Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving is a traditional holiday in many countries, but especially in US and Canada.

This tradition started in 1621 when some UK pilgrims went to the “new land”, where nowadays is US, to celebrate a great harvest season at Plymouth. There were about 90 native aborigines (the Wampanoag) that helped the pilgrims with agricultural techniques. The pilgrims, considered the new Americans, were celebrating the God’s charity to produce some food to them eat because in that time, there was a strong winter period  and more than a half of them died for the worst winter they passed by.

From that day on, it’s common in US the Thanksgiving Day and they take this seriously? Every year the whole country stops and offers food and thanks to the harvest and express gratitude for everything. This celebration happens on the fourth Thursday of November in US, but this day just became official in the beginning of 20 Century. In Canada this celebration just had a official date in the end of 19 Century, with the World War I.

The first thing related to food that come in their minds are Stuffed Turkey, Mashed Potatoes and Pumpkin Pie because is a traditional food in Thanksgiving’s celebration – as chocolate is eaten at Easter for us, Brazilians.

In Brazil this religious/thanking holiday is not common and that’s why we don’t have it here, but we do have some catholic holidays like “Nossa Senhora Aparecida”, more known as “Children’s Day”.

Every American sitcom we see, there’s at least one episode about Thanksgiving. As example there’s one episode on ‘Friends’(here) that shows perfectly how important it’s to them, how sad some of them became when what they planned got wrong. Other example is in Gossip Girl (here) where one episode is just about Thanksgiving and shows exactly how much they expect for the Thanksgiving night and the family/friend’s meeting. How anxiously the  Americans get the whole day: they just have to focus on that, get dressed up, make delicious traditional foods and meet the family and friends at night. It’s  the tradition!

                                    

Exotic's Food

The World has a great cultural diversity , like some habits, clothes, drinks e the most important one, Food, this one can be totally different in many countries, it could be tasty, disgusting, different, depends of the country and your taste. I'll talk about some exotic dishes around the world (most of them on Asian Continent).

Fugu (Japan) - Puffer fish meat usually served raw, but inside of fish there is a highly poisonous substance that's resist even while cooking. In 50% to 80% of the cases the ingestion could kill in 24 hours.

Drunken Shrimp (China) - it has to be eaten alive, but shrimps usually react when they're caught so, for this reason, before to be served they need to let them submerged in alcoholic drinks to be easily consumed.

Balut (Philippines) - nothing more than duck's egg, but it is while in progress, in other words is the same that if you eat a fetus, it's lightly cooked and served raw with the shell.

Kopi Luwak (Indonesia, Philippines)- just coffee beans, but the difference it's the way how it is done, these beans are collected on animals feces and even so it is considered the most tasty and expensive coffee in many countries.

Durian (Asian) - It's a fruit easily found in southeast Asian,it has a very bad smell that seems to be  rotten, its smell are compared with rotten onions, used socks and many others smelly stuff.

Casu Marzu (Italy) - a normal cheese, but once more it's the way how is prepared that's strange. Its process of manufacture need of a specific larva of a mosquito, when it's full of these larva’s the cheese is ready, because it's eaten with these larva’s alive.

Another exotic’s food: Cooked Brain’s pig, Shark’s rotten meat, Deer penis wine, Bird's nest soup, etc…

Well, after so many exotic and strange food we think that there is  everything out there and even so this is a little part of many others that's exist around the world. It's essential to find out which food are common in another places because if someday you go outside your city or country in order not to be surprised while you taste something unknown.

research and images are taken from: Here