I disagree, Vietnamese and Japanese dishes aren’t known for their spices and are bland when compared to Thai food. I’d say some Filipino dishes if anything are too aggressive since many of them are sour due to vinegar or tamarind.

Also every mentioned country commonly used fermented fish/shrimp paste. The smelly “pla ra” is part of som tam but restaurants in the west probably don’t offer it at all.

Phở is famous but bulalo (oxtail bone marrow soup) is not, yet the two are comparable. The latter has a large piece of oxtail that would make it a delicacy on its own, and it’s good-looking too.

With a set of base dishes that taste good and look good for westerners, I’m not sure the taste is what’s keeping Filipino cuisine a secret.

Ethiopian food is “common” in Los Angeles, but I wouldn’t say it’s particularly varied or spiced.

Interesting article on the topic of Thailand's culinary diplomacy:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/paxadz/the-surprising-reason...

I rather think the simple truth is that some cuisines appeal to many more people than others.

While surely every country and culture offers some tasty dishes I think there is a reason we see so many Italian, Thai and Japanese restaurants everywhere and so few German, Phillipine or Peruvian restaurants.

I am German myself and I am sure you can find more Italian than native restaurants in Germany, simply because it makes for a better dining experience. Not everything needs to be socially constructed.

A bit of a tangent but… well… interesting.

"Thailand, to combat bad Thai food around the world, creates robot ‘e-delicious’ tasting machine"

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/191047-thailand-to-comba...

And the world is better for it. Thai cuisine is the most fresh and flavorful I've ever experienced. Can't wait to visit again.

Brand appeal and self-selection are exactly what are happening there. The owner of our favorite Italian restaurant was talking to us and always used phrases like "in my home country" until we got to know him really well and he confessed he was Albanian (and funnily enough made all of his Albanian employees take Italian classes).

I'd like to think I would probably like his Albanian cuisine as well, but admitted to myself I probably wouldn't have tried it in the first place. People don't usually try out things for a nice evening they have no clue how it would taste like.

Cooking also requires specific ingredients, and someone who knows what mozzarella is and how should taste would probably have less problems to source it (or find an "acceptable" local product) when preparing Pizza in Alaska or Tokyo or Oslo...

Genetics has little to do with that, though: lots of ITALIAN pizzerias IN ITALY now hire Egyptian citizens to prepare and (most importantly) cook their pizzas. And nobody has any problem with the way the pizza comes out.

My point is: if you are in the place where a specific dish was "invented", you have access to appropriate ingredients and lots of know-how from the locals. If you grew up in a culture were the dish is available only through ethnic restaurants, proper ingredients might be difficult to find, and most importantly, your own taste (to judge if the food is "correct" or if one of the ingredients is "good enough") is somehow distorted because you are too far from the originals.

Well, sushi is also a big thing in Korea -- Japanese influence and all that. And if we wanna just explore say, raw seafood dishes, I'd argue Korean cuisine has a lot more variety. If you ever get the chance, do visit Busan for some amazing seafood.

Source: currently live in Tokyo, have also lived in Korea (Seoul) for years, and I eat everything.

My guess would be that, growing up in the culture you would be expected to have a better knowledge of what constitutes good food for your culture,moreso than having learned how to cook, say, Italian food from a cookbook.

I am Italian, and I don't care about the language part, but I am pretty sure that in a blind test with the Berlin Pizza vs a pizza prepared in Italy by a decent Pizza joint I would be able to discern which is which with a good degree of accuracy.

It's not much a matter of genetics: it's just that - just to give you two examples of things I have lots of experience with - when we are talking of "Pizza" and "Espresso" a person who grew up (and learned to prepare food) in Italy or at least in an Italian family will have a different idea about how these things are prepared (or should taste when prepared). Do I think that, for example, Pizza Hut pizza is rubbish? No, I like it, and it definitely has a place in the world, but it's not what we mean with "pizza" in Italy. Do I think that Espresso prepared in 99.999% of the coffee shops/cafes/bistrots in the rest of the world is rubbish? Yes, most definitely.

There are exceptions (I know of a place where they make excellent Espresso in Berlin, and neither the owner/store manager nor the baristas are of Italian descent) - but the rare times I had decent Espresso outside Italy itself it was almost invariably prepared by an Italian.

I suppose that this could apply to other specialties from different cultures: I am no Sushi snob for example, nor a Croissant Connoisseur... but I would expect that Sushi prepared by a Japanese chef, or French Pastry made by a French person could be a bit more faithful to the "platonic ideal" so to say.

Nobody cares, as long as it's not an Italian restaurant

> reminds me of the smell of the sweat from the various goats I grew up with. No thank you.

without that being added, you really sounded like a sensitive plant.

I recently brought some lamb chops to a barbecue at friend's (Its the only meat my little daughter wants to eat) and my friends had a try and also seconds. They were somewhat surprised they like it.

I prefer english food, like pizza or chinese

In garlic butter sauce with white bread to soak it in. Very tasty. Snails are chicken taste-wise, and texture-wise - not that much different from the chewier bits that you can fish out from a bowl of Boston clam chowder.

Think of them like oysters or mussels. Snail is often prepared with lots of garlic, pesto, or cheese-ish things. The south of France styles are pretty easily taken, since there’s more garlic than snail :).

Eat them in southern Italy. They’re cheaper and you can actually eat more than 5 in a sitting. They vary from 1cm to 2.5cm in size, and you can have a dishful of them.

My grandma used to cook them in the summer with tomatoes and onions in a little clear soup.

In Apulia you might find Municeddhe, which are just cooked with oil and butter and maybe herbs (as far as I know). They’re amazing.

You could also try in Catalonia, it's also a local dish (there are several preparations). Personally I don't particularly like the taste of snails themselves, but I don't think they are gross. It's just like "ground clams" in a way.

Yes, go to a good restaurant, the proper recipe is taking forever (days).

Don’t think about it.

Yes: don't.

As someone born and raised in Sardinia I have never eaten it and I hope I never will ( but other Sardinian chesses are quite good indeed). Of all my friends, I think only one has ever eaten it, mostly as a dare.

Sometimes I think they keep making it just for the tourists.

You're absolutely correct, my bad.

The reason they gave was that it's on the same list of forbidden food items along with other pets - no matter how you farm cats or dogs, they can't be sold as food anywhere in the EU. No idea what other animals are on that list though, I can't find it with a quick google search.