Why is there so much premium on western/european food?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Erm, there's a LOT of western / european foods that are NOT celebrated for good reason.
No one EVER talks about English cuisine because it's really pretty terrible (clotted cream, mincemeat pie, fruitcake anyone?)
Likewise, no one talks about Dutch, Norwegian, Finnish, Belgian, Swiss foods either. Because they are pretty uninteresting.
Some people like German food - once in a while. But German food isn't known for vegetables and fruits. Like English cuisine, it's meat and potatoes and not particularly flavorful preparations of them. Don't even get me started on Czech and Polish food. Even more starch and meat with even less flavor.
I feel like France, Greece and Italy actually appreciate vegetables and knows how to include them in their dishes. Maybe that's why their cuisine is more popular?

Wth: have you ever been to Belgium? Let alone left the US?

NP. I lived in Belgium for a year and agree with this person. Generally really heavy food and not a lot of vegetables. It wasn't awful, but got old pretty quick.

Pp here. I lived in Brussels for 4 years and they had really good salads. Were you eating frites and steak Americain every day or something? Maybe you didn't live there long enough to get to know actual Belgians and what they eat but only saw the tourist food.

That’s it? You ate salads for four years?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Erm, there's a LOT of western / european foods that are NOT celebrated for good reason.
No one EVER talks about English cuisine because it's really pretty terrible (clotted cream, mincemeat pie, fruitcake anyone?)
Likewise, no one talks about Dutch, Norwegian, Finnish, Belgian, Swiss foods either. Because they are pretty uninteresting.
Some people like German food - once in a while. But German food isn't known for vegetables and fruits. Like English cuisine, it's meat and potatoes and not particularly flavorful preparations of them. Don't even get me started on Czech and Polish food. Even more starch and meat with even less flavor.
I feel like France, Greece and Italy actually appreciate vegetables and knows how to include them in their dishes. Maybe that's why their cuisine is more popular?

Wth: have you ever been to Belgium? Let alone left the US?

NP. I lived in Belgium for a year and agree with this person. Generally really heavy food and not a lot of vegetables. It wasn't awful, but got old pretty quick.

Pp here. I lived in Brussels for 4 years and they had really good salads. Were you eating frites and steak Americain every day or something? Maybe you didn't live there long enough to get to know actual Belgians and what they eat but only saw the tourist food.

That’s it? You ate salads for four years?

? PP didn't say she only ate salads.

I've lived in various European countries and spent enough time in Belgium. There's great food and there's plenty of variety too. Not sure what you are trying to pretend or make up? It's always what you decide what to eat and where to eat. If you want meat and potatoes, you'll get meat and potatoes. If you want creative salads, or Thai or Vietnamese or vegetarian or Italian, you can get those too.

FYI mince pies at Christmas and fruitcakes in Britain are FABULOUS. I love the mince pies in particular. I doubt you ever had one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Erm, there's a LOT of western / european foods that are NOT celebrated for good reason.
No one EVER talks about English cuisine because it's really pretty terrible (clotted cream, mincemeat pie, fruitcake anyone?)
Likewise, no one talks about Dutch, Norwegian, Finnish, Belgian, Swiss foods either. Because they are pretty uninteresting.
Some people like German food - once in a while. But German food isn't known for vegetables and fruits. Like English cuisine, it's meat and potatoes and not particularly flavorful preparations of them. Don't even get me started on Czech and Polish food. Even more starch and meat with even less flavor.
I feel like France, Greece and Italy actually appreciate vegetables and knows how to include them in their dishes. Maybe that's why their cuisine is more popular?

Wth: have you ever been to Belgium? Let alone left the US?

NP. I lived in Belgium for a year and agree with this person. Generally really heavy food and not a lot of vegetables. It wasn't awful, but got old pretty quick.

Pp here. I lived in Brussels for 4 years and they had really good salads. Were you eating frites and steak Americain every day or something? Maybe you didn't live there long enough to get to know actual Belgians and what they eat but only saw the tourist food.

That’s it? You ate salads for four years?

? PP didn't say she only ate salads.

I've lived in various European countries and spent enough time in Belgium. There's great food and there's plenty of variety too. Not sure what you are trying to pretend or make up? It's always what you decide what to eat and where to eat. If you want meat and potatoes, you'll get meat and potatoes. If you want creative salads, or Thai or Vietnamese or vegetarian or Italian, you can get those too.

FYI mince pies at Christmas and fruitcakes in Britain are FABULOUS. I love the mince pies in particular. I doubt you ever had one.

Since I am British, I have probably had a mince pie or two. I'n not a huge fan but that's just a matter of preference.

The point made by OP was that European food is bland, then one poster said they found Belgian food a bit stodgy, followed by another poster who disparaged the previous poster and said Belgian cuisine is not bland as it has good salads. I'm sure there is a lot of great 'ethnic' food in Belgium but that is beside the point. Saying there are good salads is hardly a vigorous defence of Belgian cuisine, plus there was no need for that poster to be so dismissive and disparaging.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nice how OP doesn't mention expensive Japanese restaurants, as those don't align with the point she wants to make.

That's because expensive Japanese typically means omakase or waygu. There's nothing you can do about the price of fish when Tuna now goes for over $1M because it is becoming increasingly endangered. It has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the food, but the price of the ingredients mostly.

Take a look at Ramen. It takes a massive amount of prep. Good places will make their own noodles and stocks from scratch. How much are you willing to pay? I bet $20 or so, max. Meanwhile an Italian place and gouge your eyes out for veal parm over $30, or some vegetable pasta for over $20-25.

veal parm cooked to order is more labor intensive & expensive ingredients than ramen. ramen is economical food - a huge vat of broth, dunk in noodles, add a few slices of cheap protein sliced thin.

What a load of malarkey. Good ramen base starts with bones that you create stock from. It requires hours of boiling. Tons of bonito can be added. Then you have to sear and prep the meat. If you're making noddles from scratch it takes even more work. Perhaps you're getting tempura ramen, which requires even more work battering and frying ingredients.

Veal parm, smash thin, bread, very little spices are added, fry, and add premade tomato sauce and lots of cheese. That doesn't require a full day of prep like ramen.

Now compare the price of bones vs fresh veal.

Oh please, many Italian places will still try to charge $30 for chicken or eggplant parm, lol.

So? You don't need to go. But a bone broth is peasant food and priced out as such.

Lololololol. Tons of Italian food is garbage peasant food, yet sold at premium prices to idiots like you. Polenta, risotto, etc.

Even dishes like bouillabaisse is poor people food, yet because it is French pay up!

bouillbaissse is a a seafood soup. Don't see an issue with it. polenta and risotto are simple, but nothing wrong with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Take French or Italian restaurants for example. You will almost always undoubtedly pay through the friggin’ nose for those types of cuisines, despite the fact that a restaurant in those categories may be throughly mid. It’s not like Italian food here in America is often prepared with that many complex techniques and exotic ingredients. People will pay $30 for a basic pasta dish, which might even be prepped with boxed dry pastas. Contrast that to say Chinese, Thai, Mexican etc. where customers expect cheap eats for high quality food. Have you seen the prep and number of ingredients that go into say making a Thai curry from scratch? It takes far more prep work than 99% of pasta dishes, yet you’d be hard pressed to sell Thai food to customers for $40 per plate. Or Mexican places making all their masa from scratch while cooking marinated meats for hours. Oh so an Italian place may make pasta from scratch? Big whoop. There are so many Chinese places that make hand pulled noodles and dumplings from scratch, yet people expect to pay $15 or less per bowl of noodles and probably even less than $10 for a plate of dumplings. And French food is even more overpriced. Big whoop, throw in salt, tons of butter, and a few herbs into most dishes that have one dimensional flavors. The French never really wow your palate with pungent herbs, sourness, spicy, and sweet. So why do people have no qualms about paying exorbitant premiums for bland European foods, yet foods in other ethic categories often require far more complex prep yet people want high quality and for it to be ‘cheap eats’? It’s pretty egregious to charge over $20 for any pasta dish when it is a low technique and limited ingredient entree.

Some people just don't like the flavor profile of many asian countries. Also italian used to be considered cheap eats when it first came to the USA. the perception changed over time. Most chinese, mexican, thai immigrants are poor so the food is seen as take out until that changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I'm French. I don't know why French cuisine is expensive and not that great here. It's really not hard to produce a rare steak au poivre with pommes allumettes! Or choucroute. Or galette de sarrasin. Or any of a number of totally normal French dishes. Sigh.

I cook from scratch and when we eat out, it's usually at Asian places. I ALSO agree that they are usually not comfortable! We've resorted to take-out recently. I miss the quiet cozy ambience of the little Japanese restaurant next to my house. It did not make it out of the pandemic, despite my numerous orders and large tips...

Indonesian Asian places?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've had the same rant about Italian food for years. It's one of the easiest cuisines in the world to cook. Is it tasty? Yes. Can anyone cook it well? Yes. There is nothing complex about it. Good ingredients make the dishes.

Some of the Asian cuisines on the other hand.....lots of work and technique.

I disagree with you about French cuisine though.

Ha! Try making a sfogliatelle!

Amen. A braciole is no walk in the park either, and very few dishes are as time consuming as making lasagna.