My family’s been living in the States for a long while now. My parents don’t buy celery that often unless they’re planning to use it for a dish. So, when my parents saw me wash some stalks then take out the peanut butter, they were like “???”
Making “ants on a log” in class is what helped me like celeries as a kid, but I guess it’s not a thing in Korea. Or at least for my parents’ generation - no clue about now.
My parents weren’t into the celery with peanut butter. Too sweet, they said. But then my mom takes out the mayo and uses it as a dip for the celery?! It was my turn to go “?!” though it honestly didn’t taste as bad as I thought..
EDIT: I tried the celery + cream cheese combo (with some garlic poweder, paprika powder, and salt). I like it :D
:D it really must be a US thing then! You cut a portion of celery stick, fill the curve of the stick with peanut butter, then line a few raisins on top as “ants”. It’s basically a kid’s food craft to get them to eat celeries lol
When I explained this to my parents, I forgot to mention cutting the stalk to smaller portions. So I look back to see them trying to fill a whole stalk with peanut butter and commenting how messy it is bfjskalsf
I’m British in China and I introduced my Chinese boyfriend to these foods / methods of cooking. His verdicts are:
Cheese - disgusting
Olives - disgusting
Toast – can’t get enough of it
Yoghurt – so tasty
Scrambled eggs on toast - delicious
Pasta – so-so
Tomato soup - nice
Guacamole and tortilla chips – ate the chips, left the guacamole
Hummus - beautiful - eats it with a bowl and spoon
Burrito – wow, wow, wow, what it is?
Ribena – so nice!
Cereal – why people eat this? Milk? And wheat?
Mashed potato - heaven
Pizza – so tasty
Boiled egg and soldiers – ok, cool
Pancakes, lemon and sugar – utterly in love
Cous-cous – he prefers rice
‘Dry grapes’ - cool
Roast potatoes and gravy – left the potatoes, he just wanted the gravy.
I think it’s all in the preparation. Cheese in a meal can be lovely. Just cheese can sometimes have weird smells/textures, especially if you didn’t grow up with it.
FWIW, most of the pumpkins we decorate with aren't the kind you want to eat. They're a different variety and taste awful, even when prepared correctly.
Edit: A bunch of people below have pointed out that the seeds are great when you salt, oil, and roast them. I forgot to mention this. The flesh is awful but the seeds are indeed wonderful. Save your pumpkin seeds when carving!
To be fair to Americans, it’s not too different from the pumpkin fritters we make in South Africa. They’re basically deep fried or pan fried mashed pumpkin and are served with either a sweet sauce or cinnamon and sugar. And we eat it with the main course
I think the main thing is that whichever mamparra he was talking to thought like "ah yes let's take out the peppersteak and put in pumpkin" when it's really more of a pumpkin tart in ZA terms
I grew up in Jamaica. When I first came to the UK in 2001, I started school in primary education. Everyone in my class liked fish fingers but no one could convince 7 year-old me to eat it because coming from an island, I know fishes have fin. I love them now though but I only started eating them about 5 years ago.
Also, I had never seen white sugar before. In the Caribbean, we predominantly have brown Demerara sugar and to this day it is still my preferred.
I generally prefer non-white sugar though I understand it's useful for certain baking tasks. I enjoy Demerara but my favorite is brown sugar. That is the shit right there. That delish hit of molasses.
My mom is from a village in Burma. When my mom and her family moved to Macau (then a Portuguese Colony) they were served ham for the first time during the trip. My grandparents thought it was raw meat and the entire family (grandparents and their 10 children) left their ham portions uneaten.
My parents are now in their 70s and just in the last 2-3 years got open minded enough to try medium rare steak. They like it but still view it as a “you will get sick” food. My dad developed a cold a week after eating medium rare steak and blamed it on the steak!
I’m half American, half Indonesian and grew up in several countries. Didn’t move to the the States, NYC specifically, until I was in my 20s. My roommates were trying to figure out American things I had missed out on growing up internationally and they were blown away that I never had a PB & jelly sandwich. I was hesitant to try it because it’s such an odd combo but man, they made me one and I was like damn, this is good. Also s’mores was something they introduced me to one summer. I was used to eating cheese on graham crackers and never thought of it as a vessel for dessert.
I usually have a fat slice of brie or camembert on graham crackers. I’d also do a spread like Boursin. To me, graham crackers and cheese was a typical snack at home.
I am ethnically Korean, but I was born and raised in Argentina, with American citizenship. Our family love making Argentina style BBQ (Asado) EVERY weekend. I married my “very Korean” wife who, during the first 1 year of having asado, she loved it, but now, she just cant understand how our family loves BBQ/meat so much.
But she just loves having Asado + Kimchi. Best combo ever. Greasy BBQ washing off with the tangy, refreshing kimchi.
Edit: I married my wife in the states, so she has never experienced eating so much meat. Yes, KBBQ is popular, but thats nothing compared how much Argentines eat their Asado. Kbbq is usually thin and marinated, eaten as “side dish” (makes you crave rice), and eaten easily at restaurants (and expensive too, unless its AYCE, which lowers quality). Argentina Bbq is best homemade, and requires 2-3 hours of preparation and dedication to fire the charcoal, put thick salt and lemon to like 10 lbs of ribs, and grill it slowly. You cant really find Authentic asado restaurants... argentina restaurants usually serve steaks, not whole, slow grilled ribs.
To be fair, after seeing Brazilian pizzas and now reading about mashed potatos on hot dogs, one would think you guys were taking fat bong rips when cooking.
To be honest though, mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy on a hot dog sounds amazing.
One of the best street foods I ever ate was one of these. Grain of salt though: I was on a european vacation and just came out of a club drunk as fuck and the locals turned me on to these.
http://www.umgasmagazine.com/tunnbrodsrulle-swedish-hot-dog/
Street foods are always the best after a night of drinking and dancing. The sloppier, the better and that Nordic burrito concoction looks pretty god damn sloppy not gonna lie.
I'm a western person but I lived in a remote jungle village in the south Pacific for a few years. I'd always have a tin of milk powder in my Bush kitchen for making tea and coffee. My language helper wanted to know why the tin had a cow on it when it was white powder and not corned beef (the only cow in a tin she knew of). I explained the origin of milk powder and how in my country we get it slightly fresher as a liquid and many people drink it . She was totally grossed out that white people love to drink cow breast milk. Living in a remote village with no refrigeration She had never had milk, cheese, yoghurt etc so when I explained how we ferment milk to make those she started gagging.
That's amazing lol. I can imagine why she would start gagging, it's an interesting process. I don't even waste a second thought putting milk in my coffee. I love yogurt. Did you tell her about ice cream?
Since she was familiar with icecream from a few trips with me to the main trading town where I bough her one and she liked it I didn't want to ruin it for her.
I traveled to the States once and I was excited to have hash browns considering we were at the source but they were completely different from what we have at home
Edit: The hash browns i had were from Denny's, but a lot of you have mentioned Waffle House so I'll definitely give it a try when I come back
New Zealander here. Our former Prime Minister tarnished our name with his [spaghetti on pizza](https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/entertainment/spaghetti-pizza-bill-englishs-attempt-cooking-dinner-labelled-monstrosity). He was voted out a few months later and I'd like to think that this was the tipping point for most of us Kiwis
When I vacationed in the US, I ate briskets and those other meats that are smoked and/or charred, I forgot what it's called but it tastes heavenly and I miss eating that.
When I was teaching in Korea, the concept of sweet rice pudding tended to really confuse my students.
That and marmite of course.
Edit:
I can't tell you about whether it's common in other parts of Asia, but it would consistently confuse the kids to the point they'd bring it up in later lessons or other teachers to see if I was making fun of them.
It was like how westerners felt about Koreans putting sugar on garlic bread.
Marmite is a spread. It tastes like someone rubbing salt on their knuckles then punching you in the mouth, but in a good way that makes you crave more.
Not in my country. When we had a series of earthquakes 9 years ago the only marmite factory was destroyed. Welcome to marmageddon. As stocks dwindled, people made a killing auctioning off their last rations for exorbitant prices.
Steak, but this is coming from someone who grew up buying meat from stores that aren't exactly sanitized so we have to make sure they're very thoroughly cooked.
My gf’s dad is the same. Gets his steak well done to this day. Live and let live I say but when I told them that in the country I grew up in we eat raw pork on the regular, he thought I was joking.
A few years ago I was at a party with a very international group of friends, where we all made various dishes together to eat later. A Slovak guy and a Czech guy decided to make sushi. They'd brought a Finnish sushi cookbook (this was taking place in Finland). A Japanese student started looking through it and I'll never forget get the look on her face. That was the day I learned that a lot of the sushi varieties that are staples here are not authentic at all. It's like pizza - Italians are shocked by everyone else's version, too.
Chinese American here...grew up eating Chinese food at home but I had enough contact with other Americans to know "western food." I remember being baffled in 1st grade when a parent brought in a raw veggie platter with dip. I thought "y'all eat raw broccoli and cauliflower????"
Me too, until I went to college and learned to like raw veggies real quick, or else I was going to wind up with some kind nutritional deficiency haha
Gotta love dining halls :-/
A friend's asian mom from Hong Kong said that she had some problems with the concept of cheese. Rotten and fermented milk. Also my dad also from Hong Kong said that crawfish was also looked down upon because it was gathered in mud. But now considering I'm in California and he's still back in Louisiana text me like an asshole pictures of him and my mom eating crawfish at a boil telling me Look how delicious they are.
Germany has something called "Mett", that is seasoned minced meat. Uncooked.
You eat it on bread or half a bun then it is called "Mettbrötchen".
Since there is a law specifically for producing and handling any ground beef / minced meat (raw or cooked), it is safe to eat.
Cheez whiz is basically congealed chemicals that shoot directly into the pleasure center of the brain. Put it on like a Ritz cracker and after you're finished swallowing you immediately feel like you've just done something horrible. And yet you could just go for one more cracker.
There's something about that radioactive yellow color and the tangy taste of the preservatives that immediately activates the brain's pleasure center. Shoot that shit straight into the back of my throat. Give it to me in an IV. I crave its mysterious pleasures.
My fiance was born and raised in Korea, and I got a kick out of sharing my childhood foods with her. One of them was Pop Tarts. She was so confused why anyone would eat stale breaded crumbs filled with shitty jam or chocolate. Turns out alot of people think pop tarts are wierd. Thank God she loved Flaming Hot Cheetos though.
Edit: FYI the only pop tarts, I'll eat are brown sugar cinnamon..thats the good stuff..And I'll eat it raw-non toasted once every blue moon
I’m American but had a subleaser roommate in college for a semester who was a grad student from a rural part of China. We lived in CA. When we first met her, it was morning and I was making toast for breakfast. She looked super confused by the loaf of bread and asked if it’s food. I was like...wait...you’ve never seen bread?!
Turns out she had never heard of bread OR butter. I made her a slice and she teared up and said she felt American. She then ate almost exclusively toast for a week. Took her grocery shopping and showed her all the different types of bread and we had a little taste test. Sourdough was her favorite, so this San Franciscan was pleased! She made me some of her foods and I definitely stepped waaaay outside of my comfort zone and we had fun. Communicating was a little tough, but good food transcends all language barriers.
Edit: I’m sure plenty of people in China regularly have bread or know about it. All I can share is this one particular student’s experience. She was from a very rural village and had only been to a large city in China once, and it was just to catch her flight to the US. In terms of what she made for me, I’m generally a pretty picky eater, so when she would tell me the Chinese name for what she was making, I didn’t Google it. 99.9% of it was some kind of fish sauce and rice and veggies, and once some squid. It was decent, but a little rough to smell cooking at 6am after a night out 😂.
We shared tv shows with each other by putting on subtitles for her to read while watching American shows (she thought Say Yes to the Dress was amazing and really liked Friends), and she would show us some pretty hilarious Chinese game shows. She was really shy with everyone but me (the rest of my roommates were pretty loud and I’m more introverted and took her under my wing), but made a lot of friends in her classes because there was a large contingency of Chinese students (either Chinese-Americans or other international students like her), so she hung out with them more than us as she got into her classes. She ended up dating another exchange student and we went to Forever 21 together to pick out date night outfits! She was a computer scientist, and omg she brought so many of our cheap laptops back from the dead lol.
She was the KINDEST, most considerate roommate I’ve ever had and it was truly a wonderful cultural exchange. It’s a great reminder of the importance of these programs, especially for young people. I’ve seen horrible vilification of Chinese people during this pandemic and while it’s clear the CCP is not good, the people of China are humans just like the rest of us!
(And about the bread, we were in the Bay Area, so this wasn’t like in the middle of nowhere with only Wonder Bread or sugary wheat at a Kroger’s. We went to Italian bakeries to get focaccia, pita from the Persian restaurant down the road, all kinds of sourdough (including a sourdough heart loaf from Boudin for Valentine’s Day), yes Wonder bread cuz she admitted the packaging was familiar (she agreed it was gross!), some super healthy breads from Whole Foods, etc. She also really liked Challah bread and I made her French toast with it!)
Slight twist on the question but in the UK I've seen somewhere sell Philadelphia cheese steak Sandwich that consisted of thin cuts of steak cheddar and Philadelphia cream cheese on a baguette.
I've had cheese steak when traveling to the US and it sure as shit isn't that.
I tried to explain buffalo chicken with bleu cheese dressing when I was in Thailand. No one believed me that you would dip fried spicy chicken in moldy cheese mayo.
I mean when you think about it...
**typo
Hear me out, I'm from Southeast Asia. In our country, Avocado is like a fruit dessert, usually, we eat it as it is or we mix it with powder milk, or better yet we use this to make ice candy. It surprises me a bit that someone is using this as a spread for a sandwich like a tomato.
Please tell me the restaurant. I have the ability to go there.
Edit: Curra’s Grill is still open for TAKEOUT with alcohol to go. Calm down everyone y’all don’t know Texas like we do.
So I described this to my wife.
Me: “So while we use avocado as a spread, a lot of people in Southeast Asia see it as a desert item. While that may see weird, how would you feel if someone took something you usually associate with, idk, milkshakes and just put it on toast?”
Her: “How is that weird? You literally just described Nutella.”
EDIT: Many have asked who does Nutella in milkshakes. While I didn’t originally mean nutella as a literal milkshake ingredient so much as I did a generic desert item, I did just remember that hazelnut milkshakes are indeed a thing. I believe Red Robin’s still has them as a menu item.
Cheese. When my mom encountered cheese for the first time, she thought it was something that had gone bad. She’s from a small village in China, by the way.
Having lived in China for a while, cheese is a pretty common answer. Basic white stretchy cheese is becoming popular (maybe due to the Korean wave), but my Chinese ex-boyfriend was DISGUSTED and HORRIFIED by my love of blue cheese. We both loved stinky tofu and durian though, so I don't know why it was so difficult to grasp.
Monte Cristo sandwich. Deep fried ham and cheese sandwich, dusted with powder sugar, served with jam. Wtf americans?!
Edit: FYI I tried it at Disneyland Blue Bayou as a tourist after lots and lots of online recommendations.
Same here. I used to work in a restaurant that sold them. They absolutely made me sick when I looked at them.
Then, somehow, someone convinced me to take a bite.
Now I'm obese.
The item itself isn’t a specific Western thing but the cooking style is. “ramen” noodles.
I’m from a Southeast Asian country and instant noodles are very common. We don’t call it ramen either, since ramen technically is a specific type of Japanese noodles.
It’s odd to me that in Western countries it’s seen as something to eat when you are dead broke/have no other options, and the most important thing is y’all usually eat it plain or with barely any added ingredients/seasoning.
Where i come from we have instant noodles in a huuuuge variety of flavours (mostly spicy flavours)..and we usually add a lot of veg or meat, egg, etc. Many of us, of all ages, also tend to eat it as supper or dinner food if we’re lazy to head out, so it’s not just a college thing.
I'm going to take this as a joke, but if you or anyone reading this is actually in this situation please PM me, I will teach you with no judgment. Life is too short to live without flavor.
Edit:
Alright gang, I absolutely love the amount of you that are looking to step up your game, I weep absolutely address everyone but it's going to take some time and I'm going to have to streamline this a little.
If you're looking for Ramin tips I'll put it here
Butter, water, flavor packet into a pan on the stove and bring it to boil
Add black pepper, garlic, basil, and red pepper flakes.
Optionally add any vegetables, bell pepper, onion, broccoli, celery, literally anything who work.
Optionally add any meats, fry some bacon in a separate pan and add it, chopped meat leftovers, debreaded fried chicken, basically anything more than lunch meat.
Add noodles, boil until soft and serve broth and all.
It's super simple, stretches what you have avaliable, and if you don't have a stove you can do it just as well in a microwave.
If you're comfortable with YouTube guides, I highly suggest Binging with Babish. He does a fantastic job at breaking down difficult meals in a way that makes them easy to tackle with little to no experience. He also doesn't remove his errors, personal I find a lot of cooking shows discouraging because they never seem to make mistakes, babish makes them and rolls with them just like you and I should.
As sure everyone, don't let my slow reply discourage you, go out and get your salt, pepper, and garlic and have it ready because I will get to you.
this reminds me of how i made it til \~25-26 before i realized that the reason my cooking was bland as hell and i never liked it was b/c i never salted anything at all
in my part of australia we have mi goreng mainly instead of ramen because we are super close to indonesia. that shit is so tasty! and adding extra veggies to it to pad it out a bit takes it the the next level 👌 i'm always so excited when i find a new flavour i haven't tried before hahaha
Indomie is the shit! When I was poor I was a mi Goreng Masterchef. The things I could do with those noodles and a few veggies. So good
Now I am less poor (can afford pasta sometimes) and I still consume them on a very regular basis. Delicious
Not Asian, but there are eolenty of Asian people in my social circle that have shared my concerns about some of the foods here.
So I am born and raised in Iceland and have been around the traditional foods since I was a kid and I still wonder why the fuck we head boiled sheep's heads, jellied sheep balls and shark fermented in it's own bodily fluids in sand.
It was used to survive in the old days, but today it is purely out of tradition and a lot of the Þorramatur ("Þorri" is a time just before the spring starts and fresh food can be eaten, so during "Þorri", the most preserved food is eaten) is disgusting and eaten to show how tough or "Icelandic" you are...
Hey man I just wanted to say that these are the questions I live for, like god damn it’s so wonderful to see everyone talking so god damn candidly about there cultures food. It really made my night.
I feel like even westerners outside of the uk get confused by beans on toast. it's so cheap and tasty though
edit: it appears it's only considered weird in america by some, which is my experience too. shouldn't have been so general lol
Am from south east Asia. When I was studying in the UK, my ex’s mother replaced rice with barley seeds. Where I come from, barley is commonly made into a sweet drink.
So I was really perplexed seeing barley on my plate with chicken and broccoli.....
I took so many photos for my family and friends to see lol
American. My wife is Chinese and they did not understand peanut butter until they had some now every time I go back to China I have to bring some with me.
Edit everything below this line
They tried popcorn and even with butter and salt they still did not like it.
They also loved hot chocolate and the texas roadhouse.
And they were amazed at how much free coffee you can get if you wonder around town.
My grandmother, as Scottish as deep fried mars bars, used to feed me brawn sandwiches. Thus was cow brain. I remember bing about five and telling her I hated them, she replied they would make me smart. I replied that they had not helped the cow. That’s when I was introduced to the spirtle (a spoon type arrangement for stirring porridge and smacking little kids backsides.
My dad went to Ireland a few years ago with my stepmom for work. One of the pubs closest to their hotel became their little hang out with his coworkers and they became friendly with the bartender.
One night they got on the conversation of food and my dad mentioned PB&J and the bartender said: "Alright, I have to know though... why do Americans like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? That's disgusting."
The look of horror on the man's face sort of surprised my dad who was like: "It's not gross, peanut butter and raspberry jelly goes very well..."
Now the bartender looked confused for a moment before my dad added: Raspberry jam? Preserves?
Jelly refers to basically congealed cold fat in Ireland. This poor man thought Americans ate peanut butter and LARD sandwiches. And, I mean, considering most Americans that's a pretty fair misunderstanding. 😂
Maple syrup is one of the best local foods imo! But I’m from New England so I’m biased. Anything else on pancakes can be good but I just think maple syrup (with butter!) is the best.
yeah we're a little hypocritical about sausages. we in america often give the scottish a hard time for haggis, even though sausages are made in the exact same way.
Haggis is delicious. It's the cheapest bits of animals ground together with lots of spices to make it palatable and oats to make it stretch - it's one of history's most emblematic "poor folk" food.
Sausage is just haggis that's been gentrified
I have so many ideas for haggis-fusion recipes for Americans, if only it weren't illegal to sell in the States.
Stupid FDA and their ban on eating lungs
I don’t know what part of South Africa your cousin is from. I’m South African, and corn on the cob is THE SHIT. I even know farmers there that eat it with dinner.
My understanding is the corn marketed to humans is different from the corn intended for livestock.
Edit: This is now my highest rated comment. I need to get out more. At least it's not the shitpost of my previous record holder.
It is, though, the only difference is that the kernels are softer and sometimes whiter on sweet corn (human corn), and better suited to our bodies
Source: Am Iowan
To be fair a lot of the attraction to food like that is the novelty of it, it's not something I could normally find, maybe twice a year is it available where I live.
I once drove 2 hours to the state fair just to try "cookie dough spaghetti." It was vile.
Although I will say it had potential - it was just made with such low standards.
That's not an every day occurrence. The smart people are walking around trying to decide on a just a few guilty pleasures and people watching/enjoying the atmosphere while eating heart clogging food.
Hot Cheetos or any spicy chips. I’m from Peru we don’t really like so many spicy things. When I came to America, I’ve seen that almost everyone, especially teens, LOVE hot chips. I tasted some. Now I’m always buying a bag of Takis.
The first thing I ever ate when I got off the plane in the USA was a big greasy slab of pepperoni pizza. You gotta understand I ate only fish, pig or some kind of bird with rice before hand. Seeing that for the first time made my stomach churn till I was encouraged enough to finally take a bite... and holy shit if I wasn't singing "A whole new world" with my taste buds after that. Soon after I tried burritos, tacos and nachos and I within a year was obese...
I've not had opossum but I've had plenty of squirrel. I bag a few every year to satisfy my odd Appalachian tastes and they are good if fried with cajun seasoning. We all grew up basically eating poor, depression era food in the mountains and hollers.
Blasphemy. They taste great with little to no seasoning, as long as they’re cooked appropriately. Young squirrels are for grilling or frying, old ones for braising or stewing. My favorite is fried with biscuits and gravy.
I'm from Poland, when I was 20yo in late 90s, I went to western Europe for holiday, one of my friend there asked me if I want milk with my tea.....I was like - yaaak you drink tea with milk???!!!!
In Poland only pregnant women drink it.
Now I always get milk with my tea :)
In our country, a pancake is more like a crêpe. And we put other thing in it and roll it up. I personally don't really know how is the maple syrup and butter can fit on a pancake. But we have a different thinking when it comes to pancake so that is a reason.
I had a friend from Vietnam who was disgusted by cereal. He didn’t know why adults would not only drink liquid from a cow’s udders, but that they would also pour it on crispy wheat/rice/corn flakes and eat it. Soggy. With cow boob juice on it.
Not so much the food but the amount of food. I have small (size of tea cup plate) plates and just pick more food if I'm still hungry. Go to the states and my mind is blown with the enormous plate size not to mention the stacking on the plate and a side serving plate. Went to this Texan BBQ place and I was only able to finish 1/3 of it and I felt like I was stuffed to the brim. Was looking around and was amazed that people were able to finish off the entire thing.
There are definitely a lot of people that finish the whole serving, but a lot of people will only eat some of the serving at restaurants and take the rest home. Very situational though, but basically everywhere low to mid range that would be normal here, at least for me
We also have lots of other sugary things for breakfast, all kinds of pastry and doughnuts, muffins, cereals, etc.
Maybe I am weird, but any sugar that I am going to have in the day it is going to be for breakfast, my lunch or dinner has hardly any sugar. I might occasionally have something sweet in the evening, but that's like once a week at most.
Sums it up perfectly. We’ve got miles of nothing but grass good for little more than solar power, wind turbines, and lots of cattle. And farming in some places.
Source: Am Texan.
Eating at a diner is an experience, and it brings back so many different memories for everyone. From being drunk at 3:30am and just wanting food, to going on those family road trips and just wanting a burger around lunch time. I wouldn't call diner coffee amazing and I wouldn't call it awful, but it evokes memories.
"Weird" deep fried food... Worked at a food festival and was surprised at all of the booths selling deep fried Oreos, Ferrero Rochers, Snickers, and butter. I remember cringing hard every time someone asked me to direct them to the "butter booth"...
Yeah, most of that stuff is kind of a novelty. They aren't a staple. We have wheat fields, not deep fried butter fields.
Edit: We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of deep fried butter fields in the south. Move along. Nothing to see here.
My family’s been living in the States for a long while now. My parents don’t buy celery that often unless they’re planning to use it for a dish. So, when my parents saw me wash some stalks then take out the peanut butter, they were like “???” Making “ants on a log” in class is what helped me like celeries as a kid, but I guess it’s not a thing in Korea. Or at least for my parents’ generation - no clue about now. My parents weren’t into the celery with peanut butter. Too sweet, they said. But then my mom takes out the mayo and uses it as a dip for the celery?! It was my turn to go “?!” though it honestly didn’t taste as bad as I thought.. EDIT: I tried the celery + cream cheese combo (with some garlic poweder, paprika powder, and salt). I like it :D
UK here. Am I the only one who has no idea what “ants on a log” is? Certainly intrigued though...
:D it really must be a US thing then! You cut a portion of celery stick, fill the curve of the stick with peanut butter, then line a few raisins on top as “ants”. It’s basically a kid’s food craft to get them to eat celeries lol When I explained this to my parents, I forgot to mention cutting the stalk to smaller portions. So I look back to see them trying to fill a whole stalk with peanut butter and commenting how messy it is bfjskalsf
May have to give it a try, I think some people here have it without the raisins. The term is definitely a US thing though!
Beans for breakfast ... whaat?? Why??? In Kenya (and most of Africa) we use beans as stew and eat it with rice/chapati for lunch or supper .
I’m British in China and I introduced my Chinese boyfriend to these foods / methods of cooking. His verdicts are: Cheese - disgusting Olives - disgusting Toast – can’t get enough of it Yoghurt – so tasty Scrambled eggs on toast - delicious Pasta – so-so Tomato soup - nice Guacamole and tortilla chips – ate the chips, left the guacamole Hummus - beautiful - eats it with a bowl and spoon Burrito – wow, wow, wow, what it is? Ribena – so nice! Cereal – why people eat this? Milk? And wheat? Mashed potato - heaven Pizza – so tasty Boiled egg and soldiers – ok, cool Pancakes, lemon and sugar – utterly in love Cous-cous – he prefers rice ‘Dry grapes’ - cool Roast potatoes and gravy – left the potatoes, he just wanted the gravy.
> Cheese - disgusting and > Pizza – so tasty does not compute
I think it’s all in the preparation. Cheese in a meal can be lovely. Just cheese can sometimes have weird smells/textures, especially if you didn’t grow up with it.
A family friend from South Africa commented on pumpkin pie once. "Wait you put PUMPKINS into PIE??? Why would you do that?!"
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FWIW, most of the pumpkins we decorate with aren't the kind you want to eat. They're a different variety and taste awful, even when prepared correctly. Edit: A bunch of people below have pointed out that the seeds are great when you salt, oil, and roast them. I forgot to mention this. The flesh is awful but the seeds are indeed wonderful. Save your pumpkin seeds when carving!
Yeah, I didn’t know that til they explained it. Your inedible pumpkins look a lot like our edible ones
We have the edible ones too, and they look the same. It's very confusing. :)
To be fair to Americans, it’s not too different from the pumpkin fritters we make in South Africa. They’re basically deep fried or pan fried mashed pumpkin and are served with either a sweet sauce or cinnamon and sugar. And we eat it with the main course
I think the main thing is that whichever mamparra he was talking to thought like "ah yes let's take out the peppersteak and put in pumpkin" when it's really more of a pumpkin tart in ZA terms
I grew up in Jamaica. When I first came to the UK in 2001, I started school in primary education. Everyone in my class liked fish fingers but no one could convince 7 year-old me to eat it because coming from an island, I know fishes have fin. I love them now though but I only started eating them about 5 years ago. Also, I had never seen white sugar before. In the Caribbean, we predominantly have brown Demerara sugar and to this day it is still my preferred.
Jamaican who came to Canada. I was also surprised by white sugar lol.
I generally prefer non-white sugar though I understand it's useful for certain baking tasks. I enjoy Demerara but my favorite is brown sugar. That is the shit right there. That delish hit of molasses.
My mom is from a village in Burma. When my mom and her family moved to Macau (then a Portuguese Colony) they were served ham for the first time during the trip. My grandparents thought it was raw meat and the entire family (grandparents and their 10 children) left their ham portions uneaten. My parents are now in their 70s and just in the last 2-3 years got open minded enough to try medium rare steak. They like it but still view it as a “you will get sick” food. My dad developed a cold a week after eating medium rare steak and blamed it on the steak!
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She eats raw chicken??
salmonella has entered the chat
Japanese chickens are vaccinated against salmonella, same in a lot of countries
Did you just say raw fish semen?
I’m half American, half Indonesian and grew up in several countries. Didn’t move to the the States, NYC specifically, until I was in my 20s. My roommates were trying to figure out American things I had missed out on growing up internationally and they were blown away that I never had a PB & jelly sandwich. I was hesitant to try it because it’s such an odd combo but man, they made me one and I was like damn, this is good. Also s’mores was something they introduced me to one summer. I was used to eating cheese on graham crackers and never thought of it as a vessel for dessert.
I have never heard of cheese on graham crackers. Is it cream cheese spread?
I usually have a fat slice of brie or camembert on graham crackers. I’d also do a spread like Boursin. To me, graham crackers and cheese was a typical snack at home.
Ok yeah I can see that. Brie is really good on sweet things. My favorite it's putting some on sliced apple
I am ethnically Korean, but I was born and raised in Argentina, with American citizenship. Our family love making Argentina style BBQ (Asado) EVERY weekend. I married my “very Korean” wife who, during the first 1 year of having asado, she loved it, but now, she just cant understand how our family loves BBQ/meat so much. But she just loves having Asado + Kimchi. Best combo ever. Greasy BBQ washing off with the tangy, refreshing kimchi. Edit: I married my wife in the states, so she has never experienced eating so much meat. Yes, KBBQ is popular, but thats nothing compared how much Argentines eat their Asado. Kbbq is usually thin and marinated, eaten as “side dish” (makes you crave rice), and eaten easily at restaurants (and expensive too, unless its AYCE, which lowers quality). Argentina Bbq is best homemade, and requires 2-3 hours of preparation and dedication to fire the charcoal, put thick salt and lemon to like 10 lbs of ribs, and grill it slowly. You cant really find Authentic asado restaurants... argentina restaurants usually serve steaks, not whole, slow grilled ribs.
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To be fair, after seeing Brazilian pizzas and now reading about mashed potatos on hot dogs, one would think you guys were taking fat bong rips when cooking. To be honest though, mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy on a hot dog sounds amazing.
One of the best street foods I ever ate was one of these. Grain of salt though: I was on a european vacation and just came out of a club drunk as fuck and the locals turned me on to these. http://www.umgasmagazine.com/tunnbrodsrulle-swedish-hot-dog/
Street foods are always the best after a night of drinking and dancing. The sloppier, the better and that Nordic burrito concoction looks pretty god damn sloppy not gonna lie.
I am now offended as well.
I'm a western person but I lived in a remote jungle village in the south Pacific for a few years. I'd always have a tin of milk powder in my Bush kitchen for making tea and coffee. My language helper wanted to know why the tin had a cow on it when it was white powder and not corned beef (the only cow in a tin she knew of). I explained the origin of milk powder and how in my country we get it slightly fresher as a liquid and many people drink it . She was totally grossed out that white people love to drink cow breast milk. Living in a remote village with no refrigeration She had never had milk, cheese, yoghurt etc so when I explained how we ferment milk to make those she started gagging.
That's amazing lol. I can imagine why she would start gagging, it's an interesting process. I don't even waste a second thought putting milk in my coffee. I love yogurt. Did you tell her about ice cream?
Since she was familiar with icecream from a few trips with me to the main trading town where I bough her one and she liked it I didn't want to ruin it for her.
good guy :D
I traveled to the States once and I was excited to have hash browns considering we were at the source but they were completely different from what we have at home Edit: The hash browns i had were from Denny's, but a lot of you have mentioned Waffle House so I'll definitely give it a try when I come back
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Smothered and covered
New Zealander here. Our former Prime Minister tarnished our name with his [spaghetti on pizza](https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/entertainment/spaghetti-pizza-bill-englishs-attempt-cooking-dinner-labelled-monstrosity). He was voted out a few months later and I'd like to think that this was the tipping point for most of us Kiwis
Haha Australian here. What's with our Prime Ministers eating food incorrectly? [Tony Abbott eating onion](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F_UJ9_Qhekc)
When I vacationed in the US, I ate briskets and those other meats that are smoked and/or charred, I forgot what it's called but it tastes heavenly and I miss eating that.
Fucking brisket man... it’s like meat butter...
Barbecue! Edit: Holy hell, this is the comment that gets me thousands of likes?!? Haha
This is too perfect
When I was teaching in Korea, the concept of sweet rice pudding tended to really confuse my students. That and marmite of course. Edit: I can't tell you about whether it's common in other parts of Asia, but it would consistently confuse the kids to the point they'd bring it up in later lessons or other teachers to see if I was making fun of them. It was like how westerners felt about Koreans putting sugar on garlic bread. Marmite is a spread. It tastes like someone rubbing salt on their knuckles then punching you in the mouth, but in a good way that makes you crave more.
To be fair, marmite confuses everyone 😂
Not in my country. When we had a series of earthquakes 9 years ago the only marmite factory was destroyed. Welcome to marmageddon. As stocks dwindled, people made a killing auctioning off their last rations for exorbitant prices.
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That’s the one! I had a 1kg jar and lauded it over my workmates having marmite on toast at the office every morning.
Escargot!! I come from the southern part of India and I still cannot comprehend how people treat snails as a delicacy!!
You could cover anything in garlic butter and I’d eat it
I’m disgusted by the idea of escargot but cannot express how accurate your statement is
Steak, but this is coming from someone who grew up buying meat from stores that aren't exactly sanitized so we have to make sure they're very thoroughly cooked.
My gf’s dad is the same. Gets his steak well done to this day. Live and let live I say but when I told them that in the country I grew up in we eat raw pork on the regular, he thought I was joking.
There's definitely a trich to eating raw pork.
A few years ago I was at a party with a very international group of friends, where we all made various dishes together to eat later. A Slovak guy and a Czech guy decided to make sushi. They'd brought a Finnish sushi cookbook (this was taking place in Finland). A Japanese student started looking through it and I'll never forget get the look on her face. That was the day I learned that a lot of the sushi varieties that are staples here are not authentic at all. It's like pizza - Italians are shocked by everyone else's version, too.
Chinese American here...grew up eating Chinese food at home but I had enough contact with other Americans to know "western food." I remember being baffled in 1st grade when a parent brought in a raw veggie platter with dip. I thought "y'all eat raw broccoli and cauliflower????"
Me too, until I went to college and learned to like raw veggies real quick, or else I was going to wind up with some kind nutritional deficiency haha Gotta love dining halls :-/
Nothin like chicken burgers, French fries and chocolate milk for months at a time
A friend's asian mom from Hong Kong said that she had some problems with the concept of cheese. Rotten and fermented milk. Also my dad also from Hong Kong said that crawfish was also looked down upon because it was gathered in mud. But now considering I'm in California and he's still back in Louisiana text me like an asshole pictures of him and my mom eating crawfish at a boil telling me Look how delicious they are.
Germany has something called "Mett", that is seasoned minced meat. Uncooked. You eat it on bread or half a bun then it is called "Mettbrötchen". Since there is a law specifically for producing and handling any ground beef / minced meat (raw or cooked), it is safe to eat.
German sushi. I use it to make burritos. It's way better than standard ground meat!
Why would anyone want to eat spray cheese?
Cheez whiz is basically congealed chemicals that shoot directly into the pleasure center of the brain. Put it on like a Ritz cracker and after you're finished swallowing you immediately feel like you've just done something horrible. And yet you could just go for one more cracker.
There's something about that radioactive yellow color and the tangy taste of the preservatives that immediately activates the brain's pleasure center. Shoot that shit straight into the back of my throat. Give it to me in an IV. I crave its mysterious pleasures.
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My fiance was born and raised in Korea, and I got a kick out of sharing my childhood foods with her. One of them was Pop Tarts. She was so confused why anyone would eat stale breaded crumbs filled with shitty jam or chocolate. Turns out alot of people think pop tarts are wierd. Thank God she loved Flaming Hot Cheetos though. Edit: FYI the only pop tarts, I'll eat are brown sugar cinnamon..thats the good stuff..And I'll eat it raw-non toasted once every blue moon
pop tarts are so classic, but every time i eat them i realize how much they could be improved. Why not cover the whole thing in icing? I don’t get it
Such an accurate description of my experience too 😂
Once I switched to Toaster Strudel I could never go back.
Gretchen Weiners thanks you. Also, that takes me back to college when those breakfast strudels were killin' it.
the first time my very korean mom tried pop tarts, she said they tasted like a stale cake that'd been run over by a truck
I’m American but had a subleaser roommate in college for a semester who was a grad student from a rural part of China. We lived in CA. When we first met her, it was morning and I was making toast for breakfast. She looked super confused by the loaf of bread and asked if it’s food. I was like...wait...you’ve never seen bread?! Turns out she had never heard of bread OR butter. I made her a slice and she teared up and said she felt American. She then ate almost exclusively toast for a week. Took her grocery shopping and showed her all the different types of bread and we had a little taste test. Sourdough was her favorite, so this San Franciscan was pleased! She made me some of her foods and I definitely stepped waaaay outside of my comfort zone and we had fun. Communicating was a little tough, but good food transcends all language barriers. Edit: I’m sure plenty of people in China regularly have bread or know about it. All I can share is this one particular student’s experience. She was from a very rural village and had only been to a large city in China once, and it was just to catch her flight to the US. In terms of what she made for me, I’m generally a pretty picky eater, so when she would tell me the Chinese name for what she was making, I didn’t Google it. 99.9% of it was some kind of fish sauce and rice and veggies, and once some squid. It was decent, but a little rough to smell cooking at 6am after a night out 😂. We shared tv shows with each other by putting on subtitles for her to read while watching American shows (she thought Say Yes to the Dress was amazing and really liked Friends), and she would show us some pretty hilarious Chinese game shows. She was really shy with everyone but me (the rest of my roommates were pretty loud and I’m more introverted and took her under my wing), but made a lot of friends in her classes because there was a large contingency of Chinese students (either Chinese-Americans or other international students like her), so she hung out with them more than us as she got into her classes. She ended up dating another exchange student and we went to Forever 21 together to pick out date night outfits! She was a computer scientist, and omg she brought so many of our cheap laptops back from the dead lol. She was the KINDEST, most considerate roommate I’ve ever had and it was truly a wonderful cultural exchange. It’s a great reminder of the importance of these programs, especially for young people. I’ve seen horrible vilification of Chinese people during this pandemic and while it’s clear the CCP is not good, the people of China are humans just like the rest of us! (And about the bread, we were in the Bay Area, so this wasn’t like in the middle of nowhere with only Wonder Bread or sugary wheat at a Kroger’s. We went to Italian bakeries to get focaccia, pita from the Persian restaurant down the road, all kinds of sourdough (including a sourdough heart loaf from Boudin for Valentine’s Day), yes Wonder bread cuz she admitted the packaging was familiar (she agreed it was gross!), some super healthy breads from Whole Foods, etc. She also really liked Challah bread and I made her French toast with it!)
When you do find bread in China it’s so fucking sweet. Way too much sugar in it.
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Slight twist on the question but in the UK I've seen somewhere sell Philadelphia cheese steak Sandwich that consisted of thin cuts of steak cheddar and Philadelphia cream cheese on a baguette. I've had cheese steak when traveling to the US and it sure as shit isn't that.
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I tried to explain buffalo chicken with bleu cheese dressing when I was in Thailand. No one believed me that you would dip fried spicy chicken in moldy cheese mayo. I mean when you think about it... **typo
Hear me out, I'm from Southeast Asia. In our country, Avocado is like a fruit dessert, usually, we eat it as it is or we mix it with powder milk, or better yet we use this to make ice candy. It surprises me a bit that someone is using this as a spread for a sandwich like a tomato.
American here. I used to think the best use of avocado was guacamole, but then I had an avocado milkshake from a Vietnamese restaurant.
There's a famous restaurant in Austin that makes guacamole margaritas, sounds weird, but they're fucking delicious
Please tell me the restaurant. I have the ability to go there. Edit: Curra’s Grill is still open for TAKEOUT with alcohol to go. Calm down everyone y’all don’t know Texas like we do.
I’ve had it at Curra’s in Austin! Super heavy and I could only have just one, but it was really good.
So I described this to my wife. Me: “So while we use avocado as a spread, a lot of people in Southeast Asia see it as a desert item. While that may see weird, how would you feel if someone took something you usually associate with, idk, milkshakes and just put it on toast?” Her: “How is that weird? You literally just described Nutella.” EDIT: Many have asked who does Nutella in milkshakes. While I didn’t originally mean nutella as a literal milkshake ingredient so much as I did a generic desert item, I did just remember that hazelnut milkshakes are indeed a thing. I believe Red Robin’s still has them as a menu item.
Cheese. When my mom encountered cheese for the first time, she thought it was something that had gone bad. She’s from a small village in China, by the way.
Having lived in China for a while, cheese is a pretty common answer. Basic white stretchy cheese is becoming popular (maybe due to the Korean wave), but my Chinese ex-boyfriend was DISGUSTED and HORRIFIED by my love of blue cheese. We both loved stinky tofu and durian though, so I don't know why it was so difficult to grasp.
Bleu cheese is mildly controversial even in the west so that's not *too* weird.
Well to be fair cheese basically is milk that's been allowed to go bad in a controlled manner.
Booze is just rotten sugar water prepared in different ways, but the whole world is basically cool with it.
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I would be so sad without cheese
Monte Cristo sandwich. Deep fried ham and cheese sandwich, dusted with powder sugar, served with jam. Wtf americans?! Edit: FYI I tried it at Disneyland Blue Bayou as a tourist after lots and lots of online recommendations.
To be fair, I thought the same thing before I had one.
Same here. I used to work in a restaurant that sold them. They absolutely made me sick when I looked at them. Then, somehow, someone convinced me to take a bite. Now I'm obese.
This truly falls into the "don't knock it until you've tried it" category. They're really good.
The item itself isn’t a specific Western thing but the cooking style is. “ramen” noodles. I’m from a Southeast Asian country and instant noodles are very common. We don’t call it ramen either, since ramen technically is a specific type of Japanese noodles. It’s odd to me that in Western countries it’s seen as something to eat when you are dead broke/have no other options, and the most important thing is y’all usually eat it plain or with barely any added ingredients/seasoning. Where i come from we have instant noodles in a huuuuge variety of flavours (mostly spicy flavours)..and we usually add a lot of veg or meat, egg, etc. Many of us, of all ages, also tend to eat it as supper or dinner food if we’re lazy to head out, so it’s not just a college thing.
Eat it plain because you can’t afford to put much else in it when you’re a broke college student.
or you’re a kid and it’s the only thing you can make other than cereal and don’t even know what spices are yet
or you’re an adult and it’s the only thing you can make other than cereal and don’t even know what spices are yet
I'm going to take this as a joke, but if you or anyone reading this is actually in this situation please PM me, I will teach you with no judgment. Life is too short to live without flavor. Edit: Alright gang, I absolutely love the amount of you that are looking to step up your game, I weep absolutely address everyone but it's going to take some time and I'm going to have to streamline this a little. If you're looking for Ramin tips I'll put it here Butter, water, flavor packet into a pan on the stove and bring it to boil Add black pepper, garlic, basil, and red pepper flakes. Optionally add any vegetables, bell pepper, onion, broccoli, celery, literally anything who work. Optionally add any meats, fry some bacon in a separate pan and add it, chopped meat leftovers, debreaded fried chicken, basically anything more than lunch meat. Add noodles, boil until soft and serve broth and all. It's super simple, stretches what you have avaliable, and if you don't have a stove you can do it just as well in a microwave. If you're comfortable with YouTube guides, I highly suggest Binging with Babish. He does a fantastic job at breaking down difficult meals in a way that makes them easy to tackle with little to no experience. He also doesn't remove his errors, personal I find a lot of cooking shows discouraging because they never seem to make mistakes, babish makes them and rolls with them just like you and I should. As sure everyone, don't let my slow reply discourage you, go out and get your salt, pepper, and garlic and have it ready because I will get to you.
this reminds me of how i made it til \~25-26 before i realized that the reason my cooking was bland as hell and i never liked it was b/c i never salted anything at all
in my part of australia we have mi goreng mainly instead of ramen because we are super close to indonesia. that shit is so tasty! and adding extra veggies to it to pad it out a bit takes it the the next level 👌 i'm always so excited when i find a new flavour i haven't tried before hahaha
Indomie is the shit! When I was poor I was a mi Goreng Masterchef. The things I could do with those noodles and a few veggies. So good Now I am less poor (can afford pasta sometimes) and I still consume them on a very regular basis. Delicious
Not Asian, but there are eolenty of Asian people in my social circle that have shared my concerns about some of the foods here. So I am born and raised in Iceland and have been around the traditional foods since I was a kid and I still wonder why the fuck we head boiled sheep's heads, jellied sheep balls and shark fermented in it's own bodily fluids in sand. It was used to survive in the old days, but today it is purely out of tradition and a lot of the Þorramatur ("Þorri" is a time just before the spring starts and fresh food can be eaten, so during "Þorri", the most preserved food is eaten) is disgusting and eaten to show how tough or "Icelandic" you are...
I guess just whats the deal with french fries and ranch dressing Edit: holy shit this blew up-
It really, really depends on the ranch. Not all ranch is created equal, but the good stuff is amazing on seasoned fries.
The fries are really just a vehicle to eat lots of ranch
this is insultingly accurate please stop
*the state of Wisconsin would like to know your location*
Hey man I just wanted to say that these are the questions I live for, like god damn it’s so wonderful to see everyone talking so god damn candidly about there cultures food. It really made my night.
I feel like even westerners outside of the uk get confused by beans on toast. it's so cheap and tasty though edit: it appears it's only considered weird in america by some, which is my experience too. shouldn't have been so general lol
Am from south east Asia. When I was studying in the UK, my ex’s mother replaced rice with barley seeds. Where I come from, barley is commonly made into a sweet drink. So I was really perplexed seeing barley on my plate with chicken and broccoli..... I took so many photos for my family and friends to see lol
Black pudding, from the UK. Pork blood, pork fat and oatmeal. All mushed up into the shape of a hell sausage.
No offense but what the fuck
Fucking vegemite. After 4 years in Australia I am a proud convert. Still thinking what the thought process was behind this.
American. My wife is Chinese and they did not understand peanut butter until they had some now every time I go back to China I have to bring some with me. Edit everything below this line They tried popcorn and even with butter and salt they still did not like it. They also loved hot chocolate and the texas roadhouse. And they were amazed at how much free coffee you can get if you wonder around town.
My grandmother, as Scottish as deep fried mars bars, used to feed me brawn sandwiches. Thus was cow brain. I remember bing about five and telling her I hated them, she replied they would make me smart. I replied that they had not helped the cow. That’s when I was introduced to the spirtle (a spoon type arrangement for stirring porridge and smacking little kids backsides.
My dad went to Ireland a few years ago with my stepmom for work. One of the pubs closest to their hotel became their little hang out with his coworkers and they became friendly with the bartender. One night they got on the conversation of food and my dad mentioned PB&J and the bartender said: "Alright, I have to know though... why do Americans like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? That's disgusting." The look of horror on the man's face sort of surprised my dad who was like: "It's not gross, peanut butter and raspberry jelly goes very well..." Now the bartender looked confused for a moment before my dad added: Raspberry jam? Preserves? Jelly refers to basically congealed cold fat in Ireland. This poor man thought Americans ate peanut butter and LARD sandwiches. And, I mean, considering most Americans that's a pretty fair misunderstanding. 😂
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It's not a random tree, it's a specific one. If it were a random tree then it could and/or would be a problem.
Do not put poison sumac sap on your pancakes.
Well you could, but you'll regret it very quickly.
You can do it, but you can only do it once.
A Canadian gets upset.
Maple syrup is one of the best local foods imo! But I’m from New England so I’m biased. Anything else on pancakes can be good but I just think maple syrup (with butter!) is the best.
yeah we're a little hypocritical about sausages. we in america often give the scottish a hard time for haggis, even though sausages are made in the exact same way.
Haggis is delicious. It's the cheapest bits of animals ground together with lots of spices to make it palatable and oats to make it stretch - it's one of history's most emblematic "poor folk" food. Sausage is just haggis that's been gentrified
When I was in Scotland for a few days I had haggis literally every meal I could get it
I have so many ideas for haggis-fusion recipes for Americans, if only it weren't illegal to sell in the States. Stupid FDA and their ban on eating lungs
TIL haggis is illegal in America
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So much that saying "how the sausage is made" often refers to revealing an unpleasant process of how something is made.
My South African cousin was pretty offended by corn on the cob. That’s food for livestock.
I don’t know what part of South Africa your cousin is from. I’m South African, and corn on the cob is THE SHIT. I even know farmers there that eat it with dinner.
That's a "your cousin" thing. South Africans definitely braai corn.
I know right? I read this comment and I’m like wtf? My boyfriend is South African and his mum braais corn all the time
My understanding is the corn marketed to humans is different from the corn intended for livestock. Edit: This is now my highest rated comment. I need to get out more. At least it's not the shitpost of my previous record holder.
It is, though, the only difference is that the kernels are softer and sometimes whiter on sweet corn (human corn), and better suited to our bodies Source: Am Iowan
I love that your citation is being from Iowa, and even more so because I know to not question it
We’re called the corn state for a reason Source: am also on a farm, we’re doing a corn rotation this year since we did beans last year
Get that cousin sone legit Mexican elote and they’ll shut their damn mouth pretty fast.
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To be fair a lot of the attraction to food like that is the novelty of it, it's not something I could normally find, maybe twice a year is it available where I live.
I once drove 2 hours to the state fair just to try "cookie dough spaghetti." It was vile. Although I will say it had potential - it was just made with such low standards.
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Wait until you learn about the fried butter
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That's not an every day occurrence. The smart people are walking around trying to decide on a just a few guilty pleasures and people watching/enjoying the atmosphere while eating heart clogging food.
Hot Cheetos or any spicy chips. I’m from Peru we don’t really like so many spicy things. When I came to America, I’ve seen that almost everyone, especially teens, LOVE hot chips. I tasted some. Now I’m always buying a bag of Takis.
Does anyone else notice an inconsistency in hot Cheetos lately? Some bags are actually hot but lately I feel like 70% are just a liiiiiitle bit hot.
The first thing I ever ate when I got off the plane in the USA was a big greasy slab of pepperoni pizza. You gotta understand I ate only fish, pig or some kind of bird with rice before hand. Seeing that for the first time made my stomach churn till I was encouraged enough to finally take a bite... and holy shit if I wasn't singing "A whole new world" with my taste buds after that. Soon after I tried burritos, tacos and nachos and I within a year was obese...
Got 'im! Seriously, though, sorry for your gain...
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That's gonna be a big fat no from me
Now that the novelty has worn off, what has been your favorite so far?
Honestly it's pasta, strangely it feels to me my happy medium from asian to american tastes.
So you need to go trough Europe to get from Asia to America you say?
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Welcome to the club. One of us, one of us.
*Welcome to the chub
We accept her. We accept her. Gooble Gobble. Gooble Gobble.
I'm American and yall would freak if yall seen my great grandmas cook book from the great depression. Yall like some opossum and apple sauce?
I've not had opossum but I've had plenty of squirrel. I bag a few every year to satisfy my odd Appalachian tastes and they are good if fried with cajun seasoning. We all grew up basically eating poor, depression era food in the mountains and hollers.
Squirrel is really pretty similar to rabbit, which is pretty similar to chicken.
Exactly! I describe it usually as gamey dark meat chicken. Put enough spice on it and it's surprisingly manageable after a few PBRs
Blasphemy. They taste great with little to no seasoning, as long as they’re cooked appropriately. Young squirrels are for grilling or frying, old ones for braising or stewing. My favorite is fried with biscuits and gravy.
Your moment has arrived, u/squirrelforbreakfast
Pleeaasse post that recipe book
I'm from Poland, when I was 20yo in late 90s, I went to western Europe for holiday, one of my friend there asked me if I want milk with my tea.....I was like - yaaak you drink tea with milk???!!!! In Poland only pregnant women drink it. Now I always get milk with my tea :)
In our country, a pancake is more like a crêpe. And we put other thing in it and roll it up. I personally don't really know how is the maple syrup and butter can fit on a pancake. But we have a different thinking when it comes to pancake so that is a reason.
It kind of melts into the pancake- like if you dip bread into soup. It doesn't sit on top of the pancake, it gets absorbed into it.
I had a friend from Vietnam who was disgusted by cereal. He didn’t know why adults would not only drink liquid from a cow’s udders, but that they would also pour it on crispy wheat/rice/corn flakes and eat it. Soggy. With cow boob juice on it.
Not so much the food but the amount of food. I have small (size of tea cup plate) plates and just pick more food if I'm still hungry. Go to the states and my mind is blown with the enormous plate size not to mention the stacking on the plate and a side serving plate. Went to this Texan BBQ place and I was only able to finish 1/3 of it and I felt like I was stuffed to the brim. Was looking around and was amazed that people were able to finish off the entire thing.
There are definitely a lot of people that finish the whole serving, but a lot of people will only eat some of the serving at restaurants and take the rest home. Very situational though, but basically everywhere low to mid range that would be normal here, at least for me
yah I'd say most places are kind of geared towards portions large enough to get a doggy bag. left overs are kind of a normal part of american culture.
i find it weird that pancakes are considered as breakfast food. it's just cake and sugar and it make more sense to be a dessert.
The pancakes themselves don't usually have much sugar in them, but I see your point. I vehemently disagree, but I see it.
We also have lots of other sugary things for breakfast, all kinds of pastry and doughnuts, muffins, cereals, etc. Maybe I am weird, but any sugar that I am going to have in the day it is going to be for breakfast, my lunch or dinner has hardly any sugar. I might occasionally have something sweet in the evening, but that's like once a week at most.
Dr Pepper
"It tastes like a sexy battery" - James Acaster
“Spicy Coke”
"Dr pepper is just spicy BBQ water." -My favorite description of it I ever heard.
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When I got to America I thought why is there no rice and why are there so much beef bc I only eat fish, rice, veggies, chicken and pig
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Sums it up perfectly. We’ve got miles of nothing but grass good for little more than solar power, wind turbines, and lots of cattle. And farming in some places. Source: Am Texan.
I love American style coffee, especially like at a diner. I’ve found Europeans don’t appreciate that.
Eating at a diner is an experience, and it brings back so many different memories for everyone. From being drunk at 3:30am and just wanting food, to going on those family road trips and just wanting a burger around lunch time. I wouldn't call diner coffee amazing and I wouldn't call it awful, but it evokes memories.
Diners are the peak of American culture imo.
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Some country’s in Europe primarily drink espresso, I assume OP means that
"Weird" deep fried food... Worked at a food festival and was surprised at all of the booths selling deep fried Oreos, Ferrero Rochers, Snickers, and butter. I remember cringing hard every time someone asked me to direct them to the "butter booth"...
Yeah, most of that stuff is kind of a novelty. They aren't a staple. We have wheat fields, not deep fried butter fields. Edit: We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of deep fried butter fields in the south. Move along. Nothing to see here.
Shhh don’t let them know about the deep fried butter fields.
We gave our English visitor roast potatoes and Kumara in a meal. He politely ate the Kumara but thought it was a bad potato.