(Part 2) Best products from r/AskAnAmerican

So, like the others, I'm not only flabbergasted, but extremely intrigued by this idea. But, what's more interesting, is that when I go look it up, it see that...

> US Made

WUT? So, at least whats around here is made here. Very interesting.

I will ship you some American bacon if you'll help me coordinate the best shipping option. I'll also include some of the Chicken and Biskit crackers the others are mentioning.

I hope you enjoy the gold as much as I will enjoy my new chicken salt. Seriously, thank you.

If you're at all into classical music, there's shows like almost every day of the week in some church or another, usually cheap (like ten euros) and good. I think this is the website I used last summer, or just keep an eye out for posters while walking around town.

Check the Metro for station and line closures. A year ago they were doing all kinds of construction with station closures, looks like still might be the case.

The Louvre is everything the Louvre is supposed to be, definitely worth the money and whatever time you can spend; although it does get to be a "excuse me, my brain is full" deluge of art after a while.

Second vote for Sacre Cour, interesting neighborhood, excellent views; although not for the faint of heart/scared of heights/claustrophobic.

I went to the Eiffel tower twice on two different trips with the intent of going up to the top, and in both cases gave up in exasperation: too many people, lines and wait too long. Although having recently read For the Soul of France, which has a chapter on how improbable the Eiffel Tower was at the time of its construction, I maybe kinda want to go see it again up close.

My honest American perspective is that Paris is over-touristed, and not my favorite part of France. French people aren't unfriendly; the French people in Paris who deal with tourists all day long are unfriendly, and who can blame them? If your plans allow you to get out of the city for a day, maybe try taking a train somewhere an hour outside of Paris. I personally love riding on trains, and I love the midsize and small European cities that aren't really primary tourist destinations. The challenge can be that the train stations are often away from city centers. Perhaps Orléans? I spent a few hours there once -- ate lunch while on a bike tour -- and found it very quiet and charming for its size, and it looks like the one of the Orléans SNCF stations is pretty close to the cathedral/center.

If you want to not look like an American, don't smile in greeting, or wear white socks, and dress more formally and conservatively than you would otherwise.

Eat a pain au chocolat and a baguette (better yet "une baguette tradition" or "speciale") with French butter every day, preferably from a small side-street boulangerie-patissier. Don't forget to say "Bonjour" to the boulanger and other shopkeepers. Wander into a Carrefour and wander the aisles, especially the cheese aisle.

FUCK EVERYONE'S RECOMMENDATIONS

Don't listen to them (ok Joy of Cooking is good).

What you really need is Best of America's Test Kitchen. They put one out every year, not only does it have technique descriptions, equipment and supply recommendations, it just has awesome recipes. The "Cooking for Two" series is also awesome for couples.

Then Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

And my personal favorite just because I have met the chef and he had my absolute favorite restaurant I have ever been to... Homegrown. I love that guy and love that cookbook.

The best cookbooks are one's that include technique descriptions. Any random online site can give you a list of ingredients but it is harder to get good recommendations about technique.

Julia Child does an amazing job of including technique descriptions. I specifically and highly specifically recommend her Pan De Mie recipe if you ever want to bake bread. Just get that cookbook and call it a day.

> "Duvet" is just what the Brits call a comforter.

I think there's a subtle difference. A duvet usually needs a cover (a duvet cover), whereas a comforter doesn't. With a duvet, you can remove and wash the cover just as easily as a top sheet, hence eliminating the need for a top sheet. With a comforter, you can't wash it easily, which is why you're supposed to have a top sheet between you and the comforter. Top sheets are terrible though, so using a duvet instead of a comforter is clearly superior. You can also get duvet covers of various weights/materials and change them out to match the season. I use heavier covers in the winter for extra warmth, and lighter in the summer.

My system: Dog, duvet (w/ cover), me + wife, fitted sheet, mattress pad, mattress w/ pillow top, bed frame, space, floor.

And I use these to hold the fitted sheet onto the mattress, because my wife's tossing & turning pulls the fitted sheet off of the mattress almost nightly without them.

Youtube also. Find a random "10 things I learned about American while visiting". First, the caveat "I love America, BUT..." then 10 things they don't like about the US, and nothing they actually do like, other than the caveat that they, for no apparent reason, love America. It doesn't come across as love, it comes across as an attempt to deflect return criticism.

If you come to the US and the only things worth mentioning were negatives, I'm gonna come away with the impression you really didn't like the US regardless of your proclamations of love.

The rare balanced video is a treasure. Or in the case of one Danish exchange student, two videos 10+, 10-.

In any case, I appreciate chatting with the people that are interested in cultural differences without being entirely negative. Thanks for participating!

You might find this Australian woman's experience
interesting, as a fellow cultural explorer.

> I’m wondering is the reason for this because Americans prefer that kind of chocolate?

Chocoholic here.

I'm fond of Ghirardelli, a San Francisco brand which was recently acquired by Lindt. It was the third oldest chocolate company in the United States (incorporated in 1852) and its chocolate is on par with some of the best I've had in Europe.

I'm also fond of Guittard Chocolate, if you can find it. They supply the chocolate to See's Candies, and they're basically a bulk supplier--which means you'll really only find it at baking supply stores such as Williams-Sonoma. (So that means the best thing to do is buy a small mould, carefully melt the chocolate bars and pour your own moulds or make your own chocolate covered candies.) It blows the socks off of Nestlé, though Nestlé is my go-to for chocolate for chocolate chip cookies.

You also find a lot of local chocolate makers in the United States; Raleigh has its own chocolate maker, for example, though thanks to concerns over my waistline I haven't tried them. Yet. (I suspect, based on what I've heard, that the quality of their chocolate is on par with the best local chocolatiers in Europe.)

We also get some brands of chocolate imported from Europe; most grocery stores around here carry Toblerone, and we have a Lindt outlet at the local mall. (I can't buy them because to me, a bag of 30 Lindt truffles is one serving--then I crawl into bed, sick.)

----

The problem with chocolate is that to make really good chocolate you need the best, freshest ingredients and a near fanatical attention to detail. Companies like Hershey's, Mars and Reeces, along with Cadbury, often cut corners here--and so the quality of their chocolate ranges from fair to good (though I think Dove chocolate, made by Mars, is actually pretty good). (Yes, I know, Cadbury used to be very good, but then they got bought out--and now their candies are on par with Hershey's.)

So I don't think there are any logistical limits to making really good chocolate; just economic ones.

Good luck with that one. They're in Arizona and the only grocery store to sell it here in the DC suburbs stopped carrying it a couple years ago. I got together with a couple friends and ordered a couple dozen from peppers.com, along with some others (I probably got on a list for ordering a few hundred bucks of hot sauce). It was pretty cheap per bottle to buy so many, but it'll be more expensive for you (if you can get it at all). It also has Red Scotch Bonnet and Orange Habanero peppers. And a little honey, garlic, onions, soy sauce, ginger, & white pepper.

They make an even hotter version called Cauterizer with all Scorpion peppers instead of Scotch Bonnet. It's pretty crazy.

It's named 1498 because that's the year Columbus first landed on Trinidad.

Another of my favorites is Tropical Pepper Company's Caribbean Scotch Bonnet hot sauce. It's a little fruitier, so I only recommend it for white meat, but it's amazing with a chicken/shrimp/white fish & rice dish. It's got a bit of heat, but not too much.

I've worked in food service for years, I'm currently in fine dining, and (as I mentioned) I have about 40 hot sauces at my house. My opinion on food is worth considering. I have several hot sauces you can't even buy in the US.

https://heartbreakingdawns.com/1498-scorpion-pepper/

https://www.amazon.com/Tropical-Pepper-Co-Scotch-Caribbean/dp/B00TIYYMS0

If you haven't, feel free to join us at /r/hotsauce /r/hotones & /r/spicy for more recommendations.

Ernest Hemingway never wrote anything above a 7th grade level, yet his works were at one time considered masterpieces of minimization. By now his writings are quite dated, but you might see if you can enjoy the style. Some of his more famous novels were:




The Sun Also Rises
A Farewell to Arms
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Old Man and the Sea

In terms of books you might actually enjoy reading, I'd suggest Dove, the true tail of a 16 yr old boy who set out to solo sail around the globe. Some others I read at about that time would include:

• Treasure Island
  
  
• Sea Wolf
  
  
• Robinson Crusoe
  
  
• White Fang
  
  
• The Hobbit (which may not help with English at all)
  
  
• Watership Down
  
  
• The Call of the Wild
  
  
• The Grapes of Wrath
  
  Some of those are old enough that they should be available for free and most nearly any US library should have most of them.
  

We use a Gizmo like this one. It's fine for our purposes: only for calling, and has GPS. It's dead simple and works well enough. I've noticed the accuracy of the GPS can vary a bit, but most of the time works pretty well. Some people like more functionality or some other features, but it's served us well.

I say shop around for the best combination of features at the price point you want.

OK, I'm gonna go full Murica' here so be warned.


There's many different forms of nationalism. The ones that are being referred to in relation to this conversation is civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism.


The US developed to adopt a form known as civic nationalism (at least so today in modern times) where it is simply the love of your country. It is grounded on the principle of a union of many different people. We are a very young country and we're a "new" group of people called Americans. We don't have the same millenniums of history that much of the rest of the world have. All we really have are each other and a symbol to stand behind that binds us together. So while Europeans are bound by ethnicity - a single place, a single culture, a single identity, a single group of people; we are who are from many ethnicities and places all around the world are bound by the idea of multiculturalism. There is no overwhelming single major ethnicity in America and that flag represent the many people from all all over the world that now inhabits the U.S. This is a nation of immigrants - there are only a select few that can truly call themselves non-immigrant and those are of course the natives that had been here long before European settlers arrived. So what do you do when you have all these different people from all walks of life in a single place? What can you do so that there won't conflict between us due to our differences? You give them something to stand behind - symbol of some sorts, and that is the Star Spangled Banner.


Civic nationalism (or American Nationalism as you referred to it in your question) doesn't carry the same amount of potential danger of that ethnic nationalism has. Europeans have always been embroiled in ethnic nationalism and in many cases, still are today and yes this has cause two world wars that killed tens of millions of people. As we learned from history some of the underlying causes was sense of superiority can cause territorial expansion, subjugation of "inferior groups of people" (Imperial Japan) or even flat out genocide (Nazi Germany). That is why when Europeans look at us, they feel creeped out and uncomfortable because they had a bad history of nationalism, while most of us on the other hand, don't really quite understand nationalism like they do. To them we are just simply indoctrinating little kids into fascism. Or that we're committing idolatry, as in we are worshiping some sort of an idol. And you kinda have to understand where they're coming from because the reasons why they feel that way towards us are legitimate because ... Well yeah, ethnic nationalism has indeed lead to some pretty horrible events.


That being said, civic nationalism too does carry it's own dangers as well, examples of which includes our awful treatment of the native Americans or perhaps further away from home like in the Philippines. It is especially dangerous when someone interprets it the wrong way as well because it can easily become fascism instead. Also, that's not to say that America doesn't have a portion of our population who are also embroiled in ethnic nationalism as well and have certain racist viewpoints. And of course, yes, we sure we do brag about how great we are with a smug sense of superiority quite often.


Regardless, the pledge of allegiance is a way to instill a sense of patriotism and cohesion among Americans because it's not meant to divide but to unite everyone within standing republic, a single nation that is indivisible that believes in the principles of liberty and justice for all.


Most people stopped reciting the pledge by the time they're a high school freshman anyways, and most of the hate are by people who aren't necessarily against the pledge, but wants the "under god" part removed as it doesn't really reflect the multiculturalism of America and that it's simply something that is left over from the cold war. Those who wants to do away with it completely are the same ones that think similarly to those like the Europeans who compare it to the Nazi salute (which I don't blame them because it does seem like so depending on the perspective).


My personal (and bias) perspective of this issue as an immigrant to this country is that... yes, it did integrate me into the American society. It helped me assimilated into a place foreign to me and eased me into my new home. So I guess you can say it was indoctrination, but i also would say that it's not necessarily a bad thing either. It worked as it intended to as it was meant to instill as sense of patriotism. So long as it remains to be the "right kind" of civic nationalism that we have right now, I don't see much harm in it at all. Once it becomes a "we are superior to these people and they should all die" mentality, then that's when you raise the red flags. However, I don't see that happening at all during this day and age.

edit: I highly suggest Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism by Michael Ignatieff, I read it a while back at my campus library and the source for the info above. Or if you're not too big into reading then here's a wiki overview

If I had not lived in the UK for a while I would not know that electric kettles existed. We do have them here and I got one because I do pour over coffee in a Chemex instead of in a standard coffee machine, but they are not remotely as common as in the UK.

Growing up, we did have something called a Hot Shot. It's essentially the same thing except it's less water, like just a cup, and it's meant for dispensing straight into a mug such as for hot cocoa or instant oatmeal or something.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000C3QSPQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_OUVTDb26Q1VVA

This one has two sprayers at different angles, plus it uses both hot AND cold water. The front sprayer is most useful for women, but it could probably spray your balls if that works 😂

American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot

https://www.amazon.com/Sunbeam-Water-Dispenser-Black-006131/dp/B000C3QSPQ/

Sort of like a personal electronic kettle, which heats a large mug-full of water in a minute or so.

They last about 3-5 years worth of daily use and Sunbeam can't seem to figure out that it needs an extra inch or so of clearance for today's larger mugs.

I'd be weirded out if bidets suddenly exploded, but not if it was in popularity. I have one of these at home and it's awesome...makes me hate traveling though, a few days away from that and you really start to miss it.