There are some exotic foods we tend to take for granted exist. Almost every city for example has a Chinese restaurant, a Mexican restaurant, and maybe an Outback Steakhouse. But this isn’t universal for some reason. Someone asked me if I wanted to go to an Egyptian restaurant and I was like “wait, they have restaurants?”
A question for all those who would say they consider themselves ethnically fluent. What are all the cultural categories of food you’ve had?
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Is this something people track? What’s considered “exotic?”
Anything associated enough with another country/culture to pair it with that group of people.
Okay, then I again ask, is this something people track?
Yes.
I don’t know how to answer “exotic”. “Exotic” can easily slip into xenophobic territory.
Maybe I answer with a restaurant from a specific culture that I had never been exposed to before? In which case, Himalayan/Tibetan/Nepalese. I could eat momos every day. But I say that about every savory-wrapped-in-dough thing. Dumplings, empanadas, bierocks, meat pies, xian bing, piroshki, is there a culture that doesn’t have some variation of that? And it’s always good. If ever there is need for a flag to represent Humanity, it should be of a savory pie.
I don’t want to go through all but some of the more interesting ones:
Ethiopian - delicious stew/curry type food with this fermented flatbread stuff that almost smells a bit like beer. Way better than this makes it sound, lol
Vietnamese - if you like Chinese food you will love it. It’s somewhere between Thai and Chinese. They have an awesome beef noodle soup called pho
Jamaican - my family is partially from here so bias but jerk chicken is worth a mention alone. Very well spiced and usually super juicy chicken. Meat and rice type of stuff. But ackee and saltfish is interesting too, very salted cod mixed with this subtle flavoured fruit that looks a bit like eggs? Again better than it sounds.
Moroccan - If you’re interested in Egyptian food (I also have no idea what that would be, lol) Morrocan is probably a good recommendation. They have a dish called tajine which is a well spiced chicken stew, they cook it in a special pot I think
Mexican! - I know it’s obvious but in Europe Mexican restaurants are very basic. Tacos, burritos etc. But there are so many amazing dishes like mole (chocolate and chilli sauce, fucking delicious) that always get missed. There’s one called queso relleño (?) That is basically like a very rich Bolognese wrapped in cheese and FRIED. Probably best not to eat too often. But maybe you guys in the US get more authentic Mexican food anyway
Also, saying “ethnic foods” comes across a little odd. Makes you sound like a 50 year old white guy who’s never left his home town and isn’t so sure about all this weird food these strange brown people eat. Nothing wrong with being white or culturally insulated of course, but probably not the look you were going for. Might explain the downvotes.
How would you rather it be phrased or suggest it be phrased?
I’m of mixed race by the way if anyone was wondering, part Scottish and part Pacific Islander, and don’t even speak English as my first language (so much for doing that without people complaining of assuming subtext). In terms of food, I favor the food of the latter and have tried Maori/Kiwi, Nauruan, Indian, Australian, Filipino, Indonesian, Malagasy, Icelandic, North Korean (yes, there are places for that), Chinese, and Japanese food and would rank them in that order.
Not who you replied to, but I think some people would prefer asking with “What are all the different kinds of food you’ve ever eaten?” and then elaborate by saying stuff like “My area has many types of food, but I’ve never seen any Egyptian restaurants/places around before.” or something like that.
Every time I’m broad like that, people misunderstand the topic’s boundaries.
I think you could just ask something like “what are some of your favourite world cuisines excluding the obvious ones?” and then explain what you mean.
Apologies though, I guess this is just because it’s not your first language, what you said makes sense it’s more the connotations of the phrase. I think someone also posted a gif making a similar joke. Probably the best straight up alternative without the connotations would be “world food/cuisine.”
North Korean! Would love to try it but I guess similar to South Korean food?
I thought, going by history, something like the end of that question (“excluding the obvious ones”) or the fact that I was trying to speak of food generally (as opposed to implying the dishes were separate) would’ve thrown people off.
One thing worth noting about North Korean food, it gets very carnivorous and improvised. As in there are dishes that are still alive when you eat them, food not made to be cooked, etc. Fortunately an issue you can swerve around though.
There is (or was) a North Korean Restaurant in Phnom Penh, in Cambodia. The staff were apparntly North Korean, so not sure how that worked and I was going to go but never go there back in the day.
The worst dishes (for me) I’ve had were in Malaysia , o coild nit find sonethbg Ibloeod, i started oit disliking the food in Myamar (before the recent civil war) not did start to find food I liked and the most suprisingly good food was Nepalese, at a little place owned by a Nepalese family. Not a fan of tomato based dishes so…
I’ve had buffalo wings, and American barbecue. Also I’ve been to American Thanksgiving meals with weird things like sweet potatoes with marshmallows on. So I’ve had some American ethnic food for one thing.
I was invited to a thanks giving dinner one year… The marshmallow on sweet potatoes thing is truly weird, pumpkin pie was ok, the rest was quite nice.
No American dinner? Or American sushi? =)
Okay I won’t hold it against you because I grew up Midwestern and to us Mexican and Chinese were considered “ethnic”, but do realize that that is a very weird thing to just say. Now that I’m on the coast should I call tuna casserole or taco/breakfast food ethnic? Sounds weird right?
Next time you think ethnic food may be instead think of it like non-american food. To us, green bean casserole is a “normal” thing, to other people having a noodle dish is an appropriate normal holiday dish. “Normal” and “different” are all just from our point of view.
That’s why you’re being downvote, because you’re on a world stage here, and when you’re talking to someone and calling their food “ethnic” it demeans their culture, and that is a bit insulting. I am guessing it’s just ignorance, but hey now you know.
That being said, have fun exploring your pallette! I’ve lost count of the different cuisines I’ve tried, but every one is a bit different! There’s a Moroccan place that I really love going to, and I have had some really good Ethiopian. Sushi is always my go to favorite! Never be afraid of trying new things!
(And if you decide to post again I’m sure it will do better vote wise, because it is a really interesting question ;)
I say “ethnic” as in “ethnicity”, and as in “of or belonging to a population group or subgroup made up of people who share a common cultural background or descent”, which is what the dictionary says. If that’s offensive, it’s the first time I’ve heard that before, having seen it used by official sources. As I explain, I’m grateful for whatever verbal successes I do have because English is not my first language, but I see the land of ten thousand instances which believes in things in terms of a world stage won’t even accommodate.
I try to pick something I’ve never had before first my birthday meal every year. The best one was probably the Uzbek place. Everyone there kept trying to talk to me in Uzbek as we appeared to be the only native English speakers in the house, so I’ll assume it was authentic.
All kinds of grilled meats, multiple types of breads, fancy sodas (tarragon was awesome!), sour cherry pierogies with whipped sour cream, stuffed pasta… They had some of everything with their own twist on it. I had plov, the national dish, which was a rice pilaf with grilled meat. Absolutely delicious.
I’d say the hardest cuisines to find here are anything African or anything Eastern European. For that though, the secret is keeping an eye out for church festivals. The Greek Orthodox Church has one that has African and Eastern European, the Polish shrine has a Polish festival, and the Coptic church had Egyptian.
Outback Steak house ? Lol wot?
It’s to Australia what Taco Bell is to Mexico.
My favourite cuisines I’ve had which were not common ones you can just find on any high street here were mostly found during the height of covid when I was working quite a way from home but the hotel’s restaurant was closed so I had to order delivery each night.
- Nigerian: Ordered this a few times, peppersoup, moin moin, draw soup, eba amongst the things I had. Soon after a West African section opened in my local supermarket so I could at least get some of the main ingredients to cook some at home.
- Ethiopian: Amazing, not tried cooking any yet, some ingredients seem hard to come by
- Afghan: Had a bunch of times as there was a restaurant in my town
- Sri Lankan: Love it, superficially similar to Indian food but I was surprised just how different it was and has become one of my favourites that I cook at home with regularity.
Indian food is amazing.
I grew up in the Bay Area so it would probably be easier to list the foods I haven’t tried.
Unfortunately I moved and don’t have access to 8/9ths of those anymore. It’s dismal.
I’ve had my fun around here and lately found more unusual ones… Here’s stuff I remember off the top of my head that aren’t the “local” around here (Lisboa, PT), append restaurant to the following:
Indian Nepalese Tibetan Cantonese Chinese Cantonese dimsun Japanese Several Fusion sushi, ramen, udon, tempura etc Spanish tapas Mexican Peruan Peruan cheviche Argentinian grilk Brazilian rodízio Brazilian(Paulista) pizza, Indian pizza, Israeli pizza, local pizza, actual Italian pizza Italian Greek Greek pita Levantine Morrocan Thematic medieval American American diner American grill Mozambican Angolan Cape verdian Ethiopian German sausage Vietnamese Indonesian Australian grill Belgian fries Canadian fries
Whenever I added something to the nationality the place focused on a dish rather than a broader cuisine. I’m surprised I never visited a self entitled French restaurant over here… The Swiss and French have all those tartar and grilled tiny chicken that could make success in a thematic restaurant.
Edit: might also add, I’m sure all of these are adapted to the local taste. We don’t handle spice like most of Asia and Mexico for example. Friends who ate in Shanghai described a very different experience to what we get in a Chinese restaurant here, even if the dishes are the same.
Wait, you thought Egyptian restaurants don’t exist? Especially for a melting pot like the US, I assume the opposite, that there is always a food place that serves a particular cuisine from somewhere in the world.
But to answer your question, and assuming by exotic, you mean anything that isn’t your standard fare American, European, Mexican, Chinese, Vietnamese, or Japanese food, then I’ve had:
- Ethiopian
- Thai
- Singaporean
- Filipino
- Taiwanese
- Iraqi
- Afghan
- Indian
I love Chinese food and will eat it almost daily.
well barring that many of these ethnic restaurants might be serving things created in america. mexican, cuban, indian, pakistani, chinese, korean, japanese, thai, lithuanian, irish, english, french, italian, argentinian, greek, german, might be others but this is all I can think of. Honestly not sure what the falafel places are considered.
Falafel differs from place to place. The most generic are likely levantine or maghrebi… But I bet there’s more.
It’s like pizza, I know plenty of pizza styles and they differ from Italian
yeah although I lump pizza places as italian food.
I’m in US… not sure I’d say fluent. “Exotic”…… Thai, Japanese, Indian, Vietnamese. And one time I got oxtail from a roadside food stand 30 years ago… one of my students was from Trinidad and his mom recommended it. But the food I had in Belgium was to die for. Food in Denmark was interesting too.
