Digital Wanderer

As for dip, that's yet another new food-related word. It refers to a sauce that you don't dress something with, but rather dunk something into, since "dip" literally means "to dunk". We actually sometimes use mayo as a dip for eggs, but the simplest example of a dip is ketchup, because we don't drench the whole dish in it, but pour out as much as needed, which is equivalent to dipping. I liked dip—dunking veggies and chips in it is fun. (In America, you can find chips that aren't gross, without the taste of MSG.) We don't have dips, at least not in Daugavpils; I'm not sure about Riga, they have a lot of things there. Technically, you can easily make a simple dip yourself out of mayo, sour cream, and spices, but there's never any time. Pay attention to the "fat free" label in the picture—stuff like that is always highlighted. Absolutely all products in the US have versions (if possible) that are fat-free or sugar-free, sometimes both at once. Plant-based origins too -  vegetarians and vegans make up almost 6% of the US, which is no fewer than people with allergies.

 
Dill dip, meaning a dip made of dill

The sauce used to dress salads is called salad dressing, which literally means "salad clothes". The dressings popular in Europe are based on vinegar and vegetable oil; over here, our main dressings are mayo  and sour cream, sometimes vegetable oil. The Americans adopted all these kinds and added their own: based on ketchup, yogurt, and who knows what else. I don't like harsh flavors, including vinegar and mayo; I rarely eat them. That's why some American dressings seemed tolerable to me, the ones with less vinegar. Later I bought some back home, made by Spilva, and they're even called exactly that—Dresingi (in Latvian). No, that's not for me. The best thing is plain sunflower oil, salt, and the vegetables' own juices—there's nothing tastier. When I lived in the dorms, I'd sometimes eat half a head of cabbage as a salad.

 
Latvian Spilva Dresingi, including the most popular one in the US: Thousand Island

The Americans call pickles "pickles", and the same thing but sweet and finely chopped is "relish", which is considered more of a sauce. It's not just cucumbers in there—chopping up a vegetable and dumping sugar on it isn't hard. It tastes amusing, you can eat it sometimes for a change of pace.

Milwaukee's Midget Dill Pickles are the greatest thing going since sex! - user reviews

The pickles they had at Lena's house, which are pictured above, are kosher for some reason. They taste more like our fermented pickles, even though they're actually pickled in vinegar.

I already wrote about the jalapeño pepper in the post about Subway—it's spicy, but tolerable for Americans. But what's unbearable for absolutely anyone is the habanero chile. At Woodman's they even have fresh ones; in Europe you can definitely find them canned (I've eaten them), but in Latvia I haven't seen either. The canned ones, admittedly, aren't much spicier than others, but the fresh ones are supposedly just death—even Mexicans rarely eat them. It's the spiciest pepper available for widespread sale. You could say that anything spicier is a weapon. By the way, there are some peppers that can only be eaten by people from the region where they grow. For anyone else, eating those peppers ends sadly: severe poisoning or even death.

Jalapeño and habanero, proportional to their popularity

By the way, I just remembered how Alejandro bought me a soda at a gas station, and I blurted out that I wanted a "large". You'd never guess what a "large" cup of Coca-Cola means. It's 1.3 liters! Can you even imagine that? I drank it all day.

But that's not what this post is about. When talking about food in the US, you can't avoid mentioning the concept of "organic". Strictly speaking, it means the plants the food is made from were grown without using artificial chemicals like pesticides or fertilizers, weren't irradiated, don't have all kinds of synthetic additives, and are generally close to Mother Nature. Obviously, this is consumed by a part of the "green" movement, supported by the companies that produce it. The hysteria over organic food is pretty widespread. The reason is understandable. See the bit about chemicals a few paragraphs up. As with everything, Americans have turned this into a promotional-propaganda cult, and they actually believe in it themselves. Those who can easily afford it (which is not many) try to buy "organic". The irony is that organic farming requires way more energy expenditures with lower efficiency, thereby increasing the infamous carbon dioxide emissions that theoretically lead to global warming. Meaning a green activist should rather welcome GM foods, which are almost the only way to reduce the amount of fertilizers and pesticides. Then again, I'm not an expert on the subject—each side has its own point of view. But, after listening to the fantastic ideas and insane theories of modern "greens", many of whom share an affinity with anarchists and leftists, I decided it's best not to align with them too closely.