We lived next to Ray and Susan from 1987 until 1992 and they were no doubt the best neighbours we ever had.  I worked from our house as a foreign correspondent for a Dutch press agency, and our wonderful neighbour Ray has been very important to my understanding of American habits and culture, and specially American food culture. I am particularly grateful to him for teaching me how to do a proper bbq. On a Weber, of course. He also was kind enough to share, after a lot of Dutch nagging, his Very Secret Recipe for a gallon of bbq-sauce...
As a thank you I wanted to treat him to a traditional Dutch dish, green pea soup. It took me a lot of trouble to find the right ingredients, I even had some of the ingredients sent from Holland, made the soup, and invited Ray and Susan over for my (ahem)  Dutch treat.
Ray finished his soup, and looked rather thoughtful afterwards. And so I asked him: 'So, what do you think, Ray? What do you think??? Do you like my soup?". He kept quiet for a few more seconds, then looked at me, and said: "Well, let me put it this way, Henk. I'll be honest with you. If you ever think of opening a chain of green pea soup restaurants in this country, don't."
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A few months later I was in California for my work, and to my enormous surprise I saw a...green pea soup restaurant. Of course I tried it. It turned out to be a Danish restaurant, part of a chain (!) of Danish green pea soup restaurants. It was a decent soup, not as good as the Dutch version, of course, but edible.
Back home again, I immediately and triumphantly told Ray. "There IS a chain of green pea soup restaurants in this country after all. So there!"
He looked at me, thought a while, and desperate to have the final word on this matter, he said: 'But it's in California, Henk. That's not real America."