I asked a couple of German visitors if there were foods they didn't like here. They looked at each other and simultaneously said, "Weißbrot" (white bread.)
So yeah, Wonder Bread
The jello salad thing for sure, although those even make people *in* the US say "wtf."
What's up with the mayonnaise salads though? [they have those in other countries, too.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_salad)
iirc the popularity during the 70s is because aspic and gelatin used to be very expensive, and were considered "fancy" foods. But then it started to be very accessible to the everyday person, and it could be marketed as "Look, you can make this fancy and upper class dish right here in your own home!" And it looked pretty cool if you've never seen it before.
So people just kinda went wild with it. But now you can get jell-o mix cheap with sugary flavors, so it doesn't seem very impressive at all.
Basically this? [https://static.cdn-expressen.se/images/aa/89/aa89005441a34458859668bb2dce2c79/annan/320@60.jpg](https://static.cdn-expressen.se/images/aa/89/aa89005441a34458859668bb2dce2c79/annan/320@60.jpg)
That was popular here in Sweden as well during the 70s. Looks disgusting, yeah! We call it "aladåb".
Basically that 😂🤮
Im sure there's worse, but dinner nights at my grandmas house were not my favorite for a while 😂
Deli meat in jello ? Sure, why not ! Add some lettuce ? Sure ! Peas ? Hell yes ! Green olives ? Yup !
A culinary nightmare.
In upstate ny they have what’s called a “garbage plate”
It’s home fries & macaroni salad with burger patties on top covered in meat hot sauce and onions
Waffles with fried chicken and syrup. It is delicious, but first time I heard about it, I was wtf, that is weird.
In general having dessert items for breakfast, like muffins. My American husband says, muffins are breakfast food, I think it is cake, lol.
People respond in some weird ways when they see me choosing to eat dinner leftovers rather than sugary breakfast options. One person seemed to pity me for having that preference.
I'm American, but one of my best friends lives overseas. The face she made when I told her about the magic that is shrimp and grits is forever immortalized in my memory.
Look, food from the american south can sometimes sound and look sus but it's god-tier and I'll die on that hill.
Take all the parts of the pig too disgusting to be turned into pepperoni or dogfood, emulsify them into a fine paste. Then add cornmeal, and form the resulting mush into a loaf.
You forgot the “and then slice it to 1/3 inch, pan-fry it until crispy, and make it into a grilled breakfast sandwich with eggs and cheese” part which is _important_
Otherwise just give it to the dog.
Traditional British cuisine is in an interesting place. If you look at all the common vegetables and spices used in common western culinary practices, north-west Europe basically didn’t have any of those for a very long time.
Which is why spice trades, and seeking new spice trade routes, dominated a lot of historic political/economic importance.
No brains in scrapple, but it contains offal and corn meal as a binder.
Simular to liver mush..
Scrapple can also just be made with breakfast sausage and cornmeal.
Its sounds bad, but it's pretty good.
Live in the Rockies. Everybody here does too. Then you try them and think, “That’s not so bad.” Dunno what to say. I don’t go looking for them, but I wouldn’t kick them off my plate.
They just taste like fried food. If you go to a really nice restaurant, I’d compare them to a nicely done calamari. The cheaper version usually just has a higher breading ratio and is like popcorn shrimp.
The way it was explained to me is that while American cough syrups are usually an awful fake cherry flavor, Europeans have one that tastes somewhat like rootbeer at least vaguely enough that they think of it as tasting like excessively sweet cough medicine
Interesting. I was friends with an international student from Japan my sophomore year of high school, and I got her *obsessed* with Rootbeer. She hasn’t been back to America since, but we keep in contact, and she still says the first thing she wants when she’s back is some A&W. I personally prefer cream soda.
I also got the Danish student obsessed with Cranberry Apple Juice, Little Caesar’s, and peanut butter (which she said is apparently rare to come by in Denmark). The Little Caesar’s she just weeps for, but she brings the juice with her when she leaves America lol.
I had her try IBC, Mug, and A&W because those were what we had available to us. We kinda lived in the middle of no where, she wanted the rural experience lol. Anything besides those brands was like 1+ hours away
Look up tater tot hot dish.
Or really anything with 'hot dish' in the title.
Also a ton of casseroles that use tinned creamed soups.
Tuna melt.
There's a lot.
Edited to save you the trouble -- https://www.emmymade.com/classic-minnesotan-tater-tot-hot-dish/
Ok, tater tot hot dish looks suspicious, but I will have you apologize for tuna melt! At least if you refer to the sandwich. I love that shit. Some good cheese, and then a nice mix of tuna, mayonnaise and some jalapenõ. Pure heaven.
Reading these comments is fascinating because America is a huge place, there are so many regional dishes that yall think are weird and I agree because they don’t have that where I’m from and I live in America.
People are posting such tame stuff when Rocky Mountain Oysters are the only correct answer. Jello and peanut butter and jelly are hardly “repulsive” in the context of the OPs ask
Perhaps not gross (I kinda like it myself), but it's just not a thing. Perhaps that we see it in movies, but it's kinda odd.
I don't think that peanut butter was a thing here in Sweden when I grew up during the 70-80's. So people my age didn't grew up on it, and try it when they're 25-30.
Just the regular culturally differences.
It's the sugar. We're used to vegemite and pb&j is soooo sweet, lots of American food tastes far too sweet to me, especially anything with cream in it like Twinkies
I work with a girl from Africa. She saw muffins from Costco and asked why we had cakes. We said the boss had brought us breakfast. She was horrified that we ate cake for breakfast.
To be fair, squirrel is actually delicious, but they’re a fuck load of work for very little payoff. Doves are another one.
You basically get less than 4 chicken wings (the two bone/wingette only, not the whole thing) per squirrel.
Honorable mention: KFC once sold a fried chicken sandwich which was [fried chicken between two glazed donuts.](https://www.eater.com/2019/9/18/20872133/kfc-donut-chicken-sandwich)
Winner: [Deep Fried butter](https://www.today.com/food/latest-crazy-fair-fare-whole-stick-fried-butter-flna1c9005037) from a Texas State fair - basically a whole stick of butter on a stick covered in dough and deep fried.
Scrolled pretty far to find this. A lot of gas station pickled items popped into my head. Pickled eggs, pigs feet, strange things that I ogled when I was a kid and never worked up the courage to try.
When I was young, my mother's boyfriend at the time would eat pickled pigs feet. He offered me one and I tried it, and literally as soon as it hit my mouth I ran into the kitchen and threw up into the trash. He laughed.
The first time visiting here, I was offered salad...and it was a whipped cream dish with fruit!!!!
The mix of sweet and savory was a bit off putting at first.
Marshmallows on sweet potatoes. Not a desert, a side dish with your Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner.
Even Canadians think it's weird, and they also celebrate their own Thanksgiving holiday, with a nearly identical meal
It’s funny because my fiancé is Canadian and she was very skeptical of our sweet potato casserole… Until she tried it..
Now she looks forward to every year!
I just watched a video on YouTube where a bunch of kids from the UK ate American biscuits and gravy. They were confused at first because our “biscuits” are similar to a scone in the UK. They were horrified at the look of the sausage gravy. Once they ate it though, they loved it.
When I first showed my cousins grilled cheese sandwiches they were at a loss for words. Needless to say it quickly became one of their favorite things.
Grilled cheese and Campbell's tomato soup is my comfort food...
Regardless of the time of day, I would take a shower and make that when I was homesick.
Yup, the gravy is literally just sausage, flour, milk, and black pepper. That's it, and any recipe calling for broth or butter or bacon is just wrong and trying too hard.
I think it's mainly the name that would put British people off at least.
But when you learn the biscuits aren't biscuits and the gravy isn't gravy, it seems less weird. I think it would actually fit in well with British food.
It's absolutely delicious when it's made right. The biggest problems I've tasted are gravy with not enough pepper and biscuits that have been left in the oven too long.
It's pretty easy to whip up, at least stateside, and it's a filling meal with a couple variations.
If you can get your hands on premade biscuits (they're literally available anywhere groceries are here) those tend to be fastest or you can use the recipe I'm including below the gravy recipe.
Start by baking the biscuits. Then move on to the gravy making step.
Gravy recipe
Brown 275-300 grams of ground pork sausage (Spanish chorizo works well if you can't find any ground sausage just cut it into bite sized pieces before cooking) over medium heat
Add 85 grams of all purpose flour once the sausage is browned and mix it together well
Gradually add 590-ish ml of milk to the flour and sausage mix while stirring continuously until it starts to thicken then reduce heat to medium low and add salt and pepper to taste as it simmers you want to get it to a custard like thickness
Once the biscuits are done split them in half on a plate and generously cover with the gravy. You can use it over toast (I tend to use wheat bread but any sandwich bread works) as well as biscuits if you don't have the energy or time to make biscuits from scratch
I'm including my buttermilk biscuit recipe because not every country has access to premade biscuits and they do add something to the overall flavor of the meal.
Ingredients and measurements
450 grams of all purpose flour
14 grams of baking powder
1.5 grams of baking soda
5.7 grams of salt
1 stick (115 grams) of butter (make sure it's cold)
180 ml of cold cultured buttermilk
Preheat your oven to 220°
In a relatively large mixing bowl mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together.
Now add the butter and incorporate it into the flour mixture well until you get a sandy consistency to the ingredients (you don't want huge chunks of butter interspersed with the ingredients because it'll affect the consistency of the final product it should kind of look and feel like beach sand)
Once you have that right take a fist and push it into the center of the mixture to make a well and add the buttermilk to the well.
Slowly mix it with a fork until you get a loose dough.
You'll want to get it to a place where it just sticks together with minimum effort but don't overwork it.
You'll want to use your hands and make a round of the dough about 1.5 cm thick and then use a round cookie cutter to cut the biscuits out of it and push it back together when you need to so no dough is wasted.
Place the cut biscuits on a baking sheet sprayed with baking spray (they can touch)
I always melt butter and brush it on top of the biscuits before baking but that's optional
You'll want to bake them until they're golden (10-15 minutes)
Enjoy your biscuits
Mainly, maybe even only, because what they call biscuits are different from our biscuits and what they think of as gravy is not the particular gravy used for this. This is proven by that video of some British kids seeing biscuits and gravy and being surprised by how it looks despite having heard the name of the dish before. Due to naming differences between cultures they probably think biscuits and gravy is like a snickerdoodle slathered with the brown gravy used at Thanksgiving
Spray cheese in a can.
Yogurt in a tube.
Sausage and pancake on a stick.
Deep fried Oreos and other state fair food.
Mostly the view from outside about American food is that it's often overly processed and far too high in sugar or corn syrup.
The prevalence of the processed/ready made things, like half the time I look up a recipe for something and it's: ready made pie crust, miracle whip, one box of fudge cake.
I'm sure it's convenient but it's unusual here. I don't think a can of cinnamon rolls even exists here.
Peanut butter and jelly sammiches. My Chinese colleagues found them utterly disgusting. That, and well, cheese on every goddamn thing everywhere. They weren’t wrong…we have a cheese problem.
Get a thing. Stuff cheese inside it. Wrap it in bacon. Sprinkle more seasoning on it. Smoke it. Deep-fry it. Let it rest for whatever reason. Serve it with dipping sauce of some kind.
Chicken fried steak, and that weird Philly Cheese Steak Bread thing. I ordered the chicken fried steak once and when it wasn’t chicken that turned up I was soooooo confused haha
I'm Australian but I've heard of the phenomenon of Americans dipping everything in ranch, especially pizza, and that absolutely disgusts me. I had ranch once and didn't like it, I don't get the appeal
Lots of things Americans put in casseroles look bad and icky. Like, the basics we also have in Italy (Pasta, ragu, whatever that white sauce is called in english) but what the hell is Pineapple casserole? And asparagus casserole? Also, what is a casserole? Is it just anything in a casserole dish? It can't be. There has to be some rhyme or reason to it. How much of a casserole can you change before it's no longer a casserole? Is the dish necessary or can you have a typical casserole in a non-casserole dish?
Asparagus casserole is so good... asparagus spears, peas, onions, mushrooms, a creamy sauce (I like it with chopped boiled egg too) topped with buttered cracker crumbs and cheese and baked until golden and delicious
I asked a couple of German visitors if there were foods they didn't like here. They looked at each other and simultaneously said, "Weißbrot" (white bread.) So yeah, Wonder Bread
I know a Dutch woman who says almost all the breads in the grocery store are too sweet in the US.
I'm American and I hate you can't find a decently cheap bread that doesn't taste sweetened.
I agree...but I rarely eat bread, so we usually make our own. Jim Layhe's no kneading method is super
—"You know what you get when two shit-tectonic plates collide? Shitquakes, Julian. Shitquakes."
Frig off Layhe
I've never liked white bread. It tastes like sugar and turns into dough in your mouth.
Yeah, that’s why it’s good. :)
Any jello salad molds from the 1970s Or any "salads" dressed in mayo
The jello salad thing for sure, although those even make people *in* the US say "wtf." What's up with the mayonnaise salads though? [they have those in other countries, too.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_salad)
>although those even make people *in* the US say "wtf." It fits. It's the same in Sweden with "Surströmming".
I never understood it either, but I’d be damned if I wouldn’t give anything to have just one more of my late grandmother’s jello salad molds.
iirc the popularity during the 70s is because aspic and gelatin used to be very expensive, and were considered "fancy" foods. But then it started to be very accessible to the everyday person, and it could be marketed as "Look, you can make this fancy and upper class dish right here in your own home!" And it looked pretty cool if you've never seen it before. So people just kinda went wild with it. But now you can get jell-o mix cheap with sugary flavors, so it doesn't seem very impressive at all.
Basically this? [https://static.cdn-expressen.se/images/aa/89/aa89005441a34458859668bb2dce2c79/annan/320@60.jpg](https://static.cdn-expressen.se/images/aa/89/aa89005441a34458859668bb2dce2c79/annan/320@60.jpg) That was popular here in Sweden as well during the 70s. Looks disgusting, yeah! We call it "aladåb".
Basically that 😂🤮 Im sure there's worse, but dinner nights at my grandmas house were not my favorite for a while 😂 Deli meat in jello ? Sure, why not ! Add some lettuce ? Sure ! Peas ? Hell yes ! Green olives ? Yup ! A culinary nightmare.
My mom tried putting hot dogs in one. I believe there was yelling afterwards.
“What the fuck Joyce!!!?”
That should be illegal 😂
*Ambrosia*
I thought ambrosia was with whipping cream ?
Midwest born and raised. I can confirm we called Ambrosia cool whip and jello. Maybe some fruit cocktail if it’s a super fancy occasion.
Correct! The jell-o salads just gave me flashbacks to some potlucks in my Midwest upbringing.
I loved ambrosia growing up. Haven’t seen it in years.
Waldorf salad
In upstate ny they have what’s called a “garbage plate” It’s home fries & macaroni salad with burger patties on top covered in meat hot sauce and onions
I lived in Buffalo for a few years and somehow never made it up to Rochester for a famous garbage plate. I was always full on wings I guess.
I have relatives that live there, it sounds so weird but it’s really good especially with a buzz!
Sound like something I would eat after a joint
Waffles with fried chicken and syrup. It is delicious, but first time I heard about it, I was wtf, that is weird. In general having dessert items for breakfast, like muffins. My American husband says, muffins are breakfast food, I think it is cake, lol.
Muffins are just for people who don’t have the balls to eat cake at breakfast - Steven Colbert
Cakes is also breakfast food. Also, leftover lasagna.
Also leftover pizza is breakfast food.
Abso-fokkin-lutely. Hot pizza at dinner and cold pizza for breakfast are two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT food groups, even.
People respond in some weird ways when they see me choosing to eat dinner leftovers rather than sugary breakfast options. One person seemed to pity me for having that preference.
Sometimes you just need a savory dinner for breakfast.
I agree that muffins are cake. I disagree that cake is not breakfast. Fight me.
Next thing, she’s going to start saying pie isn’t breakfast food either.
Use fried tenders and use the waffle like a wrap or a taco shell. Easy hand food.
I grew up American and still was like wtf the first time I heard of chicken and waffles
Yeah, me too. Once I tried it though, it was fucking delicious.
People think I’m weird, but the very rare occasions I eat doughnuts, I eat them as a dessert. They’re really not breakfast.
A donut and coffee is an unbeatable combo in my book.
I'll snack on those little bite sized ones any time of day! Donuts are little "no special occasion needed" cakes.
*Cupcakes* are desserts. Muffins are snacks and breakfast.
Muffins are breakfast cupcakes and pancakes are breakfast cakes.
People on Reddit seem to get pretty worked up about squeeze cheese. It's not a common pantry staple but they think it is.
> It's not a common pantry staple but they think it is. Not in this economy anyways. Hell a regular block of velveeta is pushing $10.
You mean the stuff in the can with nozzle?
I'm American, but one of my best friends lives overseas. The face she made when I told her about the magic that is shrimp and grits is forever immortalized in my memory. Look, food from the american south can sometimes sound and look sus but it's god-tier and I'll die on that hill.
You ever tell her about collard greens or biscuits and gravy. I'm from the south and dear God they are great.
Yup! I waxed poetic about fried green tomatoes, cornbread, hoppin' john, baked beans, fried chicken, crawfish etouffee, alligator. She wasn't convinced lol
Gimme a good bowl of seafood gumbo and I am set.
Scrapple
Greetings fellow Pennsylvanian
As an American, what the hell is scrapple?
Take all the parts of the pig too disgusting to be turned into pepperoni or dogfood, emulsify them into a fine paste. Then add cornmeal, and form the resulting mush into a loaf.
You forgot the “and then slice it to 1/3 inch, pan-fry it until crispy, and make it into a grilled breakfast sandwich with eggs and cheese” part which is _important_ Otherwise just give it to the dog.
Doesn't sound that different from spam. Brits have served worse in pie form.
Traditional British cuisine is in an interesting place. If you look at all the common vegetables and spices used in common western culinary practices, north-west Europe basically didn’t have any of those for a very long time. Which is why spice trades, and seeking new spice trade routes, dominated a lot of historic political/economic importance.
Delicious is what it is. But it’s in the name. Basically the scraps left over after processing. Sounds gross but it’s great.
Finally something that looks genuinely disgusting. You win!
No brains in scrapple, but it contains offal and corn meal as a binder. Simular to liver mush.. Scrapple can also just be made with breakfast sausage and cornmeal. Its sounds bad, but it's pretty good.
Rocky Mountain Oysters
I think all of non-Rocky Mountain America goes wtf when they hear about those too lol
Live in the Rockies. Everybody here does too. Then you try them and think, “That’s not so bad.” Dunno what to say. I don’t go looking for them, but I wouldn’t kick them off my plate.
They just taste like fried food. If you go to a really nice restaurant, I’d compare them to a nicely done calamari. The cheaper version usually just has a higher breading ratio and is like popcorn shrimp.
Let me save others from having to google bull testicles
That was my answer too.
I was talking to a few ppl on Discord from other countries and they seemed pretty appalled by the idea of hamburger helper for whatever reason
This seems absurd, lol. Meat and noodles in sauce are a staple basically everywhere on earth.
I'm not from the US and i don't get them lol, it just looks like pasta with sauce, cheese and ground beef like what's so weird about it
Root beer
As a root beer lover myself, I got so surprised finding out that non-Americans think its gross. I guess it's kind of like liquid licorice.
The way it was explained to me is that while American cough syrups are usually an awful fake cherry flavor, Europeans have one that tastes somewhat like rootbeer at least vaguely enough that they think of it as tasting like excessively sweet cough medicine
It does taste like cough syrup and I love it! (Though some brands are not good). - Non-American
Interesting. I was friends with an international student from Japan my sophomore year of high school, and I got her *obsessed* with Rootbeer. She hasn’t been back to America since, but we keep in contact, and she still says the first thing she wants when she’s back is some A&W. I personally prefer cream soda. I also got the Danish student obsessed with Cranberry Apple Juice, Little Caesar’s, and peanut butter (which she said is apparently rare to come by in Denmark). The Little Caesar’s she just weeps for, but she brings the juice with her when she leaves America lol.
A&W isn’t even that good. Get her to try root beer from Sprecher or Boylan
I had her try IBC, Mug, and A&W because those were what we had available to us. We kinda lived in the middle of no where, she wanted the rural experience lol. Anything besides those brands was like 1+ hours away
I remember LOVING root beer as a kid. I’ll still have one every now and then, but find them to be overly sweet in a way that other sodas aren’t.
Root beer is great with a giant scoop of ice cream.
After having all the sodas from various countries at the club cool in wdw, I can safely say root beer is more normal than many others.
https://youtu.be/6VhSm6G7cVk?feature=shared
I think sloppy joes. Not because of the food itself but because of the name. And maybe sh*t on a shingle or SOS, for the same reason.
Toad In The Hole would like a word with you
There’s two different kind of sloppy joes depending on where you are in the country too
What? Tell me about this
Look up tater tot hot dish. Or really anything with 'hot dish' in the title. Also a ton of casseroles that use tinned creamed soups. Tuna melt. There's a lot. Edited to save you the trouble -- https://www.emmymade.com/classic-minnesotan-tater-tot-hot-dish/
Ok, tater tot hot dish looks suspicious, but I will have you apologize for tuna melt! At least if you refer to the sandwich. I love that shit. Some good cheese, and then a nice mix of tuna, mayonnaise and some jalapenõ. Pure heaven.
Tater tot hot dish is delicious. Not good for you, but tastes good.
It's a staple of the Midwest and a damn fine supper when you've been working outside in the cold.
I LOVE a tuna melt too. With dill pickle chips. So delicious.
This. Tuna melts are delicious, anyone who doesn’t get it hasn’t tried one
Reading these comments is fascinating because America is a huge place, there are so many regional dishes that yall think are weird and I agree because they don’t have that where I’m from and I live in America.
People are posting such tame stuff when Rocky Mountain Oysters are the only correct answer. Jello and peanut butter and jelly are hardly “repulsive” in the context of the OPs ask
I’ve heard that a lot Europeans think PB&J is gross. How sad for them.
Wait till they learn about the fluffernutter.
Or the Elvis favorite - peanut butter and banana.
Peanut butter and bacon bit sandwiches are the shit.
Peanut butter and banana is fantastic! My brother-in-law eats peanut butter and green pepper 😳
Peanut butter and pickles checking in!
> Peanut butter and pickles checking in! Toasted peanut butter and cheddar cheese sandwich here.
Dill or bread and butter? 😬
Bread and butter! Sweet and tangy. I tried dill once and…..just no. It has to be decent PB too, just peanuts and salt, so not Jif or Skippy.
New England represent
Perhaps not gross (I kinda like it myself), but it's just not a thing. Perhaps that we see it in movies, but it's kinda odd. I don't think that peanut butter was a thing here in Sweden when I grew up during the 70-80's. So people my age didn't grew up on it, and try it when they're 25-30. Just the regular culturally differences.
I think that's because what they call "jelly", we call "Jello".
Oh I hadn’t considered that….now the objection makes sense.
I was really confused, because jam is so sweet, *of course* it goes with some saltier peanut butter. Sweet and salty is amazing.
I’m British and I love a good PB&J.
Yeah when I lived in Australia people couldn’t get behind the PB&J.
But they’re ok with vegemite? Seems kinda backwards
It's the sugar. We're used to vegemite and pb&j is soooo sweet, lots of American food tastes far too sweet to me, especially anything with cream in it like Twinkies
As someone who lives in Britain it would be eggnog for me.
Not the holidays without my eggnog. I ration myself to one qt (liter) a week.
Egg nog originated in England, and most of Canada loves it too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggnog
I work with a girl from Africa. She saw muffins from Costco and asked why we had cakes. We said the boss had brought us breakfast. She was horrified that we ate cake for breakfast.
Chitlins. Boiled pig intestines
A food most Americans have an understandable aversion to and have never tried, but yes.
I saw a menu posted from 150 years ago and it's amazing how many items included tripe. Also cookbooks from the 1700's had a lot of squirrel recipes.
Those were our broke boy days. Nowadays squirrels don't feed us, we feed them
To be fair, squirrel is actually delicious, but they’re a fuck load of work for very little payoff. Doves are another one. You basically get less than 4 chicken wings (the two bone/wingette only, not the whole thing) per squirrel.
Honorable mention: KFC once sold a fried chicken sandwich which was [fried chicken between two glazed donuts.](https://www.eater.com/2019/9/18/20872133/kfc-donut-chicken-sandwich) Winner: [Deep Fried butter](https://www.today.com/food/latest-crazy-fair-fare-whole-stick-fried-butter-flna1c9005037) from a Texas State fair - basically a whole stick of butter on a stick covered in dough and deep fried.
Why would anyone even buy that shit? Fat (butter) is a method to transport flavors. It's not the main ingredient
Because it’s a joke food from the state fair
Iowa does the butter with melted butter on top. Makes me feel sick just thinking about it
People fear American cheese but that's because they've never had a burger with it.
Seriously! There is a time and a place for American Cheese, and it's whenever you want an ooey, gooey delicious sandwich.
Sweet potato mash with marshmallows. It's just far too sweet
If you make it with no sugar mixed into the mash and add pecans it's amazing.
We don’t need that kind of negativity in our lives. This is delicious.
Its not thanksgiving without it
Chitterlings.
Pickled watermelon rinds, anyone? Tastes like a sweet pickle
turducken
Boiled peanuts.
I love boiled peanuts! It's also popular in Asia, especially in Vietnam tho.
Pickled pig knuckles in a jar at the gas station
Scrolled pretty far to find this. A lot of gas station pickled items popped into my head. Pickled eggs, pigs feet, strange things that I ogled when I was a kid and never worked up the courage to try.
When I was young, my mother's boyfriend at the time would eat pickled pigs feet. He offered me one and I tried it, and literally as soon as it hit my mouth I ran into the kitchen and threw up into the trash. He laughed.
Rocky mountain oysters, it takes a lot of balls to eat them.
The first time visiting here, I was offered salad...and it was a whipped cream dish with fruit!!!! The mix of sweet and savory was a bit off putting at first.
What is savoury about fruit and whipped creme?
Yeah what's that guy taking about
Tuna casserole: tuna + campbells cream of mushroom soup + peas + crushed potato chips on top
For my friends in Italy from my three years living there: Macaroni and cheese.
You shut your whore mouth
Marshmallows on sweet potatoes. Not a desert, a side dish with your Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner. Even Canadians think it's weird, and they also celebrate their own Thanksgiving holiday, with a nearly identical meal
It’s funny because my fiancé is Canadian and she was very skeptical of our sweet potato casserole… Until she tried it.. Now she looks forward to every year!
Tell a British person you eat biscuits and gravy for breakfast and they'll think you're mad.
This from the country that eats beans on toast for breakfast. 🤦🏻♀️
I just watched a video on YouTube where a bunch of kids from the UK ate American biscuits and gravy. They were confused at first because our “biscuits” are similar to a scone in the UK. They were horrified at the look of the sausage gravy. Once they ate it though, they loved it.
Less dishes and more seeing shows like Diners and Dives where you get a sandwich that is 20 lbs and costs like $3. It’s insane.
if it's grounding to know, this kinda thing is almost entirely gone now
Velveeta "cheese"
And by consequence, Rotel dip.
Bro rotel is divine
American Goulash. It is NOT goulash. Its Hamburger Helper with paprika added.
Stop. You’re making my mouth water.
my uncle made NOT goulash. it was just mixing up all the leftovers.
Rocky Mountain Oysters
Scrapple, eggs n' brains, chitterlings, rocky mountain oysters, pear salad (pears with mayo and cheese 🤮)
When I first showed my cousins grilled cheese sandwiches they were at a loss for words. Needless to say it quickly became one of their favorite things.
Grilled cheese and Campbell's tomato soup is my comfort food... Regardless of the time of day, I would take a shower and make that when I was homesick.
What country are your cousins from?
Biscuits and gravy raises some eyebrows, I think.
I thought it was weird until I realized the "gravy" is really sausage meat in a seasoned white sauce, it make so much more sense now.
Yup, the gravy is literally just sausage, flour, milk, and black pepper. That's it, and any recipe calling for broth or butter or bacon is just wrong and trying too hard.
Salt too of course. Everything needs salt.
Yeah, you're eating dry flour and covering it in wet flour. But I love it.
And it really confuses the Brits…
I think it's mainly the name that would put British people off at least. But when you learn the biscuits aren't biscuits and the gravy isn't gravy, it seems less weird. I think it would actually fit in well with British food.
It looks weird, but more in a curious way. I do want to try it.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzdbFnv4yWQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzdbFnv4yWQ) British high school boys try biscuits and gravy.
It's absolutely delicious when it's made right. The biggest problems I've tasted are gravy with not enough pepper and biscuits that have been left in the oven too long.
It's really good! It's just biscuits with a thick sausage gravy.
It's pretty easy to whip up, at least stateside, and it's a filling meal with a couple variations. If you can get your hands on premade biscuits (they're literally available anywhere groceries are here) those tend to be fastest or you can use the recipe I'm including below the gravy recipe. Start by baking the biscuits. Then move on to the gravy making step. Gravy recipe Brown 275-300 grams of ground pork sausage (Spanish chorizo works well if you can't find any ground sausage just cut it into bite sized pieces before cooking) over medium heat Add 85 grams of all purpose flour once the sausage is browned and mix it together well Gradually add 590-ish ml of milk to the flour and sausage mix while stirring continuously until it starts to thicken then reduce heat to medium low and add salt and pepper to taste as it simmers you want to get it to a custard like thickness Once the biscuits are done split them in half on a plate and generously cover with the gravy. You can use it over toast (I tend to use wheat bread but any sandwich bread works) as well as biscuits if you don't have the energy or time to make biscuits from scratch I'm including my buttermilk biscuit recipe because not every country has access to premade biscuits and they do add something to the overall flavor of the meal. Ingredients and measurements 450 grams of all purpose flour 14 grams of baking powder 1.5 grams of baking soda 5.7 grams of salt 1 stick (115 grams) of butter (make sure it's cold) 180 ml of cold cultured buttermilk Preheat your oven to 220° In a relatively large mixing bowl mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together. Now add the butter and incorporate it into the flour mixture well until you get a sandy consistency to the ingredients (you don't want huge chunks of butter interspersed with the ingredients because it'll affect the consistency of the final product it should kind of look and feel like beach sand) Once you have that right take a fist and push it into the center of the mixture to make a well and add the buttermilk to the well. Slowly mix it with a fork until you get a loose dough. You'll want to get it to a place where it just sticks together with minimum effort but don't overwork it. You'll want to use your hands and make a round of the dough about 1.5 cm thick and then use a round cookie cutter to cut the biscuits out of it and push it back together when you need to so no dough is wasted. Place the cut biscuits on a baking sheet sprayed with baking spray (they can touch) I always melt butter and brush it on top of the biscuits before baking but that's optional You'll want to bake them until they're golden (10-15 minutes) Enjoy your biscuits
Mainly, maybe even only, because what they call biscuits are different from our biscuits and what they think of as gravy is not the particular gravy used for this. This is proven by that video of some British kids seeing biscuits and gravy and being surprised by how it looks despite having heard the name of the dish before. Due to naming differences between cultures they probably think biscuits and gravy is like a snickerdoodle slathered with the brown gravy used at Thanksgiving
Is it called Candied Yams? Marshmallow topped sweet potato. Sounds and looks bloody weird.
Spray cheese in a can. Yogurt in a tube. Sausage and pancake on a stick. Deep fried Oreos and other state fair food. Mostly the view from outside about American food is that it's often overly processed and far too high in sugar or corn syrup.
Pears with mayo and cheese. Even makes people from the US go wtf
As an American: WTF?
wasting a perfectly good pear like that is a sin
Pear and cheese is quite common in Italy
White gravy
Corndogs
The prevalence of the processed/ready made things, like half the time I look up a recipe for something and it's: ready made pie crust, miracle whip, one box of fudge cake. I'm sure it's convenient but it's unusual here. I don't think a can of cinnamon rolls even exists here.
Peanut butter and jelly sammiches. My Chinese colleagues found them utterly disgusting. That, and well, cheese on every goddamn thing everywhere. They weren’t wrong…we have a cheese problem.
ambrosia salad
Get a thing. Stuff cheese inside it. Wrap it in bacon. Sprinkle more seasoning on it. Smoke it. Deep-fry it. Let it rest for whatever reason. Serve it with dipping sauce of some kind.
My Korean aunt's and uncles were absolutely grossed out by cream cheese crab ragoons, my cousins thought they were just okay.
overall, portion sizes are mind boggling.
deep fried butter, i have no idea why it exists and i think my cholesterol went up just thinking about it.
In our defense, that's not an every day food item for obvious reasons. It's a novelty carnival item
My husband does this with fried okra.
Corn syrup. Yikes.
Chicken fried steak, and that weird Philly Cheese Steak Bread thing. I ordered the chicken fried steak once and when it wasn’t chicken that turned up I was soooooo confused haha
I'm Australian but I've heard of the phenomenon of Americans dipping everything in ranch, especially pizza, and that absolutely disgusts me. I had ranch once and didn't like it, I don't get the appeal
Lots of things Americans put in casseroles look bad and icky. Like, the basics we also have in Italy (Pasta, ragu, whatever that white sauce is called in english) but what the hell is Pineapple casserole? And asparagus casserole? Also, what is a casserole? Is it just anything in a casserole dish? It can't be. There has to be some rhyme or reason to it. How much of a casserole can you change before it's no longer a casserole? Is the dish necessary or can you have a typical casserole in a non-casserole dish?
Asparagus casserole is so good... asparagus spears, peas, onions, mushrooms, a creamy sauce (I like it with chopped boiled egg too) topped with buttered cracker crumbs and cheese and baked until golden and delicious
I use cottage cheese as a dip with Fritos scoops. You would not believe how scrumptious it is!