Off the top of my head:
India:
Sugar
Pepper
Basil
Mangoes
Bananas
Ginger
(Ceylon) Cinnamon
SEA:
(Cassia) Cinnamon
Mace
Nutmeg
Oranges
Lemons
Limes
Central Asia:
Apples
Carrots (Afghanistan, could be considered MENA or India but the MENA category is too OP)
East Asia:
Peaches
Soy Sauce
Ketchup
Soy sauce
Sesame oil
Africa:
Coffee
Coca-Cola
Palm oil
Americas:
Chocolate
Vanilla
Blueberries
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Corn
Pineapple
Strawberries
Daily reminder that the idea of "national" cuisine is inherently nationalist, food doesn't follow borders or skin color and pretending it does only plays into ethnonationalist ideals.
All food everywhere is a result of immigrants influencing local cultures, local climate, local needs. Seeing others take something you grew up with and give their own twist on it should invite joy in your heart, it is a sign of appreciation and respect that others would love a part of your life so dearly, that they would wish to replicate it. The fact that they attempt to modify it to make it into something that they can consider a part of their everyday meals is only a grander sign of love. The fact that we can share and incorporate each others produce, practice and recipes is a wonderful and cool thing that should be celebrated, not something to be used as a cringy dunk that really only exposes your own ass for not having a coherent logical framework.
Pretending like the meal you hold dearly isn't also a product of that same process of immigration, appreciation, appropriation and procreation, is inherently reactionairy.I guess this is some dumbass American thing I am not capable of understanding. You guys seem to suck at cooking, it seems like food is just signifiers over there. Ive seen users here dunk on the concept of using "salt" to season your food, because "white people use salt." Same goes for herbs.
Whenever i talk to Americans and they talk about using spices, they can't ever specify what fucking spices apart from "oh cajun mix from the local store" or the like. Maybe I'm lucky enough to see the words "paprika" or "cumin", but I've yet to see anything but blank stares when I ask what they use for their other dishes. It's all the same fucking spices on all dishes, because it is not actually about making good food. Like the kings of old, spices are used as a signifyer rather than something that should be understood and used in cooking.
Your hot sauces suck ass too. I don't want some garbage artificial chemical capsaicing booster pack, I want a fucking hot sauce.
And your portion sizes are fucked and don't even get me started on corn syrup.
Americans need to shut the fuck up about food.
All your dishes are German anyway.It's all the same fucking spices on all dishes
Hear me out: garlic improves basically everything but sweet stuff. it should be in everything.
Your hot sauces suck ass too.
Okay, what are your recommendations, I'd love to compare with my spice cabinet full of only flavorful hot sauces that aren't chemical bullshit and see if there's anything new I should be adding to the collection.
Okay, what are your recommendation.
I don't have any. I live in a commune with an Ecuadorian chef who makes hot sauces for us, so I'm no longer subjected to all the weird supermarket shit. Move in with a Zapatista I guess.
Garlic.
Yes!
god damn i'm jealous. i have a handful of supermarket ones, but mostly it's stuff I've had to import from latin america or asia. hot sauce availability in canada is mid.
hot sauce availability in canada is mid.
:yea: I guess maybe go ask your local Latin American restaurant (if there is one) wether you can buy their sauce? Long shot I guess
I'm pretty sure it's fucking all tapatio lmao. On the better side of store bought, but I live in the tiniest province so availability of basically anything interesting is low and there are like 3 Latin American restaurants I don't have to take a ferry to another province to visit.
I going to pour one out for you, rip
but I live in the tiniest province so availability of basically anything interesting is low
Ok, may I play the World's Smallest Violin for ye, on the isle you call the most wee of all provinces...
What brocht ye there, exile, ... cheap property rent? Why do you live there lmao....
Cyclable-ness and needing the ocean. Much like a 19th century sick person in a cosmic horror story, I was told the sea air would do me good, and it has. The only weird thing I've discovered in the Maritimes has been Newfies, unfortunately.
The only weird thing I've discovered in the Maritimes has been Newfies, unfortunately.
Why so, don't you have Nova Scotians, langoustines and the like, in your proximity?
langoustines
I tease out of love, people out here are really friendly. There's just a tragic lack of Lovecraftian mysteries for me to unravel to give my life meaning and then drive me into all-consuming madness. I was hoping for Azathoth of Green Gables and instead all I got was cheap fish and really good seasonal produce.
If you have the time/space and fresh chilies available to you, lacto fermenting chilies with some spices and garlic, then blending them makes for amazing hot sauces that you can tailor to your tastes. It's remarkably easy and safe to do.
I did this with habaneros, onion, and garlic and it turned out amazing. Only thing I would change would be stopping the fermentation at like 7-10 days instead of letting it go for two and a half weeks. Too fermented for me, but my friends love it.
Hear me out: garlic improves basically everything but sweet stuff. it should be in everything.
Nearly all of Central Europe, Turkey and the Levant agree with you there. I do, too. Garlic is flavor town central.
As an Algerian, I see this bullshit way too much between us and Moroccans, Motherfuckers really believe that on the Oujda Tlemcen border people stop eating Harrira and Baghrir on the other side, sometimes it's funny everytime it's fucking annoying.
How's Maroc as your neighbor... I assume pretty annoying, even without conflict (Maroc's a comprador nation, right?)....
At least you guys share shakshouka, right?
Comprador? no, The Moroccan regime doesn't even try to hide on which side it is, It refuses to cut relations with the zionist entity hell it still wants to buy the Merkava tanks, yet it didn't think twice about bombing Yemen. not even going to mention colonizing the Western Sahara or the Sand War.
Ok, so they're the wannabe Saudis of the Maghreb...
I guess so
Anyways, technically, if we're following the list of this food, Shakshouka is technically an Americano-Maghrebi dish, because you know, one of its ingredients, tomatoes come from South America, along with the some of its spices, cayenne and paprika, in Central and South Americas...
Tomatoes and peppers are New World ingredients that only became common ingredients in later centuries after the Columbian exchange.
So um technically, Shakshouka is an Americano dish, sweaty
Just like how Pizza is Americano-Italian-American invention...
yeah, shakshuka is everything but israeli
I'm a food scholar by training (and I'm working to be a full-time food scholar, too) and you have largely summarized a bunch of conversations I've been in and books written on the whole "food is born out of migration, exchange, and local culture and biodiversity"
Very cool!
I'll take that as a huge compliment, thank you. Is there any cool facts you feel like sharing, or corrections you'd like to make? I'd love to learn more. Do you have any books that you'd recommend a layperson?
I guess this is some dumbass American thing I am not capable of understanding. You guys seem to suck at cooking, it seems like food is just signifiers over there. Ive seen users here dunk on the concept of using "salt" to season your food, because "white people use salt." Same goes for herbs.
Whenever i talk to Americans and they talk about using spices, they can't ever specify what fucking spices apart from "oh cajun mix from the local store" or the like. Maybe I'm lucky enough to see the words "paprika" or "cumin", but I've yet to see anything but blank stares when I ask what they use for their other dishes. It's all the same fucking spices on all dishes, because it is not actually about making good food. Like the kings of old, spices are used as a signifyer rather than something that should be understood and used in cooking.
Your hot sauces suck ass too. I don't want some garbage artificial chemical capsaicing booster pack, I want a fucking hot sauce.
And your portion sizes are fucked and don't even get me started on corn syrup.
Americans need to shut the fuck up about food.
All your dishes are German anyway.New tagline dropped please mods
Good post.
Thank you. Ive taught a bunch of friends how to cook, (just the basics) and this mindset is one of many I have had to help alleviate them of.
You should cook food you like, and the primary indicator of when you've cooked "good food" is wether you like your food or not. This idea that certain things are taboo or wrong or that you have to enjoy certain dishes in certain ways, certain combinations or on certain occasions, only makes cooking more inapproachable. On top of that it is just weird ethno-nationalism when people insist only certain ethnicities are allowed to cook certain dishes, or that certain ethnicities are inherently bad at doing something or enjoying something.
Weirdly I only ever really see this from americans. They all like to point fingers at Italians, but all the Italians I've met have been chill as fuck about food - They understand that food is meant to bring people together, not tear them apart.
Americans are weird about foodStill very much present in the EU as well, especially when it comes to French and Italian cooking (not necessarily from the French and Italians mind you)
You definitely need "there are no rules" at first, but when your protege starts belting out Wonderwall in his best Bob Dylan impression, you have to switch to "there are some rules."
Where I live, if you order a random taco off of a delivery service (I know, I know, I've pretty much stopped), you have a decent chance of your "taco" being on a fajita shell and containing iceberg lettuce, with a packet of mass-produced hot sauce on the side if you're feeling adventurous. I think the weird absolutist positions well-meaning americans take is in response to this sort of disrespect for the history, the person making the food, the person delivering the food and the person eating the food.
Yeah I'm talking about people learning to cook for themselves. If I invite you over for pizza, you're gonna be bewildered if I give you butter chicken with naan. If I order pad thai, I'm gonna be mad if I get served a burger. Give me tea and call it coffee? No.
But say I was served tacos al pastor and I wanted to make some myself because they were soooo good? But the store only has hard shell tortillas? And Im not actually a big fan of cilantro, and I like my salsa mild? I'm still challenging myself, exploring other ways of cooking exploring other cultures, showing my appreciation for them and learning to respect them.
Even the shitty spices are mostly a hard on for (much better) French 19th century food. Early US and European food is 80% horseradish and peppercorn and whatever local spices were available.
Early US and European food is 80% horseradish and peppercorn
black pepper is Indian. and euros didn't even adopt the good one (pippali) they adopted the one-note one
Depends on the time and place, some areas preferred long pepper or Grains of Paradise.
long pepper
aka pippali
This is stupid. Tomatoes aren't native to India and chillies aren't native to China, doesn't mean those ingredients aren't legitimate to use in those cuisines. If you want to critique elitist European gastronomy then you should talk about how the French can't bear to eat anything that doesn't come from a dead animal or how elitist and condescending towards food from non-European cultures many Whites are.
Yeah I’m all for dunking on Europeans, but this is a dumb take, all food is from somewhere else. Apples may have come from Kazakhstan but that doesn’t mean people and cultures from outside Kazakhstan haven’t also grown apples and come up with unique ways to prepare and eat them. So what? Doesn’t mean a Japanese apple curry isn’t a part of Japanese cuisine, or cider isn’t a traditional beverage in south west England. Likewise with rice? Are we claiming that only food made near the Yangtze River basin can claim rice? Nigerian Jollof is rice apropriation?
Get outa here.
Dunk on Belgium for being allergic to flavour, or Germany for thinking chicken is a vegetable or Italians for being weird little freaks if you mess up a “traditional Italian recipe” when the only Italian food tradition for most of history was ‘not starving’.
Yeah this is silly. Cabbage is (as far as I can tell) native to Europe, but are we gonna pretend Kimchi is somehow not Korean?
Kimchi = Sauerkraut in a spicy hat and therefore kimchi is German.
Don’t point out that sauerkraut has possible origins in China.
Neat! I didn't know sauerkraut had Chinese origins. Do you think both Kimchi and sauerkraut has some common Chinese dish as their ancestor?
They do! It's called suān cài, and uses chinese mustard in the south and west and napa cabbage in north china (this being the variety that sauerkraut is based on. Kimchi likely either shares its origin here as well or may have started as the same dish.
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Oh, 100%.
That's very cool! I'll try it if I ever get the chance.
I will stuff anyone that mocks kimchi into a stone urn and pickle them with enough salt and red pepper powder to kimchify them sour.
You are only allowed to do this if you're European, per hexbear rules. Sorry.
Alright you're going in the jar first
Cabbage is (as far as I can tell) native to Europe
Mesopotamians had cabbage so I doubt it was from Europe
can't bear to eat anything that doesn't come from a dead animal
Hear hear. Reason #4587 I hate this fucking country. When it doesn't come from a dead creature it comes from a live one that is being actively tortured.
Their "cuisine" they're so proud of is built on mass slaughter and abuse, it's disgusting
I watched that Amazon Wheel of Time show when it first came out and one character is demonstrated to be a psychopath by having him eat an ortolan.
When I later found out that it's a French delicacy, that they're driving the bird extinct and that they hide under a napkin while doing it because it's so disgusting looking (the source I learned from colorfully called it "hiding their faces from God"), I was genuinely shocked. It became a fact that I've bothered all of my friends and family with, and many coworkers. Not one has reacted in a way other than disgust.
Indeed. Though IMO eating an Ortolan is still slightly less morally bankrupt that eating a steak - the former was caught in the wild, the latter is the product of systematic large-scale exploitation, torture and slaughter.
The main difference beyond that is the aesthetic and how normalized the latter is.
I'm conflicted here, the beef industry is horrific, but Ortolans are also tortured to death, even if they do live free before capture.
Yeah, it's probably stupid to try and rank suffering like that, my bad. Both are atrocious, let's leave it at that.
This is stupid. Tomatoes aren't native to India and chillies aren't native to China, doesn't mean those ingredients aren't legitimate to use in those cuisines.
The problem is this is the only side of the story that ever gets talked about, because mayobrain.
The other side (all the ingredients I've listed, and many more that I don't know about) are not.
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This is a culinary hot-take but my position is that the most well-developed cuisines (I think the term "advanced" carries way too much baggage here due to obvious reasons) are ones that can readily incorporate unfamiliar ingredients and make them into the central part of a dish.
Indian and Chinese cuisine are two examples where you could throw nearly any ingredient at them and they'd be able to make a dish out of it, at least in my opinion.
Of course, but the purity virtue signaling only happens with mayos on reddit
new rule: you're only allowed to eat and cultivate what was where you live in 10000 bce
we're uhhh deconstructing imperialismor crackers could stop gushing about how "acktchyually Thai cuisine would be NOTHING without the portuguese" when they themselves were eating boiled turnips before that
Stop making up people to get mad at. Nobody says that.
nobody gives the portuguese credit for potatos and shit, everyone says its from the americas?
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Also it's very entertaining to hear people talk about precious Italian cultural foods that are only 100 years old or so. Tomatoes weren't really used widely outside of LatAm until the mid-1800s. Bolognese sauce didn't have tomato until the 20th century. Same story for very popular Indian dishes like dal makhani.
People pining after the old traditional days of Italian grannies making tomato sauce is actually looking back at a very short history.
Pizza was unheard of in north Italy before ww2.
thank you hitler!
Yeah, finding out bell peppers and tomatoes were native to the Americas I was like what the hell did Italians eat before this?
They ate wheat polenta, I guess, and some uh, manakesh-looking food...
Fish, lots of fish
There's a restaurant in Minneapolis called Owamni that uses only pre-Colombian ingredients native to the Americas. The chef is native.
Anyway the food is incredible and the concept is incredibly interesting.
Death to America
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ok.
Coca-Cola? I thought that was from Atlanta. The kola nut is native to Africa, but coca is from South America
yes. it was a very African American beverage
Pre-Colombian expansion food is honestly a fun subject, whether in the Americas side, or in Europe.
Yeah it's a shame it's used for a weird attempt at a dunk, when it's really just a fascinating topic. I tried the original Bolognese recipe recently and it was very good
Pre-Colombian expansion you eat yer gruel and you like it
So what foods are indigenous to europe?
Olives?
What else? I think sheep maybe? Idk.
https://www2.nau.edu/lrm22/lessons/plant_origins/plant_origins.html
Herring, types of cod, types of deer I reckon, types of cheese, cabbage, some other root vegetables I think. Maybe pig is allowed since it's probably from the Eurasian steppe (according to the first article on Google I found)?
It's not a lot since we've decided to go with the ethnonationalist definition of Europe as being "England, scandinavia, Germany, most of France, bits of Italy and the north of Spain" which doesn't really describe a large geographical area. It's also a definition thats mainly held by white supremacists.Jamon! Prosciutto! German sausages! Pretzels! Schnitzel! Olive oil! Yummmmmm
Maybe pig is allowed
Idk about the original pig, but Berkshire pork is mostly from Chinese breeds
Yeah and there's loads of wheat that's from European breeds, but that doesn't count because 10.000 ago they weren't there. Your criteria only cares for where the original was (Pangaea)
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fug, accidentally deleted my comment
anyway no, the stuff in the OP is all from the last ~1000 years
If you go back to 10,000 then yeah almost nothing at all is from EuropeAlso all the european breeds of wheat are named european names so that's a moot point
Dill
Fermented Shark
MustardYes, Dill is also native to Central Asia as well
Damn
depends how far you want to go back. Olives have been indigenous to Europe since at least the neolithic, but before that they were indigenous to North Africa and the (green) Sahara. It was impossible for olives to grow even in Southern Europe during the ice age.
European biodiversity, if you trace it back, is almost all from Africa or Southwest/Central Asia, for the simple fact that the subcontinent was mostly ice until only 12,000 years ago. European people also derive only 20% of their genes from ice age Europeans as well.
However most of the stuff in my OP is about more recent arrivals from the last 2,000 years
sheep are from the Middle East originally, but there are naturalized post-neolithic breeds from all over the world
peas and onions?
Don't forget all citrus from east Asia and all peppers from central and south america
