Here's how I do all the extra "funny" characters.
Open MS Word. Click on <Insert> then "Special Characters". You'll get a dialog box. Under the "Symbols" tab, click the pull-down arrow and select "Times New Roman". This gives you all the extra foreign characters that "American" English doesn't use. Click and highlight the character you wish to use.
Now, there's two ways to do this:
1) Click the "Insert" button, and the character will be inserted into your document. Highlight, cut, and paste the character into your post on your browser.
2) If you look at the top, there will be a bit of text that shows the keyboard shortcut to "type" this character without going through all this trouble. For instance, the "o" with the slash through it, in lower-case, has a shortcut of Alt+0248. Press and HOLD the Alt key while typing the numbers 0248 at the same time. Once you type the last number, release the Alt key, and the character should appear. I've since found that I can type the keyboard shortcut in my browser (Opera v7.54) as well as MS Word, and it works. So, ø is easily typed. I've also found the Alt+0176 = ° (for temperatures) and Alt+0162 = ¢
Ok, now to get back onto topic. I can't really think of anything that my family ate that would be considered "weird". However, my DW's family does have a few things, the first of which that comes to my mind is that they like Tuna Noodle Casserole with Lay's Sour Cream -n- Onion potato chips crumbled on top. I honestly think that one got started by her Mom, since my DW always leaves ALL salt out of her cooking so her mother's sodium intake is lowered, that my MIL took to adding the potato chips for their salt content.
They also like to put ketchup on Fried Egg sandwiches. Me, I like mine plain, as-is, just bread and freshly-fried eggs.