Hehehe great point you bring up there Greg because I am married to a Canadian/American and always been puzzled with the left-over obsession.
In fact it is something we sometimes end up arguing a bit about. Like I often complain about my wife making too much food, but she says she loves leftovers. Indeed she does eat a lot of leftovers but I find that we kind of end up wasting a lot of food that way.
I notice that with portion sizes. Sheh gives the kids large sizes so food is often left over while I guess it is the Norwegian side of me which insists on telling them to take smaller servings as to not waste food.
I noticed I struggled with portion sizes when I lived in the US. I was used to eating my whole plate. That is what you do in Norway, but in the US the portions are so large that I would get stomach ache and just feel bad after a lot of dinners out.
I suspect there is history at play here. The US has been a country of abundance for a lot longer than Norway. Norway is among the richest countries in the world today but it was kind of middle of the group among Western nations in the early 1900s. And Norway always had food shortage. Like the country is not self sufficient in food at all. We have for hundreds of years relied on a large amount of imports. Only 2.5% of Norway is arrable. It is same latitude as Alaska, so the topsoil is very thin and it is a rocky terrain with poor conditions for growing things.
When Norwegian left in large numbers for the US in the 1870s the average Norwegian farm was 20 acres of crappy soil. Over in the US they gave new immigrants 320 acres of top quality farmland for free.
And I think it shows when I am I travel in the US that it is a country accustomed to agricultural abundance. I was blown away by how much meat and cheese Americans put on their Deli Sandwiches.
But there is also a bit in the Norwegian mentality that detests doing anything in excess. The simple life is really celebreated all across the Nordics I guess. One of the most positively charged words in Swedish is "lagom" which means "just right," not too much and not too little.
Perhaps you have heard about Norwegian-American Economist Thorstein Veblen. He wrote the book "Theory of the Leisure class," which is about conspicious consumption. It is one of the classics from economists of the 1800s. It is kind of typical of someone of Norwegian ancesttry to get so focused on the wasteful spending habits of the rich. His Norwegian ancestry did actually get used against him. They thought he should shut up about complaining about the spending habits of the rich.
Sorry, I went on a bit too many tangents there. There is a reason I am a writer ;-)
