Thomas: The United States is hosting the World Cup, and a lot of people around the world are realizing they don’t actually know much about America. Everything they did know was filtered through Hollywood, and Hollywood really only shoots movies in LA and New York.
When Europeans visit the heartland in real life, they’re realizing it’s amazing. They’re falling in love with everything, particularly our barbecue.
Europeans Discover American Food
Jonathan: People from the UK, Europeans, and more recently Koreans are traveling to the US and trying barbecue or breakfast foods for the first time.
I watched a video about UK schoolchildren trying biscuits and gravy. They start with, “This looks disgusting” and “That’s not a biscuit.” Then they try it and their eyes light up: “Whoa, this is so good.” Then they’re asking questions like, “How do I get a visa?”
What I wanted to do with today’s Zeitgeist was talk about the fun that’s in the diversity of cultures across the world. I’m talking about how places are different and how that’s good. There’s so much fun to be had in exploring those differences.
Thomas: There are three primary kinds of barbecue you can use to create an entire rainbow. Texas barbecue is the first. Kansas City barbecue is beef, chicken, or pork with a dry rub and often a sweet sauce. Carolina barbecue uses a vinegar sauce, and do not get Carolinians started on which Carolina is the real Carolina, because they will fight you to the death. All three can be of equal quality, but Carolina barbecue has the largest variation. The bad barbecue is almost always Carolina because it requires so much skill to do right. Good Carolina-style barbecue is unbelievable.
Jonathan: Come to Tucson, and you’ll find breakfast restaurants that specialize in massive spreads. They’re only open from 6 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon, but they have pancakes the size of a baby and chicken fried steaks that are enormous, all covered in gravy.
Thomas: Of the four Michelin-star barbecue restaurants in the United States, three are in Austin, Texas. I have a personally curated guide to Austin restaurants that I include in the handbook everyone gets at the Novel Marketing Conference. I specifically schedule no events after 5:00 PM so attendees can go experience the local restaurant scene. We have two cuisines, and barbecue is just one because we also have Tex-Mex.
Jonathan: I don’t want Michelin food when I go to barbecue. The worse the venue, the better the food. If you see a porta potty billowing smoke, go in and order the full slab. The potato salad is going to be amazing.
What’s the first thing foreigners notice when they land in America?
Jonathan: When foreigners come to the United States, the primary thought is, “Everything is bigger than it has any right to be.” The Japanese got onto American X a few months ago, and we’re seeing AI-written stories about their experiences with free refills and supersizing.
Thomas: Moderation is not an American value. Benjamin Franklin tried to make it one, but it didn’t stick.
Jonathan: In Tucson, we have state fairs, monster trucks, professional wrestling. Our football stadiums are enormous, and those are just the college ones.
Thomas: Of the 10 largest stadiums in the world, two are in North Korea and one is a soccer stadium in India. The next eight largest are all American college football stadiums, bigger than our NFL stadiums.
These Europeans are going to some university they’ve never heard of to watch a football game and asking, “Why is the TV an acre large? Why does it make the seats shake?”
Jonathan: When foreigners come to the United States, they’re expecting politics. They’ve seen Hollywood and the news, so they’re braced for conflict. But they leave talking about the food, the Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone. America is a beautiful place and the food is incredible.
I dealt with this in college with our large Asian student population. They’d say, “We get an ice cream in Asia and it’s your sample size, what they give for free.” Then they’d get an American ice cream and ask, “How are you ever supposed to eat all of that?” And I’d be thinking, “I kinda want another one.”
Global Fun Factors
Japan
Jonathan: Every hobby in Japan can be an entire universe. They have vending machines for everything, capsule toy machines, themed cafés, train stations that run to the second. If you’re not on that train, somebody will politely escort you onto it. They still have arcades, tiny bars hidden in alleys, and seasonal festivals. Visit some of the religious sites and shrines and respectfully enjoy what they’ve worked so hard to create, because the Japanese are about craftsmanship. They devote everything into what they’re doing.
In the martial arts world, tea ceremonies are a big deal at tournaments. The sensei or grandmaster will do a tea ceremony for his black belts. Every movement is practiced, ritualized, and drilled. It’s beautiful to watch.
Thomas: X started translating tweets by regular people for other regular people, so it’s no longer just influencers talking to each other. Regular folks can interact across cultures, and people are realizing that Americans really do protein well. This goes back to the very founding of the country.
One of the things that drew people to the United States was how rare protein was in the Old World. A peasant in England had very few good sources of protein. Pork and beef were unaffordable. Chicken was a special occasion because killing one meant one less egg-layer. Hunting was a hangable offense.
When people learned they could go to the New World and hunt freely, that was a huge appeal. To this day, Americans eat far more meat than most countries, and every part of the country has its own way of preparing it.
Jonathan: There’s a meme that says, “That chicken had a family.” “I know. That’s why I got the family bucket, so they’re all there.”
Thomas: My dad took me to a cattle auction because my family does some ranching. We run Angus and Brangus on the family ranch. He was a little nervous I’d leave a vegan, seeing all these beautiful cows being auctioned off. After the auction, I asked if I could have a hamburger. We are still cattle ranchers.
Thomas: I noticed a Scottish guy who was almost in tears at a small-town restaurant with down-home food. He said, “I feel at home here.” Something a lot of people don’t know is that English culture was actually better preserved in the American South than it was in England. The Southern accent is closer to how English was spoken 300 years ago than anything spoken in England today.
Enclaves of a culture will commonly preserve an older form of that culture more faithfully than the origin country, which keeps changing. A version of English culture got frozen in the Deep South, and a version of Scottish culture got frozen in Scotland.
So, when that Scotsman walked into that restaurant, he was sharing not just a language with the woman behind the counter, but likely ancestors. She probably has a tartan at her house and knows which clan she came from.
My family still has the tartans and knows our clans, though we’ve forgotten which ones we’re supposed to hate. We’re not good Scots in that regard. A big part of being in a clan is knowing your rival clans and your long enmities with them.
But it was interesting seeing that connection, which is very different from the connection a Japanese tourist has.
For a Japanese tourist, it’s not an ethnic connection or a culture frozen in time. It’s more of a spiritual connection. They’re thinking, “Your passion for excellence in barbecue is similar to our passion for excellence in sushi.” The meat is different, but the passion is the same.
Jonathan: When I barbequed, I got up at 4 in the morning to light the fire for my smoker. I applied my seasoning the night before specifically to get the right glistening cover, then I managed the fire for 16 hours, waking up every hour to check the temperature.
Thomas: That’s something the Japanese could get into. That kind of focused devotion to excellence is something a Japanese culinary enthusiast can immediately appreciate. What we call making it with love, the Japanese approach with precision and care. They arrive at the same place from the same direction.
Jonathan: What we call passion, they call craft. I like seeing the overlaps between Japanese and American culture.
South Korea
Jonathan: Life in South Korea should be efficient, stylish, and open until 3 AM. Korean barbecue is fantastic. If you haven’t had a gochujang fried chicken sandwich, go educate yourself right now. There are karaoke rooms, 24-hour culture, PC gaming cafés, anything delivered anywhere, and street food markets.
I have a lot of Marine buddies who’ve been stationed there, and they all say, “This is awesome. I love this.”
I watched a video of South Koreans reacting to what Americans think of Korean culture, and they said, “You guys aren’t too far off.”
Thomas: These unique cultures must be preserved. The trend toward globalization, where everything becomes the same generic LA, means we lose something irreplaceable. There’s no generic version of Japanese. There’s no generic version of Korean. The weirder it is, the more authentic it is to the original.
India
Jonathan: India offers maximum sensory input. We’re talking extremely spicy cuisine. The UK loves Indian cuisine so much probably because UK food is famously unspiced. They conquered the world to get spices and used zero of them.
Thomas: There’s actually a reason why northern countries don’t spice their food much and southern countries do, and it has to do with food preservation. The closer you are to the equator, the more spices you have to put on food to keep it from going bad, because summers are longer and winters shorter.
In Scotland, once the frost hits in October, it stays until March. You can butcher your pig, hang it in a smokehouse, and it’s still good months later. You can’t do that in India. You cover the meat in spices to keep it good. You see this pattern in China too. The farther south you go, the spicier the food. It’s the same in the United States. Go far enough south down the Mississippi and you end up in New Orleans with really spicy food, made by the same French Canadians who can’t handle it back in Quebec.
Jonathan: Another thing Indians do brilliantly is make movies. Bollywood is very different from Hollywood. The action is gloriously ridiculous, it’s designed to be fun, and nobody is taking it seriously. It’s entertainment and not a sermon.
Eight guys lock shields, get loaded into a catapult, get thrown over a wall into a city, and then they explode out of their formation and start fighting. It’s ridiculous and delightful.
Mexico
Jonathan: I lived in Mexico from age 13 until I went to college because my family were missionaries. Food is a love language there.
Mexicans are some of the most patriotic people you’ll ever meet. I loved living there during the World Cup because the US always plays Mexico, and I’d be walking through town, and people would be screaming “Mexico!” at me. I’d yell back “USA! USA!” We had a blast.
Get a good taco from a good guy in Mexico and you’ll never go back to a chain restaurant. I was paying about 34 cents a taco for some of the best tacos I’ve ever had, and then I come back to the States and people want $3.50 for something from a chain. It’s just not good.
Thomas: I don’t eat at Taco Bell. I have tasted the real thing, and Taco Bell is not the real thing. It’s not even as good as it used to be.
Italy
Jonathan: Everything in Italy can be an art form, from coffee culture, pizza and pasta traditions, to Renaissance architecture, fashion, and the tiny countryside villages. God help you if you break the spaghetti noodles before you boil them. They really care.
If you visit Italy, Rome is fine, but you really want to go through the countryside and see what it’s like to live there. If you can become part of an Italian family for a little while, it’s a great experience.
Thomas: All of the cities are becoming like all of the cities. LA is not that different from New York City, and they’re not that different from Paris or London.
The more you get away from the city, the more the local culture expresses itself. In the city, it’s the same Starbucks as the city you just left. It can be genuinely difficult to tell sometimes what city you’re in since cities have the same square glass buildings, the same airports, and the same streetlights. It’s a homogenization that’s soul-crushing.
How can authors bring cultural specificity into their fiction?
Thomas: Your book can be an opportunity to visit wonderful places, and that’s one of the appeals of reading: feeling like you’re on a vacation. Get out of the big city.
f you want to take your characters to the UK, don’t just send them to London. Send them to one of the smaller towns that has 2,000 years of history that’s different from the next small town with 2,000 years of history. Do your research. Make it feel local. Talk to locals. Give it that local flavor, and your book will be so much more appealing. Maybe visit. Go on what might be a tax-deductible trip.
The big breakthrough we’re seeing with the World Cup is that the countryside and the heartland can be genuinely delightful and uniquely fun to visit.
Jonathan: And you don’t need to limit yourself to countries. I’ve done really well writing the Marine microculture and letting people experience what it’s like to be a Marine.
When I go to jujitsu, they tell me I lock in harder than everyone else. One guy said I’ve got “that dog.” It’s my culture. When people read that in fiction, they enjoy it because they’re seeing a completely different way of thinking. And I tell them, “There’s not much thinking involved.”
Thomas: Someone in the chat mentioned their series is set in Italy because it’s the kind of place people want to visit.
Here’s the interesting wrinkle. You’d think setting your book in Italy means it would sell especially well in Italy. What actually happens is locals read it with a critical eye, catching every minor thing you get wrong. Everyone else enjoys it far more.
That’s different from writing Marine microculture, where Marines respond with, “Yes, finally someone who gets us.”
Don’t think of setting your book in Italy as a strategy to sell to Italians. You’re setting it in Italy to sell to everyone who wishes they could afford to visit Italy and can’t.
Jonathan: My non-Marine audience is much bigger than my Marine audience, because so many people wish they were Marines.
Thomas: Italians don’t have nearly the romantic view of Italy that non-Italians have of it. Maybe the only place that romanticizes itself as much as foreigners do is Texas.
Jonathan: Mexico does that. Italy does that. It’s common. But with Italians, they’re loyal to their culture in a specific way. They’re a family-driven culture, so they’re not going to get the same thing out of your Italian novel that an outsider gets, because your version is not the way grandma did it. Mafia romances are so popular because they’re loyalty-driven. People love the idea of loyalty and sticking with the family. Italians probably won’t get that out of your book for the same reason: it’s not the way grandma did it.
Thomas: I visited Dunnottar Castle in Aberdeen as a young man on a day I was flying out late at night. I really wanted to go inside, but it was closed. On one side is a cliff, and you can look up pictures: it’s a beautiful castle out on a bluff with ocean all around. I scaled the cliff because I was in my 20s and an idiot, nearly died several times, got up and over the wall, and felt like a Viking conqueror.
I had the castle all to myself, or so I thought. I turned a corner and there were two guys, one with hedge clippers and one with a weed eater, staring at me with wide eyes. From their perspective, they were alone in a locked castle when this person just walked up. I don’t know if they thought I was a ghost. I played up the tourist angle because I was flying out later and didn’t want to miss my flight. I was 100% trespassing and I knew it.
I went on and on about how amazing the castle was, and one of the guys just shrugged and said, “It’s a ruin.” He didn’t see the magic of it. He’d been raised in a school system that taught a shame-oriented view of his own history, that his ancestors were people to be ashamed of.
Jonathan: That’s a crime, if you ask me.
Thomas: Those guys may have saved my life because climbing back down that cliff, the likelihood of falling to my death was very high. One of them was kind enough to pull out a key, probably eight inches long, walk me to the front door, and let me out. It sounded straight out of a movie. That experience is part of why I named my company Castle Media.
