Come on in, there is something for everyone!

We have such an international group here, I thought it would be interesting to create a topic where we can discuss various aspects of foreign culture and have an open forum for legitimate questions. Feel free to ask for translations as well.

A couple of guidelines:

-Respect each other *and* your cultural differences.
-Be careful with religion and politics
-Keep it classy

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1342261-international-inquiries/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1342755-the-travelers-tavern-international-inquiries-ii/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1343569-the-travelers-tavern-iii/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1346072-the-travelers-tavern-iv/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1351628-the-travelers-tavern-v/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1353604-the-travelers-tavern-vi/

"The product was first developed in 1920 and was founded by an employee of Cadburys. When the excess from the moulds was drained off, it fell off in a stream and created folded chocolate with flaking properties."

Basically chocolate pouring over the side of a bowl and piling up, which is the cooled and make solid.

Does America have much more restricted use of sugar when it comes to chocolate and sweets?
It comes to mind when thinking of the Simpsons episode when Bart and Lisa are in London eating chocolate and hit a sugar rush rather quickly.

They have a thing about using corn syrup everywhere: might be something to do with that. ("They" being the US confectionery etc manufacturers, I mean.)

Had to look up what corn syurp was, doing it on the cheap I see

There's a reason we prefer French Chocolat.

Corn syrup is incredibly bad for your health. It makes your insulin levels spike like crazy. Some researchers consider it a large contributor to the gap in life expectancy between Americans and Europeans.


And Swedish chocolate.

Also Danish biscuits. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

It didn't seem to stop them dousing this bag of fruity orange jelly-baby like things in sugar. Was really good, a huge bag for a dollar!

But I did find their chocolate to be rank. Hersheys in particular, seemed to have been made with coffee grounds and ash. It wasn't just the lack of sweetness (I eat plenty of bitter dark chocolate) the texture was foul as well.

Hershey's chocolate uses some weird process with the milk that makes it taste like it's gone off. Apparently it's not noticeable to people who grew up with it, but to those who didn't, it seems it's often described as tasting of vomit, having a strange cheesy flavour and things like that. It's the only chocolate I haven't even been able to force myself to eat.

I dont think we have any South Korean's here. But im curious, why does S Korea seem to hate other asian countries ? They seem to hate S Korea too, I saw some taxi or something saying "No Koreans" in different languages.

I'm not sure whether it's an urban legend or not but I read that the initial Hersheys chocolate was made with some sort of stabilizer which gave it the bad taste. They could technically make it without that taste now but Americans are so used to it that they don't want to change the makeup and potentially stop people eating it...

I think that may have been it. It does taste nasty to me, whatever the reason; and whilst I often think being over-cautious about changing the recipe is not a good thing, I'm also very familiar with "new and improved!" only really being at all accurate as far as "new".

They're probably trying to keep their cabs occupied by foreigners and not locals, because foreigners tip a lot better and tend to travel a lot more/farther than locals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URSRa8zf_LU?
Isn't South Korea like one of the most successful countries over there when compared to it's neighbour, North Korea.

I find that an odd question... when every other thing posted about America is how we have so much sugar in everything and that's why we're fat. As far as I know, there are no limits on the use of sugar in anything at all. (And I know there's no limit of HFCS [high frutose corn syrup] as you can find that crap in every imaginable amount.)

I'm not advocating one way or the other, but there's no definitive answer on that yet. Some research shows that it is unhealthy, others do not. I personally believe that it's like everything else in the world of food - including cane sugar - it should only be used in moderation. Being it's in absolutely everything in the US, that's a far cry from moderate.

It's only not noticeable to those who haven't had "real" chocolate. There's a marked difference between Hershey's and Lindt. Oddly enough though, there are those people who prefer the terrible waxy consistency of Hershey's... I have no idea why. I'll stick to Lindt any time I have a craving for chocolate.

But it does bring up the funny way of how where you're raised and what you're raised on will effect your taste later on in life. There are things that some of you have grown up with that I couldn't even imagine eating and vice versa.

Apparently the pic was from some place outside of Korea, so they arent locals.

But Scotland makes sense, to hate the rest of the UK... I know, I live in the UK, we hate eachother (some jok, others are serious) yet still function, its a miracle.

But Japanese people and Korean's dont get on (from what I have seen online), so it cant be wealth related, becuase I think they are pretty much equal there.

http://www.quora.com/Why-do-British-and-American-chocolate-taste-different but it's a long read.

Well China hate Japan because Japan used them as a testing ground for some of their less (more?) than successful bio-weapons and such - or maybe its the other way around.
Can't say I know a more serious reason besides North and South being at war constantly with South being the more socialible one which is backed by the West - to a degree - unlike Kim Jong's Northern oppressive country
[Tip-toes out of Political discussion]

AFAIK, China just hates Japan because Japan isn't under its control. And everyone hates China because it's a bit of a bully, much like the US... /nomorepolitics

China hates Japan because the Japanese were total jerks to them all the time.

The Japanese hate everyone because they're crazy and think they're superior to everyone else.

trufacs

I found it odd, too. AFAIK, the UK and America are the sweetest places on Earth.


Ya, 'course, everything in moderation.


Black pudding, right? Black pudding...



Don't know about them being crazy, but yes, the Japanese have a bit of a superiority complex.

Japan attempted to take over China during WWII. They killed 20million Chinese and committed some pretty serious http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731.

And the Chinese have a long memory. . .

I had no idea. Interesting.

Yeah, some of the stuff that I love to eat tends to make Americans baulk a little, such as liver, steak & kidney pie, black pudding. But then again I will likewise wilt at the idea of eating the likes of sheep brains, eyes and so on. Even the humble haggis whose flavour I love I can no longer eat after feeling more than a little queasy at the details of its preparation (haggis lovers without the strongest stomachs, don't Google it!) But I guess that's more a case of familiarity rather than actual taste perception.

lol I was thinking more along the lines of blood sausage, but yeah, black pudding works too!

And I have to admit that if my child at the age of 4 or 5 could play complete piano concertos perfectly, I'd have a bit of a complex too. I mean really? I can't get a 6 yr old to sit still at dinner for 5 mins, let alone at the age of 2 starting them on a daily routine of practicing piano...

A distant relative of mine had his family killed by the Japanese army, they beheaded him and impaled his baby in front of the crowd. That was in WW2.

I work with 2 Japanese colleagues currently, they are nice people.

The Chinese remember, but lives go on and we only hate those who would deny history. China was literally dissected by many countries during the time of Imperialism. Then the forming of Republic of China in 1911, and we separated ourselves with warlords rising in different provinces. A civil war along with WW 2 and then final "unification" in 1949, the birth of People's Republic of China in the hands of communist, except the guomandang (roughly Republicans) ran off to establish their regime in Taiwan province.

If we have score to settle, we'll be at war with the whole world. So, nah let's just bury the dead and live with it.