It seems like porridge, hot dogs, and pineapple have nothing in common. However, some foreigners believe that these foods are rare delicacies. By the way, for some people, caviar is something common that they eat every day while others are ready to pay thousands to try it.
At Bright Side, we studied comments from internet users who were asked to reveal the common foods in their country that are considered delicacies by foreigners.
We had some Japanese exchange students at our university in the US, and when they saw the cubed melon on the salad bar (the standard watermelon/cantaloupe/honeydew mix), they thought we were living like royalty. Apparently melon is a really expensive, special occasion food over there.
Jamón Serrano is cool, but the real delicacy is jamón Ibérico de bellota. 100 g was about $15 last time I was in Spain, whereas in Canada the equivalent is about $60-$80 for 100 g. I had an acquaintance from Russia who was going to marry an Irish guy. They lived in Russia for a while and the guy went completely bonkers for the caviar of the capelin fish. It’s not really a delicacy there, it’s not rare or expensive at all (probably approximately $2.50 to $3 a can) but he liked it so much he wanted to bring a crate of it to their wedding in Europe. Needless to say, his soon-to-be-wife was not amused.
Avocados in Mexico are pretty common and cheap. Sausage rolls while in Sydney. I couldn’t get enough, especially the cheap convenience store ones. People had many laughs as I gobbled them up while repeating how amazing they were.
I used to eat caviar all the time as a cheap snack while growing up moderately poor in Romania. I was stunned to find out it’s a delicacy. In the UK, we give apples to horses because they are cheap and locally grown. When my fiancé was in Spain on a riding vacation, they shouted at her for giving her apples to the horses since they are expensive there. They then came back with a massive watermelon for the horse to eat — which is way too expensive in the UK to feed to animals!
I went to Paris in 2019 for one day. It was absurdly hot and we didn’t even want to eat but I desperately wanted to try a baguette from Paris. So we bought it and took it back to London on the train. It was hilarious to watch the baguette go through security. We ended up tearing off the bits that had been exposed because it had been on a conveyer belt and sat on the seat next to me on the Eurostar ride back. It was worth it. We also got one croissant, a chocolate croissant, and some sort of apple pastry. The baguette and the plain croissant were the standouts.
We have a lot of mushrooms in Finland. Especially porcini mushrooms, chanterelle mushrooms, and winter mushrooms. They are incredible food mushrooms that are sought after, for example, in Italy. And we can just go pick them in the forest. I live in Finland. We have a lot of forests so that means a lot of berries, like blueberries and lingonberries. According to our law, you can just go and pick as much as you can find. It’s kind of one of those things where if you live near any forested area, and are willing to spend time there, come late summer, you’ll probably have enough to last until next year in your freezer. We have so many berries that people from poorer countries are hired to pick them up, because doing berry picking is heavy work, and apparently the pay isn’t worth it for most Finns. At the same time, forest berries are considered a superfood around the world, very healthy and trendy. I don’t know about their actual delicacy status, but there is definitely a difference in how we think about them.
Good French pastries and stuff like croissants and chocolate puff pastries that we call “viennoiserie” in French. Obviously in France, they are super easy to find in any bakery and they are cheaper. It’s so common that honestly not a lot of people go buy croissants every day. Macarons are also relatively easy to find, usually, they are made in special shops but some bakeries do make them too. Oh, and if you go to France or go to a good French bakery in your country, try a Paris-Brest. You won’t regret it.
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Do you know of any common foods from your country that are loved by foreigners? Or maybe you found a delicacy in another country that is nothing special to the locals? Tell us your story in the comments below.
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