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America does not have a good food culture
- davidw 3y agoTyler Cowen made some similar observations about barbecue in the US. Also, food is improving here, a lot. I'm old enough to have seen people start to care more and learn about what's possible. We're not going to turn into Italy (which clearly has far superior food than France!) overnight, but it's nice to see higher quality food become more available and more popular.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 3y agoIs it fair to say that big foodie cities like NYC/LA/SF also happen to differ radically from the rest of the nation in their attitude and expectations of food quality?
- School-Cotton 3y agoNot really, no. Restaurants in NYC are a bit better and more varied on average than in, say, Phoenix, but I wouldn’t call it a “radical” difference.
- screye 3y agoNo offense to Phoenix, but the difference between NYC and Phoenix is "radical" in every sense of the world. Often times, Random neighborhoods in NYC have better food scenes than most major cities in the US. (including Phoenix).
- School-Cotton 3y agoI lived in Phoenix for 18 years and New York for nearly 8 now, and I really don’t think it’s radical. You can find decent food from most world cuisines in Phoenix. In New York you can find 100 examples of each of them, as well as some less common ones. But it’s not fundamentally different.
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- jfengel 3y agoFoodie cities have amazing options, but they're different from the ubiquitous excellent food the French have. Foodie cities have great farmers markets, but in much of France that's just ordinary in any town. Foodie cities have a wider diversity of ethnic restaurants than French towns, but in the towns every restaurant is always solidly great. There's just no room for Olive Garden. I don't mean to get all utopian. I've had some so so food in France. But you can get great wines in every convenience store, for shockingly little money. The French really do care about food way more than Americans do. Those Americans who try are seen as being kind of weird.
- School-Cotton 3y agoA friend from rural France visited me in Seattle a few years ago, and we went to a farmers’ market. I explained that the market was only open on weekends. He seemed genuinely confused and asked “where do people get their food the rest of the week?”
- Reubend 3y ago> There's just no room for Olive Garden. This is just so untrue. There's tons of fast food restaurants all across Europe. There's a McDonalds in most historic city centers in Europe, and often a Burger King and a KFC as well. You picked Olive Garden as an example, and it's correct that they don't have any franchise locations in Europe, but there's plenty of American fast food (and fast casual to some extent) in Europe from other brands.
- nebula8804 3y agoThey just have mostly the bottom of the barrel stuff, the stuff you find everywhere (Mcdonalds, KFC etc.). France even lost BK from 97 to 2012. I recall seeing only like 1 BK location in all of Paris back in 2015. Look at this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fast_food_restaurant_chains#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fast_food_restaurant_c... The US section is significantly larger than any other country. Having lived in Paris, the French are missing out on a ton of amazing fast food options.
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- SpicyLemonZest 3y ago> It is also a rather narrow definition, because having access to a lot of different restaurants serving a lot of different cuisines is currently only available in a handful of large and mid-sized cities. It’s interesting to me how many people simply don’t believe that diverse cuisine could be universal in the US. I’ve been to towns of 5000 people with restaurants from four different nationalities.
- mrits 3y agoYeah, small towns all over the us can be very diverse. Article also acts like France doesn’t have poor people eating Nutella sandwiches everyday
- iancmceachern 3y agoTo poor people in the US Nutella on a French Baguette would be a treat. In the US poor people eat "peanut butter" that is made from some peanuts, and a bunch of hydrogenated palm oil or whatnot. The bread isn't even legally bread by French law, it's some weird thing made in a bread factory not a bakery and its shelf stable for 2 weeks but also not nutritious. You can walk into a Walmart and get a jar of the cheapest store brand hydrogenated oil peanut butter for $3 or so, and a loaf of the cheapest store brand white bread for $2 or so. Your luxury French Nutella desert sandwiches would cost closer to $10 for the Nutella and like $3-4 for the baguette I'm not joking, Nutella is viewed as a real luxury here
- SpicyLemonZest 3y agoI can’t defend American supermarket bread, but do you… not know that Nutella has palm oil in it?
- iancmceachern 3y agoYes, I do I dont personally eat nutella I'm trying to tell you that it gets way worse than Nutella, Nutella is not poor people food here
- stemlord 3y agoWeird. As an American I feel like it's common knowledge that we have shit food options. The 70s-90s were basically the golden era of processed foods and generations of Americans have learned the hard way how detrimental this was for public health at large. We came out with things like Supersize Me and People of Wal-Mart that brought our terrible culinary cultural values to the forefront of public opinion. We were the fattest nation on earth for a while. Maybe still are. I don't know who is supposed to be shocked by the assertion that American food is worse than European food.
- petre 3y agoDepends of which European food. I'd rather eat US food than Dutch or English food. We kept eating in Chinatown in London because their food was both shitty and expensive. And we bought stuff from Indian grocery shops. I can't thank the Chinese and Indian immigrants enough for this. Germany was a bit better in this regard.
- ido 3y agoDuring our visits to England, in both Nottinghamshire and Sussex we had great (albeit not very varied, healthy or interesting) local cuisine. I was actually surprised, as I was aware of the stereotype that English food is terrible!
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoMy resting theory is that England invaded most of the world because they just wanted something better to eat.
- petre 3y agoTheir weather too. I always remember the opening chapter from Bleak House when anyone mentions English weather. What I do like about their food is breakfast. It's simple, tasty and would set you up until 4 pm. Plus the tea and the cookies but I don't consider those "food".
- timc3 3y ago
- xeromal 3y agoI was ready to go to blows over how my home in Appalachia is home to a true food culture that is unique as far as US contributions go. Then the author mentioned BBQ so I guess they get a pass. People always seem to forget us but we really do have a unique food culture that treasures food and time together. Sure, we also are fat and like fast food but home cooked meals are pretty dang important in the rural areas at least. * BBQ * Biscuits * Boiled Peanuts (Georgia) * 9000 forms of Okra * Beans and veggies slowly cooked with a bone, fatback, etc. * Cornbread * 9000 forms of fried chicken * Native grapes called Muscadines that can make delicious jams, jellies, wine * Countless ways to prepare deer and other small game (Sausages, Tips, etc) Sunday brunch after church is often taken usually with friends from church. Just the other day I was at a burger joint that serves the best biscuits in my town. A few old men moved to my table and showed me a new game they came up with wood working. Appalachian way of life has a great food culture but it's being absorbed by the large cities but I guess that's the circle of life. Even canning culture is a thing here. Loads of people head up to the local cannery and hang out to make canned tomatoes , okra, chowchow Edit: if you're curious about boiled peanuts, the closest thing you could probably find outside of Georgia would be edamame that's extra salty. I prefer mine Cajun
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 3y agoBoiled peanuts?? Never heard of that before. Sounds kind of gross. You eat them all soft and mushy? I mean I guess peanut butter is good ...
- mdructor 3y agoThey are boiled until tender, and usually quite salty. you still de-shell them and eat the insides. I was a big fan when I lived in Alabama.
- sdrothrock 3y ago> Sounds kind of gross. To me this is the proof in the pudding! It indicates a distinctive difference that one group of people enjoys and another group finds repulsive. But with these types of things, if we share food culture, then many people can open doors and find that what they imagined as repulsive can actually be quite delicious. :)
- avmich 3y agoOn the International Space Station American and Russian crew agreed the French cuisine is the best of them both. Deliveries with European ATV carrying French food were seen as a particularly great opportunity for a better choice of food on the station.
- mrits 3y agoImagine bbq on the space station
- ranger207 3y agoMy local BBQ place where I grew up -- Fincher's BBQ in Macon, Georgia -- sent some BBQ to space on STS-33 with Sonny Carter, who was from middle Georgia. Not quite the ISS but pretty close
- nebula8804 3y agoThey are still talking about it on their website 53 years later.
- barsonme 3y agoIf you vent the smoke into outer space I guarantee you some hungry aliens will show up.
- fxd123 3y ago> agreed the French cuisine is the best of them both OK, but that's not what the article is about. The writer is talking about "good food culture", not "good food"
- iancmceachern 3y agoI'm American and have traveled to France quite a bit and 100% would never say anything other than their food is way better. If you cooked your favorite dish, your way, with French ingredients it would be better. It's not just the cuisine itself, it's the quality of the ingredients and the care that goes into the ingredients themselves. I live in San Francisco, Northern California has some of the best food in the US because there is a diverse group of people here with equally diverse and delicious food traditions, and access to very high quality ingredients. All that to say, French food and ingredients are still better.
- teaearlgraycold 3y agoSome American food is French food. Creole food is amazing.
- iancmceachern 3y agoCreole food is amazing, and is French inspired, but I think it would upset some folks to straight up call it French.
- teaearlgraycold 3y agoYeah... I'm sorry Louisiana
- Turing_Machine 3y ago> If you cooked your favorite dish, your way, with French ingredients it would be better. My favorite dish is fresh, wild-caught Alaska salmon. I'm not sure how one would cook that with French ingredients.
- School-Cotton 3y agoThe median American has access to a wider variety of global cuisine restaurants than the median French person does. On the other hand, the median French person cooks and eats better food in their home (by far). I suspect the dispute is just because the two sides are measuring different things.
- iancmceachern 3y agoI think it has more to do with the quality of the ingredients. The quality of the average ingredient, both in taste but in wholesomeness is drastically different between the two countries. One simple example that says so much. Check out the differences in food advertising laws. In France it's illegal to advertise non wholesome foods like soda beverages to kids. It's a whole different landscape.
- davidw 3y agoYes, I lived in Italy for a number of years, and a lot of the food is not particularly complex or fancy, but starts from very high quality ingredients. Often in supermarkets, produce doesn't look perfect, but tastes great, because they optimize for taste rather than being something you can transport from LA to Minnesota in the middle of winter in a truck and still look good.
- School-Cotton 3y agoIt's not just quality of ingredients (though that is part of it); it's also culture. Southern Europeans (understood in a broad sense to include the French) are less likely to tolerate regularly eating highly processed food, takeout, fast food, etc. and much more likely to cook at home from scratch than Americans are. Of course, the distributions overlap; there are Americans who eat like the stereotypical French person, and vice versa.
- orange_joe 3y agoI've yet to find a grocery store in Europe that favorably compares to whole foods
- hifromLA 3y agoThis does not in any way reflect the America that I live in. The many immigrant communities that have made this city their home have high expectations for their food regardless of price point leading to a great variety of inexpensive and delicious food. The produce is amazing and there are places to get great quality produce at a reasonable price. There are dozens of locally baked breads for sale in local grocery stores. So what’s the point of making such a generalized assertion? America is a big country and in my America the food is fucking dank.
- ChatGTP 3y agoI was in Europe (France, Spain, Germany) recently and the food was just better, every meal I had was delicious and much much more affordable than the US. The vibe of the restaurants and cafe in Spain was remarkable. It was like New Year’s Eve every night of the week. Even the service at restaurants was absolutely outstanding and there is no tipping culture. It personally just think food is the culture and America does not have that culture I’m sorry to say. Am I saying the food is bad in the USA ? Not at all. But it’s not in our DNA. There are exceptions of course, Netherlands ? I still don’t know what they specialise in ? Sandwiches ? America focuses on GDP and productivity, we kick ass there. USA !!!
- lom 3y agoThis comment was so obviously written by someone with no clue before I even saw the username
- 4wsn 3y agoWhat, you don't enjoy German dining where the vast majority of restaurants serve food made in a factory? What an unsophisticated palette you have. /s https://youtu.be/wzc_VNh42HM?si=ngrOt5nHsadPCRuR https://youtu.be/wzc_VNh42HM?si=ngrOt5nHsadPCRuR
- ChatGTP 3y agoGerman food, great sandwiches, find me a better airport to eat in America than Munich?
- irrational 3y ago> Food in the US isn’t central to our identities, not yet at least. It is still largely a utilitarian and transactional thing— something necessary to get enough calories, hopefully tasty ones, to stop being hungry and keep working. I never really thought about it, but this is spot on. I typically eat a bowl of cold cereal for breakfast, while reading in my phone. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch in front of my computer while working. And whatever I can find to eat quickly in the evening so I can get to more important things. That has pretty much been my food life for 50+ years. I look at food as mainly a way to consume calories to keep me alive so I can do those things that matter to me.
- redder23 3y agoYou don't say. That's quite a revaluation.
- Turing_Machine 3y agoIt should be noted that McDonald's France rakes in over 5 billion euro per year. Someone's eating it, and I don't think American tourists would account for it by an order of magnitude. I also agree with the other poster that Italian food is far superior to French. So is Mexican (either "genuine" Mexican or Tex-Mex). I've long had the impression that French food only got the reputation of being "good" because it was being compared to British food. :-)
- jmauritz 3y agoYou should look up french mcdonalds.
- Turing_Machine 3y agoI did. Where do you think I got the 5 billion euro figure? Yes, McDonald's France has some local items, as they do everywhere*, but they also have Le Big Mac and Le Royal Cheese (because of the metric system, as all Pulp Fiction fans know). * Here it's the "Denali Mac" which is a Big Mac made with Quarter Pounder patties.
- fzeroracer 3y agoThe thing you're missing is that McDonalds (and indeed, most fast food franchises) are far, far better in anywhere else but the US. McDonalds in Japan for example is leagues ahead any McDonalds you could find in the US and that's because they're often using higher quality fresher ingredients with stricter food standards.
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- silisili 3y agoIgnoring the, let's call them foreign options of diversity, America as a whole is still too diverse IMO to really box it in as good or bad. Cajun/creole is completely different than tex-mex is completely different than venison is completely different than barbecue is completely different than cheesesteaks. Heck, even BBQ varies wildly. KC BBQ tastes completely different than (the superior) Carolina style. Though I'm sure I'm just stating the obvious here, which is why such comparisons are silly and impossible.
- orange_joe 3y agoI really don't accept this as a generalized concept, denying the experiences of the roughly 1/3 of Americans who live in big cities in the US to then base your perspectives of the food culture of other nations on their big cities (Author was quick to note his experience in Paris) seems obviously biased. Further, I've not found a grocery store chain in Europe that is of comparable quality to Whole Foods (Don't pretend a store with 500+ locations is some impossible food-y standard).
- jowea 3y agoFair enough but you'd still need to compare to the actual experiences of the average American in a big city, not a wealthy person who can order takeout of a different cuisine each day.
- athrun 3y ago> a grocery store chain Here's your problem right there. There's not a real need for this, when you can just go to your local market. Whole Foods works in the US because in most places this is the only option to obtain (quality) fresh produce. Not so in France. It's a fundamentally different approach.
- saithound 3y agoThere's a whole industry of "reassuring Americans that America is number one" self-help literature, immensely popular with upper-middle-class Americans, They're one of the groups who have lots of disposable income to spend on Substack subscriptions and coastal online newspapers. The usual article in this genre goes as follows. Pick a topic that Americans are predisposed to feel embarrassed about, and start with a thesis contradicting it: - USPS is actually the best postal system in the world (my personap favorite, the post that couldn't deliver to AUS/NZ mid-pandemic, even though freaking Serbian post managed to do it just fine) - Amtrak works better than Japanese rail - US healthcare actually bankrupts fewer families than UK healthcare, - the US has higher-quality food than the rest of the world, etc. Then, latch onto an aspect (the US is bigger than Germany, Japan is a lot denser, the US has more food diversity, the US has better survival outcomes) that's at best significantly different from the common sense meaning of the original controversial claim, at worst completely orthogonal to it. Finally, support this modified thesis with a bunch of cherry-picked evidence from dubious economics journals, while ignoring obvious counterexamples or statistical errors (e.g. that one is comparing rural France to inner SF on food diversity, or anything at all happening in Australia, or any accounting for GDP differences, the one comparable vendor having <2% market share etc.) There you go, the template for your hip article that will surely get quoted in the next Twitter war. I hear ChatGPT is pretty good at generating them these days, so you don't even have to be creative or have amazing writing skills to get your own.
- andrewbutts 3y agoGreat observation. If you feed your examples into chatgpt and ask it for more essay topics like those, the result reads like a hilarious sarcastic roast of the US :D
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- GuardianCaveman 3y agoThis is literally anything for any place. There are surely articles in Japan by Japanese people that criticize a certain aspect of their culture and then reassuring contrarians that cherry pick things to tell people what they want to hear because it sells newspapers gets ratings etc. But yeah, jump on the F america bandwagon on hacker news and act like we're unique in these things. This is literally all humans.
- iancmceachern 3y agoOne big difference I noticed when visiting France. They have strict laws against advertising non wholesome foods and drinks to kids. Its amazing how much of our advertising effort is spent on getting kids to ear and drink candy/soda/etc. You don't notice how pervasive it is until you experience the total lack of it.
- screye 3y agoBroken record time - Surely people see the straight line that is zoned car culture suburbia ---> American food culture. Drive in foodchains are a response to cars. Supermarkets & weekly out of town grocery runs are a result of cars. Americans have an oddly compartmentalized (because it somehow dissappears the second they step in Europe for vacation) dislike for density everywhere. You fishmonger can't be colocated with your favorite restaurant, because no one randomly picks up fish on their way back home. One one makes fresh baguettes, because no one stops by bakeries to pick up fresh bread on the daily. When everything is out of the way, an organic culture of any kind struggles to develop. There is a reason NY and SF have amazing food culture, and density has a lot to do with it. I'll go one step further. (Rest of) America doesn't just have bad food culture. It has bad community culture of all sorts. Suburbia is literally characterized by being boring. Americans are perpetually scared of strangers and neighboring kidnappers. The US had unfair stats. It has incredible nature and Americans are filthy rich. It's biggest cities have really interesting people and everything you can imagine, can be found in NYC. But, that isn't the America people have built. Most Americans aren't in NYC. The nature comes for free and the money only serves to further highlight how little there is to spend on if you aren't in a couple of select cities. Yes, it seems naive to point fingers at 1-repeat-offender for all of these problems. After, almost nothing is mono causal. But the 'almost' means that a select few things are indeed mono casual. I believe American 20th century urban planning decisions are 1 such offender.
- badpun 3y agoSuburbs get such a bad rap in certain online circles, and yet so many people choose to live in them. I'm from Europe and live in a flat in a historical city centre, but I think I'd prefer suburbs, if such a thing existed around here. Sure, historical city centre definitely has its charms and conveniences, but the peace and quiet of suburbs sounds amazing compared to the soundscape (cars, dogs, neighbors) I have to endure every day. I've even set my sleeping schedule to the schedule of the yappy dog in apartment below me - there's no point in trying to sleep till 8 am when the thing starts barking at 6:30 am anyway.
- skywal_l 3y ago
- wly_cdgr 3y agoFrench food can be good, and the best French food is probably in France. But the 2nd best French food is surely in the USA...and the 2nd best Italian food...and the 2nd best Indian food...and the 2nd best Ethiopian food....you get the picture French guy does not have a baguette to snack on. But I get it, I might be salty too if I lived in a country that was once a world power but is now a provincial backwater, and one of whose main remaining sources of pride is food (an extremely valid source of pride to be sure, much more so than haute couture for example)
- defrost 3y agoHands down the worst Australian food is in the USofA. WTF even is the Outback Steakhouse, some kind of bizzaro seppo joke?
- SystemOut 3y agoCan't tell if you're serious or not but Outback is not Australian.
- defrost 3y agoIt's a cartoon caricature of Australia dreamt up by American franchise operators, ergo "worst Australian food" .. not even remotely like Australian food.
- notsurenymore 3y agoYes, but it’s equivalent to going to taco bell and deciding based on that that America has terrible Mexican food.
- defrost 3y agoLogically and linguistically it isn't equivilant at all. Let's say hypothetically that the US has the best Mexican food - even better than Mexico itself, and that food is sold in Food Truk X that tours about in Dallas Texas. Taco Bell still exists and (it seems that) you are open to the notion that Taco Bell is terrible terrible "Mexican Food". Ergo, the US has both the best and the worst Mexican Food. Outback Steakhouse is the worst "Australian Food".
- ggm 3y agoIt's quite funny to read this as a British citizen. Just ask any European about popular views of British cuisine. (Which are outdated, and often wrong) America has some fantastic food culture and like everywhere else it has comfort food and frankly bizarre food. Everywhere does. The complaints about portion sizes and fast food are about one segment of food culture overall.
- _8j50 3y agoThis reads like the author barely knows the US. The US is 50 countries pretending to be one. Even that chart about the US spending 1.5h on cooking is silly when you consider bbq culture in texas for example. One of my first impressions of California in LA when I moved from a different state was how tasteless and bland every food I could get was. LA had a "foodie" reputation so I was shocked. Food trucks had "ok" fish tacos but even in regular tacos in mexican neighborhoods I tried were not spicy enough or even when spicy very tasty enough. I went to different neighborhoods to places with "5 star reviews" and ordered a lot using Doordash. I even took others to show them how great Thai food is and they commented (correctly) how that food they had wasn't particularly tasty. I don't know to put it, like the food was afraid to offend my taste buds maybe. In NYC the pizza, italian food, Deli food, Shawarma trucks were all amazing to me. Miami, had a lot of tasty Cuban food (best ceviche I ever had). I also had good french food in the US. You can have better tasting food in the US than anywhere in Europe, but the author is right that most people in the US don't go out of their way for that experience. The local cuisine in any part of the US reflects what the locals prefer. Any asian restaurant in the south will serve you iced tea for example and it all tastes the same. Ultimately the author and the snobbish french are criticizing the tastes of the majority of americans not what type of cooking is available. They do not believe in democracy when it comes to culinary taste, they are culinary chauvinists who believe their measurements of taste and how their food makes them feel is superior to all else. Never mind the subjectivity of culinary taste. The author is also clueless about how much food means to americans. In most of the US outside major cities, there is little to do outside of work other than eat. Just drive a lot to places and eat. Home cooking and soulfood mean a lot in the south. The author and others just refuse to open their minds up to the possibility that other people can taste the same food (like me and LA area food) and have that mean something wildly different to them. How the food makes us feel is what we like ultimately and that is shaped by our life experience.
- PeterStuer 3y agoWhenever I visit two things stand out to me: - the abhorrent sweetness of nearly all things. There's some sort of sugar added to everything that makes it quite gross if your pallet is not accustomed to that. - in contrast, the absolute blandness of fruit and vegtables. It is almost like they removed all the taste from those and replaced it with water. It does look very good though, spotless and excessively large, almost perfect, but tastes like nothing. Also portion size, while this already has become oversized in Europe as well over the last two decades (with the exception of high end 7 course meals in expensive restaurants that are more bitesized), the US serves portions that would comfortably feed a family of 4. One nice thing for the none timezone adjusted when you fly in: hotels serve steak for breakfast. That would be hard to find here.
- CivBase 3y agoI've never been to France but as a midwesterner, I can confidently say I have easy access to a wide variety of farm fresh fruit, vegetables, and meat. I still often choose to eat fattier, saltier foods with lots of preservatives, but that doesn't mean it's unavailable. Whether that makes my cuisine "worse" depends entirely on the metric you're using.
- mazugrin2 3y agoWe have better food than France by any measure I could come up with. Despite this, the typical person living in France is eating far better foods than we are.
- underdeserver 3y agoThe joke I remember had "the cooks are Italian, the lovers French", not the other way around. Are Italians known for love?
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- tayo42 3y agoWhat a topic. The most disappointing thing for me coming back to the US from abroad is the food. We have a lot of immigrants but for whatever reason the food here just doesn't stand up to where it comes from. American food it self is pretty underwhelming. It lacks flavor. Americans won't eat the flavorful parts of meat, wont eat anything with a head. Even boring Britain eats blood in blood sausage, you cant get out side specialty butchers in the US. It tastes great. Why can't we get fresh shrimp with their heads and shells on? The parts with all of the flavor. There are no spices or intense flavors. Even the sub cuisines the US does do OK in doesn't have intense flavors. BBQ got brought up which often relies on sweet sauces. NYC pizza is a close to other countries ime of what food is like. It can be fast and good. It can be high end if desired. It's iconic and almost every likes it. Halal trucks also. Food trucks seemed to have potential, where people could experiment but they have gotten expensive, basically sit down restaurant prices. Singapore has the best food culture imo. If you want an example what to strive for. Where there is good food at all price levels and experiences. People expect good food. To many places in the US get away with bullshit. Part of the issue with the US i think is that its to hard to run a restaurant. There is to much overhead, regulation, hiring i suspect. So food quality suffers to keep a profit. There are to many mid tier burger places serving that same things. You cant just run a grill on the side of the road in the US with some seating. IDK what with these comments acting like food in France is only baguettes and cheese? One of the popular food places in la marais is a falaffel place. Damn I keep going, US has so much potential but its just wasted.
- keiferski 3y agoThis writer is a prime example of a new writing genre, the American that sees the best in other countries but the worst in his own. It’s irritatingly present everywhere, especially by people (like the author) that have admittedly spent a couple months in France but feel justified in saying things about the food culture. Here’s my experience, having lived in Europe and traveled around for about a decade. - French coffee is terrible. American coffee options are dramatically better and the vision of American coffee as watery and overroasted is about two decades out of date. In fact, the entire third wave modern coffee industry is an American food phenomenon. Italian espresso and Turkish coffee, the “predecessors” of contemporary coffee culture, are actually not that appealing to most people in real life. - America is significantly more comfortable with experimentation that just about anywhere. Sometimes this has bad results. Other times it has world-changing ones. A fairly significant amount of “food innovation” in Old World countries is actually traceable to American experiments. Edit: just wanted to also add that this meme of all European meals as being “I’ll pick up some ingredients from the local grocer, then spend two hours preparing the meal, which itself is an hours-long social gathering” is just that - a meme. It happens sometimes, maybe more than in America. But Europeans eat fast food, they buy prepackaged meals at big box grocery stores, they get lazy, like anyone else on planet earth.
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoIt's weird, in the 90s and 00s the people I met who had never left America seemed to think America was #1. Now, the people who have never left America seem to think it's shit. Ultimately it's just a lack of a frame of reference plus whatever they consume in their favorite media bias channel.
- legitster 3y ago> The reality of food in America, outside of a few high-status neighborhoods scattered around the US, is that most people don’t prioritize the varied experiences of eating at a diversity of bespoke restaurants, and so the median food eaten in the US is not from some well reviewed Indonesian place on the Upper East Side, or from that really cool Bolivian place in Alexandria. Okay, but like the median food eaten in France is not fresh baguettes and pate either. So then this is still not a fair comparison. But I think there is largely some truth that the US mostly inherited a Northern European food culture that valued utilitarian foods that preserve well. The idea of getting fresh groceries every day to Americans is pretty abhorrent.
- teo_zero 3y ago> the median food eaten in France is not fresh baguettes and pate It is. Fresh food every day is the norm, not an exception.
- morsecodist 3y ago> I’ve spent enough time in places like Germany, Japan, Romania, Vietnam, Turkey, and Peru, to understand how different we are when it comes to food, and to see how little it matters to us, culturally speaking, compared to almost everyone else. I am skeptical of this trope that Americans are somehow uniquely spiritually deficienct (for lack of a better term). I have heard this about food, socialization, work culture, and just about everything else. I used to believe it before I had really travelled or met people from other countries. I even planned to move to a different country because I had always been told of how much better they were. I wouldn't call myself worldly now but the more exposure I have the more I feel people are fairly similar everywhere. They have different preferences partially shaped by their experiences and countries have various pros, cons, and quirks but it's along a spectrum. I don't think absolute statements about counties like this are particularly informative.
- stjohnswarts 3y agoIt's amazing to me that someone would have the audacity and simple-mindedness to declare that 330 million people don't have any food culture. It boggles the mind. America is not France, or England, or India, it's food culture is as valid as any other country's.
- hzay 3y ago"Authentic X-country food" in US is not authentic. The mildest andhra chicken curry is unbearable for the average American palate. What US has is the appearance of diversity.
- fxd123 3y ago> Food in the US isn’t central to our identities, not yet at least. It is still largely a utilitarian and transactional thing— something necessary to get enough calories, hopefully tasty ones, to stop being hungry and keep working. Food is a utilitarian and transactional thing across the entire world. Especially in countries that have food scarcity. The writer is bashing food that is 'transactional', when the article is literally about how he's paid a lot of money to travel the world and try diverse cuisine...
- tornato7 3y agoI have a friend, one of the most unique individuals I've met, who proves that it's possible to have strong food culture in the US (SF at least). For him, food is an all-day event starting at 6:30am when he goes down to the docks to buy fresh fish. Then he'll go to an olive orchard to pick olives, which he takes to a friend who has the machinery to make olive oil. He picks cilantro from his garden to start the chimichurri as he peels garbanzo beans for the hummus. Etc etc. When I was visiting him I wanted to stop by the Safeway a block from his house and he was fascinated by it because he had never been to a Safeway before. It's amazing, and I respect it a lot, but here I am, I just ate some freeze dried french fries, and I'm OK with it. Most Americans are like me, and we're all OK with it. That's the point of the article. But, I will say, if you want to be a true foodie in America, the opportunity is there.
- jandrewrogers 3y agoThe notion that the US has a singular food culture is suspect, it is much too large and too regionally and ethnically diverse for that to be operative. I always find it odd when Americans think the US has shit food options. Sure, there are parts of the US that have poor options but that is true across Europe too. Europe is not the good parts of France. I’ve spent a lot of time across Europe and am a food nerd. I’ve also lived across several different parts of the US with distinctive culinary cultures. There are a few things which I think don’t translate well in this conversation. The US is a very large place with diverse climates and local agriculture, with different regions settled by different ethnic groups that have very different food that reflects local agriculture. Several claims are region dependent, both in the US and Europe. The US also has diverse cultures in relation to food, the eating and food preparation rituals are quite different across the US in my experience. As an easy example, there is no food culture in Europe that is materially superior to Mexican food culture, which is the major operative food culture in parts of the US. I loved living in those parts of the US for that alone. There are a few recurring patterns in the cuisine though. Many parts of the US have much better and more diverse vegetables, it is one of the things most consistently commented on by USians that live in Europe (I agree FWIW). Seafood is better in many parts of Europe, outside of New England and the Pacific Northwest. Beef in the US is better. Cheese in Europe is better. Things like bread depend entirely on where you are on either continent. Beer is mostly (not always) better on average in the US these days, and was often recognized as such a century ago before Prohibition destroyed it. USian food culture is really diverse. If you do a road trip across all 50 states and eat the truly local cuisine and experience the culture around that cuisine, it is astonishingly local and often surprising. Much of it was brought by immigrants from Europe, or Asia on the west coast, and adapted to the local ingredients and milieu. I love European cuisine and many aspects of the culture around it. Some of it is qualitatively better than the US. But many parts of the US have strong iconic food cultures that have no European equivalent that are unjustifiably ignored, with BBQ, Southern, and Mexican probably being the most identifiable. I don’t even like some of it but I recognize the rich culinary and cultural history of this food and the amount of care that goes into preparing it.
- graycat 3y agoThere is some significant food culture in the US: (1) In grad school, the little town had lots of pizza shops with booths good for student couples! One of our profs was from Italy, and we asked him which was better, US pizza or Italian pizza? His definite answer: US! (2) I make pizza: Currently have a batch of dough rising: 750 milligrams of water, 1 Tablespoon of active, dry yeast, 1 Tablespoon of salt, and 1000 grams of bread and pizza flour. Water, yeast, salt, and flour -- they may be the standard ingredients for a lot of breads, French baguettes, and Italian pizza and are part of culture. (3) Last week had a big dinner -- carryout Chinese. We tried, but the Chinese food is a lot better in NY! (4) I was raised on picnic pork shoulder BBQ, chopped. Now I'm where get the same thing except "pulled". I make picnic pork shoulder BBQ -- on a rack in the bottom half of a granite roasting pan in an oven at 200 F to an internal temperature of 180 F (maybe 10+ hours) and then separate, chop, and sauce. Maybe add coleslaw. (5) At least in NYC, the pastrami and corned beef can be terrific! (6) US has strong traditions of turkey and/or ham at Thanksgiving and/or Christmas. The gravy and dressing can be quite good. Typically there are deviled eggs, various salads, vegetable dishes, maybe some French cut green beans with some beef consomme, etc., various desserts, etc. There is a lot of associated "culture". (7) Backyard outdoor grilled food parties are a big thing, a big "culture". (8) The best in ice cream is really good, and likely the US has the best in the world. (9) US pies, apple, cherry, pecan, etc., can be world class good desserts. (10) US T-bone steaks are world class food. (11) A California style Caesar Salad, borrowing a lot from France, can be terrific: So, the dressing starts with oil, vinegar, mustard, garlic, herbs, and then anchovies and an egg as an emulsifier. Then there are toasted bread cubes with the dressing as "croutons". The greens are Romaine lettuce. And can have more, e.g., some meats. It can be quite good and filling. (12) The US does good things with lobster. (13) The US was drinking enough fine wines from Europe -- e.g., from Bordeaux, Burgundy -- that wine growing got to be serious in NY and now CA, apparently a big, huge thing in CA. (14) Can argue that in an important sense the US is by a wide margin the best in food in the world: So, look at the research and books of Nathan Myhrvold https://modernistcuisine.com/ That is, after doing mathematical physics for Hawking and getting rich at Microsoft, he attacked food seriously scientifically.
- thiht 3y agoAnother example that makes me cringe every time is how Americans seem to have absolutely no knowledge or respect for food names. Like the champagne vs sparkling wine debate. Like, yeah, champagne specifically comes from the champagne region, and it’s a white sparkling wine made with the « méthode traditionnelle ». We have hundreds of wines made with traditional method, with their own name, many better than actual champagne. But if you allow yourself to call everything champagne, you lose variety AND quality (just use crappy wine with a soda stream and call that champagne, this is probably what you get in some places in the US). Same for cheeses, don’t call it gruyère if it’s not Swiss or French, it might be the same ingredient, the same recipe, and might taste the same or even better fwiw, if it’s not from the correct region it’s not gruyère. And don’t get me started on American « parmesan ». If you don’t respect name, there’s no way to be sure you’re getting the real stuff, and at this point you’re juste at the mercy of big industries selling you whatever crap they want. That’s why American products suck.
- bandrami 3y agoI remember this Twitter thread and, as someone from the south, I was bemused that the defenders of the US mostly talked about restaurants rather than barbecue. Also how few people made fun of France for how much they love their (catastrophic) version of the taco.
- sotix 3y agoIt’s telling that the presented argument for our best food is barbecue, food that lacks vegetables. Us Americans do not know how to properly cook vegetables. Personally, I’ll take Greek and Italian cooking over French, but anything is better than the US. When I look at what my American grandparents ate vs my Greek grandparents, the difference is shocking. My American grandparents and friends cook meals like steak, potatoes, and asparagus, which I find remarkably bland. When they go out to eat, they go to restaurants where there are no vegetarian dishes, everything is cooked in butter, and often has sugar added. The food is so over-engineered to stimulate the taste buds. They are going primarily for the atmosphere. When I cook at home, I mostly make Greek recipes: - Yemista: stuffed tomatoes and peppers with rice, pine nuts, and herbs - Dolamdes: Grape leaves stuffed with rice - Spanakopita: Phyllo stuffed with spinach and feta - Potatoes roasted in olive oil drizzled with lemon juice Not everything is stuffed, but that’s what the Greeks are great at! The food is so much simpler and more flavorful than steak and potatoes. When I’m in Greece, my family hardly eats any meat because the vegetables dishes are so great. Country salad with fresh tomatoes, onions and lettuce. Xorta: freshly boiled greens. Multiple dishes with eggplant and tomatoes cooked in olive oil. Kalamata olives and spread. Etc. In Greece, love is expressed through food, so people spend a lot of time cooking food at home. But the quality of food at restaurants is so wonderful as well. It’s delicious, made with simpler ingredients, and vastly more healthy than what is served in most restaurants around me, which are unfortunately Texmex (flavorful but extremely unhealthy). I have had wonderful vegetable dishes in Asian, Ethiopian, and Indian cuisine as well, but since I’m Greek, I recommend people tryout Greek cooking some time. It’s wonderful food and much vegetable focused than the stereotypical gyro. A good cookbook to get started is Ikaria by Diane Kochilas.