4 ms·

Because there was a lot of cultural cross-contamination between these countries, there is a huge overlap in ingredients due to climate similarities and trade be

• pzo 7mo ago
  > Makes no sense, same with "I'm in a mood for asian food" Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese, Indian food / cuisine even thought different is more probably closer to each other same like e.g. Polish and Spanish is closer to each other than to most other asian cuisine.
  • 0x457 7mo ago
    Asian countries developed with more overlap in basic ingredients, cooking techniques, and historical influence networks than Europe did. Historically there were 3 influence zones in Asia. There is a lot of pickling, fermenting, salting, drying. In Asia of these techniques were more or less unified. Fish sauces from different countries are Pepsi vs Coca-Cola level of difference. > Polish and Spanish is closer to each other than to most other asian cuisine. I'd say Polish has a lot of similarities with Asian cuisine. Sure, both have stews and sausages, but flavor profiles are very different: acidic vs sour. I won't be able to tell difference between gyoza & wonton if they shaped the same, but surely I can tell difference between ravioli & uszka. Uszka is IMO closer to any dumpling from Asia than to anything European.
    • graemep 7mo ago
      I disagree with that. There is nothing in South Asian cuisine similar to sashimi or to soy heavy stir fries. Very few east Asian dishes use the spices most popular in South Asia. Spaghetti is far more similar to noodles than it is to any South Asia equivalent I can think of. Yes, a filled pasta is a very different thing from dumpling, but a lot of European cuisines have dumplings.
      • 0x457 7mo ago
        > but a lot of European cuisines have dumplings. Those were brought to them most likely by China in one way or another. > Yes, a filled pasta is a very different thing from dumpling, You saying it like a filled pasta and a dumpling isn't the same twist on "filling encased in thin dough". > There is nothing in South Asian cuisine similar to sashimi or to soy heavy stir fries. Dish is ingredients and method. Stir-frying is a Chinese technique (technically multiples, but all originated in China). Ingredients get replaces all the time for various reasons. You're telling me Poriyal is not close relative to the OG stir-fry?
  • rayiner 7mo ago
    Japanese food and Indian food are as different from each other as Indian food and Italian food.
  • AlotOfReading 7mo ago
    I'm not sure how you arrive at that opinion. Take the example of Punjabi food. It's heavily based around ghee and dairy. Does anything in Thai cuisine use butter except European style pastries? The only major similarities I see uniting the national cuisines you listed (not regional ones) are things like curries and rice. The former arrived in Japan with European influence (where it's also common in colonial countries) and the latter isn't a feature common to all Asian cuisines (e.g. Mongolian).
    • account42 7mo ago
      India is really the odd one out here. For all the others soy sauce is a pretty common and often defining ingredient.
• armandososa 7mo ago
  > I group European & American food into their respective groups as well. If by "American" you mean "Unitedstatesian" then I agree. But Latinamerican food is worlds apart from what the US and Canada eat.
  • hunter2_ 7mo ago
    Oddly enough, many Canadians use the word "American" to refer to Unitedstatesians, so presumably they'd use it to describe cuisine that same way (as in, poutine is Canadian but disco fries are American). This is extremely analogous to the Asia conversation, in that of course people know the term comes from the continental scale, but using that scale is less common, so it must be specifically invoked. And then you've got Puerto Ricans, who are definitely US'ian but eat more like the non-US'ian Americans, so who knows what they would think of if you ask about American food, but it wouldn't surprise me if Contiguousunitedstatesian is the default (i.e., the same cuisine the Canadians would be referring to).
• miki123211 7mo ago
  What would you consider the major differences between European and American? I feel like as Europeans, we're as good at importing American food as America is about importing European.
  • jimnotgym 7mo ago
    American food is things like beef jerky, pemmican, maize breads. European food is things like hamburgers, French fries, hotdogs, and apple pie. This is getting silly Edit: added a missing comma
    • rkomorn 7mo ago
      As European as American apple pie or as American as European apple pie?
  • 0x457 7mo ago
    > I feel like as Europeans, we're as good at importing American food as America is about importing European. What you call European food is a direct result of importing American food. Just different Americans...
    • account42 7mo ago
      There's plenty of European food without potatoes and tomatoes. And even then, incorporating ingredients originally native to the Americas doesn't really mean "importing American food".
• jimnotgym 7mo ago
  Ah I think I get it. Asian food = contains rice European food = contains wheat American food = contains liquefied synthetic cheese?
  • tesseract 7mo ago
    American food contains maize, obviously. This works for multiple understandings of the word "American" :)
  • 0x457 7mo ago
    Pretty much, but not exactly. There is also a cooking technique (so American will be deep-fried). Most national dishes are nothing more than adaptation of dishes from another country. Sometimes tweaks to ingredients, sometimes tweaks to techniques.
    • ChrisMarshallNY 7mo ago
      A popular carnival dish in the American South, is deep-fried Twinkies. A popular incendiary device in the US, is a turkey fryer; traditionally ignited in November.
    • account42 7mo ago
      Asians also deep fry a lot of things, perhaps even more than Americans outside of fast food.
  • nkrisc 7mo ago
    American food = contains corn (maize), in all its glorious (ex. nixtamalized, unprocessed, flour, etc.) and unholy (ex. high fructose corn syrup) forms.
• input_sh 7mo ago
  "American" is as broad as Asian and even more annoying. I ate some great food in Surinamese restaurants, but I'm guessing that's not what you meant by using that word. The same goes for "European", Nordic cousine is very different than the Balkan cousine, which is very different than the Iberian cousine and so on.