BEING A HOST TO YOUR
FOREIGN FRIENDS
Table of Content
Introduction
Raymond and Lisa have talked about quite a bit of interesting points and suggestions in their conversation on TV as to how we can best host our foreign guests to Taiwan. So I thought I should touch upon some points that I believe could add to their thoughtful comments in this area. In this column, I will focus my discussion with you on some ideas about bringing your foreign guests to enjoy your favorite local cuisine.
A matter of diplomatic protocol
Diplomatic protocol is the set of proper decorum observed by international representatives when they are formally interacting, such as the heads of state from various countries meeting at the United Nations. One such protocol relates to what kind of cuisine the hosting country should serve its visiting guest: The hosting country should serve food that best represents its cuisine or culinary tradition.
This can be a serious matter on the international diplomatic level. I recall a diplomatic blunder committed by a major university in the States where I used to work. The university's President threw a big-time dinner reception for the King of Spain, who was visiting the university at the time. The chef of the catering service that the university retained did not seem to have much international experience and he or she settled on adoring the dinner with a menu of Spanish cuisine, much to the horror of the university's protocol officer, particularly because the latter found out about the Spanish menu after all the ingredients have been ordered! The protocol officer cancelled the order and changed the Spanish menu to an American menu.
I do not know whatever happened to that poor chef thereafter, but the point of this story is that it is good form that you treat your foreign guests with the cuisine or food that best represents your local culinary culture. (After all, what is the point for the host to feed the visitor a cuisine that the latter knows very well as a native, e.g., the King of Spain to Spanish cuisine?)
On a personal note, I always want to find out and enjoy the local cuisine of the places I visit because it allows me to better understand its culture. Food and how people relate to food is an essential part of any culture. I always cherish people who bring me to explore their culture's local cuisine. On the other hand, I certainly would not appreciate as much if my host in a foreign country takes me to a Chinese restaurant or a cafe that serves American style hamburgers. I do not go to a foreign culture for food that I can easily get at home.
Knowing the preference (and limit) of your guest
While many foreign guests would love to try your local cuisine, some others may be very, shall I say, rigid or stubborn about what they eat, for various reasons. Some people do not eat certain things because of their religion, because they somehow get turned off by them, or because they simply do not want to take any risk. A student on my study tour to Taiwan last year, an East Indian American, of all people, excused himself from every meal we had in Taipei (and we later found out that he ate most of his meals at the McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, or the likes).
Moreover, while your guests may want to try your local cuisine, they may have their preference or limit as to what they would try and what they would not. So it is very important that you ask them in the beginning about their preference or limit. These are some questions that may help you identify their preference.
"Are you adventurous?" (To find out if they are willing or able to try everything.)
"Is there anything you don't eat?"
"What is your favorite Chinese food?"
"Are you in the mood for something hot and spicy (or any other type of food you have in mind)? (Some people's stomach can't take hot and spicy food, so this question can give you some good indication.)
"Or would you prefer something light?" (meaning dishes that do not come in think sauce or strong taste)
"Are you in the mood for some very nice noddle (or any specific type of dishes, such as seafood or vegetarian cuisine and so on)?" This is when you want to find out the specific favorite.
Either way, the best practice is that you ask them very clearly before deciding where to take your foreign guests to.
And, when you order, make sure you order enough variety particularly when you have several or more than several guests at the table. This should ensure that if a few dishes are objectionable to a couple of the guests, you still have enough choices to go around the table for them. If possible, explain what you are thinking about when ordering. If you are not sure, ask the waiter to explain the dishes for you while you translate some of the key ingredients for your guests.
Let me share with you a seemingly interesting observation about the "importance" of rice; yes, our good old white rice. I observed that one of the American girls on my study tours to Taiwan this summer always asked for a bowl of rice as part of her meal. It may seem usual enough for us Chinese. But I do not think it is part of her everyday diet; she is ethnically Jewish American. So I paid some attention to her behavior at the dining table. I noted that she would try a little of this or that dish in the beginning and usually she would settle on just a couple of the dishes.
This is my interpretation: Rice is familiar enough for her, or any American. So she used rice as her base knowing that she may not like any of the dishes we ordered because Taiwan was a place totally new to her. In other words, if she really stuck with no choice in reference to the dishes, she at least had her rice to fill her up. My point here is this: Don't under-estimate the importance of rice in such a context.
People's relation to what they eat
Any self-proclaimed culinary philosopher can tell you "you are what you eat." Food, and how we relate to our food, can tell people a lot about us or our culture.
I may be entirely wrong on this point, but my years of observation have led me to believe that many people in the West have tended to maintain (or want to maintain) a rather "removed" or abstract relationship with the source of the food they eat. I can offer at least two examples to illustrate my observation.
First, the "removed" relationship between many Westerners and the source of their food seems to be expressed in the vocabulary they have for food. The words beef, lamb, and pork are some of these examples. In Chinese, these words would be niu-ju or "cow meat," yang-ju or "goat meat," chu-ju or "pig meat," respectively. I am sure you see the difference now. The Chinese word for "beef" (niu-ju or cow meat), for example, makes a direct reference to the source of the meat, that is cow the animal; but "beef" does not make such a direct reference.
Second, the ways in which many Western people prepare their food also help them remove from the source of what they eat.
Many if not most restaurants in the West serve fish in the form of fillet whereby you do not see the whole fish. A colleague once told me how disoriented she was when she ate this duck liver petite in France: "I didn't even know what I was actually eating because they made it look so different from the source." The waitress at a local restaurant on Yangmingshan once asked me if they should remove the head of the chicken from the free-range chicken (tu-chi) dish before serving. Well, she knows that my foreign guests could not deal with looking into the eyes of the dead chicken on their plate. In fact, a few of the young American women at my table screamed quietly when they saw those steamed shrimps with their head still intact! Well, after my explanation, the woman who made the most noise in the beginning ended up eating the most shrimps; it's because the shrimps were very fresh.
So what is important for us to know in terms of what to order for our guests is their attitude toward this aspect of their food. Again, it is a good practice to explain a little bit of this aspect of our culinary culture to them. For example:
"The clarity of the eyes indicates the fish's freshness. So we (or Chinese restaurants) often serve fish with the head on to indicate its freshness."
Specifically, you may ask your guests if they want the chicken, fish, or shrimp dish be served with the head on, in the local or traditional way, or with the head removed. You have to make a good observation of your guest's facial expression. If it indicates a hint of unease on the part of your guest, it is a good idea that you either do not order anything with its head on or quietly ask the waiter to remove the head before serving.
How much is too much or enough?
As Lisa and Raymond suggested, try not to overburden your guests by packing too much tourist stops on your guests' daily travel schedule because you can easily wear them out to the point where they cannot enjoy the trip anymore. This is the exact principle you should observe closely when it comes to ordering food for your guests.
Chinese are known to be very hospitable to their guests and we always take pleasure to go out of our way to please our guests. One of the ways we express our hospitality is order a great deal of food at dinner, for example. Of course, there may also be an element of showing off or gaining face before the guests. Or, we do not want our guests to think that we are mean or cheap to them. Well, all of these are not bad intention in and off themselves.
However, not everyone can eat a great deal in a sitting. Some people may not have a good appetite after a long flight or a long day of walking around the city on foot in a hot and humid weather. Of course, some people can become very hungry after the same activity ("I can swallow a horse!"). So you should be very conscious about how much to order. It is not difficult to figure out. You can ask your guests directly.
"How hungry are you?"
"Are you ready to eat?"
If your guests respond by saying something like "I'm ready to eat" or "I think I can eat now," it means that they can have a reasonably full meal. Of course, "I'm very hungry" means exactly that. Otherwise, they will find some way to tell you. For example, if your guests say "I would like to have something light," "Just a quick bite would be fine with me," or "I'm fine with a snack," then it means that they are not really hungry.
Either way, one common practice in the States is that peoper order just about a dish per guest at the table. How big or small each dish should be is hard to estimate but this one-dish-per-person formula is generally reasonable. You can ask each guest to pick his or her favorite:
"Why don't you each tell me your personal favorite?"
Or you can ask each of them directly:
"Please tell me which dish you like the most?"
"Anything that seems interesting to you [referring to the menu]?"
Very likely, most of your guests would leave the choice to you. But their response should give you enough information to work with in coming up with the menu for the meal.
From my personal perspective, I think there is another reason as to why the hosts should not go too overboard by over-ordering food. Some folks may not appreciate the sight of wasting a lot of food at the table. On a subtle and perhaps more profound level, the guests may even think that the host is wasteful and not very good at coming up with a good estimate as to what is needed or even proper. To tell you the truth, I would not feel entirely comfortable if my new business partner overseas orders a quantity of food that is obviously un-consumable by the number of people at the table. I would question my new associate's judgment on the budgetary level.
Of course, I am not encouraging anyone to under-serve his or her guests. A little bit more than the guests can consume and enjoy comfortably is to me a good gauge.
Five-star hotel restaurant or mom-and-pop shop?
The nature of the occasion and the budget are two basic yet important principles in guiding your choice as to where you would or should bring your foreign guests to for the meal. Because I interact with both students on a budget (meaning they do not have a lot of money to spend), as well as corporate executives with a deep pocket, like many of you do, I often see the two sides of this matter.
If you have a corporate expense account and the guests are VIPs to your company, it is of course easy to conclude that you should bring them to some well-known establishments in town. ("I know this place that is really good.")
But in case you have some personal friends from abroad and either you or your friends are on a budget, then it would make sense that you take your guests to places where all of you would feel comfortable with on the budgetary level. (Would you like to try some local stuffs?)
Either five-star hotel restaurant or mom-and-pop noddle shop can give your foreign guests a wonderful experience. You just have to see who you are dealing with and what their expectation is. I once took some adult students from New York to this small noddle shop in the night market at Kung Guan for "Shan-hsi tao-hsiao mien." I made the point of telling them ahead of time that it was just a mom-and-pop noddle shop and it was not like a regular or fancy restaurant. I did that because I did not want to raise their expectation too high. A couple of them in fact said, "I'm opened-minded," which meant that they would willing to explore the unknown.
One of these adult students is an Italian American working for a French Internet company who has a taste for exotic food. You know what? The moment this adult student sank his teeth into his "tao-hsiao mien" with beef, he exclaimed, "Wow, this is the best noddle I've had in my life!"
How truthful the statement was is up to anyone's guess. But I think (and felt at that point) that he meant what he said. Remember this fact, the student of mine has had and can afford a lot of good food at restaurants with much better and sophisticate decor, menu, and service. But this brief noddle encounter in a mom-and-pop shop has given him a fond memory. In fact, he is still in touch with me after the study tour and he often exclaimed to me about how hard it has been on him in enduring what he now thinks is the (lower) quality of Chinese food in New York!
My point is, it does not take much to make your guest's culinary experience in Taiwan a memorable one, for as long as it is properly done.
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