Easy to take pride of your food if you can get several crops a year, grow almost any spice, and don't have to spend time keeping warm.
I'm an immigrant and we take pride in drinking. Alcohol cheers us up and keeps us warm.
Our food may suck, but everyone else's food is easy to get nowadays and quite cheap.
American food needs to be fast, easy to eat on feet if needed, and nowadays suitable for office. I had 20 minutes a break/lunch when I worked 8-4.
By the way, poverty means trauma. Many immigrants try to keep something good like food from their home and go on and on how great it is.
My home is just as lovely to me, but I have no need to go on and on about it. I was not traumatized growing up; no gangs, no poverty.
I noticed it when my friends kept asking me to come to their country even though the place is straight up dangerous. They completely fail to mention the dangers.
Didn't mean to get off topic, but something to notice when immigrants talk about their home.
Comes out that mine is great with no danger in sight. I just have no need to talk about it or insist friends come with me next time. My friends has asked me to visit their country for years now. I'd be hiding from my frineds if my country had the dangers they have, not inviting people over.

A lot of cultures take pride in their food, and socializing centers around food. In many countries, food is the language of love.

But the US has the most diverse foods because of all the immigrants, which I am one of and love other ethnic foods. Some regional US cuisines are great - Cajun, southern BBQ, but these are all influenced by other cultures. I find northern European influenced foods the most boring. Most of the spices Europeans use come from the middle east or Asia. Without these spices, their food is uber boring. My spouse is from the UK, and their national dish is now curry, not fish and chips (though I do like that, too).

It depends. I’ve lived in several countries where the homogeneity of the food got really tiresome after awhile. (Countries where the main dishes are heavy in meat, root vegetables, not many spices, etc.) I’ve lived in others where there are a tons of non-pricey, fabulous restaurants, and they have a much better food/eating culture. (Montreal punches above its weight here!)

To me, my favorite food “culture” is where people love and appreciate food— and you can also get food from all over the world. That tends to only be in cities, though.

Anonymous wrote:OP, you cannot compare a more homogeneous country's culture (regarding food or anything) to the US. They aren't equal.

In the US there is a broad variety of food cultures because we are a large country with a ton of immigrant communities and traditions, plus big regional differences. So there is no one American food culture. If you live in the DC area this should be abundantly obvious.

It's just apples and oranges. When you chose to move to the US, you were accepting that you were moving to a diverse country with more varied culture. One of the benefits of that is that you can bring your food culture from your home country here and, assuming you live in one of the more diverse parts of the country, no one cares that you might eat different foods or in a different way than they do. You also have the option here of adopting new food traditions and interests which likely would have been harder in your home country with its more established and distinct food cultures.

There are pluses and minuses to both approaches.

Wahhhh

Typical stupid argument that because the US isn't homogenous that must mean the US can't have nice things. It is such a nebulous argument devoid of any reason.

As if a country like Singapore is homogenous. Yet they have infinitely better food there too. And it is reasonably priced.

US has bad food for extremely high prices.

America is extremely varied and it depends a lot. So is Europe.

Comparing the food of a suburban area with just chain restaurants to, say, Naples, sure. Compare the food options of say, San Francisco, to say Stoke on Trent or any other little industrial town. It's not simple.

I like most of the food here. I do like my Balkan food too, but love Indian and Asia and Middle Eastern food too. Is there a food culture in the Balkans, definitely, like 1000%. Is it the same here? I guess not in my circles, but based on the huge number of restaurants and food shows and grocery stores, there is definitely a huge food culture in the DMV.
I do not like Mexican food, but that is bcs I have serious food issues with peppers and raw onions and a dairy allergy, and hence will throw up if I eat it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it isn't even close. The vast majority of food in the US is mediocre to really bad. And it is very, verrrry expensive. I mean try traveling to Tokyo. The number of eateries per block can be mid warping, and it is often insanely high quality. I was watching a show the other day about prepared bento boxes that are sold as quick foods on the go for Shinkansen riders. It was all fresh and very well prepared food that would probably blow most US restaurants out of the water, and it was only like $10. Or try going to a country like Thailand. The food there is 1000x better in terms of flavor and price. The US just has very subpar food that is very expensive.

Comparing Tokyo to the entire US is disingenuous. Compare Tokyo to the only US city of a comparable size (NYC) and now tell me that the "vast majority" of food in the US equivalent is mediocre to really bad.

These arguments are so tiresome. No, the food in some midsize midwestern town is not going to be able to compete with the food in one of the culinary capitals of the world. This is surprising to no one and not really an argument.

Food in Tokyo >>>>>>>> NYC. Not even close.

I think America has the best food culture because it is a melting pot so brings flavors and techniques from all over the world plus it is incredibl rich with incredible distribution networks so you can get an amazing variety of foods in all seasons in almost all places.

That’s not to say that there’s not a lot of crap here. But if I had to pick one country in which to eat for my whole life, it would be the U.S. second pick would probably be Italy in part because I really like even causal fast food there (pizza, cured meats, etc.), and Italy does have a great range of food because it was the melting pot of the Middle Ages/rennaissance, bringing food from most of the world together.

Anonymous wrote:Americans eat to live. In some countries, they live to eat.

Some Americans live to eat. Ina Garden lives to eat and that's what a lot of her American fans like about her. Lots of Americans love food and love preparing it, sharing it, and eating it. The US is a diverse country and I find it weird to generalize about our approach to food.

This argument boils down to: what if we compare the very best version of another country's culture to the very worst version of US culture?

Just... why?

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it isn't even close. The vast majority of food in the US is mediocre to really bad. And it is very, verrrry expensive. I mean try traveling to Tokyo. The number of eateries per block can be mid warping, and it is often insanely high quality. I was watching a show the other day about prepared bento boxes that are sold as quick foods on the go for Shinkansen riders. It was all fresh and very well prepared food that would probably blow most US restaurants out of the water, and it was only like $10. Or try going to a country like Thailand. The food there is 1000x better in terms of flavor and price. The US just has very subpar food that is very expensive.

Comparing Tokyo to the entire US is disingenuous. Compare Tokyo to the only US city of a comparable size (NYC) and now tell me that the "vast majority" of food in the US equivalent is mediocre to really bad.

These arguments are so tiresome. No, the food in some midsize midwestern town is not going to be able to compete with the food in one of the culinary capitals of the world. This is surprising to no one and not really an argument.

OP, you cannot compare a more homogeneous country's culture (regarding food or anything) to the US. They aren't equal.

In the US there is a broad variety of food cultures because we are a large country with a ton of immigrant communities and traditions, plus big regional differences. So there is no one American food culture. If you live in the DC area this should be abundantly obvious.

It's just apples and oranges. When you chose to move to the US, you were accepting that you were moving to a diverse country with more varied culture. One of the benefits of that is that you can bring your food culture from your home country here and, assuming you live in one of the more diverse parts of the country, no one cares that you might eat different foods or in a different way than they do. You also have the option here of adopting new food traditions and interests which likely would have been harder in your home country with its more established and distinct food cultures.

There are pluses and minuses to both approaches.

Yes, it isn't even close. The vast majority of food in the US is mediocre to really bad. And it is very, verrrry expensive. I mean try traveling to Tokyo. The number of eateries per block can be mid warping, and it is often insanely high quality. I was watching a show the other day about prepared bento boxes that are sold as quick foods on the go for Shinkansen riders. It was all fresh and very well prepared food that would probably blow most US restaurants out of the water, and it was only like $10. Or try going to a country like Thailand. The food there is 1000x better in terms of flavor and price. The US just has very subpar food that is very expensive.

America is a very young country. Of course it's culinary history will be very truncated. Compare that to a lot of other cultures, like China, which has over 5,000 years of culinary development.

Americans eat to live. In some countries, they live to eat.

I saw a random Twitter (X) thread about some alt-right troll making fun of immigrants for claiming to have better food rituals than the U.S. He said that yes, we have family dinner in the U.S too and implied that immigrants' claims about a special food culture is laughable.

I was curious about this. As an immigrant, I do find my home country places a lot more emphasis on food as a part of our daily culture. We spend a lot more time in the kitchen preparing food, from scratch and fresh. We also have more meals together with family and friends as opposed to this to-go and drive through culture here. We also have a warm hospitality culture where a guest is showered with tea and drinks and appetizers and whole buffets.

I'd like to hear other perspectives.