Not necessarily the best meals (or places), but the meals (or places) that best represent your culture.
JÄGERSCHNITZEL. ifykyk.
Uhh yeah 🤤
Mmh, the uniquely East German taste of Realsozialismus
Nostalgieglückstränen, nehme ich an. Ne? NE?!
Apart from the obvious cheese and chocolate, i‘d reccomend some good ol rösti with a spiegelei
I’ll fight you!
- Cheese: France, évidemment
- Chocolate: Belgium, potferdomme
- Rösti: …'mkay, I’ll leave you the potatoes leftovers fried in a greasy pan, but ffs not the dried-out thingy from Migros please
Oh hell no. Alway buy the potatos, steam them for 20 mins and then they‘re ready to be grated into the pan. Don‘t forget the aromat!
I mean if you’ve never eaten Pupusas, I don’t know what life you’re living.
We have a Salvadoran restaurant near us (in Maryland, USA) and we love these!
There is one pupusa place where I live and they don’t season their food and it just breaks my heart.
Loroco y queso!
What is even that flower? I wonder if I can grow it in my apartment in Canada cause that shit is delicious. They sell frozen loroco where I live but it’s expensive. And I haven’t been to El Salvador in a decade for the real thing
I have no idea what it is but I want to eat it now.
Corn tortilla dough is filled with cheese/pork/beans and other yummy options, and cooked on a greasy ass flat grill. Served with a Salvadoran vinegar slaw, they’re delicious
oh my sweet fuck I want that so bad now
- BBQ, from any/all regions
- Cajun food – very important one!
- Fried chicken and waffles – I tried explaining this umami to a handful of people in Japan, and they didn’t understand.
- Casseroles of all kinds
Good point on the BBQ. The differences between regions is substantial, and although you may not like one region’s BBQ, you may very well love another region’s. I for one am not a fan of the vinegar based BBQ, but a good dry rub, or mustard base, I am all there.
I’m not usually much interested in “food experiences” but nonetheless I have an answer and it is the sugar shack pancake breakfast.
Oh yeah, that is the best! They have one at the conservation area near me. You go there around March and slap on some cross-country skis to get to the shack. Then just as the cold is starting to set in a bit, you walk in there where they’re boiling the sap and take in the aroma. Then you sit down at a long table and gorge yourself on pancakes with the syrup still hot and mixing with the butter. And then on the way back, if you have any bird seed in your pocket, you can just hold it out and chickadees will land on your hand. It’s magical!
Bunny Chow! Chicken curry in a bread bowl
Bunny chow is so good. There’s a South African expat who runs a store/restaurant by my house here in Texas and makes what seems to be pretty authentic bunny chow and Vetkoek. Unfortunately, I found out that he and his wife are so aggressively MAGA that I legitimately wonder if he left S.A. because he was sad to see Apartheid go.
Seems far too common. My parents had a difficult time getting into the US so hearing about “all the illegals just strolling into the country” vitriol Fox spews seems to indoctrinate them
I was wondering what South African dish I would see here. Can’t go wrong with a Bunny Chow. But I would also mention Koeksisters, Melktert and our best braai meat, Karoo Lamb Tjops
Irish breakfast roll
I’m listing countries where I’ve lived and split into Savoury, sweet and drinks categories, some countries have less items because I couldn’t think of other examples. On most places and categories I tried to limit myself to 3 entries.
Argentina
Savoury
- Churrasco - Argentinian bbq, it’s just meat with salt and possibly chimichurri (a “sauce” made with some herbs, restaurants around the world seem to call any dressing chimichurri but the traditional one is the best and only one for me)
- Fugazzeta - Essentially a thick dough onion and cheese pizza
- Empanadas - Similar to a calzone but with more fillings, it can be made in the oven, fried or grilled in charcoal. Traditional filling is meat but also very popular are Humita (corn with bechamel sauce, one of my favorites)
Sweet
- Alfajor - two biscuits with dulce de leche in between, usually covered with chocolate.
- Postre Balcarce - One of my favorites desserts, it’s a sort of cake with peaches, almond, merengue and other stuff, look it up.
- Media Lunas - Sweet croissant.
Drinks
- Mate - A sort of tea, drunk in a special cup with a special straw.
- Paso de Los toros pomelo - Grapefruit flavoured tonic water.
- Fernet con coca - An alcoholic drink made by mixing Fernet (a bitter liquor) with a can of coke.
Brazil
Savoury (northeast)
- Acarajé - A Bean paste fried in dendê oil, filled with shrimp, Vatapá (a paste made of shrimp, coconut milk, peanuts, etc) and Caruru (a paste made with okra, personally I don’t like it)
- Moqueca - A stew made with fish, shrimp, tomatoes , onion and dendê oil
- Beiju - A tortilla made with cassava flour, filled with a variety of fillings.
Savoury (general)
- Coxinha - A fried potato dough filled with chicken and usually requeijão/catupiry (a special creamy cheese)
- Pastel - Similar to Argentinian empanadas, but the dough is lighter and it’s only served fried.
- Feijoada - A stew made with black beans and some meats (sometimes eaten with orange)
Sweet
- Brigadeiro/Beijinho - Cooked condensed milk with chocolate powder or coconut.
- Pudim - Cooked condensed milk (Yes, Brazilians love condensed milk) with eggs and a caramel sauce.
- Paçoca - Sweet peanut crumbly cylinder.
Drinks
- Guarana - A soda made from a fruit found in Brazil.
- Caldo de cana - Pressed sugar cane, essentially natural sugary water.
- Caipirinha - An alcoholic drink made with lime and cachaça (a typically Brazilian alcoholic drink). Cachaça is not vodka, and a caipirinha made with vodka instead of cachaça is called a caipiroska.
Italy
Italian food is very well known, so I’ll list less known dishes, some of them are still known but not to the same level of Lasagna and Tiramisu.
Savoury
- Parmegiana - A lasagna made with eggplant instead of dough and LOTS of parmesan cheese
- Panzerotti - Similar to a calzone, but lots more filling and a thinner dough
- Putsnesca - garlic, anchovies, capers and black olives tomato sauce, usually eaten with Penne
Sweet
- Panettone - A sweet bread with caramelized fruits and raisins
- Panna Cotta - Cooked cream topped with some sauce
- Pastafrola/Pasta frolla - Sweet tart filled with jams
Drinks
- Lemoncello - Lemon liquor.
- Aranciatta - Similar to Fanta but I think it’s made with tonic water because it has a bitter taste to it.
- Soda - A traditionally made soda with syrup and sparkling water, they have several flavors.
Ireland
Savoury
- Guiness stew - A stew made with meat, potatoes, onion, carrots and Guiness.
Drinks
- Guiness
Spain
Savoury
- Tortilla de patatas - A sort of tall omelette made with fried potatoes and usually onion.
- Paella - Seafood and veggies with rice and saffron.
- Patatas bravas - Fried potatoes with a spicy sauce.
Sweet
- Crema catalana - Custard topped with caramelized sugar.
- Churros/Xurros - Fried dough covered in sugar and cinnamon, made to be eaten by dipping in chocolate or dulce de leche.
- Turrón - A sort of nougat.
Drinks
I’ve only recently moved to Spain, haven’t had any traditional drinks here, if someone has some recommendations let me know.
Canadian cuisine isn’t really distinctive, but you should really try French fries with salt and malt vinegar before you perish.
Is malt vinegar on fries a Canadian thing? It’s my go to for otherwise plain fries but I don’t think its very common in my area.
I have nothing to contribute myself, I’ve only been briefly to anywhere in Canada other than home and I can’t think of anything that isn’t gimmick fast food, doesn’t originate from other countries, or have a near identical equivalent elsewhere in the world. Like I had friends that lived on the rez and sometimes their parents would prep bannock dough that we would cook over a firepit and fill with honey and it was excellent, but its literally just honey on bread that was cooked on a stick.
Bannock is definitely Canadian.
It’s not that we don’t have good food here, we absolutely do, but there’s very little that I’d Identity as Canadian specific cuisine, other than bannock, poutine, etc. It’s just all sort of nondescript to me.
And I think the British also do malt vinegar. It’s the best way to eat your fries.
USA: Real barbeque. I don’t mean braised meat slathered in a sticky sauce, either. I mean tough cuts of meat, cooked slow and low over woodsmoke until it is fall-off-the-bone tender. No sauce required.
Much easier to find this in the southern US, with Texas, Missouri, and the Carolinas all being particularly famous BBQ regions. In the northern states, your best bet is gonna be to find someone local with a smoker - not just a grill.
Just some pasta with tomatoes, cut in small pieces, with a bit of olive oil and some basil. It takes 10 minutes just of waiting for the pasta to be ready. As simple and quick as delicious.
If you come to Chicago, definitely grab an Italian beef, a Chicago style hot dog, and some deep dish.
If you’re adventurous, try a shot of Malort. I personally like it, but it’s generally hated and used as a joke on tourists.
Poutine, but just the classic kind. Cheese curds and brown gravy over fries. Don’t go to a poutinerie for the first time ever and order some stupid shit like buffalo chicken poutine. And don’t order your first poutine from McDonald’s either.
The best is in Quebec. Ottawa is a good second best.
The best poutine I had was at the Montreal airport, no joke. Big ol pile of Smoked Meat on top!
I love poutine. The only reason it hasn’t caught on here south of the border is it’s Frenchy.
Texas food is pretty grim, but we we have some good stuff.
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Beef is very cheap here, so if you like steaks, I’d recommend a nice steakhouse. Especially if you’re European, y’alls steaks are the stuff of nightmares.
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We also have good tex mex, which probably explains a lot of our obesity issues.
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Watermelons here are both much better and much larger than anywhere else I’ve ever been.
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Chicken fried steak does kick the shit out of schnitzel, even if mushroom sauce is amazing.
Otherwise we mostly import any cuisine worth a damn.
Bro - no mention of Texas BBQ? Beef brisket with Texas-style BBQ beans (savory, not sweet for those who haven’t had them) is amazing.
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on the east coast of Canada, in the French speaking region known as Acadie (not in Quebec), there is a dish known as Poutine Rapée. it is not the delicious “cheese fries and gravy” Poutine, oh no. This is a big fucking potato dumpling with seasoned pork and onion inside it. Making them is an art form. They are super delicious. Eat one of those for lunch and you’ll go for hours.
As a former Maritimer, I feel robbed that I was exposed to Halifax donair and not this instead.
Donair sucks and donair pizza is an abomination, and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise. This on the other hand sounds amazing.
well bud, I enjoy donairs enough for both of us put together, so don’t you worry about that. I could eat the arse end out of one right now and I’m not even done my coffee.
But yeah, Poutine Rapée is absolutely tits. Like a “cult classic” movie or a super amazing hotspot that only the locals know about, if you know you know, and now you know. I hope wherever you are that you have a kick-ass day.
