Actually a lot of your folks were surprised that a non Swedish/Nordic person could enjoy this food ;)

But hey that's what I like about foreign food!

Same like this fish-soup in France, Lyon/Lille can't remember, it was so fucking delicious, Only supposed to be a starter, on he second day I just ordered this soup till I nearly exploded! And sorry can't remember the name I only know it was in one of those cities and it was a local specialty.

Or the salted fish in Portugal. You bake the fish in a salt crust, which will be removed afterwards! Greaaaaat!!!!

Are you meaning bouillabaisse (a pretty cool rust-coloured fish soup) ? It's a french speciality, but more linked to southern france than to lyon or lille, i think.

I hear you. I used to live in Las Cruces and had to go through that all the time with the NMSU folk from out of state. First the students would come, from places like Nebraska or Iowa, and ask questions like:

"Where can I get some good Mexican food, you know like at Taco Bell?"
Because apparently the actual authentic food doesn't seem very Mexican to them.

"What's the difference between frijoles and beans?"
And when I tell them they are the same thing it just confuses them more.


Later, around graduation time the parents come to town and they are a little older and a little wiser. So they ask questions like:

"Where is the port of entry? We had our ID's and passports ready but we couldn't find it. Do we need to do that when we leave?


Though I do miss the green chile. During chile season I would walk out my front door, take a deep breath and the faint smell of roasted chile was in the air. It was like a subtle form of tear gas was deployed across the whole city, but one that made me hungry instead of driving me away. Now I live in Denver Colorado so the predominate smell is marijuana, which also kind of makes me hungry now that I think of it.

As I said, don't remember the name ;)

But one thing I know for sure: Their was no Rouille with it, the rest sounds right and looks familiar though. But it was also served in a far bigger bowl. Bouillabaisse AFAIK is only served in small soup bowls. But this one was a quite big bowl, like 1/2 or more liter bowl.

Regional thing: "Coke" used as a generic term for any carbonated drink in parts of the South. If you want Pepsi, ask for Pepsi. Don't ask for "pop" or "soda pop", that's a Northern/Midwestern thing.

There's another option to ask for a carbonated beverage, which is "cold drink". This is pronounced in a very particular way that's almost impossible to for me to render typographically...the best way I can describe it is that the "L" in "cold" almost becomes a half-swallowed "W". If you just want a drink of some kind [including tea, coffee, lemonade (which is generally not fizzy over here!) and Kool-Aid] that is cold/has ice in it, then you say "I want a cold drink of something", and the word "cold" is pronounced in the usual way.

We sacrifice a virgin to Froy each mid-winter to make sure spring will happen again. In the olden days, it was supposed to be an honor to be the sacrifice, but today it tends to be one of the daughters of the villages least liked family. Feminists have also started to interfere, and claiming that the sex of the sacrifice do not matter, but personally my views on this is a bit orthodox.

I know some have balked a bit when finding out about this custom, but who know - if we stop doing it we might end up with eternal winter. It is not a risk I am willing to take.

We really,really love to annoy.

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Half-rotten fish seems to be a delicacy in quite many countries. I know that e.g. Thailand has its own version of it.

No no, the wikings brought the recipe to them! So it is just a copy cat! ;)

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I think that's what they do on Whacking Day too

Country customs:

Try hard to be employed as a public servant.

Do your best to maximize your earnings, while at the same time minimizing your working hours and manual labor.

Volunteer for free work, but only to get to know people and make connections for later use.

Vote without brains or thorough knowledge of who is who and what the hell they represent and push forward (as ideology and plan).

Always feign ignorance/indifference, after having supported someone who fucked things up big time.

Go on strike without throwing a mere thought over about others who badly need the service and are in a worse position than you (like public transportation means workers going constantly on strike).

If this gets the job done, always throw sludge/filth and accuse wrongly a coworker, so you can get a better place or mere chumminess with the boss.

Always believe what others have to say about someone (even if this is outrageous, impossible and borderline insane), without even bothering to get to know said someone first, let alone discuss with them in person, see and judge for yourself.

It is good to see someone living up to and maintaining their old customs, cudos Bradley.