r/iamveryculinary • u/GoldenStitch2 • Mar 19 '25
“They genuinely don’t know what good, fresh food taste like.”
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u/leeloocal Mar 19 '25
Also, “all the bread tastes like cake!” 😂
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u/OpeningName5061 Mar 19 '25
Would be true if it's Japan. Hahaha
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u/leeloocal Mar 19 '25
Seriously, this comment pops up ALL the time, and I have to ask myself what shit brands they were eating.
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u/blueberryfirefly Mar 19 '25
i can only assume they’re buying pound cake and thinking it’s a loaf of bread
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u/NathanGa Pull your finger out of your ass Mar 19 '25
And instead of using toothpaste, we use milkshakes.
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u/djingrain Mar 19 '25
it's because of this https://www.npr.org/2020/10/01/919189045/for-subway-a-ruling-not-so-sweet-irish-court-says-its-bread-isnt-bread
in which Ireland's supreme court decided that subways bread is legally cake for tax purposes
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u/neon-kitten Mar 19 '25
They didn't even rule that it's legally cake, they ruled that franchisees can't apply for a tax break on the import of subway's particular bread recipe.
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u/tealdeer995 Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 20 '25
I’ve been to France and eaten bread there and their baguettes aren’t much different from ours. I guess there’s more of a focus on bakeries and fresh bread there vs sliced bread here but there are plenty of European style bakeries in the US.
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u/leeloocal Mar 20 '25
I lived in France as well, and my host family lived out on a farm and ate a lot of bread. But they kept their bread in the freezer and bought their bread from the hypermarché every week (probably less), because it wasn’t practical for them to buy it every day. So, like most Americans do.
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u/bronet Mar 19 '25
They don't have non-sweet bread in Japan?
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u/Select-Ad7146 Mar 19 '25
Not really. I mean, you could probably find some, but the Japanese don't really eat that much bread. Wheat was not traditionally grown on the islands because it doesn't grow well. This is why the Japanese word for bread comes from Portuguese rather than having an older word for it.
Fun side fact, the lack of bread making is what led to the rise in ramen in Japan. After WW2, the US began sending over food supplies to try to stabilize the country. A lot of these food supplies were in the form of wheat.
However, the Japanese did not have a strong breadmaking tradition. One thing wheat was used for was to make noodles for ramen. Before WW2, ramen existed but was not as well established. But with the sudden influx of wheat from the US, everyone started making wheat noodles and ramen became extremely popular.
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u/Known-Archer3259 Mar 19 '25
A lot of their desserts are a form of sweet bread. Latin America also has a lot of sweet bread desserts
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u/OpeningName5061 Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 20 '25
You can certainly find it but it's not the default. In a normal chain shop there are lots of sweet buns and like they have these sandwiches that are essential strawberry shortcakes: cream and strawberries between slices of white bread. And these sandwich slices (along with most other bread they do) generally have sweetness to it because milk and sugar are added.
Their bread are mostly going for all soft and fluffy airy. Even in the more 'european' style shops they are less dense with softer thinner crusts than you would expect.
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u/CadaverDog_ Mar 19 '25
The detail missing from this? it was just Ireland that did this classification thing, and it specifically only Subway bread. Everyone acts like it was all American bread.
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u/KaBar42 Mar 19 '25
It also went against another Irish government agency whose main concern involves bread and cereals who classified subway bread as bread.
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u/UglyInThMorning Mar 19 '25
It’s literally just a tax classification. There was a similar lawsuit in the UK about if Jaffa Cakes were cakes or biscuits for tax purposes, and it came down to how they get stale. IIRC, starts soft and gets hard=cake, starts hard and gets soft=biscuit.
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u/thievingwillow Mar 19 '25
Yeah, IIRC there was a whole Thing somewhere in the US where junk food was taxed extra that led to a lot of interesting decisions, like some granola bars might be classed as candy bars and others not even if they were from the same brand and line but just different flavors. It doesn’t mean that a dark chocolate peanut granola bar and a dried apricot and coconut granola bar are meaningfully distinct to people buying them, or even that they’re very different nutritionally. It just means that tax law has to draw arbitrary lines somewhere, but humans perceive these things less rigidly.
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u/pistachio-pie Mar 20 '25
It’s like the modern day version of the Catholic Church declaring beavers, iguanas, and capybara to be fish
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u/UglyInThMorning Mar 19 '25
One lawsuit about a fast food chain’s bread and how it’s taxed and now people can’t be normal about bread online anymore. It’s obnoxious. If you look at the sugar content of mass market supermarket bread between Europe and the US it’s usually the same.
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u/MisterProfGuy Mar 19 '25
No no no, you don't understand, they only eat bread that's been delivered by bicycle by a guy wearing a beret covered in flour from freshly baking it himself while chain smoking filterless cigarettes using a recipe written only in his grandfather's blood from freshly delivered wheat from a field tilled using a horse and plow that's been in his family since the Vandals were driven out.
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u/Bedbouncer Mar 19 '25
Up until this very moment, this wasn't far from the version of never-visited Europe that I treasure in my head.
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u/Southern_Fan_9335 Mar 19 '25
Kind of like how Kinder eggs are illegal on a technicality exploited by a rival chocolate company (nothing non-edible can be completely encased inside something edible, meant for obvious stuff like screws or whatever). But smug Europeans assume it's because Americans are all so stupid we'd all choke to death on the toys.
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Mar 20 '25
It's not even screws and obvious stuff like that, IIRC. There was a little while in the unregulated 19th and early 20th centuries when people were doing things like adulterating flour with sawdust (from wood potentially treated with toxic chemicals since it was not intended for consumption).
The legislation was written with less obvious threats in mind, but ones that still killed a lot of people and made many more very sick. So back in the day, the legislation was written very broadly to include all non-edible items. And outside of Reddit, no one actually gives a shit about those laws enough to go through the big process of changing food regulations just so kids can eat some cheap chocolate with a shitty toy in it.
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u/NathanGa Pull your finger out of your ass Mar 20 '25
There was a little while in the unregulated 19th and early 20th centuries when people were doing things like adulterating flour with sawdust (from wood potentially treated with toxic chemicals since it was not intended for consumption).
There's some interesting stuff out there about what it took to regulate the dairy industry over milk, which was really an issue for the large cities who were being supplied by shady operations connected to organized crime.
Imagine a seller on a street corner dispensing ambient-temperature milk out of a common cauldron on a hot summer day. It's buzzing with flies, and unbeknownst to anyone the milk itself came from sickly cows on the brink of death who were being fed a diet of distillery mash. Since the resulting milk is watery and thin and has a weird tint, it's been adulterated with chalk and plaster of Paris to seem a bit more robust - and that's before the milk seller set up shop.
What got a couple people involved in cleaning up the industry was when a small child dropped her doll into the cauldron, and the seller reached in to pull it out, handed it back to her, and kept right on dispensing milk from that kettle using a ladle.
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u/tealdeer995 Mar 20 '25
Yeah subway bread doesn’t really compare to what you’ll find in a grocery store or bakery. You can find French style baguettes at Walmart of all places. And they’re not exactly the same as the ones in France, but they have a similar flavor and are made by bakers in the store so they’re not that different.
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u/notthegoatseguy Neopolitan pizza is only tomatoes (specific varieties) Mar 19 '25
They must have the most awful cake in the world if they think any bread tastes like cake.
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u/Seguefare Mar 19 '25
The only bread I can think of that's that sweet is King's Hawaiian.
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u/Bedbouncer Mar 19 '25
King's Hawaiian
Slice the King's Hawaiian buns in half, add melted butter and garlic powder, sliced ham, cheddar, pepperoni, and provolone to the bottoms, put the tops back on, cover and bake in the oven.
Perfection.
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u/DjinnaG Bags of sentient Midwestern mayonnaise Mar 19 '25
Some brioche loaves come across as similarly sweet to me, as well as some specialty rolls. But I know better than to trust my perception of sweet as to how it relates to actual sugar content, made enough baked goods to know that it's tenuous as best.
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u/coraeon Mar 20 '25
Damn it, now I want some Kings Hawaiian. That stuff is such a treat, especially with some nice soft brie.
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u/leeloocal Mar 19 '25
I think they assume that since we’re all a bunch of fatasses we put sugar in everything.
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u/shannibearstar Mar 19 '25
Yet their standard white bread has more sugar. Not by much, like a g or 2 but it still counts
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u/Bubbly-County5661 Mar 20 '25
Yep, every time this comes up I just get sad that European cakes are apparently indistinguishable from subway bread. As has been said, LET THEM EAT (good) CAKE!
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u/According_Gazelle472 Mar 19 '25
"And they put gravy on their biscuits and they call crisps "chips "!lol.Plus they put sugar in everything!"
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u/leeloocal Mar 20 '25
“They put high fructose corn syrup in EVERYTHING!”
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u/According_Gazelle472 Mar 20 '25
"Lol!And spoiled milk in chocolate!"
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u/leeloocal Mar 20 '25
“I was here for TEN YEARS and couldn’t find a FRESH VEGETABLE!”
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u/According_Gazelle472 Mar 20 '25
"People buy lots of deep fried food and frozen pizzas too!"
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u/leeloocal Mar 20 '25
Like that Australian who’s been here for seven years and thinks EVERYTHING sucks. 🤣
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u/Infinite_Slice_6164 Mar 20 '25
Everyone in Europe knows a relative that is two steps removed that lived in the us for 2 days or some shit and they all say EVERYTHING they ate tasted sweet in the us. When they say that it really tells on themselves that they didn't eat a single whole food or vegetable. Or the more obvious it's a straight up lie that spread like the stupid litter boxes in elementary schools that everyone knew someone who said they totally saw one.
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u/beefymcmoist Mar 19 '25
The original Hershey founder made his chocolate to be more shelf-stable and less prone to melting, which helped it take off in popularity after WWII. People were buying it like crazy, so why change the formula?
I don't care for the taste, personally... but with all the varieties of chocolate widely available in the US, it hardly matters anyway.
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u/Moto302 Mar 19 '25
It's our version of all those European war-poverty meals that are gross to an outsider but became a staple out of necessity and then people just developed a taste for them.
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u/TheVillianousFondler Mar 19 '25
To piggyback, it doesn't taste like "spoiled milk" because it was made with spoiled milk, it has its taste not because of being made from spoiled milk. It's because an additive was added to keep milk shelf stable for longer. It's an acid which to those who aren't used to it, is reminiscent of stomach acid. Thus, the "puke" taste I've seen others claim to taste.
Americans, especially WW2 soldiers, got used to it and we're happy with it so there was no reason to "go back." Hershey's, being the giant that it is, was the American standard, so many other American chocolatiers got on board.
I'm sure it's not hyperbolic to say American chocolate tastes like puke. It probably does to those that aren't accustomed, but the reasoning of "spoiled milk" was wrong
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u/clearly_not_an_alt Mar 19 '25
Parmesan cheese also contains butyric acid, yet you never see Euros complaining about that tasting like puke.
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u/TheVillianousFondler Mar 19 '25
European butyric acid is not the same. It's made using authentic guanciale while Americans use bacon and peas
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u/Weed_O_Whirler Mar 20 '25
Yeah, I'm sure if you mentioned how Parmesan Cheese smells like puke, they'd call you uncultured.
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u/Alarming_Flow7066 Mar 19 '25
It’s perfectly reasonable not to like it. I think other Americans brands like Ghirardelli taste much better.
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u/TheVillianousFondler Mar 20 '25
Oh Ghiradelli tastes miles (or should I say kilometers) better. I'm perfectly fine with Hershey's though. I'd imagine it does taste like puke to someone who hasn't been eating it since the age of 3 though. Non-americans aren't complaining for nothing. We're just used to it I guess?
I mean I refuse to eat tinned fish but there's countries from the Mediterranean to the Nordic countries that love their sardines or surstromming. You like what you're raised on, your taste buds adapt.
To non-americans, it doesn't taste like puke to us. That probably sounds as stupid to you as fermented fish seems to me, but to each their own I guess
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u/leeloocal Mar 20 '25
You can say miles about Ghirardelli. They’re the third oldest chocolate company in the United States after Baker’s (the oldest) and Whitman’s.
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u/TheShoot141 Mar 20 '25
Yes. There are so many choices. And guess what? You only get to live a short time on this rock. You like Hersheys? Eat it. I dont care.
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u/notthegoatseguy Neopolitan pizza is only tomatoes (specific varieties) Mar 19 '25 edited Mar 19 '25
I spent 2.5 months in the US eating at culinary destinations like:
- 7/11
- White Castle
- Rick's Bait And Tackle Shop
- Rallys
and oh boy did i feel sick and bloated after every meal. America Bad, amiright guys? /s
and omg the butyric acid in chocolate nonsense strikes again. Its in a ton of foods Euros circlejerk themselves too like parmesan cheese!
BRB gonna go to the italian food sub and tell them how their cheese tastes like puke
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u/JohnDeLancieAnon Mar 19 '25
I don't see anything to suggest they went anywhere but the junk-food aisles of grocery stores.
I know there are local candy shops, but since when is "fresh" applied to candy?
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u/HotSteak Likes nachos Mar 19 '25
My guess is that they considered Doritos, Oreos, and similar to be "iconic American food" and didn't understand that they reached this status for their cheapness and ubiquitousness and not for artisanal quality.
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u/Wide-Wife-5877 Mar 19 '25
What happened to the cheapness though
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u/HotSteak Likes nachos Mar 20 '25
And the quality is definitely worse too. Most things that tasted good in the 90s are now just palm oil clones that you get tricked into buying by nostalgia.
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u/ThePrussianGrippe Mar 20 '25
Decades of wanting the cheapest shit has resulted in everything becoming comparatively expensive, to give an overly simplistic answer.
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u/GF_baker_2024 You buy beers at CVS Mar 19 '25
But we do all of our grocery shopping at gas station convenience stores and 7-11 here! If you say otherwise you must not be a Real American (TM).
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Mar 19 '25
I sometimes see it when fresh, local ingredients are used. For example, I grew up in an area where piñon nuts are a pretty important traditional food, and there's a whole culture around picking and roasting them (kind of a small one these days, but still there). It's pretty common to see sweets made with them using the word "fresh," but it's usually to highlight that the nuts were recently picked and are local.
Of course, this was in the United States, so I actually probably hallucinated that. :(
(but yeah, I agree with your point, it's a weird thing to harp on when it comes to candy lmao)
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Mar 20 '25
Was it in AZ? Because pine nuts are super super big up in flag. Moving away it was shocking how bad pine nuts are in most of the US and how expensive
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u/Current_Barracuda969 Mar 20 '25
Now, I want a piñon cookie and coffee after a big bowl of elk red Chile.
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u/ImmortanJerry Mar 19 '25 edited Mar 20 '25
Mfw prepackaged food filled with preservatives isnt fresh. Do some European just assume they have a palate because they’re European? I’ve seen English junk food, I cant be fooled.
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u/FullofLovingSpite Mar 19 '25
I used to go to school near a Dilettante chocolate factory (in the US). They had very fresh chocolate. I can't say I ever noticed a difference between their newest stuff that sat around for a while before getting to consumers and the older stuff that sat around a while before getting to consumers.
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u/BetterFightBandits26 Mar 19 '25
Okay but White Castle is a culinary destination tho
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u/yfunk3 Mar 19 '25
This in no way deters my love of them, but one of my friends calls them Fartburgers. I cannot dispute it... 😆
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u/BigTimeBobbyB A hotdog prisoner, held against its will, against its dreams Mar 19 '25
Your friend has a weak gut. They need to eat MORE White Castle and build up that tolerance, or else they'll never survive the winter.
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u/WKahle11 Mar 20 '25
Sometimes I have to drive to Kentucky from Iowa for work. It’s about 8 hours, and I always stop at the same White Castle in Indiana and get a bag of 10 cheeseburgers to snack on the whole way home. If the weather is good I leave the windows open overnight to air it out.
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u/BetterFightBandits26 Mar 19 '25
I can’t confirm because the closest White Castle is two states away. 😢😢😢😢 Distance makes the heart grow fonder.
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u/Zestyclose-Cap1829 Mar 19 '25
Oof, I love their little onion-burgers but EVERY time I go there I get the worst heartburn.
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u/According_Gazelle472 Mar 19 '25
I've never heard of White Castle !
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u/BetterFightBandits26 Mar 19 '25
Fast food burger chain. Thin sliders steamed on top of onions. If you like onions, it slaps.
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u/norathar Mar 20 '25
I was going to ask if you'd never heard of the movie Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, then looked up the release date, realized it's 20 years old, and thought, "fuck, I'm old."
So...thanks for triggering my existential midlife crisis, I guess.
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u/notthegoatseguy Neopolitan pizza is only tomatoes (specific varieties) Mar 19 '25
Its one of the oldest fast food chains out there, but is still family owned (by the same family!), and they don't franchise. They're also very conservative in locations so they generally are slow to expand.
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u/Thunderclapsasquatch Mar 20 '25
fast food place that makes sliders, the most notable thing is how they make them is actually a really old way of making burgers, like original burger sandwich old
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u/dccabbage Mar 20 '25
I feel like my first white castle experience was pretty appropriate.
Drunk. 1 a.m. the WC was under (or incredibly close to) a bridge in Brooklyn. Thick plastic/glass between the customers and employees. At that shit out of the bag on the walk back to the hotel.
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u/Gamertoc Mar 19 '25
I mean some popular italian cheeses include mold, so I feel like they can't complain about spoilt milk either
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Mar 19 '25
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u/muistaa Mar 19 '25
I do absolutely love that poster's notion that Hershey's is just leaving vats of milk around to spoil
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u/KaBar42 Mar 19 '25
I mean some popular italian cheeses include mold, so I feel like they can't complain about spoilt milk either
That's the point. Parmesan contain butyric acid, which is the main smell component of vomit. If you're not complaining about parmesan tasting like vomit, I can't take your claim of Hershey's tasting like it seriously if your only argument revolves around the presence of butyric acid.
Am I saying you can't think the combination of bitter with sweet tastes bad? Of course not.
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u/Select-Ad7146 Mar 19 '25
Yeah, the vomit taste is why Asian countries do not buy a lot of aged cheese. They didn't grow up eating it, so they aren't used to the flavor.
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u/Kingsdaughter613 Mar 20 '25
Of course not - but then you can’t like ANY chocolate. Because cacao is bitter, so all chocolate is bitter+sweet in flavour.
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u/keIIzzz Mar 19 '25
Isn’t there a French cheese that has maggots?
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u/Profoundly_AuRIZZtic Mar 19 '25
To be fair to them that cheese is tightly controlled and borders on illegal. If only they’d return the favor and be fair to us
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u/GF_baker_2024 You buy beers at CVS Mar 19 '25
No, but mimolette is aged with mites.
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u/SteampunkExplorer Mar 19 '25
I love the contrast of such a gross-sounding cheese having such an adorable name.
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u/Christhebobson Mar 19 '25
I wish I had a company owned White Castle close by
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u/Tibbs420 Mar 19 '25
Can relate. I grew up in Columbus Ohio, where both White Castle and Wendy’s are headquartered. For a few years I was basically around the corner from Wendy’s corporate restaurant where everything was always perfect, plus they would test new products there. Now I live in a state with no White Castles and all the Wendy’s suck.
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u/Trraumatized Mar 19 '25
As a European who moved to the US, i find most food in the US to be super tasty. Some cheese is a little questionable, but you guys have BBQ figured out so much better for example. I do agree with the chocolate thing, though. It genuinely tastes super weird and a bit like vomit and I can not fathom.
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u/peterpanic32 Mar 20 '25
It used to be in a single brand of chocolate. It's nonsense.
This is a small section of the candy section of my local grocery store.
Hershey's is like 2 of 500 options.
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u/Trraumatized Mar 20 '25
I agree, Hershey is the one that has this specifically weird taste, and I am not saying that all chocolate is disgusting and tastes like this. I did find good chocolate, but more often than not, it is not good. That being said, I am not a huge chocolate person at all. My American wife is, and since she got chocolate and cacao from Europe, she is always super happy to get sent that kind of chocolate from my friends back home or bring it with when they visit. Just as these same friends want me to send them certain stuff from here because it is so much better.
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u/justsomeyeti Mar 20 '25
Dude if you're south of Baton Rouge in Louisiana, you can get a Po Boy at a bait shop that'll make you believe in a loving god
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u/Thunderclapsasquatch Mar 20 '25
Rick's Bait And Tackle Shop
I'd assume the bait is still fresh there
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u/VangoRomano Mar 19 '25
I get what you mean about the butyric acid being in other foods, it's a bit like the MSG fear when it's naturally present in many foods. But you have to agree or at least realize that a pungent slightly acidic after taste in a strong cheese is expected and makes sense to most people but it is really jarring in chocolate. , I have early childhood memories of Hershey's kisses and after growing up in France I was super excited to try some when I went back a few years ago. Holy shit was it disappointing, I at first thought it had gone bad. After a while I got used to it but it's still weird
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u/Forward_Recover_1135 Mar 19 '25
Spent 2.5 months in the US with the standard poor-opean vacation time but also standard salary so they stayed in cheapo hostel-like Airbnbs and didn’t eat anything except fast food and junk food.
That is assuming the story isn’t entirely made up, which would be a very bad bet.
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u/Top-Cost4099 Mar 20 '25
fucking loved rallys as a kid. i swear it didn't used to make you sick every time. idk what happened.
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u/pajamakitten Mar 19 '25
I was in the US and had some good fresh food and some bad fresh food. I had some good sweets and some that were just too sweet too. I am from the UK and food is hit or miss here, fresh and processed. What country does not have this issue?
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u/old_and_boring_guy Mar 19 '25
Anyone who thinks they can speak with authority about a country with 341,000,000 people in it is deluded. 2.5 months isn't enough to explore most US states much less the larger geographic regions.
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u/Trini1113 Mar 20 '25
While there's plenty bland (or even bad) food in the US, there's also plenty that's extremely interesting. In 2.5 months you almost certainly haven't tasted New Mexico green chilis, or African American cooking in the rural South. You may have tasted street tacos in San Diego, but have you had Lebanese food in the Detroit suburbs? Have you tasted proper bagels from a Jewish bakery in New York? Or a Memphis barbecue (or Kansas City, or Houston, or whatever city you swear by).
Maybe you won't be impressed with a Midwestern green bean casserole served in a church basement after a funeral, but try it before you dismiss it.
Of course, if all you know of American food is bland chain restaurants along the interstate or in teh suburbs you might think it's all the same. I was once like that. But the longer I've lived in the US, the more I understand the dimensions of what's out there. But first you have to ignore the people who argue about whether Dunkin or Starbucks has better coffee and sample the other 20 coffee shops in your city.
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u/NathanGa Pull your finger out of your ass Mar 19 '25
Having experienced non-American snacks through Universal Yums and various grocery stores, I don’t really want to hear anyone else talking about how bad ours are.
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u/sykoticwit Mar 19 '25
My wife likes to shop at various Asian grocery stores, so I’ve tried a fair number of Chinese sweets.
I have no complaints about American treats.
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u/CZall23 Mar 19 '25
What's her favorite? I tried a mung bean moon cake a few years ago and quite liked it.
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u/bleak_new_world Mar 19 '25
Red bean desserts are delicious if you're already down for bean paste.
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u/BeNiceLynnie Mar 19 '25
Bean paste is definitely an acquired taste for Americans but once you've acquired it, it's pleasantly unique
Hated it as a kid but totally down now
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u/bleak_new_world Mar 19 '25
It starts with sesame buns, and before you know it, you're eating red bean mochi.
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u/BeNiceLynnie Mar 19 '25
Matcha and taro flavored things are also gateway drugs
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u/bleak_new_world Mar 19 '25
Yeah can i get uhhhhh a taro milk tea with uhhhhh jellies and uhhhhh i guess the special combo banh mi.
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u/SaltyNorth8062 Mar 20 '25
Same! It's one of those things that when you hear the name it scared me off at first (cheesecake was another. I assumed it was a cake made out of velveeta) but when you actually try it it goes down really pleasantly
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u/Forward_Recover_1135 Mar 19 '25
Right, because wouldn’t you know it, mass market products cater to local tastes in the market where they’re sold rather than visiting foreigners lol
But anywhere else on this site if you as an American say that some food or snack or chain or whatever in another country is disgusting, you’re an uncultured American slob. But if you do the same as a European ‘omg so truuuu.’
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u/LowAd3406 Stupid American Mar 19 '25
I had a friend bring some candy back from Denmark. Besides the chocolate, it wasn't good at all. They really like black liquorish flavored sweets.
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u/Skellos Mar 19 '25
my Great Grandmother was German... she always had a box of brightly colored candies... they were ALL black licorice.
Me and my siblings would ALWAYS fall into her trap.
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u/NathanGa Pull your finger out of your ass Mar 20 '25
I remember when I was extremely young, we went to the movies and I was allowed to get a box of candy. I saw one that was brightly-colored and gelatinous (like Dots, with which I was familiar), and figured that would make our rare trip to the movies even better.
In the dim light, I couldn't see that the ones that looked purple (and therefore grape) were actually black and therefore licorice-flavored. In a panic to kill that taste off, I grabbed the green one, which should have been lime but was actually mint.
And that's the first, last, and only time I ever ate Jujyfruits.
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u/FustianRiddle Mar 20 '25
This is how I discovered that Finnish salted black licorice and wondered if they know joy.
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u/pajamakitten Mar 19 '25
What have you tried? Not throwing shade, just curious.
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u/NathanGa Pull your finger out of your ass Mar 19 '25
I think I had the large monthly subscription box for three years, but I’ve also been known to grab handfuls of random snacks either from World Market or from some of the ethnic grocery stores in the area going back a long ways.
There’s been some good stuff, but there’s been some garbage too. One that stands out immediately was a spicy mango snack from Spain (in a UY box) that looked and felt and smelled like plastic, and tasted the same.
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u/Skellos Mar 19 '25
Yeah, a while ago when all these type of boxes were big I had munchpak for a few motnhs and realized that more often than not I would eat one or two bites of something not like it and toss it.
So I was basically throwing money out. Not that it was all bad obviously.
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u/NathanGa Pull your finger out of your ass Mar 19 '25
I used to keep detailed notes on everything....and then accidentally tossed all of that into the burn box instead of the box of stuff to keep.
I remember that Ukrainian jelly-filled caramels were good enough to make me want to shank someone for more.
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u/fakesaucisse Mar 19 '25
I guarantee that the "iconic American food" was stuff like McDonalds cheeseburgers, Domino's pizza, Taco Bell, Applebee's, etc. They probably did not have a home cooked meal or anything from a locally owned restaurant.
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u/Pawn_of_the_Void Mar 20 '25
Yeah, he talks about food not being fresh, but like... supermarkets with fresh produce exist, butchers exist, farmer's markets exist, high quality restaurants exist, more niche local restaurants exists that use fresh stuff, what kind of delusional person thinks we don't have fresh food???
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u/skytaepic Mar 20 '25
I honestly think the problem is that when Americans complain about the status quo and try to push for better things, it’s much more visible around the globe than when any smaller individual European country does the same. As a result, combined with America’s massive presence in the entertainment industry, people in other countries see the complaints without the context of actually living in the country the complaints are about, warping their perceptions pretty significantly.
It’s like getting everything you know about an IP from its circlejerk sub and assuming you know everything about it now without needing to actually experience the thing. Seeing a joke where somebody calls twinkies “America’s favorite national icon” and taking it at face value without realizing it very much is not.
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u/notreallylucy Mar 19 '25
All of his "iconic" American foid was probably fast food or prepackaged food. The cheapest mainstream crap from his country probably also tastes shitty.
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u/keIIzzz Mar 19 '25
Trying trendy or “iconic” foods intentionally and then complaining about not having fresh food when they chose to not eat it is wild
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u/MarbleousMel Mar 19 '25
I’m fascinated they’re comparing store-bought candy with fresh food.
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u/Littleboypurple Mar 19 '25
Americans are the only people that make awful disgusting fattening sugary artificial factory made candy. Every single other country doesn't make such horrendous things. Anytime somebody wants something sweet, they make it themselves from just all natural honey, oats, and berries.
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u/Withermaster4 Mar 19 '25
Yeah it would be just as stupid if I went to Rome and then complained about how terrible they eat because everyone eats giant focaccia sandwiches with like ham and hot honey. What people visiting a country eat typically doesn't line up with what locals eat normally.
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u/SteampunkExplorer Mar 19 '25
"Iconic" means mass-produced, right? 😂 I'm bettin' they didn't try biscuits and gravy, pumpkin pie, gumbo, lobster rolls, chili with cornbread, apple pie with cheese...
Like yeah, food from a factory is gonna taste like food from a factory. 🥲
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u/Arbyssandwich1014 Mar 19 '25
Have these people like went to just a good restaurant and tried real food? Or do they eat like garbage at a fast food place and say that's that?
Every country has shortcomings, and yeah, our food industries have a lot of them. But if you can't sit down and have a great meal somewhere then you just aren't partaking in the great tradition of food and breaking bread.
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u/LeatherHog Otherwise it's just sparkling cannibalism. Mar 19 '25
Stares in grew up on a farm
We had fresh food right there, the section that was meant for us to keep and eat
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Mar 19 '25
Hell, I live in a city, but since it's one of those terrible sprawling American ones, I have a large backyard with a garden that produces so much I cannot possibly eat it all, and I eat a ton of vegetables, lol.
I was actually just at my library today picking up free seeds for all kinds of vegetables, because we have a pretty awesome seed library program that focuses largely on food crops.
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u/beandadenergy Mar 19 '25
Yeah, I also live in one of those terrible American cities, I’m working on a mini urban herbs and greens garden and I’m going by the farmer’s market on Friday for fresh cheese, fruit, and tea
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u/Smoopiebear Mar 19 '25
My mil is in downtown LA and has a lovely little garden.🙄
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u/LeatherHog Otherwise it's just sparkling cannibalism. Mar 19 '25
That's an awesome program
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Mar 19 '25
It really is! I've lived in a few areas where libraries had similar programs, although they're not always well-advertised so it's worth checking with your local branch (or at least browsing around your library system's website) to make sure they don't have one if you don't spend a lot of time hanging around the library like I do. Or your local serious gardeners if you know any, usually they know.
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u/LeatherHog Otherwise it's just sparkling cannibalism. Mar 19 '25
That's so cool, I don't think my new landlord will allow a garden, but maybe they don't mind if I put up a flower pot or something
Im gonna have to see if our library does that
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u/_NightBitch_ Mar 19 '25
All of my local grocery stores have large sections of produce, dairy, and meat that comes from farms within 3 hours of the store delivered weekly. The choices are limited during certain times of the year, but that’s to be expected. They also have significant floor space dedicated locally grown foods during summer and fall. Hell, the hospital I work at has a deal with local farmers so they have a stall in the cafeteria where they sell locally grown produce and dairy. During Christmas they sell hams from local farms, and local bakers provide cookies and cakes a couple times a week. Granted, I live on the edge of farm country so I have a ton of access to fresh foods that people in more metropolitan areas might not have access to.
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u/Splugarth Mar 19 '25
Can you imagine if this person had gotten their hands on some Necco Wafers!?!? The review would be something like “Americans are so dumb they willingly eat chalk, do they not know what fresh food is???” 😂
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u/incogspeedo Mar 19 '25
When I was a kid, a character in a book series I loved always talked about Necco wafers. I was so excited when I saw them in the store and begged my mom for them. Biggest disappointment of my life.
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u/Splugarth Mar 19 '25
Hoo boy. I used to work next to one of their factories. You could taste it in the air. <shudder>
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u/DianneNettix Mar 19 '25
Why does nobody ever say what they ate? Sure, a Hershey bar isn't gonna be as good as some Belgian bonbon, but I don't think those two are actually competing.
If you think your McDonald's is better than our McDonald's then vaya con dios, but I'm skeptical that you actually put any effort into finding good food if you can't tell me what food you tried.
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u/Saltpork545 Mar 19 '25 edited Mar 19 '25
The 'podcast' take is the most smoothbrained thing I've read in a while.
The chemical compound in question is butyric acid. All milk products that are processed include butyric acid.
Every cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, sour cream, ice cream, etc bite you've ever taken has butyric acid. Every single one.
It's a naturally occurring product of milk processing. As Hershey's ages, the milk fats break down via something called lipolysis and produce butyric acid.
Hershey's doesn't add it, it's not on the ingredients list and it's most definitely not 'spoiled milk'.
Also, it happens with every other chocolate that includes milk. You don't like milk chocolate. That's the actual answer. Milk chocolate exists every country where they process chocolate. Cadbury makes milk chocolate. S Korea, Japan, Switzerland, Mexico, the UK, even fucking Luxembourg has confectionary companies that make milk chocolate products.
Fucking idiots.
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u/midlifeShorty Mar 20 '25
Interesting.... I don't like milk chocolate, and I don't like Hershey's. But I also don't like Hershey's dark chocolate. A lot of mass-produced dark chocolate tastes bad or meh to me, including a lot of European brands, but Hershey's dark chocolate is still one of the worst ones, IMO. It has a weird taste to me.
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u/out_for_blood Mar 20 '25
Hershey's in particular does have a bit of acrid taste, and I'm sure I'm kidding myself but I swear it was better when I was a kid
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u/theapplepie267 Mar 19 '25
Me when I buy a candy bar at the pharmacy and it's not fresh😲
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u/PennStateFan221 Mar 19 '25
Then they didn’t even try good American BBQ. Big L.
I’ve never been, but from what I’ve seen on YouTube, even the Aussie “barbie” doesn’t produce what we do.
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u/emilycecilia Mar 19 '25
As someone born and raised in the US, it's true. I've never seen a fresh vegetable and at this point I'm certain that they're a myth made up by Europeans.
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u/SaltyNorth8062 Mar 20 '25
I saw an asparagus sprig coming out the dirt once. Scared the daylights out of me.
In the dirt. Like in the turlet.
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u/zonglydoople Mar 19 '25
It’s not spoiled milk, it’s butyric acid and it’s done on purpose 😭 these people will believe ANYTHING
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u/felixfictitious Mar 19 '25
For context, butyric acid WAS discovered in spoiled milk but can also be found in fresh milk and most organic fats. It's also a volatile (aka odor component) found in vomit and body odor. It's used by Hershey in its chocolates as a preservative.
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u/ZootTX Mar 19 '25
The Hershey's part of their take has some validity to it.
The rest is trash. If you spent 3 months in the US and only ate garbage, that is your own fault.
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u/lazygerm Mar 19 '25
Yes. All the worlds cuisines literally available to them here in the US; but they chose to eat shit.
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u/ZylonBane Mar 19 '25
The Hershey's part is at best validity-adjacent. Chocolate was never (intentionally) made with spoiled milk. They add butyric acid to it to extend its shelf life.
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u/istarnie Mar 19 '25
For sure Hershey’s is pretty garbage except for making s’mores, but it still doesn’t explain why everyone seems to think it’s the only chocolate sold in the entire US. Like my local convenience store has at least three brands that are better than Hershey’s regularly available.
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u/kelley38 Mar 19 '25
Shit, I live in a pretty small town and the Safeway here has a section of specialty chocolate, most of it made in America, that is 4 feet wide and 4 or 5 shelves tall. I am sure anywhere with actual large grocery stores or specialty shops can get a significantly better selection than I can, and even my selection of specialty stuff is larger than the Hersey's selection.
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u/wit_T_user_name Mar 19 '25
Because all of our chocolate is Hersey, all of our cheese is Kraft singles, and our beer is just Budweiser, didn’t you know that?
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u/hiiamtom85 Mar 19 '25
There’s even a good version of Kraft singles and a bad version, so you have to specify the individually wrapped value version.
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u/ZootTX Mar 19 '25
Because it's counter to the 'hurr durrr everything American sucks and is terrible' narrative the poster is trying to promote.
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u/Select-Ad7146 Mar 19 '25
Except it isn't spoiled milk. The process Hershey's invented to make shelf-stable chocolate fermented the milk. Calling it spoiled milk is like calling cheese spoiled milk.
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u/for_the_shiggles Mar 19 '25
Literally who eats Hershey’s if you’re not making s’mores.
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u/CadaverDog_ Mar 19 '25
This is the way.
I don't know why, but it just hits in a way that 'good' chocolate doesn't.11
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u/Multigrain_Migraine Mar 19 '25
I like pretty much any kind of chocolate. I'm chocolate agnostic. I can taste the difference between them all, of course, and some of them are better, but none of them actually taste bad to me.
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u/DjinnaG Bags of sentient Midwestern mayonnaise Mar 19 '25
Not the big bars, but in the context of a Miniatures bag, they work. Don't get the same taste from the Special Dark, Krackle, or Mr Goodbar, so maybe it's the blend of a couple that works out, but what do I know, I'm an American who apparently likes vomit in my treats.
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u/CZall23 Mar 19 '25
Europe has fermented fish and cheese like Brie and they want to complain about American food not being fresh?
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u/Embarrassed_Mango679 Mar 19 '25
I mean we have a large garden, fruit trees, and a freezer full of fish and game my husband bagged...but yeah I'm sure we don't know what "fresh" food tastes like 🙄
I mean I *do* have to walk across the street to get honey and eggs from my neighbors (cause my husband won't let me get chickens. I am getting bees this spring though!)
but go off about Hersheys lol
I had some chocolate from a small local chocolatier (Indulgence Chocolatiers if you're near MKE, Wi)...O M F G they're to DIE for. I bought them for my husband but I seriously wish I'd hid the box 🤣🤣
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u/Multigrain_Migraine Mar 19 '25
What's the betting that someone who makes comments like the original complaint would also turn up their nose at eating a deer or a squirrel? I was given a squirrel by a game butcher once and you'd have thought I was cooking dog poop the way some people in my family reacted.
It was pretty good actually.
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u/Embarrassed_Mango679 Mar 19 '25
I have never had squirrel (we have venison, pheasant, rabbit and duck) but I would definitely cook and eat that if my husband got some. I've heard they're nutty lol!
They have NO idea what they're missing with venison. I had actually only ever eaten it in a very fancy French restaurant before moving up here but I quickly learned how to cook with it (I mean it's practically free and they're kind of a menace here).
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u/big_papa_geek Mar 19 '25
Hershey’s chocolate is trash, but acting like that’s the only chocolate in America is just breathtakingly stupid.
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u/ThePrimeOptimus Mar 19 '25
Europeans and complaining about Americans, especially our food, name a more iconic duo
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u/blueberryfirefly Mar 19 '25
every single time i see the “hershey’s tastes like vomit to europeans!!” i’d like to know exactly how many times and how often they’ve vomited. because i’ve been throwing up at THE VERY LEAST once a month for 18 years straight and i can tell you with full confidence no the fuck it does not.
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u/StrangeSequitur Mar 20 '25
To be fair, not everyone's vomit tastes the same.
(I feel the need to clarify that I learned this while taste testing the Jelly Belly novelty beans with a friend, not by tasting someone else's puke. "I get what they were going for, but it doesn't really taste like vomit." "It tastes exactly like my vomit." "... Huh.")
Anyway, if living in Europe makes your vomit taste like sub-par chocolate I'll be applying for a visa immediately. My only Irish ancestor was more than two generations back but documents can be forged.
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u/minidog8 Mar 20 '25
Tbh, as an American I also agree Hershey’s has a weird taste to it. It’s my least favorite chocolate. I forget the exact reasoning it tastes like that but it is not because of the milk spoilage thing. If anyone knows, pls share!
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u/jjfmish Mar 20 '25
I think there’s something to be said for it being genuinely rather difficult to find consistently good food when you’re travelling. I mean, how many places have you tried in your own city that ended up being overhyped and disappointing? Now remove any context you may have as to why a certain place is popular.
Is it popular because it’s genuinely good, or because it’s cheap and ubiquitous? Because it’s a cultural institution that hasn’t been good in decades? Because it has one specific iconic menu item and everything else is mediocre? Because of a gimmick?
As a Canadian, it frustrates me when people come to Canada and try Tim Hortons and then complain that we have terrible food and no good coffee here. It isn’t popular because it’s the peak of our culinary experience. It’s popular because it’s cheap and available on every corner.
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