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Show HN: Discover what locals eat all around the world
- renholder 8y ago> No results found for "Sweden". > No results found for "Sverige". You probably don't have all of the countries, yet. Fair enough. >Norway > Kaviar / Caviar in a tube That's actually a Nordic thing and isn't specific to Norway. Kalles Kaviar[0] is a famous Swedish brand of this. =] Comparatively, Sweden consumes far more tubed caviar than Norway - if memory serves me correctly. I'm actually surprised that caviar would make the list and not something else shared equally with the Nordics, which is unobtainable elsewhere: Reindeer.[1] [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalles_Kaviar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalles_Kaviar [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reindeer#Relationship_with_humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reindeer#Relationship_with_hum...
- dagw 8y agoThe only correct answer for a quintessentially Swedish dish is Kebab Pizza.
- eitland 8y agoKebab pizza is popular here in Norway as well(, but might very well have originated in Sweden for what I know).
- dagw 8y agoProbably all those Swedish immigrants bring their local foods and customs with them :)
- jfk13 8y agoNot lutefisk?
- dagw 8y agoBasically nobody eats lutfisk in Sweden and the tiny handful of people that do, mostly do so at Christmas. I'd say even surströmming is more popular.
- renholder 8y agoOr, the even better moniker: kebabbåt[0]. =] [0] - https://pizzeriamarcus.se/meny.html https://pizzeriamarcus.se/meny.html
- ohiovr 8y agoEnjoyable website. I bet it only scratches the surface as in the USA there are several (famous?) regional foods not mentioned. Would be great to see the site expand.
- arciini 8y agoGiven the limited set of geographic options, it might be worth showing a dropdown or something instead of a search box! I really do like the concept though - whenever I travel I do try to eat the regional specialties
- Ultramanoid 8y agoIndeed, better a list than searching at this point. Stopped looking after getting no results for Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore and Vietnam.
- stephenr 8y agoThe top item for "Australia" is Vegemite and it includes this: > Oh, and ask any Aussie to sing you the Vegemite song - you’re guaranteed they’ll know what you mean If you ask me to sing a song about Vegemite I'll tell you to fuck off back to whatever ass backwards country you came from that thinks every person in a country eats the same foods.
- yesenadam 8y agoAnother Aussie here, can vouch that asking "any Aussie" to sing "the Vegemite song" is not recommended at all.
- jfk13 8y agoSo are you confirming that "you’re guaranteed they’ll know what you mean"? (Not that they'll comply with the request!)
- stephenr 8y agoNo. I have no idea what specifically they’re talking about. But the name kind of implies it’s a song about vegemite.
- yesenadam 8y agoHehe no, but I guess they mean the "happy little Vegemites" song, an old tv ad from maybe the 60s. But I'm not a fan of vegemite nor ads.. (The only people I've heard talking about vegemite in recent years are friends who moved to NYC and can't get it there.) p.s. I'm from Wales, and remember my grandparents having laverbread[0] for breakfast on toast - it's made from seaweed scraped from rocks (!) and may be related to or taste similar to vegemite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laverbread https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laverbread [0] pronounced like 'lavabread'
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- telesilla 8y agoI was in the UK recently and got fish and chips from a local chippy at the seaside thinking, well, I should try something local outside of the fancy seafood chowder at the restaurants lining the bay. I was horrified that vinegar was not used but some fake invention called "non-brewed condiment" I'd never heard of before. Apparently this is normal now? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-brewed_condiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-brewed_condiment
- janekm 8y agoBut non-brewed condiment is traditional for a proper fish & chips ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=642x2Y3Zla0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=642x2Y3Zla0
- telesilla 8y agoI really don't like it! It doesn't have the full flavour that malt vinegar has. Perhaps the british are just used to it now. That video forgot to say, the reason the chippies are using it is because it's a lot cheaper. I'll pay an extra 25c for proper vinegar please.
- entity345 8y agoEverything is that way in the UK: Substitute for cheaper everywhere you can. That's why food is not great in general. Just using proper ingredients immediately improves things massively.
- quickthrower2 8y ago25p
- jfk13 8y agoIt's not normal anywhere I've eaten - though I don't frequent local chippies very often, admittedly. (Maybe here in rural south-eastern parts, our standards are higher?)
- welly 8y ago
- deanclatworthy 8y agoYou know this is going to trigger a lot of people [1]. - Jam Roly Poly is something you'd eat at school. I don't think I've ever seen it on a restaurant menu. - Mince pies are generally only available in the months leading up to Christmas. - Eccles cake is rarely eaten nowadays, apart from in certain regions. You're also missing chicken tikka masala which is regularly voted a national dish. Also roast dinners. [1] https://what.toeat.in/uk/ https://what.toeat.in/uk/
- darrenf 8y agoAnd there really needs to be some pronunciation guidance on 'scone(s)' [0-3] [0] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/news/survey-reveals-correct-way-to-pronounce-scone/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/news/survey-revea... [1] https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/03/08/how-do-you-say-scone/ https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/03/08/how-do-you-sa... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/23/how-do-you-pronounce-scone-answer-says-a-lot-english-language-day-shakespeare-birthday https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/23/how-do-you-p... [3] https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/mary-berry-scone-how-pronounce-debate-britains-best-home-cook-a8346541.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/mary...
- pm215 8y agoI had jam roly-poly in our work cafeteria last week -- but you're right that it does have a tinge of the school dinner about it.
- welly 8y agoAlso missing beans on toast and cheese toasties.
- adrianN 8y agoNo mention of Döner when searching for Berlin.
- Gys 8y agoAfter reading about the 10 dishes that define Singapore [0], yesterday, I thought you got inspired to post your project here as well. Unfortunately Singapore did not yet make it. To find Netherlands therefore was a surprise. Seems fairly accurate. Good job ! I also missed Portugal, which supposingly has more codfish recipes then days in a year... [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19248711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19248711
- misja 8y agoI found quite a few mistakes in the Dutch dishes. For instance, kale is definitely not served as a compliment to every hot meal. Also, nobody eats raw herring here, the herring that is sold on the street has been cured in salt.
- Gys 8y agoA yes, very true. I just briefly looked at the dish names. I now see there is certainly room for improvement.
- Insanity 8y agoSeems like Mexico is missing, and that whilst Mexican food is seen as a cultural treasure by UNESCO. They also have some pretty 'identifying' food that spread around the world. The idea behind the website is pretty fun though.
- Golfkid2Gadfly 8y agoI was in Bulgaria, and can't remember any dish from that list accept rakia.
- _-___________-_ 8y agoSeems like the site is probably working as intended then.
- yread 8y agoNL and SK fairly accurate. Some stuff that's not usually mentioned in tourist guides. Good job!
- allendoerfer 8y agoGerman one has several typos a native German would not make. You can tell the pronounciation is a bit off. Content still correct. Should also be further split up by region. Often that would be quite easy, because the name of the dish often contains the city/region it's from. If you don't do that, you get the German equivalent of ordering Mexican food in New York and Pizza in California or vice versa.
- Xylakant 8y ago> Content still correct. I'd dispute that. It's correct for Baravia or maybe even southern Germany, but for example in the region around Cologne (Rheinland), Sauerbraten is traditionally made from horse meat and is atypical in Berlin (never seen it on a local menu), Weißwurst is atypical anywhere in the North (there's even the term Weißwurstäquator which denotes the separating line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wei%C3%9Fwurst%C3%A4quator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wei%C3%9Fwurst%C3%A4quator), Spätzle and Maultaschen are distinct Swabian food. The typical northern German kinds of food (Grünkohl mit Pinkel) are missing alltogether. Even the beer is off: The north drinks different beer than the south. The northern beer tend to have more hops (think: Becks) while the southern beers tend to be lighter on that side and thus less bitter (Paulaner). Wheat beer is atypical in the north. It's totally missing Döner Kebab. An unforgivable offense. The problem I see is that the page tries to lump food in by country, while food tends to be regional. The southern parts of Germany have much more in common with Austria (Kaiserschmarrn), the southwest with the bordering regions of France while the northeast is much more aligned with western Poland.
- Freak_NL 8y agoDöner Kebab has the problem that it is really pan-European fast food cuisine by now. You're right about the regionality of food. Sometimes dishes cross national borders, while still being limited to parts of those countries, and there is so much regional cooking that is worthwhile to mention — I do like me some Himmel und Erde und Blootwoosch mit Köslch. National dishes risk turning into cliches. The Dutch dishes are correct, but I feel it misses nuances.
- glastra 8y agoOh, boy. Spain is pretty bad [0]. Nobody eats paella that often. Nobody who isn't a tourist drinks sangría. There is also no mention of northern cuisine except for pulpo a feira. Spanish gastronomy is a very regional thing. [0]: https://what.toeat.in/spain/ https://what.toeat.in/spain/
- LoSboccacc 8y agosame in France. galettes mixed with raclettes, sure some local somewhere in France has that on its menu often enough, but then I miss the point of this website, because those are neither your typical home dishes nor something usual that people eat weekly nor something that you'd get outside restaurants. so it's pretty much 'local food tourist should try' - or precisely the opposite of what the sites seems to claims to be about.
- k_ 8y agoNot sure about this. We (my family and some friends) eat galettes and raclette on a regular basis. Maybe not weekly, but at least monthly (no raclette in summer though). I found the list pretty accurate for France, actually. Admittedly, I didn't put too much thought on this but that list seemed legit to me.
- lateralux 8y agoFoie Gras and Oysters are not really eaten everyday, they are celebration meal. Traditional french gastronomy should include at least Cassoulet and Choucroute !!!
- graindcafe 8y agoAs a french, I may order, at a restaurant, most of the plates listed here and I may eat at home one of those once a month. As said previously, Foie Gras and Oysters are not everyday plates and some others are missing, but still I think it's pretty good. So I think it's more "what local orders at restaurant" and not what they usually eat at home.
- patricia_mayo 8y ago
- jaclaz 8y agoI would dare to say that (Spain) the situation about ham (and pig breeds and their raising) is a bit more complex than what has been stated: >...Spanish pigs who have been feed only with acorns which makes them legs black ... Compare with: https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/07/06/inenglish/1499366286_535537.html https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/07/06/inenglish/1499366286_53... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamón_ibérico https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamón_ibérico The "pata negra" is a definite breed.
- rootsudo 8y agoManila is correct. Though the author is from "Manile" lol. No Japan - wow, ok. USA seems accurate, for thanksgiving. Deep dish pizza can be an "American" thing or a Chicago thing, depending whom you talk too.
- gomox 8y agoArgentinean foodie here. Happy to contribute if you guys are interested :)
- patricia_mayo 8y agoHey @gomox! Argentina 🇦🇷 is actually work in progress, almost done. Our friend has already sent us the list and we will upload it soon! I will be happy to share with you the link once it's online, so you can let us know if we missed some good must dish!!
- EvagohP5 8y agoMilanesa napolitana con papas fritas (NOT PATATAS) or don't even bother!
- _-___________-_ 8y agoI actually thought the search was broken (none of the first 10 destinations I thought of had any results), but there's just very few articles. It might be better to have autocomplete on the search box with some fallback of "no results found", or just lose the search entirely since the list of articles is short.
- thasaleni 8y agoAdditionally, since it's a place search, maybe add place autocomplete. So it's obvious if the place you search for is not in the list. I also thought the search was broken
- deanalevitt 8y agoAgreed. Autocomplete feels important.
- akuji1993 8y agoSmall typo on your German page, it's called Knackwurst (locally it might be Rostwurst, Bratwurst), not Knockwurst. Other than that, pretty accurate.
- apricot13 8y agotypo in the tags "vegeterian" is "vegetarian"
- patricia_mayo 8y agoI just pushed an update to fix it! thanks for letting us know!
- eitland 8y agoCan confirm the foods from Norway are all popular and considered typical for the region. As renholder points out some (kaviar in tube) are maybe more popular in Sweden, but still Norwfian as well. Three things I miss as a Norwegian: -raspeball/raspekake/kompe/klubb/ball (mashed and/or shredded potatos mixed with wheat and barleuy flour, formed as lumps and boiled together with salted (and possibly smoked meat, typically pigs knucles or cured meat from sheep) and served with carrots and rutabaga, sausage and bacon. Where I grew up people would also add syrup and/or sugar. Needless to say a full meal of this might take some effort to get down ;-) - sheeps head (literally). Typically not everyday food but for special occations or as a Sunday dinner once a year. Two versions exist that I'm aware of: 1. which is the one I grew up with which consists of splitted, cured sheep heads that are then boiled 2. "Smalahove" which are typically roasted over open fire before being steamed or boiled (I think, I haven't prepared those myself, but I've eaten them and they taste wonderfully). - kjøttkake which you can think of as a version of the IKEA Swedish meatballs, only larger, coarser and with far better seasoning. Can be eaten any day of the week, including Sunday. Really tasty and probably easier to get along with than raspeball and especially skjelte.
- GrumpyNl 8y agoI remember de Polske, i dont know if its spelled right, but i was amazed by the number of hotdog sellers ( polske)
- sandoche 8y agohey @eitland! nice contributions! We are happy to add them to the page! If you would like to appear in the contributors list, you can drop as a pm message https://www.facebook.com/what.toeat.in https://www.facebook.com/what.toeat.in with your details, we need name, profession and place of origin :)
- ianai 8y agoThe interface is pretty atrocious on mobile. The food photos don’t center. Scrolling the article seemed to jump back to the main index improperly. I left the site due to user abuse. Otherwise, I was expecting something crowdsourced.
- patricia_mayo 8y agohi @ianai, could you send us a pic to see how it looks like? maybe let us know also your device and the browser you are using. We are worry that the elements we used (flexbox) might not be supported everywhere.
- polyterative 8y agoNo Italy?
- peter_retief 8y agoI didn't see anything for Japan or South Africa (I guess its work in progress)? I love the app
- patricia_mayo 8y agoThe first MVP of the web has been done gathering all the recommendations from friends we have from different countries, sadly we don't have friends from Japan 🇯🇵 or South Africa 🇿🇦 yet. However now we are open to external contributors, so we would be super glad to add these countries, Japan is a top request!! The key point is, we want to have real locals advices, so we don't want to just quickly google some foods and put them there ourselves. We want to assure the recommendations are authentic!
- peter_retief 8y agoHow does one get involved?
- farbodsaraf 8y agoThis is the first resource I look up when I land into a country while traveling. It gives you a better idea of what to look for in Yelp and other foodie platforms.
- matt4077 8y agoAs a German, I can assure you that every person I know, including old people, eats Pizza more often than any of the dishes on this list. The listed foods are the answer to some question, but it is one subtly different from “what people eat”. Which is kind of disappointing: I actually clicked hoping someone had seen this happen before, and decided to somehow collect data to answer the question “what do people actually eat?” Instead of just regurgitating stereotypes, it would reveal how connected the world has become. And yet, it could highlight the actually interesting differences, such as the myriad different interpretations of Chinese dishes, or meat-in-bread.
- franze 8y agoI showed this list to my sisters who now lives in germany for .... 26 years. She just responded "tourist crap". Additonal Germany is a huge country and I do not think that one liste can do justice to the variety available in a big country. What people eat is deffinitly different comparing Bavaria vs. Hamburg vs. Berlin.
- mcphage 8y ago> Additonal Germany is a huge country and I do not think that one liste can do justice to the variety available in a big country. That's true about pretty much all of these places, though. It doesn't mean "What is quintessentially ________ food?" isn't an interesting question.
- perlgeek 8y agoI think the list for Germany has a heavy bias towards southern German food. It wouldn't be a bad list for "what to eat south of the Weißwurstäquator" (with the exception of Currywurst maybe, which is more typical for Berlin, but still consumed in the south).
- jplayer01 8y agoTourist crap? This is the kind of food my grandmother made. You've got to be kidding me.
- dewey 8y ago
- franze 8y agoso, as these lists are solely editorial choices i took a look at google trends for germany food & drink subsegment https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?cat=71&geo=DE https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?cat=71&geo=DE (vs.: https://what.toeat.in/germany/ https://what.toeat.in/germany/ ) these are the top keywords that indicate a food (i.e.:no supermarket ) brands essen pizza / pizzeria mc donalds / mcdonalds döner sushi bäckerei eis getränke this allignes much more with my experience than the toeat.in list.
- swebs 8y ago>The [Estonian] Kohuke are small frozen chocolates of different tastes and flavors which contain cottage cheese It's actually quark, which tastes much better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_(dairy_product) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_(dairy_product)
- EvagohP5 8y agoI would curated the list a little more before releasing it to the world, mates. Also, the url is nice, because the webpage mainly show the dishes that maybe attractive to tourists, but the title is totally misleading, as all people here have already said
- scraft 8y agoAnd what about the Finnish breakfast? Coffee, cigarette and vodka? https://imgur.com/gallery/tNwTM7e https://imgur.com/gallery/tNwTM7e
- purplezooey 8y agoVegemite? really?
- neurotrace 8y agoEvery Aussie I know sings high praises of vegemite. At minimum, they say it's a standard part of their diet.
- gesman 8y agoNo results found for "italy". Show stopper.
- deanalevitt 8y agoGreat idea, and I had fun exploring some local dishes.