# What American cultural stuff is not popular ouside of Nth America? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 18, 2008, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853 "2008-04-18T06:09:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/121 "2008-04-19T01:45:18Z")
The British end-of-year discos don’t seem to have the same cultural significance as the Prom does in (north) America, though. There, it seems to be a rite of passage, a milestone-in-your-life sort of thing, with associated angst about who, if anyone accompanies you to the Prom. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/122 "2008-04-19T03:23:23Z")
> [@](#): > > One of the biggest gripes you hear from Californians who move to the east coast is how they can’t find any decent Mexican food. While it has a few Mexican places, even a city as massive and as cosmopolitan as New York has nowhere near the number of Mexican restaurants as a typical California city. There are probably more good taco joints within a 5 minute walk of Mission and 16th street in San Francisco than there are in the whole of New York city. Thereby disproving the theory that NYC has everything. Go fifty miles north and you’ll find that Orange and Dutchess counties have sizable Mexican populations and you can get great authentic Mexican food quite readily. ---
**Author:** ![PaulParkhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@PaulParkhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulParkhead)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/123 "2008-04-19T04:26:18Z")
[QUOTE=Szlater] Lit match, South London has a reputation as rough and I was kidding (sort of). 🙂 [/QUOTE] It does? Yay! I’m now a tough guy because I survived 4 years in Deptford! ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/124 "2008-04-19T05:31:56Z")
[QUOTE=Martha Medea] The high school prom and associated rituals [/quote] The end of year Formal is the equivalent here. > [@Martha Medea](#): > > Kindergarten graduation I’d like to be able to say that we don’t have these, but alas. My niece had one last year. > [@Martha Medea](#): > > Cheerleaders Yes, we have them. > [@Martha Medea](#): > > Baby showers (this custom has been embraced by some Latin Americans, don’t know about Europe or the Antipodes). Yes, we have them. ---
**Author:** ![Downtowner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9adbd/32.png) [@Downtowner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Downtowner)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/125 "2008-04-19T05:52:00Z")
Cheddar Cheese, Track Built Homes (Drywall), Shopping as Culture, Billboards, eating with hands; cutting with right hand, then switching fork to right hand; lack of Universal Health Care, Cotton Candy, the Banjo, large Sub-Urban areas void of a central downtown, strip malls, Mobile Homes (trailors, not RV’s), Box Spring and Mattress Combinations (vs platform beds), 24-hour shopping, and really funny comedians (Richard Pryor, Robin Williams). ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/126 "2008-04-19T06:07:27Z")
[QUOTE=Downtowner] Cheddar Cheese [/QUOTE] 😕😕😕 Uh . . . no. Are you thinking of “American cheese”? I hope to Og we haven’t been exporting that vile substance, which can’t even properly be called cheese. More likely, some byproduct of the plastics industry. And how about national flags? In the U.S. you see flags everywhere, all different sizes, materials and circumstances, even on the front of private homes. I haven’t seen this anywhere else. ---
**Author:** ![Busy\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/127 "2008-04-19T09:51:20Z")
[QUOTE=Amok] Out of curiosity (and slightly off-topic), do British school children read any American literature as part of their education? Here in the US, we tend to read a lot of British literature (into which Irish literature is also usually lumped) as part of school. In my high school, there was a year (I think it was 12th grade, which is the final year of high school) in which the English class was devoted to nothing but British literature, and I don’t think that’s at all unusual as far as US schools go. We started out with some of the Canterbury Tales and worked our way up to people like Joyce and the WWI poets. Don’t think we got much past the early part of the 20th century. It was the sort of class in which we read a lot of poetry and short stories, because novels take too much time when you’re covering that broad of a spectrum, but we did read a few longer works. So I’m just curious if there are kids sitting in schools in the UK who are reading people like Poe or Sherwood Anderson? [/QUOTE] The Great Gatsby is another classic American novel that British kids read in school - perfect length for studying in an English lit class. If you study English for your A-levels, when you are 16-17 years old, you’ll start to read TS Eliot for poetry - I think he’s seen as a bit difficult for younger students. Most British school kids will have read **Macavity the mystery cat** though. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/128 "2008-04-19T11:19:19Z")
[QUOTE=Cluricaun] What’s this then about the extra cold Guinness? Sounds interesting, and none of the bars I tipple in have this. [/QUOTE] It’s exactly the same drink, only served a few degrees colder. I can’t say I really notice much difference, to be honest. I dislike truly ice-cold drinks, anyway. They make my whole palate ache. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/129 "2008-04-19T11:28:31Z")
[QUOTE=Szlater] OT: Haven’t seen anyone doing “Penny for the Guy” for ages, does that still happen with any regularity elsewhere in the country? [/QUOTE] You see a few groups of kids with a Guy every year in Wigan. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/130 "2008-04-19T11:28:46Z")
[QUOTE=The Cocky Watchman] If you study English for your A-levels, when you are 16-17 years old, you’ll start to read TS Eliot for poetry - I think he’s seen as a bit difficult for younger students. [/QUOTE] Is he? I had Eliot at 14—15, and loved it: _Prufrock, The Wasteland,_ all that. Certainly [del]better[/del] more to my taste than DH Lawrence and Thomas Hardy. Of course, that was in the 70s, when we had proper “O” levels [lawn, kids etc]. For “A” levels we moved on to Swift and Chaucer. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/131 "2008-04-19T11:42:44Z")
[QUOTE=Anne Neville] There is among some groups here, too. I imagine there may have been a hunting season in California. I _never_ heard about it when I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. I don’t know anyone who hunts (or if they do, they haven’t told me about it). [/QUOTE] I grew up in the Bay Area, and the husband of one of my mom’s good friends was a hunter. He’d go hunting (in the Sierras?) every hunting season (whenever that is) and bring back deer. In my parents’ social circle this was regarded with some amount of horror. Everyone liked the guy, but…_hunting_? We aren’t _rednecks_! This is the Bay Area! Meat should come in packages from Whole Foods (or possibly Trader Joe’s)! ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/132 "2008-04-19T12:01:50Z")
Missed the edit window, sorry. > [@](#): > > And how about national flags? In the U.S. you see flags everywhere, all different sizes, materials and circumstances, even on the front of private homes. I haven’t seen this anywhere else. Clearly you have not been to Turkey, then. I’d actually put the Turks ahead of the US for displays of patriotism for their extreme devotion to Ataturk. His picture is EVERYWHERE. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/133 "2008-04-19T13:43:22Z")
[QUOTE=panache45] Are you thinking of “American cheese”? I hope to Og we haven’t been exporting that vile substance, which can’t even properly be called cheese. [/QUOTE] You’re probably thinking of: • “American cheese **food** ” (e.g., Kraft Singles) (which contains as little as 51% cheese) or • “American cheese **product** ” (e.g., Kraft Velveeta) (which contains less than 51% cheese). “American cheese” (e.g., Kraft Deluxe American) contains only cheese and emulsifying salts, no fillers. McDonald’s uses sharp American cheese on its sandwiches. ---
**Author:** ![Cerowyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/82dd89/32.png) [@Cerowyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerowyn)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/134 "2008-04-19T15:25:00Z")
[QUOTE=T\_SQUARE] Maple Syrup [/QUOTE] You do know that more than 90% of maple syrup comes from _outside_ of the United States, right? ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/135 "2008-04-19T15:32:12Z")
[QUOTE=The Cocky Watchman] If you study English for your A-levels, when you are 16-17 years old, you’ll start to read TS Eliot for poetry - I think he’s seen as a bit difficult for younger students. Most British school kids will have read **Macavity the mystery cat** though. [/QUOTE] Up until this moment, I thought TS Eliot was British. :o ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/136 "2008-04-19T15:46:02Z")
[QUOTE=jsc1953] Up until this moment, I thought TS Eliot was British. :o [/QUOTE] Actually, in some ways i think it’s perfectly reasonable to classify Eliot as British, for the purposes of literary categories. He moved to England and became a citizen, and his classicism as well as his royalist Anglophilia infused much of his work. This is not to deny his American origins, nor to deny that American styles and ways of thinking are entirely absent inhis work. But if i saw a copy of Eliot in a British classroom, i certainly wouldn’t consider it indicative of a bent towards American literature. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/137 "2008-04-19T15:48:03Z")
[QUOTE=jsc1953] Up until this moment, I thought TS Eliot was British. :o [/QUOTE] Well, to be fair, he lived here from the age of 25, and for nearly half of his life he _was_ British. Strictly speaking, I’m not sure that he counts as American literature – maybe we’ll call it a draw. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/138 "2008-04-19T15:59:05Z")
[QUOTE=Cerowyn] You do know that more than 90% of maple syrup comes from _outside_ of the United States, right? [/QUOTE] True (is it really that high? I thought it would be more like 75%), but more Americans associate Maple Syrup with Vermont than Canada, I’d wager. Even when I’m not in VT, almost all the bottles of maple syrup I see say “Vermont Maple Syrup.” Sometimes NH has “New Hampshire Maple Syrup,” and parts of northern NY say “Adirondack Maple Syrup,” but I don’t recall seeing “Canadian Maple Syrup” much down here. Plus, the thread has turned more into a whole North American cultural things thread than just the US. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/139 "2008-04-19T16:38:20Z")
[QUOTE=bouv] True (is it really that high? I thought it would be more like 75%), but more Americans associate Maple Syrup with Vermont than Canada, I’d wager. Even when I’m not in VT, almost all the bottles of maple syrup I see say “Vermont Maple Syrup.” Sometimes NH has “New Hampshire Maple Syrup,” and parts of northern NY say “Adirondack Maple Syrup,” but I don’t recall seeing “Canadian Maple Syrup” much down here. [/QUOTE] I wonder if that’s for import reasons–there’s no point importing maple syrup from Canada, if the US produces its own. I imagine that’s the reason I’ve never seen any maple syrup up here from the US; the only stuff available is our own, produced in Ontario and Quebec. Interestingly, when I’ve been in food shops and supermarkets in the UK and Australia, the only genuine maple syrup I saw in those places was both Canadian and quite expensive. I’ve never seen American maple syrup outside of the US. Of course, it might well be in those countries (and others), just not in the shops I was in. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853/140 "2008-04-19T16:49:14Z")
[QUOTE=Spoons] Interestingly, when I’ve been in food shops and supermarkets in the UK and Australia, the only genuine maple syrup I saw in those places was both Canadian and quite expensive. I’ve never seen American maple syrup outside of the US. [/QUOTE] American maple syrup would be even more expensive, subject to tariffs that products from British Commonwealth countries are not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-american-cultural-stuff-is-not-popular-ouside-of-nth-america/445853.md?page=8)