Pancakes and Salad

One of my professors made a presentation on pancakes today.  It reminded me of a story that my mom would always tell us about her trip to America.

She was coming to the United States for the first time.  My dad had been in school at the University of Cincinnatti for awhile and they had decided to move to the United States permanently.  On her plane ride over, she experienced for the first time...American food.

For breakfast, they served pancakes.  She had never before in her life scene such food.  She didn't know how to eat it.  She looked over at the fellow American passengers sitting beside her.  The closest was a rotund man.  He smothered his pancakes with butter and syrup.  My mother copied him, drowning her pancakes in syrup and butter.  She took a bite.  She said it was too sweet and very disgusting.

The next meal was a salad.  Once again, my mother had never seen a salad before.  Eating raw vegetables was very taboo of Taiwanese culture at the time.  She looked at her neighbor again, and watched what he did with the plate of leafy greens.  He poured dressing all over this salad. My mother, hence, did the same.  Too bad she chose a dressing she didn't like.