Yesterday, I tried fried halloumi for the first time.
It looked like tofu.
It tasted like tofu.
It textured like tofu.
Has anyone ever seen halloumi and tofu in the same room together? Didn’t think so.
I eat both on a regular basis, and I am utterly confused; they’re nothing alike in taste or texture to me.
Well, my mother said it wasn’t quite “real” halloumi because it was probably made from cow milk instead of sheep or goat, maybe that’s the difference?
Germany and India, of all places, managed to independently come up with the same salad. Except Germany calls it “gerkensalat”, and India calls it “raita”.
And every culture on the planet has some sort of dumpling.
There’s one food every culture on Earth invents independently, so it’s never borrowed from anywhere else: The Swadesh meatball.
More seriously, multiple cultures independently invented something which can be broadly described as “flat bread with stuff on it”, with the precise nature of the bread and the stuff varying by place.
Why does every culture (except Moslems) like pork with beans?
Baked fish encased in mud
Roasted tongue
Gelatinized front legs
Ham for the rear legs
Cured or salted belly
Steaks
Sounds like every dinner with my family.
“Mom! Can I have another serving of gelatinized front legs?”
“Not until you finish your baked fish encased in mud! I spent all day scooping up that mud and it’s not going to waste!”
Huh? To me, raita is a sort of cacik-like yoghurt-based dip with cucumber, while gurkensalat is simply sliced cucumbers done up as a salad… Except for the cucumber, they don’t seem terribly alike to me.
Mmmmm, yeah. Especially for Shabbes.
BARF!! 
Keep going, nothing to see here… 
Sausages, Wine-like drinks, sometimes cheese (not so much in Asian or African locales). Pork Shoulder is used heavily and differently in different cultures and developed separately even though pork was introduced to the culture from somewhere else.
I’ve never had the OP’s cheese but many cheeses throughout the world are feta-esque.
Rak , ouzo, sambuca, arak, mastika, pastis, and absinthe are all pretty similar, except that the last two are yellow and green, respectively, while the rest are clear in their unmixed state. Most turn cloudy white with water.
Lots of foods are claimed equally by the Greeks, Turks, and Armenians. Not to mention various Middle East countries. Sometimes identical, but different names.
In what world is raita the cousin of cucumber salad? I (and Google) know it as something very similar to tzatziki (yogurt sauce). There might be an Indian salad that has it mixed in there of course.
What I’m wondering is why every culture (except Inuit?) would bother to cultivate cucumber.
Well, I’ve had Indian salad consisting of cucumbers in yogurt dressing described as “raita”, and I’ve had a German salad consisting of cucumbers in sour cream dressing described as “gerkinsalat”. OK, I’ll grant that yogurt and sour cream aren’t exactly the same thing, but they’re awfully close.
I gave up sour cream long ago in favor of yogurt.
Because cucumbers are yummy, of course.
Along with tomatoes, they are my favorite summer vegetables (and don’t start with the fruit business.) Delicious and thirst quenching.
Plus without them, you don’t have pickles (as in pickled cucumbers) and relish! What hamburger or hot dog is complete without one of these?
But they’re both so good in such completely different ways!
Yogurt in indian curries or with dried fruit and grains thrown in, sour cream for chili-based dishes, baked potatoes to name but a few of each’s uses.
Scrapple and white pudding.
Milk and veal?
I’m not sure if this ii exactly what you’re looking for but unripe mango tastes like carrots to me (with a little bit of sweetness).