When eating at group meals during excursions with my Academic Director, we usually ate at restaurants who served traditional foods. At Portuguese restaurants, they expect customers to finish their entire plate of food. If the meal is not finished, they assume the person didn’t like it or they were dissatisfied with it. When clearing plates, the staff often questions people who still have portions of food on their plates. They want people to be satisfied, so this particularly troubles them. They are proud of their cuisine and love to serve, and they are also very generous people. They just want people to enjoy their meals, so from their perspective they are worried someone is unhappy.
This was a challenging adjustment because the food is different and I am a vegetarian, which is unusual there. I didn’t want to offend anyone, but sometimes I didn’t really enjoy the food or I was already full because we had many courses. Our Academic Director wanted us to try as much traditional food as possible, therefore our meals with her were quite large. We would get a lot of appetizers and it would be super overwhelming, and since almost all of my colleagues were enviro majors we also felt badly when there was food left because we don’t condone food waste; so, a lot of the time we’d really chow down on the appetizers, and then we weren’t hungry for our actual meal. Also, I often watch some of my colleagues get questioned about whether or not they enjoyed their food, and I did one time after eating crispy green beans on a base of white vegetable puree. It was really bland and needed salt and pepper desperately. I just told the waitress that I was full when she asked me, but they know Americans usually ask for salt and pepper so I could have asked and it wouldn’t have been too rude. Also, the Program Assistant told me that this was one of the only traditional Portuguese meals that was vegetarian so I would have felt extra bad asking for salt and pepper, even though it’s normal for Americans to do that overseas. I don’t think the wait staff would have been offended by my request, nor would the program staff… I just would have felt badly.
With my various experiences with traditional cuisine, I always tried my best to be open-minded and I tried everything – even the sardines (just to say I did because when in Rome, eh?). Since I have been home, when people ask me about the Portuguese food I say “it was okay, often it was too bland or too salted.” I also experienced cultural differences in my interactions with professors. By reflecting on these sorts of experiences, I feel prepared for any future cultural misunderstandings. I will be attentive and courteous towards other cultures and what they are proud of. It is really important to do research on different cultures to avoid cultural confrontations, and/or to be able to diffuse any cross-cultural miscommunications. Additionally, if I were to be interacting in the US with anyone from abroad, I would come into the interaction with the understanding that things would be different.