Do you think European cultures have the worst food compared to others?

I have heard this topic come up a lot and I never thought of it. Outside of Italian food, which I’m not the craziest about; I don’t really like a lot of food associated with European cultures.

I tend gravitate more to Indian, Asian, East African, Caribbean, or Latin American food.

What about Greek food?

Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French... Mediterranean cuisine ftw!

Yeah, I would say Italian is the dominant cuisine of Europe.

1st place - Italian

2nd place - French for its baguette, Pain Au Chocolat, Macarons, Profiterole, Crossaint... anything bakery

3rd place - English for its fish and chips, scones, shortbread, etc..

4th place- Spanish for tapas and churros

5th place - Swiss/Belgium for its bakery, desserts, and chocolate.

The above 5 are probably known worldwide, but nowhere near as diverse as Italian... my favourite :D

Honestly this is the most shocking thread I've ever seen in my life! I'm appalled!

I don't know any country with bad food (but I never tried North Korean, can someone recommend a chain?)

Mediterranean cuisine is up there with the best. The rest of Europe is severely lacking in the culinary department.

Hmm. Yeah? I guess so.

Asian food ftw.

UK is famous for it's excellent cuisine.

No, European Mediterranean food is amazing. As for the other countries, i don't know their cuisine very well so i won't say .

@omegamaster: food may be matter of individual taste, but for 99% of humans, English is definitely not the third best food in Europe and is definitely not more tasty than Spanish food.

Yeah, you are not wrong there.

I don't think it's "worst" but I think sometimes it can be a bit basic.

At the same time, I think other cultures tend to overseason their food due to poor quality ingredients. I'm a huge fan of, for example, mapo tofu but you kind of have to ask yourself why do they season it with something so spicy it literally makes your tongue numb.

There's an old cook's saying that the quality of the chef is determined by the quality of their simplest dish. It's why a perfect omelet or a good steak seasoned with only salt and pepper, or a nice piece of poached salmon is usually better than a mediocre dish with 20 ingredients.

@mrbojangles25: i am from South America, have lived in east Asia for ten years and my family is from Italy.

I have travelled all around he world and tasted many different countries foods.

My opinion about it: most people enjoy most their own county's food and eat other country's food to enjoy variety.

There is not clear winner about the best food because individual taste changes, but in my experience western people tend to be a bit more flexible when it comes to variety of food and will more easly accept middle eastern, south asian and south east asian food, japanese and to a lesser extent Chinese food (real Chinese food, not the adapted Chinese food you find in western countries)

East asian people tend to really like their own food and Chinese food (at least i often see Japanese business partners speak very well of Chinese food).

Chinese people have a lot of troubles accepting food from other countries (except maybe north east asian food)

most non Europeans that go to Europe prefer the food of the Mediterranean countries.

Mexicans and Indian people tend really like each other's foods.

Anyway, in summary there is not a clear cut winner, but you can see some trends.

@nirgal: that's more or less how I feel.

I grew up [US] American (Californian, so always good ingredients here), and I don't really think America has a type of cuisine; we pick and choose from others, and adapt it to our tastes depending on our location/region/etc.

I've also been a cook, so I have been more adventurous than some. Ever since I could make my own tomato sauce, I've never bought a jar of pre-made stuff; however most Americans consider boiling pasta and reheating a jar of sauce to be "cooking".

Yes, I'm a snob😋Cooking is easy and infinitely better (and cheaper, ultimately) than reheating premade stuff.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that two days ago I had sushi, yesterday I had Indian, and today I had thai (chicken skewers and some green papaya salad). I'll probably have Mexican tomorrow. Who knows?

However, when I meal prep or cook for myself, it's about 50% "European" as that is how I was trained, but at the same time I also cook other stuff too. The thing is I need a recipe to cook Mexican food or Thai food or whatever, but I can generally go off instinct for European.

As you said, there is no winner, it's all pretty awesome. I think English food get's too much hate, though: yeah, they eat jellied eels, but they've also mastered fish and chips, various confections, and the English spin and history with English cuisine is really good.

Lol no such thing as “European” food. Each country is different.

Germany has some good food like schnitzels, curry wurst, spaezels (probably Austrian) and pancake variants. Not to mention the baking is way better than what you find in North America.

Europeans all steal each other’s food anyway, as far as I know, for example Germany had a great Italian restaurant the last time I was there.

Nope. It’s got some of my favorites. I love stuff like bratwurst(which originated from Germany), Italian food(especially pizza and lasagna), breadsticks, French fries, goulash, English muffins(especially in breakfast sandwiches), crossiants, certain cheeses, etc.

Europe has some of the best chocolates, too. Would be awesome if America had stuff like Aero, Maltesers, Milkybar, orange Kit-Kats, Nestle Smarties, etc.

Twinings is one of my favorite tea brands, which originated from England. They have some pretty awesome flavors to choose from.

Just remembered Calamari is probably Greek and that is better or tied with any food from a country OP mentioned. My opinion anyway.

@Mercenary848: Problem for me with all of those kitchens you mentioned is that they I get tired of them because there’s little variation in flavours. European cuisine uses more varied flavours and textures. Thai people generally call our cuisine tasteless because we don’t use spices so dominantly, but after spending 3 weeks in Thailand, I got tired of the samey flavours.

Depends on what you grew up on.

I'm European and I mostly eat cuisines who originate from various European countries. I like flavourful food but not so much spicy food, since spicy food burns both as you swallow it and when it comes out the other end.

I'm not a masochist even though I'm somewhat of an adrenaline junkie. That's the main reason why I seldom eat Indian and Mexican food for example.

I love European food. Italian, Greek and French especially. German food is also great.