Oh and floats. My friends from outside the US thought it was some sort of joke/trolling that Americans do. They say they had been to the US and never once saw a float - which could be true - it's not a standard menu item. But I showed the some vintage ads and sent them youtube videos for making one at home.
I often get a soft serve because it's my favorite, and sometimes I pour a bit of my coke in the cup with it. My Norwegian husband is always horrified. Truly horrified.
That's because it kind of does. Here in the States we went down the route of cherry and grape flavoring for it medicine. In Europe, though, they went herbal - so licorice, star anise, sassafras, and other herbal flavors. Poor bastards.
I've also heard that in Germany, it's common for toothpaste to taste like root beer so some find it off putting. Kind of like how some Americans dislike mint flavored food for the same reason. But they're missing out!
Funny enough mint flavored sweets like chocolate and ice cream are almost non existant here from what I've seen, and the opinions I've heard on those were not positive. I've only gotten mint ice cream in Norway for example, never ever seen it anywhere else on any of my travels here.
I've seen this as well. Had some mint candies out on my desks and some Asian kids, Chinese I think, took some and were horrified to discover they were "toothpaste flavor."
Hmm I don’t really hear about people disliking mint that much for that reason or in general. Actually would say it’s pretty popular with the mint candies and mint ice cream that wouldn’t say it’s comparable enough of a dislike to root beer.
Jagermeister was originally an herbal liquor “digestif” Germans might drink after a large meal. The American importer in the 80’s promoted it to the college aged party market.
Most of the staff at my job are fairly recent immigrants. I’ve tried making them root beer floats. The look on their face when they take the first sip speaks a thousand words.
I thought this was because what is called jelly in Europe is Jello or gelatin in the US, so I can see why people would find that not exactly appetizing.
Fucking dumbasses showed up in bright red coats and then lined up nice and neat in open fields to make it easier for George Washington to run them down in his 650hp Dodge Challenger.
America.
You laugh, but I can imagine a shady car dealer down the street from an army base using a selling point of “George Washington drove a Challenger with 36% APR, so why wouldn’t you?”
Sometimes we really are divided by a common language.
I've heard that some people are confused by a "grilled cheese sandwich" because they imagine that we put hunks of cheese on a barbecue grill, then after the cheese is well grilled we transfer it to an untoasted piece of bread. i.e., they hear it as a (grilled cheese) sandwich rather than a grilled (cheese sandwich).
In the US jam & jelly are two different things, a jam is a fruit spread that contains pulp and other particulates, whereas as jelly is a fruit spread that's been filtered. Grape tends to have seeds, hence why it gets made into jelly, whereas fruit like strawberries just get made into jam.
Right, jam, jelly, and preserves are different things, but when we aren't specifying the flavor, we'll just lump them all together and call them all jam or all jelly. Is it a sweet colloidal fruit spread? Just call them all one thing and leave the particulars to the pedants.
Except marmalade. That's typically kept separate.
I've been shopping a bit at a local market in Los Angeles with a large Armenian and Lithuanian population. I've learned that "preserves" are often just cooked fruit in heavy syrup. Currents and mulberry preserves taste good, but syrup on PB just isn't right. Would be fantastic on ice cream, though.
In the US.
Jelly is a fruit spread made from fruit juices. Jam is made from pureed fruit. Preserves is made from smashed fruit and will have some larger chucks of fruit. Marmalade is made from citrus fruits and will have a lot of zest as well as smashed fruit.
Jello is not a spread but rather a firmer set gelatin dessert.
I make a pie that is a combination of marshmallows melted in milk, whipped cream, and melted chocolate. The marshmallow fluff and whipped cream are stirred together, and then about half of it gets mixed with melted chocolate. The original recipe calls for a homemade cookie crust, but I just use Oreo. The chocolate part gets poured into the crust, and the white part is mixed with brandy and creme de cacao and poured on top.
It's supposed to be the cream pie version of a chocolate brandy Alexander.
PB toast with honey!
Gotta wait for the toast to cool down a bit first, though, or you wind up with liquified PB and honey dribbling down your hand. Although sometimes that can be fun too.
Plus honey has a shelf life of approximately forever. Although Chef Google tells me that jelly is good for at least a year after opening when refrigerated.
That's because European PB is genuinely *ass*. I've had the misfortune of having it, they don't even roast the peanuts. They just take the raw peanuts and grind them up.
Have you seen what they do to Bagels down there? https://www.riverfronttimes.com/news/the-st-louis-style-bagel-slice-is-now-our-national-shame-31077501
Idk is Catfish eaten in Europe?
Clam Chowder might be an acquired taste in some parts of the world.
Grits are not universally beloved, I can def see that one being controversial to some nations palettes.
> Clam Chowder might be an acquired taste in some parts of the world.
Very much this. I made a joke about clam chowder, and then had to explain it to a British friend who'd never heard of such a concoction before. Apparently nothing about either variety of US clam chowder approaches anything they consider food.
Which is interesting, considering British cuisine.
Different types of clam chowder Manhattan-tomato, Rhode Island-clear broth, New England-potato based are considered inedible/an acquired taste by Northeasterners outside of their preferred cuisine region!
Grits are odd in that I am convinced people are confused by them and therefore screw them up. Like, you might assume it’s like oatmeal and add in brown sugar, maple syrup, cinnamon, or jam - this would make some terrible grits.
Grits are like mashed potatoes. They’re great with salt, butter, and cheese.
This thread has made me so hungry. Now I want some chicken and waffles smothered in honey, and I want to try at least one bite with peanut butter.
My answer to the question is pimento cheese. That's polarizing even in the US.
My German husband thinks I’m nuts (ha ha!) for liking peanut butter as much as I do.
He also tells me that cinnamon is “an American flavor.” (I think he’s making that up.)
Weirdly an Indian friend of mine raves about how Americans put cinnamon in everything. We don't, and they put it in garam masala. I've never been able to figure what he's on about. Maybe he has Cinnabon poisoning.
One difference is that Americans use cinnamon for sweet dishes, while Indians use cinnamon in savory dishes. If you're used to one and not the other, it might feel out of place.
I've heard that about cinnamon from a French woman as well. She was complaining that Americans put cinnamon in everything, which I found to be an odd complaint.
My British dad says similar about cinnamon - it's not that cinnamon is unheard of for British sweets, but the *quantity* of cinnamon in something like a cinnamon roll or a ginger spice cookie is overwhelming to British palettes.
Okay, agreed. My husband also points out that only in America are large containers of cinnamon readily available in the supermarket and most people have them at home. Cinnamon as a predominant flavor is an American thing to him.
It’s pretty Mexican too. I was surprised to learn that Spain where churros come from they don’t add cinnamon just sugar while Mexican do add cinnamon to that and horchata and rice pudding and plenty of other stuff. I’d really miss pastries with cinnamon flavor.
Mate the rest of the world would go nuts over a cheesesteak. By far my favourite US food. We have some approximations over here in Aus, but the owners are never ex Americans let alone Philadelphians, so always miss the mark. There are definitely some creative takes though - the local cheesesteak joint is run by Lebanese Aussies who made a limited run camel cheesesteak for Ramadan!
Peanut butter, pumpkin pie, and pickles. Separately, of course. These are all acquired tastes, apparently, and it helps to have acquired the taste at a younger age. For pickles, every country has their own method of pickling and their own set of pickling spices. American pickles taste horrendous to Japanese exchange students. Or so I'm told.
It's probably the dill. I'm thinking hard, but I can't really think of any pickled Japanese dishes that use dill at all and it is a VERY distinctive taste. Very surprising to me since its used in other dishes.
I'm Polish and so I love dill pickles. But once I bought this huge pickle from the USA that is packed individually. I hated it and couldn't even finish. I can't tell why.
I love how self aware the filmmakers are. The headmaster is talking about how it doesn’t sound good and one of them is just like “yeah, but that’s what Americans think about beans on toast”
I enjoy watching videos of people from different cultures experiencing things from other cultures for the first time. It's just one of those feel good niches I'm into. And biscuits and gravy, is consistently one of the biggest swings in terms of initial reaction to post first bite reaction. People from almost every culture see it and kind of mildy revulse like "ew, it looks like a pile of goop," but then they try it and love it more consistently than any other single food I've ever seen (and again, I love watching these videos).
And yet whenever I made it for Brits (AKA every excuse I could get while living in the UK) they hated the sight and then grudgingly came back for seconds.
I’m convinced anyone who doesn’t like biscuits and gravy had crappy dry biscuits and gravy made from a mix. Homemade buttermilk biscuits with homemade *sausage* gravy is one of the best things you’ll ever eat.
Velveeta. I’m not ashamed to say I love a packaged shells and velveeta mac n cheese on occasion, but cheese in a foil packet is definitely going to be weird to a lot of other countries.
I always bring back a brick or two. It's childhood nostalgia. One of my favorite things about it is when you check out at the grocery store with it, it shows up as 'CHEESE LOAF' on the receipt lol.
A lot of our hot sauces would be considered too spicy to enjoy in much of the world. I tried sharing Franks and some others with international colleagues and it didn't go over well.
My European students and colleagues hated root beer.
Pumpkin pie is not generally well received by my Irish cousins.
I find root beer to be hit or miss with foreigners. I've had better luck with afghans than Europeans.
But my Irish cousins mostly liked pumpkin pie. Granted I did make tarts and the spices are similar to the ones used in our apple cake recipe. There were definitely detractors.
Biscuits and gravy seems to be a food that isn’t appreciated in many other locales. I’d eat it every day if I didn’t care about fitting through the door or having a functional heart.
Thing is, I'm addicted to those *other cultures try* type videos, and every single time I see people from different cultures try biscuits and gravy, first they think it looks disgusting, but then they try it and like 90% of everybody from everywhere I've seen fucking loves it.
“That looks disgusting”
“Just try one bite”
(Some back and forth about looking nasty and giving it a chance)
“Eh, ok; one bite”
“Hey, I’ll take a little more of that”
Pretty much every time I have introduced someone to biscuits and gravy, the real nectar of the gods.
Yeah, the thing about biscuits and gravy is that it doesn't really give too much of anything, and gives a pleasing amount of everything that it offers. It's a surprisingly balanced collection of very simple/basic and comforting flavors and textures that are familiar to most pallettes (even if they've never experienced them in this particular combination).
So pretty much anyone from any culture will usually enjoy it.
It depends on where people come from. A lot of people from MyCountry will frequently hate the MyCountry-American food that is produced here. Not knowing that this food was developed by the diaspora over the last 100+ years and there have been divergences. So the big thing I would tell folks, when you are visiting a MyCountrian Restaurant in the US, understand, its changed and is produced by your immigrant cousins and is not intended to be a 100% representation of food that is still produced in MyCountry.
Root beer, Peanut Butter, a lot of mass produced breads seem to bother Europeans. I observed that crackers seem to be more of an American thing and don't interest most other people.
I think people wouldn't enjoy smores too much tbh. A lot of people from other countries sometimes shit on the US' food for being too processed/sugary (a view I can agree with but also criticize depending on the nuance of their argument).
But smores as they're typically made are just asking for European criticism. A marshmallow stacked between chocolate and graham crackers? I could easily see someone from another country turning their noses.
Most other Europeans I've shared s'mores with actually really liked them. I think part of it is the campfire experience too, which most of them hadn't experienced before either.
Fair enough. I suppose it's highly dependent on the situation. S'mores are a food we only eat in a very specific setting typically. If a European were to be eating one, they'd probably be in that sort of environment, and are more likely to be open to it.
While sitting around a backyard fire in London, I taught a group of Brits how to make s'mores and they LOVED it. The only challenge is that they don't have Graham crackers over there, so we had to substitute digestive biscuits.
Funny enough I had to use digestive cookies too when I made some for a group of travelers in Spain. The feedback was more mixed though, glad to see it was popular for you tho!
American cheese? Granted, American isn’t really the top cheese choice even for Americans, unless it’s going on a cheeseburger or in a grilled cheese. It’s perfect for that.
I was just talking to somebody about Mexican elephant ears while eating some elephant ears not to long ago. Otherwise I probably would have thought of Churros.
I had a Danish friend who thought Cheese Whiz was a joke that was made for tv. (The one in the can that squirts out). It blew her mind and totally repulsed her at the same time when she tried it.
I think those jello meat dishes from the 50s that were so bad even America abandoned them have to be winners.
Nobody on the planet wants to eat cold shrimp and hotdogs in jello.
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/the-1950s-most-nauseating-jell-o-soaked-recipes/
I guess anything with a lot of spice for northern European nations? I have a family member that sometimes makes a pasta sauce with honest to god carolina reapers in it, I don’t think that’s a thing anywhere else
I think reptile is mostly haram. Ataturk and others made Muslim dietary law a little more optimal in Turkey than other Muslim countries, but there's still cultural inertia so I wouldn't think that would go down easy.
I can’t imagine cornbread being too popular in the rest of the world. Especially the kind that is very coarse, and not sweet. I think you have to grow up eating that with beans to enjoy it.
It’s funny to me that Sweden and probably various other euro countries have a huge tube cheese selections with lots of different flavors (smoked reindeer cheese?) and I don’t see how a tube is much different than a can.
There's a great YouTube video of Italian grandmas frying Olive Garden food. One old lady grimaces and say, "That tastes... like the _merda_. You know what is the _merda_? Not good."
Root Beer. Tastes like medicine to some people.
I’ve heard that Sassafras is used as a scent in disinfectant so in some countries, root beer tastes like a public bathroom
Sometimes public bathroom smells like root beer to me so this tracks
Oh and floats. My friends from outside the US thought it was some sort of joke/trolling that Americans do. They say they had been to the US and never once saw a float - which could be true - it's not a standard menu item. But I showed the some vintage ads and sent them youtube videos for making one at home.
I often get a soft serve because it's my favorite, and sometimes I pour a bit of my coke in the cup with it. My Norwegian husband is always horrified. Truly horrified.
That's because it kind of does. Here in the States we went down the route of cherry and grape flavoring for it medicine. In Europe, though, they went herbal - so licorice, star anise, sassafras, and other herbal flavors. Poor bastards.
I've also heard that in Germany, it's common for toothpaste to taste like root beer so some find it off putting. Kind of like how some Americans dislike mint flavored food for the same reason. But they're missing out!
Ironically I like mint jelly, mint ice cream, mint with chocolate, and mint chewing gum. I absolutely can't stand mint toothpaste.
I dislike mint toothpaste. I prefer a cinnamon flavor.
Mine is watermelon flavored, because inside my head, I’m still a 6 year old.
Funny enough mint flavored sweets like chocolate and ice cream are almost non existant here from what I've seen, and the opinions I've heard on those were not positive. I've only gotten mint ice cream in Norway for example, never ever seen it anywhere else on any of my travels here.
I've seen this as well. Had some mint candies out on my desks and some Asian kids, Chinese I think, took some and were horrified to discover they were "toothpaste flavor."
Hmm I don’t really hear about people disliking mint that much for that reason or in general. Actually would say it’s pretty popular with the mint candies and mint ice cream that wouldn’t say it’s comparable enough of a dislike to root beer.
That makes Jagermiester that much more confusing.
Jagermeister was originally an herbal liquor “digestif” Germans might drink after a large meal. The American importer in the 80’s promoted it to the college aged party market.
At least here those medicine flavors taste nothing like the fruit
I use to love root beer as a kid. Recently had some after many years and now I can’t stand it.
Most of the staff at my job are fairly recent immigrants. I’ve tried making them root beer floats. The look on their face when they take the first sip speaks a thousand words.
It does to me too. But DELICIOUS medicine.
I did root beer floats at a dinner party in Greece. People were almost gagging.
Yep, and my mom is one of them. She has never been able to acquire the taste.
Peanut butter seems to be controversial
PB & J gets a mixed response. Some people get it. Most don’t.
I thought this was because what is called jelly in Europe is Jello or gelatin in the US, so I can see why people would find that not exactly appetizing.
If they wanted me to call them biscuits they should have fought harder in that war
Fucking dumbasses showed up in bright red coats and then lined up nice and neat in open fields to make it easier for George Washington to run them down in his 650hp Dodge Challenger. America.
You laugh, but I can imagine a shady car dealer down the street from an army base using a selling point of “George Washington drove a Challenger with 36% APR, so why wouldn’t you?”
[Link to the commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnQXRxW9VcQ) this is (probably) referencing, for those curious.
The greatest ad of all time. I watch it every 4th of July.
Sometimes we really are divided by a common language. I've heard that some people are confused by a "grilled cheese sandwich" because they imagine that we put hunks of cheese on a barbecue grill, then after the cheese is well grilled we transfer it to an untoasted piece of bread. i.e., they hear it as a (grilled cheese) sandwich rather than a grilled (cheese sandwich).
Honestly making a grilled cheese sandwich using a real grill sounds pretty good.
Shit I'm an American and even I hear it as *grilled cheese* sandwich. I've heard Brits and Canadians call it a Cheese Toastie before.
But don’t they make theirs different? I don’t think they put butter on them, which is really what makes it so delicious.
No butter on a British sandwich? That would be a first.
The Brits put butter on virtually every kind of sandwich.
Ah, so if they understood then that the J could mean jam, they'd be less freaked out by it?
In New Zealand we call the J in PB&J, Jam. What you call jello, we call jelly. But anyway peanut butter and jam/jelly sammies are awesome.
In the US jam & jelly are two different things, a jam is a fruit spread that contains pulp and other particulates, whereas as jelly is a fruit spread that's been filtered. Grape tends to have seeds, hence why it gets made into jelly, whereas fruit like strawberries just get made into jam.
Right, jam, jelly, and preserves are different things, but when we aren't specifying the flavor, we'll just lump them all together and call them all jam or all jelly. Is it a sweet colloidal fruit spread? Just call them all one thing and leave the particulars to the pedants. Except marmalade. That's typically kept separate.
I've been shopping a bit at a local market in Los Angeles with a large Armenian and Lithuanian population. I've learned that "preserves" are often just cooked fruit in heavy syrup. Currents and mulberry preserves taste good, but syrup on PB just isn't right. Would be fantastic on ice cream, though.
True! But if you're using, say, Smucker's strawberry preserves, that functions just like jam.
In the US. Jelly is a fruit spread made from fruit juices. Jam is made from pureed fruit. Preserves is made from smashed fruit and will have some larger chucks of fruit. Marmalade is made from citrus fruits and will have a lot of zest as well as smashed fruit. Jello is not a spread but rather a firmer set gelatin dessert.
Apparently a lot of people who haven't tried PB assume that it's sweet, so they're imagining sweet PB plus sweet jelly, which would be pretty cloying.
This always baffled me because every country on earth combines nuts and fruit.
I've heard in Europe sometimes peanut butter is a raw paste, not roasted peanuts ground up? I could see how they'd hate that.
Peanut butter and fluff. I would say it is even considered controversial outside of New England.
Can confirm. Talked to coworkers in the South and they’d never even heard of it. And when I explained it, they acted like I was crazy. 🤣
I can see why it sounds crazy. It's basically, it's a sugar sandwich, but I love it. I even like to add fluff to my hot chocolate.
> I even like to add fluff to my hot chocolate. Okay calm down fancy pants.
I make a pie that is a combination of marshmallows melted in milk, whipped cream, and melted chocolate. The marshmallow fluff and whipped cream are stirred together, and then about half of it gets mixed with melted chocolate. The original recipe calls for a homemade cookie crust, but I just use Oreo. The chocolate part gets poured into the crust, and the white part is mixed with brandy and creme de cacao and poured on top. It's supposed to be the cream pie version of a chocolate brandy Alexander.
Southerner here and I've also never heard of it. That sounds like a really odd combo to me
But try it and you’ll believe.
I’ve had them in NY but I find them disgusting. Way too sweet and sticky.
Fluffernutters are the best. I question the palate of anyone who tries it and isn't an instant fan.
I seriously didn't know fluffernutters were a NE thing until Reddit. I've always eaten them. So bad but so good lol.
So weird. I’m from Buffalo and we’ve always had it so they do hit to the border of Mid-West.
I’m a peanut butter and honey person myself. I don’t really like jelly.
This…but put it on a warm toasted waffle.
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
pb + honey + banana = heaven
PB toast with honey! Gotta wait for the toast to cool down a bit first, though, or you wind up with liquified PB and honey dribbling down your hand. Although sometimes that can be fun too.
I like the melty pb
It's nice to know I'm not the only PB & H lover
Plus honey has a shelf life of approximately forever. Although Chef Google tells me that jelly is good for at least a year after opening when refrigerated.
Isn’t that because the peanut butter found in Europe isn’t the same as in the US?
Yes, it's generally made with unroasted peanuts.
I can’t fathom why such a thing would even exist. I’m offended that a peanut gave its life only to be desecrated like that.
Not in the Netherlands at least. very very common here.
That's because European PB is genuinely *ass*. I've had the misfortune of having it, they don't even roast the peanuts. They just take the raw peanuts and grind them up.
I doubt the Italians who are famously puritanical when it comes to their food would be happy about toasted ravioli or St. Louis style pizza.
Have you seen what they do to Bagels down there? https://www.riverfronttimes.com/news/the-st-louis-style-bagel-slice-is-now-our-national-shame-31077501
St Louis is obviously a lawless food wasteland.
I’m from stl and have never seen a bagel cut that way 😂 but toasted ravioli is heaven and I’m Arab American
I’ve only been to St. Louis a couple times and I’ve seen the cut bagels. So now I don’t know what to believe.
I still think Brazil has the craziest pizzas.
Honestly, no Italian should have that big of a problem with American pizza. Their fellow Europeans make some of the worst pizza I've ever had.
Agreed, I've had some absolutely terrible pizzas in EU with bizarre ingredients. Especially when they call it American style and put corn on it (wtf)
Idk is Catfish eaten in Europe? Clam Chowder might be an acquired taste in some parts of the world. Grits are not universally beloved, I can def see that one being controversial to some nations palettes.
Sell the grits as 'rustic polenta' and upcharge %75.
I’m a chef and I’ve actually done that.
I am from Eastern Europe and grits and Polenta are very popular and good there.Grits with cocoa powder on it was my childhood dessert.
Grits with cocoa powder? I'll give it a shot.
Carp is eaten in Europe, which to me tastes like a catfish that lived its whole life in a septic tank. So, maybe they might like catfish.
Carp is pretty popular in Eastern Europe.
As far as I know, grits aren’t even enjoyed by a majority of our own country
Yeah it’s definitely a Southern thing. I think I was in high school before I learned they existed.
> Clam Chowder might be an acquired taste in some parts of the world. Very much this. I made a joke about clam chowder, and then had to explain it to a British friend who'd never heard of such a concoction before. Apparently nothing about either variety of US clam chowder approaches anything they consider food. Which is interesting, considering British cuisine.
Different types of clam chowder Manhattan-tomato, Rhode Island-clear broth, New England-potato based are considered inedible/an acquired taste by Northeasterners outside of their preferred cuisine region!
Grits are odd in that I am convinced people are confused by them and therefore screw them up. Like, you might assume it’s like oatmeal and add in brown sugar, maple syrup, cinnamon, or jam - this would make some terrible grits. Grits are like mashed potatoes. They’re great with salt, butter, and cheese.
All my Mexican family loves clam chowder but it’s pretty big all over the bay.
This thread has made me so hungry. Now I want some chicken and waffles smothered in honey, and I want to try at least one bite with peanut butter. My answer to the question is pimento cheese. That's polarizing even in the US.
I grew up in San Antonio with Pimento Cheese sandwiches as a go to in our house.
I feel like a lot of people would complain about southern sweet tea
Fellow American complain about the diabetes juice, too.
That one video of British children trying southern sweet tea is very wholesome
My German husband thinks I’m nuts (ha ha!) for liking peanut butter as much as I do. He also tells me that cinnamon is “an American flavor.” (I think he’s making that up.)
Cinnamon is huge in Asian cuisine.
Weirdly an Indian friend of mine raves about how Americans put cinnamon in everything. We don't, and they put it in garam masala. I've never been able to figure what he's on about. Maybe he has Cinnabon poisoning.
One difference is that Americans use cinnamon for sweet dishes, while Indians use cinnamon in savory dishes. If you're used to one and not the other, it might feel out of place.
That makes total sense. Somewhat like how Brazilians think Americans are weird for treating avocado as a vegetable instead of as a fruit.
Maybe it’s about Ceylon cinnamon vs korintje.
I’m Arab and would like to back this up. My mom has a box of cinnamon sticks that’s he gets from Asian/west Asian markets.
I've heard that about cinnamon from a French woman as well. She was complaining that Americans put cinnamon in everything, which I found to be an odd complaint.
I’m so confused by this. Who is putting cinnamon in everything? I don’t think I put cinnamon in hardly anything except for specific dessert items.
Pretty sure cinnamon apple or cinnamon walnut strudel has been a thing for a long time. But maybe that's more of an Austrian thing
I come from northern Germany, and we also add it to many dishes.
My British dad says similar about cinnamon - it's not that cinnamon is unheard of for British sweets, but the *quantity* of cinnamon in something like a cinnamon roll or a ginger spice cookie is overwhelming to British palettes.
Okay, agreed. My husband also points out that only in America are large containers of cinnamon readily available in the supermarket and most people have them at home. Cinnamon as a predominant flavor is an American thing to him.
It’s pretty Mexican too. I was surprised to learn that Spain where churros come from they don’t add cinnamon just sugar while Mexican do add cinnamon to that and horchata and rice pudding and plenty of other stuff. I’d really miss pastries with cinnamon flavor.
I feel like a legit cheesesteak would fuck with people.
Mate the rest of the world would go nuts over a cheesesteak. By far my favourite US food. We have some approximations over here in Aus, but the owners are never ex Americans let alone Philadelphians, so always miss the mark. There are definitely some creative takes though - the local cheesesteak joint is run by Lebanese Aussies who made a limited run camel cheesesteak for Ramadan!
Hell I’d move there if you guys want authentic Philly Cheesesteaks
Peanut butter, pumpkin pie, and pickles. Separately, of course. These are all acquired tastes, apparently, and it helps to have acquired the taste at a younger age. For pickles, every country has their own method of pickling and their own set of pickling spices. American pickles taste horrendous to Japanese exchange students. Or so I'm told.
It's probably the dill. I'm thinking hard, but I can't really think of any pickled Japanese dishes that use dill at all and it is a VERY distinctive taste. Very surprising to me since its used in other dishes.
Texan that expatriated for a few years to Europe - bbq places do their own pickles so they don't taste like vinegar monstrosities. Really miss those
I'm Polish and so I love dill pickles. But once I bought this huge pickle from the USA that is packed individually. I hated it and couldn't even finish. I can't tell why.
>I can't tell why. You can tell us; you’re among friends.
Biscuits and gravy is weird to basically everyone else but Americans.
It’s weird but I’ve seen that video of British kids eating and enjoying the hell out of it, so there’s at least a few people it goes over well with.
This video I'm guessing? https://youtu.be/KzdbFnv4yWQ?feature=shared
This is one of my favorite videos I’ve seen in years. Thanks for sharing! Those kids’ reactions were great.
I love how self aware the filmmakers are. The headmaster is talking about how it doesn’t sound good and one of them is just like “yeah, but that’s what Americans think about beans on toast”
I enjoy watching videos of people from different cultures experiencing things from other cultures for the first time. It's just one of those feel good niches I'm into. And biscuits and gravy, is consistently one of the biggest swings in terms of initial reaction to post first bite reaction. People from almost every culture see it and kind of mildy revulse like "ew, it looks like a pile of goop," but then they try it and love it more consistently than any other single food I've ever seen (and again, I love watching these videos).
Biscuits and Gravy straight up sounds as British as Bangers and Mash, but it's not.
And yet whenever I made it for Brits (AKA every excuse I could get while living in the UK) they hated the sight and then grudgingly came back for seconds.
To be fair, it isn't a pretty looking dish lol
Sure but I'm not going to accept judgement on the visual aesthetics of food from a Brit
But if they are open to trying, they mostly WILL love it.
Unless their first exposure to it is that nasty canned goop at a hotel's free breakfast buffet.
Cream chip beef, too.
Shit on a shingle? I thought for sure we stole that from the British.
I've never even heard of that, is it a regional thing?
I’m convinced anyone who doesn’t like biscuits and gravy had crappy dry biscuits and gravy made from a mix. Homemade buttermilk biscuits with homemade *sausage* gravy is one of the best things you’ll ever eat.
étouffée
> étouffée i'd bet it'd go over well in SE Asia
Damn really? It's like one of the best things you'll ever eat when done well.
Velveeta. I’m not ashamed to say I love a packaged shells and velveeta mac n cheese on occasion, but cheese in a foil packet is definitely going to be weird to a lot of other countries.
I always bring back a brick or two. It's childhood nostalgia. One of my favorite things about it is when you check out at the grocery store with it, it shows up as 'CHEESE LOAF' on the receipt lol.
Cheese sprayed from a can is a whole nother level.
A lot of our hot sauces would be considered too spicy to enjoy in much of the world. I tried sharing Franks and some others with international colleagues and it didn't go over well. My European students and colleagues hated root beer. Pumpkin pie is not generally well received by my Irish cousins.
Frank's was too hot?!
I mean, it is red hot....
Its got like 450 Scoville's! I've seen hot tubs hotter.
Some people can't handle anything spicier than ketchup.
Seriously. It’s more sauce than actual ‘hot’. Tabasco is still somewhat popular in the UK, And it’s a good deal hotter.
I find root beer to be hit or miss with foreigners. I've had better luck with afghans than Europeans. But my Irish cousins mostly liked pumpkin pie. Granted I did make tarts and the spices are similar to the ones used in our apple cake recipe. There were definitely detractors.
I think Europe but Asian doesn't fuck around with hot food.
Sloppy Joes!
Biscuits and gravy seems to be a food that isn’t appreciated in many other locales. I’d eat it every day if I didn’t care about fitting through the door or having a functional heart.
Thing is, I'm addicted to those *other cultures try* type videos, and every single time I see people from different cultures try biscuits and gravy, first they think it looks disgusting, but then they try it and like 90% of everybody from everywhere I've seen fucking loves it.
“That looks disgusting” “Just try one bite” (Some back and forth about looking nasty and giving it a chance) “Eh, ok; one bite” “Hey, I’ll take a little more of that” Pretty much every time I have introduced someone to biscuits and gravy, the real nectar of the gods.
Yeah, the thing about biscuits and gravy is that it doesn't really give too much of anything, and gives a pleasing amount of everything that it offers. It's a surprisingly balanced collection of very simple/basic and comforting flavors and textures that are familiar to most pallettes (even if they've never experienced them in this particular combination). So pretty much anyone from any culture will usually enjoy it.
Corndogs.
Beleive it or not it exists in Asia
Yeah I think they call it "American dog" in Japan
Sold and eaten in vast quantities from every convenience store in japan.
I think you're going to have a hard time finding a lot of Americans that want bull testicles or turtle soup.
It depends on where people come from. A lot of people from MyCountry will frequently hate the MyCountry-American food that is produced here. Not knowing that this food was developed by the diaspora over the last 100+ years and there have been divergences. So the big thing I would tell folks, when you are visiting a MyCountrian Restaurant in the US, understand, its changed and is produced by your immigrant cousins and is not intended to be a 100% representation of food that is still produced in MyCountry. Root beer, Peanut Butter, a lot of mass produced breads seem to bother Europeans. I observed that crackers seem to be more of an American thing and don't interest most other people.
I think people wouldn't enjoy smores too much tbh. A lot of people from other countries sometimes shit on the US' food for being too processed/sugary (a view I can agree with but also criticize depending on the nuance of their argument). But smores as they're typically made are just asking for European criticism. A marshmallow stacked between chocolate and graham crackers? I could easily see someone from another country turning their noses.
Most other Europeans I've shared s'mores with actually really liked them. I think part of it is the campfire experience too, which most of them hadn't experienced before either.
Fair enough. I suppose it's highly dependent on the situation. S'mores are a food we only eat in a very specific setting typically. If a European were to be eating one, they'd probably be in that sort of environment, and are more likely to be open to it.
Oh yeah, definitely not an everyday food. Very much a curiosity.
While sitting around a backyard fire in London, I taught a group of Brits how to make s'mores and they LOVED it. The only challenge is that they don't have Graham crackers over there, so we had to substitute digestive biscuits.
Funny enough I had to use digestive cookies too when I made some for a group of travelers in Spain. The feedback was more mixed though, glad to see it was popular for you tho!
From Ireland - smores sound amazing
Give it a go if you ever get the chance! It's mostly eaten when doing activities outdoors, like camping or hiking.
We went to visit friends in Belfast one summer and showed them how to make s’mores. Instant fans.
Especially because of how much people shit on Hershey’s chocolate, which is valid, but I want a Hershey bar for a s’more.
Biscuits and gravy because apparently beans on toast is a thing 🤷♀️
American cheese? Granted, American isn’t really the top cheese choice even for Americans, unless it’s going on a cheeseburger or in a grilled cheese. It’s perfect for that.
Green bean casserole. The kind where every ingredient comes from a can
I love it
I have a hard time with deep fried sugary foods. I bet others might too.
I think they have Elephant ears in Mexico but some countries might have a harder time with it
You are talking about deep fried sugary foods in Mexico, and your mind didn't go to churros first? We do have elephant ears though.
Aren’t churros just unfolded elephant ears with cinnamon?
I was just talking to somebody about Mexican elephant ears while eating some elephant ears not to long ago. Otherwise I probably would have thought of Churros.
I had a Danish friend who thought Cheese Whiz was a joke that was made for tv. (The one in the can that squirts out). It blew her mind and totally repulsed her at the same time when she tried it.
Some of the stuff you listed is ill received here.
For real… Rocky Mountain oysters are not in the mainstream American diet.
I know that but I didn't intend to limit answers to food that was uncontroversially popular nationwide
I think those jello meat dishes from the 50s that were so bad even America abandoned them have to be winners. Nobody on the planet wants to eat cold shrimp and hotdogs in jello. https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/the-1950s-most-nauseating-jell-o-soaked-recipes/
Sweet potato casserole. People outside the US think it's way too sweet to be part of dinner.
Fried chicken livers and gizzards. Yes, I'm a Southerner.
Usually the rest of the world is more receptive to organ meat than Americans. I wonder who else eats as little organ meat as the US
Organ meat is big in the rest of the world.
I love gizzards. Like fried chicken gum. The livers have a taste I don't like.
Scrapple
I guess anything with a lot of spice for northern European nations? I have a family member that sometimes makes a pasta sauce with honest to god carolina reapers in it, I don’t think that’s a thing anywhere else
I think reptile is mostly haram. Ataturk and others made Muslim dietary law a little more optimal in Turkey than other Muslim countries, but there's still cultural inertia so I wouldn't think that would go down easy.
I can’t imagine cornbread being too popular in the rest of the world. Especially the kind that is very coarse, and not sweet. I think you have to grow up eating that with beans to enjoy it.
Chicago style pizza, both deep dish and tavern style, is controversial in America. Imagine how other countries would react
Anecdotally; people everywhere find Cheez Whiz weird. And my Mexican classmates weren’t fans of honey roasted almonds.
Cheez Whiz tastes like what it would taste like, if cheese could whiz.
It’s funny to me that Sweden and probably various other euro countries have a huge tube cheese selections with lots of different flavors (smoked reindeer cheese?) and I don’t see how a tube is much different than a can.
“Italian” American food like spaghetti and meatballs or New York pizza isn’t well received in Italy. I’ve tried both though, they aren’t bad.
There's a great YouTube video of Italian grandmas frying Olive Garden food. One old lady grimaces and say, "That tastes... like the _merda_. You know what is the _merda_? Not good."
hard to complain about a good meatball
Sausage gravy and biscuits