What about hunting and other gun related sports? I know that they do exist in other parts of the world, but nowhere as widespread as it is in parts of the US. I’m fairly certain that a visitor might be pretty confused as to why you can’t get much of anything done the first day of deer season in Wisconsin.
Let’s not forget America Jr. up North… 
I’ve been to Australia, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Mexico, The Philippines, London, and Israel in the past year. I’ve had Chinese food at all those places. Guess what? It’s all different. Half the places didn’t even have what I typically look for when I visit a new Chinese restaurant: Mongolian Beef, General Tso’s (or Princess or Governor’s or Po or Bao). Actually, I think one place in Australia had Mongolian Beef, and it was all soupy and stew-like, which I don’t like.
My Chinese friends say that no food in America is authentic Chinese, unless you order off the Chinese menu. Judging by the food I’ve seen in other countries, I would say that this holds true as well. In London, I went to a takeaway that was laden with peas and carrots. In China, our host even told us that it was slightly catered to Western taste as to not to offend (my co-worker told me that it was code that they weren’t serving us dog, but I digress…) Still, they had something called Goose Oil Sauce (or something like that), which was kinda of gross, and well, oily. I have a feeling that authentic Chinese food, that is, not catered to the region the restaurant is in, is kind of oily.
Yeah, that is very true IME. I have never met anyone in the UK who told me that their hobby was hunting - it’s almost like there is a stigma to it. Even living in Scotland where deer shooting is fairly common on the estates, I’ve still never heard of anyone doing it recreationally.
I think the UK might be unusual in this respect though, shooting parties, fox hunting, hare coursing etc are seen as the preserve of the socially crass landed gentry. They’re not something the average Joe does by and large.
The terminology is slightly different - it’s “skimmed” milk or “semi-skimmed” for the 2% stuff. IME semi-skimmed is now what most people buy. You can ask for whatever type of milk you like at Starbucks, so I’m not sure why the guy was confused.
I don’t think you would get the same reaction now - skimmed milk is available in all the Starbuck’s, Costa’s, Nero’s etc I’ve been to recently. Though - based on my totally unscientific sampling - I don’t think most people ask for anything special, just take what they are given.
Incidently the terminolgy in the UK is Skimmed Milk, Semi-skimmed, and Full Cream - I think anybody would understand “skim milk” but “2% milk” might cause some head scratching. As a family we mostly use semi-skimmed but I notice the supermarkets give about equal room to semi-skimmed and full cream with bit less to skimmed which might, I guess, reflect their relative popularity.
Actually, a lot of Americans pine for Mexican food in the US, too.
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.
Anecdote alert: Growing up as a kid in the 70’s in Australia, I remember what a huge deal it was when the Doris Day variety show came to Australia to film a show. It was the first, or one of the first, American shows to actually visit the country. Everyone knew who Doris Day was and the show was broadcast in Oz so people were familiar with it.
The show was taped, and when it was shown the ratings were huge. There were all kinds of Aussie performers on it and Doris Day hadd all kinds of wonderful things to say about the country. At the very end, however, she brought on “Dandy” Don Meridith, a former football player and Monday Night Football announcer. MNF was one of the top rated shows in the US, and everyone knew who Don Meridith was. Or so they thought. He came on the show and sang his trademark “Turn out the lights, the party’s over…” in drunken Texan to complete stunned silence. I’ll bet there weren’t more than a dozen non-Americans in Australia who had a clue who the guy was, nor why his dog-raspy voice was featured on the show.
It was a great example of Americans thinking that what was huge in the U.S. (football, especially Monday Night Football) must also be huge everywhere.
What is this “Canada” of which you speak? 
I think it’s where they make the geese and ginger ale.
Nashville gets a flood of Euro-tourists during the Country Music Fanfest every year.
So yeah, Country does OK.
And the bacon.
No, that’s Denmark.
And maple syrup, oil, and potash. Though not at the same time.
Some statistics about deer hunting from my home state of Wisconsin (pop. 5.6 million):
• 1.2 million deer
• 670,000 gun hunters
• about 240,000 bow hunters
• When asked how much they would miss deer hunting if they could no longer participate, over 60% of Wisconsin’s deer hunters say they would miss it more than all or most of their other interests.
Toward the end of a long vacation in China, I had become seriously overdosed and saturated by the local foods. I was literally sweating chili oil from my pores. My body started an intense craving the likes of which I had never felt before…cheese! Must have cheese! My awakened cravings for the congealed lump of dairy would put nicotine and heroin addicts to shame.
Fortunately, there was a sparkly new Pizza Hut that had just opened in Shanghai. I furtively snuck in, and ordered the cheesiest deep dish pizza possible, having to point and wave with improvised sign language to the non-English-speaking staff how to do “extra extra” cheese 
They clearly thought I was insane, concocting such a disgusting custom off-menu monstrosity.
You don’t know what your addicted to 'til it’s gone…
1997 seems late to be treating tortillas as uncommon – I know I was eating burritos ten years earlier, and I’m hardly Mr Exotic Cuisine.
I suppose it’s always hard to be sure what other people are going to be familiar with, though – especially when you’re writing for kids. And perhaps the author thought “I didn’t know what a tortilla was when I was 10”, forgetting that – as you say – things can change a lot in 20 years.
These days advertisers seem happy to slip an off-hand reference to chimichangas into an ad for a bank, so there must be a certain base-level of awareness out there.
There’s also Canadian bacon sold in the US, where I’ve never seen Danish bacon sold. It’s not to be confused with this Canadian Bacon, which contains pieces of Michael Moore.
I was kidding 
I might add that one thing that I miss in the US is decent bacon. What’s called “bacon” here is a pale shadow of the kind of bacon that is sold in Australia and in Britain.
Not to mention the bizarre TV ad for Sacla pesto, currently airing in the UK. No explanation of what “pesto” is, though I doubt if many people over 50 have a clue.
Edit: Yes I know that pesto isn’t Mexican. Just in case you’re about to tell me.