influenced by other countries' dining), the ways in which we eat seem very different at first, but when analyzed, are similar under certain situations.