Culinary map

Man y'all have clearly never eaten in Lyon...

This is Funny if you think about it because Modern Pizza originates from the USA and Pasta from China
- Naples. Modern pizza comes from Naples.
  That dish was then taken to New York where shredded cheese was used in place of the slices used in Neapolitan pizza.
  Pasta on the other hand, does descend from a Chinese dish. Sort of. The Proto-italians actually invented some types of pasta dish themselves, notably the precursor to lasagna and ravioli.

As someone who's lived Italy, this does sound like something an Italian would say lmao

Agreed, Bosnian and Croatian food are the only proper food :3

I'm Dutch and I think this map is completely unfair. It overrates our food significantly
- The Dutch chartered an enormous company to trade spices, but never used them.
  
  That's just common knowledge, dealers never dip into their own product.

Tbh I find Italian culinary traditions underwhelming. Like they just gave up 10 minutes in, no work at all because it's too hot.
To be fair, the further from coastline, the better the Italian cuisine - more herbs, more variety, more complex recipes (e.g Ligurian braised rabbit)
- I saw a really good documentary recently, hell if I can remember the name. It covered actual Italian historical dishes. They were explaining that most of the really old stuff was region specific. Like one dish in one area had nothing to do with the same dish in another area. They actually went through kind of a food reimagining or Renaissance after one of the wars. Basically they were saying that pizza as it is now is not that old. Prior to the rush into America they had flatbreads that kind of but didn't really approximate pizza, and it wasn't until the Italian Americans repatriated that they started honing what they consider they current concept of pizza.
  
  The concept of nations as well as their culture and cuisine are relatively young. Medieval cuisine was both highly local and also quite similar across a shared biome.
- Italians have a couple of great hits and a lot of duds.

According to this map I should probably be dead.

I'm a little disappointed that the center is a knife and fork instead of a hand pinching fingers together to make a point

This tracks, every Italian I've ever met has been a complete snob about food.

u wot m8?
We've got Greggs Sausage Rolls.
All you've got is pasta and tomato sauce for every meal, and think different shaped pasta makes it a different dish!
That's like thinking beans on toast is different if you put it on different shaped bread.

I second this map.

I feel like France, Greece, and Spain are gonna have some pretty strong objections.
RIP Portugal
- You know what's strange. I can buy French cuisine, Mexican cuisine, Canadian cuisine, I can even find elements of UK in Germany
  I'm not even aware that Spain has a cuisine. I just looked up the entry on Wikipedia and I've never seen any of those dishes really.
  
  Chorizo, tapas, and paella are all pretty popular and well known.
  I should have included Greece on that list, it's food is more well know in North America.
- Not from someone from the South-East of France.
  
  Cannes and Nice are apparently the only places in France with real food 🤣

I wholeheartedly support culinarily disrespecting Italians, honestly.
Dudes trying to convince us that they are presenting ancient traditions when their precious dishes are invented in like the 60s
- Dudes trying to convince us that they are presenting ancient traditions
  Ancient traditions
  Look inside
  Post Columbian exchange vegetables
  
  Post-columbian fruit is underselling just how new at least posts of it are. Carbonara was invented by US soldiers in the 1940s, literally made using bacon and powdered egg from their rations.
  Tiramisu is unclear, but 1939 seems to be the earliest of the possible candidate, the earliest actual document is from 1969.
  Pizza as we know it today was reimported from the US.
  I love Italian food, but it's much less traditional than people pretend.
- Also, many times they will say some isn't an authentic way to do something, and then you will learn it is authentic for like, a few towns over.
  
  You should see how Italians debate their own food when two of them are from two different towns. It's bloody epic!
- tourist traps are everywhere. nevertheless Italian cousin remains top notch. fact
  
  Must be a freak in the sheets.

I knew an Italian exchange student that kept whining that nothing tasted good and nothing tasted as it should up here in Scandinavia. Then another exchange student (from Thailand I think) got tired of him and told him ~"the rest of the world isn't your mother" and it was a literal moment of realisation for this dude.
- Wow, a rare good tasteful Your Mom remark
- the rest of the world isn't your mother
  Nah but it's way closer than it should be
  Zing!

Food in Portugal is delicious

I'm just under the line of "toxic" in Finland and you could drawn the line a bit further south.
Finnish national dish? Traditional version? Here you go, the entire recipe;
Pound of beef, cubed
Pounds of pork, cubed
Water
A spoonful of salt.
Put meat in pan with water.
Take pan off heat after enough time.
Done.
That's literally the Finnish national dish "Karelian stew". Obviously nowadays it definitely includes black pepper as well and bunch of other things, because the traditional version is literally just a bunch of boiled meat without any spices.
edit haha enjoyed that but yes, the formatting was off, although you could obviously used water cubes in a pan as long as you still put it on hot. Actually, it might be an interesting experiment to put a pot on a hot stove / flame with beef & pork & ice. Insofar that maybe a tiny bit of the meat would brown before the ice melts and becomes water idk. At least then there'd be browning resulting in some taste. The classical one has none.
- I made lohikeitto for the first time recently and that was pretty damn good. Almost like an American chowder, but thinner and with nice, tasty dill (I'm sure I don't have to tell you that, but other readers might like to know).
  
  Oh no, you don't have to tell me.
  Some people make an excellent lohikeitto, and it's damn fine.
  There's a restaurant I go in my city for a good one.
  But I've been on a gluten and dairy free diet. I'm sure I could replace rye bread with decent alternatives and cream with a vegetable one, but lohikeitto has been hard for me to get right.
  Any fish foods actually. Fish is such delicate meat I find it hard to get a proper grasp on because it varies so much from fish to fish, especially when its different species of fish.
  Meat from large mammals is rather easy, usually uniform. Fish, just... I need to learn it better.
  Thank for reminding me though, I think I'll learn to make lohikeitto next. I've been learning to cook a bit more, had porkchops today which I marinated myself with rum and garlic and lime and chili and rosemary etc, have made horse meatballs. Deer stew. Elk fry up. Reindeer ragu.
  Mmm.
  It was at least a decade, definitely a bit more since I made meatballs. But I think they turned out nice.
  Gluten fre spaghetti. I hate to have to have it, but Rummo brand has actually been pretty nice. I tried like a half dozen others before. So sad I can't have real spaghetti anymore but this is a decent enough alternative, and I make up for the poor spaghetti by improving what goes with it.
- cubed Water
  Ice blocks??
  
  I, too, am really curious about the cubed water.
  
  Could work? I edited the original, but thanks for the laughs :D

Funny seeing this, especially from an iberian perpective, because local culinary is mostly the same as theirs. With the slight difference we actually have the balls to spice our food.
- I have yet to sample an Italian arrabiata sauce that I would remotely call 'spicy'. Though, to be fair, I'm an American that over spices everything I cook, so my palate is probably blown out at this point.
  
  I've read you guys have a too sweet baseline for flavours, due to the overwhelming presence of corn syrup in everything.
  Iberian cuisine, as in Portuguese and Spanish (fuck those guys; they can't make proper bread even if you teach them!), can be spicy but adding heat to a dish serves to accentuate the underlying flavours.
  Off the top of my head, I can think of a simple roasted chicken with lemon and mussels.
  The chicken is just prepared by seasoning the chicken with coarse salt and stuffing it with a whole lemon, with the ends cut, and roasting in the oven. With the chicken ready, you just take the lemon from inside the bird and squeeze it over. Base flavours are lemon and salt, with the chicken fat binding everything together. You should complain the meat is a bit under salted; it means you are actually tasting it.
  The mussels are prepared with white wine, salt and garlic. The garlic is chopped and slightly fried, just until fragrant, in olive oil. The mussels are thrown in, lightly salted, tossed in the base, over high heat, then the wine added and the pot covered to steam the mussels until all are open. Or can just sprinkle salt over the mussels on your plate. You want to taste the mussel.
  These are basic dishes any child can eat. Not too extreme flavours. Adding a chopped chilli to the mussels base and a chilli inside the chicken will add a sligh note of heat to the dishes, embolden the overall flavours, but you will still be getting the base flavours after swallowing, lingering in your mouth.
  Food should leave a memory. It's supposed to be flavourful, not painful.

Spain and Portugal should be tier 1 or 2
- Madrid’s food scene is amazing

Spanish and Greek food beats Italian. Heck Polish food is way underrated. Also American pizza is better.
- American pizza made by Italian immigrants. ftfy

okay but north africa food?
- Well, the map is titled, "Culinary Map of Europe" :D

If you wanna be pedantic, Italian pasta is actually the knockoff of Chinese noodles.
Also, Greek food is fantastic!
- If you really wanna be pedantic, almost everything is a knocknockoff of something
- Yes, it is, and, yes, it is!

Well most of 'traditional' Italien food is actually from the US and had been invented by Italien immigrants.
https://www.harpercollins.de/products/mythos-nationalgericht-die-erfundenen-traditionen-der-italienischen-kuche-9783365006252
- Yeah, Italian chef friend of mine once said that you use garlic, or onions, rarely both, in authentic italian food. Unless you are from one of the many places where they always use both.
  
  A lot of people don't realize that Italy is a relatively young country comprising multiple distinct regions and culinary histories.

Fake pizza, sure, but doesn't imply it's bad. Plus ironically, you can find Italian style pizza in the US if you look for it.
That said, I'll still apologize for Dominos, Pizza Hut, et. al. for fast-foodizing the concept of pizza.
- Domino's looks like pizza but it's terrible. I'd rather never eat pizza again if Domino's were the only option.
- Bruh, Giovanni isn't getting his ass outta bed at 1am to whip me up the drunkenness abolishing disaster that is a late night Domino's order, including all the extras of course I don't just want a pizza I want lava cake and bread sticks and cheesy bread and maybe a pasta bread bowl. I'll take a few bites of everything and pass out on the couch to wake up in the morning pleasantly surprised that drunk me was thoughtful enough to order us pizza for breakfast.

As an American who just had some glorious fake pizza last night, I thought I hated pasta until I had good Italian, and then I realized I just hate Americanized Italian food. Except pizza, we do it better.
Pasta still isn't my favorite, but I'll take it if it's authentic. My SO makes some great aglio e olio and carbonara, often with shrimp.
- As someone who makes pizza from scratch every week, I love all forms of pizza from fast food US pizza (like Dominos), to "drunk" US pizza dipped in ranch, to NY pizza, to Chicago deep dish, but what I make at home is always simple Italian pizza with just a few ingredients: dough, a sauce made from San Marzano tomatoes specifically canned for pizza with some salt, fresh oregano, mozzarella cheese, and olive oil. Sometimes I add a ton of arugula on top too. What's nice is that pizza is also kinda healthy actually.
- Wait can you explain the difference between Americanized pasta and Italian pasta? Isn't all pasta just... pasta?
  
  It's very common in the US to just plop some pasta sauce on top of noodles for one thing... You gotta cook the pasta in the sauce real quick! If any American reads this and doesn't do that I promise that tiny change will already improve your pasta experience.
  
  You're obviously not Italian...
  Starting with the pasta itself (not how it's prepared), they use different ingredients. Italian pasta is usually made from high quality duram wheat, whereas American made pastas use a variety of flours, and usually includes eggs (rare with Italian pasta), which results in a softer cooked product. That leads to cooking differences, where Italians prefer firmer texture (al dente), whereas Americans tend to have it softer.
  And then we have sauces. Italians usually keep it simple with a handful of ingredients, and Americans add milk/cream, sugar, cheese, or anything else that sounds good. Americans also go overboard on the sauce, so you get a lot less of the pasta flavor (yes, pasta has flavor, y'all need to add salt to the water).
  And that's restaurant quality pasta dishes. It gets wild when you look at what's in those prepared meals in the freezer section.
  I give pizza a pass because I don't like bread much (yes, I've had good Italian pizza), so loading up on toppings works really well. But I just don't like the mushy mess that is American-style pasta.
  
  Most likely the difference between handmade pasta and dried pasta but that's not a geographical thing

Pre 1600s: Y'all a wanta some Rotting fish juice?
- Eh, half the authentic East Asian food you get has Fish Sauce as an ingredient, which is essentially Rotting Fish Juice. Hell, Worcester Sauce in the West is similar but different.
  Source: Unmilitant vegan that is peeved that fermented fish product ends up being the secret ingredient in many authentic dishes.
  
  Fair point. Although a lot of South Asia also had shitloads of herbs and spices.
  Italian cooking before tomatoes came to Europe looks quite depressing. (Probably still pretty tasty tho)
- Don't knock it 'til you've tried it.

I mean, Italian food really is brilliant, they really just over time took all the best things they found and just made great food with it and left out everything else.
It's sort of crazy to think about how delicious a recipe with four ingredients can be until you realize they're four of the most delicious things on the planet.
- Italian recipes tend to let the quality of the produce do the talking. There's no making cheap stuff work by seasoning the hell out of it, so it has to be quality fresh stuff. Fresh herbs, good cheese, quality tomatoes, etc.
- It's like Japanese food: protein and or produce of your choice, soy sauce, sake, mirin, dashi. Maybe miso. Combine ingredients to your preference.

How can you put Spain on the same level as Great Britain? Damn Italians don't know how to make anything other than sauce with tomatoes and they think they know how to cook.
- Oi, we had a restaurant so good they had to stop it entering the world's best restaurant competition because it kept winning.
  Also Sunday roast is the food of kings.
  
  What do you consider to be "roast dinner"?
- I went to Spain for a few months and honestly wasn't too impressed with the cuisine.
  
  Yes, I guess that is part of the problem, in Spain hoteliers prefer to scam tourists with products of inferior quality compared to what we really eat than to gain fame and repercussion. I don't know if that was your case, or where you were, it varies a lot from one region to another, but I wouldn't be surprised.

And if my grandmother had wheels...
- Let's not give extra airtime to that cunt.
  https://www.itv.com/news/2025-02-06/itv-news-uncovers-multiple-claims-of-inappropriate-behaviour-by-gino-dacampo
  
  Wow... I had no idea. Thanks!

The Netherlands is probably an "overcooked pasta" enclave than. When I was a kid, I was sure Al Dente was Italian for Deathly Toxin.
- overcooked pasta
  Al Dente
  Ah, so Al Dante

poland in the fattening/caution zone is kind of on point actually
i fucking love polish food and feel that describes it pretty well X3

Wow this is the most triggering post I've seen in a while and that's saying a lot in these times

I mean, it may not be the best, but this puts portugal in a very bad position when we are all mediterranean with mostly the same ingredients.
- To quote a portuguese writer, very loosely: better food is served on a portuguese farm kitchen table than in the great dinning halls of Europe.
  
  You ever had Basque pork stew? I never would have thought to put an orange in stew, but goddamn if it isn't delicious.
  http://www.grouprecipes.com/115130/basque-pork-stew.html

I confirm. Source: I'm Italian:):):)

I grew up north of the toxic belt, and it's my firm opinion that Italian food is overrated. Well, except Parmesan, I'll give them that.
Lasagna is like a moussaka with too much tomato sauce and layers of pasta that should've been skipped.
Anyone who downvotes this is either Italian, or has a fetish for mashed tomatoes.
- Downvoted. I'm Italian. Nevertheless. De gustibus non disputandum est. But quality ingredients and culture make all the difference. Fun fact: I eat pasta once a month and pizza twice a year. Yet Italian and Spanish ingredients beat ingredients/produce from any other other European country.
- This is kinda funny, and I know the concept of "authentic" isn't particularly easy to nail down, but my experience is that Italian lasagna doesn't have tomato sauce. It's always been thin pasta, a ragu, and bechamel. It generally changes to match the tastes and ingredients of where it's being made, but maybe you'd like the version I know.
  I had moussaka in Greece a few years ago and liked it too!
  
  But Ragu is a kind of tomato sauce.... Sure, it's got a lot of meat, but doesn't it always have tomato?

About "fattening": yes, pasta is.

Any Italian noodles with tomato sucks. Chinese noodles win 99.99% of the time

What about fat spicy indian curry tho?

You're absolutely right! Cooking is all about experience and experimentation. Just like how a sushi chef masters the art of raw fish preparation, you get more comfortable with different types of fish and techniques over time. The key is to try various recipes, observe the textures and flavors, and learn how different fish react to cooking. You'll soon develop an intuition for how long to cook them, based on the thickness or fragility of the meat.
Your story with chicken resonates too! Everyone starts somewhere with a bit of hesitation, but as you practice, you build confidence. It’s all part of the learning process. Keep going, and you'll find yourself navigating different ingredients with ease!

Non-mediterran = toxic? Slightly biased i say.

True comedy has no roots in ethnocentrism.

True.