# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![Iron\_Wine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b5e925/32.png) [@Iron\_Wine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iron_Wine)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2015, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/101 "2015-08-09T05:10:35Z")
Certainly Indian. Which is really not even necessarily the food itself, though it can be, so much as the resultant after-effects. ‘Nom sayin’? ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2015, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/102 "2015-08-09T05:42:45Z")
> [@RobDog](#): > > But that points out Britain as being different again, rather than similar to other countries. Yes, I totally agree that France, China, India, Italy etc have regional cuisines. Britain, not so much. There is no Northern/Southern/Eastern/Western cooking style. There is no Cornish/Kentish/Northumbrian tradition of preparation or ingredients. There is no dish (bar a very few exceptions) uniquely identifiable as Mancunian or Glaswegian or Liverpudlian. Isn’t it almost a cliché that no one, but no one, does breakfasts better than the British? William Gibson talked about the “full English” in _Zero History_, and I had some damn fine breakfasts in Edinburgh. As far as regional dishes go, what about Cornish pasties? Or Scottish dishes like finnan haddie, cockaleekie soup, neaps and tatties, and - of course - haggis? (Which, for all its exotic preparation, struck me as simply being a variety of sausage, and quite tasty when I ate it.) ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2015, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/103 "2015-08-09T06:40:01Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Presumably that doesn’t make it less Jewish than the Jewish food invented in Tunisia, Greece, et al.? Good point. Especially considering the fact that you tend to find deli food here in cities with large American immigrant communities, like in Jerusalem. It’s harder to find in Tel Aviv, OTOH ---
**Author:** ![RobDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f07891/32.png) [@RobDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobDog)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2015, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/104 "2015-08-09T08:35:08Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Isn’t it almost a cliché that no one, but no one, does breakfasts better than the British? William Gibson talked about the “full English” in _Zero History_, and I had some damn fine breakfasts in Edinburgh. > > As far as regional dishes go, what about Cornish pasties? Or Scottish dishes like finnan haddie, cockaleekie soup, neaps and tatties, and - of course - haggis? (Which, for all its exotic preparation, struck me as simply being a variety of sausage, and quite tasty when I ate it.) My thoughts on this aren’t especially well-formed, but here goes… I think there’s a difference between a region having a cuisine, and having one or two individual dishes or products named after it. Let’s take England specifically. Yes, there are Cornish pasties, Devon cream teas, Cheddar and Stilton and Wensleydale cheeses, Melton Mowbray pork pies and so on. But none of these regions have enough defining dishes that one could happily dine on them to the exclusion of any other regional food like you could in, say, Provence. But maybe I’m being too harsh on the UK as a whole though; one could make not too much of an effort and seek out enough specifically British food on which to survive happily and healthily. Kippers or kedgeree or a full English/Scottish/Irish/Welsh for breakfast, a ploughmans or a pasty or a pork pie for lunch, haggis or shepherd’s pie or steak and kidney pudding for dinner. So on further reflection, yes, maybe we do have a national cuisine, but not regional cuisines. Perhaps the reason for that is down to the lack of any great difference between what’s produced in each (relatively small) region or any great tradition of ingredients or cooking style compared to, say, the difference between Provence and Alsace, or Tuscany and Lombardy. ---
**Author:** ![RobDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f07891/32.png) [@RobDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobDog)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2015, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/105 "2015-08-09T08:40:49Z")
Oh, and to paraphrase what **Alessan** said earlier in the thread, maybe people mostly \* think\* that their own country just has food, and that everyone else has a cuisine, but the French and Italians _know_ they have a cuisine. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2015, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/106 "2015-08-09T10:45:12Z")
Lumpia aside, I’m going to agree with those who say that Filipino food has to be one of the world’s worst national cuisines. Even modern fast food style Filipino food (Jollibee’s) is terrible. From a traveling perspective the food is one of the only drawbacks for a country that is otherwise astoundingly beautiful, friendly, and full of interesting history. Chinese food in China is also very often very bad. Maybe I should specify Cantonese cooking - I understand things are different elsewhere in the country. I lived in southern China for a year and was amazed at how badly prepared the majority of the food was. This was not just my opinion, but a pretty regular response from most non-Chinese I knew over there. (And lest you’re thinking that my western palate just wasn’t up to the task, I would counter that authentic Thai, Korean, and Vietnamese food was wonderful.) This is when I learned that authenticity is not synonymous with good food. Chinese-American food is different than the “real” thing, and, frankly, it’s usually an improvement. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2015, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/107 "2015-08-09T10:51:05Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > IME, via expatriates, Nepalese food (“Nepali” is the people and language, I’m told) is much akin to its neighbor (both ways, really, but especially India), and anything but bland. Thanks, I always get Nepali/Nepalese wrong. I’m sure it’s better homemade-- when traveling in Nepal, dal bhat is often the only meal available and it get old real quick. ---
**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 9, 2015, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/108 "2015-08-09T14:21:40Z")
Lumpia Shanghai is good, and my wife loves the fresh lumpia. She says the fresh lumpia stateside is better because we have fresher ingredients. For those who haven’t tried, most Filipino restaurants here in NYC are authentic, not Americanized versions. Or so I am told. I’m also told that the table service is also authentic, but that it is getting better in the Philippines, mostly due to the cruise ship industry. I’ll find out in January. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2015, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/109 "2015-08-09T18:52:01Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > I think the runners-up would probably be Germany and Britain. Fish & Chips are great, but I can’t think of much else in the way of British food that most people care for especially Roast beef? Yorkshire pudding? Cullen skink? Lancashire hotpot? Cornish pastie? Beef Wellington? Cranachan? Etc. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2015, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/110 "2015-08-09T18:54:33Z")
My brother spent something like 10 months in small-village-Nepal and said the food was very, very bland. Boiled rice and lentils with a complete lack of seasoning. I can’t recall ever craving any dishes from Puerto Rice or, really, much from the Caribbean in general (OK, Jamaican jerk is good). Rice, dull starches like malanga, plantain and yuca, some beans with scant seasoning. I had an opportunity to eat with a large group at an Ethiopian restaurant some years ago and felt I gave a majority of the menu a fair shot. I can’t think of any reason to try Ethiopian food again. That I’m not really into their staple of injera bread certainly colors my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2015, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/111 "2015-08-09T18:59:23Z")
> [@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. That’s all Americanized Asian food. The real thing is nothing like you describe. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/112 "2015-08-10T02:20:01Z")
> [@RobDog](#): > > Perhaps the reason for that is down to the lack of any great difference between what’s produced in each (relatively small) region or any great tradition of ingredients or cooking style compared to, say, the difference between Provence and Alsace, or Tuscany and Lombardy. My guess is because there aren’t really serious differences in climate or anything between the regions, therefore there never really developed any kind of pronounced regional differences. Combine that with England being England for a very long time, and you end up with some minor regional variations, but for the most part, what grows and thrives in Cornwall will also grow in Northumbria and anywhere in between. So where in say… Italy, you have Sicily, Lazio, Tuscany, Lombardy and the like all having different cuisines because different things grow and thrive there, or in France, you have Normandy and Provence being quite different in climate and cuisine, you have much less of that in England. That’s my theory, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/113 "2015-08-10T04:36:10Z")
There may be historical reasons, too. England has been a politically and culturally unified country far longer than France and especially Italy, which means that people and goods always circulated more freely between its various parts, leading to greater uniformity. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/114 "2015-08-10T05:48:29Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > That’s all Americanized Asian food. The real thing is nothing like you describe. What I’ve noticed is that “Americanized” Asian food can be good in those places where the restaurants have some motivation to be good. If there’s only one Thai restaurant in town, for example, and few Thai people, they don’t have to really try very hard. Even where there are more restaurants, if the town is large enough, they can get by if the general population doesn’t expect any better. There are more than enough restaurants getting by selling lousy local (i.e., “American”) food, so why not lousy Thai food, too? ---
**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 10, 2015, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/115 "2015-08-10T07:22:55Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > There may be historical reasons, too. England has been a politically and culturally unified country far longer than France and especially Italy, which means that people and goods always circulated more freely between its various parts, leading to greater uniformity. True dat. Even today with all the heavy-handed centralism, France is and remains a collection of individual “pays”, each with their own culture (and mild contempt for every other pays, natch :)). Culinary shibboleths abound. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/116 "2015-08-10T08:29:26Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Maybe I misunderstood. Is Scandy food really white? The traditional one is, owing to the lack of fresh vegetables during a good chunk of the year. I like a few things (fiskefrikadeller, for example), but for the most part yes, it is bland and pretty colorless compared to cuisines from warmer places. There’s also a dearth of spices in it. > [@Alessan](#): > > i’m seeing a bit of an inverse correlation between the quality of a country’s food and the quality of its beer. My theory is that the better the drivers, the worse the food. And to prove my theory, Israel had very tasty food (and I loved Sabich, arguably the only actual Israeli dish). 😃 ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/117 "2015-08-10T08:56:28Z")
> [@Mighty\_Girl](#): > > The traditional one is, owing to the lack of fresh vegetables during a good chunk of the year. I like a few things (fiskefrikadeller, for example), but for the most part yes, it is bland and pretty colorless compared to cuisines from warmer places. > > There’s also a dearth of spices in it. Don’t be so down on the Scandinavians. Any cuisine that produced [lefse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lefse) can’t be all bad. But then there’s lutefisk … ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/118 "2015-08-10T09:38:09Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Isn’t it almost a cliché that no one, but no one, does breakfasts better than the British? William Gibson talked about the “full English” in _Zero History_, and I had some damn fine breakfasts in Edinburgh. Nah, Americans invented breakfast: 1. Eggs, twenty different ways 2. Bacon 3. Maple Syrup 4. Pancakes 5. Hash browns 6. Many different sausages 7. Toast 8. Jam 9. Steak 10. Muffins 11. Bagels & Lox 12. Trout 13. Fresh Orange Juice 14. Coffee 15. Biscuits 16. Sausage Gravy 17. Cheese, oh my god, the Cheese 18. Ham 19. Grapefruit 20. Cereal 21. Danish Other cuisines have stuff they eat as the first meal of the day, but if it doesn’t include maple syrup and four different types of pork product, it’s just not Breakfast. ---
**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 10, 2015, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/119 "2015-08-10T10:49:43Z")
And yet you guys get cross when people abroad say you’re as decadent as the late Roman Empire. You eat steak and/or gravy for breakfast, people. That is wrong. WRONG and TWISTED and SELF-INDULGENT, I say ! And I’m talking from the country that invented the almond and chocolate\* croissant\*. But see, we did not do it for your lazy, greedy, gluttonous, self-indulgent reasons, no no. We eat those in the morning, and then have a bout of vigorous sex with a wife not our own, only so that it can only go downhill from there for the rest of the day. It’s about _ennui and metaphysical soul pangs caused by a buttery je ne sais quoi_ and just the right touch of existential despair over the next 12 to 14 hours. Y’all are just pigs in a trough with a credit card. It’s sickening, quite frankly. ---
**Author:** ![RobDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f07891/32.png) [@RobDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobDog)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2015, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134/120 "2015-08-10T12:05:50Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > … > > It’s about _ennui and metaphysical soul pangs caused by a buttery je ne sais quoi_ and just the right touch of existential despair over the next 12 to 14 hours… I thought that’s what madeleines were for? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-national-cuisine/727134.md?page=7)