Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with multiculturalism

Me And Bobby Eat Ghee (freedom's just another word for 'nothing left to eat')

spoobnooble — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 17:25:33 -0800

Would anyone in their right mind eat vegetable ghee, or any kind of ghee, straight from the can? Good day. A while back I posted a question looking for info regarding a minor point in a novel I'm writing. I thank everyone for their input.

So here's another (weirder) question:

In the second half of the novel the narrator (the punk rocker), now in his twenties, has married a Canadian woman of Indian descent -- her family moved to Toronto when she was three. While she is pretty westernised, her diet includes a lot of Indian staples like rice and curry. She tries to introduce her husband to some of the foods her family eats, and he ends up snacking on a certain traditional food that seems natural to him (a white guy who tends to eat mostly fast foods), but in a manner that ends up mortifying his wife and amusing his Indian in-laws.

I had it in my head several years ago that he would develop a taste for eating vegetable ghee straight from the can. The only basing I have for this idea is a commercial I saw several years ago on one of the local multi-ethnic channels in Toronto which included some shots of happy Indian men and women eating what looked like white chunks of vegetable. Upon further inspection, it seems that ghee is a kind of butter made either from dairy or vegetable products.

Not knowing the taste of ghee, I am hesitant to claim that the narrator would start eating ghee 'out of the can' (or jar, as the case seems to be). Then again, when I was a kid I loved eating peanut butter by the spoonful, and some people have told me in no uncertain terms that eating straight peanut butter was disgusting, at least to them.

So is it possible that a westerner who doesn't know better would eat ghee in this manner? Or is there another Indian foodstuff I can substitute? Either way the wife has to be dismayed and/or horrified by her husband's actions, even if he's not doing himself any real harm in eating the food in a non-normal way.

(P.S. As of this writing I still do not have a publisher for this novel. It is possible that I may end up going to Lulu.com to print out copies once it's done. I'm still hoping to publish this thing properly -- four chapters to go! -- but otherwise don't go overboard thinking that you're helping out the next Norman Mailer or Margaret Atwood or whatever. But thanks in advance nonetheless!)

Attraction across races

Big Fat Tycoon — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 08:13:35 -0800

Are you attracted to people of races different from your own? I pose this question not to be inflammatory, but because it's one of those semi-taboo questions that I think might not always be answered honestly or seriously, and I think AskMeFi is one of the better places to pose it.

I'm ethnically Asian, and I'm attracted to white women, for the most part. Now, there could be endless debates as to why that is, but suffice to say I grew up in North America in a mostly white enclave. The problem for me is that I find it very difficult, compared to my white friends, to attract women that I'm actually attracted to -- this issue was brought home when I lived in Asia for a while and discovered that local women found me quite attractive but I didn't usually feel likewise. The same goes for my most recent foray into online personals, where my white friends have garnered a great deal more interest than me. Now, perhaps it's some aspect of my attitude that is causing this, but it seems like it is a factor. An average-looking white man I feel will garner more interest than an equivalently average-looking Asian male in this society. My cousin, also raised in North America, has bumped into similar problems, where women have actually said, "I don't Asians" to his face.

So, in this seemingly increasingly multi-cultural world, is this a natural "prejudice" that still remains in you? If you have particular tastes in this area, are they related to physical factors (look of eyes, skin color) or is it a cultural issue? Do you feel you have a fetishistic interest in other races, if you do find other races attractive? If you aren't attracted to other races, why not? Is this something I just have to accept, since attraction is tied to so many subconscious and irrational factors?

Cross-Cultural Conversation

Kololo — Wed, 16 Feb 2005 14:07:26 -0800

What are some good conversations starters for a first date with someone from a completely different culture (and therefore not likely to have many common reference points re: pop culture, entertainments, sports, the usual chit chat stuff.)?