Culture, Etiquette, and Slurping One's Soup

I recall once seeing a recipe for Vietnamese soup claiming that, "This soup is best enjoyed by slurping it, although I have found Westerners are often too uptight to slurp." (The writer was an American, I believe.)

So the writer thought that "Westerners" eat in certain, constrained ways because they are uptight, while the more loosey-goosey people of the rest of the world just shove food in their mouth whatever relaxed way they damn-well pleased. How this person managed to get their shoes on in the morning I'm not sure. Consider this passage from Geertz:

'In Java, for example, where I have done much of my work, the people quite flatly say, "To be human is to be Javanese." Small children, boors, simpletons, the insane, the flagrantly immoral, are said to be ndurung djawa, "not yet Javanese." A "normal" adult capable of acting in terms of the highly elaborate system of etiquette, possessed of the delicate aesthetic perceptions associated with music, dance, drama, and textile design, responsive to the subtle promptings of the divine residing in the stillnesses of each individual's inward-turning consciousness, is sampun djawa, "already Javanese," that is, already human. To be human is not just to breathe; it is to control one's breathing, by yogalike techniques, so as to hear in inhalation and exhalation the literal voice of God pronouncing His own name--"hu Allah." It is not just to talk, it is to utter the appropriate words and phrases in the appropriate social situations in the appropriate tone of voice and with the appropriate evasive indirection. It is not just to eat; it is to prefer certain foods cooked in certain ways and to follow a rigid table etiquette in consuming them.'-- "The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man," The Interpretation of Cultures, p. 52-5

In other words, if the Javanese slurp their soup (I have no idea if they do), that is because that is how you are supposed to drink your soup, to a Javanese, not because they are "relaxed." I lived with two Ghanians for a couple of years. They liked to eat with their hands. But this was not because they were not uptight: all one had to do was attempt to pass one of them food with one's left hand and find out just how not relaxed about etiquette someone could be.