Thinking back to the recent thread on Outback Steakhouse and then inspired by the new thread about British bitters, I thought up this thread. IIRC there’s at least one German beer which you can’t find in Germany proper.
Beer is a pretty common example, I think. None of the few Brazilian export beers I’ve encountered in the U.S. are sold in Brazil, as far as I know, while the most popular brands in Brazil are not available here (at least not where I live).
Chinese fortune cookies.
When I was in high school, the family of a friend of mine hosted another high school student from Denmark. We asked what they they called a ‘danish’ there.
He had no idea what we were talking about.
We tried to show him.
He was horrified
“what is that? we don’t eat those there.”
Chop suey and General Tso’s Chicken. Oddly enough, I only heard of General Tso’s chicken within the past 3 years or so. I’m convinced that it’s less popular in Southern California.
Yeah, I’ve heard there are no Swedish fish in Sweden, either.
Three examples of this “exported product not available domestically” phenomenon come to mind:
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Ecuadorian chocolate. Cacao is grown in Ecuador, but it’s not an indigenous plant. It’s hard to find good chocolate in the country at all, and what little decent chocolate there is usually comes from Brazil, the US, or, on rare occasion, Germany. Most people I met didn’t really know how to use it in cooking or baking, though they did eat it in the form of candies. (Many Ecuadorians who’d been abroad, were in a lot of contact with foreigners, or had friends or families who’d been overseas, knew about hot chocolate.) Most of the cacao gets bought up by foreign companies. Those same companies sell a tiny proportion of their product in Ecuador. I strongly suspect that the cacao industry in Ecuador results in a cash efflux for the country, since they sell raw product and buy back finished goods.
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Ecuadorian coffee–same deal as chocolate, really. All the good stuff goes for export. Most Ecuadorians know coffee as instant coffee, often made with hot water and powdered milk. Ick!
The only places, IMHO, to get genuinely good coffee are the cafes owned and run by Colombians.
- French wines, made in Chile. At least some Chilean vintners grow the original French strains of Vitis vinifera, the grape used in making wine; many French vintners use varieties that are hybrids of V. vinifera and the North American wine grapes (whose Latin name I’ve forgotten, and I’m too lazy to look it up.) In some sense, then, there are some Chilean wines that are more French than French wines are.
Vinyl Turnip–What brands of Brazilian beer do you have in mind? I checked out the Wikipedia page on Brazilian beer, and I think that most–if not all–the brands of beer listed there are available in Brazil.
English muffins (and no they are not crumpets, dammit! Those are quite tasty, too, and look similar, but they’re not the same)
The best Panama Hats are made in Ecuador.
I noticed the mention of fortune cookies and General Tso’s Chicken.
I have a professor that moved to America in the last 2 years, and had never been to an American “Chinese” restaurant. She is from Taiwan and very excited about being here, so we tried to show her around a little outside of the classroom. We took her to a restaurant in town, which served Chinese, and she said she had never seen most of the food before in her life, either in Taiwan or in mainland China. I was a little shocked, as I expected most of the food to be semi-authentic, but she explained that most of it was not. I’m not sure what all she told us about, as it has been months, but I remember her saying that a good bit of food sold in Chinese Restaurants is not often present in it’s home country.
Brendon Small
Beni Hana-style steakhouses, where the cooks entertain guests by putting on flashy shows, are unknown in Japan. Many types of sushi popular in America, such as rolls with tempura in them, or inside-out rolls, are either uncommon or inexistant in Japan also.
There’s a lamb dish in Japan called “Genghis Khan” that most people believe to be Mongolian but was invented in Japan. Similarly, ebi-chiri (chili shrimps) is often served in Chinese restaurants here, and was also invented in Japan.
We do have those here.
True, I own one. Very nice, but when I was talking about it to an expert, she said she coudl tell it was made in Ecuador, and it was the 2nd highest quality. She then praised my good taste and the excellent bargain I got.
Canadians eat “back bacon” not “Canadian bacon*” and they eat plenty of “regular” bacon too.
- Well, I guess if it was imported from the USA, it could have a “Candanian bacon” label on it.
Chinese food is odd, since China is so large that a native could honestly not recognize some items eaten daily by a significant % of their countrymen.
Note that what is generally servered in the USA as “Mexican” food is really more like “Mexican border-town” food.
Scotch tape is not of Scottish origin.
Chinese Checkers was in invented in Germany and German Chocolate Cake was invented in the USA. I think the closest thing to a Spanish omelette in Spain is a tortilla española which is thinly sliced potatoes, onions and eggs, thus being quite a bit different than that in the USA.
You can certainly buy it there, though! (And FWIW, the use of ‘scotch’ as a synonym for ‘scottish’ is mainly an American thing. Here, it’s pretty much just a brand name.)
Most ‘Indian’ restaurants in Britain are actually Bangladeshi.
Jose Cuervo is apparently a low-end beer in Mexico and the export shipments to the US are of a higher quality brew.
Unless I’m much mistaken, what you call a “Danish” is what we in Sweden call “wienerbröd”. In Denmark, they make them with chocolate instead of jam.
I just looked up “Swedish fish”, and while we don’t call them that, we do have them.
You’re right there. I’m starting a campaign to alert Scots that Scotch tape is a racist term derived from their alleged frugality. I’m going to ruin 3M so that Scotch tape will no longer be sold in Scotland! Then my answer will be correct.
There’s a brand of French-produced wines here in the UK named Le Piat D’Or - The advertising slogan is “The French adore Le Piat D’Or”. Whereas in fact, I think it’s true that the French have generally never heard of Le Piat D’Or, and those that have probably wouldn’t like it if they tried it.
Even so, I think American ‘English muffins’ are a little different to muffins as found here in England - I think ours are more substantial and doughy. Could any dopers who have tried them both sides of the pond weigh in on this?
They dropped that slogan some years ago in a rebranding exercise, now being “a taste of France”. And I’ve heard reports of their wines performing remarkably well in blind tastings - although I’m sure we’re alike in that we’d never willingly buy a bottle…