French Fries

Registering both for classes and Sciences Po (the university) was semi-adventuresome to say the least - description potentially to follow depending on my bitterness and desire to bore you - and I coped as any good possessor of matched chromosomes would. With food.

France is pretty well stuffed with comfort food, actually. Chocolate, bread, cream sauces, etc. run rampant. Literally so, in fact when my host mother chases me from the dining room to my bedroom with breton butter cookies, insisting that I eat more. I would like to report that I had the class to partake. But no. Cos I don't conform like that, yo.

I went for:
1. the orbit gum
2. the cliff bars
that were left over from my trip here.Its just a shame that eating my homesickness couldnt have been slightly more gourmet.

I've been thinking a lot about what American cuisine is since I got here; both when trying to put my finger on just what it is that I'm missing (since it couldn't possibly be anything as meaningful as people or places) and as a function of cultural give-and-take conversations with Europeans, etc.

A Belgian abroad might miss the specific kind of sausage that she just can't find in neighborhood charcuteries. I miss rogan josh, and vietnamese crepes, and burritos and about a hundred other things. These are pretty broad generalizations of course, and it goes without saying that American Chinese food is hardly always what it would be in Shanghai, but the way that cuisine and social structure in the US are intertwined makes for some tough explanations. That the ensemble of immigrant food is American food, is not self evident to populations still dealing rather more actively with xenophobia even in well-educated milieus. Or as two Italian friends - perfectly open and amiable themselves - put it rather more succinctly last night, their compatriots "think they're not racist, but they are."

This occasionally false sense of social acceptance is constructed in opposition to what is seen as an often more bigoted American model ... the French fascination with the Civil War (at least two popular comics detail the mishaps of Confederates and Yanks) suggests that their conception of US social structure is out of sync with most all of the reality save perhaps the deepest south.

End pontification.

This is all a little serious, and more than likely an imperfect assessment on my part, but is to q degree representative of some other misnomers in visions of America from across the pond. McDonald's is wildly popular, relatively expensive, and has noooo clue how to make a milkshake. And it has beer(?!) on the menu. Almost all, save the 1664, is true of Starbucks. These are the finest imports, much the same way a Washingtonian might treat Cafe Bonaparte et al.

I would like to think that the big mac and the frappucino aren't the only things that American cuisine has to offer, but when I think of what we were advised to bring as gifts to our host families -
°reeses pieces
°red hots
°fluff
- or what I have envisioned for an All-American feast I've been fantasizing about making -
°pbj
°macaroni and cheese
- I suppose we aren't necessarily much above that.

Anyhow, advise me. How do I go about eating America?

EDIT: Some clarifications have hopefully been made. Also, the most homey meal yet? Ikea cafeteria food/Swedish candy. Case closed.