Anxiety about meals and dishes.

[SwansandSharksMan]

Apologies for this post. It might seem like a small thing, but it causes me lots of other worries like too much food, not having something defrosted to cook, not having any good ideas for meals, eating too much, food going bad in the fridge, too much leftovers, wasting food, too many dishes to wash, kitchen getting untidy, house getting untidy because of too much time spent in kitchen etc. etc.

I was born in the 70s to a Scottish born mum and an 1st generation Australian father. I grew up in an anglo centric family.
I married an Italian lady. We have 2 daughters. We do a few things different to what a lot of Anglo Australian families would have done. For example, lunch is the main meal of the day for us. This means during the week we have a big pasta dish as soon as the wife and daughters get home from school (wife is a teacher). This will be around 3:30-4:00. This is considered to be lunch. It might sound strange to you, but in Italy lunch is the main meal of the day. It is also the same in a lot of European countries. In Italy shops and businesses will close in the afternoon for everyone to go home for lunch and siesta. Then for some jobs you go back to work after siesta.
Anyways after the lunch meal at 3:30-4:00 we will then have dinner at around 7:00. This is often meat and vegetables or meat and salad. It is a more low key meal than the lunch.
It means more cooking, more dirty dishes and more tidying up because of two big meals we have prepared. It probably sounds strange to some people? Especially those who grew up in anglo centric homes where you have a hot dinner as a main meal? Thoughts?

[Emmen]

Hello SwansandSharksMan,

I am not from an anglo centric background but coming from a multi-cultural perspective, I'd say there is no "correct" way of doing things. It's not unheard of for people to struggle to make sense of another culture's cuisine. In all honesty, I've heard of people from non-anglo communities struggle to make sense of anglo food as well!

We tend to normalise what we have grown up with and gotten used to, and that becomes the standard with which we compare the "other" things to. But think about it this way - if the kinds of meals you now have now have worked for Italian communities for ages, then surely it must simply be another (and perfectly valid) way of doing things?

I do sense your discomfort and I wonder if you can come up with a plan where, say, your weekday mealtimes are in an Italian way and weekends are what you're more familiar with? It may be a good way to introduce your daughters to the culture you've grown up in as well.

Warmly,
M