Non-Americans who have been to the US.. What is the weirdest thing about America that Americans don't realize is weird?

return2ozma@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 302 points –
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Fast food portion sizes. It's out of control. Drinking 1 liter of soda for lunch shouldn't be normalized. BTW most people are super friendly and nice, in Michigan at least.

Oh, and why is all the cheese orange ?

The bad cheese is orange, the good cheese is yellow or white. More seriously, the orange cheese melts at lower temperatures and doesn't separate after melting. It can be good for grilled sandwiches and I'm told you can add small amounts to cheese sauces to prevent them from separating when stored in the fridge without impacting the flavor.

Because a slight orange hue is a mark of good cheese, so fluorescent orange must be even better, right?

At this point it's just tradition, and people in anglo North America don't realise it's not naturally that colour.

Well my favorite cheese is Longhorn Colby and frankly, I don't care what color it is.

Oh boy, if you'd named just about any other cheese, this sentiment would make sense, but Colby gets its orange color from the annatto added to it. Without the annatto, it's very similar to Monterrey Jack.

Michigan isn't as well known for cheese as Wisconsin, Vermont, or New York, but we make incredibly good cheeses that are white, yellow, and some even have red or blue flecks in them. Apparently somewhere in the US, (maybe Ohio or Pennsylvania?) actually makes a more "traditional" Parmesan than most of what Italy exports. Apparently it's creamier, and not so hard. There are seriously entire cheese shops in larger cities where over 50% of the cheese in the store was made in the US.

I just watched a documentary on older Italian food apparently parmesan in Italy was originally creamier and softer.

In my lifetime I’ve watched soda sizes increase until now the “small” is larger than the largest size that was available when I was a kid.

Ahh we need that much liquid to offset the pound of carbs we injested. We're all food addicted. We can stop until we feel bloated and miserable, that's the American version of satiated.