Sweet Potato Casserole with Marshmallows
Picture this: you’re a visitor from Europe sitting at an American Thanksgiving table when suddenly someone serves what appears to be a dessert alongside your turkey and gravy. Many people get the mashed sweet potatoes part, but then adding sugar and marshmallows on top? For those who haven’t tried the dish (and even some who have), that part just seems bizarre.
Sweet potato casserole is a favorite for Thanksgiving in some regions across the U.S. and is often topped with marshmallows and sometimes cinnamon or sugar. The combination of sweet potatoes and sugary toppings is perplexing to those from countries where sweet potatoes are used primarily in savory dishes. It’s essentially a vegetable pretending to be candy, which leaves many international guests wondering if they accidentally grabbed dessert during the main course.
Green Bean Casserole
The recipe was created in 1955 by Dorcas Reilly at the Campbell Soup Company. As of 2020, Campbell’s estimated it was served in 20 million Thanksgiving dinners in the United States each year and that 40% of the company’s cream of mushroom soup sales go into a version of the dish. To foreign eyes, this dish looks like someone dumped canned soup over vegetables and called it cooking.
Regional preferences stand out here. For example, northeastern states really don’t enjoy green bean casserole, with states like New York and Pennsylvania ranking it as their least favorite dish. Southern states, on the other hand, are not fans of pumpkin pie, according to states like Georgia, South Carolina, and Arkansas. Even within America, this dish divides people, so imagine how confused visitors from other countries must feel when confronted with this Campbell’s Soup creation that somehow became a holiday tradition.
Root Beer Float
Is there anything more American than a root beer float? For many people, it brings to mind old-timey soda fountains or childhood memories of special treats at diners and ice cream shops. But while Americans often see it as pure nostalgia, many people abroad don’t share the love.
Root beer may be an American favorite when it comes to soda, but foreigners think it tastes weird. While some may say it taste like wintergreen and licorice, for others it tastes like cough syrup. The reason for the medicinal comparison is most likely due to the fact that root beer was originally made from sassafras. In other countries, sassafras is often used in medicine. This explains why you will have a hard time trying to find root beer outside of the United States – people don’t find the medicinal flavor appealing. Add ice cream to what tastes like medicine, and you’ve got yourself a confusing dessert.
Chicken and Waffles
Once again, this is a delicacy lost on foreigners. According to Delish, foreigners just don’t seem to understand chicken and waffles. Should it be paired with gravy or is syrup the way to go? While they may like the two separate, combine them and it suddenly becomes repulsive to non-Americans.
In many countries, waffles are served as a sweet dish, often accompanied by fruit, chocolate, and cream. The thought of adding fried chicken and then possibly eggs is kind of overwhelming for them. But that’s not to say they wouldn’t love chicken and waffles if they tried it! The concept of mixing breakfast with dinner, sweet with savory, creates a mental overload for visitors who are used to clear-cut meal categories.
Biscuits and Gravy
Another breakfast favorite that seems to completely baffle foreigners? Biscuits and gravy (also called sausage gravy). Although nothing is overwhelming about biscuits, the thought of adding gravy and eating it as a meal so early in the morning turns off a lot of foreigners.
It’s not all about the biscuit though, it’s also about the gravy. The typical gravy used to top American biscuits is more of a creamy gravy, whereas in Britain it’s meat based. Talk to a British person about biscuits and gravy, and they’re picturing something like shortbread cookies topped with brown gravy – we can see why that might sound sort of gross. The cultural confusion runs deep when your “biscuit” means something completely different across the pond.
Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches
Take peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. In the U.S. and Canada, they’re about as ordinary as you can get. However, in many other countries they’re often seen as an odd, cloying mash-up. What Americans consider the most basic lunch becomes an exotic curiosity elsewhere.
In America, we eat approximately 700 million pounds of peanut butter a year. Other countries, not so much. In fact, there are countries where you will have trouble even locating the stuff. France, Italy, Argentina, Russia, and China are just a few that don’t get what the fuss is all about. The average American adult eats a peanut butter & jelly sandwich three times per month and consumes around 3000 in a lifetime. That’s a lot of sandwiches that most of the world finds completely puzzling.
Pop Tarts for Breakfast
Pop Tarts are revolting? That’s what one foreigner claimed according to Business Insider. Beyond their flavor, they couldn’t even understand why they were eaten for breakfast. How could this be? The concept of eating what’s essentially a frosted cookie for the most important meal of the day doesn’t translate well to cultures with traditional breakfast foods.
Despite being beloved throughout the U.S., particularly among children, they haven’t had much success elsewhere. Foreigners find the artificial fillings and over-sweetened icing too much, especially first thing in the morning. It’s like having dessert before you’ve even properly woken up, which sounds delightful to American kids but horrifying to foreign parents.
Corn Dogs
Corn dogs are a popular warm-weather fair snack across America combining the simplicity of a hot dog with a sweet cornmeal batter. Foreigners sometimes recoil at the thought of meat encased in a thick, fried dough, finding it an odd and greasy choice. The fact that it’s served on a skewer only adds to the confusion most foreigners have by seeing this unusual snack.
The corn dog represents everything that confuses outsiders about American food culture. Take a processed hot dog, wrap it in sweet cornbread batter, deep fry the whole thing, stick it on a wooden stick, and call it fair food. It’s like someone took a perfectly good sausage and decided it needed more carbohydrates and grease before becoming acceptable to eat.
Grits
Some dishes are simply sacred. Talk to anyone from the South and they’ll tell you grits are one of them. Not to be confused with polenta, grits are made from white corn and have a fine, smooth texture. They taste incredible when infused with cheese, are a creole classic topped with seasoning and shrimp, and are a staple on every southern table.
Despite the fact that grits might not be very well-known outside of America, they’re actually one of the country’s oldest dishes. Native American tribes have a long history of grinding maize and boiling it. When European colonists arrived and encountered the dish, they called it grits, which means “coarse meal.” Grits became a staple in the South because they were easy to store, simple to make, cheap, and versatile. Yet to most foreigners, it just looks like bland, mushy porridge that Americans inexplicably get excited about.
Ambrosia Salad
Ambrosia salad, combining fruit, coconut, and marshmallows, often dressed in yogurt or cream, is another American creation that puzzles many non-natives. Its sweetness and texture combinations do not typically align with the foreign concepts of a salad. This dish is a staple at many American holiday gatherings.
When most of the world hears “salad,” they think of vegetables, maybe some protein, definitely some greens. Americans hear “salad” and think, “Let’s throw marshmallows, coconut, and canned fruit together and call it a side dish.” Some of their food is downright disgusting. I have been served a ‘salad’ that contained marshmallow and desiccated coconut along with grated carrot and some other veg. It’s a dessert masquerading as a healthy option, which explains the confused looks from international dinner guests.
Canned Cheese
Every country has its own kind of cheese, and there’s a lot of variance between the cheeses of the world. But most foreign nations are united in the view that American canned cheese is simply not cheese. The deep yellow color of American cheese, even if it’s not in a can, can put off foreigners who are used to lighter-colored cheeses, like French camembert, Greek feta, or Indian paneer. But the idea of yellow cheese in a can or even a jar, with such a consistency that it might be able to be sprayed or poured, is just too much for foreigners to absorb.
Perhaps a not-so-fun fact is that canned cheese only contains trace amounts of actual cheese (the main ingredients are generally whey and canola oil). So we’ve taken one of humanity’s oldest and most beloved foods, processed it beyond recognition, made it neon orange, and put it in a can. No wonder the rest of the world is skeptical.
Thanksgiving Turkey with All the Fixings
57% of US consumers surveyed said they plan to eat out for a holiday meal, rather than cook at home or bring home takeout. A surprising 57% of those consumers surveyed said they planned to eat out at a restaurant for their main holiday meal. Even Americans are finding their own holiday traditions overwhelming enough to outsource them.
The least popular Thanksgiving foods are candied yams and sweet potato pie. The least popular Christmas foods are persimmon pudding and fruitcake. The sheer excess of an American Thanksgiving table bewilders visitors. We’re talking about a meal that includes turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, dinner rolls, and multiple desserts. It’s less of a meal and more of a carbohydrate festival that happens to include some protein. Foreign guests often wonder how anyone moves after consuming such a massive feast, and honestly, most Americans wonder the same thing.
