Becca wrote on Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:00:51 -0500:

??>> if polenta is dressed and served on the table, people
??>> usually eats directly from the table.
??>> Very afro: many african dishes are made to be consumed
that
??>> way, everybody eating from the same "big dish", be it the
??>> table or a bowl.

B> Cajuns do this, here in Louisiana. We have boiled dinners
B> where everything is cooked in the same pot, but all of the
B> ingredients are not added at the same time.

B> In seasoned water, we cook either crawfish or shrimp,
B> andouille sausage, potatoes, ears of corn, onions and
B> garlic. The food is dumped on picnic tables that are
B> covered with newspapers.

That's fine and I don't mind people serving themselves from a
central pot either but I find transferring food from a communal
pot to the mouth to be distasteful. I'm told that some places in
China have the custom of reversing chopsticks when transferring
food.


James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not