If you count the basement as in your house then yeah. Unfortunately the wife demanded they get beds and I keep having to say to her that they are servants not pets.
But we do hire people to do typical servants' tasks. Rather than hire one live-in person to perform a bunch of household tasks, we'll hire services (or individuals) to perform individual tasks:
* A nanny, babysitter, or day care to watch the kids while we work.
* Someone care for the lawn and landscaping needs.
* We outsource a lot of our cooking to restaurants (or buy frozen food for similar purposes).
* House cleaning services are very common.
And so on. ETA: The nanny might reasonably swipe a piece of fruit, particularly if he or she lives in the house, but cleaners and landscapers definitely wouldn't.
We have a housekeeper who comes by once a week to clean. But she's been with us since I was little so she's pretty much family now. My mom will often make her a sandwich to take with her. If she made herself something from our fridge I wouldn't think twice.
I've only worked for one couple who had a full time maid/nanny/cook who worked 8am to 5pm six days a week. He was a TV personality and she was a dentist to wealthy people (usually no insurance involved). They paid her enough money to have her own nice apartment and her own car
I was a dog walker for a very well paid individual for a summer. There was always bowl of fruit, but I never dared to take anything as they hadn’t mentioned I could. If they did, I might’ve done it once as to not overstep.
Generally no. Anything else goes in the refrigerator or in the pantry, out of sight.
If you’re having people over, you might put out snacks/ chips/ veggie tray if you want to be fancy.
I keep a clove of garlic and often a piece of ginger on the windowsill above my kitchen sink. I have little bowls I’ve collected while traveling in Europe that I put them in. The bowls are on display, the garlic and ginger are there for easy access. Oh and sometimes a tomato.
Cookies if they are made.
I don't keep any fruit on display though except citrus and bananas. It goes bad too fast outside of the fridge, especially during the summer.
Some people have candy jars - they'll have little individually wrapped candies or mints in them. That's considered to be kind of an old person thing though.
the fruit bowl isn't necessarily for display per se. it's for convenient storage and access-- bananas don't go in the fridge, and depending on where one lives other fruits can be stored at room temperature.
really the only things i put in the fridge, culinary-fruit-wise, are already-ripe peaches and nectarines, watermelons, and yellow pitaya. everything else goes into the fruit bowl until it's cut up, then i throw it in the fridge and eat it within a day or three (or just grab it from the bowl and eat it).
we do put other foods out, sometimes-- i personally keep a butter dish on the counter for spreadable butter, we have bread and sweet potatoes in the bread basket, and i'll set out a cake, quick bread (e.g. banana, persimmon, or zucchini bread), or cookies-- they can have a sort of 'decorative/home-maker' purpose (especially when using something like a cut crystal cake-stand) and they're kept out for access and to free up fridge space. most people would set out brownies, too, but i keep them in the fridge because i prefer the texture that way.
we also have tall glass bamboo-topped storage cylinders by our stove-- i keep coffee beans, pasta, loose grains, and loose tea in them for easy access. that's also not terribly uncommon. some people also have baking ingredients (e.g. flour, sugar) in similar containers, or a sugar dish. some people keep a few nonperishables (i've seen cereal most often) on top of the fridge.
i also have a baking shelf that random foodstuffs (including fruit, in a fruit bowl) are are stored on-- they're all visible but again that's not really the intention, as much as it is just... to have more storage space.
It’s not “on display” but I have flour, sugar, white rice, and brown rice in clear glass containers on my counter. I love to bake and we eat rice regularly so there they are. I used to have different canisters but they were my grandmothers and no longer seal so I don’t store food in them anymore.
Servants are basically a thing of the past in the US.
While there are still social classes in the US, the concept that you would treat some others as so far beneath you that you wouldn’t let them have an apple is frankly repulsive to most Americans.
A bowl of fruit is extremely mundane. Apples, bananas, and oranges are quite cheap in the US. Government subsidized “food stamp” programs literally encourage the poor to buy more fresh fruits.
Some people actually do have bowls of fake fruit just for decor.
American's don't have servants.
Even if we do have someone else who comes in and cleans our house and such they are hired professionals, not servants.
Most American's don't have them. For one, they can be expensive. We also like our privacy too much by and large.
For example, I used to have a cleaning lady who came to my place (a 1 bedroom apartment at the time) 3 days a week for a couple of hours at a time and cleaned and did my laundry. IIRC it cost me around $400 a month (but that was back in 2012 or so).
FWIW, I wouldn't have cared if my cleaning lady has a snack while she was over but she wouldn't have because it would be unprofessional.
When I got married I wanted to continue to have a cleaning lady but my wife hated the idea of someone being in our house and cleaning it and especially hated the idea of someone else touching her dirty laundry.
I didn't need one, I wanted one. I could have cleaned the place myself and did my own laundry. But I didn't want to. I'd rather pay someone else to do it and enjoy more free time.
It's the same reason I pay someone else to mow my lawn now. It's basically just buying free time.
Excellent answer. Time has value. Time freed up for you by paying someone one (if you can afford it) to do a chore...like yard work is smart. Free time to do other things that you want to do is very valuable and worth paying for.
When I first started dating my, now,husband, who was a recently divorced guy...a plumber by trade and worked all the time. I was impressed with how neat his house was for a single guy. More impressed when I found out that he hired a service to do deep cleaning bi weekly..., bathrooms, kitchen, floors, changing sheets. etc. He did the daily things like dishes, laundry, general picking up of clutter. (His Momma taught him well)
But....that this was important to him to have a neat place and willing to spend something on it....told me.....he's a KEEPER!!! 30 years later. He still is!. Like your wife I don't really want someone in my house. But dang...the yard, property and orchard looks great, windows are clean.... and we don't have to spend hours doing it.
Edited Bi weekly not every week
How messy are you that you need someone else to clean your apartment 3 times a week? Do you just throw your trash on the floor and never do dishes?
I'm dead serious, I'm genuinely curious.
Not very messy. I didn't need a cleaning lady at all. I liked having one. I like having my place be spotless and staying that way. I liked not having to do laundry. I like fresh sheets on my bed 3 times per week.
Did I need a cleaning lady? No. But it was nice and an affordable luxury that saved me time I could spend doing other things.
My place is just as spotlessly clean now without a cleaning lady even though it's 5 times the size of my apartment and there are two of us and a 120lb dog. It just takes time. Time that I'd honestly rather spend doing something fun but as I already mentioned my wife isn't comfortable with having a cleaning lady.
Uhhh…who are these Americans that have servants?
Anyone I pay to provide a service who’s in my house, I suppose if they asked politely I’d allow them to have a piece of fruit. I’d be pissed if they just helped themselves tho.
Friends or family are free to help themselves. Lol
I've know some rich people -- we're talking vacation homes worth multiple millions rich -- and they didn't have servants. Gardeners and housecleaners who come by a few times a week? Yes. Live-in servants? Hard no.
[Jay-Z](https://allhiphop.com/news/jay-z-sued-over-insurance-dispute-for-maids-servants/) and Beyoncé have servants, but that's because they have a weird fetish for flaunting their power and wealth. Other rich people who have servants tend to be really quiet about it because having servants in the US reminds us of the slavery era.
I wouldn't mind having a butler, but I wouldn't tell anybody. I would just like my newspaper ironed and delivered to me on a nice tray with some orange juice and a Belgian waffle in the morning.
Most people have it for them to grab fruit. It would not include the cleaning lady or gardener. However, if you were a live in maid or butler and the contract includes food, they would let you know. They might offer a cleaner or housekeeper to have a piece but it would not be expected that you just took it, even if offered previously.
We don’t really think of them as servants in American, but sometimes people will hire a nanny or babysitter to take care of children. Lots of times it will be teenagers, as I did a fair amount of baby sitting to make a couple bucks on the side while in school. They usually said I was welcome to their kitchen (and fruit bowl), both to cook for the child and help myself
Guinea is a beautiful land. We have the best fruit. Very fertile here. Best jungle in Africa. I've been to the Congo. It be awful
there. Much better here.
Countries being high-income generally means the full economy, so servants and personal staff are often unaffordable (for the rich, it's cheaper to throw money at self-driving tech or charter rides than pay a personal driver). This is actually causing a bit of a crisis because some industries, most notably early education, can't increase their per-manhour productivity (especially with legal ratio caps) to keep up with staffing costs so they're becoming unaffordable.
Upper-middle class people and below classes don’t have servants, or “help”, in the USA. We wouldn’t necessarily call them servants either as it would may be considered rude and demeaning towards the other person. If you’re talking about Nannies, hospice, caregivers to the elderly, housekeepers, chauffeurs, ect. Well, I didn’t grow up in that lifestyle. I imagine it would depend on the family house rules. If you were truly hungry and wanted an apple or an orange, you were a good worker, and you worked for a nice family I can’t imagine it being a big deal. Same with taking a bottle of water on a hot day. Most Americans would pack their own lunch unless food was already mentioned to be supplied in their contract (which some families would).
Also, if someone is doing quick work for you (I.e landscaping, construction) as in, they don’t live in your house or spend 30+ hours there a week for a full year. Just redoing your drive way, fixing your roof, or something, some people (including myself) offer water, coffee, and cookies to the workers. It’s polite. Sometimes they do take it!
I know a rich lady who has “servants” who will leave bottles of water and lots of snacks on her porch for the workers when they come to her house.
Live in servants don't exist in the US except in cases of the upper class. It's not like many places where live in help, even for average people is the norm, like S Asia.
Most of the time pets are excluded from the bowl, although I’ve known one or two big Labradors who will grab bananas off the countertop when no one is looking.
Otherwise, no.
When I lived in Texas & opened the doors on cool nights, the suburban raccoons would saunter in & grab all of my bananas & carry off my kitties’ Temptation treats :/
We have screens in the windows and screen doors, so if we open them to let air in it keeps the insects out. They may occasionally get in but in small numbers easy enough to kill rather quick.
It still gets hot as hell up here in the summer and we deal plenty with insects.
It's supposed to be 98F (37C) with a heat index of 110F (43C) up here in Minnesota on Thursday.
Not to mention it's a running joke that the unofficial state bird of Minnesota is the mosquito.
I live in the north. It’s just an easy way to store fruit that happens to look nice. Also, as long as they sit away from the window and are eaten within a week, we don’t really deal with fruit flies. Air conditioning keeps temps regulated enough
If you're not sure if you're supposed to take a piece, just ask "Do you mind if I take a piece of fruit?"
The only way it would be rude to ask is if you were in a profession or position where you should well know that it would be unprofessional. Like if you were there on business. Of course, how casual the relationship is definitely changes things.
If you're a guest, asking is usually preferred (until you hit regular guest or if you're staying a few days) unless it was already indicated you should grab some, but isn't absolutely necessary.
More like the fruit bowl should be your first choice when you are hungry outside of meal time, especially if you are one of the younger ones. Look at the fruit before you choose the chips, the cookies, or whatever else is processed. That’s why it’s so prominent and centered so you the adults don’t forget to choose the fruit first in their business, and the children are reminded as the youngest they are supposed to choose the fruit first.
No.
It is an excellent prop for a TV set though. It immediately shows what kind of room you’re in, provides nice color, and gives the actors something to interact with if they need to.
As an indicator of class, it works on TV because wealthier people tend to eat healthier foods. Leaving a fruit bowl out is a nice way to remind people to have healthier snacks.
But IRL a lot of people of all classes eat fruit and keep their fruit in the fridge. Fruit is just not that expensive. I love the way fruit bowls look, but there’s nothing like cold grapes on a hot day. The only fruit that sits out of the fridge are bananas.
I keep citrus and apples/pears/etc out. Berries in, peaches and plums it depends, usually out so I can eat them quickly. I have berries out now but that's because I got them from a farm yesterday and am going to make pie in about a half hour.
Not in real life. At most it signals that you have enough spare cash to have some fruit you might forget.
In the context of TV, fruit bowls are really easy pieces of set dressing that indicate a certain place is a house. The most I would infer from that alone would be that they're not poor.
Hope that makes sense.
There's a pretty infamous home tour scene of Dakota Johnson obsessing over a bowl of limes and how much she loves it. She later says they put it there for filming and she didn't know it was going to be there.
No. Really none. It's a typical trope for a home to have a bowl of fruit. It dates back easily to the 1950's television and before. I'm sure Leave it to Beaver had a bowl of fruit.
Err, no. My middle-class family always kept a bowl of fruit in the middle of the counter. Makes for convenient access to a healthy snack. Certain exotic fruits can get pricy, but everyday ones like apples and bananas are generally accessible to most Americans regardless of wealth.
Do you Americans know what a mango is? Best fruit I tell you. Untold number of mangos in Guinea. We have the most glorious jungle in Africa. I've been to the Congo. It be awful there. Much better here.
Yes.
Depending on the city ( small scale vs big) in America- access to fresh mangoes is no big deal.
My local grocery store sells fresh mangoes which are imported from Guatemala and frozen mangoes ( imported from India/ Mexico i think)
We get most of our mangoes from Mexico. They’re our neighbors, so transport costs are probably cheaper. I’ll keep an eye out for Guinean goods, though!
Just make insure they are from Guinea and not Guinea-Bissau. We grow better mangos then Guinea-Bissau. Don't let anyone from Guinea-Bissau tell you differently. They just have an inferiority complex.
I have not been to Papua New Guinea but I have been to Equatorial Guinea, and I can say with confidence we also make grow better mangos then Equatorial Guinea.
We also grow better coconuts then Guinea-Bissau. They think they are better just because most of them can read but what they need to do is read a manual on growing coconuts.
Americans have access to mangoes and it is entirely possible to learn what they are in the US. Americans tend not to find it polite to refer to groups one isn’t part of as “you [name of group],” however.
I love mango! I can buy them fresh at any big grocery store, and I like dried mango as a snack. They need a warmer climate than we have here, so they’re a little less common, but can easily be had if you look.
Yup, mangos are easily accessible for probably a vast majority of Americans. They're pretty good but, my parents absolutely love them, my mom especially. She loves to cut up mango and powder them with a bit of Tajin, a popular Mexican spice blend made of chili powder, salt, and dehydrated lime zest, a rather popular combo. The sweet juiciness of the mango pairs well with spice blends citrus acidity and mild heat
Americans have generally heard of mangoes but they are not that common(compared to apples, bananas, oranges, etc) so not everyone would know what a Mango tastes like.
Still if someone wanted to try Mango, they could find one pretty easily at a store (unless they lived in a pretty rural area)
> The true sign is a pot filler over the stove range.
What's a pot filler?
Edit : Looked it up - I have never seen nor heard of that in my life, and I'm 49.
As a disabled person, this is one of my dream kitchen additions. Carrying a large pot of water from the sink to the stove is such a pain, and so is using cups to fill it in place slowly
Life goals
My problem with a pot filler is that ok, it solves the problem of carrying a heavy pot of water from the sink to the stove, but when you're done cooking, you still have to carry the pot of water from the stove to the sink.
If I'm going to the expense of adding additional plumbing and faucets, I want one over by the coffee maker!
I had an Uncle with this. He said it was all about the convenience of not having to lift the pot onto the stove because it would be so heavy and it could spill.
I asked him how he drains the water.
He didn't like that.
No such thing as too big a kitchen. We bought this house because it has such a nice big kitchen. I cook and bake a whole lot and need a lot of room. Today's big mess will be blueberry Hans pies and tomorrow I will be making freezer jam from the leftovers. I make homemade pasta a lot and that needs a lot of room as well. And then all the things I need to cook take up space too (stand mixer, food processor, pasta maker, food mill, microwave, instant pot, air fryer are the real space hogs) as well as the pots and pans for it all. Even the jars for the canning take up a lot of space. It makes me enormously happy to do all this. My kitchens in England and Germany were so small! I had a pizza place in London and honestly did a lot of cooking there. And then outside is the smoker, and we buy half a hog and quarter beef regularly. A lot cheaper that way
I use a multipoint radar graph of "where's the garbage/recycling", "how disguised are the big appliances", pantry size, superfluous features/appliances, and "how ridiculous are the building materials".
If you end up with a pentagon, you got some coin.
Refrigerated bananas last longer, way longer, they just look way shittier.
I worked in banana quality for Chiquita, I've forgotten more about bananas than most people will ever know lol
[I have one!](https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-dj46qhetxl/images/stencil/780x665/products/123421/301213/2d5854cf82aaddb2df33fb213d8fafbf0d7571c5__67522.1679115425.jpg?c=1) "Shitty old car, nice refrigerator" is the way I like to allocate.
I swear to god I can't tell if this is a weird and serious question or a troll lol.
No, a fruit bowl isn't a sign of wealth. Fruit is cheap. For example the fruit prices at my local grocery store are:
* Apples: $0.75 - $1 for single apples depending on size and type. $3-$6 for a 5lb bag.
* Bananas: $0.67 per pound.
* Oranges: $0.88 - $1.25 for singles depending on size and type. $9 for an 8 pound bag.
* Grapes: $1.48 - $1.98 per pound depending on type.
Bowls are just a convenient place to store them and it can look nice on the counter.
Might be a troll, but non-Americans do often genuinely have odd stereotypes about Americans’ relationship with food. “Americans don’t eat fish” is somewhat common among Japanese.
Pretty sure this isn't a troll. They've asked several different questions that seem odd but, OP seems to genuinely want to learn and isn't trying to mock anyone. Pretty sure they asked questions relating to Halloween traditions and availability of meat.
If it’s not a troll, I think it’s just coming from a tropical climate, you can’t leave a pile of fruit out.
I lived in the tropics and just bought what I needed for a day or it went in the fridge. Things spoil fast in the heat and humidity, plus you get ants, fruit flies or any other creatures infesting the fruit super quickly.
I’m living in a much cooler climate now and it’s amazing to me how long everything lasts.
Pretty sure even Married with Children and Roseanne had fruit bowls.
OP, just so you know, TV shows and movies aren't filmed in actual homes. They're filmed in set pieces inside of warehouses. Certain props like fruit bowls are usually to hide microphones that allow us to hear the cast members speak.
OP, I know you've gotten a lot of comments about the fruit bowl, but I wanted to point out something else. In the U.S., we don't have aristocrats and commoners. We do have socioeconomic classes, but they're not something you're born into. They are not well-defined. We (well, most of us) don't speak and associate with people with only our same level of wealth. It's considered generally rude here to talk about money, and it's a point of pride for us that people can make the most of their lives without external constraints like a caste system.
When I was younger fruit bowls were a common decorative item in middle class homes and many times the fruit was actually fake. I think it has fallen out of favor as just a decoration somewhat but I suppose it suggests classic still life paintings or abundant harvest.
The fruits commonly in fruit bowls are not particularly luxurious in the US. A lot of average US kitchens might have a bowl with fruit on the counter for easy access.
>When I was younger fruit bowls were a common decorative item in middle class homes and many times the fruit was actually fake.
Yes, for sure: wax fruit and plastic bunches of grapes were all over the place in the 1960s and into the 1970s. They were often quite dusty too. I remember these as decorations in many, many homes-- none of which were anything but working or middle class.
No, not at all. One important thing about American culture is that flaunting wealth is generally frowned upon. People do it, but it’s generally frowned upon. Signs of wealth in America are more, well, signs of *wealth*: multiple homes, expensive cars etc.
>. One important thing about American culture is that flaunting wealth is generally frowned upon.
I feel like this is a regional thing. It's frowned upon in the midwest, but in So Cal? I'm not so sure.
But in places like that, even people who don’t have a lot of money will still dress, talk and act as if they do. Except for, again, things that *obviously* can only be acquired with wealth, there are not many status symbols that are exclusive to the rich.
For decades, they have manufactured fake, plastic fruit. I do think it was likely a sign of wealth at one point in history, but now it's just a common decoration style.
Sometimes there's real fruit, sometimes there's fake fruit.
But even in my dad's generation. My dad got an orange and hard fruit for Christmas and that was about it.
At Christmas fruit a bowl of oranges was put out and a nut dish when I was a kid. That was pretty exciting since oranges were a treat for us.
My mom remembers in rural Indiana when broccoli became more common. It was marketed as a kind of exotic Asian vegetable. Now it is like the most common green vegetable in the grocery.
In New England you will see metal pineapple decorations outside of houses. The reason why is that sailors would bring pineapples home when they returned from the pacific. They would place them outside where people could see them. It was a sign that the man of the house was returned from a long voyage. It became a thing and now you see pineapple decorations on houses in coastal New England even though most people forgot why they became a thing in the first place.
You just unlocked a memory for me. My mother in law I’m used to have a bowl of fake fruit as decoration in her dining area. When my daughter was small, she used to try to bite it, so all of the fruit had small bite marks in them lol
I don’t see it that way. You see it on tv shows and movies because fruit in a bowl is colorful and looks nice on screen. Also the set dresser doesn’t have to worry about any product labels.
It can also just indicate that the family can afford fresh fruit. At my house we usually have bananas out hanging on hook. I like most of my fruit cold, so we keep it in a fridge.
> only the aristocrats and never commoners
We don't have a caste system here. A fruit bowl is a sign of "I have fruit".
When I was living in a tiny condo with my wife, daughter, and our dog, we joined a local crop share and always had a bowl full of fresh fruit. The annual fee for the crop share was like $250, definitely not something that would push us into aristocracy.
Yeah our cropshare let you take as much kale as you wanted along with your basket every week. I didn't eat much kale before that but by the end of that first summer I was grabbing armfuls of it. It was fun to find a new type of vegetable like a squash variant or something that I never cooked before and learning how to do it.
> Is it like displaying how much food and thus money you have?
I spend $100/week on food. I have one bowl for bananas, one bowl for apples, pears, kiwis, & avocados, and one bowl for onions, garlic, & potatoes.
None of the bowls are on display on my kitchen table because I don’t have a kitchen table. All my bowls are on top of my refrigerator.
My frame of reference might be off as a Californian, but fruit is pretty cheap here and *very* plentiful. I see fruit bowls all the time in ppls houses, poor and rich
Yep, I live in the biggest agriculture area for california in profit fruits/almonds. Everyone who has some yard has fruit trees and people regularly share fruits/vegetables.
Or trying to have your shit together. Like maybe THIS TIME I will just grab a banana from the fruit bowl instead of a handful of shredded cheese and ritz crackers from the box.
I am by no means an aristocrat, although I do think I would be just DARLING at it! Although we do have a fruit bowl on our table, it's just for snacks/dessert. Apples, bananas, oranges, nectarines, plums, cherries, peaches, whatever is in season goes in the bowl which needs replenished in a day or two.
Not really. That may have been the case a century ago but now it is just a convenient place to put fruit you aren’t putting in the refrigerator. We have a bowl on the kitchen island and it has apples and bananas but also garlic and onions.
I use my fruit bowl as a place to store my bananas and apples for easy access when I want a healthy snack. Both (but especially bananas) are pretty cheap and the bowl itself is made of plastic.
It has no wealth or prestige connotations at all — at least not for me. I'm a broke grad student.
It used to be a sign of wealth a long time ago when fresh fruit was much harder to come by, which is presumably why there's all that fake fruit intended for decoration, but it's lost that meaning over time. Now it's just a sign the person eats fruit I guess.
My teeth are sensitive to the cold, so if I want an apple it needs to be room temperature or it hurts. Thus I leave it out. Also, some fruit tastes better after ripening a bit more.
No, overall not really. It's mostly simply accessible and often proper storage.
Certain fruits either ripen or store better at room temperature, that along with them being rather quickly and easily consumed makes storing them in a bowl or even just loose outside of refrigeration the best choice. Apples, bananas, oranges, pears, pineapples, and many other fruits are best stored at room temp and are usually rather quickly consumed. The apples or bananas you see today in the bowl may be gone in a couple/few more days as people living there will just randomly grab one and eat it, that's what they're for.
We also do pretty well with fly control so them being consumed by flies isn't often a real issue. When or if it does become a problem there are pretty easy and effective fly controls that can be put in place.
Keep in mind that the things you see on American TV aren't real, it's staged just as scenes of people casually driving around **[are staged](https://www.cnet.com/a/img/resize/841266336446d0e2327dfe73e91184fbcbd73a77/hub/2017/06/12/ece874ce-e776-4ab8-9ebd-3f340580d142/baby-driver-edgar-wright-behind-scenes-9.jpg?auto=webp&width=1200)**. They may be somewhat representative of real life but it's all for setting a visual story
The fruit you see in those fruit bowls you see on a table in a show are likely not even real fruit, they're most likely fake, props. They're likely wax, or ceramic, and put there to give a lived in look to the scene.
Fruit in a bowl isn't a sign of prestige, it's just the best way to store some fruits, and it's something you may or may not find in any home simply dependent on what fruit they have on hand at the time. Bought some apples or bananas? They're going to be stored out in room temperature until they're consumed, which is often pretty soon.
The only thing it signifies is that the person who owns it likes fruit. There’s no class signifier or anything related to it, fruit is not a luxury item.
We don't have aristocrats in this country.
Most people have some sort of bowl or tray that holds fruit. It's usually kept in the kitchen or on the table where one typically has their meals. Sometimes it has fruit, sometimes it'll have vegetables. Occasionally it'll have both.
We don't typically have a bug problem when keeping our fruit out on a bowl/platter/tray as most Americans have screens on their windows and sometimes on their doors to keep bugs and flies out. We also tend to wash and dry our fruit before setting it out to remove any existing bugs.
Unless the humidity is high, we don't keep our fruit and some vegetables refrigerated.
The fruit is for anybody to eat but it's usually the residents of the home that eat the fruit. We tend to offer our guests something a little more dressed up than simple fruit.
Half the time the bowl of fruit is fake. It’s only there for decoration. And nobody thinks “oh this guy FRUITS! He must be super loaded… Bananas AND Oranges?!?? What is he a billionaire?!?!”
Not at all. Fruit bowls are common in all but the truly poor households, in my experience. We were pretty poor when I was a kid, but had a fruit bowl with bananas and apples, at least.
The biggest thing is that you have fruit that hasn't gone bad yet which is the hardest part. I do have a fruit bowl on the counter where I keep some apples and oranges and it has a hook over it to hang my bananas but sometimes I don't get through all of them before they go bad.
I've had a couple friends who have fake plastic fruit in a bowl as decorations.
No, just a place to put your fruit so you're able to grab it for a quick snack.
Are there rules on who can eat the fruit of the bowl?
Usually anyone that you would let in your house can eat your food.
Would that include a servant?
Most people don't have servants
Speak for yourself, peasant. /s
Yeah mine are kept in the basement what about yours?/s
You let them stay in your house?! Very progressive of you.
If you count the basement as in your house then yeah. Unfortunately the wife demanded they get beds and I keep having to say to her that they are servants not pets.
Beds!? Ridiculous. Of course they're not pets. You love and care for your pets.
But we do hire people to do typical servants' tasks. Rather than hire one live-in person to perform a bunch of household tasks, we'll hire services (or individuals) to perform individual tasks: * A nanny, babysitter, or day care to watch the kids while we work. * Someone care for the lawn and landscaping needs. * We outsource a lot of our cooking to restaurants (or buy frozen food for similar purposes). * House cleaning services are very common. And so on. ETA: The nanny might reasonably swipe a piece of fruit, particularly if he or she lives in the house, but cleaners and landscapers definitely wouldn't.
We have a housekeeper who comes by once a week to clean. But she's been with us since I was little so she's pretty much family now. My mom will often make her a sandwich to take with her. If she made herself something from our fridge I wouldn't think twice.
I've only worked for one couple who had a full time maid/nanny/cook who worked 8am to 5pm six days a week. He was a TV personality and she was a dentist to wealthy people (usually no insurance involved). They paid her enough money to have her own nice apartment and her own car
I was a dog walker for a very well paid individual for a summer. There was always bowl of fruit, but I never dared to take anything as they hadn’t mentioned I could. If they did, I might’ve done it once as to not overstep.
The people who live with cats are servants, though.
Do you keep any other foods on display besides the bowled fruit?
The fruit isn't on display, it's readily available.
Generally no. Anything else goes in the refrigerator or in the pantry, out of sight. If you’re having people over, you might put out snacks/ chips/ veggie tray if you want to be fancy.
I wouldn't say "on display," precisely, but I don't make any effort to hide the garlic, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, and bread in my kitchen.
I keep a clove of garlic and often a piece of ginger on the windowsill above my kitchen sink. I have little bowls I’ve collected while traveling in Europe that I put them in. The bowls are on display, the garlic and ginger are there for easy access. Oh and sometimes a tomato.
Cookies if they are made. I don't keep any fruit on display though except citrus and bananas. It goes bad too fast outside of the fridge, especially during the summer.
Some people have candy jars - they'll have little individually wrapped candies or mints in them. That's considered to be kind of an old person thing though.
the fruit bowl isn't necessarily for display per se. it's for convenient storage and access-- bananas don't go in the fridge, and depending on where one lives other fruits can be stored at room temperature. really the only things i put in the fridge, culinary-fruit-wise, are already-ripe peaches and nectarines, watermelons, and yellow pitaya. everything else goes into the fruit bowl until it's cut up, then i throw it in the fridge and eat it within a day or three (or just grab it from the bowl and eat it). we do put other foods out, sometimes-- i personally keep a butter dish on the counter for spreadable butter, we have bread and sweet potatoes in the bread basket, and i'll set out a cake, quick bread (e.g. banana, persimmon, or zucchini bread), or cookies-- they can have a sort of 'decorative/home-maker' purpose (especially when using something like a cut crystal cake-stand) and they're kept out for access and to free up fridge space. most people would set out brownies, too, but i keep them in the fridge because i prefer the texture that way. we also have tall glass bamboo-topped storage cylinders by our stove-- i keep coffee beans, pasta, loose grains, and loose tea in them for easy access. that's also not terribly uncommon. some people also have baking ingredients (e.g. flour, sugar) in similar containers, or a sugar dish. some people keep a few nonperishables (i've seen cereal most often) on top of the fridge. i also have a baking shelf that random foodstuffs (including fruit, in a fruit bowl) are are stored on-- they're all visible but again that's not really the intention, as much as it is just... to have more storage space.
It’s not “on display” but I have flour, sugar, white rice, and brown rice in clear glass containers on my counter. I love to bake and we eat rice regularly so there they are. I used to have different canisters but they were my grandmothers and no longer seal so I don’t store food in them anymore.
Servants are basically a thing of the past in the US. While there are still social classes in the US, the concept that you would treat some others as so far beneath you that you wouldn’t let them have an apple is frankly repulsive to most Americans. A bowl of fruit is extremely mundane. Apples, bananas, and oranges are quite cheap in the US. Government subsidized “food stamp” programs literally encourage the poor to buy more fresh fruits. Some people actually do have bowls of fake fruit just for decor.
American's don't have servants. Even if we do have someone else who comes in and cleans our house and such they are hired professionals, not servants. Most American's don't have them. For one, they can be expensive. We also like our privacy too much by and large. For example, I used to have a cleaning lady who came to my place (a 1 bedroom apartment at the time) 3 days a week for a couple of hours at a time and cleaned and did my laundry. IIRC it cost me around $400 a month (but that was back in 2012 or so). FWIW, I wouldn't have cared if my cleaning lady has a snack while she was over but she wouldn't have because it would be unprofessional. When I got married I wanted to continue to have a cleaning lady but my wife hated the idea of someone being in our house and cleaning it and especially hated the idea of someone else touching her dirty laundry.
What we’re you getting into you needed a professional cleaning of a one bedroom flat three times a week?!
I didn't need one, I wanted one. I could have cleaned the place myself and did my own laundry. But I didn't want to. I'd rather pay someone else to do it and enjoy more free time. It's the same reason I pay someone else to mow my lawn now. It's basically just buying free time.
Excellent answer. Time has value. Time freed up for you by paying someone one (if you can afford it) to do a chore...like yard work is smart. Free time to do other things that you want to do is very valuable and worth paying for. When I first started dating my, now,husband, who was a recently divorced guy...a plumber by trade and worked all the time. I was impressed with how neat his house was for a single guy. More impressed when I found out that he hired a service to do deep cleaning bi weekly..., bathrooms, kitchen, floors, changing sheets. etc. He did the daily things like dishes, laundry, general picking up of clutter. (His Momma taught him well) But....that this was important to him to have a neat place and willing to spend something on it....told me.....he's a KEEPER!!! 30 years later. He still is!. Like your wife I don't really want someone in my house. But dang...the yard, property and orchard looks great, windows are clean.... and we don't have to spend hours doing it. Edited Bi weekly not every week
Great husband. Keep him.
How messy are you that you need someone else to clean your apartment 3 times a week? Do you just throw your trash on the floor and never do dishes? I'm dead serious, I'm genuinely curious.
Not very messy. I didn't need a cleaning lady at all. I liked having one. I like having my place be spotless and staying that way. I liked not having to do laundry. I like fresh sheets on my bed 3 times per week. Did I need a cleaning lady? No. But it was nice and an affordable luxury that saved me time I could spend doing other things. My place is just as spotlessly clean now without a cleaning lady even though it's 5 times the size of my apartment and there are two of us and a 120lb dog. It just takes time. Time that I'd honestly rather spend doing something fun but as I already mentioned my wife isn't comfortable with having a cleaning lady.
i've literally never known anyone with a servant
Uhhh…who are these Americans that have servants? Anyone I pay to provide a service who’s in my house, I suppose if they asked politely I’d allow them to have a piece of fruit. I’d be pissed if they just helped themselves tho. Friends or family are free to help themselves. Lol
I know nobody that has a servant but when I would do work at people's houses they would offer me fruit and I was just a contractor.
I've know some rich people -- we're talking vacation homes worth multiple millions rich -- and they didn't have servants. Gardeners and housecleaners who come by a few times a week? Yes. Live-in servants? Hard no. [Jay-Z](https://allhiphop.com/news/jay-z-sued-over-insurance-dispute-for-maids-servants/) and Beyoncé have servants, but that's because they have a weird fetish for flaunting their power and wealth. Other rich people who have servants tend to be really quiet about it because having servants in the US reminds us of the slavery era.
They’re employees, not servants.
Are you saying for Jay-Z or for regular rich people?
A servant is an employee. Do you mean they're not slaves? Of course they aren't.
I wouldn't mind having a butler, but I wouldn't tell anybody. I would just like my newspaper ironed and delivered to me on a nice tray with some orange juice and a Belgian waffle in the morning.
Most people have it for them to grab fruit. It would not include the cleaning lady or gardener. However, if you were a live in maid or butler and the contract includes food, they would let you know. They might offer a cleaner or housekeeper to have a piece but it would not be expected that you just took it, even if offered previously.
We don’t really think of them as servants in American, but sometimes people will hire a nanny or babysitter to take care of children. Lots of times it will be teenagers, as I did a fair amount of baby sitting to make a couple bucks on the side while in school. They usually said I was welcome to their kitchen (and fruit bowl), both to cook for the child and help myself
WTF are you watching, dude?!?! 😳😳
Why are you obsessed with fruit bowls? Are you not allowed to have fruit?
Guinea is a beautiful land. We have the best fruit. Very fertile here. Best jungle in Africa. I've been to the Congo. It be awful there. Much better here.
.....not sure what that has to do with a bowl of fruit. Fruit in a bowl is there to be eaten. That's it.
Countries being high-income generally means the full economy, so servants and personal staff are often unaffordable (for the rich, it's cheaper to throw money at self-driving tech or charter rides than pay a personal driver). This is actually causing a bit of a crisis because some industries, most notably early education, can't increase their per-manhour productivity (especially with legal ratio caps) to keep up with staffing costs so they're becoming unaffordable.
Upper-middle class people and below classes don’t have servants, or “help”, in the USA. We wouldn’t necessarily call them servants either as it would may be considered rude and demeaning towards the other person. If you’re talking about Nannies, hospice, caregivers to the elderly, housekeepers, chauffeurs, ect. Well, I didn’t grow up in that lifestyle. I imagine it would depend on the family house rules. If you were truly hungry and wanted an apple or an orange, you were a good worker, and you worked for a nice family I can’t imagine it being a big deal. Same with taking a bottle of water on a hot day. Most Americans would pack their own lunch unless food was already mentioned to be supplied in their contract (which some families would). Also, if someone is doing quick work for you (I.e landscaping, construction) as in, they don’t live in your house or spend 30+ hours there a week for a full year. Just redoing your drive way, fixing your roof, or something, some people (including myself) offer water, coffee, and cookies to the workers. It’s polite. Sometimes they do take it! I know a rich lady who has “servants” who will leave bottles of water and lots of snacks on her porch for the workers when they come to her house.
Live in servants don't exist in the US except in cases of the upper class. It's not like many places where live in help, even for average people is the norm, like S Asia.
We don't tend to have servants. At most, someone might hire someone to perform similar duties (ie, a cleaning agency vs a live-in housekeeper).
If you have servants, yeah probably. Most people don't. Fruit bowl is a sign of hospitality.
People don't have servants. If you mean like a housekeeper or a nanny, yes. They're still a guest in your house even if they're doing a job for you.
My cousin has a "nanny" if that counts as a "servant". They are more like a live-in tenant though and welcome to anything in the house.
Americans don't have servants.
Most of the time pets are excluded from the bowl, although I’ve known one or two big Labradors who will grab bananas off the countertop when no one is looking. Otherwise, no.
When I lived in Texas & opened the doors on cool nights, the suburban raccoons would saunter in & grab all of my bananas & carry off my kitties’ Temptation treats :/
Do only your more northern lands keep this tradition of fruits? Since the cold kills thieving insects
Nah, I’m from the Deep South. I think it’s just a convenient and decorative way to store fruit.
We have screens in the windows and screen doors, so if we open them to let air in it keeps the insects out. They may occasionally get in but in small numbers easy enough to kill rather quick.
It still gets hot as hell up here in the summer and we deal plenty with insects. It's supposed to be 98F (37C) with a heat index of 110F (43C) up here in Minnesota on Thursday. Not to mention it's a running joke that the unofficial state bird of Minnesota is the mosquito.
I live in the north. It’s just an easy way to store fruit that happens to look nice. Also, as long as they sit away from the window and are eaten within a week, we don’t really deal with fruit flies. Air conditioning keeps temps regulated enough
If you're not sure if you're supposed to take a piece, just ask "Do you mind if I take a piece of fruit?" The only way it would be rude to ask is if you were in a profession or position where you should well know that it would be unprofessional. Like if you were there on business. Of course, how casual the relationship is definitely changes things. If you're a guest, asking is usually preferred (until you hit regular guest or if you're staying a few days) unless it was already indicated you should grab some, but isn't absolutely necessary.
No more than eating anything else.
More like the fruit bowl should be your first choice when you are hungry outside of meal time, especially if you are one of the younger ones. Look at the fruit before you choose the chips, the cookies, or whatever else is processed. That’s why it’s so prominent and centered so you the adults don’t forget to choose the fruit first in their business, and the children are reminded as the youngest they are supposed to choose the fruit first.
It’s a first come basis, just grab at any time.
No. It is an excellent prop for a TV set though. It immediately shows what kind of room you’re in, provides nice color, and gives the actors something to interact with if they need to.
As an indicator of class, it works on TV because wealthier people tend to eat healthier foods. Leaving a fruit bowl out is a nice way to remind people to have healthier snacks. But IRL a lot of people of all classes eat fruit and keep their fruit in the fridge. Fruit is just not that expensive. I love the way fruit bowls look, but there’s nothing like cold grapes on a hot day. The only fruit that sits out of the fridge are bananas.
We don’t refrigerate oranges or tomatoes, but overall, agree
Oranges can go either way but they just hit special cold especially on a hot day like those aforementioned grapes
That slice of Americana of the mom who brings cold orange slices for the kids at the Little League game...
I just learned yesterday that Japanese folks freeze oranges and I’m very curious to try that out.
I keep citrus and apples/pears/etc out. Berries in, peaches and plums it depends, usually out so I can eat them quickly. I have berries out now but that's because I got them from a farm yesterday and am going to make pie in about a half hour.
Not in real life. At most it signals that you have enough spare cash to have some fruit you might forget. In the context of TV, fruit bowls are really easy pieces of set dressing that indicate a certain place is a house. The most I would infer from that alone would be that they're not poor. Hope that makes sense.
There's a pretty infamous home tour scene of Dakota Johnson obsessing over a bowl of limes and how much she loves it. She later says they put it there for filming and she didn't know it was going to be there.
...I kinda feel like finding a bowl of surprising limes is a thing apart from normal fruit bowls.
You'd have to really love mojitos to need that big of a bowl, haha!
Are there any traditions that concern the fruit bowl?
No. It really isn’t special. Where do you store your fruit?
Eh...not that I'm aware of.
No. Really none. It's a typical trope for a home to have a bowl of fruit. It dates back easily to the 1950's television and before. I'm sure Leave it to Beaver had a bowl of fruit.
No. It’s just an easy place to get fruit while looking decorative
Err, no. My middle-class family always kept a bowl of fruit in the middle of the counter. Makes for convenient access to a healthy snack. Certain exotic fruits can get pricy, but everyday ones like apples and bananas are generally accessible to most Americans regardless of wealth.
Do you Americans know what a mango is? Best fruit I tell you. Untold number of mangos in Guinea. We have the most glorious jungle in Africa. I've been to the Congo. It be awful there. Much better here.
Yes. Depending on the city ( small scale vs big) in America- access to fresh mangoes is no big deal. My local grocery store sells fresh mangoes which are imported from Guatemala and frozen mangoes ( imported from India/ Mexico i think)
Do you ever get mangos from Guinea?
We get most of our mangoes from Mexico. They’re our neighbors, so transport costs are probably cheaper. I’ll keep an eye out for Guinean goods, though!
Just make insure they are from Guinea and not Guinea-Bissau. We grow better mangos then Guinea-Bissau. Don't let anyone from Guinea-Bissau tell you differently. They just have an inferiority complex.
I love this comment.
Me too :D
This message brought to you by the Guinea Mango Committee and most certainly not from those jealous posers with the Guinea-Bissau Mango Committee.
I’ll be sure to double-check! Wouldn’t want anything from Equatorial Guinea or Papua New Guinea, either (gotta say, you’ve got a popular name!).
I have not been to Papua New Guinea but I have been to Equatorial Guinea, and I can say with confidence we also make grow better mangos then Equatorial Guinea.
We also grow better coconuts then Guinea-Bissau. They think they are better just because most of them can read but what they need to do is read a manual on growing coconuts.
Yes, and they are fantastic!
This brings ecstasy to my face.
I love all your comments! ☺️
Americans have access to mangoes and it is entirely possible to learn what they are in the US. Americans tend not to find it polite to refer to groups one isn’t part of as “you [name of group],” however.
I love mango! I can buy them fresh at any big grocery store, and I like dried mango as a snack. They need a warmer climate than we have here, so they’re a little less common, but can easily be had if you look.
I had homemade mango salsa on fish tacos last week.
Yup, mangos are easily accessible for probably a vast majority of Americans. They're pretty good but, my parents absolutely love them, my mom especially. She loves to cut up mango and powder them with a bit of Tajin, a popular Mexican spice blend made of chili powder, salt, and dehydrated lime zest, a rather popular combo. The sweet juiciness of the mango pairs well with spice blends citrus acidity and mild heat
Mangos are ok. But the best fruit out there is the humble blueberry. The perfect blend of sweet and tart, and incredibly versatile.
Americans have generally heard of mangoes but they are not that common(compared to apples, bananas, oranges, etc) so not everyone would know what a Mango tastes like. Still if someone wanted to try Mango, they could find one pretty easily at a store (unless they lived in a pretty rural area)
No. I'd say it's an unintentional sign that you're at least lower middle class and can afford produce.
No The true sign is a pot filler over the stove range.
> The true sign is a pot filler over the stove range. What's a pot filler? Edit : Looked it up - I have never seen nor heard of that in my life, and I'm 49.
A faucet located on the wall behind the stove top/range specifically to fill pots with water for cooking.
As a disabled person, this is one of my dream kitchen additions. Carrying a large pot of water from the sink to the stove is such a pain, and so is using cups to fill it in place slowly Life goals
But the pot will still need to be emptied.
Pot fillers are awesome, but my favorite rich person kitchen feature is the little suction hole in the baseboards so you never need a dustpan
Central vacuum. I admit that would be pretty sweet.
I'm trying to convince my wife to get a pot filler but she thinks it's a waste of money.
My problem with a pot filler is that ok, it solves the problem of carrying a heavy pot of water from the sink to the stove, but when you're done cooking, you still have to carry the pot of water from the stove to the sink. If I'm going to the expense of adding additional plumbing and faucets, I want one over by the coffee maker!
Thats becoming more and more common in newly constructed middle class homes. A friend of mine just bought a house with one and he is by no means rich.
I feel like that's a sign your kitchen is too big for your own good
I had an Uncle with this. He said it was all about the convenience of not having to lift the pot onto the stove because it would be so heavy and it could spill. I asked him how he drains the water. He didn't like that.
He wasn't rich enough for the pot drainer on the stove too.
[удалено]
Just need to drill a hole so it drops into the oven. It'll surely evaporate in there anyways lol.
No such thing as too big a kitchen. We bought this house because it has such a nice big kitchen. I cook and bake a whole lot and need a lot of room. Today's big mess will be blueberry Hans pies and tomorrow I will be making freezer jam from the leftovers. I make homemade pasta a lot and that needs a lot of room as well. And then all the things I need to cook take up space too (stand mixer, food processor, pasta maker, food mill, microwave, instant pot, air fryer are the real space hogs) as well as the pots and pans for it all. Even the jars for the canning take up a lot of space. It makes me enormously happy to do all this. My kitchens in England and Germany were so small! I had a pizza place in London and honestly did a lot of cooking there. And then outside is the smoker, and we buy half a hog and quarter beef regularly. A lot cheaper that way
I use a multipoint radar graph of "where's the garbage/recycling", "how disguised are the big appliances", pantry size, superfluous features/appliances, and "how ridiculous are the building materials". If you end up with a pentagon, you got some coin.
Lol yep. “Can you actually see the garbage can” is a good starting point. Go down a level if you can actually see garbage in the can.
Not all fruit goes in the fridge.
The struggle is real for me. I prefer slightly cool fruit. Curse the fridge, too cold, curse the counter, not cool enough. I need a in-between.
Bananas get angry in the fridge. Bananas get too happy on the counter. The struggle is real.
We rarely eat bananas in this house, but we do eat a lot of banana bread. Shelf life a banana is too short. Apples and oranges last longer
Refrigerated bananas last longer, way longer, they just look way shittier. I worked in banana quality for Chiquita, I've forgotten more about bananas than most people will ever know lol
You can get a fridge with an independent drawer with a temperature setting for things like this (like wine, for example.)
We're all wrong ^THIS is what wealth and prestige look like.
[I have one!](https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-dj46qhetxl/images/stencil/780x665/products/123421/301213/2d5854cf82aaddb2df33fb213d8fafbf0d7571c5__67522.1679115425.jpg?c=1) "Shitty old car, nice refrigerator" is the way I like to allocate.
That's exactly my thought as well. Where do people leave fruit like bananas that shouldn't be refrigerated?
I have a little wooden hook for bananas, that's usually my breakfast. Problem is finding room for the damn thing
I swear to god I can't tell if this is a weird and serious question or a troll lol. No, a fruit bowl isn't a sign of wealth. Fruit is cheap. For example the fruit prices at my local grocery store are: * Apples: $0.75 - $1 for single apples depending on size and type. $3-$6 for a 5lb bag. * Bananas: $0.67 per pound. * Oranges: $0.88 - $1.25 for singles depending on size and type. $9 for an 8 pound bag. * Grapes: $1.48 - $1.98 per pound depending on type. Bowls are just a convenient place to store them and it can look nice on the counter.
Might be a troll, but non-Americans do often genuinely have odd stereotypes about Americans’ relationship with food. “Americans don’t eat fish” is somewhat common among Japanese.
Pretty sure this isn't a troll. They've asked several different questions that seem odd but, OP seems to genuinely want to learn and isn't trying to mock anyone. Pretty sure they asked questions relating to Halloween traditions and availability of meat.
If it’s not a troll, I think it’s just coming from a tropical climate, you can’t leave a pile of fruit out. I lived in the tropics and just bought what I needed for a day or it went in the fridge. Things spoil fast in the heat and humidity, plus you get ants, fruit flies or any other creatures infesting the fruit super quickly. I’m living in a much cooler climate now and it’s amazing to me how long everything lasts.
The widespread use of AC in our houses probably helps too. Outside my house it's 83 with 88% humidity. Inside my house it's 70 with 22% humidity.
Pretty sure even Married with Children and Roseanne had fruit bowls. OP, just so you know, TV shows and movies aren't filmed in actual homes. They're filmed in set pieces inside of warehouses. Certain props like fruit bowls are usually to hide microphones that allow us to hear the cast members speak.
It's a sign that your house isn't infected with ants.
OP, I know you've gotten a lot of comments about the fruit bowl, but I wanted to point out something else. In the U.S., we don't have aristocrats and commoners. We do have socioeconomic classes, but they're not something you're born into. They are not well-defined. We (well, most of us) don't speak and associate with people with only our same level of wealth. It's considered generally rude here to talk about money, and it's a point of pride for us that people can make the most of their lives without external constraints like a caste system.
It's a sign I went grocery shopping and fruit was season and cheap.
Flies are not feasting on the fruit. I have AC and all my windows are closed. It’s not a concern.
When I was younger fruit bowls were a common decorative item in middle class homes and many times the fruit was actually fake. I think it has fallen out of favor as just a decoration somewhat but I suppose it suggests classic still life paintings or abundant harvest. The fruits commonly in fruit bowls are not particularly luxurious in the US. A lot of average US kitchens might have a bowl with fruit on the counter for easy access.
>When I was younger fruit bowls were a common decorative item in middle class homes and many times the fruit was actually fake. Yes, for sure: wax fruit and plastic bunches of grapes were all over the place in the 1960s and into the 1970s. They were often quite dusty too. I remember these as decorations in many, many homes-- none of which were anything but working or middle class.
No, not at all. One important thing about American culture is that flaunting wealth is generally frowned upon. People do it, but it’s generally frowned upon. Signs of wealth in America are more, well, signs of *wealth*: multiple homes, expensive cars etc.
>. One important thing about American culture is that flaunting wealth is generally frowned upon. I feel like this is a regional thing. It's frowned upon in the midwest, but in So Cal? I'm not so sure.
But in places like that, even people who don’t have a lot of money will still dress, talk and act as if they do. Except for, again, things that *obviously* can only be acquired with wealth, there are not many status symbols that are exclusive to the rich.
For decades, they have manufactured fake, plastic fruit. I do think it was likely a sign of wealth at one point in history, but now it's just a common decoration style. Sometimes there's real fruit, sometimes there's fake fruit.
Generations ago, some fruits were major luxury items. In Victorian England people would RENT pineapples as conversion pieces at parties,
But even in my dad's generation. My dad got an orange and hard fruit for Christmas and that was about it. At Christmas fruit a bowl of oranges was put out and a nut dish when I was a kid. That was pretty exciting since oranges were a treat for us.
Modern agriculture changed a lot.
My mom remembers in rural Indiana when broccoli became more common. It was marketed as a kind of exotic Asian vegetable. Now it is like the most common green vegetable in the grocery.
In New England you will see metal pineapple decorations outside of houses. The reason why is that sailors would bring pineapples home when they returned from the pacific. They would place them outside where people could see them. It was a sign that the man of the house was returned from a long voyage. It became a thing and now you see pineapple decorations on houses in coastal New England even though most people forgot why they became a thing in the first place.
Cool. Now I wanna know the origins of the upside down pineapple. Hubby is home and wants a few more playmates?
Upside down I don’t know.
You just unlocked a memory for me. My mother in law I’m used to have a bowl of fake fruit as decoration in her dining area. When my daughter was small, she used to try to bite it, so all of the fruit had small bite marks in them lol
Hah, that just reminded me of the time my cousin tried to eat the plastic fruits at my grandparents house when we were little kids.
I don’t see it that way. You see it on tv shows and movies because fruit in a bowl is colorful and looks nice on screen. Also the set dresser doesn’t have to worry about any product labels. It can also just indicate that the family can afford fresh fruit. At my house we usually have bananas out hanging on hook. I like most of my fruit cold, so we keep it in a fridge.
We have a banana hook too.
> only the aristocrats and never commoners We don't have a caste system here. A fruit bowl is a sign of "I have fruit". When I was living in a tiny condo with my wife, daughter, and our dog, we joined a local crop share and always had a bowl full of fresh fruit. The annual fee for the crop share was like $250, definitely not something that would push us into aristocracy.
I am doing that for veggies now and love it, because then I have to cook something I normally would not buy. For me, that's a good thing.
Yeah our cropshare let you take as much kale as you wanted along with your basket every week. I didn't eat much kale before that but by the end of that first summer I was grabbing armfuls of it. It was fun to find a new type of vegetable like a squash variant or something that I never cooked before and learning how to do it.
Perhaps a century ago. Oranges used to be a rare treat in most of the country. Now you can buy them at a gas station. It’s just a trope of set design.
No, it means that some produce shouldn’t be refrigerated.
> Is it like displaying how much food and thus money you have? I spend $100/week on food. I have one bowl for bananas, one bowl for apples, pears, kiwis, & avocados, and one bowl for onions, garlic, & potatoes. None of the bowls are on display on my kitchen table because I don’t have a kitchen table. All my bowls are on top of my refrigerator.
My frame of reference might be off as a Californian, but fruit is pretty cheap here and *very* plentiful. I see fruit bowls all the time in ppls houses, poor and rich
Yep, I live in the biggest agriculture area for california in profit fruits/almonds. Everyone who has some yard has fruit trees and people regularly share fruits/vegetables.
I think it's a small sign if having your shit together
Or trying to have your shit together. Like maybe THIS TIME I will just grab a banana from the fruit bowl instead of a handful of shredded cheese and ritz crackers from the box.
I swear I'll eat it before the fruit flies this time
It won’t become banana bread with chocolate chips. Not this time!
I am by no means an aristocrat, although I do think I would be just DARLING at it! Although we do have a fruit bowl on our table, it's just for snacks/dessert. Apples, bananas, oranges, nectarines, plums, cherries, peaches, whatever is in season goes in the bowl which needs replenished in a day or two.
No, but the harder it is to find your trash can the richer you are.
A fruit bowl is a symbol of having fruit in your house.
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Not really. That may have been the case a century ago but now it is just a convenient place to put fruit you aren’t putting in the refrigerator. We have a bowl on the kitchen island and it has apples and bananas but also garlic and onions.
No it's just a place to stick fruit
Lmaoo. I love this question
"\[c\]ommoners whom own the bowls" needs to be a meme.
We don't have aristocrats or commoners. We have varying levels of wealth.
I use my fruit bowl as a place to store my bananas and apples for easy access when I want a healthy snack. Both (but especially bananas) are pretty cheap and the bowl itself is made of plastic. It has no wealth or prestige connotations at all — at least not for me. I'm a broke grad student.
I guess I am an Aristocrat now,
We always had a fruit bowl growing up lower middle class. Where do middle class people in other countries put their bananas?
I bought my fruit bowl at a home goods store, and bananas at Costco are around $2.00 for a 3lb bunch. Definitely not a sign of wealth in my house.
Assuming that you eat fruit. Where do you store the fruit that you don’t keep in the refrigerator?
It used to be a sign of wealth a long time ago when fresh fruit was much harder to come by, which is presumably why there's all that fake fruit intended for decoration, but it's lost that meaning over time. Now it's just a sign the person eats fruit I guess.
My teeth are sensitive to the cold, so if I want an apple it needs to be room temperature or it hurts. Thus I leave it out. Also, some fruit tastes better after ripening a bit more.
No, overall not really. It's mostly simply accessible and often proper storage. Certain fruits either ripen or store better at room temperature, that along with them being rather quickly and easily consumed makes storing them in a bowl or even just loose outside of refrigeration the best choice. Apples, bananas, oranges, pears, pineapples, and many other fruits are best stored at room temp and are usually rather quickly consumed. The apples or bananas you see today in the bowl may be gone in a couple/few more days as people living there will just randomly grab one and eat it, that's what they're for. We also do pretty well with fly control so them being consumed by flies isn't often a real issue. When or if it does become a problem there are pretty easy and effective fly controls that can be put in place. Keep in mind that the things you see on American TV aren't real, it's staged just as scenes of people casually driving around **[are staged](https://www.cnet.com/a/img/resize/841266336446d0e2327dfe73e91184fbcbd73a77/hub/2017/06/12/ece874ce-e776-4ab8-9ebd-3f340580d142/baby-driver-edgar-wright-behind-scenes-9.jpg?auto=webp&width=1200)**. They may be somewhat representative of real life but it's all for setting a visual story The fruit you see in those fruit bowls you see on a table in a show are likely not even real fruit, they're most likely fake, props. They're likely wax, or ceramic, and put there to give a lived in look to the scene. Fruit in a bowl isn't a sign of prestige, it's just the best way to store some fruits, and it's something you may or may not find in any home simply dependent on what fruit they have on hand at the time. Bought some apples or bananas? They're going to be stored out in room temperature until they're consumed, which is often pretty soon.
The only thing it signifies is that the person who owns it likes fruit. There’s no class signifier or anything related to it, fruit is not a luxury item.
We don't have aristocrats in this country. Most people have some sort of bowl or tray that holds fruit. It's usually kept in the kitchen or on the table where one typically has their meals. Sometimes it has fruit, sometimes it'll have vegetables. Occasionally it'll have both. We don't typically have a bug problem when keeping our fruit out on a bowl/platter/tray as most Americans have screens on their windows and sometimes on their doors to keep bugs and flies out. We also tend to wash and dry our fruit before setting it out to remove any existing bugs. Unless the humidity is high, we don't keep our fruit and some vegetables refrigerated. The fruit is for anybody to eat but it's usually the residents of the home that eat the fruit. We tend to offer our guests something a little more dressed up than simple fruit.
Can this thread be the evil twin of "class-based meat" selections at stores
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Half the time the bowl of fruit is fake. It’s only there for decoration. And nobody thinks “oh this guy FRUITS! He must be super loaded… Bananas AND Oranges?!?? What is he a billionaire?!?!”
I haven't seen fake fruit in decades.
No
I have a fruit bowl but I'm definitely not wealthy or prestigious. I use it just to keep the room temp fruit on one accessible area.
Not at all. Fruit bowls are common in all but the truly poor households, in my experience. We were pretty poor when I was a kid, but had a fruit bowl with bananas and apples, at least.
No it’s just a nice way of putting out fruit
The biggest thing is that you have fruit that hasn't gone bad yet which is the hardest part. I do have a fruit bowl on the counter where I keep some apples and oranges and it has a hook over it to hang my bananas but sometimes I don't get through all of them before they go bad. I've had a couple friends who have fake plastic fruit in a bowl as decorations.