"I don't think I ever had rice or pasta as part of a main course until I started doing my own cooking. Such things would have been classed as "foreign muck"
We have some German friends with the same bias. If it's not seafood, steak or another high-end protein, to them it's hardly food at all. At our first dinner together, one of them ordered seafood primavera and was irritated when it was served on a bed of pasta. I watched him eat every bite of the seafood, while working around the pasta with the precision of a surgeon. The funny part is that the body needs both protein and complex carbs to feel satisfied, i.e. pasta with seafood or steak will satisfy your stomach for a very long time.
