Foreign to Familiar
by Sarah A. Lanier
Once a young man asked me, “But what do we do if we don’t like the food?”
I said, “You eat it. It’s about the relationship with your hosts. Eating the food is an acceptance of their hospitality, and this has a higher value than the taste of the food.”
The individualist is accustomed to deciding what he or she likes or dislikes. In group-oriented cultures, this is not a priority. In many cases, the people do not even ask themselves the question, “Do I like this particular dish?” They just eat it, enjoying it because it is filling them up, or because of the hospitality. (Page 47)