# Surprised by American food **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 20, 2007, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668 "2007-03-20T03:15:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/21 "2007-03-20T11:40:10Z")
Anything to do with lots and lots of meat. Proper pastrami sandwiches on soft rye bread. I am also very partial to Arbys sliced beef sandwiches; a guilty pleasure. But the one thing you never ever see outsite the US is Deep South-style “barbecue”, which was a total revelation. I don’t know why this isn’t exported. Come on entrepreneurs, we need this stuff over here - stat. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/22 "2007-03-20T11:56:37Z")
The thing I found weird when I first went to The States was the sweetness of the food. Not just the maple syrup with bacon at breakfast kind of sweet, which I was expecting, but even ‘normal’ foods like butter and bread tasted overly sweet to me. Is sugar added to these things? The sweet theme was highlighted at a dinner party I went to in Chicago. The hostess served us spaghetti bolognese (nothing freaky so far). On the table was a fruit salad - very familar item to any Brit - which we Brit guests assumed was for dessert, so we all left it alone. “Don’t any of you want fruit salad?”, hostess asks. “What, with spaghetti bolognese??? EURGHHHH!” ---
**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/23 "2007-03-20T11:59:37Z")
[QUOTE=Promethea] The custom of holding on to cutlery between courses in very posh restaurants. Not a problem (when in Rome and all that) but very puzzling to this visitor. [/QUOTE] As an American, this never made a lot of sense to me, either. This isn’t universal, but often they take your plate leaving you to place the dirty knife or fork on the clean table cloth for the next course. I guess there’d be nothing wrong in just asking for a clean knife, but I never have. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/24 "2007-03-20T12:09:07Z")
The large size of the servings at restaruants. ---
**Author:** ![Layla01](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/layla01/32/15552_2.png) [@Layla01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Layla01)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/25 "2007-03-20T12:25:19Z")
Something that amazed me… when I was in LA in 1994, I could have sworn I saw people walking around Disneyland eating **a whole dill pickle** as a snack. Was I seeing things? Who would eat a whole pickle? Oh, and salads with jello and vegetables in them - ew… But I LOVED the Kona coffee in Hawaii, it’s very hard to find here and very expensive, now that was surprisingly good. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/26 "2007-03-20T13:07:05Z")
[QUOTE=SanVito] The sweet theme was highlighted at a dinner party I went to in Chicago. The hostess served us spaghetti bolognese (nothing freaky so far). On the table was a fruit salad - very familar item to any Brit - which we Brit guests assumed was for dessert, so we all left it alone. “Don’t any of you want fruit salad?”, hostess asks. “What, with spaghetti bolognese??? EURGHHHH!” [/QUOTE] This American agrees that sounds a little weird. With a pasta dish like spaghetti bolognese, I’d expect to have a green salad and garlic bread, not fruit salad. Fruit salad could be a dessert, or part of a light lunch menu. ---
**Author:** ![Martha\_Medea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/27 "2007-03-20T13:24:07Z")
[QUOTE=Muffin] The large size of the servings at restaurants. [/QUOTE] Yes. I remember being shocked at the price of a sandwich on a diner menu, before discovering that a ‘sandwich’ - which once upon a time (in the UK - think British Rail circa 1970) used to be a miserable affair involving white sliced bread, cheap margarine and a sliver of ham - was an generous, opulent, triple decker extravaganza, with delicious bread, layers of filling, salad, pickles and relishes, served on a full-sized plate with chips (fries) and salad - a meal in itself. Applesauce - count me in with the people who think it’s weird. I always thought it was some sort of dessert. Some things were completely new to me like “meatball hero”. And although I knew that sweets were ‘candy’, chips were ‘fries’ and crisps were ‘chips’, and biscuits were ‘cookies’, I did had no idea that those scone-like things were called ‘biscuits’. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/28 "2007-03-20T13:29:47Z")
[QUOTE=SanVito] The thing I found weird when I first went to The States was the sweetness of the food. Not just the maple syrup with bacon at breakfast kind of sweet, which I was expecting, but even ‘normal’ foods like butter and bread tasted overly sweet to me. Is sugar added to these things? [/QUOTE] Why yes, yes it is. Actually, it’s high fructose corn syrup. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/29 "2007-03-20T13:37:29Z")
American bread tastes like cake to me. But, ooh, American biscuits. With sausage gravy. That’s so good (yet so bad for you). ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/30 "2007-03-20T13:42:09Z")
I’ve never been able to wrap my head around biscuits and gravy\*, actually, and I’m from here! I like biscuits with butter and honey. 🙂 I do like egg and cheese biscuit sandwiches, though. \*even before I became a vegetarian. I realize it’s kind of moot now. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/31 "2007-03-20T13:47:12Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Anything to do with lots and lots of meat. Proper pastrami sandwiches on soft rye bread. I am also very partial to Arbys sliced beef sandwiches; a guilty pleasure. But the one thing you never ever see outsite the US is Deep South-style “barbecue”, which was a total revelation. I don’t know why this isn’t exported. Come on entrepreneurs, we need this stuff over here - stat. [/QUOTE] **jjimm** , do you think that’s a Latin influence? Do you remember that Clive James episode (forget which series - they are all alike) where he has a “standard” barbeque in South America somewhere (Brazil?)? We are talking four or five kilograms of dead animal piled up on a plate (and for $5 or summat). I mean, I’m not yer ackshual vegan, but even I was shocked. I’m a huge guy, and there is NO WAY IN HELL id have finished half of that platter. And it was an individual serving. I know there’s lots of Latin influence in US cuisine, but is it a part of the supersize thing? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/32 "2007-03-20T13:48:04Z")
[QUOTE=anamnesis] Even I’m surprised by American food at times, and I’m an American. [/QUOTE] True, that. It is such a large country that someone from Oregon might get lots of surprises in South Carolina. Just go to a barbecue place. Your plate will have shredded pork smothered in a sweet yellow mustard sauce abutting roast beef hash on a big pile of rice. Your tea will be so sweet that your body will tremble with aftershocks for hours. And if you order unsweetened tea (which you’ll have to repeat over and over to the incredulous stare of a waitress who thinks you’re insane), you’ll be brought several packages of sugar on the side just in case you come to your senses. ---
**Author:** ![brownie55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f14d63/32.png) [@brownie55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brownie55)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/33 "2007-03-20T13:50:17Z")
[QUOTE=Zsofia] Why yes, yes it is. Actually, it’s high fructose corn syrup. [/QUOTE] Not in any butter I have ever seen. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/34 "2007-03-20T14:16:47Z")
[QUOTE=OpalCat] [re: applesauce] I hate to sound stupid, but what else would you do with it? I realize it’s called a “sauce” but I can’t think of anything that you would put it on. [/QUOTE] Also blintzes, knishes or potato pancakes. As I’m sure **Liberal** knows, but for the benefit of our non-American Dopers, in the North tea is (far more often than not) served unsweetened. But you’re free to add just as much sugar or artificial sweetener as you desire. It _is_ a big country, and there’s lots of great regional cuisine. The chain restaurants have had a certain homogenizing effect nationwide, true. But there’s also stuff that you can only get in certain places - or that is at its best in certain places - like Vermont maple syrup, Ohio apple cider, Texas chili, Philadelphia cheese steaks, Maryland crabcakes, etc. I love this country! ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/35 "2007-03-20T14:19:44Z")
[QUOTE=featherlou] One thing I’ve noticed while visiting the U.S. was apple sauce as a side dish, and people eating it. It is on Canadian menus as a side once in a while, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone order it, and just chowing down on a dish of apple sauce strikes me as weird. I’ve heard of grits, but never seen or experienced them. They don’t really sound like my kind of thing, but I’d give them a fair try. (I’ve often eaten potatoes with baked beans on them. In fact, I just might have that for supper tomorrow. 🙂 ) [/QUOTE] I think The Grits Belt starts some miles south of The Applesauce Belt. Here in Texas, applesauce is mostly kids’ food. Or possibly a German side dish–just the thing with 5 kinds of kraut! (And 3 kinds of cabbage.) Apple-growing areas probably use it more–what else do you do with all those apples? Grits is (are?) fairly flavorless alone. But great served with breakfast, soaking up the egg yolk & pork grease. Grits baked with cheese & other savory flavors is even better. “What’s the difference between grits & polenta?” “About 10 dollars a plate!” ---
**Author:** ![awldune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@awldune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/awldune)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/36 "2007-03-20T14:20:24Z")
[QUOTE=TheLoadedDog] I know there’s lots of Latin influence in US cuisine, but is it a part of the supersize thing? [/QUOTE] Definitely not, IMO. Persons of latin american descent are not known here for eating huge quantities of meat. > [@SanVito](#): > > even ‘normal’ foods like butter… Is sugar added to these things? I wonder if what you had was butter ‘spread’ from a tub. Those are often sweetened. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/37 "2007-03-20T14:25:52Z")
[QUOTE=Staggerlee] I found Taco Bell a guilty pleasure. I never eat fast food, but if these were available in Britain (they’re not, are they?) I would probably be morbidly obese. [/QUOTE] _gack_ OK, I’ll be fair. Taco Bell food isn’t _bad_. It’s just not very good, nor very Mexican. Its main attributes are that it’s cheap, filling, and… not untasty. But for ‘Mexican’ fast food, I prefer Del Taco. Too bad they don’t have any up this way. > [@jjimm](#): > > But the one thing you never ever see outsite the US is Deep South-style “barbecue”, which was a total revelation. I don’t know why this isn’t exported. Come on entrepreneurs, we need this stuff over here - stat. If one were exported, American tourists would flock to it. Only all you’d hear is ‘You call _this_ barbecue? They ain’t doin’ it right! Barbecue should be blahblahblah…’ ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/38 "2007-03-20T14:31:30Z")
[QUOTE=brownie55] Not in any butter I have ever seen. [/QUOTE] Oh, I meant the bread. Although butterish spreads may. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/39 "2007-03-20T14:32:30Z")
[QUOTE=awldune] Definitely not, IMO. Persons of latin american descent are not known here for eating huge quantities of meat. [/QUOTE] I think it’s more of an Argentine thing, which may have been influenced by the large number of German immigrants to the country, plus copious quantities of really good beef. Furriners probably react to grits on a breakfast plate the same way I reacted to a grilled tomato on mine in Britain. 😕 But both are surprisingly tasty once you get used to them. A BBQ in another country would be do-able, if you could get the wood necessary and import a couple of old black pitmen from some little roadside BBQ somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668/40 "2007-03-20T14:37:20Z")
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir] As I’m sure **Liberal** knows, but for the benefit of our non-American Dopers, in the North tea is (far more often than not) served unsweetened. But you’re free to add just as much sugar or artificial sweetener as you desire. [/QUOTE] In the west, too. In fact, I think it’s just in the South (and by that I mean the Southeast) where tea is served sweet. I grew up in Arizona and finding presweetened tea was unheard of, which meant that I had to use enough sugar to make it look like a snow globe in order to make it taste good. As for apple sauce… I still think of it as a kids’ food. I’m not a huge apple fan, so putting it on stuff just kinda sounds yuck to me. Like it would ruin what you put it on. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprised-by-american-food/396668.md?page=3)