Tostada Turmoil

Dinner with my host family is always an entertaining experience, but tonight, it was that and more. My host mom served tostadas with chow mein on top. For those of you who are like my dad (my real dad...yep Randy. You.) and try to avoid foreign food like the plague, let me tell you what a tostada consists of. It is pretty much an oversize nacho with all kinds of fun foods piled on top. Now, I have seen tostadas with guacamole or frijoles, maybe salsa or even carne, but I have yet to see a tostada served up with chow mein. If you don't know what chow mein is...google it. Not only was this topper foreign to me, we actually had never even eaten tostadas in my house before this meal.

So sitting before me on the table, I had a tamale (which is not my favorite, but I eat it anyway) and a new contraption I like to call "towmein" (tostada with chow mein...hence "towmein"...shut up. I like my new word. Stop judging me). At that moment, for some reason, I forgot how to eat a tostada. I am sitting there thinking to myself "Am I supposed to eat the tostada? Or just the chow mein? Will they look at me like I am crazy if I pick the whole thing up and take a bite? Those tostadas have been in the cabinet for a while. What to do? What to do?" I felt like Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman" when she had no clue which fork to use and then shot a snail across the room. Of course, I didn't look as gorgeous as Julia since I had just gotten out of the shower and I was sporting an oversize Auburn sweatshirt. But alas, I digress. So I look over at my grandpas plate and see that he has only eaten the chow mein. I don't follow suit because he is probably just avoiding eating the tostada due to his lack of front teeth. Next my eyes wander to my aunts plate. Unfortunately, she is holding my little sister who has decided to eat some of the chow mein off of the tostada and then dump the rest of it on the floor. So I begin eating the chow mein with a fork. That is when my host mom looks over at me and she realizes I have absolutely no idea what I am doing. She picks up her tostada and takes a bite. Relief. She just became the old guy in "Pretty Woman" who saves Julia from feeling like a complete moron. So I finish off my tostada and internally celebrate another cultural difference I have defeated. Victory. Take that towmein! Bring on the next crazy Guatemalan dish.