American food can be pretty strange. Some of our dishes and flavor combinations seem bizarre to people from other countries. From unusual toppings to giant portions, our eating habits often confuse foreigners.
In this blog, we’ll look at 10 American foods and habits that make international visitors go, “You eat that?” These are things that seem normal to us but are totally weird to the rest of the world.
1. Pumpkin Spice Everything
Every fall, Americans go crazy for pumpkin spice flavored items like lattes, cookies, cereals and even pumpkin spice hummus! To outsiders, putting this warm spice blend in so many foods seems baffling.
They can’t understand our obsession with making everything, both savory and sweet, taste like pumpkin pie. The pumpkin spice craze is a very American phenomenon that leaves many international visitors utterly confused.
2. Sloppy Joes
This classic sandwich has a messy mix of ground beef, tomato sauce, seasonings and other add-ins stuffed between two buns. Foreigners are often put off by the sloppy, runny nature of these loose meat sandwiches.
The idea of purposely making food so messy to eat seems unnecessarily sloppy to cultures that value neat cuisine. American kids love Sloppy Joes, but they baffle most international diners.
3. Tater Tot Casserole
To combine crispy tater tots with creamy condensed soup and other veggie mix-ins into a casserole is such an American creation.
Using the crispy hash brown bites as more than just a side item is pure ingenuity to us, but bizarre to foreigners unfamiliar with tater tots. The random mix of textures and flavors makes this gooey, tot-filled dish incredibly puzzling.
4. Cheeseburgers with Crazy Toppings
While cheeseburgers are enjoyed globally, the wild toppings Americans put on them can seem totally unnecessary to outsiders. Things like crispy bacon, chili, peanut butter, macaroni and cheese, and even donuts get piled high by daring U.S. burger-lovers.
These excessive, over-the-top topping combos make a simple burger into an avant-garde food sculpture that leaves international visitors perplexed.
5. Ranch Dressing on Everything
Ranch is the go-to salad dressing and dip for all kinds of foods in America. But to many foreigners, drenching fresh veggies or dipping pizza crusts into the thick, creamy sauce is just wrong.
Using such an overwhelmingly rich, calorie-dense dressing so abundantly violates their sense of healthy, moderate eating. The liberal use of ranch on any and every dish seems absolutely gluttonous.
6. Deep-Fried Oddities
From deep-fried Oreos and candy bars to full sticks of butter and even spaghetti and meatballs, Americans have taken our love of frying to bewildering extremes. The concept of dunking everything imaginable into scorching oil to make it crispy and indulgent disturbs sensibilities worldwide.
These fatty, deep-fried curiosities seem like a heart attack waiting to happen to most foreigners.
7. Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches
This iconic American childhood lunch staple is met with skepticism abroad. The idea of slathering peanut butter, which is viewed as a savory protein paste, together with sticky-sweet jelly on bread just doesn’t compute.
This unique sweet-and-salty flavor bomb doesn’t translate to international palates. To foreigners, PB&Js seem disgustingly indulgent and bizarre.
8. Turducken
This three-bird roast of a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey is the pinnacle of American excess to outsiders. Taking the extra steps to interlock multiple whole fowl together and cook them conjointly is extravagant overkill.
This laborious multi-meat creation with its bountiful stuffing displays the nation’s zeal for gluttonous portion sizes. No wonder turducken leaves foreigners bewildered!
9. Chili Cheese Fries
To smother crispy fried potatoes in a combination of meaty chili and melted cheese is a quintessential American invention that other nations don’t quite get.
The mixing of the rich, savory and spicy toppings on such a simple fried snack seems superfluous and overwhelming to more reserved tastes. Drowning food under inches of chili and cheese comes across as just unnecessary culinary excess.
10. Bacon on Sweet Treats
Whether it’s crumbling smokey bacon bits onto maple frosted donuts or baking strips into chocolate chip cookies, adding savory pork to sweet desserts represents the pinnacle of American culinary audacity.
This pairing of contrasting sweet/salty flavors is ingenious to us but scandalous sacrilege to the rest of the world. Blending breakfast meat into sugary treats just doesn’t translate to more traditional international palates.
Conclusion
After exploring these 10 strange American foods, it’s clear that our tastes can seem really weird to people from other countries. Our love for sweet and savory mixes, big portions, and unique snacks makes our food exciting and different.
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