One of the weirdest cultural differences for me when I had a partner in the US was the way he talked about his mom "cooking homemade food" and it turned out to be precooked stuff like chips and nuggets on paper plates. On the other hand it was endlessly odd to him the way we would peel our own boiled potatoes for every meal and how I made food from base ingredients. Like he would get a pancake mix and I would get milk, flour and eggs and mix it.

We genuinely don't have those types of premade things even today and ready meals are very different to the stuff in the US. It too is mostly basic everyday food here, just made on a large scale. Basically the same fish soup is made at home, eaten at school and sold as a ready meal.

The grocery store in the US was also a truly wild experience for me. The produce section was so small compared to the shelves and shelves of somehow premade stuff. It's very different and I suppose it is reflected on the school lunch too.