# Worst national cuisine? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 6, 2015, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134 "2015-08-06T05:49:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/41 "2015-08-06T16:46:30Z")
Nobody said Korean yet? Korean. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/42 "2015-08-06T16:54:23Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I’ve heard very bad things about Tibetan cuisine. There’s an episode of “Law & Order - SVU” where one officer talks about a place called “Hello Dalai”, thinking it’s some kind of strip club, and Olivia’s (Mariska Hargitay) face lights up and says, “I’ve been there.” They all look at her oddly and she replies, “It’s a Tibetan restaurant.” I can’t imagine that there are a lot of menu options in the extreme highlands. Ditto the South American altiplano, and I can’t imagine that Inuit cuisine is very appetizing to outsiders either. A lady who used to go to my church also used to live in another building in the apartment complex where I currently reside, and for a while, she had some neighbors who were from Somalia, and she was not sorry to see them leave for quite a few reasons, one of them being the horrific cooking odors coming from their apartment. She never did quite identify some of them. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/43 "2015-08-06T17:25:55Z")
I have this theory that the British Empire was all about a search for better food. Conquest was secondary. ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/44 "2015-08-06T17:59:19Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#): > > I’m going to go with Filipino cuisine, which I’ve railed against in this forum many times before. Most Filipino cooking is based around making sure that any bad things that grow due to poor food handling and lack of refrigeration are dead, dead, dead. So everything is soaked in vinegar and/or soy sauce and cooked until there is no sign of whatever the original piece of food was. Filipino cuisine can taste good when better cooking techniques are applied, but then those raised on proteins boiled (not simmered, stewed, or braised with 1 or 2 exceptions) or grilled/fried until tough and tasteless complain that it’s not ‘traditional’ Filipino cuisine (the complaint I get from most of my older in-laws; the younger ones who did not spend most of their lives there like the fusion). And while [fish sauce](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_sauce), used in small quantities, can boost the umami flavor of foods (especially cheap cuts of beef), using larger quantities of this smelly liquid at the table can ruin my appetite.\* Lastly, Filipino cuisine is the only South-East Asian cuisine I’m aware of that does not like spicy dishes. In their favor, they do use lots of garlic, and I love garlic. I went to a Filipino restaurant in suburban DC several years ago, and it was quite terrible. I wasn’t sure if it was Filipino cuisine in general that sucked, or just that one restaurant. Now I know not to bother trying any others. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/45 "2015-08-06T18:00:24Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > Nobody said Korean yet? > > Korean. Really? I’ve sampled little Korean food first-hand; but I received as a present a couple of years ago, a smallish Korean cookbook (including nothing dog-related !): going by which, Korean cuisine struck me as delectable – featuring many things which I greatly like, and none which I strongly dislike. This borne out by the few of such recipes which I’ve myself tried to make. Admittedly, kimchi looks like being an acquired taste. ---
**Author:** ![funky\_little\_lee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e95f7d/32.png) [@funky\_little\_lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funky_little_lee)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/46 "2015-08-06T18:05:57Z")
I’m going to generalize a little and say Asian food–at least in the U.S. Chinese restaurant food: heavy, greasy, chunks of meat with gristle still attached, gloppy sauce that oozes all over the meat and the soggy vegetables, which inevitably include broccoli and baby corn (shudder). Thai food: See above, but with about a pound of hot peppers to further unbalance the flavor. Japanese: Sweet when it should be savory, savory when it should be sweet. Raw fish. Pho: Slippery noodles in insipid broth with chunks of overcooked meat and the ubiquitous soggy vegetables. Korean: kim chee. No can do. The only Asian food I find even remotely palatable is miso soup and sate chicken. Of course, I can’t count how many times people have said, “Well, then, you’ve never had\* real\* [insert country here] food!” And then I wonder why no one seems able to serve _real_ [country name] food when they came to the U.S. from those very countries. Ah well, that’s the story of my life, always in the minority. ---
**Author:** ![Spud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spud/32/347_2.png) [@Spud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spud)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/47 "2015-08-06T18:12:06Z")
I just don’t get how people are putting German at the bottom of their lists. Brats, Kraut, Stollen, schnitzel, potato pancakes, bier… the list goes on and on. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/48 "2015-08-06T18:23:17Z")
> [@Ponch8](#): > > I went to a Filipino restaurant in suburban DC several years ago, and it was quite terrible. I wasn’t sure if it was Filipino cuisine in general that sucked, or just that one restaurant. Now I know not to bother trying any others. I’ve only found one I like in Brooklyn, but it’s really Pan-Asian Fusion cuisine with a classically trained Filipino head chef. And I’ve been to many. Too many. Too too many. As an extra bonus, if a Filipino restaurant has ‘average’ table service, it is head-and-shoulders above its competition. ---
**Author:** ![funky\_little\_lee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e95f7d/32.png) [@funky\_little\_lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funky_little_lee)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/49 "2015-08-06T18:47:18Z")
> [@Spud](#): > > I just don’t get how people are putting German at the bottom of their lists. Brats, Kraut, Stollen, schnitzel, potato pancakes, bier… the list goes on and on. And the crowning glory…rouladen. YUMMMM! ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/50 "2015-08-06T19:30:00Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > I have the impression (perhaps an exaggerated or mistaken one – would welcome opinions from Dutch participants on the board) that Dutch cuisine has, for most people from other countries, little to recommend it. Stemming, I gather, from the severely Calvinist position of regarding people’s indulging themselves in any of the pleasures of the flesh, as sinful: with consequent seeking to make food less, rather than more, interesting. Dutch food tending thus to be wholesome, but very plain, and with few distinctive dishes (the savoury pancakes, being a definite exception to the above generalisation). Speaking as a Dutch Calvinist: There’s a big difference between Dutch American cuisine that you’d often find at a church potluck (ham on buttered buns, orange drink, Jello salad, bland green bean casserole, plain potato chips), and actual Dutch cuisine (stroopwafels, Dutch licorice, oliebollen, erwtensoep, bitterballen, stamppot with sausage). For me, my least favorite cuisine would be Indian, Japanese and Vietnamese. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/51 "2015-08-06T19:42:00Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I’ve heard very bad things about Tibetan cuisine. In my experience it contained all things Yak with mostly sauteed veggies with rice and not all that bad. Their abomination is dark tea with yak butter, like drinking hot dirty greasy sea water. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/52 "2015-08-06T19:49:35Z")
> [@funky\_little\_lee](#): > > Pho: Slippery noodles in insipid broth with chunks of overcooked meat and the ubiquitous soggy vegetables. I guess you guys just got the wrong war refugees. I’m currently at a uni that sits smack dab in the middle of Paris’ Chinatown, which is more like Vietnamtown. There’s a working class pho joint like every five meters, and every time I went for some it was awesome. Great value to boot - something like 10 bucks get you enough broth to float a battleship in and enough meat & noodles to build it with. Personally I can’t really do Indian cuisine, but I wouldn’t call it “the worst”. It certainly is very diverse and flavourful… but it’s guaranteed to give me the nuclear runs every damn time, no matter how mild the dish :o. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/53 "2015-08-06T19:53:12Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > So what is objectionable there? Looks a pretty good and varied list. (I lived in Croatia for several months, and the food was fine.) Given that people actually need to be able to eat, “fine” is about as low as it gets in cuisine. Croatian and other Slavic foods seem largely to come down to, “Get pot, throw stuff in. If it ends up not being too funky a mixture, give it a name.” Which is basically the state of the art for medieval times, but the rest of the world has gone beyond that in the last 800 years. So sure, it’s fine, but why would you ever want Croatian food when you could have Italian or Tunisian or Indian or whatever else? I’m sure that Haggis and Hunter’s Stew are both, at the end of the day, perfectly edible. But they are at the lowest wrung of cuisine. Anything lower and you’re basically just looking at raw produce. ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/54 "2015-08-06T19:57:36Z")
> [@Spud](#): > > I just don’t get how people are putting German at the bottom of their lists. Brats, Kraut, Stollen, schnitzel, potato pancakes, bier… the list goes on and on. My family is German, but I’m not fond of the cuisine. It’s mainly because I don’t like red meat or beer, and I’m very partial to fish and green vegetables. Stollen is fine, though it hurts my ears when Americans (especially food critics) pronounce it like the word “stolen.” It’s a German dish, with a German name, and it’s pronounced “SCHTUL-len.” It rhymes with “sullen” or “McMullen.” ---
**Author:** ![Spud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spud/32/347_2.png) [@Spud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spud)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/55 "2015-08-06T20:38:47Z")
> [@Cartoonacy](#): > > My family is German, but I’m not fond of the cuisine. It’s mainly because I don’t like red meat or beer, and I’m very partial to fish and green vegetables. I’m pretty sure you were adopted by a German family then and not genetically from there. You can probably only carry 6 mugs of beer at a time. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/56 "2015-08-06T21:01:57Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > So sure, it’s fine, but why would you ever want Croatian food when you could have Italian or Tunisian or Indian or whatever else? Because I actually like it? Believe it or not, I actually seek out Croatian and Serbian places here in Chicago. Grilled chevapi with ajvar, raw onions, and pita is one of my favorite meat dishes. Love the stuff. And lots of great seafood eats in Croatia. Add to that a tipple of slivovica, and I am in heaven. I don’t know where your idea of “Get a pot, throw stuff in” comes in with Croatian food, or even Slavic food in general. There are some stews in these cuisines, but the bulk of the cuisine is certainly not stews (and the stews there are are delicious, like Hungarian goulash, or Polish Hunter’s Stew.) ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2015, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/57 "2015-08-06T21:29:48Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > May I add Jewish cuisine to the OP’s list? The definition of “national” aside, I think we all know what is meant by" Jewish food" Some of it is pretty scary. Another popular cuisine, not with me, mind you, but among many people is Greek. I don’t even like to be in the same room with it if I can help it. Jewish food is Deli…and while I agree there are some scary things (gefilte fish? Gah) deli is also the flag flying over two of the greatest things ever invented: corned beef and pastrami. So no, Jewish is hardly the worst! > [@funky\_little\_lee](#): > > I’m going to generalize a little and say Asian food–at least in the U.S. > > Chinese restaurant food: heavy, greasy, chunks of meat with gristle still attached, gloppy sauce that oozes all over the meat and the soggy vegetables, which inevitably include broccoli and baby corn (shudder). > > Thai food: See above, but with about a pound of hot peppers to further unbalance the flavor. > > Japanese: Sweet when it should be savory, savory when it should be sweet. Raw fish. > > Pho: Slippery noodles in insipid broth with chunks of overcooked meat and the ubiquitous soggy vegetables. > > Korean: kim chee. No can do. > > The only Asian food I find even remotely palatable is miso soup and sate chicken. Of course, I can’t count how many times people have said, “Well, then, you’ve never had\* real\* [insert country here] food!” And then I wonder why no one seems able to serve _real_ [country name] food when they came to the U.S. from those very countries. > > Ah well, that’s the story of my life, always in the minority. You are right, to the extent that there are way too many really terrible restaurants serving really horrible Asian food. But when it’s _good_, it’s _sublime_. Dim Sum!!! Yum! (And I agree to the extent that, as I understand it, Chinese as it is eaten by the people of China includes lots of completely revolting ingredients, that makes it pretty horrible in my book… except that when Chinese food is skillfully seasoned and cooked it’s superb, even if what has been so skillfully seasoned and cooked is some horrible guts or body parts or slimy creatures.) So let me clarify and amend my OP: assume that in each case, the food has been as well prepared as it _ever_ is in the given country. So if in the case of any particular dish or general cuisine their is no preference for, say, very fresh ingredients, then that is part of the assessment. But if that’s just a problem with some restaurants or the lower socio-economic rungs when they approach the recipes, you can’t hold it against the cuisine itself, because every country has loads of terrible cooks and poor people who can’t afford the best ingredients. Which reminds me of a peeve of mine: most recipes are nearly meaningless if no attention is paid to the quality of the ingredients and the care of preparation, and that is rarely emphasized in written recipes. It’s particularly galling when recipes allow for terrible substitutions like “butter or margarine” - huh? Are you out of your mind? Margarine is a stain on humanity, butter is a gift from the gods. Substituting margarine for butter is going to have a radically negative effect on the finished dish! I am a huge fan of ground beef, I’d say it’s probably my favorite meat overall. (though of course I adore spare ribs and prime rib and pastrami… it’s just those things are very singular, whereas ground beef has infinite variety, so if I had to choose just one…) But choose crappy ground beef for your recipe and the whole thing is garbage. Whereas top quality ground beef (super fresh, plenty of fat, perfect grind) can elevate a recipe to something really superb. And preparation steps matter! Especially if recipes are supposed to be geared towards relatively inexperienced cooks (which I am not at all, but I think people who want to learn should get better help from recipes!) then specificity about what you really mean when you say “salute onions” \*\*actually matters! \*\* Is it best to salute just until soft? Till Golden? Till browned at the edges? Well, I just hijacked myself… ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/58 "2015-08-07T02:13:24Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I’m sure that Haggis and Hunter’s Stew are both, at the end of the day, perfectly edible. But they are at the lowest wrung of cuisine. Anything lower and you’re basically just looking at raw produce. I’ve heard that haggis is very good. Never had a chance to try it, however. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/59 "2015-08-07T02:59:20Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > The most utterly tasteless foodstuff I have ever encountered, was in Zimbabwe: the local maize porridge, called “sadza” – pure white, reminiscent of wallpaper paste, and completely devoid of any taste. It came with an agreeably spicy stew, and could thus be regarded as “basic slag” and consumed accordingly: but once in a lifetime, will be enough for me. kind of reminds me of the okayu I had in Japan. rice porridge; utterly tasteless on its own but OK once you added stuff to it. > [@Spud](#): > > I just don’t get how people are putting German at the bottom of their lists. Brats, Kraut, Stollen, schnitzel, potato pancakes, bier… the list goes on and on. anyone who puts down Polish/Slavic food hasn’t had a good kiełbasa krajana. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2015, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/60 "2015-08-07T03:19:41Z")
Japanese by far, followed by Scandinavian and Scottish. Every other culture has at least put together a couple of edible dishes, if not a cuisine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134.md?page=4)