I once saw a guest on David Letterman whose specialty was eating things most Americans wouldn’t – e.g., he demonstrated with a raw ostrich egg.
DAVE: Is there anything you won’t eat?
GUEST: I won’t eat fast food.
DAVE: Why not?
GUEST: Because it’s disgusting!
Further to the sorrel-and-savory topic: I learn, chiefly from Wiki, that savory plays an especially prominent role in the cuisine of Bulgaria. It’s called in Bulgarian, чубрица (chubritsa). And per Wiki, savory in Polish is cząber ogrodowy (similar to the Russian, as mentioned by pulykamell).
I have a UK-published cookery book containing recipes from various parts of the world, including a few from Eastern Europe: one, for a Bulgarian lamb-and-vegetable stew, is the only one in the book to feature savory. The recipe suggests oregano as a possible alternative. The foregoing would seem to suggest that savory can be got here in the UK, but maybe not easily.
In the US, it’s fairly available in dried form, if not the most popular of herbs. I remember my mom having a McCormick’s (most popular spice manufacturer) bottle around, but rarely using it. I’ve only grown the fresh stuff, both summer savory and winter savory, but I’ve never seen it at grocery stores. Perhaps a farmer’s market may carry it. I generally use it for beans and for a French meat pie called tourtiere. The flavor is something like in that oregano/thyme general area. I would say a little closer to thyme than oregano, myself.
Not true. Pasteurized Process Cheese Food is crap, but Real American cheese is bland but also made for melting, which it does perfectly.
Not true, in fact most people cant tell American choco from Euro choco- unless of course it’s Hershey Process, which is an acquired taste.
Some is. Same as in Europe.
By no means all.
Again, wrong.
Shhh. We Americans need to accept that our culture is the lowest-brow of the lowbrow, and everything we make, drink or eat is wrong, backwards & disgusting.
Sweet tomatoey stuff in cans, whether spaghetti, beans, or (now obsolete) sardines.
Yes, it’s getting silly. Every country with a supermarket has got miles of aisles with novelty/junk/snack foods. Here in Oz we have LCM’s, chicken-in-a-biskit, dunkaroos, pop tarts, cheese spread in a jar, all that stuff. We have cheap crumbly chocolate as well as the good stuff. We have plasticy cheap cheese slices as well. It doesn’t mean we all LOVE it. I’ve had some pretty amazing food in the States, especially your burgers - you guys do that so well. Just the thought makes me salivate.
I think what the OP is getting at would be something similar to Aussie’s general love of vegemite, which most of the rest of the world does find disgusting. (But only because they don’t do it right). I think just saying cheap coffee or chocolate tastes crap is missing the point because that stuff tastes crap in whatever part of the world you’re in.
You mean baked beans? They’re everywhere! And delicious.
Ooh, I tried some dandelion and burdock that I found in the “British” section of the grocery store. I quite liked it. (Canadian here, and also like root beer.)
I’ve never tasted wintergreen in root beer, and I like root beer (best floats ever, with vanilla ice cream) and dislike wintergreen.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.
Apple pie without cheese
Is like a kiss without a squeeze
Apple and cheddar just …pair so nicely. I was raised with the slice of sharp, real cheddar on the side, though, not melted on top. And I’m Canadian, British-descended.
I very rarely like sweet and savoury together, but make an exception for apple pie and cheddar cheese. And for a snack, I also like a crisp apple and some cheese.
Good points. Yes, America consumes a lot of stuff, and much of it is second rate. … or worse. But that’s because we consume so much stuff, not because we cant afford or appreciate better.
You say I’m wrong while saying it is bland?
Chocolate with a low cacao content can be spotted by sight, let alone taste.
I found bread in the USA significantly worse than I found elsewhere.
99% is the result of my own experience. Anecdote != data but the question was what non-Americans find disgusting so I thought my experiences were, in fact, what was asked for.
Wow
That is exactly what I said.:dubious:
Diddums.
Welcome to how it feels like to be British where most people don’t even know any British food but they are sure it is the worst in the world.
And while Kraft has the first US patent, it’s a Swiss invention.
I make my own melty cheese by adding sodium citrate and liquid (milk or beer usually) to my fancy cheese of choice.
You said Orange Butter.
Sure, but it’s made everywhere choco is made. In fact some of the very worst choco I have had was german stuff, made for kiddies. I think they made it with wax…
All the bad coffee talk is oh so true. You can order a cafe at a beach bar in St Martin that just barely has electricity and they grind your beans and serve you an incredible espresso complete with a lemon peel curl. And there are USAians who complain about it. The bartender says, “Ahh, cafe americano”, adds some hot water and apologizes.
Well, yes.
The OP was asking for specific food items which aren’t enjoyed in other countries. You chose to generalize, saying that most or all American-made cheese, bread, coffee, and chocolate is disgusting and sub-par. This is demonstrably untrue. Full stop.
America, like every country on earth, has good cheese and bad cheese, good coffee and bad coffee, good bread and bad bread. None of that really addresses the OP’s question though.
No luck with savory yesterday in the central public market area of my home city (one of Britain’s biggest). I’d reckon that, as you say, farm produce outlets would likely be the best way to go.
The farmer’s market is more for spotting the fresh stuff, but maybe you can find it dried there, too. Do you guys have any dedicated herb/spice shops? That would of course be your best bet.
This is the one that baffled me the most. A “sub” is a broad category of sandwich. Maybe you left of the word “roll” or “bun.” The bread part though is highly variable… the fast food chain Subway offers up to 11 different breads.
The only thing I can think of that would be close to wet is a dipped Italian Beef… and that is kind of the point that it is supposed to be wet (hence the dipped). It really isn’t a sub though other than being the same shape.
Unless you are saying it is not “crusty” which is most often the case with a sub sandwich. But to say bread is not good or “wet” if it isn’t crusty shows you have a very limited experience with good bread.
Lots of the posters sound like the high school kid who spent a week or less in <insert country> and then spend many years telling people their experiences and being an expert in <insert country>'s culture and food.
I think there’s a level of intentional “bafflement” here. It’s pretty obvious that the post intends to be criticizing the bread.
And to be fair, if you’re a visitor, guest, tourist, or traveler in the United States, or eating “American” foods transplanted to other countries, it’s very likely you’re going to get the convenience, or low-quality food. So that’s what you’re going to experience.
And also to be fair, while high-quality food is available in America, you have to pay a lot more for it, know where to find it, or be guided by someone with an interested in good food.
Because 90 percent of the common, easily available, inexpensive food in America is bad quality, especially those that tourists are going to come across. And 90 percent of the bread—including submarine rolls—are soft, spongy, and tasteless. “Wet baguette” is not a literal description,b ut it isn’t completely baffling either.
This is also true in the United Kingdom, but this is not true in places like France and Italy. Yes, France and Italy do have cheap, low-quality convenience foods, but you don’t have to go looking for high-quality food and you don’t have to pay a ton for it. Ordinary street food or grocery/takeaway/convenience food in Italy is fresh, tasty, and cheap. Street food and convenience food in America is a pile of shit.
Like I posted earlier in this thread, you can get very very good coffee in America, but if you go out for coffee with 90 percent of Americans, you’re going to end up drinking shitty coffee, because the American food market is dominated by cheap, convenient, and low quality. That’s what the majority of Americans buy and consume.
A couple of months ago there was a story about a the development of a great new tomato, one that had the qualities to stand up to American transportation and storage conditions, but unlike all the other tomatoes sold in U.S. groceries, it actually has flavor — Science Has Created the Perfect Tomato — but Grocery Stores Refuse to Sell It - Business Insider
But the developer of this tomato can’t find a market in the united states, because American supermarkets don’t care about flavor. On a radio interview, I heard it said that a supermarket buyer told the guy that his customers only cared about price; they never lost sales because lack of flavor.
Yes, we have good food in America, but the basic reality of the American market is that cost and convenience is far more valued by the majority of American consumers. In general, is is very true to say that Americans eat bad food.