The alternative to loving food is to eat as a necessity and seek to optimise it. Various combinations of industrialisation, the Protestant work ethic/disdain of unproductive hedonism, neoliberal financialisation of food production/distribution (hence the flavourless “water bomb” tomatoes that last longer in the supply chain, for example) and possibly endemic low-level depression could do this, to the point where the norm is just to get the necessary calories and a dopamine hit from some sugar/salt/fat and anything else seems suboptimal.
Ah, a Dutch person
What, artificial chocolate sprinkles on buttered white bread isn’t peak cuisine?
Hagelslag is tasty, at least. Can’t say that for beans on toast.
Hollywood actress culture
We’re all just different flavors of the same hobbies: eat, dance, tell stories, repeat.
I mean, I’ve had German and British food and I can confidently say it doesn’t seem like they love food, lol.
I don’t think I’ve ever had bad food in Germany. In England my limited experience is mixed, some good, some bad and some interesting lunch choices like salted peanuts.
Lots of Germans defending German cuisine, so as another German: you are absolutely right!
Germany has some great food and some Germans love making good food but German culture is absolutely not about food. The food culture we have is a development of the last ~40 years. Traditional German food is supposed to make you sated so you can go back to the fields and work! And the go to the army and fight! And then go to the ruins and rebuild!
Tasty and awesome food? Yes! A culture that tells you it loves food? No!
Swedish food is the same!
Now I want to try this brand spanking new cuisine you speak of. It has become my life mission. 👀
Döner
Next do tacos and kebabs.
Traditional German food is supposed to make you sated so you can go back to the fields and work! And the go to the army and fight! And then go to the ruins and rebuild!
This is frickin awesome. Ima tell this to my German-American relative. They come from a family of farmers, come to think of it.
I could literally live on plain potatoes for the rest of my life and I’d be fine with it. My ancestors must have been as culinarily boring as possible.
TBF, potatoes slap. Potatoes and rice are like 80% of my fatass diet, lol.
I’ve had the pleasure of dining at one of Heston Blumenthal’s restaurants and I can categorically say that it was the most wonderful dining experience of my life
We absolutely love our bread in germany
I recently learned about German bread and damn it looks legit af! But I’m a sucker for a lot of Bavarian food. Been lucky to eat a HOFBRÄUHAUS in the States and it was really good
Good lord, the funniest thing I remember from college German was how easy it was to distract Frau Professorin from her lecture by just mentioning bread.
Very true, they’re bread (and beer) connoisseurs!
German bread and beer is good. The only problem is that they have extremely narrow definitions of what makes good beer and bread. For example, the Reinheitsgebot law means that most German beer tastes the same. It’s not that it tastes bad, but the number of varieties is lower as a result. Similarly, with bread, Germans like a very specific style of bread. Sometimes they put seeds on it. But you have to search to find naan, corn bread, challah, roti, milk bread, injera, etc.
Have you tried Currywurst or Spätzle or Sauerbraten or any kind of German sausage or Mettbrötchen or German bread and still think we don’t love food?
I have used Mettbrötchen with success to scare foreigners away from my German food. “Yes zis bread has ze raw meat on it. Salmonella? Das ist eine possibility. Schweinepest? Worth it.”
Joke’s on you, it just made me love it more!
Lived in Germany for years and had all of these. Love mettbrötchen, krustenbraten etc etc. BUT. I believe Germans don’t prioritize food. They will eat any cheap shit and save the money for beer. In the office a bunch of people - mainly foreigners - got together and arranged for a restaurant to be bringing food every day for a relatively cheap price. It was great. But most Germans would still prefer to go to Lidl and eat canned pasta for lunch. It’s not that they couldn’t afford it. They just didn’t want to spend €8 for food every day. Canned pasta and Birckenstock with white socks dude. Every day.
OK, some people are just lost. Canned pasta are disgusting. And I promise that I won’t go further than to my mail box in Birckenstocks ;)
Lol sausage and ketchup, let’s pretend you didn’t mention Currywurst.
Spätzle might be the one exception, although the Swiss make it better.
Sausages, I don’t get your fetishization of it here. A random merguez from the local Arab place is still better than these.
And bread… Yeah, a billion sorts of it, still worse than a random French bakery’s baguette.
Germans never wonder why there’s no German restaurants abroad, go figure
You haven’t had the right german food then.
The Germans love their döner kebabs, possibly even more than the British love their chicken tikka masala
When I meet a German outside of Germany, it’s not german-style beer or doner they’re hurting for, it’s a german bakery.
I’m addicted to British doner kebab, much better than the ones in France IMO.
How about the ones in turkey?
And then, even Englishmen look down on Scots who think oats porridge is human food.
German food is underated. Apple strudel with vanilla sauce is amazing. Like a sweet lasagna. Genius!
That is more of a southern thing if not Austrian
Apfelstrudel is definitely not just a southern treat. Germknödel / Hefedampfnudeln are a regional (and delicious) food. Other typical south german foods would probably be schweinshaxe and several types of sausages specific to that region. Also all the austrian versions of foods such as palatschinken
Before you say that, maybe read the history of those treats first. Apfelstrudel is Austrian/Hungarian not even German. And Germknödel are likewise not common in Northen Germany but a Bavarian/Austrian dessert.
Northen German desserts are Rote Grütze, Windbeutel, Franzbrötchen and Pfannkuchen as well as fruitsoup with Klütchen. All those varying from region to region some being more prevalent in the East some in the west.
But you’re definetly wrong on your take.
Okay im trying not to be rude here but before you accuse me of not knowing what i am taking about, perhaps read what i write at all. I know the impulse to be snarky is strong on the internet but still, at least put the minimum effort in.
I did not at any point refer to historical origins of any food. I stated where these kinds of food are being eaten these days; according to my experience. Strudel is a commonplace dessert around the holidays even here in Niedersachsen. Germknödel i specifically mentioned as a typical, southern regional food since it is a lot less common (although not entirely unknown) up here.
If you look at the history you can describe no food as German as the concept of a unified German state is very modern.
At best you could only describe foods regionally, but then that’s problematic because you are using terms that were applied after WW2 as many states were regrouped.
Where does it stop?
I don’t think there even is a true Pan-German dish. Everything is regional in germany. And sourhern germany is still germany.
I’d wager bread and Bratwurst are the main pan-German dishes with minor differences in style
Bread in general is a pan-world dish
The “bread” a lot of the world calls by that name does not even deserve that term. It should be called “toast”, cause the only thing it’s good for is getting toasted.
I can confidently say that north and south american, aswell as north central asian bread isn’t. Many others only have one specific local bread variety, which are good but do not constitute culinary bread cultures.
You insulting Central-Asian bread can only mean that you lack any taste in regard to bread, or that you actually haven’t eaten Central-Asian breads, and perhaps only tasted a stale lavash shipped to you over two weeks.
Sorry Germany, you lose again🤷
I accidentally ordered a wurstsalat once. I have opinions after that expirence
At least mine had the decency to be in a dark pub hidden from the light
Honestly, it doesn’t sound like the worst combination.
A US version would be spam and bread and butter pickles?
Spam isn’t the right meat, tasted like shredded hotdogs
And to add on that, yes German food can be very good. If you try it out though, be aware of what is regional in the area you’re in. To familiarize yourself, just read the wikipage on German food
Sounds like you’ve never had Finnish food
I haven’t had the pleasure yet.
I have met people in Britain who genuinely seem to hate food. They have a plain cheese sandwich, the worst imaginable bread or eat Huel every day.
That doesn’t necessarily reflect all Britons, but I do think they genuinely care about food less on average than other cultures.
Would be hard to chew properly with their misaligned teeth
Tap for spoiler
/s
What the fuck? Raw onion??
I hate food. It’s hard to explain but it’s kinda like most food triggers my fight or flight response. It takes me a lot of willpower to eat through a regular meal. As a kid I was severely underweight because I was always avoiding food. When I moved out I took the easier approach and started eating only the stuff that was easier to eat (mostly fried and dried stuff, and some ultra processed stuff like chips and cookies). I went from one end of the BMI table to the other in ~5 years.
Yeah that’s not cultural, that actually sounds like an eating disorder.
Or a sensory processing disorder.
Kenny must be dutch.
They eat raw salted fish over there regularly (not like the French eating frog legs, which is rare and mostly just a meme today) and it does NOT look appetising… but who can deny stroopwafels and oliebollens? 😅
The fish is not raw, it’s gibbed and cured. It’s also eaten a lot in Germany and Scandinavia.
Also, we have vla in the Netherlands, and mustard soup! And we frown at people calling kale a super food, because it is considered one of the most generic winter foods over here.
I frown at people eating kale mixed in mashed potatoes or calling white bread with peanut butter a lunch.
Joke aside, the Dutch like good food and are way more open to other cuisines than most European countries.
Colcannon is food of the gods and while you need to cook kale a little longer than standard cabbage or other greens for it, it’s a perfectly valid variant.
Dutchies eat to survive, no care at all about what it is they are eating…
I’ve moved to England 5 years ago. I can confirm a worrying amount of people don’t care for food at all here.
Instead of a nice meal, when they want to enjoy a convivial moment, they burn shredded black leaves in boiling water, add milk to it to cover the terrible taste, and call that tea. And if you don’t ruin it in the exact specific way that they designed, they get angry (but they don’t understand why e.g. Italian and French people are so particular about their traditional recipes).
Send help.
There was an episode of some TV show (maybe Broadchurch?) where David Tennant microwaved his tea and it genuinely upset enough people that it made the news lol.
edit: https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/a823432/broadchurch-david-tennant-tea-microwave-twitter-reactions/
What are you supposed to do if your tea goes cold?
Chuck it down the drain and make another one according to my British friends and family.
You only need add milk to tea if the tea is terrible
I would say this holds true for the USA considering all this fast “food” they eat. A culture that loves food doesn’t do this.
Nor drowns every flavor in corn syrup!
I don’t know much about corn syrup, but I assume for all the talking about it and the way it’s used that it’s basically ambrosia if the gods lived in a trailer park instead of on Mount Olympus.
Americans don’t particularly like the stuff, nobody adds it to their own food, it’s just added to every food at the factory to make it more addictive.
Yeah, we aren’t buying it like maple syrup, although most maple syrup is just corn syrup with maple flavor here, it’s just shoved in to everything sweet.
Go ready the ingredients list for practically anything sold in a box here and fir some reason HFC is just in there. No reason. Its cheap as fuck.
Love your description! Incredibly fitting! It’s tasteless honey, basically. Very sweet but not much else
It’s just really cheap sugar because the US government heavily subsidizes corn farming. So naturally you get a huge surplus of corn. So much that it’s a cheaper sweetener than sugar. So cheap that it’s added to our (already cheap and subsidized) gasoline. And yes, sugar is addictive.
Or ketchup
(the ketchup is also made from corn syrup)
Those food companies have spent decades doing chemical research on how to make that food as addictive as possible. Then of course there’s all the marketing on top of that. Most people can’t break free of it.
A culture that doesn’t appreciate food allows it to happen slowly.
It’s also about making it as cheaply as possible, which is why cooking yourself is better than almost any other food.
There are large sections of the US that don’t have consistent access to great food, so crappy fast food is what they get.
Then there are other parts of the US where the fast food is amazing. Also the other food.
Comments like OP usually come from Europeans who just want to shit on America. I live abroad in Europe and I can tell you their food has just as much crap in it as ours. Plus fast food is everywhere in the cities. The key difference is access to healthy food and a higher standard of living. No food deserts or high cost of living to make fast food your only real option.
If America didnt like food it wouldn’t have so many different food cultures to begin with
I appreciate your perspective.
I’ll do you one better and say that a lot of times it comes from chronically online Americans who got their opinion from said Europeans. And at least some of the time it’s from third world bots whose marching orders are to spread any and every kind of anti-American sentiment.
Lately I just prefer to put the opposing idea out into the aether rather than try to dig into a whole online argument… thing.
Living in the EU as an American there is a very real sense of superiority that Europeans hold over their american counterparts. Blaming it on bots is disingenuous
But that’s my point. There is access to healthy food and there are no food deserts because people care about food. Of course there is still crappy food.
Their fast “food” which is consumed all over the globe? Clearly, a lot of people in general like eating it.
These people eat the local version of it. I personally like to go to MacDonald’s in France. Better than any German dish I can find here. Yet I shudder when I recall what that crap tasted like in the USA
I’ve had McDonald’s in other countries and it’s not as big a difference as you make it out to be. This smacks of shitting on the US for the sake of it. There are many, MANY other more legitimate reasons to do so.
Ok but we legit do hate food here in america for the same reason we hate healthcare, non-automotive travel, art, education and housing. Anything that is some kind of human need that doesn’t fit neatly into commodification has been turned into man-made horrors beyond imagination.
This is what I imagine elves are like.
For many cultures food is just nutrition, something that you have to do. This doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate good food or that your traditional recipes are bad, just that it’s not the same as cultures where there is a lot of importance on both the food and the context of consuming it with others
And you can basically divide these cultures by latitude. Like in Europe the further north you go the less people care about gastronomy. Since these cultures were formed around food scarcity and pure survival, since they had very harsh winters ( before global warming), and the days up north are short in the winter and spring comes later. And before you go “but China and Japan”. Beijing is on the same latitude as Madrid and Tokyo is even further south, so that still tracks.
Absolutely. And in the less extreme variants, there are cultures for which good food is the base of socialization - you mostly meet up for dinner or similar - and others where good food is the exception, happening for big occasions and parties but not an every day occurrence.
I live in Norway. I can confirm this. Norwegian food
That’s a great video.
People keep making this broad assertion and then not following up.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but if there are many cultures for whom food is merely nutrition, could you name one?
From an anthropological standpoint, I’d be fascinated.
Like, this thread is full of jokes about how some cultures have shitty food, but that subjective assessment is very different than the idea that food’s mere purpose is nutrition. It implies it has no ceremonial use.
So, of the many, just even tell us one.
When everyone but you thinks your food is shit, it probably is.
See e.g. Germany
German food is incredible; I didn’t even know hating German food was a thing. Gimme those sausages, sauerkrauts, cheeses, cold cuts, schnitzel and hot potato salads every day.
The breads, cakes, chocolate, and pastries are next-level too.
See, you highlighted why the German cuisine is not that great. There’s simply not much variety in what you just listed. The German cuisine is kinda shallow, focusing mostly around the same stuff. If you’re not that into cheese or meat, then that’s 75% of the German cuisine eliminated.
One thing “food countries” have in common is that their cuisines have variety. Go to Spain or Turkey or China, and you’ll be drowning in mouth watering options no matter what kind of food you like. Hard to say the same for countries like Germany or the NL or Denmark or whatever. Yeah they can be very good at what they do, but they just don’t do a whole lot.
There’s several mentioned in this thread. Among them, Scandinavian countries, England and the US, and I don’t disagree
Food has ceremonial and ritual value in all of those places, it is not merely a vehicle for nutrition.
Sure, I never said it doesn’t. Just that it is not a centerpiece of the culture. The fact that Americans have a big Thanksgiving dinner once a year isn’t comparable to the approach that the French/Italian/Greek/most Asian cultures have towards food on a daily basis
Well, at the risk of being pedantic, you literally said:
food is just nutrition
I understand now what you intended to communicate (which is strictly different than what you said)
I got excited when I read what you said, because i thought you actually had an example of a culture for whom food is just nutrition. It’s a sci-fi trope that i find interesting because it is truly alien, and I’ve always wondered if any real culture fit that.
Even in puritan cultures that intentionally eat plain food to shun “hedonism”, food becomes a vehicle for virtue signaling. The suffering is a ritual practice. Food, even then, plays a critical cultural role.
I understand what you mean now. I’m just disappointed.
It is for like 350 days a year yeah. Eating take out food in front of the TV/PC doesn’t count? There’s someone else sharing their experience of Brits just “eating” those liquid protein shakes every day, that seems pretty close too. Of course, cultures are not homogeneous, and you can find Italians that drink protein shakes and Norwegians that are really into cooking high-quality ingredients for others. I’m not sure if you were picturing a country where everyone eats pills or what
I was picturing a culture for whom food was strictly for nutrition.
Even in puritan cultures that intentionally eat plain food to shun “hedonism”, food becomes a vehicle for virtue signaling. The suffering is a ritual practice. Food, even then, plays a critical cultural role.
Yeah, but one can view that cultural tradition and conclude that their culture does not value the deliciousness of food as much as some other cultures.
I’m not sure if agree with your conclusion. You might conclude that they put great value on the deliciousness of thier food, but the relationship is inverse: less delicious = greater value.
People of of two cultures might both place high value on decorations, but one culture might view another’s style as tacky.
The Chinese for “how do you do” translates as “have you eaten yet?”
And what’s the correct formulaic response to that?
I’m not actually sure. I’ve always answered it at face value, but I’m not a native speaker. I’ve probably been committing a faux pas, like disagreeing with a British person when they say “lovely weather today”.
The word “zeitgeist” makes more sense to me than the word culture. I know what “zeitgeist” means but the use of the word word culture is applied more generally to the point of being vague or anthropological. I grew up eating lots of McDonald’s so is my culture Scottish, or fast foody?
I was watching a Rob Reiner interview today (Rest in Peace 😭) and he paused to think of the best word to complete his thought, and while he paused I thought “zeitgeist” is the perfect word to describe what he’s talking about, and I KNOW that’s the word he was searching for, but he used three other words as a synonym to describe it, and now I see you using the word zeitgeist, and hey, thanks for making me feel a little more complete today.
Season’s Greetings!
Well my culture loves watching TV and vegging out!
Well, seeing the chemical waste people eat in the US, I do think they hate real food. Also in my culture (Dutch) food isn’t as important as it is in Italy for example. We eat rather healthy, but the best quality food we produce we export because we love money more than food apparently. For the best quality food produced in the Netherlands you need to go to a supermarket in France. It’s stupid.
“Real food”😂 you probably have never seen real American food. Only what you see on the internet and tv.
you probably have never seen real American food
Objection: speculation.
Yes I have. I’ve seen local dishes from several locations in the US, however I wasn’t impressed. It generally consisted of too much meat and far to few vegetables. It’s far from a healthy balanced diet. There are too many sugars and fats in most dishes. Even when ordering dinner often there’s sugar in it. There’s even sugar injected into supermarket meats. What the actual fuck. I’ve also had the pleasure (not really) to have meals on US war ships on too many occasions. Including the USS Enterprise. Yes, the one from Top Gun, now decommissioned.
I’ve also seen reports on the food safety regulations, or lack thereof. This is the reason why many American food isn’t allowed in Europe. It doesn’t even come close to meet our minimum standards. I’ve seen reports on the issue of real food like fruits and vegetables (still not meeting European standards in most cases though) being extremily expensive while fast food is relatively cheap, forcing people living in poverty, which is a massive part of the American population, to eat chemical waste causing loads of health issues. You know, the stuff you need heath care insurance for, which they can’t pay for either.
In your picture is herring with pickles and onions. It’s healthy, but I don’t like it. The Dutch cuisine used to be Bourgondisch but since the second world war it became very plain as people had to make healthy food fast and simple with whatever was available, to rebuild the country. Our rich cuisine never returned. However, these days you can order food originated from all over the world. Yet again, going for Americans style food, it’s very much not healthy at all.
The US is large, diverse, and has a ton of cultural influence from all over. Micro and macro. An amalgam. Mass production and corporate influence notwithstanding, surmising that it is one bad thing is very simplistic and limiting.
Fair, but so far the European influences in American cuisine that I’ve seen have been greatly Americanized, meaning the balance is out and the fats and sugars are in. For example, any Italian style food in America would give any Italian a heart attack. Both from the shock and fats. And even if there’s a healthy dish, the ingredients are still very unhealthy. Capitalism prioritized profits over heath safety, plus those “healthy” fresh ingredients are insanely expensive compared to a burger from McDonald’s. So many don’t have the choice to buy fresh. Of course not every ingredient is unhealthy, there is also a lot of import and organic. But that’s even more expensive. So there is an option to consume healthy, it’s just not an option to most due to cost.
This is just not true. It is not absolute nor ubiquitous like that. I think the commenter was right who said it is the view from TV and the internet. A funhouse mirror version of some true things taken as reality.
So how to get the correct view? If eating there (all across the US) isn’t good enough apparently.
Listen to locals who have lived there their whole lives.
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Sadly Africa isn’t great everywhere due to conflicts, but it sure is an amazing and beautiful continent with amazing people. I’ve been to many places along the east coast. Next year I’m going to south Africa.
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Whoa, this person really is Dutch!
