# How does American food manifest in other countries? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 30, 2015, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397 "2015-08-30T15:58:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397/81 "2015-09-05T06:55:37Z")
In the city I lived in, in China, McDonald’s was popular, KFC was seen as a ‘treat’ and Pizza Hut was only for special occasions. I went to Pizza Hut with a friend and we were ushered to the front of the queue and placed by a front window, I think to show how ‘upscale’ eating pizza with a knife and fork is. The Chinese, family run, restaurants were fantastic and I still don’t understand how fast food ever became popular there. One time in Korea I took the fried skin off my three pieces of chicken, and the paucity of the flesh beneath it put me off KFC for good. In Korea sweet potato on pizza is very popular. Yuck. I’ve had beef/turkey bacon in several muslim countries, the beef bacon often is full of nitrates and doesn’t do much good for your digestive system, the turkey bacon ranges from satisfactory to very close to the real thing. Across the Middle East McD’s serves the McArabia, two chicken or beef patties in pita bread with lettuce, tomato, onion and tahini sauce, alongside the usual ubiquitous items. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397/82 "2015-09-05T08:32:35Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > IMHO, the main way that America has infiltrated the Australian food scene is the ginormous serves that now grace our plates. > > At least for the working classes, a ‘serve’ now would be enough to feed a family…a chicken parma that is bigger than your average chicken, a side of chips (fries) enough to cause a local potato famine, and of course the ubiquitous salad on the side that nobody eats because it’s drowned in dressing and who eats chunky tomatoes anyway? > > Please, tone down your servings Aussies…because I take one look at the food on my plate and suddenly develop a dose of anorexia. We don’t NEED so much food…if we’re hungry afterwards, we can order a dessert or something… > > PLEASE?? Um… Eat how much you want, take the rest home? If I get that much I can turn it into multiple meals. ---
**Author:** ![svd678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@svd678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/svd678)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397/83 "2015-09-05T15:22:01Z")
Corn as animal feed? Some Americans do not understand that corn on the cob is a gourmet dish. In my rural childhood home it was served as a separate course, the center of the meal. Corn needs to be in the hot water within 20 minutes of being picked. Never found any in a super market that was fit to eat. Maybe in a farmer’s market. No merchants seem to have heard of super sweet varieties, which extend the 20 minutes some. In corn-growing country we found people eating field corn. It cross-breeds with sweet corn, spoiling it, so they don’t grow it. Worked in a summer resort that served corn on the cob weekly, from a nearby produce farm. The help thought it was a treat; the urbanite paying guests were bored with it. I understand why foreign countries don’t get it. ---
**Author:** ![Orwell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/dfb087/32.png) [@Orwell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orwell)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397/84 "2015-09-05T18:32:44Z")
> [@svd678](#): > > Corn as animal feed? Some Americans do not understand that corn on the cob is a gourmet dish. In my rural childhood home it was served as a separate course, the center of the meal. Corn needs to be in the hot water within 20 minutes of being picked. Never found any in a super market that was fit to eat. Maybe in a farmer’s market. No merchants seem to have heard of super sweet varieties, which extend the 20 minutes some. I understand why foreign countries don’t get it. Corn does start to lose sugar when it’s picked, but 20 minutes was neither necessary nor realistic even a couple of decades ago. Today’s super-sweet and enhanced-sugar varieties will remain sweet and good for quite a few hours, or even a day. I agree completely regarding supermarket corn. People who buy supermarket corn have no idea what good corn tastes like. You have to pick your own or buy from a farm market. We eat freshly picked corn on the cob a bunch of times each summer. It IS summer. We had a Spanish visitor for the past few summers, and he says they don’t eat corn like we do, but he loves it. He says Spaniards will eat corn in a salad or as part of a recipe, but they don’t eat it on its own, especially as the centerpiece of a summer meal. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2015, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397/85 "2015-09-05T18:48:51Z")
Continuing a tangent, when our German relatives came over in the 1980s they were surprised to find no horses in the neighborhood. On the other hand, we were able to take them to see Southfork Ranch, so it wasn’t a complete failure. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397/86 "2015-09-06T03:35:29Z")
> [@Elemenopy](#): > > Heh. Not what I would look for in Istanbul, but a fun story, nonetheless. > > By the way, beef bacon is amazing and I actually prefer it to the piggy variety. Not the easiest to find, however. > [@Chronos](#): > > Eh, during Ramadan, a lot of folks eat big breakfasts (before the sun comes up) to tide them over until sunset. I don’t know if pancakes or something like them are a traditional breakfast food in Istanbul, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some folks have adopted them. And bacon would be no problem at all, if it’s from a clean animal. > > Plus, of course, the places catering to non-Muslims (or nonobservant ones). No, she reported finding authentic, American-style, dead-pig bacon. I’ve eaten beef bacon - bought some by mistake when we planned BLTs for dinner - and it was…meh. Not bad, really, but not _bacon_. > [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Continuing a tangent, when our German relatives came over in the 1980s they were surprised to find no horses in the neighborhood. On the other hand, we were able to take them to see Southfork Ranch, so it wasn’t a complete failure. When my sister spent a semester of high school as an exchange student in the UK, her classmates were surprised to find out that she lived in a house with indoor plumbing and running water. This was in the early '90s. ---
**Author:** ![oliversarmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/eb8c5e/32.png) [@oliversarmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oliversarmy)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2015, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397/87 "2015-09-06T05:16:19Z")
This is completely anecdotal, but I recently enjoyed a trip to Germany and France. What surprised me is that in both countries is the ever present “pommes frites” on the menus. While staying in Germany, we were in a small town that is not a destination for American tourists. In France, we were in Paris, but our hotel was far away from traditional tourist destinations. Anyway, what I found interesting in both countries is that parents, as near as I could tell were German or French, ordered french fries for their children. I never saw an adult order french fries for themselves. And, no, I did not order french fries in either country. My daughter did. They resembled what you get at Wendy’s. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2015, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397/88 "2015-09-07T02:16:04Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > American food in Thailand has improved vastly over the years. … Today though, it’s not difficult to find good American dishes at a reasonable price, at least in Bangkok. And in major cities upcountry. And tourist places elsewhere, I imagine. One of my favorite things about staying in Pattaya is the opportunity to eat all of the high-quality western food that’s not available to me in China (where the western food is mostly pretty bad in most places). I don’t mean the big chains, either, but the German owned German place, or the Belgian-owned Belgian place, etc. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2015, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397/89 "2015-09-07T10:49:18Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Some years ago (about 15) I was in Ireland and got a hankering for spaghetti with a nice red meat sauce. I couldn’t even adequately describe it to the guys at the hostel I was staying in. They were baffled. So instead of going to a restaurant, one of them took me to a grocery store, where I was able to get all the ingredients to make it for them. They loved it, but continued to insist that there was nothing like it in their experience. I am curious what the ingredients for this were because spaghetti with a red vegetarian/beef sauce is about as close as I can think to a bog standard meal almost anyone could cook here in Ireland (and this was as true 15 years ago as it is now). That is, I cannot fathom your anecdote unless the spaghetti you made was absolutely amazing, in which case, I want some! ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2015, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397/90 "2015-09-07T11:29:44Z")
> [@svd678](#): > > Corn needs to be in the hot water within 20 minutes of being picked. You boil perfectly good fresh corn??? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2015, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397/91 "2015-09-07T17:06:17Z")
I ate very good corn on the cob in Japan. It was roasted and served with a Japanese barbeque sauce. Delicious! ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2015, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397/92 "2015-09-07T17:21:02Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > You boil perfectly good fresh corn??? Sit down before reading further. I microwave it. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2015, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397/93 "2015-09-07T17:37:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Meanwhile, I don’t think there’s anywhere outside of the Americas that you can find cornbread. It’s common at braais in South Africa, made in a Dutch oven. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2015, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397/94 "2015-09-07T17:44:11Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Also, it’s on the menu at Nando’s. Which is a South African take on Portuguese-Mozambican fusion chicken quite popular in England - it truly is a small world. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2015, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397/95 "2015-09-07T17:49:33Z")
I enjoy these stories so I started a thread: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=18666696](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=18666696) > [@Fenris](#): > > I had some relatives from Italy come out here a while back and they asked for an "authentic Cowboy\* meal and my dad and I made slow smoked beef brisket, pork ribs, baked beans, cole slaw…and served a huge platter of ears of corn on the cob. > > They were aghast–apparently to the, corn on the cob is “pig food” in Florence. And when everyone began eating it they were stunned. They really, really thought we were pulling their legs. > > \*We’re in Colorado. Therefore…cowboys. Right? > [@obfusciatrist](#): > > Back in the early '90s we had distant family from Germany come and visit us in Vancouver, Washington. They had five things they wanted to see while in the United States: > > 1. Disneyland > 2. The Statue of Liberty > 3. The Grand Canyon > 4. Willie Nelson > 5. Cowboys and/or Indians > > They truly had no sense of how large this country is. It was my first exposure to the fact that Europeans aren’t inherently more worldly than Americans (it was their first time leaving Germany). > > So we took them to Disneyland (though they were aghast that it took two days of driving to get there) and a local Indian cultural site (which they weren’t entirely pleased with since PNW Indian cultures were not what they were thinking of). > [@Orwell](#): > > Things haven’t changed much. I just met a German exchange student last week. He told his host family he wanted to take weekend trips to see NYC, Florida, the Grand Canyon and Hollywood. His host dad explained that all but one of those are farther than anywhere in Europe would be from his home, and not possible except for major, long vacations. > [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Continuing a tangent, when our German relatives came over in the 1980s they were surprised to find no horses in the neighborhood. On the other hand, we were able to take them to see Southfork Ranch, so it wasn’t a complete failure. > [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > When my sister spent a semester of high school as an exchange student in the UK, her classmates were surprised to find out that she lived in a house with indoor plumbing and running water. This was in the early '90s. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397/96 "2015-09-08T02:14:15Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > American food in Thailand has improved vastly over the years. Twenty or 30 years ago, you had to pay big bucks at a fancy steak house or five-star hotel to eat anything that might resemble good American fare. Otherwise it was just McDonald’s crap and gummy white bread. Today though, it’s not difficult to find good American dishes at a reasonable price, at least in Bangkok. And in major cities upcountry. Found some good American stuff in Chiang Mai and even Mae Hong Son in the North in July. A good friend has lived in Roi Et in the Northeast for almost 25 years, and when he first moved there, it was just Thai food. Now there are reasonable facsimiles of American food and even a German and French restaurant, owned and operated by an actual German and Frenchman, respectively. > [@Balthisar](#): > > And tourist places elsewhere, I imagine. One of my favorite things about staying in Pattaya is the opportunity to eat all of the high-quality western food that’s not available to me in China (where the western food is mostly pretty bad in most places). I don’t mean the big chains, either, but the German owned German place, or the Belgian-owned Belgian place, etc. I’m not sure how high quality you would have found it 20 years ago, even in the places run by the relevant foreign national. A big problem, I think, may have been getting the right ingredients. That situation has improved. There was always a handful of places operating with good quality. Bourbon Street Bar and Restaurant has been around about 30 years, and it’s always been reasonably priced. There was a Mexican-food place named Tia Maria that opened in I think it was 1990, and it was always good. (Closed five or ten years ago.) But it took an effort to get to such places, particularly in the pre-Skytrain and -subway days. ---
**Author:** ![Trom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Trom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trom)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397/97 "2015-09-08T16:39:22Z")
I had a burger at [The Bird](http://www.thebirdinxberg.com/) in Berlin earlier this year, and it was quite good. They go out of their way - importing beef from Iowa, for example - to produce a true American-style burger. Other burgers I had around Europe were kind of rubbery, low-grade sandwich things. Numerous places on the menu and around the restaurant were instructions against ordering beef well-done and notices that a well-marbled, fatty cut of beef is a good thing. Is order medium to rare, “bloody” steak/burgers not a common thing in Europe? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-american-food-manifest-in-other-countries/729397.md?page=4)