I don’t know about our local cuisine, but fresh foods in supermarkets here in Ireland seem superior to most of their equivalents in Ohio at least. I think a lot of our MOR restaurants are terrible for the price, but cheap and cheerful and ritzy is usually grand in Dublin imho.
I think American chain restaurants aimed at the middle, family dining, despite what a lot of SDMBers think of them are better than their equivalent (if their equivalent exists) in Ireland or Britain.
Spanish? Bad? Japanese? Bad?
Big enormous HUH!?!?!
Norwegian breakfast is delicious: dark breads, black cured meats, hard-boiled eggs, and amazing coffee. I think it was so good because it was the only thing palatable you’d be able to eat all day. Of the relatively few countries I’ve been to (less than a dozen), Norway definitely gets my vote for the least deliciousness on the menu.
Even there, though, there was some mighty tasty fish: the fish & chips were spectacular, and you could get more different kinds of cured salmon than you ever thought was possible.
I didn’t mind Norwegian food that much. I had some very nice meat with berry sauce, I recall. Also some air-dried raw sheep ham, which is the strongest tasting thing I’ever eaten - think lamb times 100. Er…interesting, wouldn’t have it again.
The only absolutely terrible thing on the menu in Norway was brown cheese. I think that is truly one of the most evil foodstuffs known to humankind. Even my Norwegian friend warned me to stay away from the stuff.
Without a doubt the Masai Nation wins it:
I’ve been all over the world, with some notable exceptions. For me Portuguese cuisine ranks down there at the bottom. Things they do well: cheeses, red wine and bread. Everything else is so heavily salted and overcooked that you really can’t tell what you’re eating. One of the national dishes is called cozido, and is hands-down the most disgusting thing I’ve seen on a plate. The national pride is bacalhao, or dried, salted cod. IMO it can’t be made edible, but that doesn’t stop them from trying. Imagine boiled salted cod (they soak the salt out, then add it to the dish by the fistful) in a cream sauce with potatoes. Trust me, it’s more disgusting than it sounds, but nowhere near as bad as the pig-in-a-blender I mentioned above.
No, the foul stuff is that rotted fish they eat in Sweden: surströmming. If the “brown cheese” you’re talking about is brunost, it’s not foul at all (and I’m not trying to be contrarian here.) It’s very mild and tastes almost like fudge. It’s actually not technically cheese, but milk/cream that has been cooked down until it starts to caramelize (hence the sweet, fudge-like flavor.)
There are no good restaurants in the Principality of Sealand, and the indigenous flora and fauna are inedible.
Canadian cuisine is next to non-existent, and given this permanent inferiority complex my fellow countrymen have with regards to US and A, that deserves an HM. Such a lack of variety. The only things I could think of are:
-Back bacon
-Poutine (Thick fries with gravy and white cheese curds)
-Sweet sauce donairs
-Whatever Inuit people eat
Here in Ottawa people brag about Beavertails, but they’re basically an oval shaped langos, as per puylkamell’s previous post, so I call ripoff. There may be more, but I can’t think of it!
Vienna. As I said, the food was tasty but there was a dramatic absence of fresh produce as a part of most meals. I’m not the only one to notice this. My parents lived in Austria and observed it as well other people who have traveled to Austria and Germany.
From what I’ve gleaned from reading, the Scots have an appalling cuisine heavily featuring deep fried Mars Bars!
… from personal experience, I nominate Russian/Polish/Eastern European cuisine (I know, I know, there are exceptions, there are some excellent things, I know). Heavy, filling, all potatoes, root vegetables, onion, cabbage, dark heavy rye bread was what some of my relatives grew up on almost exclusively. Their house just reeked 365 days a year.
Yes but Macaroni pies are heavenly.
See, I really liked gjetost (the US name for the stuff): it was weird, but compelling. I just ate it at breakfast.
Mainly I remember craving vegetables and being nearly unable to find them anywhere. We went to a Chinese restaurant figuring there would be some on the menu. The closest we could find was deep-fried eggplant, but even then each slice of eggplant was battered along with a slice of greasy sausage.
I’m late to the party, but when I saw the title, Filipino food was my first thought. It didn’t hurt that I had to try yet another Filipino restaurant this weekend. Of the ~half dozen southeast Asian cuisines I’ve tried, Filipino is bland and overcooked. Theirs is a cuisine that likes to drown things in vinegar - I suspect more because it kills all the bad things than for the flavor it adds. I think their whole cuisine is based around making food safe to eat.
Where were you in Spain?
I have spent time in around 15 different countries in Europe, and Spanish food was hands down the most enjoyable single national cuisine I have ever enjoyed…
This is sort of true - many people who live here have appalling diets (deep fried pizza is much more common than a deep fried Mars Bar!) - but there’s lots of good food available pretty much everywhere nowadays. The raw ingredients are good in Scotland - lamb, beef*, seafood of all kinds, even berries** - but us Scots seem to like fat and salt and sugar above all else.
** I can pick enough wild raspberries within a mile in season to fill a truck. Yum, the tastiest berry
I can never resist a macaroni pie. With a single smoked sausage with brown sauce.
:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
btw, I liked the food I had in the Philippines. Of course, I may have subsisted largely on mangoes. Mmmm…mangoes…
Blech to Dandelion and Burdock. I’ll take a good Ginger Beer however.
Based on my experience, the average English home-cooked meal is about as exciting as an overcooked New England Boiled Dinner. But they make up for it by offering the evil and delicious lardy cake.
On the other side, Americans seem to have forgotten about over half the veg that is available. Rutabaga, black turnips, and celery root are all good. Try them. They won’t kill you.
But worst cuisine? I doubt either one. Any food can be awful if poorly prepared. Nepalese food can be quite bitter. And watch out for restauarants in China that want to use up all their oil even though it has gone rancid. That’s a quick weight-loss plan for sure.
Yes, there is a big difference in flavor between grass fed and corn fed. I tend to prefer grass fed because it just tastes “beefier” to me, though it can be less tender. Most of what you get over here in the US is corn and soy fed. It’s not only less tasty (IMO) but is less nutritious, without the omega 3 fatty acids that are good for your heart.
Baron, I’m serving you warning that if I can find your raspberry patch, I’ll be there with a couple of baskets. Yum!