Raised in Illinois, adult life in Texas, I drink Coke with pizza and with chile; also with popcorn at a movie. I think that is because Coke was served with those foods in my childhood.

I don't drink Coke and other carbonated drinks. But some of you are way off base if you think all those people drinking cokes with meals in Europe are Americans.
I've seen tons of business people out for lunch drinking cokes with their meals in London, Paris, Madrid, Rome -- well, just about everywhere. Cokes with meals are very popular with many, many Europeans.

I recently sort of laughed when I saw a group of five French women probably in their thirties at a nice brasserie in Paris, all drinking coke with their lunch, while celebrating a birthday. In fact most or all of them had at least 3 cokes. We laughed at the time because we guessed their coke bill may have been as high as their food bill. These were locals, no question about it. Two of them kept looking at their watches and were clearly headed back to work, leaving money for the others to pay as they were obviously late.

>>I drink Coke with pizza....<

Whoa there, missypie, that's a pretty brave confession from someone who just got raked over the coals for eating in one of those ghastly chain places.

I admire your spunk!

>>>>
I recently sort of laughed when I saw a group of five French women probably in their thirties at a nice brasserie in Paris, all drinking coke with their lunch, while celebrating a birthday.
>>>>>

why would this cause laughter? the french aren't that exotic.

also, the higher people are on the ladder the more "international" their habits (and dress) often become...especially young people who often have spent time making money and building careers in america, asia or other parts of europe.

Audere:

"Nil satis nisi optimum": Typical Southerner stereotyping. Scouse left-footers support LFC and Tranmere, too, you know.

I bet you're the sort who sings "You'll never work again" every time our lads brave the wilds of N19 to try and teach you how to play.

walkinaround, you should have finished reading my post. It was the idea that they each drank at least 3 of them that made me "sort of laugh" as I said, we thought their coke bill may have equalled their food bill. That's all.
Gee, I've seen so many French drinking cokes with meals, I didn't mean to imply just seeing one drinking a coke would cause laughter.

yes neo...i misunderstood. perhaps i was thrown off by the importance that you placed on the women being locals. but now i realise what you meant.

Who knows, maybe it was lunch time and she didn't want to drink wine until the evening. If it was me, I'd take the wine instead of coke. ha ha. Hubby though would definitely have a diet coke - he's a cokeaholic.

Hi, I didn't read the entire thread, but another idea occurred to me. When I first started to travel, I didn't "get" that items from home were imports there. I'd just look for familiar brands out of habit. Maybe something like Crest toothpaste really is that expensive??? Just a thought--which can be dangerous, I know :)

walkinaround, LOL. I understand how my post may have confused you.

I must admit that these days with so many posters constantly challenging what anyone says, it's getting harder and harder to post without going into too much detail. I was already aware that if I simply said five women. . . that someone would immediately want to know how I knew they weren't American, hence the drawn out details to explain how I knew that. And after a couple of scathing attacks on another thread today, we must seemingly be hesitant to speak about any unusual behavior we see when we travel as that means we are "enjoying" and "humiliating" other people. In fact if I had said these five girls were Chinese or something else, then my post would have been immediately labeled racist. But I guess talking about 5 French girls drinking coke is OK?

I drink Coke with meals...I don't drink wine (just a handful of times in my whole life !) and in very few occasions beer. But I think Coke is not as sweet here as in the States, not sure about that though.

kenderina, don't know where you're from, but you're probably right. In Italy, I actually drank Fanta Orange and found it refreshing...I wouldn't touch the syrupy stuff here in the US.

I'm from Spain, missypie :)

I returned last week from a trip to France and Italy. My son was with me, and even in the nicer restaurants, we never paid more than 4 Euros for a Coke, and even bought Cokes for 2 Euros in the grocery stores. You can find decent meals in most restaurants at a reasonable price, but expect to pay more if you eat or drink in the touristy areas.

>drank Fanta Orange
Don't worry, Fanta is a genuine german soft drink, nothing american in it, European by nature ;-). It was invented during the Nazi aera, when they wouldn't supply any more coke syrup from Atlanta. The inventor said on TV "It's called Fanta, because you need a lot of phantasy to believe it's made with real oranges ..." True story!

>>>>
Fanta is a genuine german soft drink, nothing american in it, European by nature
>>>>

not sure if your statement is supposed to be irony but fanta is a coca-cola product, no?

I love Fanta limon -- as good as a high quality limonata as far as I'm concerned and so cheap. If they sold this in the U.S. I'd definitely buy it but like others have said, I generally avoid Fanta in the states...

That's the point, it was "invented" by coca cola Germany (by german employees) when all the american companies where socialized and state property in Nazi Germany. Because of the lack of coke syrup they had to sell something else, so Fanta was invented. After the war the coca cola company got the the rights back and sold it all over the world.

True story! it's a genuine European soft drink.

Yes, Fanta is right now a brand name of the Coca Cola company, but it's not their invention, they bought it :)

CocaCola in Italy (bottled still in Germany I believe) is made with with sugar rather than the high fructose corn syrup that is used for the CocaCola that is made in the US. That is the difference in taste. I am terribly allergic to corn so only have CocaCola in Italy. I hope they haven't changed the receipe.

I don't drink coffee with a meal. I even have my coffee before breakfast.
And when I have a coke it is not with a meal, just by itself. All what one is use to I would imagine. But I don't see why everyone can't order drinks when the want it..what difference does it make to anyone else?