Yesterday, I watched a video from one of the impressive YouTube English teachers, who taught us how to praise the food we’re offered during a visit. One of the most important parts of it was learning how important it is to appreciate the food if you are invited or attend another kind of meeting involving food. It’s part of English culture, and I think this kind of culture can also be applied in other cultures, but I have the impression it’s sometimes not as important as it seems to be in English-speaking countries.
She provided a lot of patterns you can use and especially patterns you shouldn’t use—for instance, “not bad,” “it’s really good,” “it’s nice,” and so on. But she also warned us not to overuse very common adjectives like “delicious,” “marvelous,” “wonderful,” and so on. So I think it doesn’t make any sense to learn some of the patterns by heart. You have to express yourself, your personality, your interest, and if you think in these terms, you’re always on safe ground. With this behavior in mind, you can’t make any big mistakes, I think.
One of the teacher’s suggestions—Annemarie—was to use formulations like “How is the…?” or “Can you tell me the details of cooking it?” and so on. That is a method—if I should call it a method—which I’m using myself because I’m an interested cook and always looking for new recipes.
Another good way to show appreciation could be to praise the meal with “wonderful,” “tasty,” and then add, “but I’d never cook it myself because the effort would be too much for me. I like cooking only when it’s limited to a short time.” I think it’s a very good personal expression for saying “it’s not my thing, but it’s still a good one.”