When folks come to America for food, why go for the D rank?
Like yeah, Hershey’s is gross. But we don’t even eat Hershey’s that often. Same thing with fast food. I really don’t want to be represented by McDonald’s, Burger King, or IHOP as the defining traits of American cuisine when it can get SO MUCH BETTER.
Beer and cheese* face the same issue. A lot of people outside the US only ever have the shitty mass produced stuff that we export. The good stuff is local brands that don't even distribute across the whole country, let alone over seas.
Granted, I can't name any local chocolate brands to me because I'm not a big candy eater.
*I made a note for cheese because there are a lot of areas don't have any local good cheese, but the areas of the us with dairy farming usually have fantastic cheese.
Good point, there are soooo many amazing 'micro' breweries but outside of the states everyone thinks it's all just bud lite lmao. I appreciate the people who visit and experience actual American culture and notsolely the mass produced, over marketed brands they've heard of back home
There are cities in the US with multiple amazing local breweries. Breweries have different different environments. Some are good for food and drinks. Some are good to hang out and play board games. Some are good to get a drink and talk. All of those places will have a unique selection of fantastic beer.
It's a shame that what gets shipped out and people think of as American beer is the alcoholic wheat water college kids drink to get drunk cheap.
Cheese is a funny argument as well, because the USA consistently places Top 3 in international Cheese Competitions, only regularly losing to Switzerland and France and usually tying/trading positions with the Netherlands, and typically having the largest volume of awards/placements - meaning the USA has a very broad and diverse selection of very high quality cheeses, even if we don't necessarily have the single "best cheese." Easily more diverse than anywhere else in the world.
But we get shit because of allegedly calling random shit that isn't Cheese, "Cheese" - when in reality we don't do that, it's always called Cheese Product or something adjacent, because we demanded companies stop mislabeling foods as Cheese when they contained no cheese.
The nation/people gets shit for something corporations tried to do, that we stopped them from doing. And this certainly would have happened in European nations as well, if they hadn't already made laws on it before America was discovered. They simply had the benefit of regulating it before the national news cycle existed.
Also, people hate on American Cheese for no good reason. It's a mild melty cheddar cheese for sandwiches and sauces, and it performs amazingly in that regard. No one ever claimed it was the greatest cheese ever, and Americans eat more than just American Cheese (flavored products).
All that to say: America has so many options at every quality and price point that you'll find what you look for. If you look for mass produced shit, you'll find mass produced shit. So look for something better, next time.
That's the thing, even if you don't eat a lot of candy, you can't name any local brands. How is someone from a different country, who possibly speaks a different language, supposed to know what the good local brands are and pick them instead of the brands that are massively marketed if a local can't even identify them?
I used to work with a completely insufferable Australian woman a couple careers ago. She used to go on and on about how American chocolate was awful and tasted like vomit. Then, one winter, a client dropped off a Ghirardelli gift box. Everyone in the office dove in, and she was crowing about how this Italian chocolate was so much better than anything that's made in America. I coolly told her that the chocolate she just had was from San Francisco. Shocked, she checked the package, then walked away. Henceforth she was MUCH more specific: she'd endlessly talk shit about Hershey's chocolate.
Fun Ghirardelli fact. In 1849 they were one of the first tent based stores during the gold rush in Stockton Ca, they started selling supplies and confections to miner. They eventually settled in San Francisco and production is still in Northern California/Bay Area.
Completely off topic but: it’s DOZENS of. Not tens of. Perhaps you’re a non-native speaker (I had to correct this for many a Japanese researcher when I was an editor), but when we want to say there are multiples of ten of something in English, it’s dozens, not tens, of something.
Yes, it doesn’t make sense when everything else is in multiples of hundred/thousand/million etc., and even weirder given that you can say tens of thousands/millions/billions, but it’s an instant indicator you aren’t a native speaker if you say “tens of X” rather than “dozens of X”.
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u/KingNTheMaking 7h ago
When folks come to America for food, why go for the D rank?
Like yeah, Hershey’s is gross. But we don’t even eat Hershey’s that often. Same thing with fast food. I really don’t want to be represented by McDonald’s, Burger King, or IHOP as the defining traits of American cuisine when it can get SO MUCH BETTER.