Seen this?

[Kim Shook]

Europe's Worst Cuisines

My take: intentional sweeping generalizations, but lol funny! Discuss?

[BigboyDan]

Coming from a Brit? Does take one to know one...

Edited May 29, 2006 by BigboyDan (log)

[Kim Shook]

Coming from a Brit? Does take one to know one...

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It's even better than that...an Irishman complaining about Lithuanian potato cuisine !

[SuzySushi]

Well, the popularity of Chufi's mouthwatering thread certainly bears witness to Dutch cuisine not being among the world's worst!

[John Whiting]

The national cuisines that we sophisticated Western Europeans find most laughable are those that have stayed closest to their peasant origins, in which diet was determined by grinding poverty. The tasty rural cuisine du terroir of modern France had to be invented. From my paper on Authenticity for the Oxford Food Symposium:

Coming up with a cuisine du terroir…was problematical: to bourgeois taste, peasant food was repugnant. Jean Pierre Poulin, in Manger aujourd’hui, reiterates that

The peasants ate mainly bread….Meals mainly consisted of soups, where a fundamental feature was a piece of stale bread left to soften in the stock….Sometimes a little meat or, even better, fat or oil, was added for taste.

It was counterproductive to strive for an authenticity that prospective consumers would find distasteful, and so tourist-motivated traditions were invented which gave familiar bourgeois dishes some semblance of local colour. Hermann Bausinger, quoted by Denis Chevalier in Vives Campagnes, Autrement, states unequivocally that

From the 19th century onwards, there were a great many typical villages in the Alps or around the Mediterranean which were devoted to reconstructing and even inventing examples of the past.

The fruits of this Orwellian revision might have been titled The 1984 Cookbook. Rachel Laudan summarizes its ingenious machinations:

It made no sense as history. But the French Terroir Strategy was a brilliant marketing device that satisfied modern yearnings for a romanticized past by advertising tradition and exploiting modern methods of production and distribution….The strategy did wonders for big wine growers, restaurant owners, and those producers who could upgrade their products to appeal to sophisticated urban tastes.

[mizducky]

His rant against Lithuanian potato mania made me think of this classic Yiddish folk song:

Translation: Sunday potatoes, Monday potatoes, &c. but on the Sabbath for a change a potato pudding, Sunday once again potatoes. Oi, bread and potatoes, meat with potatoes, lunch and supper - potatoes, still and again, &c.

Somehow these folks don't seem all that enthusiastic about their traditional potato cuisine.

(Geez, it's been forever since I had a potato kugel . . . )

Oh, it appears this author missed this delicacy.

[Pan]

I didn't know the second verse of "Zontik Bulbes" (with the "meat and potatoes"). Neither do I believe my grandmother did. So keep that in mind when I tell you that she said it was a happy and not a sad song, because the family in question at least had enough to eat! My Baba was born in a rural area of what's now Ukraine (then part of Austria-Hungary) on or around 1889.

[Pat Churchill]

I'm with him on the stodge and dumplings. I did a brave thing on Mother's Day and ordered a dish because it sounded really great - apart from the gnocchi. And it did taste great, apart from the gnocchi which certainly hadn't improved since the last time I braved it about five years ago. It's the one dish that lets the Italians down.

(Ducking for cover)

[Pan]

Well, when gnocchi are good, they're really good. It's just that most of the time, they're as you describe.

[John Whiting]

There's a noticable difference between potato, semolina and wheat flour gnocchi. Potato, with a varying amount of wheat flour added according to the texture of the potato, is widely considered to be the least stodgy. I've had gnocchi in Italy that I thought were delicious, and gnocchi made by me that were inedible.

[Adam Balic]

Lazy article. Bashing relatively poorly know cuisines seems to be a cyclic thing in the UK food press. One such article every few years or so.

I will be very happy when the present vibe of the age (dominated by cynical, satirical humour written by self-absorbed 30-40 somethings) passes and some articles with some real meat get published.

This is a link to my week long stay in Lihuania and some comments about the food. As you will be the food is quite diverse and you could write an interesting article on it. Since tourism is dramitically increasing in the region, you would think that this would be an obvious thing to do.

Yes there are some stodgy dishes (baked slabs of mashed potato stand out in my mind), but that hardly defines the cuisine. How difficult would it be to not make a cheap shot for a change and write something substantive?

[Rehovot]

Surprise, the section on Czech cuisine is just as inflammatory and ignorant as the other rants.

A typical Czech plateful consists of great slabs of greyish flesh slathered with fatty, tasteless gravy, mopped up with dumplings that taste like kitchen roll dipped in egg.

Well, it's a pity he only ate in train stations...if he even ate in CZ, at all...

Traditional Czech cuisine, done well, is the antithesis of his description.

[H. du Bois]

Full of baloney! I can't speak for Iceland or Lithuania (though a Lithuanian-born friend of my parents' made potato dishes to die for), but I've eaten incredibly well in Prague and Amsterdam. Why wasn't he talking about the wonderful venison and boar of the Czech Republic?

As for England, yeah, the land of Marmite has had a reputation for some pretty awful food, but anyone who's ever eaten a roast dinner made in an Aga would beg to differ. I could go back to the UK and live quite happily and well on good English cookery.

I loathed the "cuttlefish cooked in its own ink" I once ate at a splendid restaurant in Venice, but I'd hardly hang the cuisine of the entire nation of Italy for my personal dislike of that one dish.

[Jason Perlow]

Excellent, now Tony Bourdain has some other countries to visit. He's already been to Iceland and has the putrefied Shark.

[scordelia]

My husband lived on a dairy farm in Iceland for six months. He said the food was pretty bad. If it was not completely putrid, then it was bland and boring. He did say that they made some very tasty cheeses and obviously the fish was really fresh, but the rest was pretty foul.

[joiei]

I personally nominate Belize as having a "Worst" local cuisine.

[Adam Balic]

I don't think that there is much doubt that there is poor food out there in the world. But why bother with yet another article along the lines of "Look at that funny food that Johnny foreiger eats, isn't it bad!".

Even if food is preceived "bad", then it can at least be interesting. Personally, raw puffin, fermented shark live and various fermemnted dairy products in Iceland sound pretty vile, but I would still be interested in reading a decently written article on them.

[Jaymes]

I personally nominate Belize as having a "Worst" local cuisine.

Yes, and I've always found that quite puzzling because they are located in a part of the world famous for delicious, spicy, inventive cuisine. Do you suppose it's because they were occupied by the British for a hundred years?

Edited May 29, 2006 by Jaymes (log)

[Adam Balic]

Doesn't seem to be the case for Hong Kong and India.

[Nanna R]

Even if food is preceived "bad", then it can at least be interesting. Personally, raw puffin, fermented shark live and various fermemnted dairy products in Iceland sound pretty vile, but I would still be interested in reading a decently written article on them.

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Well, I’m Icelandic and have written a couple of book (in English) on traditional and modern Icelandic food. Despite that, I haven’t really written much about putrefied shark (which isn´t actually common everyday food, despite evil rumours). Raw puffin certainly isn’t traditional, although you might get it at a couple of trendy restaurants. I’m not sure which fermented dairy products you are referring to – we do have a few blue cheeses that are imitations of Danish or French cheeses, but not much else. And then there is skyr, which used to be soured (not fermented). Todays mild versions are pretty much loved by everyone, Icelanders and foreigners alike, and are currently being test-marketed in some American stores.

Yes, that damned putrefied shark. It has probably done more to damage the reputation of Icelandic cuisine than any other single foodstuff ever has to any cuisine. And still my countrymen stubbornly continue to offer the stuff to innocent tourists. Why, I´ve never been able to discover.

It is mostly served at special feasts during the month of Thorri (you can read about it here.) Would probably be almost forgotten by now it it hadn’t been resurrected a few decades ago. And the majority of younger Icelanders (and many older ones as well) are just as disgusted as most foreigners. Actually, I rather like the stuff myself but only about once a year. I do, on the other hand, love most of the other traditional stuff mentioned in the Guardian article. Much of it can actually be very good (ok, I was brought up on the stuff but Icelandic chefs have been doing great things with traditional dishes and ingredients in recent years). None of it can be considered traditional everyday fare.

Sure, traditional Icelandic fare can be fairly bland, as spices were sparingly used, but certainly not tasteless. It is rather similar to (and heavily influenced by) traditional Danish food, except we eat lamb instead of pork. And Icelandic lamb is very good. So is the fish. Modern Icelandic home cooking is fairly international in character – too international, I sometimes feel, although I’m probably responsible myself for a small share of that development.

Here is an article on modern and traditional Icelandic food and here is one on the early history of Icelandic cuisine.

[Adam Balic]

That's very interesting Nanna. The dairy product I was thinking of is Skyr, have you eaten this? Similar products were once made in Scotland.

[Nanna R]

That's very interesting Nanna. The dairy product I was thinking of is Skyr, have you eaten this? Similar products were once made in Scotland.

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Have I eaten skyr ... asking an Icelander that is like asking an Italian if he has eaten pasta. Yes, about five times a week ever since I was a few months old. It is not fermented, it is soured. Modern versions are very mild-tasting and often flavored with fruit (some examples here) and here. The version I knew in my childhood was admittedly rather different, thicker and with a much stronger sour taste; we usually spooned lots of sugar over it. In the old days, it was even more sour, as it was kept in barrels for months, or maybe a whole year. Skyr is much like a fresh cheese but virtually fat-free. I use it quite a lot in cooking but it is usually eaten straight from the container, either as breakfast, midday snack or as dessert.

[chefzadi]

I have an interest in fermented and soured dairy products, the lesser known ones especially.

I clicked on your articles links, thank you for taking the time to post them.

I almost visited Iceland as I had friends from there, alas I lost their contact information.

[Adam Balic]

It may be a question of nomeclature, but anything that is altered by microbiol action is fermented, it doesn't have to produce alcohol.

I have also read that whey was stored in oak barrels in Iceland for use as a beverage (or to put out fires) until recently. Have you heard of this? In Scotland it is called Blaand in Shetland.

[Pille]

This is a link to my week long stay in Lihuania and some comments about the food. As you will be the food is quite diverse and you could write an interesting article on it. Since tourism is dramitically increasing in the region, you would think that this would be an obvious thing to do.

Thanks, Adam - I enjoyed reading your Lithuanian thread. Made me very homesick though