There is a similar book that takes the entire contents of a family’s home and puts it outside on an open space. Comparing the possessions of a Kuwaiti family to those of one from sub-Saharan Africa is interesting.
That’s nothing, if you look at part 2 of the series the family of 6 from turkey seems to eat about 2 dozen baguettes a week.
Also, I looked at the first set again and man does Italy have some big honkin bananas.
Check out the Germans-about 10 things that look like litre cartons of milk, 6 litres of juice,plus 4 bottles of wine and a good dozen beer. Plus 10 bottles of what may be more beer behind the bananas. That’s one beverage loving household
If everyone’s happy with the situation, more power to them. I’m glad that you and your husband ended up with a compromise that you both could live with and the Manzo family seemed to have reached a compromise as well despite my faulty recollections. It was mostly the irony of a fishmonger who can’t get fish at home that stuck with me. Mea culpa.
I have a feeling this is veering towards hijack territory, but I just have to add that I agree that other people can cook (and they should!), but IMHO cooking is an act of love and sometimes you do a nice gesture for those you love. I do acknowledge that I’m biased in my assessment of the situation since I’m passionate about food and come from a culture that doesn’t have nearly as much hangups about odor as many Americans do, but the fish smell just doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. I believe you when you say that cooking food can be nauseating, but maybe if kids were fed fresh fish as kids, they wouldn’t have so much aversion towards them.
The China one is certainly NOT typical. The baguettes and the store wrapped meats. Most people still buy from the fresh market and this was all obviously bought from Carrefour or some other hypermarket. I don’t spend that much per week and I have a LOT of mouths to feed. 
In the book, there’s actually a breakdown of the different food categories and cost for each category. For the German family, beverage cost only came out to $70.17. It was 12 bottles soda water, 10 bottles alcohol-free beer, 6 cartons fruit juice, 18 bottles beer, 4 bottles of wine, and assorted powder for drinks. Oh, and the milk was labeled under the dairy, so add that too. Yes, they do like their drinks.
All of this talk actually got me to pull out the book and flip through it again, and it’s still as great as I remembered it. There’s a lot more photos of the families shopping, cooking, and for one family in Greenland, killing a seal. There’s also lots of articles about culture and food and an article for each family.
Is Part 2 online somewhere or is it only in the book?
I love bell peppers. My fiance either does also or he appreciates not having to cook enough to not complain.
When I get on a crock pot kick (using it at least 5 days a week), I can easily use 10 or so bell peppers a week, and that’s for only 2 people. I always use at least 2 peppers per crock pot meal. If I use yellow and red and green, I’ll use 3 or 4.
They’re fairly inexpensive, they hold up well in the fridge, over long cooking periods, and as leftovers. Oh, and they taste good.
Eat them. 
Seriously - they go well in a ton of things, but are also great just on their own as a snack. Slice them up, maybe with some sort of dip, enjoy. Plus they’re tremendously healthy - huge quantities of vitamins A and C.
I borrowed that book from work a lot, and I would like to buy it. It’s terrific.
I cook lots of stuff that has a strong smell, and even stuff that smells disgusting. Quite often, I put bones in my slow cooker and make stock. Simmering/boiling bones smell like meat that went bad several weeks ago, and the smell is nauseating. And I’m half Sicilian (my father is first generation Sicilian American), so I’m used to strong smelling food.
Fish and shellfish cooking odors, though, are a whole different level of nauseating. There’s making a nice gesture, and then there’s respecting each other’s boundaries. This couple has found out where the wife’s boundaries are, and I suspect that she cooks fish about as often as she can stand to. After all, it would be basically free. My Sicilian born grandfather was a commercial fisherman, and my father grew up eating fish that his father had caught. Fortunately, Grandma Bodoni liked fish and shellfish. My father, however, doesn’t really care for fish very much, and very much prefers beef or pork or chicken.
I definitely agree with you that boundaries should be respected and that each couple should make it for themselves. Food does seem to be a tricky area when it comes to drawing imaginary borders between people.
Perhaps she likes other types of seafood aside from fish, because to live in Italy and not like seafood is like growing up in Kansas City and hating BBQ.
Mayonnaise Sandwich???
I don’t know much about Egyptian cooking, but in Morocco bell peppers are eaten raw in a chopped salad. Yum.
Does the amount spent per week seem outrageous to anyone else? Ten years ago, when I was a teenager doing the shopping for a family of four, our weekly budget was between $100 and $120. Now that I live alone, my personal weekly budget is $40, but I usually spend more like $35. And I live in Los Angeles, a very expensive city!
Oh my god! They eat dogs in Luxembourg!
Hey, I live in Texas, in the Metroplex even, and I hate football.
So THAT’S the secret ingredient in Turkish kebabs! And it looks like they eat framed pictures, too.
I noticed that too. My fiance and I spend about $300 per month on groceries and probably another $80-$120 on dining out. We’ve looked at our budget in case of spontaneous unepmloyment and figured we can knock at least $100 off of that and still eat very well. We would no longer be able to throw away left overs or order pizza on a whim but we wouldn’t be eating cat food or anything either. I can’t imagine having $300 a week for groceries!
I have always loved the smell of cooking stock, and it smells nothing like rotten meat to me. Have you ever smelled rotten meat?!