The Clash of the Cultures

When we were travelling, I was a bit evil to Simon and vetoed him buying a whole 10kg tuna fish in Cape Town. Given that the man seems to have a rather strange obsession with buying, ordering and cooking whole animals (whole fish, whole chicken – I just hope that I won’t one day find a whole cow on my balcony…), I suggested he should start off small and cook a whole chicken once we were back in Pretoria. Simon immediately jumped on the idea and decided to cook a roast chicken…

And when it finally came to it, we had the following conversation...

Simon: “So are you still keen to have a roast this weekend?”
Jo: “Yeah, sounds great!”

Simon: “Awesome! I’ll make a roast chicken, potatoes, parsnips, carrots, beans… all the trimmings!”
Jo: “Excellent. The best thing about a roast are all the veggies… if it’s gonna be too much work, I don’t mind if we don’t have potatoes.”

Simon: “What?! The roast potatoes are the whole point of having a roast. I make really good roast potatoes – you’ll love them!”
Jo: “Yeah… I’d rather have more veggies and parsnips...”

Simon: “Fair enough - I guess chicken, vegetables and gravy could also be quite nice.”
Jo: “Yeah… I don’t really like gravy.”
Simon: “So you wouldn’t have that either?”

Jo: “I’d have a bit, but probably not much...”
Simon (a bit annoyed): “So all I’m going to be doing is boiling some vegetables and sticking a chicken in the oven? That’s not a roast… hardly seems worth it!”

Jo (slightly irritated): “Well, we don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.”
Simon: “Fine… “

At this point, Simon and I were both feeling pretty cross…

Simon: “You know, in England people would consider this rather rude. The polite thing would be to fake enthusiasm – even if you don’t like roast potatoes!”

Jo: “Hang on, do you like roast potatoes?”
Simon: “No... not really!”

Jo: “Okay… so just to summarise: You don’t like roast potatoes...”
Simon: “Correct”

Jo: “… and I don’t like roast potatoes… but the roast potatoes are supposedly the best part of a roast.”
Simon: “Yes.”

Jo: “So, I should ask you whether you are making roast potatoes?”
Simon: “Yes!!!”

Jo: “And you should say “Of course!” and then I’d say something along the lines of “Excellent – I’m really looking forward to it!”
Simon: “Sounds about right to me…”

Jo: “And you would then go and spend an hour washing, chopping, boiling and preparing roast potatoes…”
Simon: “Probably…”

Jo: “… which neither one of us will enjoy!”
Simon: “Yes, that is exactly how it is supposed to happen!!!”

Jo and Simon break out in hysterical laughter…

What a beautiful example of the differences between the British and the Germans!

Btw, we did end up having a rather lovely roast chicken – with the grand total of two roast potatoes!