Because, Nordic Countries

[rmgill]

Is this due to Swedish/Finnish food shortages (poor farming resources) or due to the idea of bring your own lunch to the viking raids? 

[Soren Ras]

Huh, seen from Danish perspective, that is actually really weird.  Having a meal and not including someone present in your house is pretty much unthinkable here. It would be a serious breach of etiquette.

Having someone sleep over and then eating breakfast surreptitiously excluding them is a concept so outlandish, it actually boggles the mind. Anyone doing that would instantly become a pariah in the social circles here.

The only exception is if friends of your child are playing and it is getting close to dinner time. At that point we would either send the friends home before we started eating, or call their parents and make sure it was okay to have them eat over. The distinction being chiefly a matter of what is on the menu, since accommodating additional unplanned for people might not be practical.

I guess that is a marked difference between Denmark and Sweden, then.

Wow.

 

--

Soren

[rmgill]

This explains the longstanding feud between Sweden and Denmark. Hospitality. 

Refusing to break bread with folks can be a very large cause of offense. 

[Stefan Fredriksson]

At sleepovers, of course you got breakfast. Dinners, basically if agreed upon beforehand. And this was the way it was, so no one thought it strange.

[Yama]

Yeah, I have never thought it could be seen as strange...going to visit my pal unannounced, his mum would probably not know I was coming, and might not have prepared enough food for extra guest. I would simply eat home before, and then wait in my friend's room reading comics or playing with his computer for the 10-15 minutes it took him to eat, or return home for my own dinner. Although, it's true that in many cultures it is a matter of honour to feed your guests, and not automatically inviting a guest to eat would appear very strange, at minimum.

[Mikel2]

My Italian friends would feel terribly insulted if an unexpected guest leaves without eating a six course meal. 

[rmgill]

26 minutes ago, Mikel2 said:

My Italian friends would feel terribly insulted if an unexpected guest leaves without eating a six course meal. 

This seems to be a thing from China to Greece. And their grandmothers would be scolding then for months from the grave for not offering to make them a 6 course meal. 

by way of a friend (Kurt) who went to another friend's mother's house (Mike's Mother) for some sort of visit. They're greek. He related that he got there and it was as if Mike's mom was on a mission to help him gain 10 pounds that night. 

"OH MY YOU MUST BE HUNGRY! Here, sit down you have to eat some dinner!"

"Do you want a salad? Here let me make you a salad" *Chops half a head of lettuce into a salad*

"Do you want dessert? Let me make some fresh Baklava!"

 

[Ivanhoe]

If I've got to bring my own vittles, I need to rethink my plans for conquering Scandinavia. Italy just bubbled up several notches on my conquest list. 

 

[Stefan Fredriksson]

Pretty much like Yama and Soren wrote.

If I played with a friend, my dinner is at 17, his at 18, waiting in the friend's room while the other ate felt perfectly ok. But spinning it to (Scandinavians) refusing to offer guests food does if course look much more entertaining. 🙂

[Stefan Fredriksson]

8 hours ago, rmgill said:

This seems to be a thing from China to Greece. And their grandmothers would be scolding then for months from the grave for not offering to make them a 6 course meal. 

by way of a friend (Kurt) who went to another friend's mother's house (Mike's Mother) for some sort of visit. They're greek. He related that he got there and it was as if Mike's mom was on a mission to help him gain 10 pounds that night. 

"OH MY YOU MUST BE HUNGRY! Here, sit down you have to eat some dinner!"

"Do you want a salad? Here let me make you a salad" *Chops half a head of lettuce into a salad*

"Do you want dessert? Let me make some fresh Baklava!"

 

I once was almost force-fed. It was at the start of the covid pandemic, the patient had suspected covid, I was there to give iv antibiotics (not for covid) in full protective gear. Family: "You must be hungry! Sit down and eat". "Eh, I am wearing facemask, visor and stuff.." "Doesn't matter, you need to eat!"

I just smiled and ate, simply because they were so charming. Can't remember which country they came from though.

[rmgill]

8 hours ago, Stefan Fredriksson said:

Pretty much like Yama and Soren wrote.

If I played with a friend, my dinner is at 17, his at 18, waiting in the friend's room while the other ate felt perfectly ok. But spinning it to (Scandinavians) refusing to offer guests food does if course look much more entertaining. 🙂

You guys will never live down that viking thing. 😉

[Mikel2]

[BansheeOne]

The dark-blue shoud be "will force-feed you if you don't run fast enough". 😁

If that's from Weber's book, I suspect though that things have changed somewhat in the last 100-plus years with increasing common wealth and cultural interchange. I wouldn't say it's "unlikely" to get food as a guest in Germany today, even if you weren't originally scheduled to join a meal.

[Ssnake]

That Northern Germany part - won't comment on Berlin - is, IMO, hogwash. It'd be a "Usually Yes" though, admittedly, it's maybe also a question of how informal the visit is and whether it's between adults, kids, or kids visiting adults etc. And I daresay, it's the same in the Netherlands, or Denmark, and I think it's been refuted as a myth by our Finns and Swedes already. Norway and Iceland OTOH ... okay, they're weird.

[Rick]

6 hours ago, Mikel2 said:

Sooo... this is where Iceland should go before that Plate Tectonics thingy began 

Edited June 8, 2022 by Rick

[Mikel2]

33 minutes ago, Rick said:

Sooo... this is where Iceland should go before that Plate Tectonics thingy began 

 

Imagine traveling all the way to Iceland to visit some friends and having to eat some gas station sushi for dinner

[rmgill]

11 minutes ago, Mikel2 said:

 

Imagine traveling all the way to Iceland to visit some friends and having to eat some gas station sushi for dinner

Probably better than shark someone buried in a hole for 3 months, then peed on, then hung up to dry. 

Or sheep's head with testicles. 

 

[bojan]

1 hour ago, rmgill said:

Probably better than shark someone buried in a hole for 3 months, then peed on, then hung up to dry...

I really want to know what did people that came up with that think and what kind of hallucinogen mushrooms they consumed before coming with that brilliant idea. 

Sheep's head on the sauerkraut is occasionally made locally, through pig is preferred. Ears are quite tasty. Oh, and never order "white kidneys".

Edited June 8, 2022 by bojan

[rmgill]

Scots are frugal as food in the highlands is somewhat hard to come by. Hence Haggis (heart, kidneys, lungs, oats, put in the stomach, boil, let the esophagus hang over the side of the pot for drainage, then serve). As far as I know, they don't eat the head. 

But given how Iceland is very sparse for food resources, they were probably trying to eat ANYTHING they could catch. How they figured letting it rot in a hole for 3 months THEN piss on it and hang it up to dry out...


This seems as plausible as any.... a domestic argument.... 🤷‍♂️



 

Edited June 8, 2022 by rmgill

[bojan]

4 hours ago, rmgill said:

Scots are frugal as food in the highlands is somewhat hard to come by. Hence Haggis (heart, kidneys, lungs, oats, put in the stomach, boil, let the esophagus hang over the side of the pot for drainage, then serve). As far as I know, they don't eat the head. 

We have something similar to haggis here, "jagnjece sarmice", which is lamb liver, lungs, kidney and heart (most often heart and liver) which are first chopped fried in the pan a bit , and then packaged with onion and garlic into lamb's peritoneum and boiled.

Those can be additionally baked in "kajmak" (fermented milk fat) for a real hearth attack inducing food:

It is probably a thing of people being dirt poor and never letting anything go to waste.

As for shark... people being really, really hungry, or as that comic says

 

Also, in Europe, we eat horses even if there is other food available.

 

Edited June 9, 2022 by bojan

[Soren Ras]

On 6/8/2022 at 2:39 PM, Mikel2 said:

Complete BS as far as Denmark is concerned. And since the compulsion to feed guests increases as you approach the German border, I daresay I highly doubt it can be correct for North Germany. Whoever did that coloring was either a moron or someone with a weird agenda.

Harrumph.

--

Soren

 

[rmgill]

9 minutes ago, Soren Ras said:

Complete BS as far as Denmark is concerned. And since the compulsion to feed guests increases as you approach the German border, I daresay I highly doubt it can be correct for North Germany. Whoever did that coloring was either a moron or someone with a weird agenda.

Does plying Germans with a teaspoon of Risalamande keep them from invading? 🙃

[Soren Ras]

Unlikely, though it may make them return every summer after the war is over to rent a summer house.

 

Soren

[Ssnake]

Yep, that's what we do. Right on the beaches with all the bunkers. And next to the tank live fire areas. Blåvandshuk is bestest hook.

And then we watch the Olsen Gang in Jutland... ("Do we need passports?" always cracks me up)

[Soren Ras]

6 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Yep, that's what we do. Right on the beaches with all the bunkers. And next to the tank live fire areas. Blåvandshuk is bestest hook.

And then we watch the Olsen Gang in Jutland... ("Do we need passports?" always cracks me up)

😁

 

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Soren