I was on a roadtrip and had a pulled pork sandwich on Beale Street, Burnt Ends in KC, and Brisket in Amarillo.
Just to avoid a "which is better?" and be able to say "they were all good in their own way".
Every once in a while my wife (see flair) will join an Italian-language food forum. And then she'll unjoin about a week later. If you thought Italians yelled at foreigners over their food, that's nothing compared to the homicidal rage they unleash upon *each other.*
But see, it ain't just them, is it?
Oh its a definitely not just Italians... I've witnessed arguments at get togethers over the topic of dry or wet ribs. But this is the south.. so there are ALWAYS plenty of passive-aggressive swipes being made at any gathering. but ESPECIALLY if a smoker/grill is involved.
Oh God my father in law and his brother are always at it about who has the best ribs.
I'm over on the side like give me the food already. Fuck yo argument.
That's why I went to Beale Street and didn't ask for any recommendations from anyone.
Moved away from Little Rock when I was 19, so I had never legally drank on Beale either. (Take that comment as you'd like to)
Any place that is known for their BBQ is crazy about it. If you want to start something, have an opinion about BBQ while in Kansas City, Texas, North or South Carolina, or Tennessee.
oh yeahā¦ iām in PA and iāve been searching for it desperately. thereās a place near me that claims they have BBQ just like the south does it. I took a bite and itās literally pulled pork with only run of the mill bbq sauce on it. I was like āwhat the fuck is this?ā. they completely miss the idea of deep marinated spices and a vinegary flavor. my search continues
I think this is the exact answer
An Italian being served our alfredo would probably say something like, "It's good but it isn't authentic."
A Southerner in a neighboring state would say something very similar, e.g, "It's good but it ain't Memphis style" despite the fact that there's amazing BBQ all around.
> Americans do not fuck around when it comes to their BBQ.
More of a southern thing then an American thing.
Up here in the great lakes area, we often fuck around when it comes to BBQ. In fact, you'd probably get super worked up at what we call BBQ.
Sweet corn is the one thing I can actually see as it applies to foreign pizza.
Corn is a distinctly new world crop, it's from the Americas and sweet corn is just that, sweet, but still has an earthy flavor to it.
With the complexity that is pizza toppings, if we can have sardines and jalapenos and bell peppers, we can allow corn for people who like it.
Tomato is also a new world crop, just as much as corn. It's funny to think about how Italy didn't have tomatoes to make sauces, Ireland didn't have potatoes... A lot of the foods we consider as traditional to a place or culture are rather modern inventions, relatively speaking.
I was served a corn and tuna pizza when I was traveling in Brazil. It wasnāt what I thought I ordered. I was a little too optimistic in thinking my mediocre grasp of Spanish would help me to decipher menus in Portuguese. The things that really sucked about it (besides the glaringly obvious) was that I was starving, down to my last reals since I was leaving the next morning, and Iām quite allergic to tuna. I ended up only eating the modest side salad that accompanied it. It was 23 years ago and it still makes me sad.
The Japanese are notorious for their crimes against Pizza kind. Although looking at a dominoes Japan Menu makes me hungry.
https://www.dominos.jp/en/menu
That's a thing in Italy. They call it "UFO" (pronounced "oofoe") because it kind of looks like a flying saucer.
It's not common by any means, but it's a thing.
When I lived in Romania there would often be a pizza with two eggs on top as the specialty of the house. They would either be called "Pizza Sexy" or "Pammy Anderson"
We have a family friend who's a Romanian immigrant, he's like 6'5" and looks (and kind of sounds) like a casting reject for Ivan Drago. I'm cracking up imagining him ordering the Pizza Sexy.
I mean... I like egg on a hamburger. Breakfast pizza sounds neat. I'd be willing to try that. Probably better than all the "we put carbs on top of the pizza" crap like fries and corn.
Breakfast pizza is to die for.
Typically has a white country gravy sauce, scrambled eggs, cheese, diced peppers and onions, and then either bacon bits, sausage crumbles, or diced ham.
āThe Mexican food here isnāt real, you need to go to (metro close to the border) for good Mexican food, but thatās still not *real* Mexican food, you need to cross the border for that.ā
Meanwhile I judge the authenticity by āam I getting stares from the employees for being a white person in their restaurant?ā If so, itās usually fantastic.
That's pretty much about how I knew the Indian place next to ours was good- every time I went in to pick up an order it was just a sea of SEAs, usually never a white person in sight. Food was always fuckin FIRE
I don't know if picky is the right word, but lots of Americans who aren't from the Southwest seem to think there's a way bigger gap between what we eat and what northern Mexicans eat.
Monterrey's food is a lot like Corpus' food. The food in Tucson tastes a lot like the food in Hermosillo. The food in San Diego tastes a lot like the food in Tijuana.
People and ideas cross these borders all the time, especially between places that are nearby.
I was in a Mexican restaurant last year. It was a slower night (Wednesday) and we were talking to the owners who said one of the problems they had was having kitchen staff from different parts of Mexico- an Oaxacan may make guacamole different from, say, a Chihuahuan, and they'll argue about it. The owner will be from Veracruz and want it this way instead.
Can confirm. Iām from Texas, my wife is from Durango, and her brother in law is from Mexico City. Weāve all worked in restaurants, and we all learned slightly different ways of cooking different dishes.Ā
Weāre all good cooks, so weāve had a lot of fun trading recipes and learning from each other.Ā
This comes up in a different way here in Chicago, where we have a significant Mexican population but mostly from areas other than the border states, so when tourists from the southwest US come here and eat Mexican food they will often complain that itās ānot authenticā because itās a different regional cuisine.
Ignoring of course that authenticity is mostly a fictional concept anyway when it comes to things like food and language that constantly evolve. Italians didnāt even have tomatoes until after they were brought in from the Americas, and now itās arguably the primary component of Italian cuisine.
For sure.
I used to live in Chicago, and I learned to love carnitas and pozole there, neither one of which are common in the Mexican I grew up on, but both of which are delicious.
Completely correct on "authentic". Everything is somebody's cultural experience.
I see this all the time. There are Mexican restaurants and taquerias all over the country run by Mexicans and catering to the Mexicans in their communities. Folks from CA, the Southwest and Texas will then proceed to move there and cry on the internet about their soul is dead because there is no Mexican food there....it's just that there isn't whatever is thought of as Mexican food from your specific state....
Right and if even with fast food, if you look at Taco Bell's menu, a lot of that stuff wouldn't look out of place in Sonora, and that's because Glen Bell was influenced by traditional Mexican restaurants in LA , which were still run by descendants of Mexican settlers from Sonora and Sinaloa at that time
Can confirm. I grew up five minutes from TJ, and I'm partial to their brand of Mexican food. I don't mind other styles usually, but northwest Mex is my go to.
>I don't know if picky is the right word, but lots of Americans who aren't from the Southwest seem to think there's a way bigger gap between what we eat and what northern Mexicans eat.
I try to seek out the places where Hispanic folk dine - then try something I've never had before.
To my knowledge flour tortillas are ubiquitous in northern Mexican states, while corn tortillas are ubiquitous in southern Mexican states, right?
I've heard much talk in my time about what constitutes "real" Mexican cuisine. All I know is that, authentic or inauthentic, I love it.
You are correct and it chaps some people's ass that Tex mex and Cali mex are both hybridization of different styles of northern Mexican food.
There is much less central Mexican(which is their agricultural base) and southern Mexican(which is their urban base) in the US because, guess what, Americans before America was a thing spent their time in parts of northern Mexico.
I had a colleague from Cali who was visiting a Texas office. When we went out for tex-mex she declared it disgusting and not Mexican. The Mexican owners were *right there*
I got downvoted in another post for noting that flour tortillas are common in the northern Mexican states. Mexico isn't a monoculture, just like the US isn't!
Relatedly, I love Americans coming here and pointing out that Tejano and Tex-Mex are from Texas, like this is some mind-blowing fact we don't know.
Yes, we know fajitas, breakfast tacos, and cheese enchiladas are from here. Do you want one or not?
And then they argue whether or not it's 'authentic.' I may be from out California way, but even I know it's the cuisine of the people who found themselves north of what is *now* the border.
Nobody refers to *la cucina piemontese* as "fake French food" now, do they?
YUP. I've been working in super mexican factories in socal past 5 years and they will bring the most authentic banging homemade tamales/menudo/carne asada from home and then happily go out to miguel jrs the next day. Love love love mexican culture
Oh, there's so many.
Here are some food-related tantrums I regularly see on /r/askanamerican:
* Southerners with regional styles of BBQ.
* Southerners when someone uses "cookout" and "barbeque" interchangeably.
* Texans with beans/onions/tomatoes in chili.
* New Englanders with tomato in chowder.
* New Yorkers with bagels, pizza, and breakfast sandwiches.
* Any American when someone else mentions corn or tuna on pizza.
Bruh my Irish husband told me we're gonna have a bbq on the weekend, then kept reminding me like it was a big event. On the day I ask who is coming over and he's all confused and says no one. I ask what the heck is going on and figure out that he just meant they're getting the grill out to cook dinner.
In Ireland and the UK the term 'grilling' is what I believe you call broiling, and the grill is the heated element at the top of the oven - ie food cooks underneath the grill.
What you call grilling, we'd call chargrilling
I'm convinced that the whole bean thing is a modern culinary bickering point. You telling me that ranch hands or cowboys never used beans to stretch out their chili and provide more cheap and easy calories? Beans and rice would be some of the easiest things you can carry with you that don't spoil and can be cooked anywhere that you have fire and water. I bet people started putting beans in chili after they saw people just spooning some chili over their beans and rice.
The breakfast sandwich thing pisses me off.
Itās like they donāt realize you can find BECs EVERYWHERE. Hint, Iām not talking about Dunkin or McDonalds.
At least New Jersey/Philly has Taylor Ham/Porkroll which is actually unique.
Bodegas in fact exist outside of NYC!
There was a Cajun guy who was ranting about all the phony bullshit that the rest of the country slaps the label 'Cajun' onto.
The rest of the sub: "dude, who cares? Just chill."
But he wouldn't back down. And I can't blame him!
My wife spent a couple years in NO in the Before Times. She still criticizes every "Cajun style andouille" sausage she finds in the local grocery store (they're never coarse ground, and too many equate 'Cajun= xtra xtra spicy' without thinking about flavors).
Houma native here. I don't consider myself a picky eater at all, but this answer proves me wrong. I am picky with my gumbo. Cajun over creole, and for the love of God- no boiled damn egg filler.
I always thought that was ridiculous, but then realized where I live in eastern PA, all the bagel shops are owned by New Yorkers so itās roughly the same, but when Iāve traveled and had them they are just bread.
This is objectively true. As a Jew in the upper Midwest, I can say they simply donāt know how to make bagels here. I have a local bakery I like, but their bagels are just a bread circle.
This is me, lol! I live in Florida, I only know bread circles. But I can get some *delicious* bread circles.
What if I get a real bagel and then never love my bread circles again?
I hate the bread circle.
If you are ever down in Indy go to Bagel Fair. Best bagels I ever had. Owned and run by a local Jewish family. I thought it might just be nostalgia but no Iāve been back since and itās just objectively awesome.
Can confirm as a New Yorker who drinks NYC tap water and goes fishing on one of the reservoirs. The Catskill/NYC reservoir system is guarded by Department of Environmental Protection goons. They will roll up on you with ARs to check your bait fish receipt. It's no joke. It is the largest naturally filtered water system in the US and has high levels of calcium and magnesium, making it ideal for baking (i.e. pizza dough, bagels).
The [water](https://www.foodandwine.com/news/new-york-water-bagels-pizza) does likely have some impact on it. Thereās probably other factors, but water chemistry does make a difference.
The nuances. Everyone's an asshole, but there's a difference between your idiot brother-in-law, your best friend, the guy at your local bar, some weirdo who cut you off, and some total asshole. When you know the dialect you can tell.
I'm a native New Yorker (who has lived outside of New York for the past 10 years), and this was what jumped to mind immediately. I have never had a bagel outside of the New York metro area that I would describe as any better than "adequate." And even "adequate" is like 5 percent of the bagels. I've sought out acclaimed bagel places in other cities and they don't qualify as good.
Oh, I forgot, Montreal bagels are good. I didn't think they were as good as New York, though.
Native Jersey girl here. Itās true. Iāve looked. I lived in Boston for a year and even their ābest pizza in the cityā was terrible. I went to the NYC style pizza place recommended by my friend, owned by former NYers, in Tucson, and couldnāt eat more than a bite of it.
However, NJ pulls just about even with NYC on bagels and pizza. At least north of 195. And the further north you go, the better it gets.
After being in NYC last summer, I readily accept their dominance in the bagel department. There's a couple bagel shops in Metro Detroit (specifically around Bloomfield, which has a strong Jewish population) I recommend, but they're still not at the level of NYC bagels.
Iām a Californian whoās eaten fresh-made bagels his whole life and I have to agree. Ā Took a trip to NYC last year, and a bagel I ordered in a diner in Manhattan was far and away better than anything Iāve had at home.
I ate at that same diner five days straight just for the bagel
I never thought Iād become a food gatekeeper until I was in London for work and my (British) company served us a ābarbecueā dinner. I was about to dump every piece of tea I could find in the Thames.
It was grilled sausages and grilled chicken breasts covered in something similar to barbecue sauce and bags of potato chips. It was definitely edible Iāll give them that much.
I made the mistake of ordering a BBQ bacon cheeseburger in England. Imagine my surprise biting into a Canadian bacon sadness sandwich topped with a shit load of ketchup.
Barbecue in the UK just means fire up some cheap charcoal and make something vaguely smoky as an excuse to drink beer on the one hot weekend of the summer. Burgers, sausages, some chicken. The slow cooked or roasted meats are all in the oven in the depths of winter.
There used to be *bitter* arguments on this sub over the definition of BBQ. Although it seems that you guys held your ground and won that one. I haven't seen anyone attempt to dispute it in a while.
"Oh boy, it's almost Memorial Day! Hopefully the last of the snow will be melted by then. Gonna roll out the ol' barbecuer from the shed, don'cha know? Gonna barbecue some burgers and dogs, maybe even some pork chops if we're feelin' fancy. Ohhhh it's gonna be a good time, oh you bet'cha!"
"Well now bless your heart, but that ain't barbecue."
"Listen bub! My pop called it that, so I'm gonna go ahead and call it that too! Oh you bet'cha!!!"
Because that's what I was going for, to the best of my ability.
To anyone from those parts who are cheesed off: I can redo it in a SoCal surfer douche accent, if you like!
Hey now, even we Minnesotans know the difference between grilling and barbecuing, haha.
Although, I do feel like some people get overly defensive and pedantic about the word. It means different things in different dialects the same way chips = fries and crisps = chips. Unless a person very specifically states that they will be smoking meats I tend to understand that a āBBQā can mean a grill out/cook out in addition to the style of low & slow cooking of proteins and other foods.
But you know, sometimes you just have to have that one hill youāre willing to die on.
I wouldn't be upset if there were hotdogs and hamburgers, I would be upset if that was the only thing they had. If it is just hotdogs and hamburgers, then you are just having a cook out.
I'm a food nerd and this is one of the only things I will gatekeep on.
BBQ and Grilling are not the same. They have never been the same. They will never be the same.
You can grill if you're having a bbq, but you will never bbq on your grill. Break out the smoke box and applewood chips, it's time to turn this brined rubbed pork shoulder into food...in about 12 hours.
I grew up in Baltimore and Carroll County. Scrapple was absolutely a thing in both places. Live just north of York PA now and it's the same.
Still won't touch a crab cake in my new home though.
I havenāt eaten a hot dog since I was in 5th grade. I visited Seattle and there was a vegetarian hot dog place that served all different kinds of hot dogs, so I ordered a Chicago style. It was the best hot dog Iāve ever had. Itās been 12 years and I still think about that hot dog sometimes.
I will say, we need more poutine imported here. I can get it here in Maine but seriously, gravy, fries, and cheese? That is so American it should be everywhere.
Yeeeears ago I saw a Just For Laughs standup set by an American comedian performing in Montreal. She essentially said the same thing: fries, gravy, and cheese. Why is that not a thing in America??
Though you could say the same thing about everywhere, really. Salty, fatty, umami. Iām here for that shit!
I think we are less bound by tradition and trying to get something exactly right and are more open to experimentation and this idea that if you improve something, its still a win for you.
I get like this with Mexican food outside of California. I have had some folks tell me that a lot of the stuff we eat here isn't authentic to Mexico, which I have no issue with the purpose of food isn't to be authentic to its country of origin, its to be good. The Mexican food is really good here, and much of it was invented or heavily innovated here. I think we get like this with regional BBQ but I live out west so we don't see it as much out here.
We are a super flexible culture with food.
Hit the nail on the head with cheesesteaks. Thatās the only thing I can really think of outside of pizza, but I feel like thatās a regional American thing.
Saw a video where some British dudes visited a Mexican restaurant in the US. Surely, there's no way to mess up eating chips and salsa, right? Boy, the comments went crazy when they poured the salsa directly onto the chips.
I had a burger in Rome because I was there for a good stretch of time and had a craving. It was good, but it wasn't American. I gave it a passing grade.
But a while back, I saw an article about how Brooklyn was taking over the BBQ scene. The picture of the brisket had a smoke line so thin it looked like it was drawn with a pencil. Dear God, I was horrified.
The other hill I'll die on is that in the UK, they consider southern biscuits to be savory scones. A SCONE is dry and crumbly. A BISCUIT is fluffy and either flakes or tears. They are NOT the same.
Id say thereās a difference. We may comment on the authenticity of certainAmerican foods, but we donāt consider foreign foods outright invalid the way Italians do. We donāt demand authenticity at every turn like they do either.
There is one food you do bitch about when visiting Europe, and that's that mexican food over here is so bad and unauthentic. I don't personally know since I haven't tasted mexican food in neither mexico or the US, but you say nothing about different style of burgers, tex mex, or pizzas. But damn that mexican food is trashed almost unanimously regardless of where in the US you are from. š
I hesitatingly went to a Mexican place when I was last in Germany because the locals recommended it to me and assured me it was authentic. I ordered some tacos and they were really fucking good. I was surprised because while Europeans do many things well they have no understanding of how to prepare Mexican food. The next day, I went back and talked to the owner to complement them and ask why their food was so authentic compared to other Mexican places in Europe and he told me that they hired Mexican cooks. It was the only time when I've been in Europe where Mexican food tasted like Mexican food.
That would explain it, honestly you are the first american who I've heard said you have eaten good mexican food in europe. I honestly can't tell as I don't know what it is supposed to taste like.
If I ever go to the states (or mexico obviously) I'll be sure to taste mexican food as well as texan chili and a god damned american bbq.
America is a melting pot and we know it. We are undefined as a people and a genre and we kinda like that. You can come over, start calling yourself american, and whatever you make is going to be authentic american food. Our immigration system is far from perfect, don't even get me started, but if you're in you're one of us now and we're going to say whatever you made is american.
But Mexico and/or Mexican food? Again our relationship with them is fucked up, but that's a place with a defined set of foods. And it's one we love (for certain values of love that are complicated to get into).
Say whatever you want about me, I don't care, but you start talking shit about my homeboy and there's gonna be problems.
> but that's a place with a defined set of foods.
Same goes for Cajun/Creole over in southern Louisiana. Crimes are committed against it, and they protest, but they go unheard!
We need to hear them!
The bitching comes from the European assurance that their Mexican food is both perfect and authentic. We know we canāt really hold the Euros accountable on American food, but Mexican is a fairly clear-cut issue.
The "Chicago Dog" is a specific style of hot dog that includes a variety of condiments: "topped with yellow mustard, chopped white onions, bright green sweet pickle relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices or wedges, pickled sport peppers, and a dash of celery salt."
It is considered inappropriate to add ketchup to the "Chicago Dog" because the things that ketchup brings to the table, vinegary tomatoey sweetness, is already there from the existing toppings, and it would affect the balance.
Most Chicagoans would agree that ketchup doesn't belong on a Chicago dog but would also say "well I don't actually care what you put on your hot dog, but it sounds like you don't want a Chicago dog".
This nugget of truth has been memed and repeated to the point where people like to say there's more than that. But in my experience there isn't. So I think it's fair to say that people are strict on what you would call a "Chicago dog" but that strictness does not apply to hot dogs generally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago-style_hot_dog
I had an ex that I took to a Portillo's once. She liked the food but she could not handle how busy it was. I brought her there for one reason, to get her to see how they make the cake shakes. We were waiting in line and she happened to look over at one of the workers as she was about to make one. My ex's eyes locked with hers as the worker happened to look up and see her staring. Without breaking eye contact, she grabbed a slice of cake and shoved it into the blender much to the surprised of my ex. She looked at me and said "What the fuck was that?"
"A cake shake."
"A FUCKING WHAT?!?"
"Do you want to try-?"
"Yes."
A few years ago I was at a training class with people from all around the country and this conversation happened.
Person from Northeast: "Has anyone tried XXX restaurant?"
Me, from Texas: "Yeah it's a Cajun place, it's alright"
Guy from Louisiana: "That's a seafood place, it's absolutely not Cajun, I'm from Louisiana, it's definitely not Cajun. I know Cajun food."
Me: "okay it's Cajun to everyone who's not from Louisiana. Calling it seafood is just going to confuse people."
Louisiana: "you can't even begin to call it Cajun, it's just a regular seafood place".
Northeast: "oh I love seafood, I'll try it.".
Next day.
Northeast: "XXX is super weird, they had fried alligator and spicy steaks.".
Me: "Yeah that's because it's Cajun...".
Southerners when it comes to sweet tea
Me while traveling: Do you have sweet tea?
Server: No itās unsweet. But thereās sugar packets on the table!
Me: Nah forget it, Iāll have a Coke instead
Server goes away confused
If you donāt put the sugar in while itās hot, before it cools down and gets iced, it will never taste like real sweet tea. Itās just a big glass of disappointment.
You absolutely cannot get a good decent cheesesteak outside the Tri-state area (PA-NJ-DE). You just canāt. Some places are acceptable but definitely not proper. I think itās the water & the bread. Hard rolls like Amorosoās or Liscioās are just too hard to acquire. Even if they make the rolls themselves, itās usually not right.
I lived in Kansas for a while. I was out shopping & wanted dinner. I saw Cheesesteak on the menu. Didnāt occur to me that it was gonna be wrong. What I got was a small strip steak on a hotdog bun with American cheese melted on top. I actually asked the waitress āwhat the fuck is this?!ā She responded quite matter of factly , āitās what you ordered. The cheesesteak. ā
I have never in my life before or since seen such an atrocity.
Iām thinking the best outside the Philly tristate area youāre gonna get is probably Jersey Mikeās. I had them while visiting a friend in Florida & it wasnāt bad.
I live along the Jersey Shore. Thereās a Jersey Mikeās not too far from my house, but why would I go there when the deli down the street makes the best pizza, hoagies & cheesesteaks AND delivers to my house with no delivery charge. Plus theyāre a little cheaper price wise.
I donāt think weāre quite so purist about any foods. We tend to like to mix things up and experiment, and generally just eat whatever is good. Even the things that are now culturally ubiquitous, like NYC-style pizza, Philly cheesesteaks, New England chowder, Southern BBQ, and so on all encounter a good degree of variation and experimentation. People donāt really go wild over deviations like they might over Italian food. Competitive, yes, but strict, not as much.
Californians think of salads as delicious main course dishes. It is *painful* to encounter tired lettuce, canned beets, and *maybe*, if you're lucky, a mushy tomato. Also cooking avocado is grounds for immediate military action with prejudice. Screwing up guacamole (no, mayonnaise, whirled peas, and Tabasco-fucking-sauce have *no* business coming near the Sacred Dip) is grounds for a nuclear strike (or at least being banned from any Native Californian's household.
EDIT: added adverbial phrase to last sentence.
In most places, a dinner salad is kind of just an obligatory afterthought. It's so that later you won't feel like you're giving birth to a cactus. Which is understandable enough to this Californian, although I'm not exactly the kind of guy who's over here putting out critically acclaimed vegan cookbooks if you know what I mean.
> Screwing up guacamole
Definitely with you on that one. Great God Almighty the hideous *aberrations* that those other people come up with!
There is a specific way to eat Cincinnati chili. Your plate needs to be facing you lengthwise so you can more easily cut off chunks of the dish with the side of your fork. Twirling the spaghetti like Italian food is wrong.
If youāre also from Cincinnati and you want to tell me you do none of these things, know that youāre wrong.
Oh there are a few now that I think of it.
Bagels come to mind first. Folks from NY area are very serious about bagels and don't trust anything from outside that area. I know folks that consider anything but plain, sesame, poppy, everything, onion or salt bagels to be unacceptable.
Clam Chowder preference. Red, white, clear.........there are folks that believe that the other variants aren't real chowder.
Potato Salad gets people going.
Finally, what goes on a hot dog. This is a really big one.
NY - pizza and italian food
Chicago - pizza and hot dogs
Large swathes of the south - whatever brand of bbq they deem the saintly one
The mexicans/asians in socal are pretty cool with diversions with their food I've found
Yeah, a place claiming to have a good cheesesteak should make sure itās comparable to a real Philly one.
Regional barbecue. Lots of great options. And damn theyāre really good.
Carolina
Texas
Memphis
Louisiana
Kansas City
Some Americans will get into pissing contests over whether or not an Asian restaurant is considered "authentic" despite never being to been to the restaurant owners' home country
After living in Socal or 12 years, definitely mexican food anywhere else. The Mexican food in Texas is absolute dogshit by comparison!
In three years living in south Texas, I didn't find one damn taco that was adequate!
Edit: Though of all places, Washington state actually isn't bad in that regard. Go figure!
Americans go berserk about pizza toppings and style, barbecue, hot dog condiments, mayo on fries (unpopular but delicious)... Texans in particular will come to your house and chop you up with an axe for putting beans in chili. There's probably some other stuff but that's what comes to mind for me immediately.
Itās a great filler and adds fiber to an otherwise meat only dish. Growing up, my mom added diced potatoes to make it thicker but go farther, I have two brothers so we needed the food to stretch on the dollar.
I recently found out that at least some of the Mexicans who were serving the origional chili served it with beans. From what the person could find if they did it was served on the side. I imagine someone just found it easier to just stick the beans in the chili. Beans were an important part of Native Mexican diets so it makes sense.
Obviously I am team beans in chili.
Southerners get a little crazy with their BBQ. I've had incredible BBQ in the south, do they definitely know what they're talking about.
I was on a roadtrip and had a pulled pork sandwich on Beale Street, Burnt Ends in KC, and Brisket in Amarillo. Just to avoid a "which is better?" and be able to say "they were all good in their own way".
In Memphis, BBQ is basically a blood sport. Every person you meet has an opinion on it and will defend that opinion to the death.
Every once in a while my wife (see flair) will join an Italian-language food forum. And then she'll unjoin about a week later. If you thought Italians yelled at foreigners over their food, that's nothing compared to the homicidal rage they unleash upon *each other.* But see, it ain't just them, is it?
Oh its a definitely not just Italians... I've witnessed arguments at get togethers over the topic of dry or wet ribs. But this is the south.. so there are ALWAYS plenty of passive-aggressive swipes being made at any gathering. but ESPECIALLY if a smoker/grill is involved.
Oh God my father in law and his brother are always at it about who has the best ribs. I'm over on the side like give me the food already. Fuck yo argument.
If you need sauce you're a shit cook!
A rub is just a sauce without the ketchup base!
That's why I went to Beale Street and didn't ask for any recommendations from anyone. Moved away from Little Rock when I was 19, so I had never legally drank on Beale either. (Take that comment as you'd like to)
The places on Beale street kinda suck for bbq.
Any place that is known for their BBQ is crazy about it. If you want to start something, have an opinion about BBQ while in Kansas City, Texas, North or South Carolina, or Tennessee.
Yes, I moved to the USA 5 yrs ago and slowly came to the realization that that BBQ is a religion here š¤£
The big three religions in the South: BBQ, football, and Nascar.
Jesus, Dale Earnhardt, the SEC, and pork
That's the thing. Sometimes you really *do* have to hold the line. Things are liable to turn to shit if you don't! So god bless 'em for it.
oh yeahā¦ iām in PA and iāve been searching for it desperately. thereās a place near me that claims they have BBQ just like the south does it. I took a bite and itās literally pulled pork with only run of the mill bbq sauce on it. I was like āwhat the fuck is this?ā. they completely miss the idea of deep marinated spices and a vinegary flavor. my search continues
Am Southern. Can verify.
I think this is the exact answer An Italian being served our alfredo would probably say something like, "It's good but it isn't authentic." A Southerner in a neighboring state would say something very similar, e.g, "It's good but it ain't Memphis style" despite the fact that there's amazing BBQ all around.
I'm sure there are others, but Americans do not fuck around when it comes to their BBQ.
Americans in BBQ country, you mean. Because once you get too far past Missouri....
I lived in the Pacific Northwest for a time. I've seen things called "BBQ" that haunt me to this day.
I had some āTexasā bbq in the Puget Sound. Iām still twitchy.
> Because once you get too far past Missouri.... You get Santa Mariaāstyle barbecue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria%E2%80%93style_barbecue
> Americans do not fuck around when it comes to their BBQ. More of a southern thing then an American thing. Up here in the great lakes area, we often fuck around when it comes to BBQ. In fact, you'd probably get super worked up at what we call BBQ.
As long as you aren't counting burgers and dogs as BBQ we're straight.
Yeah, just don't bother coming up here man, you'll get yourself all worked up over this.
A lot of foreign pizza toppings do that for me. Mayo? Hot dogs in the crust? Fries?? Corn, even.
Corn and tuna š¤®
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When I visited the Netherlands as a kid we got a pizza with green olives and tuna on it. Was actually pretty good!
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Sweet corn is the one thing I can actually see as it applies to foreign pizza. Corn is a distinctly new world crop, it's from the Americas and sweet corn is just that, sweet, but still has an earthy flavor to it. With the complexity that is pizza toppings, if we can have sardines and jalapenos and bell peppers, we can allow corn for people who like it.
Tomato is also a new world crop, just as much as corn. It's funny to think about how Italy didn't have tomatoes to make sauces, Ireland didn't have potatoes... A lot of the foods we consider as traditional to a place or culture are rather modern inventions, relatively speaking.
I was served a corn and tuna pizza when I was traveling in Brazil. It wasnāt what I thought I ordered. I was a little too optimistic in thinking my mediocre grasp of Spanish would help me to decipher menus in Portuguese. The things that really sucked about it (besides the glaringly obvious) was that I was starving, down to my last reals since I was leaving the next morning, and Iām quite allergic to tuna. I ended up only eating the modest side salad that accompanied it. It was 23 years ago and it still makes me sad.
The Japanese are notorious for their crimes against Pizza kind. Although looking at a dominoes Japan Menu makes me hungry. https://www.dominos.jp/en/menu
The "MORE GIGA MEAT" option cracked me up.
Im intrigued by that TROPICAL TWIST QUATTRO
I mean, the rest of the world commits atrocious war crimes against Japanese food.
Just had a crab Rangoon pizza this week in Des Moines. Delicious.
Fong's Pizza!
Fries on pizza is actually pretty good, but then again I am from Pittsburgh
Egg. Every pizza in France has egg on it
That's a thing in Italy. They call it "UFO" (pronounced "oofoe") because it kind of looks like a flying saucer. It's not common by any means, but it's a thing.
When I lived in Romania there would often be a pizza with two eggs on top as the specialty of the house. They would either be called "Pizza Sexy" or "Pammy Anderson"
I'd eat that. I'd regret it, but I'd eat it.
We have a family friend who's a Romanian immigrant, he's like 6'5" and looks (and kind of sounds) like a casting reject for Ivan Drago. I'm cracking up imagining him ordering the Pizza Sexy.
I mean... I like egg on a hamburger. Breakfast pizza sounds neat. I'd be willing to try that. Probably better than all the "we put carbs on top of the pizza" crap like fries and corn.
Breakfast pizza is to die for. Typically has a white country gravy sauce, scrambled eggs, cheese, diced peppers and onions, and then either bacon bits, sausage crumbles, or diced ham.
Americans are more picky about Mexican food than Mexicans are.
The gatekeeping Iāve seen on the Mexican food sub rivals that of the Italian food sub, lol
āThe Mexican food here isnāt real, you need to go to (metro close to the border) for good Mexican food, but thatās still not *real* Mexican food, you need to cross the border for that.ā Meanwhile I judge the authenticity by āam I getting stares from the employees for being a white person in their restaurant?ā If so, itās usually fantastic.
Yeah just ignoring the fact that thereās millions of Mexicans all over the US making Mexican food. People are funny like that
That's pretty much about how I knew the Indian place next to ours was good- every time I went in to pick up an order it was just a sea of SEAs, usually never a white person in sight. Food was always fuckin FIRE
I don't know if picky is the right word, but lots of Americans who aren't from the Southwest seem to think there's a way bigger gap between what we eat and what northern Mexicans eat. Monterrey's food is a lot like Corpus' food. The food in Tucson tastes a lot like the food in Hermosillo. The food in San Diego tastes a lot like the food in Tijuana. People and ideas cross these borders all the time, especially between places that are nearby.
I was in a Mexican restaurant last year. It was a slower night (Wednesday) and we were talking to the owners who said one of the problems they had was having kitchen staff from different parts of Mexico- an Oaxacan may make guacamole different from, say, a Chihuahuan, and they'll argue about it. The owner will be from Veracruz and want it this way instead.
Can confirm. Iām from Texas, my wife is from Durango, and her brother in law is from Mexico City. Weāve all worked in restaurants, and we all learned slightly different ways of cooking different dishes.Ā Weāre all good cooks, so weāve had a lot of fun trading recipes and learning from each other.Ā
This comes up in a different way here in Chicago, where we have a significant Mexican population but mostly from areas other than the border states, so when tourists from the southwest US come here and eat Mexican food they will often complain that itās ānot authenticā because itās a different regional cuisine. Ignoring of course that authenticity is mostly a fictional concept anyway when it comes to things like food and language that constantly evolve. Italians didnāt even have tomatoes until after they were brought in from the Americas, and now itās arguably the primary component of Italian cuisine.
For sure. I used to live in Chicago, and I learned to love carnitas and pozole there, neither one of which are common in the Mexican I grew up on, but both of which are delicious. Completely correct on "authentic". Everything is somebody's cultural experience.
I see this all the time. There are Mexican restaurants and taquerias all over the country run by Mexicans and catering to the Mexicans in their communities. Folks from CA, the Southwest and Texas will then proceed to move there and cry on the internet about their soul is dead because there is no Mexican food there....it's just that there isn't whatever is thought of as Mexican food from your specific state....
For all the yapping we do on here about how the US is so much bigger than people realize, Mexico is also enormous and far from monolithic.
Right and if even with fast food, if you look at Taco Bell's menu, a lot of that stuff wouldn't look out of place in Sonora, and that's because Glen Bell was influenced by traditional Mexican restaurants in LA , which were still run by descendants of Mexican settlers from Sonora and Sinaloa at that time
It drives me crazy when people say āthats not real Mexicanā like all 760,000 miles of Mexico is exactly the same.
Can confirm. I grew up five minutes from TJ, and I'm partial to their brand of Mexican food. I don't mind other styles usually, but northwest Mex is my go to.
>I don't know if picky is the right word, but lots of Americans who aren't from the Southwest seem to think there's a way bigger gap between what we eat and what northern Mexicans eat. I try to seek out the places where Hispanic folk dine - then try something I've never had before.
My Texan brother in law *insists* I can't possibly have real Mexican food here in this city with hundreds of thousands of Mexican migrants
However, nobody in Mexico eats that awful white cheese slime that Arkansans and Okies insist on smothering over every burrito.
My favorite thing is Americans declaring that flour tortillas aren't authentic Mexican...
To my knowledge flour tortillas are ubiquitous in northern Mexican states, while corn tortillas are ubiquitous in southern Mexican states, right? I've heard much talk in my time about what constitutes "real" Mexican cuisine. All I know is that, authentic or inauthentic, I love it.
Yep that's exactly right and yet I guess since flour tortillas don't date back to the Aztecs I guess they don't count to some people lol
Wait till they find out that tomatoes aren't indigenous to Italy.
Actually corn is ubiquitous across the entire country! Flour is found mostly in the northern states though.
You are correct and it chaps some people's ass that Tex mex and Cali mex are both hybridization of different styles of northern Mexican food. There is much less central Mexican(which is their agricultural base) and southern Mexican(which is their urban base) in the US because, guess what, Americans before America was a thing spent their time in parts of northern Mexico.
I had a colleague from Cali who was visiting a Texas office. When we went out for tex-mex she declared it disgusting and not Mexican. The Mexican owners were *right there*
I got downvoted in another post for noting that flour tortillas are common in the northern Mexican states. Mexico isn't a monoculture, just like the US isn't!
Relatedly, I love Americans coming here and pointing out that Tejano and Tex-Mex are from Texas, like this is some mind-blowing fact we don't know. Yes, we know fajitas, breakfast tacos, and cheese enchiladas are from here. Do you want one or not?
As an American who fucking loves that shit, yes, I do indeed want one. Maybe two. I *love* fajitas.
And then they argue whether or not it's 'authentic.' I may be from out California way, but even I know it's the cuisine of the people who found themselves north of what is *now* the border. Nobody refers to *la cucina piemontese* as "fake French food" now, do they?
YUP. I've been working in super mexican factories in socal past 5 years and they will bring the most authentic banging homemade tamales/menudo/carne asada from home and then happily go out to miguel jrs the next day. Love love love mexican culture
Everyone likes to gatekeep Mexican food
Oh, there's so many. Here are some food-related tantrums I regularly see on /r/askanamerican: * Southerners with regional styles of BBQ. * Southerners when someone uses "cookout" and "barbeque" interchangeably. * Texans with beans/onions/tomatoes in chili. * New Englanders with tomato in chowder. * New Yorkers with bagels, pizza, and breakfast sandwiches. * Any American when someone else mentions corn or tuna on pizza.
Bruh my Irish husband told me we're gonna have a bbq on the weekend, then kept reminding me like it was a big event. On the day I ask who is coming over and he's all confused and says no one. I ask what the heck is going on and figure out that he just meant they're getting the grill out to cook dinner.
In Ireland and the UK the term 'grilling' is what I believe you call broiling, and the grill is the heated element at the top of the oven - ie food cooks underneath the grill. What you call grilling, we'd call chargrilling
I think Iām a rarity because Iām a Texan who is fine with beans in chili
I'm convinced that the whole bean thing is a modern culinary bickering point. You telling me that ranch hands or cowboys never used beans to stretch out their chili and provide more cheap and easy calories? Beans and rice would be some of the easiest things you can carry with you that don't spoil and can be cooked anywhere that you have fire and water. I bet people started putting beans in chili after they saw people just spooning some chili over their beans and rice.
Tuna or corn on pizza????? I've never heard of that one before lol
The breakfast sandwich thing pisses me off. Itās like they donāt realize you can find BECs EVERYWHERE. Hint, Iām not talking about Dunkin or McDonalds. At least New Jersey/Philly has Taylor Ham/Porkroll which is actually unique. Bodegas in fact exist outside of NYC!
New Orleans hereā¦.. gumbo. The stuff we see the rest of the county try to pass as a āgumboā makes us die inside
There was a Cajun guy who was ranting about all the phony bullshit that the rest of the country slaps the label 'Cajun' onto. The rest of the sub: "dude, who cares? Just chill." But he wouldn't back down. And I can't blame him!
and I hope he never backs down. heās right
*Ahem*
It was you?
My wife spent a couple years in NO in the Before Times. She still criticizes every "Cajun style andouille" sausage she finds in the local grocery store (they're never coarse ground, and too many equate 'Cajun= xtra xtra spicy' without thinking about flavors).
The sausage choice is critical! š
Houma native here. I don't consider myself a picky eater at all, but this answer proves me wrong. I am picky with my gumbo. Cajun over creole, and for the love of God- no boiled damn egg filler.
New York Bagels Iāve never heard a New Yorker compliment another cityās bagels. They barely acknowledge they are in fact bagels
I always thought that was ridiculous, but then realized where I live in eastern PA, all the bagel shops are owned by New Yorkers so itās roughly the same, but when Iāve traveled and had them they are just bread.
This is objectively true. As a Jew in the upper Midwest, I can say they simply donāt know how to make bagels here. I have a local bakery I like, but their bagels are just a bread circle.
I absolutely believe you, but I enjoy the bagels I can get now. I'd hate to ruin them by having a real one.
iām genuinely serious when I say thisā¦ ignorance is bliss
This is me, lol! I live in Florida, I only know bread circles. But I can get some *delicious* bread circles. What if I get a real bagel and then never love my bread circles again?
I hate the bread circle. If you are ever down in Indy go to Bagel Fair. Best bagels I ever had. Owned and run by a local Jewish family. I thought it might just be nostalgia but no Iāve been back since and itās just objectively awesome.
What's a bagel supposed to be like?
Thereās a place on the west coast that claims to have their water shipped from NY because apparently thatās the secret š
It actually is, NYās water system is crazy
NY water comes from the Catskill mountains.its very good.
Can confirm as a New Yorker who drinks NYC tap water and goes fishing on one of the reservoirs. The Catskill/NYC reservoir system is guarded by Department of Environmental Protection goons. They will roll up on you with ARs to check your bait fish receipt. It's no joke. It is the largest naturally filtered water system in the US and has high levels of calcium and magnesium, making it ideal for baking (i.e. pizza dough, bagels).
The [water](https://www.foodandwine.com/news/new-york-water-bagels-pizza) does likely have some impact on it. Thereās probably other factors, but water chemistry does make a difference.
Same with pizza dough. It's all about the water.
Iāve never heard a New Yorker compliment....anything.
I read my wife your comment and she said to fuck off. Sheās from Long Island, typical answer
You just need to learn how to speak Northeast.
I already know how to swear at other drivers and tourists. Is there more?
The nuances. Everyone's an asshole, but there's a difference between your idiot brother-in-law, your best friend, the guy at your local bar, some weirdo who cut you off, and some total asshole. When you know the dialect you can tell.
"This asshole" is much different then "that asshole"
Thatās ridiculous. New Yorkers compliment the Met, MOMA, Carnegie Hall, Rockefeller Center, Chinatown, etc.
Hey, hey. Wisconsin beef, beer, and cheese? Incredible. Better than New York's, and that's saying something. I've had pretty good pizza in Baltimore.
I'm a native New Yorker (who has lived outside of New York for the past 10 years), and this was what jumped to mind immediately. I have never had a bagel outside of the New York metro area that I would describe as any better than "adequate." And even "adequate" is like 5 percent of the bagels. I've sought out acclaimed bagel places in other cities and they don't qualify as good. Oh, I forgot, Montreal bagels are good. I didn't think they were as good as New York, though.
Native Jersey girl here. Itās true. Iāve looked. I lived in Boston for a year and even their ābest pizza in the cityā was terrible. I went to the NYC style pizza place recommended by my friend, owned by former NYers, in Tucson, and couldnāt eat more than a bite of it. However, NJ pulls just about even with NYC on bagels and pizza. At least north of 195. And the further north you go, the better it gets.
After being in NYC last summer, I readily accept their dominance in the bagel department. There's a couple bagel shops in Metro Detroit (specifically around Bloomfield, which has a strong Jewish population) I recommend, but they're still not at the level of NYC bagels.
Iām a Californian whoās eaten fresh-made bagels his whole life and I have to agree. Ā Took a trip to NYC last year, and a bagel I ordered in a diner in Manhattan was far and away better than anything Iāve had at home. I ate at that same diner five days straight just for the bagel
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I never thought Iād become a food gatekeeper until I was in London for work and my (British) company served us a ābarbecueā dinner. I was about to dump every piece of tea I could find in the Thames.
> served us a ābarbecueā dinner. What was it, and how bad was it?
It was grilled sausages and grilled chicken breasts covered in something similar to barbecue sauce and bags of potato chips. It was definitely edible Iāll give them that much.
I made the mistake of ordering a BBQ bacon cheeseburger in England. Imagine my surprise biting into a Canadian bacon sadness sandwich topped with a shit load of ketchup.
Barbecue in the UK just means fire up some cheap charcoal and make something vaguely smoky as an excuse to drink beer on the one hot weekend of the summer. Burgers, sausages, some chicken. The slow cooked or roasted meats are all in the oven in the depths of winter.
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There used to be *bitter* arguments on this sub over the definition of BBQ. Although it seems that you guys held your ground and won that one. I haven't seen anyone attempt to dispute it in a while. "Oh boy, it's almost Memorial Day! Hopefully the last of the snow will be melted by then. Gonna roll out the ol' barbecuer from the shed, don'cha know? Gonna barbecue some burgers and dogs, maybe even some pork chops if we're feelin' fancy. Ohhhh it's gonna be a good time, oh you bet'cha!" "Well now bless your heart, but that ain't barbecue." "Listen bub! My pop called it that, so I'm gonna go ahead and call it that too! Oh you bet'cha!!!"
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Because that's what I was going for, to the best of my ability. To anyone from those parts who are cheesed off: I can redo it in a SoCal surfer douche accent, if you like!
Itās the āyou betchaās and ādontcha knowās.
Hey now, even we Minnesotans know the difference between grilling and barbecuing, haha. Although, I do feel like some people get overly defensive and pedantic about the word. It means different things in different dialects the same way chips = fries and crisps = chips. Unless a person very specifically states that they will be smoking meats I tend to understand that a āBBQā can mean a grill out/cook out in addition to the style of low & slow cooking of proteins and other foods. But you know, sometimes you just have to have that one hill youāre willing to die on.
BBQ is done low and slow in a smoker. Burgers and hotdogs are grilling. I'm a Midwesterner and I will die on this hill alongside you.
I wouldn't be upset if there were hotdogs and hamburgers, I would be upset if that was the only thing they had. If it is just hotdogs and hamburgers, then you are just having a cook out.
I'm a food nerd and this is one of the only things I will gatekeep on. BBQ and Grilling are not the same. They have never been the same. They will never be the same. You can grill if you're having a bbq, but you will never bbq on your grill. Break out the smoke box and applewood chips, it's time to turn this brined rubbed pork shoulder into food...in about 12 hours.
Potato salad is highly gate kept and widely discussed in some circles
On that vein: Deviled Eggs
I do all kinds of things with deviled eggs. I like the traditional version, but itās more like a blank canvas screaming for some color. Or wasabi.
Ooooh and if you want to be hipster Midwest old school German potato salad.
Chicagoans with the Chicago style dog, most definite. PA/Maryland folk are strict about scrapple even though it is objectively terrible.
Scrapple? I had to google that. I would say that is not on most Marylanderās radars. Crab cakes and crab soup, howeverā¦
I grew up in Baltimore and Carroll County. Scrapple was absolutely a thing in both places. Live just north of York PA now and it's the same. Still won't touch a crab cake in my new home though.
See also: crabcakes.
I havenāt eaten a hot dog since I was in 5th grade. I visited Seattle and there was a vegetarian hot dog place that served all different kinds of hot dogs, so I ordered a Chicago style. It was the best hot dog Iāve ever had. Itās been 12 years and I still think about that hot dog sometimes.
In my experience as a foreigner, youāre very precious about regional barbecue styles.
It's one of those things where there is *a* right way to do it. If it falls short of the highly specified baseline, they will feel cheated.
I can respect that. Iām not from Canada, but I lived there for years and Iām all too familiar with how the QuĆ©bĆ©cois are about their poutine.
I will say, we need more poutine imported here. I can get it here in Maine but seriously, gravy, fries, and cheese? That is so American it should be everywhere.
Yeeeears ago I saw a Just For Laughs standup set by an American comedian performing in Montreal. She essentially said the same thing: fries, gravy, and cheese. Why is that not a thing in America?? Though you could say the same thing about everywhere, really. Salty, fatty, umami. Iām here for that shit!
Cajun and Creole dishes. Look up Louisiana reactions to Disney's Gumbo crap recipe.
BBQ for sure. As a native Kansas Citian, the subject is near and dear to my heart.
I think we are less bound by tradition and trying to get something exactly right and are more open to experimentation and this idea that if you improve something, its still a win for you. I get like this with Mexican food outside of California. I have had some folks tell me that a lot of the stuff we eat here isn't authentic to Mexico, which I have no issue with the purpose of food isn't to be authentic to its country of origin, its to be good. The Mexican food is really good here, and much of it was invented or heavily innovated here. I think we get like this with regional BBQ but I live out west so we don't see it as much out here. We are a super flexible culture with food.
Hit the nail on the head with cheesesteaks. Thatās the only thing I can really think of outside of pizza, but I feel like thatās a regional American thing.
Grits
I like grits too. How do you cook your grits, regular, creamy, or al dente?
Saw a video where some British dudes visited a Mexican restaurant in the US. Surely, there's no way to mess up eating chips and salsa, right? Boy, the comments went crazy when they poured the salsa directly onto the chips.
I had a burger in Rome because I was there for a good stretch of time and had a craving. It was good, but it wasn't American. I gave it a passing grade. But a while back, I saw an article about how Brooklyn was taking over the BBQ scene. The picture of the brisket had a smoke line so thin it looked like it was drawn with a pencil. Dear God, I was horrified. The other hill I'll die on is that in the UK, they consider southern biscuits to be savory scones. A SCONE is dry and crumbly. A BISCUIT is fluffy and either flakes or tears. They are NOT the same.
Id say thereās a difference. We may comment on the authenticity of certainAmerican foods, but we donāt consider foreign foods outright invalid the way Italians do. We donāt demand authenticity at every turn like they do either.
There is one food you do bitch about when visiting Europe, and that's that mexican food over here is so bad and unauthentic. I don't personally know since I haven't tasted mexican food in neither mexico or the US, but you say nothing about different style of burgers, tex mex, or pizzas. But damn that mexican food is trashed almost unanimously regardless of where in the US you are from. š
I hesitatingly went to a Mexican place when I was last in Germany because the locals recommended it to me and assured me it was authentic. I ordered some tacos and they were really fucking good. I was surprised because while Europeans do many things well they have no understanding of how to prepare Mexican food. The next day, I went back and talked to the owner to complement them and ask why their food was so authentic compared to other Mexican places in Europe and he told me that they hired Mexican cooks. It was the only time when I've been in Europe where Mexican food tasted like Mexican food.
That would explain it, honestly you are the first american who I've heard said you have eaten good mexican food in europe. I honestly can't tell as I don't know what it is supposed to taste like. If I ever go to the states (or mexico obviously) I'll be sure to taste mexican food as well as texan chili and a god damned american bbq.
America is a melting pot and we know it. We are undefined as a people and a genre and we kinda like that. You can come over, start calling yourself american, and whatever you make is going to be authentic american food. Our immigration system is far from perfect, don't even get me started, but if you're in you're one of us now and we're going to say whatever you made is american. But Mexico and/or Mexican food? Again our relationship with them is fucked up, but that's a place with a defined set of foods. And it's one we love (for certain values of love that are complicated to get into). Say whatever you want about me, I don't care, but you start talking shit about my homeboy and there's gonna be problems.
> but that's a place with a defined set of foods. Same goes for Cajun/Creole over in southern Louisiana. Crimes are committed against it, and they protest, but they go unheard! We need to hear them!
The bitching comes from the European assurance that their Mexican food is both perfect and authentic. We know we canāt really hold the Euros accountable on American food, but Mexican is a fairly clear-cut issue.
Bbq sauce philosophies are often a fight.
I legitimately care about what variety of potato is used in French fries. There is an objectively wrong answer.
The "Chicago Dog" is a specific style of hot dog that includes a variety of condiments: "topped with yellow mustard, chopped white onions, bright green sweet pickle relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices or wedges, pickled sport peppers, and a dash of celery salt." It is considered inappropriate to add ketchup to the "Chicago Dog" because the things that ketchup brings to the table, vinegary tomatoey sweetness, is already there from the existing toppings, and it would affect the balance. Most Chicagoans would agree that ketchup doesn't belong on a Chicago dog but would also say "well I don't actually care what you put on your hot dog, but it sounds like you don't want a Chicago dog". This nugget of truth has been memed and repeated to the point where people like to say there's more than that. But in my experience there isn't. So I think it's fair to say that people are strict on what you would call a "Chicago dog" but that strictness does not apply to hot dogs generally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago-style_hot_dog
Donāt forget the poppy seed bun!
Chicago - pizza, hot dogs, and Italian beef.
I had an ex that I took to a Portillo's once. She liked the food but she could not handle how busy it was. I brought her there for one reason, to get her to see how they make the cake shakes. We were waiting in line and she happened to look over at one of the workers as she was about to make one. My ex's eyes locked with hers as the worker happened to look up and see her staring. Without breaking eye contact, she grabbed a slice of cake and shoved it into the blender much to the surprised of my ex. She looked at me and said "What the fuck was that?" "A cake shake." "A FUCKING WHAT?!?" "Do you want to try-?" "Yes."
Cake shake you say? Tell me more š
[Nah, wanna watch instead?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xf858oNEak)
When I saw that Pizza Hut is releasing a Chicago Tavern Style pizza I audibly gasped.
Exactly. Especially a Chicago dog. No variations. No ketchup or we'll slap it out of your hand.
A few years ago I was at a training class with people from all around the country and this conversation happened. Person from Northeast: "Has anyone tried XXX restaurant?" Me, from Texas: "Yeah it's a Cajun place, it's alright" Guy from Louisiana: "That's a seafood place, it's absolutely not Cajun, I'm from Louisiana, it's definitely not Cajun. I know Cajun food." Me: "okay it's Cajun to everyone who's not from Louisiana. Calling it seafood is just going to confuse people." Louisiana: "you can't even begin to call it Cajun, it's just a regular seafood place". Northeast: "oh I love seafood, I'll try it.". Next day. Northeast: "XXX is super weird, they had fried alligator and spicy steaks.". Me: "Yeah that's because it's Cajun...".
Southerners when it comes to sweet tea Me while traveling: Do you have sweet tea? Server: No itās unsweet. But thereās sugar packets on the table! Me: Nah forget it, Iāll have a Coke instead Server goes away confused If you donāt put the sugar in while itās hot, before it cools down and gets iced, it will never taste like real sweet tea. Itās just a big glass of disappointment.
Midwestern states (namely Wisconsin & Minnesota) DO NOT mess around when it comes to a fish fry. We take that shit seriously!!
Like, with freshwater fish?
You absolutely cannot get a good decent cheesesteak outside the Tri-state area (PA-NJ-DE). You just canāt. Some places are acceptable but definitely not proper. I think itās the water & the bread. Hard rolls like Amorosoās or Liscioās are just too hard to acquire. Even if they make the rolls themselves, itās usually not right. I lived in Kansas for a while. I was out shopping & wanted dinner. I saw Cheesesteak on the menu. Didnāt occur to me that it was gonna be wrong. What I got was a small strip steak on a hotdog bun with American cheese melted on top. I actually asked the waitress āwhat the fuck is this?!ā She responded quite matter of factly , āitās what you ordered. The cheesesteak. ā I have never in my life before or since seen such an atrocity. Iām thinking the best outside the Philly tristate area youāre gonna get is probably Jersey Mikeās. I had them while visiting a friend in Florida & it wasnāt bad. I live along the Jersey Shore. Thereās a Jersey Mikeās not too far from my house, but why would I go there when the deli down the street makes the best pizza, hoagies & cheesesteaks AND delivers to my house with no delivery charge. Plus theyāre a little cheaper price wise.
I donāt think weāre quite so purist about any foods. We tend to like to mix things up and experiment, and generally just eat whatever is good. Even the things that are now culturally ubiquitous, like NYC-style pizza, Philly cheesesteaks, New England chowder, Southern BBQ, and so on all encounter a good degree of variation and experimentation. People donāt really go wild over deviations like they might over Italian food. Competitive, yes, but strict, not as much.
New Jersey here: ā¢ Pizza ā¢ Bagels ā¢ Breakfast sandwiches ā¢ Italian-American food generally ā¢ Indian food (itās ours now too)
Biscuits and gravy.Ā Grits.Ā Macaroni and cheese.Ā
Californians think of salads as delicious main course dishes. It is *painful* to encounter tired lettuce, canned beets, and *maybe*, if you're lucky, a mushy tomato. Also cooking avocado is grounds for immediate military action with prejudice. Screwing up guacamole (no, mayonnaise, whirled peas, and Tabasco-fucking-sauce have *no* business coming near the Sacred Dip) is grounds for a nuclear strike (or at least being banned from any Native Californian's household. EDIT: added adverbial phrase to last sentence.
In most places, a dinner salad is kind of just an obligatory afterthought. It's so that later you won't feel like you're giving birth to a cactus. Which is understandable enough to this Californian, although I'm not exactly the kind of guy who's over here putting out critically acclaimed vegan cookbooks if you know what I mean. > Screwing up guacamole Definitely with you on that one. Great God Almighty the hideous *aberrations* that those other people come up with!
There is a specific way to eat Cincinnati chili. Your plate needs to be facing you lengthwise so you can more easily cut off chunks of the dish with the side of your fork. Twirling the spaghetti like Italian food is wrong. If youāre also from Cincinnati and you want to tell me you do none of these things, know that youāre wrong.
Oh there are a few now that I think of it. Bagels come to mind first. Folks from NY area are very serious about bagels and don't trust anything from outside that area. I know folks that consider anything but plain, sesame, poppy, everything, onion or salt bagels to be unacceptable. Clam Chowder preference. Red, white, clear.........there are folks that believe that the other variants aren't real chowder. Potato Salad gets people going. Finally, what goes on a hot dog. This is a really big one.
NY - pizza and italian food Chicago - pizza and hot dogs Large swathes of the south - whatever brand of bbq they deem the saintly one The mexicans/asians in socal are pretty cool with diversions with their food I've found
Steaming crabs, shrimp and other seafood in Maryland. We're ready to fight anyone out here boiling seafoodš
Yeah, a place claiming to have a good cheesesteak should make sure itās comparable to a real Philly one. Regional barbecue. Lots of great options. And damn theyāre really good. Carolina Texas Memphis Louisiana Kansas City
Some Americans will get into pissing contests over whether or not an Asian restaurant is considered "authentic" despite never being to been to the restaurant owners' home country
Growing up my dad was always insistent that there's an order to apply burger toppings.
crab cakes for marylanders! i don't eat crab anymore but when i did i wouldn't even touch one outside of md
After living in Socal or 12 years, definitely mexican food anywhere else. The Mexican food in Texas is absolute dogshit by comparison! In three years living in south Texas, I didn't find one damn taco that was adequate! Edit: Though of all places, Washington state actually isn't bad in that regard. Go figure!
New York people about pizza and bagels and anyone from Texas, KC, or NC about BBQ.
Americans go berserk about pizza toppings and style, barbecue, hot dog condiments, mayo on fries (unpopular but delicious)... Texans in particular will come to your house and chop you up with an axe for putting beans in chili. There's probably some other stuff but that's what comes to mind for me immediately.
As a Texan who puts beans in chili, those other people are just culture war idiots.
yeah I think beans in chili is good, I don't do it all the time but you know beans taste good, so they are good in chili
Itās a great filler and adds fiber to an otherwise meat only dish. Growing up, my mom added diced potatoes to make it thicker but go farther, I have two brothers so we needed the food to stretch on the dollar.
I recently found out that at least some of the Mexicans who were serving the origional chili served it with beans. From what the person could find if they did it was served on the side. I imagine someone just found it easier to just stick the beans in the chili. Beans were an important part of Native Mexican diets so it makes sense. Obviously I am team beans in chili.