Answer the funny foreigners' questions

In My Humble Opinion
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Okay, so some of you might remember me as that Singaporean guy who dopers often mistake for being a girl. I did this thread like, 8 years ago (dayum, 8 years ago?!).

The funny thing about the US/UK is that we (meaning the rest of the world) think we know about US/UK culture, but we don’t, not really. All we get is stuff from the movies and TV, and I sure as hell hope everyone’s not from “Teen Cribs”.

That said, I was eating me some crabs a while ago, and I realised that I don’t actually know how Americans/Brits eat crabs. Never seen a movie on crab-eating before, and I doubt I ever will! I know that some of you eat crabs, but I just don’t know how. And this is the internet, so I can get as inane as I like, right? So here goes.
How do you cook crabs? Whole? Steamed? Fried? Boiled? I know you guys do crab cakes, but I mean like the whole crab. How do you break the shell? We use nutcrackers. Do you guys use nutcrackers, or bring our a mallet, or what?
Who eats cockles? And how do you eat them? Here, we mostly stir fry them with a bit of spicy gravy. When I was in London I never saw anyone selling cockles, much less eat them, and yet you have Mary with her garden quite contrary full of those shells, and you have people dying when going “cockling”, so SOMEONE’s eating those guys. If you’re not sending them all to China.
What else do you do with chicken wings, apart from deep frying them/buffalo wings? Do you stew them? Braise them? Barbecue? Grilled?
So when you turn 18, you get kicked out of the house? How does that work? When I was 18, I was still living with my parents, all through college pretty much, and even after I started work. I only moved out when I got married, and not until a month or so after that! Why pay for one more apartment when, you know, your parents have space, given that, you know, you were living in there? So how do you concentrate on college if you have to work to get enough money to pay for your school fees AND rent AND “living money”?
So what kind of food do you get if you just don’t wanna cook, and are grabbing something quick for dinner? Do you do takeout all the time? Chinese takeout? Or order a pizza? MacDonald’s? Every night? How do you guys get enough fibre like that?
What’s with all the beer? Every night, I see white people hanging out at the bars, sometimes by themselves, even on weeknights, sometimes even alone (?!), drinking. How does that work? Does everyone do that? Most people I know only drink on special occasions, like Friday nights out (and not even most fridays), like they’re going out partying or something.
What’s with hanging out at Starbucks drinking coffee? You could make your own coffee at home and surf the net for free, in the comfort of your own home, you know. I mean, if you’re with a friend, I get it, but just… sitting there with your laptop? Why?
Frozen orange juice. So how do you drink it? Do you like put it in a glass and wait for it to melt? Do you bring it down from the freezer to defrost in the fridge?
Why do you guys say hello to complete strangers all the time? I (still) get kinda freaked out when some random white dude waves to me and says hi when I take the lift up to my apartment. Like, I don’t know you! Stoppit! On the flip side, what do you think of me when you say hi to me and I give you that weird “uuuuh hi” and look panicked?
Are police really all corrupt/evil/tough/whatever? Or is that just a popular meme that goes around, coupled with a healthy dose of confirmation bias? Police here are great, I’ve never been falsely arrested/pushed around/beaten up etc, and I don’t know anyone who has. Every police officer I’ve interacted with both here and in London were perfectly fine gentlemen and ladies, and no fuss no muss they got things done (and were pretty friendly). So what is it with the US cops?
Ok I think that’s enough for now. On the flipside, if you want to ask any questions feel free to resurrect my 8 year old thread, 'cause I’m sure some questions were already answered in there. And GOD it feels funny reading a twenty year old me - I think I was a lot more interesting back then. Hm.

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Questions like this might be better answered in a Florence Henderson forum.

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This is the Dope. We’ll try to answer anything. (No guarantees for accuracy.)

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[Mod Note]Closing thread because of offensive title. If the OP wishes to re-title the thread, please pm or email the mods.[/Mod Note]

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[Mod Note]Re-opened thread after changing title to one suggested by the OP.[/Mod Note]

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I can’t answer the questions about seafood and chicken wings, but I’ll take a shot at some of the others. FTR, I grew up in the Midwest US, lived in Singapore in the late 90s, and now live on the East Coast of the US.

Leaving Home Many people go to college away from home. The college I went to was about a five hour drive from my parents home. Students typically live in dorms and eat in dining halls. It is a nice transitional stage somewhere in between living at home and living completely independently. Typically, students who get financial aid can also get financial aid for room and board. Something important to consider here is that Americans have a very different sense of personal space than Singaporeans. We need a bigger buffer zone. I remember being very uncomfortable when I first arrived in Singapore at how close people would stand. I think that this need for personal space is part of what prompts teens to leave home. Also, there’s a real cultural association between growing up and leaving home. One more thing - there are a lot more 1 person apartments in the US. Leaving home does not necessarily mean moving into a four bedroom flat; it might mean moving into a tiny one bedroom apartment.

Frozen OJ It’s concentrated. Let it thaw in the fridge or on the counter for a few hours, mix it up in a pitcher with some water. It’s not great, but it will do.

Take out food Seriously? This question comes from the land of the hawker center? Living in Singapore was definitely the height of my experience with take out food. But, I think it’s really hard to generalize about diet for the US. There are people who eat a LOT of McDonald’s; there are just as many who never eat out.

Hello! This varies from place to place within the US. But the basic sentiment is, there’s a person right here! How can you ignore that person? You have to acknowledge the person! The big cities are obviously less chatty than smaller towns, because if you tried to say hi to everyone in the city, you’d go nuts.

Bars No, everyone does not do that. I think you’re seeing a pretty select group of people there. Tourists, bored business travelers, etc.

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I am an American that has been living in Asia for the past 10 years, I have heard many times that Asians think that American kids leave the house at age 18 .

Where did this idea come from ? It is not true for the majority of American families.
I lived at home or at college until I was 24, and my father paid for my college.
Only after I had a real job, and I could afford it, did I move out of the house at age 24.

I am not sure if this falsehood is spread because of Asians thinking that Americans are more independent, or because Asians think that American families are not loving and close. ( many Chinese have told me that Americans do not love their children as much as Chinese parents love their children) .

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Lots of ways. Whole crabs can be boiled or steamed; you use a nutcracker or mallet to get to the meat. Soft-shell crabs (crabs caught just after molting, when their shells are leathery) are deep-fried whole with breading.

It also depends on the type of crab – for king crab, you just eat the legs, which are usually boiled/steamed. The legs are served whole with a nutcracker to open them.

In general, the wings are not eaten separately unless they’re deep fried and served in hot sauce or barbecue sauce. KFC includes them when you order white meat; they are coated with the KFC seasonings. But those aren’t usually ordered on their own. The same with whole chickens – you get the wings because they’re part of the bird. The main reason Buffalo wings were created was because chicken wings were cheap due to lack of demand.

Few kids are kicked out at 18; they usually go off to college, but still live at home when school isn’t in session. Once they graduate, they tend to find apartments on their own (though not always – many do return home, especially if they can’t find a job).

There are plenty of takeout options: hamburger, pizza, fried fish, Chinese, Thai (in some areas), sushi (in some areas). Plus there are sit-down informal restaurants like Applebees. Most people don’t get takeout every night, but there are a lot who do. As for the fiber, Americans don’t get enough of it in their diet.

I used to defrost it overnight, but that’s not usual. You can’t drink the concentrate – far too strong. What you do is pour it into a pitcher and add water (three cans for ever can, IIRC). You can do this if the OJ is still frozen, but it’s hard to get out of the can (you need to run it under hot water) and you have to stir it until the frozen concentrate breaks up completely.

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(In all the following, I am only speaking about US culture and customs. The UK might be very different.)

Maryland, where I am, is a very crab-intensive area. Mostly it’s blue crabs from the Chesapeake Bay. Even around here though, crabs are normally eaten as a processed meat — in crab cakes, or as a stuffing in other fish dishes.

However, there are many “crab houses” (restaurants) where you can buy them whole, steamed, and by the bucketful, and then proceed to smash them open with a mallet, and pluck out their meat with a pick or other tools provided. I have gone to such places only a couple times, and found the experience (1) slightly nightmarish, and (2) a hell of a lot of labor for a rather small amount of meat. I’d prefer to get my crab meat already processed.

Also, I don’t think crab is nearly as popular in the rest of the US, once you get a little distance away from the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It’s expensive stuff, even here where it’s local.

There’s no universal pattern. Some kids will attend a university in the same city as their parents, and continue to live with them. Many kids go to another town or state far away (as did I), and perhaps return for the summer recesses. Some kids will begin working right away instead. But by that age most American kids are eager to get some independence from their family.

If you limited your career and university choices to whatever happens to be close to your parents’ house, you’d be limiting yourself severely, usually. In many US states, a good university might be a hundred miles away from any random point.

As for money, some kids get their education paid for by their parents. Many others take out student loans and pay back the debt over several years, after they graduate and start their real jobs.

Some Americans do have appalling diets, yes. You can see that when walking around the malls or other public spaces. Speaking only for myself, I buy fast but healthy food from restaurants, and I avoid fatty, fried, cheesy, and starchy dishes. It’s not hard to find healthy food here as long as you exercise some self-discipline.

This is probably very regional. New Englanders are quite a drinking people. Rural Midwesterners, not so much. Around here, drinking is a common social glue for the young and middle-aged. In some places you will also see loners drinking and watching a game on TV, but I don’t tend to visit such places.

I actually think drinking used to be much more common among American adults when I was a kid (in the 1970s), especially for harder liquors like scotch, bourbon, and whiskey. These days people are more into beer and wine, or just not drinking at all.

I can’t make a cappuccino at home — not without buying a special gadget, and I already have enough gadgets.

I also enjoy people-watching, and I occasionally strike up a conversation with someone at the next table. I can’t get that at home either.

You make a whole pitcher at a time, not just one glass.

You empty the can of frozen orange juice into a pitcher, then pour in about 3 or 4 cans’ worth of water. Stir this mixture until it’s all thawed, and uniform. Then serve it, or put the pitcher away in the fridge for later.

This behavior is also highly regional, and you won’t find it much in major cities like New York or Washington. You’ll also find it happening much more in the South and Midwest than in the Northeast.

Otherwise, I don’t know — it’s just our culture. I appreciate the fast friendliness of (most of) my fellow countrymen, although when I’m in a bad mood or in a hurry, it can sometimes be annoying. I’ve never found it freaky though.

(Other questions skipped for lack of time.)

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People who do this often go home for winter, spring, and summer breaks. At least at my university, that was the usual arrangement for people living in the dorms.

My parents set aside money when I was born for my college. They paid the tuition and the fees for the dorm and dining hall once per semester. When I moved out of the dorms into an apartment, they gave me some money for rent and living expenses. I managed to convince them it was a good deal, because it was cheaper than the dorms. They had both lived with their parents while they went to college, and were sure they had missed something by not living in the dorms. I do think it was good preparation for living independently from them, and would advise any hypothetical kids of mine to do the same. I would feel I had failed to raise independent adults (which I consider to be a very important life goal, if not the most important life goal for those who choose to have kids) if my kids wanted to come back and live with me after college, and I’m pretty sure my parents would have felt the same way.

I found living in a dorm or apartment much less stressful than living with and trying to get along with my parents. We can get along for maybe two weeks, but at that point we start to grate on each others’ last nerves. We have very different standards of housekeeping, and personalities that tend to clash. I would move back in with my parents if and only if the alternative were literally living on the streets. We get along so much better when we don’t live together.

I bake-fry chicken wings for Mr. Neville when we get a cut up chicken. I shake them in a bag with some seasonings and matzo meal and/or panko, then put them on a cookie sheet in the oven. The wings are done in about 20 minutes, the bigger pieces take about 40.

Deep-fried seafood of many different kinds (crab cakes, oysters, clams) is popular. It’s taken out of the shells and deep-fried.

There is fake crab (AKA imitation crab, AKA surimi), which is usually pollock with some coloring and flavoring. This is what you’re likely to get if you order a California roll in a sushi bar, or a crab or seafood enchilada at a Mexican restaurant.

Frozen orange juice is much less popular now than it was when I was a kid (I’m 36). Now, you can buy regular non-frozen orange juice in cartons or jugs at the supermarket, just like you do with milk. I assume grocery stores still carry frozen orange juice, but I’ve never bought it. (I don’t drink a lot of orange juice, since I have a problem with acid reflux.) There are religious wars in many families over whether orange juice should have pulp in it or not. Stores sell both kinds.

Starbucks doesn’t just serve coffee (well, they do, but that’s not why most people go there). They serve fancy coffee drinks, like cappucinos, mochas, espresso, and the like. These require equipment that most people don’t have at home to make. Flavored coffee drinks are also popular. You can buy the flavoring syrups to make those, but most people don’t. McDonald’s in the US started offering coffee drinks a few years ago, so you can tell they’ve gone mainstream.

Also, people aren’t going to drop by if you’re at home surfing the net. We don’t usually go to others’ homes without an advance invitation. People do come and go at Starbucks.

In addition to takeout food, there are convenience foods sold at grocery stores. These might be pre-cooked foods that you just take home and eat, like rotisserie chickens or salad from a grocery store salad bar. They might be frozen or refrigerated foods that you reheat in the oven or microwave. Most grocery stores carry several kinds of frozen pizzas, for example. The convenience foods do tend to be low in fiber and high in salt, sugar, and/or fat. There is whole-grain pasta and high fiber breakfast cereal, though, so you don’t have to be able to cook to get fiber in your diet.

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Just adding, for most people (at least in my circles) the typical living situation progression was:

  1. With parents
  2. Dorm at college (usually back with parents for the summer& Christmas break).
  3. After college, apartment shared with roomates.
  4. At some point when one can afford it, apartment or house without roommates (or only with one’s boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse)
  5. As children arrive, larger house
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I grew up in Baltimore - thisis how we eat crabs. You can also find youtube videos on the subject.

Dang, now I want some steamed crabs.

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Brit here, it used to be that you’d have people going round the pubs with a basket load of shellfish to sell.

It was always as I recall in jars of vinegar.

They needed the Landlords permission to go round their pub, but nowadays as most pubs make a very healthy profit from serving food I doubt very much if they allow the sellers in.

We’re not a great crab eating nation, I can only recall eating one, home cooked by a G.F. and can’t remember how it was cooked, or how I ate it .(It was thirty years ago).

For takeouts I personally prefer Kebabs, currys or sausage and chips from a Fish and Chip shop.

I very occasionally eat Chinese and Burgers (but not at the same time)

I virtually never get pizzas from a takeaway, though I eat them at home.

If you lived in London and saw many during the week pub goers in central and west London , it was probably because of the large number of tourists, or home grown visitors to the city .

I expect that you also see alot of single people who have moved to the city for work reasons and they probably prefer being around people in the evening rather then sitting alone back in their bed sit.

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I’ll give it a shot from the perspective of american female, age 49, northeast coast [connecticut] dweller.

Actually the vast majority of Americans never cook crab at home, they eat it at restaurants, or buy it already cooked and picked out of it’s shell. Those who do cook it at home tend to boil/steam it with a spice blend added called Old Bay seasoning or Zataran’s. If it is soft shell [freshly molted] you saute the whole thing, or bread it and deep fry it. I normally eat mine by flipping it upside down to look at the base plate, and open the shell depending on if it is female or male. I do not eat the gills. I usually pick out all the meat and pile it on my plate and then eat it after I pick all my crabs. This youtube pretty much covers it thoroughly. Being east coast, I get the classic Blue Crab.

No idea, never gone cockling in my life.

All depends - I like to use them to boost the gelatin in my stock. Peel off the skin and throw the bones and tiny shreds of meat in, I also tend to use the necks and backs in making stock richer as well. I will grill them up instead of fry and sauce with buffalo sauce normally. I made way too many wings back when I worked in a kitchen to want to make them at home now.

Well, I am odd in that I kicked myself out of my parents house at 16 and worked my way through life. In general you stay with your parents through the end of college. They basically help you arrange the financing for college [though it is not unusual for parents to just boot the kid out at 18 and let them fend for themself also.] That is sort of changing with the job market being so depressed, many kids are finding that they are moving back in with their parents and living for quite a long time, or going back after a divorce. Most colleges in the US are residential, you live in a dormitory and eat at a caffeteria, and the cost of these is added to the tuition and you try to get a part time job for spending money. [I would say that easily 80% of US colleges and universities with a 4 year program are residential, community colleges and junior colleges are mostly nonresidential] Some people are lucky and their parents pay for everything but most kids try to get part time jobs during the year and summer jobs on summer break.

Blargh, fast food sucks ass. I have food allergies to a couple of common fast food ingredients so we do not tend to get much fast food. I will occasionally go for a sandwich from subway, or a salad if we are away from home. At home it is just easier to cook. I have some favorite things to cook if we need to eat fast, or we just make a nice salad. If you have the ingredients at home, there is generally no reason you can not have decent food made quickly. It is also cheaper to make food at home. We will frequently have bread, cheese, hard sausage like sopresata and fruit for dinner. But we are strange for americans =)

We do not go hang out in bars, that is a city thing, and really not even overly common. I tend to think of hanging out in a bar for evening entertainment actually more a british or german thing than an american thing. Yes, there are people that hang out in bars drinking, but they tend to be people out trying to get laid, or alcoholics, or people out socializing in a group of friends. The solo drinker has the seeming of being an alcoholic loser in my social circles. Outside the US, probably tourists or expats with no social circles to hang out with.

Some people do not have internet at home, some people don’t cook or have access to a kitchen [they live in a rented room or boarding house] and some people are on their way to do something and have a couple hours to kill and do not want to go home, or can not go home for one reason or another.

It is a concentrate, you schlorp it into a pitcher, add a measured amount of water [or vodka] and drink it.

We dont, always. Some people will but the vast majority will only say hello if they recognize you as living in their building, or on their street, or they see you frequently around town.

Some cops are assholes, most cops are neutral. If they see you around and don’t have calls about you may even be moderately friendly. Small town cops tend to be friendly with those they recognize as being locals and neutral to neutral appearing strangers, but if you look scummy and are not local, expect a cold welcome …

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I’ve already lost the 20 minute response that I wrote last night whilst you were busy closing the thread. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Do you mean white expats out drinking in Singapore? Speaking as, er…, a white expat in Singapore, it’s generally because we’re away from home, cooped up in a hotel, we’ve got some disposable income, and there are thousands of attractive young women out and about (expats in Singapore being mostly male). Also, it’s our culture back home (Scotland for me, but I think I can speak for the UK in general, though not for the US) to go drinking regularly and often.

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I’m still waking up and haven’t read the thread, but I’ll answer the crab question.

Up here we eat a lot of Dungeness crabs. (Also king crab and opilio or ‘snow’ crabs.) Most people boil live dungies in water, which may or may not be seasoned. I clean them first, partly to avoid the very, very small chance of spreading toxins, and mostly because you can get more crabs in the pot. I use a rubber mallet and a bolo knife. Place the crab on its back. Lay the edge of the knife along the longitudinal axis. The crab will try to move it, but keep it centered. Whack it with the mallet. This will bisect the crab and kill it instantly and humanely. (If you don’t chop right down the middle, one half will still be alive and will try to pinch you.) Grasp the legs and wrench them from the carapace. Rinse under cold water and remove the gills and anything else that isn’t meat or shell. Boil in salted water for 11 minutes. I like salted water (and I’ve even cooked them in clean sea water), but other people like to season with Old Bay, cayenne, or other seasoning(s).

To eat: Break the legs at the joints. There are nutcracker-like things you can use to break the shells, and tiny forks and picks to get the meat. I don’t bother. I use a tine of a regular fork to split the shell lengthwise along its weakest part (the underside), and use one of the ‘toes’ as a pick. Just pull the meat out and dip it in clarified butter and eat it. For the mass of meat at the base of the legs, at the body, pull and pick the meat out. Lots of meat there. There are two ways people eat boiled crabs. One way is to extract the meat, dip it in butter, and eat it. The other way is to extract the meat and pile it up and then eat it. Instant gratification with small morsels, or delayed gratification with large portions. It’s your choice. I like to eat crab with red potatoes and half-cobs of corn.

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Expat in China, and I’m from the US. Same deal here. :slight_smile: It’s not like I’m going to go to the museum this time of night.

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Boiled. We crack open the shells with a nutcracker or pliers. We also often use a pick to get the little pieces of meat out.

Eating cockles is pretty much unknown in America. Most people wouldn’t even know what a cockle is.

Frying them is the most common way to cook them. But I have seen people grill them.

It varies from family to family. It’s becoming more common for young people to continue living with their parents into their twenties.

Chinese, pizza, and burgers are all common take-out foods. Also Mexican food and submarines.

Plus we eat a lot of frozen prepared food that just needs to be heated up in a microwave.

Going to a bar is more common on Fridays and Saturdays due to work schedules (most people work Monday to Friday). But there are people who will stop and have a beer after work and some people go out to bars on worknights. Plus some people have other work schedules or don’t work.

It’s a social setting like a bar. Even if you’re not talking to people, you’re getting out of the house.

Also, just so you know, many bookstores have coffeeshops set up inside them so some people go to bookstores to drink coffee and socialize.

It’s concentrated. You mix up the frozen juice with water and that dilutes it and brings it up to a drinkable temperature.

No reason. It’s just a social custom.

It varies from one part of the country to another. Greeting people is more common in the southern United States and less common in eastern cities.

That’s mostly a stereotype from TV and movies. Real life police officers are regular people.

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Another Brit here, noting before I start that what goes for the UK does not necessarily go for the US…

Most Brits wouldn’t cook their own crab. They would buy it ready cooked or buy ready-picked crab meat to use in crab cakes, crab curries, salads etc. Whole crab in its shell would be a restaurant dish for most people, eaten with nutcrackers. SAlthough many British people don’t like fish/shellfish, despite being an island nation.

Yes, cockles are native to these isles and, growing up, it was very common to buy them ready cooked, shelled and pickled in vinegar. It is slowly becoming fashionable to cook them from raw in their shells, in place of clams in spaghetti vongole, for instance, BUT this is really the preserve of foodies.

Chicken wings are really a US dish. When we eat BBQ wings it is following a US imported fashion. We don’t do much else with them (maybe throw them into a casserole).

Weird question. No, we don’t get kicked out. It’s common to live away during university (with parents or student loans paying for the rent etc). Otherwise, people move out when they can afford it, often sharing with others, because it’s freedom and fun, not because their parents want them out!

Chinese, pizza, thai, and, particularly British in habit - fish and chips and indian. No doubt there’s some fat slob somewhere who eats this stuff everyday but it’s a long way from the norm. We get fibre from cooking ourselves!

Drinking and going to the pub is a huge part of British culture and the main focus of many people’s social lives. True.

This is another US import into the UK. I don’t get it either, unless I need to kill time before a meeting in town.

Definitely more a US and small town thing (my parents do it). Living in unfriendly London I wouldn’t dream of it, except maybe a nod to a neighbour.

[QUOTE=Tabby_Cat;14086888Are police really all corrupt/evil/tough/whatever? Or is that just a popular meme that goes around, coupled with a healthy dose of confirmation bias? Police here are great, I’ve never been falsely arrested/pushed around/beaten up etc, and I don’t know anyone who has. Every police officer I’ve interacted with both here and in London were perfectly fine gentlemen and ladies, and no fuss no muss they got things done (and were pretty friendly). So what is it with the US cops?[/QUOTE]

Is this just about US police, because I would never imagine that British police would have this reputation. I thought their international reputation was very good? Heck, they don’t even carry guns!