The food culture of America

1. Introduction
The reasons why I wanted to research the term that I’m interested in American foodstuff. I had an imagination that American foods would be too big, too much, too sweat and too fat but so yammy. That was a true; in fact I sometimes could not finish eating any meal in Minnesota in the same as my friends who went to Minnesota with me. But I could know American foods more when I went to Minnesota in home stay this summer. American people have special dinner and also have long breakfast in a day off that Japanese don’t have them. And then, I was surprised that my host family didn’t answer the phone whenever we had a special dinner even if the phone keeps ringing. I found so many differences between food culture of Japan and America. I researched history of American food culture. So I would like to introduce the food culture below.

2. Research in Japan
The food culture of America developed, accepting it of Native American and a lot of immigrants of many countries. America has so big and so much dishes to use many abundant foodstuffs. For example, beef, corn, bean, fruits, dairy products. In the past, America developed canned, processed foodstuffs and frozen foods. They also mechanized all things because they had a large territory but they had problem a population shortage. So they made the most of theirs time to use the machines. And then, American became to eat a light meal and a snack just like a hamburger, hotdog, fried chicken and French fried.
In Japan, people often eat well-balanced fish, meat, vegetables and so on. Most of the tastes in Japan are weaker than American tastes. Most of Japanese are skinny. I thought that the big physique difference of American and Japanese is related to the food culture.

3. Research in Minnesota
First, canned provisions are famous food in Minnesota. I knew that people of Minnesota had a lot of canned foods. When I went to home stay, there were so many kinds of canned food. For example, they are tomato, turkey, beef, chicken, fish, beans, some vegetable and so on. The reason why there are many canned foods is there is so cold place. So in Minnesota, it is very difficult for people to go out active in winter. Minnesota is a snowy country, so the use of canned foods is now widespread among the general public.
Next, Minnesota also had chocolates and hamburgers. Especially, there were so many hamburger shops. I was taken by my host family away to go to hamburger shops many times. This is what I thought most famous hamburger shop is McDonald’s. That was a true, but my host family and I didn’t go to McDonald’s. I knew that there were not only McDonald’s but also the other famous hamburger shops. And then, they had big hamburger which I could not finish to eat. My host family always ordered potato flies with hamburger. They dipped ketchup doing too much. In Japan, people prefer to salt rather than ketchup but they dipped ketchup after sprinkle salt on potato flies in America. I found in the hamburger shops that is a cause of American people like very strong tasting.
They also had chocolates which people know famous souvenir. Minnesota had lots of chocolates more than Japan. There were lots of kinds of tasting chocolates. The tasting were milk, strawberry, caramel, mint, bitter and so on. There was selling things of chocolates in addition to family pack. There were many chocolates in living room. So I could eat some chocolates any times.
Finally, it was interesting to me that all American restaurants where I went to restaurants gave me a refill many times. The waitress asked for more whenever I drunk a coffee. When I was in Minnesota, I also ate Mexican food with my host mom and dad’s sister. There were some famous restaurants of Mexican food in America. Mexican food is more than American food. We couldn’t finish eating the food, so we took out in our house for my host dad. As usual, I can not take out any food almost of restaurants in Japan, but I could take out all of the food in the restaurant there. It is very nice system. I thought Japan should accept the system. If Japan can, we do not leave anything.

4. Conclusion
I traced the history of American food culture, and then I found that America called a superpower always produced many foods efficiently. So I thought that the facility food culture (for example frozen foods, retort foods and canned foods) made by America. In specially, Minnesota is a pretty cold place as much as the snow lays one or two meters deep so people eat lots of canned foods in winter. So my host mom said it is so important for them who +live Minnesota to have preserved foods in winter. And she showed me canned foods. I was surprised because she had so many kinds of canned foods more than Japanese canned foods.
I found the other point of American foods. That is America have so many kinds of foods of a foreign countries. In fact, there were many kinds of people in Minnesota. When I was in Minnesota, I ate foods of ethnic, Mexican, Italian, Chinese and Japanese. I tried to eat something that I didn’t eat before I went to Minnesota.
America also has a lot of fast foods. Hamburgers, fried potato, chips, fried chicken and so on. Actually, I went to fast food restaurant and shop with my mom and dad many times. They said we usual go to out for eating three or four a week. My family usual goes to out for eating about once a month. Only my family and host family, American people go to out for eating more than Japanese.
Compare the food culture of America and Japanese, American foods were more strong taste than Japanese foods.
I could know history of American food culture in this summer. If I have a next opportunity that I research something, I really would like to study about America or Minnesota again.
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