Drinks with dinner

I don't know if this one is just because I'm unworldly or whether it's a genuine American phenomenon, but Americans seem to make a strict habit of drinking (in the general sense, not just alcohol) with each meal.  Having a drink with a meal doesn't weird me out, but having one with every meal took a little time to adjust to.

Before I came here I would have a cup of tea at breakfast and maybe after lunch.  Sometimes I'd have something with dinner, especially if I was out, but I didn't make a habit of it.  Now we are together, Mrs Walles and I have something to drink with every meal: coffee and juice with breakfast, tea or something cold with lunch and something cold again with dinner.  When in Rome...

On the whole this is a good thing, especially at home.  Here there is always orange juice in the fridge, and sweet iced tea and a plethora of fizzy drinks - even diet ones - that New Zealand manufacturers apparently have yet to discover.

In restaurants, though, things are usually more bleak.  Americans drink juice at breakfast but not other meals, so you can't usually get it unless the place serves breakfast.  There is always a standard line up of Coke or Pepsi products, most of which are packed with sugar (or, rather, high fructose corn syrup, the sweetener of choice in this corn-fed land).  Your options are pretty much diet cola or water, unless you're feeling rakish with respect to calories, and even that doesn't expand the range much.

There are exceptions, of course.  Perkins, one of our regular places, has chocolate milk and shakes on the menu, and another restaurant chain called Ruby Tuesday (ah, Ruby Tuesday) offers not only juice but delectible exotic juice cocktails with limitless refills.

But in general, the drink options seem limited.  Not any less limited than they might be in New Zealand. But in this land of plenty - where you can have your food customised about a hundred different ways - the relative dearth of drink choices leads me to think that those drinks with dinner aren't supposed to be enjoyed in their own right, they're just lubrication to help the food go down.

This all makes me sound ridiculously petulant and ungrateful (not to say that I'm not) but really, I think I'm starting to understand the American attitude.  After all, when the food is this good - and it is really good - who cares about the drinks?