If there is food at all, I will not starve.
Anywhere they use palm/tropical oils for frying and cooking, coconut milk/cream/water/jelly/meat in the cooking - sensitivity. It goes through me like grass through a goose. In the mouth and out the ass pretty much undigested and as fast as it can exit.
If the indians I am visiting/who are cooking can’t step down the spicy of the food, I would have to pass on it as well. I am simply not into capsicums, they burn on the way in and on the way out. Anything much hotter than sharp paprika I tend to pass upon. Same goes for any other culture that uses capsicums in their cooking.
Any place that is heavy in seafoods - allergic to bivalves - a good time if you want to see projectile vomiting, feed me anything with clams, mussels, oysters, coquina, abalone, scallops[well those just give me the runs something fierce] oyster/fish sauce. I detest the really fishy tasting fish - mackeral, sprats, sardines very specifically and I hate salt cod and dried fish as it intensifies the nasty dead rotting fish whang I percieve. I cant go near a kitchen making lutefisk.
If you want to make me happy, give me lots of spinach, lima beans, brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes, almost any vegetable except okra, eggplant and zucchini - and mushrooms, I am deathly allergic to shrooms. Anywhere I can get tofu, and veggies, and rice or potatoes and noodles that isnt laden with peppers I am happy. I could live on soba and tofu and veggies
FYI, there’s plenty of not-hot Indian food in India, depending on the region. It’s a big damn country. You get to choose from the whole country, right, OP? I particularly like the food from the south, where there’s lots of coconut used, and dishes are generally lighter than the rich Punjabi stuff we mostly get in Indian restaurants in the US. I like the spicy stuff too, don’t get me wrong, but you can avoid chiles entirely if you want to. Some Indians do so for religious/health reasons. Some even avoid garlic and onions, but that’s plain crazy.
I’d have trouble in Jordan, though I wouldn’t starve. I got sick of mansaf pretty fast when I went there, and that’s what every. single. family. served us when we visited people’s homes. And not stuffing yourself silly is insulting to the cook, who is anxiously watching your every bite, and refilling your dish as soon as you half-empty it. Blargh. It’s MEAT, big piles of MEAT, chicken or mutton, on an even bigger pile of rice flavored with a salty yogurt sauce, garnished with boiled eggs and either pine nuts or almonds. No vegetables. Mostly MEAT. It tastes fine, but it’s… heavy. And meaty. I’m not that thrilled about mutton at the best of times, and Jordanian chickens are apparently bred for greasiness.
I didn’t enjoy Jamaican local cuisine much; it’s mostly stewed goat. I liked jerk chicken, though I’m not clear on whether Jamaicans eat it or if it’s mostly made for tourists. There’s also a sweet made of coconut and brown sugar that I’d like to have again, and sorrel, the traditional-for-Christmas gingery drink made with a red flower, was lovely.
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed food in Frankfurt. I had some of the best borscht I’ve ever had there. It was apple festival time, and the treats at the downtown festival booths were great – potato pancakes were especially wonderful, washed down with Apfelwein, with a kind of light coleslaw sort of thing to go with it.
Anywhere where seafood is *required *would starve me. I can handle tuna sushi and a few salmon dishes, but that’s about it.
I wouldn’t starve anywhere, but I’m not fond of Korean food in general. I like mandu (but am gluten intolerant) and kalbi and bulgolgi are edible - but I wouldn’t gain weight with a few weeks in Korea.
Ha, no, I think you’re right 
Indians eat very little meat, even the non-vegetarians, compared to Westerners. i can’t really think of a single “low-carb” Indian dish. It tends to be rice or bread + curry, for the most part. There are also lots of snack dishes, but those are also bread or rice based.
Anywhere where most dishes include pork or shellfish in some form. I keep kosher.
I love Thai and Vietnamese food, but I know I’d have a very hard time finding something I could eat in most of southeast Asia. I wouldn’t eat any raw vegetable dishes (such as salads) that I found there, or anywhere else where the tap water isn’t safe for me to drink, either. I did that in China. I wanted to sightsee in Shanghai, but all the sights ended up being too far from a toilet 
Being sick on vacation sucks.
Same goes for Mexico, though I love Mexican food (I know, most of the Mexican food I love is probably Tex-Mex).
I wasn’t able to eat much of the traditional local cuisine in Prague when I went there. I suspect I’d have the same problem in Germany and much of eastern Europe.
I haven’t been to Spain, but Mr. Neville has, and he said he had problems finding food he could eat there.
Like Angel of Doubt I stick to a pretty strict ‘paleo’ diet (mostly animal products and veg, no grains or sugar) so there are lots of places where I would be forced to eat outside my usual preferences, including most restaurants in the USA. But I can’t afford to lose even a pound, so I would eat whatever was available if it came down to going hungry (and have many times).
I can’t think of a cuisine from any country that doesn’t serve a few delicious (IMO) dishes based on meat, dairy, egg, or fish, so I’d be pretty well set-up. I like trying weird/gross foods (organs, bugs) and I enjoy almost any strong flavor including fish taste (I eat anchovies plain), fermented things (mm, sauerkraut and kimchi), gamey meats, and intense spiciness. I’m only selective in what I eat for health reasons, taste-wise I like a huge variety of foods.
Same here. It’s great fun trying what I call “difficult” food - things you have to get out of a shell, spicy food, things that look back at you…
There’s no food I would avoid; however, when I was in India for a month, I lost a few pounds because my husband’s family, whether in the North, the South or somewhere in between, served deep-fried food with every single meal. In the South there were puris and pappard with every meal. In the North, there were parathas, more puris, and food practically drowning in oil or ghee. Delicious stuff, all of it. No discomfort, though. Just frequent consequences. For me and my son, the food seemed to grease a path straight through us. He lost a pound or two as well.
Regardless, I still found myself devouring most things. I love Indian food and will eat it at any opportunity and cook it regularly - I’m just more accustomed to minimizing oil and butter whenever possible, where much of the traditional food doesn’t.
Cuba by a country mile. You can only get (stringy) chicken, pork, unspecified-type-of-white-fish, boiled rice and beans. And that’s it. Not a vegetable, herb, sauce, spice or discernible flavour in sight.
You wouldn’t die from eating it. But you might die of boredom.
Closely followed by German food. Stodge!
I would totally starve in India. I like boring food, and every bit of Indian food I’ve ever tasted (admittedly not that much) has been too spicy or too weird-tasting. I’m kind of a picky eater as it is, but I can usually find something I like at a restaurant. When we go to Indian restaurants with my workgroup, I eat the flatbread. I like that. But yeah, unless I could find a McDonald’s or other Western restaurant, I’d starve in India.
I don’t know how to answer this question. All types off food are delicious.
Man oh man. I spent last summer in India and I hardly ever got spicy food. I think they saw me coming and were like “uh oh, gringa! Get something mild!”
I love spicy food.
Anyway. I’m a vegetarian, but if it were “eat this meat or STARVE TO DEATH” I would eat the meat. I do, however, hate seafood. So I think Japan could be tough, although I am sure I could find something to eat.
I am not enthused about the Central European food I have had as well. Maybe if I ate meat I would enjoy it more though.
The more authentic Chinese food I’ve had (my bff for years was Chinese-born and I had some crazy shit at her house) did not make me eager to try more. But again, I’d probably find something to eat.
The smart people in Nepal eat Indian food. Nepali food is pretty disgusting, the staple being this cruddy gruel-looking shit. I’ve had some good international cuisine in Kathmandu and Pokhara, but if I had to subsist on Nepali “cuisine,” I would probably lose a lot of weight.
There are parts of Canada where fresh fruits and vegetables are hard to come by and/or really very expensive. If I had to rely on moose meat I’d be in trouble.
My wife’s ex travelled to Russia for a conference and found the food totally inedible. Even cuisine that he normally liked was presented in a version that he couldn’t stomach. He noticed that every meal, even breakfast, was served with copious amounts of vodka…which his eating companions drank in one gulp before starting with the food. He deduced that the chefs just didn’t care about making the food edible–to the point where some of the meat he got was almost raw, even in cooked dishes–because they knew the people who ate it were going to be too sloshed to care.
So, on that recommendation, I’d pick Russia.
I never really understood the whole spicy Indian food thing. Yes, it has a lot of different spices so you can probably call it spicy but it’s not the type of spicy that burns the tongue.
Thai food is the spicy one. As much as I love spicy foods, every Thai salad I’ve ever tried has been pretty painful to eat. Although with other dishes, especially soups, I can handle the full on spiciness.
Yes, they have vodka for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And they expect you to drink it. :smack:
I could probably find something to eat that I liked anywhere in the world, but the hardest place would probably be India. I love the taste of Indian food, but the smell makes me gag for some reason.
I don’t know if it’s because the Indian folk who used to live in the apartment complex I lived in were horrible cooks or what, but the smells coming from those apartments during dinner time was horrible on nights they were cooking authentic Indian food. (That particular neighborhood ran heavy to Mexican and Indian immigrants. I could always find interesting food there.)
I don’t know when you went there, but this certainly wasn’t true last summer. We had a variety of extremely well cooked and imaginative dishes, both traditional and based around other cuisines, all over the island, including a wide range of fruit and vegetables as well as fresh meat and seafood (all totally recognisable and delicious).
There isn’t anywhere that I would starve. I love food. I might die from food-related issues in the USA, but it wouldn’t be starvation. The portions there are unbelievably huge!