26 Baffled Foreigners Reveal The Strangest American ‘Food’ They’ve Seen

Producer’s note: Someone on Quora asked: What American food or dish do foreigners find the most strange or exotic? Here is some of the best answers that’s been pulled from the thread.

1. Amanda Tendler

Since alcohol is considered a food group by some, I feel this deserves a mention:

While traveling through Europe, I met at least a dozen people who thought it was HILARIOUS that we have to brown bag our alcohol to consume it in public.

One said that was the quintessentially American thing he did when he came to the States. He and some friends all went out and got beers wrapped in paper bags to drink on the street.

2. Britt Smith

This is according to my Guyanese family:

Cold breakfast. Guyanese people find this strange. In Guyana, most traditional breakfast foods are hot and they are eaten with hot tea (see my answer to What do people eat for breakfast outside of the US? ). They don’t really eat cold cereal (i.e. Corn Flakes, Rice Crispies). I remember my grandma actually warming up milk to put in my Corn Flakes because she couldn’t understand why I would want cold milk for breakfast.

Processed meat. Such as bologna, sandwich meats. They don’t understand how you can just eat it straight out of the package. My grandma used to fry baloney for me to eat because she thought it was raw.

Certain things as “meals”. A lot of Guyanese people I know consider sandwiches “not real food”. Also, a lot of Guyanese people don’t really go out to eat much because fast food is not considered “real” either. My mom says they had some fast food places in Guyana when she was there (this was probably the early 80s), but people considered it a “snack”.

3. Jan Leadbetter

American ‘cheese.’

That is not cheese as we know it, captain.

You can buy this crap in England now and I hold all Americans personally responsible for this crime against cheese!