Fauxthentic cultural traditions

[@johns9478]

My Grandpa was a commercial truck driver for most of his life. At one point, he used to drive to California where they shipped in sombreros, maracas, and other stereotypically Mexican stuff that had been made in China. He then delivered it to tourist destinations in Mexico where it would be sold to Americans.

[@saulgoodmanKAZAKH]

Mexicans know what they're doin'

[@ChrisFV]

Hell yeah, the authentic stuff over here is more like the Lele dolls, the pottery, those cardboard alebrijes and the coin bags made out of frogs

[@devingraves8044]

Lol

[@astratenebris1461]

Modern world in a nutshell

[@CarlosConsorcioCastellanoPerez]

Lettuce on in tacos is unforgivable in my opinion

[@harrisonlauritsen1242]

You’re telling me the ancient Celtics DIDN’T have shamrock shakes from McDonald’s? I don’t believe it.

[@Fnidner]

Neither them nor the Celts!

[@gordonlarrikin9683]

Next you're gonna tell me the Hitler reacts videos are fake.

[@WaddyMuters]

I wonder if the ancient Celtics played ball in the Roman colosseum

[@angelsunlight]

Lmfao I love how the shamrock shake character was called Uncle O’Grimacy

[@colmlooney5843]

As an Irish person I can say this is a lie, Shamrock Shikes have been here since before the snakes and St. Pádraig

[@poundlandvodka]

In Europe, red Solo cups are often called something like "American party cups" and almost seen as a touchstone of US college party culture. I went to university in the UK and the student union made a big deal out of throwing an "American frat party" complete with red Solo cups that you could take home. It's not exactly wrong or fauxthentic per se - those cups are everywhere in the US, after all - but it's interesting that a big deal is made out of their American associations, when Americans themselves just use them because they're usually the cheapest option at the grocery store.

[@davidthedeaf]

No, we actually prefer not to use them. Fraternity parties (frat is derogatory slang) people drink out of glass bottles or aluminum cans, which can be recycled. You in UK were misinformed. EDIT: I think I will edit that it is not really derogatory so much as lazy and showing disrespect to the fraternity you are in if you call it “frat.” Derogatory is the term I used but that can mean like racial slur, so I hope that clears it up.

[@rylieweaver1516]

Wow that's interesting

[@boomtown9615]

Don’t know where you’re getting this idea. Solo cups certainly are a staple of college parties in the US. Any party with a keg or punch bowl is going to have solo cups. Even those that don’t will probably have a game of beer pong somewhere, which usually use solo cups. Yeah it’s pretty rare to see people opt for solo cups of cans and bottles are an option, but I’ve seen it happen, particularly at tailgates or dry campuses, where open consumption is at the very least frowned upon

[@Milther2]

@@davidthedeaf david not sure what you're talking about. Maybe Im a naughty ASU boy, but we definitely say frat party, and use solo cups as well and cans and bottles

[@BaekjeSmile]

@@Milther2 Red Solo cup sales literally makeup a fifth of of Tempe's GDP, that is a true economics fact

[@spookymia8135]

It is worth noting, I think, that a lot of those "fauxthentic" foods, particularly those we consider Chinese and Italian food, aren't an Americanized, inauthentic version of their cuisine in the "we made this to appeal to the white masses" way, but rather an example of immigrants bringing over traditional recipes and then adapting or changing them due to ingredient access. There were a lot of things available in their home countries they couldn't find here in the states, and vice versa, so they tweaked their traditional foods to fit what was available. Over time these recipes did become commercialized, but at the time of their invention many of them were simply a matter of mixing their own culture with what they had on hand.

[@barryhaley7430]

An actual intelligent comment! Thank you. I hope J J learns from this. I like his videos but he can be both cynical and sarcastic at times.

[@superguyperson]

@barryhaley7430 I agree, but I think hes doing his best hes trying to be nice and factual, he's in dangerous territory when it comes to possibly offending people or getting demonitized or videos deleted, or more often people getting offended FOR groups that the offended folks think that the group(s) should be offended by but at times arent(i.e. Speedy Gonzales). It's difficult to be 100% accurate already, especially while speaking on history of culture, and also especially while being so careful to not be offensive and while trying not to belittle or stereotype folks while speaking on cultural differences. And also with how it's very often seen as a bad thing when a group (usually white) adopts or hybridizes something, or also and sometimes moreso when it changes over time(as everything does), and sometimes into something based off of approximations/stereotypes. It's especially seen as bad when money is made(mainly by white people) from something from a different culture(usually non-white). Considering all of that, I think he's just being extra nice while speaking on a fascinating multi-culteral topic(and I personally couldn't care less about cultural appropriation or what is called woke-ism, but I give him props for walking that tightrope)

[@barryhaley7430]

@@superguyperson I am so fed up with all this “mainly white people” crap! You would think that somehow white peoples invent slavery. Humans, of all races, have enslaved each other since we came out of the trees! White people didn’t raid African villages to capture slaves. They purchased slaves from other black people who kept their own slaves. As a matter of fact, I know facts are inconvenient, white people were the first to ban slavery! The British Empire in 1833! As for his walking a fine line, bullshit he is playing into the whites are evil woke bullshit. Cultural appropriation, or cultural acceptance, a more honest term is how human societies improve over time. We all build on the experiences and knowledge of others. On the micro level it’s on the individuals who discover, invent, create. From Franklin to Tesla to Shockley to Bardeen to Wozniak to Jobs. On the macro level cultures who, organize, develop and create. The Persians to the Egyptians to the Romans to the British we get democracy evolved and spread. Do you think the worlds democracies would exist without Colonialism? As for your woke adherence? You would not be “mostly white” comments if you weren’t in that club

[@tw_judy]

You’re right about the ingredient availability part. But you’re wrong about another part. Chinese American food IS modified to suite the palate of the average American. You’ll find it’s much greasier and saltier than genuine Chinese cuisine, even the dishes analogous to the Chinese American ones. There’s nothing wrong with this, it’s just how it is. I’m Taiwanese, I see the same thing with bubble tea. They make it so much sweeter in the states than in Taiwan. Again, nothing wrong with it. It also doesn’t start with commercialization, it starts the moment it leaves its original community and white Americans find out about it. imo you shouldn’t be offended by the insinuation that the “white masses” of America were and continue to be catered to, culinarily. It’s just business sense.

[@deleted-something]

Ye

[@mega_mind397]

One interesting thing I’ve read about is the success of some American-style Chinese restaurants in China. It kind of shows how fauxthentic traditions can take on their own cultural identities, with American consumers eating American “Chinese food” because they view it as exotically Chinese, while Chinese consumers eat it because they view it as exotically American.

[@JJMcCullough]

That’s wild

[@Nathan-jh1ho]

I'm from Taiwan, I see American Chinese food as some hybrid cousin.

[@Crowvamp1979]

I eat American-style Chinese food because it tastes good!!! I don't care who invented it!

[@CaeserOct]

@@JJMcCullough kzbin.info/www/bejne/mJ_CaJ2CfrGCqbs here’s a video on it

[@corey2232]

Just remember a lot of the "American Chinese" food is created by Chinese immigrants after they arrived in the US in an attempt to appeal to the new population.

[@tomney4460]

Us Irish-American folks don’t eat boiled cabbage to honor St. Patrick, but to honor the people who had to eat boiled cabbage.

[@ericmoralesgomez6513]

Now you tell me. :(

[@SylviaRustyFae]

Whereas im over here in America, a descendant of Irish folks; and i absolutely love eatin boiled cabbage xD Tho im more likely to make colcannon instd just cuz only **i** like boiled cabbage; my spouse does not.

[@dantheman192]

@@SylviaRustyFae wtf is wrong with boiled cabbage.

[@gisha6791]

@@dantheman192 nothing

[@Arkantos117]

@@dantheman192 Nothing. Some people apparently just don't like their greens (or reds).

[@estoniaisunderrated5120]

When I went to France I went to an “American” restaurant. Wax figures of Elvis, gaudy neon lights, license plates from every state and massively portioned burgers and fries. It was good, and kinda funny, I don’t really care about being stereotyped I think it’s generally in good fun.

[@Matty002]

omg we accidentally walked into an american restaurant, in italy i think, and it was just as gaudy. the guy who owned it was happy to meet 2 americans from california as he had spent some time here we also happened upon an american style diner in switzerland, where a group of natives were having trouble with the old style glass ketchup bottles. we had a good laugh before helping them out

[@BinglesP]

I’ve always imagined America being the “blank slate” since I’ve lived there for a long time so I just find it so bizarre that it gets stereotypes just as much as other countries Especially since I don’t really like the country as a whole

[@estoniaisunderrated5120]

@@BinglesP I’ve heard quite a bit people say America doesn’t have culture but I’ve always felt this was a bad take. The cultures might not be routed in a thousand years of history but the culture exists none the less. If you do manage to move outside the country you’ll probably see exactly what American culture is like in its absence as I’ve always noticed it more after coming back for trips abroad.

[@BinglesP]

@@estoniaisunderrated5120 Yes, I know it’s a thing, it’s just so weird to think of how much it exists.

[@Andrielviana]

I saw something similar to this restaurant in Pristina in Kosovo. It was called route 66 and had all sorts of American icons and of course burgers and fries.

[@GingaNinjaTV13]

When I visited Ireland, every café had some version of a “Cajun sandwich” on the menu, which was just a not-spicy barbecue chicken sandwich. As a quarter Cajun myself, I was really curious as to how this phenomenon became so popular in Ireland that every cafe had a version, but so greatly missed the mark in authenticity.

[@KairuHakubi]

that sounds like something that was done for marketing, to an existing dish that wasn't selling as well under its branding.

[@hazelgardner957]

Oh gosh, Ireland loves a good ""cajun"" chicken sandwich I have no idea why

[@conorkelly947]

@@hazelgardner957 cuz it's tasty like it's not that hard to puzzle out

[@hazelgardner957]

@@conorkelly947 fair 😂

[@graham1034]

We have those in Canada as well. Not sure why exactly.

[@abdlhmdx]

California rolls actually were made in Canada by a Japanese sushi master who sought to appease North American customers with the idea of eating raw fish by making it more bright and appealing by putting the rice on the outside, and giving them more easy to pronounce names, like ‘California rolls’.

[@nmpt304]

Chef Tojo, who has a restaurant in Vancouver!

[@abdlhmdx]

@@nmpt304 yepp

[@SlapstickGenius23]

Hahahaha.

[@CapsAdmin]

As a Norwegian child in the 90s, it felt like all the English songs were singing something about California. Maybe "californication" had something to do with it.

[@kannonball5789]

@@CapsAdmin Hollywood, California is basically the media capital of the United States, so I can see why you'd think that.

[@РоманАндреев-в4з]

In Russia, we have an assortment of food with "Korean" added in the front of the dish name - like Korean carrot, or Korean asparagus. Mostly it's a spicy salads or a sea food, that tastes somewhat "exotic" to your average Russian taste. Usually it is sold by Koreans, or at least Asians perpetrating them. Funny thing is - none of these dishes came from Korea, this food was introduced by Soviet union for North Korean immigrants, as something that looks and tastes somewhat similar to their native food, but could be made with local ingredients.

[@hey_rozochka]

I used to live in Kazakhstan and, as far as I understand, these dishes developed in Koryo-Saram communities quite organically after the 1937 deportations. The salads and soups were North Korean staples made with some foundational ingredients replaced (like, морковча/Korean carrots is a kimchi-like banchan made with carrots and paprika instead of napa cabbage and gochujang because in the Soviet times they couldn't get the exact right ingredients). But there are all kinds of things that are very clearly Korean in their flavors and cooking techniques, but with tons of ingredient subs, like kuksi/guksu (usually cold noodle soup with beef)

[@JM-ys5vx]

It's funny you say you say "Asians perpetrating Koreans". I lived in Japan for for 2 years and took the opportunity to visit random places in East Asia, and ran into tons of Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians posing as like Americans or Edgy Western Euro DJs at bars and boutique clothing stores. They'd also get like Nigerians to pretend to be New York City rappers. Here in America it's really common to see Chinese-Americans posing as Koreans or Japanese at Restaurants, or putting a British guy on a news panel just because his accent sounds smart. It's just kind of interesting thinking about how many people are making a living off niche careers based on their appearance across the globe.

[@vuvuvu6291]

@@JM-ys5vx Just like back then Europeans knocking off Chinese and Indian goods like silks, figurines, porcelains, and stuff. Now the table has turned, the Chinese and Indians knocking off European crafts and brands. Decades and hundreds of years from now, some other nations will rise in their power in geopolitics and culture, bet my ear that lot of people around the globe will be posing like them too.

[@eh2203]

This is not very related but I’ve always wanted to ask if something I read in the newspaper years ago was actually true. The article said that fresh dill is put on a TON of foods, even foreign foods that don’t normally use fresh dill (the only example I can remember was sushi). I don’t expect one Russian person to be the expert on all Russian foods, but I am curious if fresh dill is used that often?

[@РоманАндреев-в4з]

@@eh2203 it's not really an "obsession", just one of the few native herbs that can be used as flavoring. We are so used to it, that it considered a basic stuff that goes with any food, like salt and pepper. Most people don't really care if it's in the dish or not, but quite a lot of Russian native food does include it, and is important. As for foreign food - some people like it's taste, or, use it because it's cheap and basic, available in every store anywhere in Russia, unlike more specific herbs

[@ParkerAndLuke]

I’m amazed you didn’t mention Tiki culture and how it’s INCREDIBLY faux-thentic It’s an Americanized riff on the exoticism of the pacific islands and took on a life if it’s own.

[@KairuHakubi]

oh yeah that was a huge one. and it was all manufactured very quickly, deliberately, and efficiently to capitalize on the tendency for forming a craze. fantastically successful, but no roots to it. generic surf culture aspects lasted a lot longer than roumaki and wooden masks. I'm also surprised in the related videos about cultural food crossovers he didn't bring up the hawaiian appetite for spam, and its combination with their japanese influence to make spam musubi XD

[@redcoltken]

Filipino Americans helped create Tiki. As a fantasyland type of cocktails and food

[@KairuHakubi]

@@redcoltken ahh I didnt know that. makes sense to me.

[@dstinnettmusic]

And I’m oddly nostalgic for tiki culture. It was such a thing when I was a kid in the 90s and into the 2000s. I guess people realized it was problematic and didn’t really represent any specific group and was offensive to Pacific Islanders, but still, I miss it.

[@KairuHakubi]

@@dstinnettmusic you really think those are inherent qualities, don't you. You think things being 'problematic' or 'offensive' are any *less* of a thing being forced on people by outsiders and taught this is your new truth now.

[@presidentjoethudbrandon7074]

Cinco De Mayo is the ultimate example. I can't tell you how many "open minded" people just love "Mexican Independence Day", lol

[@drslappybags6316]

how open minded are they on May 6th?

[@poolerboy]

I’m a very open minded person. Even my maids are Mexican!

[@tw_judy]

Well they are open minded. They’re enjoying Mex-American chicano culture. It’s like JJ said, you don’t have to stop enjoying this uniquely Mexican American thing just cause Mexican nationals don’t celebrate it.

[@Corkoth55]

Alcohol is the religion

[@thatonepossum5766]

I just think it’s fun to say. xD

[@AmunRa1]

One of my favorite examples of this comes from a streamer I watch, Joel “Vargskelethor”, who is Swedish. He was talking to his chat about “Rhode Island Dressing”, and his entire chat was like “wtf is that” and he got to find out that Rhode Island Dressing is entirely a Swedish invention and none of his American audience knew wtf it was.

[@zachservello7846]

from rhode island, definitely not a thing here lol. but i’m curious of its taste

[@UnfortunatelyTheHunger]

@@zachservello7846 It's basically what you call thousand island dressing

[@mollof7893]

@@zachservello7846 it's pink sauce you put on salad

[@elinakangas571]

"Rhode island sauce" is a thing in Finland too. I guess we got it from Sweden. :)

[@DuesenbergJ]

Sweden also have Bostongurka. “Boston Cucumber”. It’s a type of relish.

[@Phan257]

Definitely Christmas in Japan. I was studying abroad and my host family got a lot of KFC for Christmas. They were shocked when I told them that we didn't have a KFC feast on Christmas Eve.

[@Nikku4211]

'Nani? So no more KFConsole for you??'

[@prion42]

My family has actually done that but what we did more often was buy pizza kits from Cassano's.

[@eVill420]

I think they confused it with Thanksgiving

[@lh9591]

KFC did used to be more Christmassy. They used to release a Christmas record every year you would get with a family meal.

[@matthewwilton7778]

KFC was open on Christmas for a long time, unfortunately I know this information

[@SamAronow]

I've got one: the "Jewish tradition" of eating Chinese food on Christmas is not only an exclusively American phenomenon, its origins are strictly in New York City. Before the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Jewish and Chinese New Yorkers were generally only allowed to buy/rent homes in certain neighborhoods that were usually very close to each other, so Chinese food was not only available on Christmas but within walking distance.

[@TheAlexSchmidt]

I'm pretty sure even some Gentile families do it now, I know we did last year.

[@LARKXHIN]

There's a fabulous documentary about this. I just don't remember the name 😢

[@djvelocity]

I watched a really interesting documentary on this a few years ago entitled “Dreaming of a Jewish Christmas”. You might enjoy it, I know I did

[@itayeldad3317]

Also, hanukkah as "jewish Christmas" is a very american thing. Hanukkah isnt a minor occasion, but its rise to be the most recognizable, widely celebrated jewish holiday in america comes mostly from its proximity to xmas, not to bash it, hanukkah is my favorite jewish holiday, but I'll say the high holidays which are occurring right now feel more like the Thanksgiving-Christmas-new year period

[@freealter]

@@TheAlexSchmidt yes gentile New Jerseyans love doing it. We went to the movies with my parents Jewish friends on Christmas in the spirit of doing something distinctly American on Christmas (like seeing the second sequel series Star Wars movie).

[@anion539]

The Black Forest cake, The 'Schwarzwälder' as we call it here in Germany, is an actual thing! It's chocolateflavoured sponge cake layered with sweet whipped cream and alcohol-infused dark cherries. It's awesome and I hope it's not awkwardly pushed into something else, as Schwarzwälders taste great!

[@leavingitblank9363]

It's not been bastardized, but apparently it's considered to be from another era, a "vintage" dessert, like the gelatin salad mold, I guess. I didn't realize it was so out of date. (Although I have to admit I never see it on menus anymore.) How could chocolate and whipped cream go out of style?!

[@maeckiemesser6958]

Because like many other vintage recipes it is somewhat labourious to make, quite heavy in the calories, hard to make in small quantities and lastly it has small amounts of booze, oh my god the poor children. As a chef I really like to make it and obviously it is quite tasty. The Italian version (not related) is also amazing.

[@paulmed42069]

Scheiße

[@GUNUFofficial]

The cake is a lie.

[@alisaishere]

@@maeckiemesser6958 It's just a tiny bit more work than most basic cakes are. And if need be, there are easy shortcuts. And the calories aren't anything crazy high compared to most deserts. I just think it doesn't get marketed as well as other specialty cakes. When I was younger I thought it was basic chocolate cake with cherry pie filling as that is how a lot of people do make it that way. It wasn't until I was older that I had a more authentic version and realized that it had more depth to the flavor.

[@principetnomusic]

Russia has a dish called "Korean carrot", which is not actually eaten anywhere on the Korean Peninsula. It's a simplified version of kimchi made out of carrots, developed by Russia's Korean diaspora because authentic Korean ingredients were hard to find in the Soviet Union.

[@principetnomusic]

@@bigscarysteve Kimchi specifically requires napa cabbage, and many Russian Koreans lived in Soviet Central Asia back in the day, where it does not grow.

[@DoHyunKil]

@@Ugly_German_Truths this was probably back in the day when crop variety was not really a thing in central asia.

[@Brick-Life]

Chinese has the 罗宋汤 (Russian Soup) (Borscht) but uses mostly tomatoes

[@hedonia3114]

thats really cool

[@TTminh-wh8me]

koreans actually have a lot of pickle vegetable dishes called kim chi. napa cabbage is just one of the most popular.

[@shantanukhandkar]

Several 'authentic Scottish traditions' like each clan having its own tartan pattern and particular clans being traditional royal guards were invented by Walter Scott to impress the vainglorious George IV on his Scottish jaunt so he could get the king to see Scotland as a sort of magical traditional land worth investing in rather than just an impoverished and remote part of his domains.

[@HrHaakon]

Did it work?

[@simonorourke4465]

Yeah, the Victorians practically invented the highland games and most traditional Scottish traditions as a way to get Queen Victoria to make her home away from home there.

[@JJMcCullough]

I read a good book about this once called “the invention of tradition.”

[@basementdwellercosplay]

Yeah my family are official traced to the Snodgrass clan, so when I brought but the history of 'authentic Scottish traditions', my family were still proud Scottish descendants but still felt like the fun was a bit sucked out.

[@HrHaakon]

​@@simonorourke4465 They've pretended that it's tradition for so long that it's become a tradition. I love it.

[@24Fanboy]

There’s also a similar phenomenon where immigrant traditions get artificially ‘frozen’ in the new country because the community wants to hold on to them, while back in the home country the traditions continue to develop and change as normal. I’m reminded of how a troupe of Ukrainian dancers from Alberta once went to Ukraine to teach Ukrainian dancing.

[@OptionNoMore]

That was independent Ukraine attempting to regain its lost culture after decades if the Soviets suppressing it. Kind of sad.

[@Heyitsann]

That's very interesting, another example I can see would be the disappearance or dwindling of old Chinatowns. As new immigrants come in to the citys they don't connect to or relate with the older generations that built and run the business and culture of those Chinatowns so they don't move in to them but somewhere else instead. This can be seen with Vancouver’s old Chinatown that's getting less popular while neighboring Richmond is full of new Chinese communities.

[@jooztbakker9494]

P

[@RadenWA]

Could say something about Jewish culture maybe

[@Barney_Wharam]

A great example of this is jamaican soundsystem culture in the UK. Jamaican immigrants use vinyl and old school soundsystems and culture from the 60s,70s and 80s, whereas in Jamaica they use modern technology and its evolved into a bit of a different thing.

[@ajrollo1437]

I went to a bar on St. Patrick's day and asked for Irish whiskey. The bartender was actually shocked, as apparently not a single person wanted anything but green beer. And that's how I got tanked on Jameson for free thanks to a lovely barman.

[@zulthyr1852]

In Sapporo, Japan, there's a mutton dish called Genghis Khan. It was named just because they thought Mongolians eat mutton

[@wa-bu3ke]

they do eat mutton

[@zulthyr1852]

@@wa-bu3ke Yeah, so they associated mutton with Mongolia. And thus, Genghis Khan (the food) was born

[@arizona_iced_out_boy]

Yo, it's totally not Mongolian, but hot damn, that Genghis Khan "themed" yakiniku chain slaps.

[@gliiitched4429]

The dish in general fucking slaps

[@theta682pl]

In Russia there's french meat, which is nothing like french cooking. There's also Korean carrots, which is more authentic because it was invented by Korean immigrants but shares very little with actual Korean cuisine.

[@Adventurepee]

A big one for American Jews is Hannukah. Historically and still outside of the US, it is more of a minor holiday for Jews and doesn't really have much gift giving. But in the US, it has been heavily "christmasized", giving both Jews and non-Jews alike the impression that it's a very significant holiday and that gift giving is a central part of it.

[@emminet]

I mean, quite a lot of us Jews do understand that it simply isn't a high holy day of any kind, and hopefully more non Jewish people will realize it this year due to the start being in November (as 25 Kislev falls late November this year!). I think most of us see it as symbolically/culturally important rather than religiously important. Another great example of this is Purim, which has been very Americanized here, and it happens to be one of my favorite holidays!

[@danielorlovaquinn]

It's not? 😭

[@emminet]

@@danielorlovaquinn Nah, it isn't, not a big one at all!

[@emminet]

@@ash-fq4cg Uhh, why?

[@SelahKrassenstein]

Well yes and no. There is still the tradition of giving gelt to children, which to the non-jews means money.

[@ChessedGamon]

"The US political system wasn't all that faithful to the [Roman] source material." I'm with you there. I for one think every senator should conduct at least _one_ military Triumph through the streets of Washington before even CONSIDERING running for president.

[@hugoflores5806]

With chained people and free gold?

[@ChessedGamon]

@@hugoflores5806 And mass strangulation at the end! You cannot tell me it wouldn't have made the Osama raid more memorable

[@tylerthelen485]

I second this

[@SpiralSine6]

👏Reinstall👏the👏cursus👏honorum👏

[@alcarbo8613]

In many ways the US is a lot closer to the 18th Century British system, than Ancient Rome or Greece

[@Justaguyuguys]

I worked at a Mexican resturaunt and we celebrated Cinco de mayo, when I asked my manager, who had only moved from Mexico like 2 years before that, why we were celebrating it he told me "I'm American now and it's a Mexican American holiday." Most of the cooks and servers there were less than 6 months in America but they celebrated it like they did any other American holiday. I think they liked it because the place was packed from open to close and drunk Americans tip well.

[@MrSockez]

"Chinese" fortune cookies were actually invented by a Japanese guy who lived in California in the 1890's, so they are still technically an Asian creation lol. A extremely Americanized Asian creation but Asian nonetheless.

[@cortes2j]

Huh, wow, it’s funny to me to imagine people in the say 1910s eating fortune cookies and reading the fortunes…

[@WardOfSouls]

There's actually a really convoluted story about how fortune cookies became associated with Chinese cuisine rather than Japanese cuisine, and it's a very American tale of business. I would try to relate it here, but I'm not very clear on the details. I have a good friend who's a foodie who knows it much better than I do, but in broad strokes, it has to do with Japanese and Chinese immigrants both living and working on the west coast, and Chinese companies taking over production in the 40s when the American government displaced thousands of Japanese-Americans into camps.

[@thwb4661]

As an Asian in Asia, I don't see fortune cookies being "Asian" at all because it does not exist here. Not part of any real Asian culture. It's very much an American thing that happened to be made by some American guy of Asian descent.

[@terrifictomm]

@@thwb4661 That's how assimulation works. I had a friend in the Air Force who was 100% genetically Japanese. We were in a store in Misawa, Japan, and a someone came up to him, speaking Japanese, which Ed didn't speak. And he got OFFENDED! LOL! He said, "Hey! I don't speak Japanese! I'm not Japanese! I'm an American!" They went away shocked and very confused.

[@Otokichi786]

@@terrifictomm That was me in 1970, during a Study Tour in Japan. (My older sister preferred piano lessons to Japanese school, so I never learned any Japanese, spoken or written.)

[@SpiralSine6]

Well after mentioning it, I want to see a video of foreign “American-style” stuff!

[@bigt9745]

In Holland they have snackbars, where they serve American style burgers. And they are terrible.

[@porcelainkoi]

@@bigt9745 to be fair tons of burger places in the US are bad lol

[@JohnDoe-nn3ib]

KFC dinner for Christmas in Japan

[@Cappie07]

@@porcelainkoi Can you please tell me the name of my FBI agent?

[@Ineedtospendlesstimeonyoutube]

In my country, Thailand, there is a dish called American fried rice. It consist of sunny side up, fried chicken, ham, sausage, and rice fried with ketchup. This dish originate in the time of vietnam war when a lot of american soldier were stationed at Thailand.

[@DrBuzz0]

I have cousins in Ireland. They came to the US to experience Saint Patrick's day American style. They had heard of all the Irish festivities here and just wanted to get in on that. Funny as hell. Awesome too. When people overseas are coming over to see your fake national traditions, you're doing it right.

[@eoghancasserly3626]

Weirdly, Ireland has completely embraced the American style of St. Patrick's Day celebration and we're envious of how big it is in the United States

[@mammajamma4397]

@@eoghancasserly3626 I love it lol

[@davidperry4013]

I want to celebrate it Irish way

[@eoghancasserly3626]

@@davidperry4013 the old Irish way was to go to Mass lmao. There was no big celebration, it just became a day to celebrate Irish pride in the United States because we didn't have an independence day yet. In modern Ireland we don't even celebrate our independence day because we prefer St Patrick's Day too! It's great that our big day is an international holiday

[@TheIanoTube]

No surprise we've embraced it, national holiday where our only responsibility is to drink.

[@californiaball2599]

When mom was in college, she found out Taco Bell and Del Taco were supposed to be emulating Mexican food. She and I mostly thought of it as American food.

[@springinfialta106]

There are some who believe that both of those restaurants fail at simulating food... period.

[@cute_axolotl]

Taco Bell and Del Taco are emulating Tex-Mex specifically, which I guess isn't super inauthentic since Texas used to be part of Mexico at some point.

[@MWhaleK]

To be fair I think that Taco Bell is more Tex-Mex than actually Mexican.

[@gertexan]

@@MWhaleK As a Texan I will state there is absolutely nothing wrong with Tex-Mex food and it is in no way sub-par with authentic Mexican food. Just like in Mexico many dishes stem from or are inspired from immigrants groups there.

[@sluggo206]

Taco Bell is Tex-Mex-inspired fast food. Like all fast food the quality is degraded from the original, and assembly-line fast food is an American invention. Compare a Big Mac to a real char-broiled hamburger with a quality toasted bun and real garden toppings.

[@bluejay9307]

As a mexican when ever I go into the "Hispanic" food section I always see these hard shell tacos or some weird variation of a tortilla. I remember seeing one where the put ice-cream in a taco shell thing. Always really funky to see

[@buhgingo2933]

Oh shit choco tacos lmfao. I just ask my mom to make Mexican food because she knows where it’s at

[@truvy_5544]

Yes!! I have to go to either a local farm market or any hispanic local stores. Grocery stores only have ingredients to make any taco/burritos dishes. Then the spices/seasonings is very limited

[@CaliMeatWagon]

If you haven't tried a Choco Taco, you need to. It's good. And the "tortilla" is made from a waffle cone if I remember right.

[@donatsuobrasco3593]

@@CaliMeatWagon yes, its just a regular waffle cone ice-cream in the shape of a taco

[@agrforreal9074]

the hard shelled tacos that are like square always tripped me up so bad bc it's so weird, and they taste like their dried instead of fried in oil like a real hard shell

[@08mlascelles]

Whoa now, an “English muffin” is in fact just a muffin here in England. A crumpet is a totally different and even more delicious thing.

[@YoSpiff]

I've never considered English Muffins and Crumpets to be anywhere near the same thing! Now I am craving crumpets.

[@joseville]

So the "English muffin" is in fact an "English" muffin?

[@ReggieArford]

@@joseville Yup. A real crumpet, as I understand it, is a thickish pancake, cooked until the top (and its holes) are quite set; then lightly browned on that side and let cool. You can serve them by reheating them, like toast. There's a KZbin video, of course.

[@frankmitchell3594]

An 'English Muffin' is not the same thing as a Muffin made by English bakers. Also it is not a Crumpet.

[@Eric__J]

Their main similarity is in how they're cooked. The texture is more like a cumpet while the shape is more like a muffin, but they're always savory (although there are also fruit-filled ones, which are vaguely like Welsh cakes). They're a distinct dish that is uniquely American.

[@druidmcgee7978]

I'm a Tibetan Buddhist and Tibetan Singing bowls aren't actually Tibetan, they were simply food bowls sold by refugees to foreigners to survive. They're sold in many spiritual shops as "Tibetan healing bowls" or "Singing bowls" for chakras, energies, etc. but aren't ever used in Tibetan Buddhist ritual and there isn't even a word for it in Tibetans. Interestingly enough, many shops owned by Tibetans still sell these bowls, despite not being Tibetan, due to their popularity.

[@watermelonlalala]

Ahahaha. New age "spirituality" can get away with anything. Note you always have to go buy something. Merchants and corporations, ads, fools and their money.

[@stukafaust]

That's interesting. I went to a singing bowl meditation ceremony and it was pretty good despite being hosted by a bunch of Polish people.

[@ChrispyDubstep]

I went to a shop in India and they were selling those type of bowls

[@a.c.1515]

whoa that's interesting

[@ShellShock11C]

Attach some weird mystic symbolism to a rock, and an American tourist will buy it. Trust me, a lot of us are that stupid. Just remember, us that aren't stupid, you don't interact with that often, as we don't fall for such tourist traps, so it makes it seem like we're all the morons you actually sell shit too. ;)

[@shibolinemress8913]

I love fusion cuisine like Korean American, Chinese American, Texmex and so forth. Tastes that compliment each other and make the total much more than the sum of the parts can be works of art. Same goes for music and other art forms.

[@springinfialta106]

Teriyaki Tacos, Hawaiian Pizza (actually from Canada), San Diego Style Burritos with french fries inside, Breakfast Burritos, Spaghetti and Meatballs, every kind of sausage on a roll with every manner of topping. These are all things to be celebrated and not cringed over. A few years back I went to a "German" restaurant in Korea Town. German/Korean fusion cuisine? Who would ever have thunk of that? And yet it was delicious!

[@shibolinemress8913]

@@springinfialta106 Sounds like it! Yum! 😋😘👍

[@RandomUserX99]

Chinese American food is not fusion. It's the super greasy and sweet version of Chinese food white ppl love.

[@irvingalcaraz7863]

As a a Mexican I have always find it funny and amusing when Americans celebrate Cinco de Mayo because as you said it’s not something that we celebrate in a big way.

[@alexzander7386]

Well it is the mexican independence day, and independence day is huge here so why shouldn't mexico's be important as well? Its just different values along with a mexican pride day, just like saint patricks day is irish pride day. These holidays celebrating heritage are what made america what it was today and were important in the depression when people turned to their ethnic people for support.

[@moisesrosario9716]

yeah, 5 de mayo it's mainly celebrated in Puebla, being an small celebration elsewhere, indepence day it's the more important day(that isn't even celebrated the right day because of certain president birthday back in the day) or revolution day(celebrated the next month). may 5, it's at the level of the battle of Monterrey(21/sep), rendition of the last spain troops on Mexico(23/sep) departure of US troops from Veracruz(23/nov). i still like 5 de mayo because it's my birthday so it's never a work day :)

[@irvingalcaraz7863]

@@alexzander7386 No, actually the Independence of Mexico it’s on September 16 we do celebrate that day

[@ochoahighs98]

@@alexzander7386 5 de Mayo has nothing to do with independence day

[@eddie-roo]

Yeah, cinco de mayo is a Chicano festivity and the battle of Puebla anniversary is a Poblano one.

[@BrassMaster84]

We've definitely had our way with Oktoberfest, too. We've managed to turn it into a craft beer festival with dachshund races, polka, the chicken dance, and knockoff dirndls and liederhosen.

[@greenhorn6582]

Oh, this can be fixed easyly! You can make it authentic again if you triple the beer prices, add bloody mass brawls, vomit and piss in each corner + some sexual harassment. If the local hospitals are full with intoxicated people with too much alcohol in their blood it was a success.

[@graham1034]

@@greenhorn6582 I haven't been, but that is exactly how I've heard it described by numerous people. Also heard that is getting to be mostly non-Germans.

[@calessel3139]

Yeah, and I believe in Germany its really only a Bavarian celebration. Whereas is the US it's embraced by anyone with a German background regardless of where their family actually came from in Germany. For example, my dad, was really into Oktoberfest, even having Leiderhosen, despite the fact his mother's family came from Alsace- Lorraine and his father from the Central Rhineland region.

[@Amphibax]

Today Oktoberfest is more for the tourists and not really for the people actually living in Bavaria anymore. There are a ton other similar but way smaller festivals around. So we just go there.

[@leavingitblank9363]

And it's held in October instead of September.

[@ElephanTVmoscow]

Rollercoasters in Russia are usually referred to as “American slopes”, which has a confused and weird etymology since they were historically referred to in the west as “Russian Mountains”

[@Vooman]

[insert two spidermans meme here]

[@muxijim6442]

Montaña Rusa in spanish (russian mountains)

[@thechto-to3151]

Ah, just wanted to write about this!

[@manuekhuntyk2563]

They are still referred to as Russian Mountains in Italy, we call them Montagne Russe.

[@MPHJackson7]

Man that must have been confusing to figure out at the time.

[@Alex-mq6qi]

There's this dish made from mayo, potato, carrots, chickpeas and sometimes tuna, which has a hilarious name. In the US it's sometimes called "Spanish potato salad", in Spain it's called "Russian salad" and in Russia it's called "American salad". No one wants to claim it lol

[@MarioPerez-ks3rx]

In Puerto Rico we’re actually quite fond almost even proud of what we call “Puerto Rican Chinese food”, we’re aware that Chinese restaurants in PR sell “fake” Chinese food or at least heavily adapted to fit our pallets but we think it’s very good! I’ve heard many times about Puerto Ricans who left PR and come back to visit wanting to eat some local Chinese food because it’s apparently not quite the same in the U.S.

[@benjaminwatt2436]

That's super interesting to me because i found the same thing in Peru. The Peruvians had a type of restaurant they would call Chinese, but it didn't sell anything like what we get in the US. It was mostly grilled chicken and yellow rice. I asked them why it was called Chinese and they said they weren't sure, but they thought because of the rice. I thought that was funny because here in the US Chinese rice is never yellow.

[@charlee_hotel]

PR-Chinese food is the best in the world.

[@steellegion7054]

Never heard of it. I gotta bug my cousins back in PR to see what they mean.

[@pr0ntab]

Dang now I want to try it.

[@ElJosher]

Yup PR chinese food is amazingly delicious. I’m from PR as well. Never tried Chinese takeout food outside of PR so I can’t really compare. The only point of reference is panda express, and I have to say that panda express doesn’t hold a candle to local chinese food.

[@aussieboi784]

I'm Australian and, after learning about outback steakhouse, I took a look at their menu out of curiosity. Literally none of it is Australian. It isn't even a case of them taking Australian food and americanizing it, they straight up just don't have any Australian food. No Vegemite, no sausage rolls, no meat pies, no lamingtons, no pavlova. LITERALLY NOTHING. Apparently they've been pretty successful in convincing the American public that they serve Australian food as many Americans seem to think Aussies actually eat things like 'blooming onions'. I actually had to Google what a blooming onion was as I'd never heard of one before, nor has any other Aussie I've talked to about it. I went a little further down the rabbit hole and found out that the two guys who created the restaurant got the idea from watching crocodile Dundee and never actually even visited Australia. In summary: Outback steakhouse is an American restaurant that sells American food to Americans. EDIT: ok so I've had a lot of people comment back telling me that Americans don't actually think that outback is Aussie. I'm going to be honest with you all, I did think that this misconception was more widespread before receiving such comments. HOWEVER I have seen plenty of comments online about Americans thinking that outback is legit and have even had an American ask me for home made blooming onion recipies only to be surprised that we don't eat blooming onions and that OBSH is not really Aussie food. I appreciate the comments and I now know that this misconception isn't as widespread as I originally thought but I assure you that at least SOME Americans think it's legit.

[@cpufreak101]

American here, I do remember finding that odd, especially as steak is really their main focus. I always just seen it as an Australian themed steak restaraunt chain. Does make me wonder about a smaller chain I've seen called Texas de Brazil, which is a "Brazilian" Steakhouse

[@brendanthedreamer]

As an American I honestly never believed Outback sold Australian food, it's literally a steak house. Still interesting nonetheless.

[@serPomiz]

I'd known "australian steackouse" has been a 100% american invenction since I've seen the blooming onion. That's just TOO american

[@kurtkaletka6207]

I never figured it was Australian, myself. The name sure is, but I never expected any kind of foreign delicacies there. It's kind of along the lines of Kalahari, a chain of indoor water parks in the US. The real Kalahari is an African desert! Come on!

[@bryku]

Where I grew up and the places I've been no one really thought it was Australian food, but the theme was. Sort of like making a cake red and green to make it xmas cake, the flavor never changed.

[@aysenur6761]

America always seems to me to have some kind of a parody version of each culture. As an addition, I've watched a video a while ago about Hannukah in ReligionForBreakfast. So it says, Hannukah was an attempt of American Jewish diaspora to maintain unique Jewish identity while participating the American culture. Jewish families didn't want their kids to feel alienated while their peers celebrate Christmas so Hannukah was popularised in America as a counterbalance for children against other cultural influences. For this reason, it is much more common for families who have little children to celebrate Hannukah than families who don't have. I recommend the video tho it was quite interesting.

[@FOLIPE]

Which I think is perfectly fine as long as they realize it's their own thing. The problem becomes when Americans insist they are the synthesis of the world and everything they do is or can be authentic or worse, that's it's more authentic than the version from the homeland just because the people there don't live like they did in the 19th century

[@MultiLiam24]

@@FOLIPE I agree, I’ve seen an alarming number of Americans who are trying to gatekeep cultures in the name of ‘cultural appropriation’. Particularly with Americans of colour, who are ignorant enough to decide that a certain country’s culture should be gatekept because they happen to share the same skin colour or heritage. For example, on TikTok, a Jamaican guy got annoyed that African-Americans were gatekeeping Jamaican culture simply because they were black. By that logic, an Irishman can gatekeep Russian culture simply because they’re white, despite them both being different white ethnic groups (Celts and Slavs). People need to understand that countries, particularly the US, were built around “cultural appropriation” and the melting pot of cultures blending together.

[@ashkitt7719]

Yeah, Passover is a bigger holiday for us. Same for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It just so happens that Hanukkah happens around the same time as Christmas so it's bigger for those living in gentile-dominated countries such as the US. Ironically it even happens on the 25th of the month (of Kislev in the Hebrew Lunar calendar)

[@ashkitt7719]

@@MultiLiam24 And there are white Jamaicans. I saw a video of a white Jamaican with a heavy accent and the Jamaicans in the comments said he was authentically Jamaican.

[@margalit7547]

As a Jew. I conform this is true. Hanukkah traditionally is a very minor Jewish holiday, but here in the US, it is often one of only a few Jewish holiday many Americans know about if not the only due to its association with Christmas. I was in choir in Middle School and part of high school and every year, we sang a Hanukkah song. However, we never sang Jewish songs about any other holiday or tradition ever.

[@austinhernandez2716]

My dad is from Mexico and told me that Cinco de Mayo isn't celebrated in Mexico. Also I went to Mexico for 3 weeks to meet my family. I wasn't a typical tourist. I didn't stay in a hotel in Mexico City for a week. I actually fully embraced the Mexican culture because I went and stayed at my grandma's house for 2 weeks. I got a 1st hand experience of true Mexican culture. I was in an indigenous "village"(99% indigenous, had no electricity or plumbing just a few years ago). The nearby larger city was indigenous as well and was built by my ancestors. So everything I saw was 100% authentic. One thing I learned was that they don't have hard tacos. They don't use flour either, they use maize/corn. And it's always normal soft tacos. Hard tacos is an American thing.

[@BiyikFrostDiaz]

I blame Taco bell and Del Taco for that REAL tacos are just meat and tortilla or whatever you were eating at that moment

[@emiliopacheco8056]

Depends on the region, hard tacos are popular in some parts of Mexico (see Tacos Dorados and Flautas), altough they are still pretty different from Taco Bell style tacos.

[@user-xq9cx9ky9m]

​@@BiyikFrostDiaz well being fair, for true mexicans, anything can be a taco just as long as there's food rolled inside a soft, warm tortilla.

[@user-xq9cx9ky9m]

​@@emiliopacheco8056 those are called garnachas, not tacos.

[@angelcabeza6464]

@@user-xq9cx9ky9m no se llaman tacos dorados en guanajuato

[@tsurugizaki]

There was an episode of Kino no Tabi where the main character Kino goes to a country with a tradition of making everyone wear cat ears. After she leaves, it's revealed that the residents had simply made up the tradition, and they work on inventing a new tradition to entice travelers. In a way, their tradition is inventing traditions.

[@isgodreal1337]

LMAO that's good

[@IronPiedmont]

I'm so glad someone else remembers Kino's Journey!

[@aliensoda77]

i wonder what other traditions they came up with

[@quota3734]

Wish they had more fun with the topic than “wow cat ears” lol

[@tsurugizaki]

@@quota3734 It's been a little while since I watched it, but their whole 'tradition' revolved around cats. They had a cat festival and such as well.

[@kingsgrave_]

American Chinese food is practically everywhere in the US, even small towns in the middle of nowhere usually have one. They are often ran and operated by actual Chinese immigrants but the food they make is an Americanized version of their own food. Apparently in some places in the US there are "Chinese Restaurants" that have menus specifically in Cantonese or Mandarin that serve more "authentic" versions of the food us English speakers get and expect from "Chinese Restaurants" in the US. Honestly as an American that was born and raised here in the states, I view food and restaurants like the "Chinese Restaurants" I mentioned as basically "American Food." It's the most American thing I can think of that I would see it as even more American than a cheeseburger or pizza. Both of which are actually the same type of concept but from Germany and Italy respectively, made to our tastes long enough that they have become uniquely American. I'm not Chinese, just a white guy, but I often go to "Chinese Restaurants" out of comfort as I have grown up eating that type of food and often crave it like anyone craves their country's comfort food. I've had the "Authentic" versions of my favorite dishes actually from China and I didn't like them nearly as much, and most of them were completely foreign to me.

[@jaspboynl8094]

In the Netherlands we have dutchified Chinese-Indonesian restaurants which serve almost no Chinese food.

[@psychonaut1502]

Even in my small Appalachian town, we have a Chinese restaurant. It's owned by a Chinese immigrant. She's an important member of the community. She raised money for miners who lost their jobs because of Blackjewel.

[@EverythingTheorist]

As a Chinese-american I've been to a few of those more "authentic" restaurants. I'd say the main target audience for those restaurants are people who actually grew up in China itself, so it's more familiar to them than the Americanized versions. That's why the menus are written in Chinese.

[@marcello7781]

That's very interesting and it kind of reminds me a similar thing in Peru (where I've been living since the last decade). Here in Lima we have some authentic Chinese restaurants but the most common options are fusion restaurants called "chifas" (it comes from a Chinese verb "chi fa", something related with eating) which are more Peruvian than Chinese.

[@blakerupp1444]

There’s even a Chinese restaurant in Greenland.

[@KaijinD]

I am an American who went to college in Tokyo. One of my favorite stories is when a buddy and I went to a sit down restaurant modeled on American fast casual-type places. On the dessert menu was the "American Bun." We had never heard of it, nor was it on the ubiquitous plastic food display out front. We ordered it. It was a hamburger bun with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. Nothing about it made sense.

[@CrimsonFox36]

I find that incredibly endearing. That sounds like the most boring ice cream sandwich ever, but i'll be damned if im not flattered.

[@ericktellez7632]

…was it good?

[@ActuallyRocatex]

Sounds bland as hell. No sprinkles?

[@fjordivae3007]

@@ActuallyRocatex and perhaps add chocolate, i dont know im not in charge of desserts

[@elpibedelaciudadmuerta2983]

@@fjordivae3007 but the chocolate isn't an american thing too, it's from Mexico....

[@aidanw9378]

As an Irish-Canadian, I can confirm that we're very hard to offend. St Patrick's Day is legendary even if it has nothing to do with Ireland anymore.

[@davidsandrock7826]

“We’re not getting what you’re laying down here, Patrick,” - Donall and Conall, LutheranSatire

[@alba489_]

I'm German and I went to an "Oktoberfest" in the US once. It was actually relatively accurate to the original, I mean it's basically just a giant fair anyways, but what I found funny was that many people I talked to thought that the Oktoberfest is some sort of beloved country-wide celebration in Germany, and I got asked a bunch of times what "Germans typically do on Oktoberfest". In reality it's just Munich's city fair. Now of course it's well known over here as well, but it isn't some sort of holiday and it really is just Munich's version of a city/county/state fair. On a related note, I never tried black forest cake in the US, but judging by the picture you showed it's the exact same thing that we would call black forest cake here in Germany (well actually we call it black forest cherry cake), and from what I know it really is from the Black Forest (a mountain range in Southwestern Germany).

[@deccno]

Expect for the food, Americans just cram every german food stereotype into one dish.

[@rosemarymorgan336]

You should watch the Octoberfest episode of Futurama, it's a gas.

[@stephenhand9662]

In the UK we call black forest cake 'Black Forest Gateau' just to throw some French in there to make it sound fancier. Was very popular in the 70s, seemed like every restraunt had it on their dessert menu!

[@hokton8555]

hast du schon von der Weihnachtsgurke gehört?

[@brianfox771]

Yes I have had Black Forest cherry cake in towns in the Black Forest. Good German friends of mine live outside Freiburg and when I visit we'll go on day trips to Elzach or Titisee and have a slice. The American version is close but often lacks the cherry filling the German version has, so it is not quite as good. I have found authentic versions in the US at German ran bakeries, though.

[@matthewbrotman2907]

You will sometimes hear Americans say that Cinco de Mayo is “Mexican Independence Day”. Mexico’s actual Independence Day is coming up soon, September 16.

[@RERM001]

Pueblans are the only ones that still celebrate may the fifth on Mexico. The reason of why it is celebrated in the USA is because Californians celebrated it before California was annexed by the USA.

[@xhippeex]

II so often hear people railing against this belief that I know its not mexican independence day but i cant remember what it actually is!

[@sanlex_97]

@@RERM001 that's not true, the annexation of California happened first and the war against France was later, what happened is that Californians organized parties to collect funds and volunteers to help Mexico in the war, but the war ended and the tradition stayed

[@watermelonlalala]

Fake news of decades ago taught Americans that.

[@elijahbryan3325]

@@watermelonlalala dude we learn what cinco de mayo is

[@DGTTAlpha]

As an Italian-American, there is a whole culture of Italian-American cuisine which is distinct from actual Italian food. But actual Italian food doesn't have garlic bread, so we win. :)

[@amerigocosta7452]

And in recent years (thanks to the Internet, the various cooking TV shows and easier international travel) there is a certain interest in Italy about distinct Italian-American food, despite the usual stereotype of Italians being outraged by everything that's not authentic and things like that. In general, we've become more open to other cuisines and we've switched from "what the heck is that?" to "you know, it's not bad at all!"

[@trezapoioiuy]

As an italian who lives abroad, when I feel like going to eat a pizza, I judge restaurants by whether they have a chicken-based pasta or pizza, among other details. If they do, then that's not the kind of restaurant I'm looking for, since they clearly ignore what italian food actually looks like.

[@DomenBremecXCVI]

Considering your last 2 words, you might have just lost the first word in your heritage.

[@libertatemadvocatus1797]

@@amerigocosta7452 Italian-American cuisine (and Italian-Canadian and most versions of Italian cuisine in Latin America) originated from Southern Italian (mostly Neapolitan) cuisine from the late 1800s to early 1900s. They often couldn't find a lot of the same ingredients that they could in Italy, so they often substituted or compensated by doing stuff like adding more meat. They also tried to make some dishes more palatable to the dominate population of the time. So things just evolve over time.

[@thelazyone1881]

@@DomenBremecXCVI really I thought most Italian cuisine in Latin America was from Northern Italy

[@SteelWheelSkybelieves]

I love some fauxthentic cultural ideas! I think they are adorable. It’s cute to see the attempt at replicating cultures that are completely fabulated. It’s like a grandma with a phone, they still want to connect with their families from far away but they have no idea what they are doing. 😂

[@antoine22]

2:08 I'd like to point out that the "Chinatown gates" are a real Chinese thing called paifang some might be with an inauthentic architectural style but others like the ones in Montreal are authentic and were a gift from China however, its undeniable that the architecture in San Fransisco's Chinatown is fauxthentic

[@robertkimble8385]

I was really confused by that part. I've definitely seen gates and arches like that in China but he's saying that they aren't even based on anything.

[@LeeLeeBellePBJLee]

Haha, yeah, I was like "nah man, I'm 100% sure I saw one of those gates when I was on an extended layover in the Beijing Airport on my way back from S. Korea... speaking of SK, they have a Chinatown there too, that was an interesting experience.

[@nickfifteen]

@@LeeLeeBellePBJLee As a Korean-American, there's those kinds of gates in Korea as well. I might be talking about a completely different phenomenon, but I saw them all the time on the edges of certain neighborhoods. Incidentally, I'm ALSO from San Francisco, and the "Chinatown Gate" we have is the one Grant and Bush, which was a paifang gifted to the city from the Republic of China (after they moved to Taiwan). The one shown in the video was VANCOUVER'S Chinatown gate. So yeah, SF's gate is absolutely authentic.

[@LeeLeeBellePBJLee]

@@nickfifteen Yep! I definitely saw similar gates when I was in South Korea. I'm sure there are design subtleties that as an American of European descent who hasn't really STUDIED architecture, Asian or otherwise, that I'm missing. I just recognize the shape and general aesthetic as something I saw in China and Korea. I know I've seen pictures of similar gates from Japan as well. I know there are going to be differences in them between the countries, they are all separate cultures after all... But it's kinda like the UK, the USA, and Australia, it might be hard for someone from... not those countries to tell the difference sometimes but there are definitely differences. Anyway! That's really interesting! Thank you for sharing! I may not have studied architecture but I do think it is interesting. I loved experiencing the different architecture in SK! I visited a 한옥마을 (Hanok Village or traditional Korean village for anyone else who may stumble upon this comment) and that was a really awesome experience! The floor was toasty and the buildings were so pretty!

[@darrencarter9812]

Having lived in Taiwan for 6 years, I can say without hesitation that those things are everywhere.... every temple street is marked by one, they are at the entrance of night markets and public parks. I am in Vietnam now and from what I have seen there are some here as well. Calling them as Fauxthentic when there is a Taiwan flag and President Tsai doll over his shoulder surprised me...

[@WDCallahan]

They do have fortune cookies in China. They call them "genuine American fortune cookies".

[@saimalishahid1406]

Lol

[@RisXXX]

:)

[@SlapstickGenius23]

That’s a pretty accurate representation to the origins of how the fortune cookies got popularised.

[@robertharris6092]

Fortune cookies are from a japamese recipe though?

[@talos_the_automaton2329]

9:50 A good example of an authentic American thing becoming mildly distorted, is how KFC seems to get better the further away you get from the United States. I have had KFC in both Turkey and the United States, and the Turkish version I think is superior since it feels like there is less grease, and better quality ingredients used in it. Also, I have never been to Japan, but I hear that KFC sells some higher quality menu items over there as well around Christmas time. Of course, these changes are very good, and I hope KFC in the U.S can put quality over quantity like foreign KFC franchises do.

[@rukiapyonpyon]

yes! same with canada, i remember liking the coleslaw salad back home as it has fresh veggies and crunchy carrots but in here (canada) coleslaw salad has a weird bright neonish mountain dewish tint and tastes weird.

[@InfinteIdeas]

Popeyes is the fast food Fried Chicken of choice in the United States, much better ingredients and better prepared

[@MarioPerez-ks3rx]

Krispy Kream donuts are AMAZING In Puerto Rico but I’ve been left very disappointed when I’ve tried them in the U.S.

[@AndromedaCripps]

I find that the selection and quality of even Canadian McDonald’s is vastly superior to the original American version! (I wish it went the same way for Tim Horton’s, but alas, the original Canadian version is still better 🥲)

[@YakkoWarnerTower]

Agreed, man KFC is ofc very delicious, and pouplar in some nations I'd heard it's so high quality, and has a lesser greasy taste.

[@janoswimpffen7305]

Freshman year in high school (Grade 9 to Canadians) I had an English teacher named Sean Shesgreen. He was a recent graduate of Trinity University in Dublin, fresh off the boat and newly arrived in the US. (He remains one of the best teachers I ever had). This was a Catholic school in Chicago with about 50% of the students being of Irish heritage. As St. Patrick's Day neared we were all planning our outfits and wondered what he would wear. So on the morning of the holiday we were all shocked when he walked into the classroom wearing the same suit and tie he wore other days. He explained, "What is it with you Americans? This is nothing like St. Pat's day back in home. First of all it rains all the time in Ireland and everything is always green. We don't need to be reminded of it. Then it is the quietest of days. The pubs are all shut. Nobody parties. It's more like your Thanksgiving. You go home and have a nice big dinner with family and a few frineds. That's it."

[@edwardhoptrough9933]

For what it's worth, us Brits have a fairly similar history of fauxthentic 'foreign cusine dishes' that originated either after immigrant communities moved here or were made at the hands of orientalist Brits themselves. Anglo-Indian cusine is considered a whole offshoot by some due to the differences it has from actual Indian cooking, with Chicken Tikka Masala probably being the most famous example.

[@user-qk5ft8eo8t]

:)

[@chucku00]

@@bigscarysteve It's still the case in western Europe, you can find "curry" powder in supermarkets but it's always the standardized orange version of a genuine Indian masala.

[@fakebrake]

Now you have me thinking of funny Al Murray vids. 😄

[@cashcleaner]

Some of the best Curry and Shwarma I ever had was in the UK. May not be authentic, but it was fantastic.

[@satyakisil9711]

@@calum5975 the original meaning of curry in India is just a type of herb used for aroma in savoury dishes.

[@slyninja4444]

Tbh, cultural exchange has almost always worked this way. The Koreans and Japanese clothing is cleary similar to the Chinese despite the differences. The Aztecs literally copied their architecture off the Toltecs. The sexy maid outfits were adopted by the Japanese from England and France.

[@johnschwalb]

And it's a good thing. It'd selfish to try and horde your culture.

[@SlapstickGenius23]

Us Australians adopted curry powder from the British, which in turn based theirs on South Indian curries.

[@UmiandFrenchHorn]

@@SlapstickGenius23 Japan also adopted "curry" from the British, and "Japanese curry" is nothing like South Indian curries. "Yoshoku" [lit. Western Food] is a general term of dishes that are Japanese takes on originally foreign (mainly European) foods.

[@drcabbageface]

It also happened with east Asian countries and the US when it came to fashion. Clothes like jeans and T-shirts got picked up from the US by east Asian countries which derived from work attire to everyday fashion.

[@PaintedHoundie]

Im not really sure thats what the video is covering..fake butchered cultural adaptations like the video is covering is not the same thing as simple cultural exchange

[@hautakleightontam771]

On a similar note, it's interesting to consider just how many cultural 'traditions' of countries are actually extremely recent. For instance, salmon sashimi was nonexistent in Japanese cuisine prior to the late 1980s when Norwegian parasite-free salmon were introduced, yet many people assume it's always been a staple.

[@cortes2j]

Now I feel like I have authentic taste just because I don’t enjoy the salmon all that much lol

[@daninraleigh]

Like Ploughman's lunch?

[@hautakleightontam771]

@@daninraleigh Yes and no. A meal of bread, cheese and beer has a long history in Britain, but the specific term 'ploughman's lunch' was invented in 1956 to promote post-war dairy consumption.

[@AustynSN]

One of my dreams in life is to go on a world tour and try foods that are considered "American" in other cultures. The ideal option would be to simultaneously share American dishes that we falsely credit to their culture. I think it would be a great way for people of different cultures to see each other as the other sees each.

[@Dracosfire14]

That'd make for a pretty good series. I'd watch it

[@arnbo88]

Some immigrants fail to realize that their "home country" continues to evolve and change after they emigrate. By keeping their culture and traditions alive in the new country, they create a type of time capsule that becomes unrecognizable back home a few generations later. KZbinr Igor Ryltsev visited a Ukrainian cultural center in Alberta and stated that it was very different from modern day Ukraine. I have Australians inform me that ALL Canadians consume poutine and maple syrup on a daily basis.

[@MarioPerez-ks3rx]

That’s very interesting, I think that traditions or cultures simply serves a different purpose to Immigrant communities than in homeland. In the homeland, it’s simply a pet of daily life and culture which means it’s alive and evolves as the people evolve. To expat communities and their descendants, it’s a way to hold on to their identity, so adapting the tradition would mean changing their identity.

[@bingwen469]

All Canadians do.

[@BunsBooks]

My family is a German time capsule for sure, my great grandparents spoke a now extinct Hessen dialect. When my family went to Germany a few years ago to see our ancestral village, no one could understand the old dialect. It’s an odd feeling that immigrants are the ones who preserve the older versions of our homelands culture, the homeland moves on and develops but they also forget so much that the older culture begins to look strange or even “un-German” to them

[@arnbo88]

@@BunsBooks It's okay. I grew up in Canada, attended a German speaking church and endured years of special German language classes. My grandmother taught me how to read and write in the old German gothic alphabet (Suetterlin) although I still struggle reading the printed Fraktur today. My father's village was destroyed by the Red Army, that German church in Canada is now English speaking and the German that I learnt is of little use these days because I live in Australia. Things change.

[@gregdubya1993]

@@BunsBooks the Hessians were hired by the British to fight in the Revolutionary War. They were captured at Trenton by Washington.

[@nlsantiesteban]

This is a good cursory primer on the subject. However as we start peeling back the onion that is “authenticity” we begin to see everything as inauthentic. Modern Scottish kilts and patterns are a product created by the English in the 18th century, African Ankara textiles started as a Dutch import of Indonesia Batik, hell even Salsa music originated in New York by kids, some who barely spoke Spanish, copying Motown and RnB (during the boogaloo era) and then was exported to Latin America. But walk up to a Scotsman during the Highland games and tell him that the kilt he wears and the tartan that represents his clan is fauxthentic. See where that gets you. This is because objects, foods, traditions help people demarcate who they are, what groups they belong to and what is meaningful for them. And all human culture(s) is/are symbolic and social. Things, language, words, stories, myths all change over time depending on our needs and social interactions. The fetishization of the “authentic” just doesn’t jive with what it means to be humans. This isn’t to say that cultural appropriation doesn’t exist or that ridding ourselves of racist, orientalist, ahistorical, problematic cultural flotsam isn’t a noble activity. Or that there aren’t defined cultures in the world because we exist in a postmodern mess; because there are. Just that, for me, it is more productive to think about the values and meanings ascribed to these fauxthenic objects than to just chortle “silly Americans”. Then again, I enjoyed the video and love shaking my head knowingly at all this sort of nonsense!

[@iivarimokelainen]

Thank you! The only rational way to see this topic. Recently watched a chinese chef in america speaking quite fondly about chop suey because it was the creation of chinese immigrants, and it is authentic, just not from China. Everything is made up, and it's all awesome. Without "cultural appropriation" there's no culture.

[@ForeverLaxx]

It's a lot like the idea of Native Americans and turquoise. Most people assume that it's the stone itself that's important, but the stone is only "important" because it has the right color. There are many examples of what people would call "costume jewelry" being just as sacred to the Native Americans, despite not being made of turquoise, simply because the glass or metal was painted the proper color. But go down to the Nevada/Arizona area and look at how many "authentic turquoise" shops there are and you'd be forgiven for assuming that the stone is what matters to those people.

[@progunjack5556]

Your point that Ankara is literally a different version kinda blow my mind, it's kinda hypocrite for the general Indonesian public for hating on Malaysia because they just want to consider an already culturally appropriated version of batik that has adapted and changed in Malaysia for dozens of years by Javanese immigrants as part of Malaysian culture 🤷

[@mankrikswifey]

@@progunjack5556 Not migrants, but coastal trading happened and then Javanese techniques influenced the brush techniques of Malaysian Batik. I’m Indonesian and the idea of gatekeeping a technique that has long existed before the political lines of the modern country is honestly so bizarre to me. It’s just nonsense nationalist rhetoric. Javanese Batik has long experienced acculturation since so much trading happened throughout the centuries.

[@xSwordLilyx]

Well there are still a good many people wearing kilts with the old tartans to this day so a lot of kilt wearers would have a right to be upset

[@marcelofernandez9838]

I visited Chile one time and they have stores out there called “American stores”. These store are actually just thrift stores but they call it that cause they mostly have American type of clothing there such as American football jerseys, American brands, anecian college shirts, etc. literally everything that an Americans would wear. It was pretty funny tbh

[@seamusmckeon9109]

All they need is a bud light clock or other beer related memorabilia

[@lemonadetheworld]

in Mexico there's this "american clothing" places that are literally goodwill and other kinds of thrift store's trash

[@Andoresu96]

Here in Argentina we also have this concept of a Feria Americana but to my understanding it's aimed at emulating the American yard sale, only instead of some dude's house it's at a semi-permanent location and a bunch of folk go to sell their stuff there

[@5thgenerationtexan581]

The Fortune cookie was started purely as a Japanese-American small business/restaurant owners way of thanking his community for their support after he reopened following WWII. Other Asian cuisine owners picked it up & started using "fortunes cookies" instead of his "Thank you" ones but he was the one who started it!

[@Gazzyl161]

Greek restaurants in the US have always looked cringey to me. From the decor which is full of white columns and ancient greek statue replicas to the actual food in many cases. The most emblematic example has to be lighting saganaki on fire while serving it. I have never seen that in Greece. Also your comment on the "chinese" english letters reminded me of the distinct font used in most greek restaurants oversees that aims (and fails in my opinion) to replicate ancient greek writing. It looks quite stupid to me, especially when they replace the letter E with the greek letter Ξ. Something like: GRΞΞK RΞΣTAYRANT. None of these is offensive to me of course. It's just looks silly.

[@JJMcCullough]

Oh that’s a fantastic example

[@Croz89]

It's either Xi or Sigma. I also used to think that the endless repeats of Zorba's dance wasn't authentic, but no, restaurants in Greece do that too (and it got very tiring)!

[@russergee49]

Hello, Canadian of Greek origin here! I agree about the tacky restaurants, but there was an element of necessity that led to how they look. Most of these restaurants were opened by immigrants who immigrated in the mid 20th century, who were not well accepted and often discriminated against for being foreign. I think that in order to make their businesses successful, they had to use those tacky decorating techniques in order to be appealing to a Western audience. To remove the distaste for ‘unwanted Greek immigrants with their weird foreign food’ and replace it with ‘the kind of Greeks we like, the dead ones from 2,500 years ago’. Tldr: Big tacky decor = better appeal to Western consumer.

[@jaller23rus]

Yeah, that's just like "Russian font" when the letter "R" is replaced with "Я" (which doesn't make any sense besides visual resemblance). Sometimes even some non-existent letters used that probably look "Russian" to Americans, lol.

[@RickJaeger]

The flambeed sagnaki was apparently invented in a Greektown restaurant in Chicago, "based on the suggestion of a customer to owner Chris Liakouras."

[@Seahawksby100]

The Proverbial Viking horn helmet. In Seattle, teriyaki is kind of a staple cooking style. Most people assume it is a well known and well practiced type of cooking in Japan. But from what I understand, it wasn't all that common in Japan besides with fried fish. Seattle by the 1980's had 80+ restaurants with the word "teriyaki" in it, and shortly after it began catching on in Japan.

[@ryankahler2034]

In Brazil, teriyaki is just the name of a sauce we eat together with Japanese food, I thought this was universal lol

[@illeagle9560]

@@ryankahler2034 it is the name of the sauce, teriyaki style food is just that food with the sauce cooked with it

[@illeagle9560]

The Japanese invented it in the 1700s, tbut as you said they use it primarily for fish. While we use it for meats

[@wannabehistorian371]

Actually, it is pretty common in Japan. You’ll find it at fast food restaurants even. Source: I’m Japanese.

[@appa609]

follow up on sushi: By far the most common raw fish sushi in America is salmon. This was invented in Norway in the 50's

[@agarwalsushant]

I'm from India and here we have the pretty popular "Chinese" noodle dish called "American Chopsuey". And I've always wondered why it was called that. Makes complete sense now.

[@germanshepherd6638]

My local Indian restaurant puts raisins in the chicken tikka masala.

[@agarwalsushant]

@@germanshepherd6638 raisins belong in everything.

[@agarwalsushant]

@@germanshepherd6638 perhaps the chef was one of those Indian kids whose mothers put raisins in everything just to get them to eat.

[@victoriakathleen01]

"American chop suey" is a thing in America, given that name to differentiate from the Chinese American "chop suey". (Just to clarify that we're talking about the same dish, American chop suey is a casserole with macaroni, ground beef, and tomatoes. And regular chop suey [which I've never had] is stir fried meat, eggs, and vegetables served over rice or noodles.)

[@wabbitwabbit98]

@@victoriakathleen01 that's completely different from the American chop suey we get here in India! Here it's basically this crispy, deep fried noodle served with a veg/non-veg gravy.

[@jons.6216]

I didn't know about the issue with the one Ben and Jerry's flavor, but I LOVED the pint of "Fortunate Vanilla" I once had in the late 2000s with chocolate and pieces of fortune cookie in it and a "fortune" printed at the bottom of the pint!! I even wrote the company complimenting them on how clever I thought it was!

[@tjpprojects7192]

Here's the nice thing about stuff like this. No matter how "fake", or "condescensing" something might appear to be, humans can ALWAYS make it into something new. Thus is can become a part of culture that is just as valid as all the others.

[@watermelonlalala]

No, that is not how it works.

[@RebSike]

@@watermelonlalala yes it is

[@nlsantiesteban]

@@watermelonlalala Yes, this person is correct.

[@Yuki_Seraphim]

It still leaves my mouth sour the thought of these things becoming a part of my culture...

[@eshanbanerjee243]

In India, many restaurants have a "Chinese food" section which almost always contains a dish called "Chicken Manchurian or Veg Manchurian". You might think the dish is inspired from the cuisine of the North-Eastern States of China known as Manchuria however they don't share any similarities whatsoever. Instead, it is an 'indianisation' of chinese food made by Indian chefs and some Chinese immigrants in Kolkata, India to suit the Indian palette.

[@stinkyjoe4720]

and god DAMN is that gobi manchurian good

[@TheAlexSchmidt]

An Indian restaurant in my part of America serves it too! I had kind of wondered why it was called "Manchurian."

[@NotYowBusiness]

In India we have an entire suite of “Chinese” dishes that no Chinese person would recognize. Ever heard of “Chicken Manchurian”?

[@rosemarymorgan336]

I am gonna be honest that sounds like something I'd find in the old family cookbook. Some of those "foreign" dishes are just American food with fancy names. I was actually making fun of them last summer....

[@shramanadasdutta3006]

We call those Desi Chinese.

[@RadenWA]

Chinese food does evolve on its own in Asia. Many Korean and Japanese food are practically evolved Chinese food.

[@songcramp66]

In Vancouver, we have a few Indo-Chinese restaurants, that's the benefits of having a variety of immigrants.

[@_.atd21]

I ate Manchurian over here in bahrain before in a multi-cusine restaurant and it was under the indian cusine, can you verify? ps: it was vegetables not chicken tho

[@ducklordthegreat352]

The “foreign country name” thing is also true in other countries applied to English speaking ones. I had a sandwich in Spain called “bocadillo británico” or something along those lines which was basically a normal Spanish baguette sandwich but with like bacon and stuff. Definitely more Spanish than British, and probably more American than British as well.

[@jdinhuntsvilleal4514]

There's an old joke that you may be too young to have heard: "I love Chinese food, but an hour later I'm hungry again." That was basically true because authentic Chinese food is mostly vegetables, and back in the 50s and early 60s that is what most Chinese food was like. BUT, somewhere, sometime along the way ALL Chinese restaurants seem to have "Americanized" their menu, and now most of the meals are mostly meat.

[@jdinhuntsvilleal4514]

@Chip Wiseman I didn't say the old dishes didn't have meat in them, just that it was a lot LESS MEAT and a lot MORE VEGETABLES.

[@Dracosfire14]

@Chip Wiseman That's interesting, are there any traditional or fauxthentic dishes you really like? Do people give you a hard time for being vegetarian? There's almost a stigma about that in the US, so I'm curious how that works in China since Americans tend to think being vegetarian is much more common there

[@Discontinuedalready7372]

_A lot of Chinese food do have meat tho. Xiao long bao, wonton and ban mian have meat. Tho I do get what youre saying since Chinese meals often balance vegetable and meat_

[@DCAdamB]

Phenomenal video JJ! My personal favorite “fauxthentic” American dish is the Bloomin’ Onion from Outback Steakhouse. I’m sure if I ask an Australian about it though, they would laugh at me at best or be offended at worst

[@JJMcCullough]

Oh man I never even thought of that one

[@bicker31]

I've never thought Outback was supposed to actually be Australian food

[@kenyanicholas6809]

I ordered that some months ago thru DoorDash and it was terrible. I love onion rings so I was excited to try it but the seasoning was bad.

[@apeman9238]

@@JJMcCullough the channel Geography Now has made a video about a country that has similar things like this. It is their latest video they have made.

[@robertwatkins3939]

@@kenyanicholas6809 you gotta eat it at the table the delivery process ruins it. The steam from within the packaging is what does it.

[@FredoRockwell]

As an American living in the UK, I was once shocked to see a bottle of "Pennsylvania-style peanut-butter ketchup" for sale, covered in red, white and blue packaging. I'm not making this up!

[@lampfacedampchase8048]

pennsylvania-style peanut-butter ketchup is exactly how i would parody the way people from pennsylvania eat

[@TheAlexSchmidt]

"Chicken Maryland" also seems to be a somewhat popular UK dish that isn't actually called that anywhere in the US.

[@FredoRockwell]

@@TheAlexSchmidt Yes, that sounds familiar. I've definitely seen "Maryland Fried Chicken" as well. The famous tastes of the Old Line State!

[@FredoRockwell]

@@lampfacedampchase8048 What would be the authentic Pennsylvania ketchup? Scrapple-flavoured? If so, I might prefer the peanut-butter version.

[@zandaroos553]

@@FredoRockwell Authentic Pennsylvania ketchup would taste cheap beer, coal tar and sadness

[@blacku9625]

I'm a Pole and I remember when I first came to Chicago and saw "polish sausage" in multiple fast food places. Later I found out many people just say "I'll have a polish", you don't even have to add sausage. It won't surprise you that there's no such thing as "polish sausage" served like a hot dog in Poland. It gets funnier because the guy who invented this dish wasn't even Polish. He was Yugoslavian.

[@natureman609]

Here in Seattle, Dutch Baby’s are a popular dish. They are not Dutch in the slightest, being invented in a Seattle diner in the mid 20th century. Also, they aren’t made of baby’s. It’s a pancake type food that collapses on itself when taken out of the oven. You touched on sushi a little bit and that’s something else that seems inspired by a culture but not from it. Dragon rolls and rainbow rolls with their avocado and wide range of different ingredients make them more American then Japanese. Finally, there is a town in Washington called Leavenworth which is designed to look and feel like a german town. It’s incredibly stereotypical all being heavily based off of Bavaria, a small part of Germany. From what I’ve gathered, Germans aren’t exactly offended by this stereotype of Lederhosen and Oktoberfest and Pretzels. Their just tired of it. Leavenworth is still a wonderful cute little town, but it isn’t accurate to its source material

[@Croz89]

A Dutch Baby is basically a giant sweet yorkshire pudding.

[@davidmehling4310]

Leavenworth, WA sounds like Frankenmuth, "Michigan's little Bavaria". I enjoy going there having ancestors from Bavaria, but wonder how much is to draw tourists. They have an authentic glockenspiel, but no German restaurant. Zehnders and the Bavarian Inn are famous for chicken dinners

[@Squidwardooo]

there’s also a town in Washington State called Poulsbo that’s supposed to be Norwegian based.

[@shotguncreeper]

@@Squidwardooo This is true as well, but Poulsbo was also founded by Norwegian immigrants.

[@ksubi78]

Leavenworth is supposed to imitate a Bavarian town though right? Not a very valid example tbh.

[@bentrod3405]

We had an italian exchange student who said that they had “American Pizza”. It was pizza with frnech fries and hotdogs as toppings.

[@Brian-tn4cd]

Isn't pizza another fauxthentic food? Pizza in Italy is a type of flatbread, but the whole cheese and sauce on it was done in US as well

[@louisb.6149]

Just like Hawaiian pizza was invented by Americans and didn’t reflect shit of what they really made pizza like in Hawaii

[@eduardochavacano]

that kid was clearly Bull shitting.

[@tomfrazier1103]

@@louisb.6149 Hawaiian Pizza is a Canadian invention. A Conservative You Tuber, Zeducation used to talk about this often.

[@RogySan]

@@eduardochavacano No no, it's true ahhahahaha No idea why But here in Italy, especially children, like to eat pizza with french fries and wurstels on top, with wurstel being hot dogs i think. Of course it's not a traditional dish, it has become popular in maybe the last fifty years and it's for children. But yeah, it is a thing lol

[@tonirasic1728]

There's a technical term for "fauxthentic" that's been used in a lot of literature, it's called "simulacrum" and is usually defined as a "copy without an original".

[@MrToradragon]

Fauxthentic sounds better.

[@jaz11002]

Thanks for that piece of info! Luv it! Educational and truthful.

[@wookie2222]

To most of us germans it seems somehow inappropriate to be linked all over the world and especially in the US with oktoberfest. This festivity takes place only in munich and is a very special, bavarian... thing. Since bavaria is probably comparable to texas it would be the same as if we would celebrate the austin county fair everywhere on earth as the one american holiday instead of halloween, saint patricks day or thanksgiving.

[@kabobawsome]

For Cinco de Mayo specifically, it's important to remember that the Mexican-American culture is more leaning towards Mexican culture from the mid 1800s, as that's when Mexican culture first encountered the American cultures on such a large scale (via the Mexican-American War), when Cinco de Mayo was still within living memory. This comes less from fake authenticity and more authentic to an older, long dead version of a culture.

[@natf6747]

What are you talking about? Cinco De Mayo celebrates the Mexican victory over France in the battle of Pueblo. On May 5th 1862...... The Mexican American war end in 1848. a good 14 years before. Meaning it couldn't have been still within living memory. Because there was no memory to live.

[@MerkhVision]

@@natf6747 I think you’ve misinterpreted them. Even if they might have got the dates backwards, the point still stands that the people around at the time Americans and Mexicans first began mixing post 1848 would have eventually been highly inspired by the events of 1862. And it would be in living memory of the wave of immigrants that came post 1862.

[@natf6747]

@@MerkhVision maybe that's what they meant. But that's definitely not what was said.

[@chivamarudelasrosas5774]

@@natf6747 I understood that too if you put the context of what he said it makes sense

[@mightymrmousempls]

Cinco de Mayo needs to stay a holiday celebrated by both Americans and Mexicans. There are historians who believe a French victory in Mexico would have lead to them supplying the Confederacy and the scope of our nation would be much different. It should be a day where we celebrate our friendship and allyship between our two great nations.

[@Christopher_TG]

I think one example of something that is a product of a foreign country's idea of American culture that America kind of re-appropriated for itself is the Spaghetti Western film genre. As the name suggests, the genre originated in Italy as Italian filmmakers made movies based on a largely mythical understanding of the American West. American filmmakers began to import the style in their own films about the American West and it proved very popular among American filmgoers, even if its representation of the "Wild West" is only very loosely based on the truth. A very recent film that utilizes a lot of the Spaghetti Western tropes is the Quentin Tarentino film Django Unchained.

[@eldeion4146]

This was also reflected in many Italian comic series like Tex Willer and Pecos Bill. It might have originated from Buffalo Bills’ tours across Italy

[@ashkitt7719]

And then I think of Blazing Saddles which sort of made the entire genre into a parody of itself. I saw Blazing Saddles for the first time a week ago and it was hilarious af.

[@Christopher_TG]

@@ashkitt7719 That's because Blazing Saddles is a parody film satirizing westerns and its tropes.

[@noiamnotjohn3351]

Some areas of the west really lived up to the movie tropes, though. Especially in the Southwest, not just Tombstone but Pichocho (I can't remember how to spell it) where 100 or so people were murdered in less than a year in gunfights. Usually prospector vs prospector, but cattle rustlers/raiders and other criminals too. Local deputies were so corrupt that they were paid off to let men awaiting punishment in the jail be murdered. There are still bullet holes in the jail cells today from where that happened.

[@jimking2299]

In style and detail, the gritty, sweaty and grim Spaghetti Westerns were probably more authentic than the sanitized traditional American westerns, with their clean-shaven and carefully barbered heroes in tailored costumes and pristine white Stetsons.

[@BagMonster]

I always hear complaints that Chinese American food isn't "authentic" enough, but it's delicious in its own way!

[@esmereldapinchon1422]

It’s awfully fatty and bears little resemblance to real Chinese food. I think it’s useful to note the difference if only to provide warning to Americans visiting authentic Chinese restaurants. Authentic Chinese food is so much better.

[@bmeiji]

Americanized Chinese food is gross to me, but to each his own

[@RandomDudeOne]

Chinese American food is not authentic Chinese because most Americans would never eat the real thing.

[@abaddon2148]

the elitists in these replies lmfao. y'all can't appreciate shit lol

[@Nathan-jh1ho]

I'm from Taiwan, it is not authentic, but I like it anyways. The biggest complaint is the taste is so similar, between restaurant and dishes.

[@louisrharmony]

The whole cinco de mayo thing was a surprise to me, as I’m a hispanic who lived on the border for most of my life in a town where the population was 97% hispanic if i remember correctly. The only foreign language offered at most schools was spanish so pretty much everyone took it, and I remember learning about cinco de mayo and it’s significance in my classes and it was always celebrated and taken seriously where I was from. Keep in mind this was a city with a large community of non-citizens where you could expect to get by only speaking Spanish at local businesses. Because of that, I’d hesitate to say that it means nothing to “real” Mexicans, because the community of people I grew up with were real Mexicans, but again this is just my perspective and I’m sure other people might have experiences that are slightly different.

[@Dracosfire14]

Taking cultural norms as ubiquitous within said culture is the main problem of this whole exercise. One town's traditional favorite can be it's neighbor's exotic treat. Especially in a culture as widespread and diverse as "American"

[@weeendyabbbigail4105]

I’m Mexican and have lived in Mexico my whole life, and honestly I feel like a lot of the importance we place on cinco de mayo over here happens directly because Americans think it’s an important date to us. Like, we’ll acknowledge it, but I’ve heard more foreigners talk about it than Mexican. We don’t have any of the celebrations that’d happen around our Independence Day on cinco de mayo either.

[@carloscarlin114]

If the community isn't in or formed by people raised Mexico it isn't Mexican, US Hispanic =/= actual Hispanics.

[@marielquevedo3352]

Did you live State's side of the border? I can assure you that as a Mexican living in Mexico City have never celebrated Cinco de mayo. However I've been to a lot of September 16 celebrations which is our independence day.

[@ericktellez7632]

it does really mean nothing my friend, only Puebla does a thing but the overwhelming majority of us it doesn't mean anything special.

[@christopherwalton7038]

"Traditional" English pubs. Covered in union jacks, red phone boxes, British bulldogs and pictures of the queen. They do something similar with Irish pubs too. I visited LA last year to see family and they insisted on taking me to one of these places to make me feel at home. The thought was sweet the place was border line insulting lol

[@bryku]

If it is anything like the "american restaurants", I understand your pain. Typically the food is ok, even the stuff I know isn't American, its typically American flavors and I could see someone make it, but it is typically the design of the inside that is a turn off.

[@renanfelipedossantos5913]

That happens in Latin America as well

[@Eirik_Bloodaxe]

If you come back to LA, go to MacLeods. It’s a craft brewery that does English style beer. But it’s not campy lol. Parking sucks tho.

[@entrcpy]

I had an old coworker that lived abroad that told me that every place he travelled to for work had an Irish pub. Even in Asian countries. The caricature of them, at least

[@the-thane]

They do that in Japan as well. Union Jacks everywhere in their "English" pubs. It's fairly boisterous

[@athf226]

In Japan there's a lot of the "American" things like you mentioned near the end, but also several other cultural things (esp. food) that have been invented in Japan but are marketed as foreign. An example that comes to mind is Napolitan Pizza. There's a whole litany of "Youshoku" or Western-inspired foods that are uniquely Japanese.

[@leavingitblank9363]

Matcha Kit Kats?

[@Lilithksheh7723]

First thing that comes to mind when thinking of Western-inspired Japanese food is omurice.

[@Someone-sq8im]

I'm curious, tell us more

[@RandomUserX99]

Napolitan is not a pizza - it's pasta with ketchup as sauce which is a staple home made food for Japanese kids.

[@RandomUserX99]

​@@Someone-sq8imGoogle Hayashi beef, hambaguu, or omu-rice. Japanese Western food is the best.

[@HoboHunterRik]

The SOAD riff playing when you said Chop Suey was unexpected and got a hearty chuckle out of me. Good job my friend

[@Aetherismə]

It was nice

[@aerotheepic]

California rolls were made by a Japanese guy to *try* to get Americans to eat sushi. It was the first roll with rice on the outside to “hide” the seaweed and it included ingredients like crab, instead of raw fish, that Americans were familiar with. Just saying it’s origins are slightly different, it wasn’t something Americans took and distorted.

[@lloovvaallee]

There is that case of a Minnesota boy who learned to play the violin from his Swedish grandfather. It turns out that he was the last known person to preserve a style of folk fiddling that had totally died out in Scandinavia. Immigrant communities sometimes remain more stable than the old country and preserve traditions that were lost abroad. The very opposite of your thesis here.

[@deutschelehrer69]

Wow that's really interesting

[@nealjamison6085]

Was it revived in the old country?

[@uweschollmeyer9409]

Tell us more about that please! Which folk style was it? Do you now carry on the torch for future generations?

[@FOLIPE]

Nah, what can happen is that one specific aspect can be preserved but still the whole context will be lost. Like, sure, they can still play this one song or style or even remember some words people adapted or changed. Is that preservation? Yes in the most basic sense. But actually, the original context is lost either way and it is just that one small ritual which was retained. Besides, it's so rare when that happens that it deserves special mention

[@lloovvaallee]

@@uweschollmeyer9409 I wish I could remember more. I had read an article about it years ago when I was living in Minneapolis.

[@firelaf1284]

In Bulgaria we have a grocery chain that does an "American Week" every once in a while. They sell mostly barbecue meats but it's hard since in the balkans we have really good barbecue. That said, the wings they sell are fucking good, I always buy those wings.

[@kacpergalik609]

Similar here, stuff like peanut butter or muffins or whatever. And we also have decent barbecue stuff already.

[@daanwillemsen223]

Is it Lidl btw?

[@kacpergalik609]

@@daanwillemsen223 in PL it is, in BG probably as well, since they also have Lidl.

[@janmelantu7490]

Wings? Like chicken wings? That’s kinda funny, given that barbecue is the traditional food in the American South (Carolina, Texas, etc) while chicken wings are a staple of Western New York (the City of Buffalo is why they’re called Buffalo Wings). “Barbecue wings” were an invention by country-wide chain restaurants for people who aren’t from either place. Which makes it probably the most American thing you could sell during an “American Week”

[@DomenBremecXCVI]

@@kacpergalik609 Lidl in Slovenia as well... Throw a dart at a map and name a week after the country it lands on.

[@llaurora4790]

In Quebec we have “nouilles chinoises” (Chinese noddles), which consists of elbow noddles, vegetables,chicken and soya sauce. It is in all the Chinese restaurants in Quebec but I have not seen it anywhere in Chinese restaurants outside Quebec. It is delicious, but it is Quebecer not Chinese haha.

[@iloveprivacy8167]

Do you have ginger beef out there? It's standard 'Chinese' food out West - invented in Calgary.

[@llaurora4790]

@@iloveprivacy8167 no I never heard of it. I now live in Ontario and I never seen it here either. It’s funny how different parts of the same country have different versions of the same cuisine. Interesting 🤔

[@llaurora4790]

@Adrienne Leoni yeah I thought about it too… the history of that particular dish is so interesting!!!

[@DarwinskiYT]

What the hell is “elbow noodles”

[@RaymondHng]

@@DarwinskiYT Elbow noodles are macaroni.

[@mgthestrange9098]

Correction: muffins and crumpets are different. Muffins are split and toasted whereas crumpets aren’t, they’re like a thick pancake made with a yeasted batter to create the distinct holes. To confuse things further, a Scottish crumpet is a thin sweet pancake, it still has the holes but doesn’t contain yeast. The batter is just thinned down pancake batter so it goes further, very Scottish! Also, I’ve been in Dublin for St Patrick’s Day and id certainly say they’ve embraced the holiday! 🍺☘️

[@Haru-spicy]

The trouble with the idea of cultural appropriation is that everyone's culture is already like 90% appropriation

[@LurpakSpreadableButter]

And thus cultural appropriation doesn't exist

[@isgodreal1337]

@@LurpakSpreadableButter Amen, and right you are.

[@johnschwalb]

Real talk right here. Ideas and traditions are to be shared as they have been for all of history.

[@leavingitblank9363]

@@LurpakSpreadableButter Ignore it you want, but it irritates me that cheap stores like Walmart, Ross, or TJ Maxx sell crap Chinese-made pottery in the traditional Italian style, and dozens of other "cultural appropriated crafts". They're underselling centuries old tradition, and that's how traditions get lost.

[@jeromemckenna7102]

I am old enough at age 70 to remember when St Patrick's day wasn't a bid deal except in Irish-American families. But that changed by my teens.

[@savannaobregon3823]

When you talked about chimichangas being from Arizona, I had to go look it up for myself. I JUST found out now that chimichangas were invented in Tucson, AZ (my hometown!). I never knew, I thought that my Latino family was just making authentic mexican food, turns out they were making very regionally specific (although still authentic to Latino culture) food.

[@brayanargandonaflorentino548]

I'm from Phoenix, AZ. and I never had a Chimichanga before. It looks very off of what meal where it originated from, because my family are totally 100% Mexican, and we critique foods that aren't accurate of what we usually eat.

[@WorldWide2017]

Your family's probably been in the US for a while. My parents are from Mexico itself and they never heard of a chimichanga until they came here. My dad says he never ate a burrito either until he came to the US. As far as we're concerned, chimichangas are not even close to being authentically Mexican, lol. Authentic Mexican food is stuff like mole, barbacoa, pozole, and tortas.

[@austinhernandez2716]

What if it was made by Mexican Americans though? And Mexico used to own Arizona I think

[@iliandietcoke]

My mom makes chimichangas and they are sold here at cenadurías and all here at Sonora, Mexico. My guess is that inmigrants from Mexico made them at the U.S and eventually they spread since it's a border state. But again, Tucson it's full of mexican people since it's so close to the border, same with Nogales

[@odoimia]

Arizona used to be a part of mexico tough?

[@fraserbatts]

As an Australian, bloomin' onions come to mind. Never even seen them here and not a lot of people would know what they are

[@morganmcallister2001]

There's often confusion between region and nation, especially when it comes to food. I hear plenty of Americans trying to show off how smart they are by saying that burritos are fauxthentic Mexican because they spent time in Mexico City or southern Mexico and no one there had ever heard of a burrito. And it is true that burritos are almost unknown in those areas of Mexico, but it was still created in northern Mexico and in the northern provinces they are quite common. An American example would be that it is common for people in the south to eat grits; it is not common anywhere else, but would someone from outside the US be wrong for calling grits an American food? I don't think so. I think there's also a fine line between cultural celebration and cultural appropriation. In fact I'm not sure it's so much a line as it is a haze. Is something that is ethnic-American cultural appropriation because it takes something ethnic and changes it into something American or is it cultural celebration because it takes something foreign and rebrands it so that they can more easily share it with the wider American community?

[@cristeromexico3366]

I’ve seen the reverse happen as well. A lot of MexAms think carne asada is something eaten everywhere in Mexico when it’s mainly a Norteño thing

[@BoogieBoogsForever]

I think of appropriation mainly in the context of using elements of a different culture and making money from it.

[@BoogieBoogsForever]

@@cristeromexico3366 Lota of asada in south-east México...

[@ilaibavati6941]

Appropriation means taking something for yourself at the expense of someone else. So if you were to take a foreign food and deny its origin that might be "cultural appropriation" but otherwise it is just cultural borrowing, which is actually how all cultures develop. There would be no tempura, vindaloo, chicken tikka massala or Chicago deep dish without cultural borrowing, and the world would be all the poorer for it.

[@Psyk60]

That happens with Indian food in the UK. Some people say that they don't eat anything like that in India, and that a lot of dishes were invented in Britain for British people. But I've also heard other people say that actually there are very similar dishes in India, just they are mainly from the north. And in some cases, not from India but actually from Bangladesh.

[@RobinDoesEverything17]

I would really love a follow-up on wrong cultural stereotypes that different regions of America and Canada have about each other. Because as a native Bostonian who has lived all over this country... man, that is a rich and interesting topic.

[@JJMcCullough]

That’s a great idea

[@Ry_TSG]

@@JJMcCullough I would absolutely like to see this topic in detail!

[@jonahs92]

@@JJMcCullough Don't forget to include the (false) stereotype that Texas is Southern! We're Texan, not Southern, Southwestern, or anything else.

[@ryandvernychuk7033]

Yea, I want to hear more!!!

[@AtarahDerek]

@@jonahs92 Between the Rockies and the Mississippi = Midwest South of the Mason-Dixon but east of the Rockies = South Has hot deserts according to the Koppen climate classification system = Southwest Texas is all three.

[@JulsLittleBeirutAnarchy]

As an American (mixed/mostly Irish), my favorite part of diversity is the food. Is it really that bad if new ideas make great food? My Friend from Mexico cooks at a Chinese Restaurant, LoL/FR.

[@robertharris6092]

In the end all that matters is it tastes good.

[@iivarimokelainen]

Exactly. Without "cultural appropriation" there's no culture.

[@Antifrost]

@@iivarimokelainen What you're talking about is cultural exchange, not appropriation. Cultural exchange is when cultures combine to make something new, appropriation is more like one culture adopting elements from another without context. You can think of cultural exchange working in both directions, while appropriation only goes one way.

[@iivarimokelainen]

@@Antifrost Cultural exchange doesn't have to be two-way.

[@HKD2]

Mom mom used to work at a Chinese restaurant and one of her coworkers, a Latina lady, would fry wonton wrappers up and sprinkle cinnamon sugar on them. They were great. Like Chinese churro chips. I'm Chinese-American and I thought it was great.

[@robinbaylor2672]

I used to make something I called “American Fried Rice” . I cooked the rice with grated cheddar cheese so it got infused (made a right royal mess in the pot), then stir fried with mixed vegetables, bacon and eggs, and mostly seasoned with soy sauce, ginger, and garlic. Alas, I married a vegetarian.

[@Neelo5000]

A funny thing about chop suey: There is also a dish here in the states called 'American chop suey', which is just another name for goulash. But what we usually call goulash bears little resemblance to actual hungarian goulash, and instead usually contains macaroni noodles and ground beef.

[@taursula]

I had goulash in the Czech Republic a couple years ago, and I got served a hunk of meat in almost a stew-meat sauce over french fries. It was so fucking good but definitely not the goulash my parents made for me in the states lol

[@LikaLaruku]

My grandmother's "Hungarian Goulash" was beef & carrots in a tomato & sugar sauce over noodles.

[@annetoronto5474]

I had goulash in a Hungarian restaurant in Canada, it was a beef stew with dumplings. It was really delicious, the spices were different than anything other stew I have had. The broth didn’t have too much tomato sauce in it. It was almost like a borscht but without the beets.

[@AmnesiacCa3sar]

once in poland i went with my cousin to a place that served "authentic new york style pizza". the pepperoni pizza we ordered was assembled as follows: inch-thick dough, salami slices, cheese. there was no sauce, and they gave you ketchup on the side.

[@jsiolkowski]

yea we’re notorious for putting ketchup on pizza lmao

[@michawrzosek5417]

The whole thing with dishes named after countries is so true though, not only in the US. My home country of Poland has a few notorious examples of that such as the 'Greek-styled fish', 'Hungarian pancakes' or the 'Bretogne beans', all names coined as a result of those dishes being vaguely remnant of something that's actually consumed in those regions, tweaked to fit the Polish standards and tastes. Another interesting example are the Ruthenian ('ruskie') pierogies. They most likely do come from Ruthenia, so modern day Ukraine, but over time the name lost its meaning as the adjective 'ruski' has been used more and more often to coloquially refer to the country of Russia rather than the historical region of the Polish Crown/PLC, and now this style of the dish invokes this fake association for quite many people. EDIT: I did a bit of research and the 'Hungarian pancakes' originate from the borderland with Slovakia, which for most of its history belonged to the Hungarian Crown. Another interesting piece of history hidden in a simple dish name :)

[@Sombre_gd]

Term "ruskie" comes from the term "Ruś", which described regions east of Poland, so we had Ruś Czerwona (Red Rus - modern day east Ukraine) White Rus - modern day Belarus ( which even means "White Rus" in Slavic languages), Black Rus, Kievan Rus, etc. Russians took this term to name their country. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Rus%27,_Russia_and_Ruthenia#From_Rus'_to_Russia "Ruthenian pierogi" comes from Red Rus, which was part of Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, so the name is factually correct.

[@jljljl1820]

Hungarian pancake? Do you mean crepes? Or hortobágyi pancake? Gundel pancake?

[@Sombre_gd]

@@jljljl1820 The big one made out of potatoes. I'm afraid it might not be any true Hungarian recipe

[@jljljl1820]

@@Sombre_gd no it's Czech, it's called bramboraky. But we do have the smaller version (tócsni), tho I'm not sure how the recipes are different (if they are at all)

[@MrToradragon]

@@jljljl1820 But there is good chance that it was transferred to Poland by Magyars at some point.

[@gmeztubenation]

I really enjoy how he just talks about these things without talking down to you. It’s very refreshing