what (if anything) do other cultures think is gross in American diets?

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

Good list from t-keela.

I’m surprised that no one has yet mentioned our godawful, American, piss-water beer.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

@Jomo Mojo

I’ve known Muslims who have the “eeww, gross!” reaction to pork. Pork in its many forms is certainly a major part of the American diet, or it was until recent years, especially down South.

[Wife from the movie Babe
Pork is a nice, sweet meat.
[/WftmB]

[Philster]

Well, we host visitors from many countries in our office.

Here are some things that are considered gross:

Crabs
Some candy bars that have 10 different combos of caramel, ‘nouget’, nuts, cream, rice, et. Usually, they just want some nice chocolate.
Chili
Corn
Buffalo Wings (hot wings)

[razorblade]

Sweet (maple syrup) and savory (bacon) breakfast foods on the same plate, and the habit some people have of dipping bacon in the syrup.

US bacon in general - I’m originally from the UK, and to me it used to look and taste like what we would cut off our bacon. I can handle it now.

The little blobs of fat in cans of pork and beans.

American milk always used to taste a little sour to me, maybe because I was used to having fresh milk delivered from the dairy every day, but now I’m used to it.

Hard pretzels.

Not a major thing, but the lack of gravy served with most roast meats - roast beef, roast pork…etc. Roast dinners always seem too dry to me without gravy. Gravy and mashed potatoes is weird as well, that gravy should be on roast potatoes!

Marshmallow fluff spread.

Scrapple. ( I live in PA, and it’s very common here).

Another vote for Pumpkin Pie (snot).

I like root beer, but it does taste like medicine.

[chaoticbear]

@Philster

Crabs

Eeeew!!! Crabs!!!

[Hello_Again]

If I may split a hair here, American processed foods don’t have lots of sugar added to them, they have lots of high fructose corn syrup added to them. HFCS is very cheap – it all has to do with corn subsidies. HFCS is why the profit margin on soda is so outstanding. It’s added to all sorts of things you’d never imagine needed sweetening – like canned tomatoes for instance!

If you’re interested, this article, first published in the New York Times Magazine, explains how corn got to be so cheap and how cheap corn affects serving sizes, and thusly, the national waistline:

The (Agri)Cultural Contradictions of Obesity
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1000850/posts

[Mangetout]

No t exactly gross, but I think a lot of people find the sort of highly-processed convenience food products disturbing - I’m thinking along the lines of cheese in spray cans, but I’m sure there are others.

And yes; conspicuous excess is gross.

[ntcrawler]

@Pochacco

Cheese is pretty disgusting if you think about it.

Take milk from a cow, curdle it using stomach juices, then let it sit around until it gets moldy and smelly. Mmmmmmmm … .

Root beer. people from Germany and other European countries that try it insists it tastes like cough syrup and why would anyone drink something which tastes like medicine, etc

[ntcrawler]

@Odinoneeye

Mayonaise on french fries is even more disgusting than having it on a sandwhich, or anywhere else for that matter.

Eating mayo is just marginally better than starving to death.

And let’s not forget putting sweet, maple syrup all over your pork sausages. in fact, they now sell sausages flavored on the inside with maple syrup. And I’ve know people who ordered pancakes with bacon, and um… yes, put pancake syrup all over those.

I think most Europeans and Asians would be disgusted by that. Heck I know Texas who couldn’t bear to watch!

:eek:

[chaoticbear]

@ntcrawler

Root beer. people from Germany and other European countries that try it insists it tastes like cough syrup and why would anyone drink something which tastes like medicine, etc

Which is interesting, because German cough syrup tastes like rotting ass in a bottle.

@ntcrawler

And let’s not forget putting sweet, maple syrup all over your pork sausages. in fact, they now sell sausages flavored on the inside with maple syrup. And I’ve know people who ordered pancakes with bacon, and um… yes, put pancake syrup all over those.

No! Heretic!!! Maple syrup BELONGS with sausage! (Bacon, not as much, but it’s still good.) Have you ever tried it??? You must!

(mmm… sausage and syrup.)

[ntcrawler]

@chaoticdonkey

Which is interesting, because German cough syrup tastes like rotting ass in a bottle.

No! Heretic!!! Maple syrup BELONGS with sausage! (Bacon, not as much, but it’s still good.) Have you ever tried it??? You must!

(mmm… sausage and syrup.)

I have. and I must admit, I think the perversion and bebauchery of it all somehow got to me. But I can never admit it! My family and friends from Europe would disown me!

Oh yes, another thing I remember my friends and family from Europe find gross is canned spaghetti, raviolli, or other canned dishes that contain some form of noodles. To eat noodles that have been soaking in sauce for weeks or months to them is hideous to even think about!

[ntcrawler]

[QUOTE=chaoticdonkey]
Which is interesting, because German cough syrup tastes like rotting ass in a bottle.

And American cough syrup tastes sweet and sticky, like European fruit syrups, the kind you mix with carbonated or spring water or put on your waffles or over your cream of wheat

[ntcrawler]

SPEAKING of disgusting portion sizes, someone should have a talk with this chap:

http://myhighhorse.com/index2.html

I don’t think he’s an athlete

[levdrakon]

@ntcrawler

And let’s not forget putting sweet, maple syrup all over your pork sausages. in fact, they now sell sausages flavored on the inside with maple syrup. And I’ve know people who ordered pancakes with bacon, and um… yes, put pancake syrup all over those.

I think most Europeans and Asians would be disgusted by that. Heck I know Texas who couldn’t bear to watch!

:eek:

I dunno, the Asians invented that disgusting nuclear sludge they call “Sweet & Sour Pork,” and it’s sweet & sour variations. And the French seem to think slapping a glob of jelly on their food is OK. And what’s with adding Pineapple to non-dessert dishes?

My point is I think having something sweet for anything other than dessert is gross, and I don’t think Americans are to blame for that.

I’m almost surprised the French didn’t invent the Maple syrup/sausage combo. Seems like something they’d do.

[chaoticbear]

@ntcrawler

And American cough syrup tastes sweet and sticky, like European fruit syrups, the kind you mix with carbonated or spring water or put on your waffles or over your cream of wheat

Sure you’re taking real cough syrup, and not children’s? Real, proper cough syrup tastes like (well, cough syrup.) Mmm. Cough syrup. Not really sweet, but after a while, you like the taste. Which I guess may be bad. Oh well.

[Maastricht]

I forgot an important one: Coke (or any other soda’s) with breakfast. Europeans drink coffee, tea, (butter)milk or OJ with breakfast. Drinking Coke with breakfast is, in my European eyes, slightly childish, like eating a plate full of hard candy for breakfast. It would also be considered upsetting to the stomach. That’s silly, of course. Both coffee and Coke contain caffeine, and both aren’t exactly stomach-soothing beverages.

Gum, have a heart. Patronizing and free-all-you-can-eat-buffets are the two Dutch national hobbies. Combining them in the same situational comedy is just playing dirty.

Oh, and guys…you know what’s even better then French Fries with lots and lots of mayonaise? French Fries with lots and lots of mayonaise *and * Potroast (“Zuurvlees”).
::ducks and runs::

[ntcrawler]

@Maastricht

I forgot an important one: Coke (or any other soda’s) with breakfast. Europeans drink coffee, tea, (butter)milk or OJ with breakfast. Drinking Coke with breakfast is, in my European eyes, slightly childish, like eating a plate full of hard candy for breakfast. It would also be considered upsetting to the stomach. That’s silly, of course. Both coffee and Coke contain caffeine, and both aren’t exactly stomach-soothing beverages.

Gum, have a heart. Patronizing and free-all-you-can-eat-buffets are the two Dutch national hobbies. Combining them in the same situational comedy is just playing dirty.

Oh, and guys…you know what’s even better then French Fries with lots and lots of mayonaise? French Fries with lots and lots of mayonaise *and * Potroast (“Zuurvlees”).
::ducks and runs::

You are not referring to your fellow countrymen’s tradition of putting peanut sauce on your french fries by any chance? Would that be patatje met or patatje speciaal?

And the only thing that can top that (no pun intended) is patatje oorlog. I’ll be in Eindhoven for 2 weeks of company training. I cannot wait to do some research on the things that Dutch to their french fries

[hiebram]

@Maastricht

You guys put KETCHUP on french fries!
The whole world knows that the only possible sauce with french fries is mayonaise, you Huns.

Pulp Fiction:

VINCENT: I dunno, I didn’t go into a Burger King. But you know what they put on french fries in Holland instead of ketchup?

JULES: What?

VINCENT: Mayonnaise.

JULES: Goddamn!

VINCENT: I seen ‘em do it. And I don’t mean a little bit on the side of the plate, they fuckin’ drown 'em in it.

JULES: Uuccch!

Also, my Ethiopian roomate has absolutely no taste for sweets. He couldn’t even finish a bowl of Cocoa-Puffs. Once, I made a banana-honey pie, and he took a piece. For some reason, he was surprised that it was sweet (“Yeah, Kef…it’s pie…it’s for dessert…bananas and honey…”). Out of respect, he did manage to choke down the entire slice, but I could tell that he didn’t really enjoy it.

[Crandolph]

1. Beer: Sure, the canned big name brands are bad, but there are still lots of great local brews. In fact, since the beer renaissance in America there’s really no excuse for us to drink the slop from the big labels. My German and Dutch friends liked a lot of the local lagers here in Pennsylvania.

2. Canned spaghetti: This is precisely what I’ve found youre likely to be served - gasp! - in some northern and eastern European restaurants! Outside of Italy itself, old Italian-American neighborhoods are probably the best places to get Italian food. (In the former East Germany, Frankfurt an der Oder, in 1996 I was treated to a meal by my host at a restaurant staffed by Italians. I was very excited by this proposition, thinking it’d be even better than the Ital-Amer neighborhood restaurants at home. It wasn’t; they clearly heated cans of pasta-glop. ACK!!!)

3. Ketchup: Yes, we Americans do love our ketchup, and Europe has won me over to mayo-based sauces on “frites,” which is becoming common at bar/restaurants here that specialize in imported beer selections. Yummy. But I’ve seen Europeans, especially in eastern Europe, use ketchup as a tomato sauce substitute (was it the years of shortage?) in ways we would never dream, such as on spaghetti (ick!) and rice *(AAAACCK!! GAACK!!!). * I nominate us as residents of the continent second most likely to douse anything with ketchup.

4. Portion sizes: Absolutely true for restaurants. Americans feel ripped off if we don’t leave stuffed. But as another poster here pointed out, when you go to a European home it seems to me that the food never stops coming…

[Neurotik]

@Diogenes the Cynic

I’m surprised that no one has yet mentioned our godawful, American, piss-water beer.

If you can’t find a good American beer, you need to stop shopping at the local campus convenience store. It may require spending more than $5 for a case.