Le Diner Exotique

Sunday, November 27th, 2011

Today was a day that I was quite looking forward to: the exotic lunch with all of the other Rotary exchange students. The purpose of the day was to allow the host parents and other students experience dishes that are unique to your country. And I swear, I live in the hardest country for that. Because, despite the stereotypes, most American families actually CAN'T be found eating 2 out of 3 meals a day at McDonald's. And there was also not supposed to be any way to heat things up, and we couldn't bring desserts. So really, what does one make for an exotic dinner when we really just eat food that every other country created? Italian, Mexican, sure. But never really food that one would point out and be, "That is TOTALLY American." But, thanks to my trip to the American Food Store with Eddy and Pascale the previous week, I had the ingredients to make PB&Js. I just bought three loaves of bread and two jars of jelly, someone brought knives, someone brought napkins, and voila! An American meal!

We had to leave pretty early, considering the train ride to Brussels is about an hour and a half, and we were supposed to get there by 11 to set up. Gettine there was actually a bit confusing, considering the fact that the salle that the lunch was being hosted at was no really within walking distant of the train station. i was quite confused by all of the details, but luckily people had copies of the instructions on their iPods or something like that, and we got really lucky and literally walked out of the station as our correct bus pulled up. Once we got to the correct stop, about 25 minutes later, there were supposed to be signs posted everywhere to lead us to the salle. Which is French for, well, bascially hall. But alas, we got there and there were no signs. WE walked a little ways towards this builing that looked like it had potential, but then all of the doors were locked. So there just like 50 exchange students, standing around wondering where exactly to go. But then someone came out of the salle, and lead us to it. It was in that one building we thought it was in, but on the other side and the only wya you got to the other side was through this driveway that was blocked by a barrier, like a parking barrier. Maybe it should have been obvious for us to check the other side, but of course, it wasn't.

After waiting about another 20 minutes in the cold (apparently they weren't "ready" for us... Even though there were a couple of students already inside. I feel like they just wanted us to suffer), we finally got inside and everyone starting setting up. My group pulled a typical American move. After spreading out our flag on the table for some decoration, we decided it might be good to actually make the sandwiches, so with our group of 5 and with the help of others, we kind of carelessly slapped together some PB&J's. We had people doing jelly, people doing peanut butter, and people cutting the sandwiches in half. We made about 60 halves in like 5 minutes or less. The best part was that after the quick making of the sandwiches, the flag was completely covered in sticky jelly and peanut butter. Whoops, guess we should have thought before we started making snadwiches on top of it! After they were made, someone came up with the brilliant idea to put them in the shape of "USA", just to make them look a bit better. And with that, as well as conveniently placing the napkins over the worst parts of spilt jelly, it didn't look half bad!

The PB&J construction line! :)

Just someone's artistic view of the American section.

Our classy sandwiches!

All in all, even with most students' lack of cusine skills, the last minute-ness of everything, and the fact that tons of people brought dishes that needed to be warmed up when there was one small oven, the display ended up being really cool. Each country was represented with their own food and decorations. Really, some people went all out. All of the Mexicans had traditional Mexican clothing on, the Chileans made a hanging sign with their country's name on it, and the Aussies had all of these tacky, but cute, Australian crowns and a huge blow-up kangaroo. I actually realized that other than bringing flags and the food, the Americans were woefully unpatriotic. Some Canadian brought a whole bunch of temporary tattoos with Canadian flags and maple leaves and such, and actually a lot of us put those on. Mine was justified, being Canadian and coming from an international rotary district, but the others just thought they were cute. Let me tell you, I think that we confused a whole bunch of people when we replied that no, we were American.

On the left: Katie and Lauren
On the right: Me, Emmaline, and Chealsea sporting the Canadian flags, even though we are all American! :)

Even though technically the whole eating part was supposed to start at 12, the set up didn't probably finish until 1, and of course everyone had to go around once to look at the food, (the tables were in a big U), and then all of the parents and host siblings got to serve themselves first. Bascially, the whole time that was happening, I was walking around inside of the U looking at people's food and sneaking servings whenever a Rotex (rebounds who plan fun activites for us...) wasn't looking. And boy, was the food delicious! Out of everyone, I was most excited for the Mexicans' dishes. And it did not disappoint. The guacamole and salsa and beans and homemade chips, num num. I also ate this really good Finnish wrap thing, tons of mini slices of grilled cheese (it's funny the things you miss on exchange...), some empanada from a South American country, this delicious rice the girl from Hawaii made, and a caramel chocolate brownie thing that one of my Australian friends made. I am so glad she "broke" the rules and brought a dessert, because I literally died and went ot heaven after eating it, it was so good. I throughly stuffed myself, and by the time it was actually our turn to go and get food, I was full. A lot of people seemed very hesitant by our PB&J's, but by the end of the day they were all gone. I half suspect that it was really all of the exchange students who ate them, but at least we could bring joy into someone's life :) Probably the biggest hit among the the host families was the Aussie food, and among the students the Mexican food, the PB&Js, the MacNCheese, and the grilled cheese. Of course, this just mainly due to the Americans who oddly miss the horrible, but-so-good-tasting-that-it-doesn't-matter food, and are constantly craving Mexican food and something that has a little bit of spice to it (really, Belgians like things bland...).

And just for those of you that are interested, the American dishes people came up with include, but are not limited to: PB&J's, Thanksgiving dinner leftovers, Hawaiian rice, grilled cheese and tomato soup, pumpkin soup, lots of MacNCheese, Southwest Salad (just basically a salad with ranch, which they do NOT have here...), Cowboy Caviar (whatever that is...), and hot dogs. Interesting variety, no?

I got back from Brussels around 7, and after stuffing myself and lunch and throughly enjoying a Starbucks before leaving, I wasn't even hungry enough to eat dinner. A successful day, I must say!