12. Food and gastronomy - P

Junk food has no nutrition value, it’s not healthy and it’s very high in sugar and in fat (lot of calories), despite this many people really love it. Americans are often overweight because of their lifestyles. They love junk food, don’t walk as much as Europeans because they like to drive their nearly everywhere. They kinda remind me of my mother but that’s a different story. Also, Americans tend to eat large portions of food at each meal. In addition in restaurants they serve more than a person can eat and between meals Americans like to have snacks. Now some examples of junk food: We have elephant ears in the Czech Republic as well, however, we usually don’t eat them with cinnamon and sugar on top but with garlic, cheese and ketchup. Bagels with cream cheese are like a round flat bread roll with the middle cut out. They come in many flavours. From soft drinks Coca-Cola is only the begging, there are many more brands, such as Pepsi, Sprite, 7-up or Mountain Dew. Pancakes are served with maple syrup and stacked on the plate rather than rolled up individually. The most popular way to eat them is with melted butter and maple syrup, which is made from the sap from maple tree, mixed with water, sugar and corn syrup. Chocolate chip cookies are like every other ordinary cookie, only little bits (chips) of semi-sweetened chocolate are added. It’s said that once you taste one, you’d trade your little brother for another. Next is mom’s apply pie, pie is a standard dessert at Thanksgiving or Christmas celebrations. PBJ sandwich is prepared by laying out two slices of bread, then we spread a generous amount of peanut butter on one slice and of jelly on the other one. After that we should pick up one of the slices and lower it onto the other one, so the peanut butter and jelly meet. Chips and salsa consist of corn tortilla chips, which are usually cheese flavoured and crispy, salsa is a spicy hot sauce. Then there are all-you-can-eat lunches specials, people say that the best ones are at Sunday brunches.

Finally, some American specialists: Chili is a goulash-like combination of ground beef, red kidney beans and a special mixture of herbs and spices including cumin and chili-pepper. Chop suey means mixed fragments in Chinese. This is a preparation of meat or seafood combined with mushrooms, bean sprouts, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots and onions all served over rice. Jambalaya is a traditional New Orleans Creole dish made from rice, tomatoes, onions, peppers and poultry or fish. New England clam chowder is a thick soup made of clams, onions, potatoes and celery cooked in heavy cream. Shoofly Pie is a rich dessert from the Pennsylvania Dutch area of the US. Tradition has it that this pie was given its unusual name because its strong sweet smell attracted flies away from other food.