Cheeseburger, cheeseburger....

Recently in one of my business english language classes one of the students asked: "Do Americans eat real food?" She has seen American TV shows and films her whole life and in them Americans never eat anything but fast food. She asked: "Do Americans cook food? Do they make soup, for instance, potato soup?"

I tried to explain that yes many Americans do prepare and eat real food and that many Americans are just as interested in eating well and cooking from scratch as Europeans. American media might show Americans as eating only fast food but the media doesn't reflect the true nature of the society.

One of the other students said especially the poor are shown in the media eating just fast food. And I talked of how there aren't adequate grocery stores in many poor neighborhoods in the US. In many neighborhoods there is a total lack of choice when it comes to food. If you also don't have a car it can be very difficult to get to larger grocery stores.

At this point the first student said the same is true for Germany although not in poor neighborhoods. She explained that in some German towns the larger grocery stores are in the outskirts, making it very difficult for people without cars or the elderly to get to them.

Food also came up for a brief discussion in my language class. During an exercise when we thought of adjectives that described our cultures I said that in America there is good food. The immediate response was laughter and jests about McDonalds and fast food. I tried to explain that there are all kinds of cooking and cuisines in America due to its immigrant history, but I don't think my explanation carried much weight. There wasn't much time to talk about the subject and no one there had ever been to America so the stereotype ruled the day.