The Tamales thread reminded me of this.

First time I travel to Boston, my MIL makes my wife's favorite meal, homemade Baleadas, fresh flour tortillas, homemade refried beans, real mantequilla from Honduras (literally means butter, but in Honduras it's more of a Crema), and real queso from Hondiras crumbled on it. You fold it in half and eat it like a quesadilla.

As most probably know Latin culture is different, my wife takes a verbal bearing if I fix my own plate. Or put my plate in the sink. So naturally my wife fixes my plates and keeps asking if i want ground turkey on it...,"do you eat yours with ground turkey"?. "Of course not", she replies. So I decline multiple times.

Anyways, after 2 of these, and a few other bits like pork and rice, I'm stuffed, dinner is over and everyone makes their way from the table, my wife tells me how disappointed my mom is and that I disrespected her for not eating what she cooked for me. I say, "I just had two pounds of food, wtf are you talking about". "The turkey, she cooked that for you cause she knows white people like ground ground turkey, and you didn't didn't touch it."

"First off, that's ignorant, and second, WTF likes ground turkey besides body builders and weirdos"?

We had an understanding that just cause I'm white from the South, we have Latin cuisine there as well. Her mom is over it now, I think.

Was my introduction into the sheer seriousness of seemingly meaningless things Latin folks get upset over I'm still learning too.

Next time one of everything honkie.

I don't believe this white boy has ever seen ground turkey, much less eaten it, in his entire life.

Nobody likes ground turkey. Not even people that eat it and especially once they've tried it.

Latin social etiquette can be subtle. A foreigner can easily faux pas and not know it. Memories are also very long in that culture.

quote:

Originally posted by Krazeehorse:
Next time one of everything honkie.

Words to live by

quote:

Originally posted by darthfuster:
Latin social etiquette can be subtle. A foreigner can easily faux pas and not know it. Memories are also very long in that culture.

There was no subtlety in my experience. An old girlfriend moved to my city from Puerto Rico. When I met her mother she said to my girlfriend "you may as well break up now because you're not marrying a white boy."

White people like ground turkey? I've never heard that stereotype before.

Nice of her to give it the old college try, though.

Great story...

Why all the ground turkey hate? I do use it for my Tex-Mex when I am eating alone. The MRS and MIL prefer chicken/pork/shrimp fajitas.....but when on my own I will eat turkey burritos damn near daily

It's not bad....the no-fat cheese is what really sucks....pretty sure it's not cheese.

I never spoke a word to my MIL.

She didn't understand a word of English.

When I was about 13, I had a friend who had a friend from Argentina. One day, this friend of a friend's mom offered to drive us somewhere. When my friend got in the car, he automatically muttered 'thank you'. Then I got in the car. Boy, the mom came unglued at that! She yelled at me for 5 minutes about how rude it was for me to get in her car without saying anything. Years later, after living in Uruguay and Argentina, I finally realized the seriousness of my offense.

We were having a BBQ one day, and a few middle aged ladies, late 40s maybe early 50s was sitting at the table with my MIL just casually chatting when one of them called her Ana...

"You are not my husband or my parents so you will never call me Ana again, it will be Senora Ana", which is what everyone besides her kids call her.

Heaven forbid they called her Ana!

Dead ass serious this woman knew she f'd up. They are all Latin so she knew she shouldn't say a word.

When in their domain I follow customs. And boy do they hate it when they are at my house. The learn quickly what Southrrn etiquette is lol.

My SIL would have thought I abused her when I made her take a cookie away from my daughter before dinner...we ain't in Boston no more.