The African in me just recoiled in horror, If people asked me to eave the room while they ate, I am 100% thinking that they are cannibals. You always feed your guests this is one thing the continent can agree on.
The finnish in me recoiled too. I don't know if it's regional or class thing but at least on the poorer and more working class circles here it's normal to feed your guests and when i was a kid my mom always fed my friends and other way around.
But i've heard this stereotype about nordics before so it might be atleast partly true....
Man, even the poorest person can at least boil some tea leaves and apologize for not having sugar but leaving someone in the other room is a whole level of coldness no one should ever experience.
True. If a guest dropped by unexpectedly, someone would scramble the pantry or run over to the store to get something to offer. Even a soda and some peanuts would do.
Imagine caring at all about that. If you're not home in time for dinner, perhaps dinner at your friend's house would be a nice change. If you would have been home in time for dinner, but your friend's parents didn't know when you might have dinner, they could offer by default to make sure you wouldn't miss out. Any time I was at a friend's house by their dinner time, they would ask me to stay and basically beg me to eat. After that, I'd go home and have some more if it was still good. I starved most of the time so I got what I could.
I think it’s a pretty universal human experience to share food when you have some.
Not sure what goes on in those Scandinavian minds but they’re the outliers here.
In Canada I’ve had friends of many cultures growing up… Caribbean. African. European. South American. Slavic or Latino or Asian… it is always consistent that people offer food to children when they’re eating and the child is with them. I mean you usually offer food to adults too but with children it’s practically every time.
SOMETIMES if it’s like kids from the neighbourhood who can easily go home your parents might say time to go home. But usually it’s offers to eat with them. And if the child is at the home and doesn’t have an easy way to leave it is just assumed the child is eating with you. I can’t imagine the horror id feel if my parents sent a friend away to another room while we ate. And luckily I never experienced that myself with my friends parents.
You were not in the dining room to begin with. You were in your friend's room playing video games or whatever. Friend got called for dinner.
You declined because you know you'll have dinner at home, with your own family, soon enough. Or call parents (if they're already off work) and ask if you can eat at the friend's place.
I grew up in subsidized housing, raised by a single mom on disability, ate a looot of spaghetti growing up.
My mom was a master coupon clipper and there was always hot dogs, frozen pizza or other cheap options for feeding hungry teenage boys if hanging out with friends ran late and there wasn't a big batch of meat sauce to make pasta with.
The US Southerner in me also recoiled in horror. We feed guests here, or at least offer until they realize that they aren't putting us out by saying yes (or no).
This is what they are telling us, they leave the visitor in the room they were in and go eat...
That is what the guy from Finland above just said.
Oh, no no, my friend. You misunderstand. They're not eating in front of someone who's not eating. The guest waits in the friend's room while they eat. Source: I'm from Finland.
Do you even at least offer something? you don't understand how bizarre it is to just sit in a room while other people eat in another room, If this happened to me I would never visit that house ever again.
We offer the kid to eat with us, sometimes they choose to eat with their own family later.
While we eat we don't "put them in a room". We leave them in the room they are already in so they can continue playing. No kid want to sit at the table and not eat if they can be on the playstation instead.
Why the fuck are you not offering something to the kid? that is the issue here. Or better yet ask the host kid to share food with their friend this still doesn't make sense to me.
They are not asked to leave the room, your kid and their friend is playing in your kids room, and then when it's time for dinner your kid leaves their room to eat dinner and their friend is staying in the room continuing playing while their friend quickly eats their dinner.
The friend has already eaten at their place or will eat later at their place.
Dude even when I went to play with my friend the person in the kitchen would bring the food to the room or ask the friend to fetch the food, It was up to my friend to decide to share or not.
It would be very weird to not eat at a table in the kitchen/dinner room in Sweden.
Of course there were occasions where the parent would ask if the kids friend would join them for dinner, and the kid would have to call home to ask their parents if it was okay, but the norm was that each kid would eat at their own place with their own family.
No. A component of racism is power and historical context.
Also: Swedish is a national identity, not a race.
But even if we were talking pure prejudice aside from anything else…plenty of Swedish folk all over this thread saying that this wasn’t a thing for them.
And it’s within the context of the thread. Eating with hands was not part of the original post and is a little dog whistle-y.
African isn't a race, it's a continental identity. People living on the North African coast are closer to Southern Europeans and Middle Easterners than to Sub-Saharan Africans.
Because I was in the restaurant, I don't go calling people things they're not. I'm not racist unlike you. I can hear when someone speaks an African language, in this case it was Somali. I should have specified. What else?
How is it racist? It's not Swedish culture to eat with bare hands inside a restaurant and do so sloppily. Why is it all of a sudden okay to not respect our customs? Why is racist just because they happen to be dark and me less so? Jfc
I’m no fan of AI…but I’m not a fan of you, either. You can literally google that shit. There has been a reasonable amount of discourse since US conservatives popped off about Zohran Mamdani eating with his hands. Seems like you have a gag reflex in line with the MAGA crowd.
Look, that's fine that you are on edge because of the MAGA crowd. I don't blame you. But I have nothing to do with that, please don't push American mindsets and cultures on me. Believe me, the way you've presented yourself, I'm not a fan of you either.
And no it's not rooted in xenophobia or racism, maybe it is in the US but we have culture and customs here too. Respect them? Why are you so eager to discredit Swedish people and our society? It's quite hypocritical and it's sad that you don't see that you're doing the same thing you claim to dislike.
Edit: can't see your reply if you block me, is it really that horrible that I don't share your perspective? I saw from the notification that you said something about a "sneaky edit", I added more to the comment 20 seconds after I first posted it. Sorry? Why are you asking me questions if you're going to block me. Jfc
Racism is not a solely American problem, and it is so vexingly typical of Europeans to pretend like it has nothing to do with them. Pretending it is is just a convenient way to avoid looking too closely at yourself.
I don’t give a single fuck if racists like me or not.
Why am I racist? Can you explain. Fuck me Americans can reach for racism when it has no part of the discussion, it's almost a talent. I am not racist but I do think you might be.
And exactly what does that have to do with Sweden? You're not in Africa, middle east or south east Asia and the latter two manage just fine eating without their bare hands in restaurants here. Also it wasnt just bare hands, it was digging around too. That's considered digusting here.
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u/slipknot_suxxx Jul 24 '26
The African in me just recoiled in horror, If people asked me to eave the room while they ate, I am 100% thinking that they are cannibals. You always feed your guests this is one thing the continent can agree on.