The next day, on Karina's advice, we visited a more or less authentic Asian buffet, or as we call it, a smorgasbord. Authentic means relatively unadapted to American tastes. This, in particular, leads to the fact that there are few standalone vegetables and desserts; most of the cuisine is a mix of cooked vegetables and meat in sauces. The motto of all buffets is "all you can eat", which basically means "whatever you devour is yours".
The buffet cost $9. There's all sorts of food. For example, for the first time I tasted bamboo shoots and saw eggrolls in the flesh. Before that, I had only seen them in the wonderful computer game Aquaria, which I've been meaning to write about for a long time, but was too lazy to.
Eggrolls, meaning fried dough brushed with egg, with a meat and vegetable filling
There are also chickens in batter, soups and so on. Soups deserve a special mention. In the US, they are always very thick — our soup seems like water to an American. In the US, all the soups I've tried are comparable in thickness to our mushroom soup, and with a very strong spice/salt flavor. Or do they add egg whites to them? I love spices, but I'm not a big fan of mushroom soups, so American-style soup doesn't exactly thrill me. Here, true, the soup was Asian-style, but the essence is the same.
Another funny fact that I was immediately warned about so I wouldn't blindly fall into a trap. In America, all drinks except coffee are served cold and with ice by default. Even if it's not exactly hot outside. "So what," you might say. Well, here's what — you'll be served tea cold and with ice too. At most, they'll double-check if you want "hot tea" instead of "cold tea". However, for most Americans this isn't a problem, because they drink soda. Luckily, not baking soda for the kitchen, as one might think from the name. Soda is what carbonated drinks like Coca-Cola are called in the US. Moreover, absolutely every food joint has Fountain Sodas — that is, dispensers with 4-8 types of pop and ice, mostly - from a single manufacturer, like Pepsi or Coca-Cola, affectionately called Coke. The market is split evenly, though some say there's more Pepsi, which isn't surprising given Americans' love for sweets, and what a cloying piece of shit (™ Artemy Lebedev) Pepsi is. Bring on Coca-Cola everywhere! Juices are even better of course, but they're unpopular because they're high in calories, whereas you can always get diet soda. Zero calories, but plenty of the artificial sweetener aspartame, which causes cancer in adults and attention deficit disorder in kids.
By the way, even if you say "no ice," the drink will still be cold. Americans don't connect illnesses, colds and cold drinks and food. When kids get a sore throat, they are even advised to eat ice cream and drink cold soda. Our people would undoubtedly twirl a finger at their temple, but rumor has it that in the early stages of a sickness it actually helps.
Juices are only given for breakfast. And all because the giant flywheel of the marketing machine spun up with the dogma "Must have orange juice or milk for breakfast," and hasn't stopped to this day. This, by the way, is just another slogan — and there will be a billion more of them, because there is nothing dearer to an American's soul than slogans and mottos.
Since I've drifted onto the topic of food, I'll mention a few more fun facts. Like this one, supposedly authored by alexmoskalyuk, although I couldn't find a link.
Coca-Cola produced in the US contains high-fructose corn syrup instead of sugar. It's used because taxes on imported sugar are high, and the US produces more corn than the rest of the world combined, excluding China. In Mexico, Coke is made with cane sugar, and many believe it tastes better and isn't as bad for your health. In Europe — with beet sugar, which is the same or maybe even tastier. Apparently, this trend has already swept even a state as far from Mexico as Wisconsin. In the Woodman's supermarket, which I'll talk about later, they sell classic coke, and specifically Mexican-made. Whether it's a coincidence or a shrewd calculation targeting Mexican immigrants and sugar cola lovers is hard to say.
Another popular drink in America is root beer. It's not beer at all, as one might think, but a soda with artificial flavoring, which to our people can only be described as the taste of ancient bubble gum from the 90s. Personally, I don't like bubble gum-flavored soda at all. By the way, the US does have regular lemonade too, and they take the name literally — it's a carbonated drink with a strong lemon flavor; it's drinkable, albeit a bit sour.
At the buffet, I sensibly took very little of everything, but I still overate a bit. They say most Africans, even without the threat of starvation, treat food with great reverence and gorge themselves at the first opportunity — that's how you're raised by a culture where food shortage is a normal situation. Obviously, some Soviet people think the same way — always finish your plate and don't leave a crumb behind. I am one of those people, although I don't consider it right. Generally, I'm more for green ideals and against the consumer society, but forcefully making yourself finish your food or stuffing your belly with as much free grub as possible is terrible. Americans, on the other hand, aren't taught to save — turning off the light when you leave a room wouldn't even cross most of their minds. Except perhaps recently, with the emerging "green" trends, the situation is changing.