Being in the U.S., us Americans tend to take our food for granted. You can get cheeseburgers and hot dogs left and right here, but they aren't quite the same when you go outside the states. Here are some of the best American foods, chosen by people foreign to the United States.
u/Two_Cigarettes asked: Non US Redditors, what is your favorite US food?
Waffle House is the restaurant for the gods.
I went to the US for a course once, and then after we closed for the day we went drinking, and after we were rather happy we ended up at a 24/7 place called Waffle House.
It is my spiritual home. When I die and go to heaven, that is where you will find me.
I'm stoked about peanut butter, and I'm American.
GiphyIdk if it's American, but peanut butter.
I brought peanut butter to my host family in Argentina and they were STOKED.
The correct answer.
Barbecue, proper low'n slow brisket, beef ribs etc etc. Fried chicken and waffles close second!
Canada has some good stuff too.
Anything that Canada doesn't have. Walking into a grocery store in the US gives me so much happiness lol.
American here, can you give some examples of things we have in grocery stores that you don't? I'm curious.
A lot of health food surprisingly, you can't get in Canada. My wife does keto and when we just go shopping at like Target or Walmart, there are tons of specifically keto foods, where in Canada you have to either go to a specialty store at a higher price, get a limited selection, or buy online.
In general though, it's mostly variety. Like you guys will have a ton of pop flavours, chip flavours, or cereals that we don't get. Energy drinks too, we mostly only get Monster and Rockstar here, I haven't seen Bawls or Jolt cola in years.
Not a grocery thing, but fast food is vastly different as well, even for chains we do have. I would say though, that sometimes ours is better, or at least just as good but just different. KFC is probably the biggest example, it tastes vastly different, and there are so many sides available in the States. It actually blew my mind when I realized most KFCs I've been to in the States don't even have fries, it's like biscuits or maybe potato wedges (we don't get either).
And then the variety of fast food restaurants in general. We get all the major ones, but there are some other franchises we don't have like Shake Shack, Carl's Jr/Hardees, any Taco franchise except Taco Bell and Chipotle, and there's no such thing as a cheap BBQ joint up here, we have some, but they're always considered like on the same level as craft breweries.
Denny's is the best.
GiphyWhen I went on a family holiday to San Francisco (we stayed with some friends of my dad in Oakland), we went to Denny's for every breakfast for 2 weeks.
Every morning I would have American pancakes stacked up, bacon and sausages, all covered in like a gallon of syrup.
I put on a stone in those 14 days.
Edit: Lol quite a response! It was my first ever trip to the US from the UK. I'm 30 now and it was 15 years ago. We went to Denny's every morning because it was just round the corner from our motel. I don't remember where we ate for lunch and dinner but Denny's was only for breakfast and I ate a lot! Just to clarify, the Denny's breakfast was not the sole contributor to me gaining a pound everyday lol, at lunch and dinner I ate loads too.
But you'll be pleased to know that since then, I have been back to the Bay Area 3 times where I stayed in Berkeley and never had a breakfast in Denny's again or a big chain diner.
With great power comes great bacon.
A Wendy's baconator I believe it's called...that's a powerful burger.
Anything that sounds like it's gonna travel through time to save the world's beef must be a hell of a burger.
Great tip!
Honey Buns. Good lord! They're so sweet, but PERFECT. I like them slightly squished. But, I'm not sure if that's because they've always come out of a suitcase, squeezed between clothes. I could eat 6 with a coffee.
Microwave it for like 7 seconds.
Really!!! I just had to take a second and steady myself, what have you done? Lol
Meatloaf can be amazing.
GiphyHamburgers, no doubt. There's tons of foods that I consider even more American that we just don't have where I live, like meatloaf and corndogs. I'm really curious about those.
Me too, tbh.
Not really a food bit I have a mighty Reese cups habit.
Have you ever had the Big Cup? It is like a bigger Reese's Cup but with a higher peanut butter to chocolate ratio.
Deep fried Oreos are the BEST.
GiphyCorn dogs, or fair food, last time I was in the US I tried a deep fried Oreo, holy crap I was skeptical but totally worth it.
Same.
Reeses, no joke. love those buggers.
I was in the US when I was 17 and honestly, microwaved pizza is gross, why do you have that? But REESES, God help me, Reeses make me weak.
Those burgers are heavenly.
GiphyIn-N-Out burgers for sure.
Also creamy peanut butter. It's not a common food in France!
Chicken makes me cry too.
Fried chicken... idk if it's a US food or not but when I tried KFC for the first time I almost cried.
Companies and products rebrand for a variety of reasons.
Sometimes they want to revitalize a dying brand.
Or stay fresh and modern.
Other times they're trying to put a negative public image in their rear view mirror.
And sometimes, someone somewhere in a company has low impulse control.
Anyway...
Reddit user PulakHasan asked:
"What's the Weirdest Rebranding of all time?"
Weight Watchers
"Weight Watchers abbreviated their name down to 'WW' and in doing so, increased the syllables needed to pronounce their new company name."
~ hambone10
"You burn more calories uttering the extra syllables."
~ jungl3j1m
waitr
"Waitr was an extremely successful delivery service here. They had full time employees and you could get food delivered in 30-45 minutes."
"Then, they made everybody an independent contractor and started calling themselves ASAP."
"'As slow as possible' caught on and they lost the majority market share within a month."
~ bravesgeek
GiphyHBO
"I still don’t understand HBO dropping probably the most prestigious name in cable tv/streaming."
~ stoneman9284
"Right?! Also it literally means Home Box Office - that’s the best name for a streaming service????"
~ oreos_in_milk
Nordic Choice Hotels
"Nordic Choice Hotels rebranded to 'Strawberry'."
"They have to mention their old name all the time, because Strawberry could be absolutely anything."
"If only it were 'Strawberry Hotels' but it's not. It's just Strawberry."
"They removed the part that explains what kind of business it is."
"Madness."
~ WoodSheepClayWheat
GiphyUSWest
"USWest-->Qwest-->CenturyLink-->Lumen I don’t care what your name is."
"Can I have more than 10mbps DSL at my address?"
~ Trickycoolj
"In Europe, and it's now Level3--> Centurylink--> Lumen--> Colt."
"I'm sure they rename in the hope people forget the incompetence."
~ ConsciousValence
"My mom has worked for them since 1977 when they were Northwestern Bell."
"She's been through a billion name changes."
~ CorporalBB
Circuit City IQ Crew
"Circuit City rebranding their PC technician division from IQ Crew (which predated Geek Squad, by the way) to..."
"Firedog."
"I worked at a Circuit City from 2005-2008 and we all thought it was a prank when we saw the announcement."
"'The intensity of fire with the loyalty of man's best friend'."
"I sh*t you not—that was the marketing."
~ Tiberius_Jim
GiphyBritish Petroleum
"When after a major oil spill, BP changed their branding to Beyond Petroleum for an ad campaign showing how they were investing in renewables."
"Logo change too."
~ RandomAmuserNew
"An oil spilled followed by a huge effort to cover it up, including dumping Corexit into the water to mix with the oil and make it sink."
"So it was no longer visible from aerial shots, but it did far, far more damage mixed with a dangerous chemical and sitting on the sea floor than slowly evaporating or being soaked up on the surface."
~ LurkerOrHydralisk
Amoco
"When BP purchased Amoco, they quickly rebranded all the stations to BP."
"Not sure if it is everywhere but Amoco had a lot of brand recognition in the Midwest and a lot of people just didn’t like BP."
"Eventually, they started rebranding some of their stations back to Amoco to cash in on nostalgia."
"I always thought it was dumb but never realized that so many people hated it until after I worked for BP (very briefly) and was told the story of how much pushback they got."
~ anitabelle
British Petroleum (BP Oil)/Paul Sableman
Overstock.com
"Overstock.com I think qualifies for weird rebrand."
"Bed Bath and Beyond went out of business and was bought out by Overstock and then Overstock just rebranded everything to Bed Bath and Beyond."
"If you go to overstock.com it’s just BBB."
~ WhatsABuckland
Snoop Dogg
"When Snoop Dogg (temporarily) changed his name to Snoop Lion to make a reggae album."
~ RomanOnARiver
"Snoop’s original name on Death Row was 'Snoop Doggy Dogg'. When he left Death Row and went to No Limit, he had to alter his name (which might have been his original name) to 'Snoop Dogg'."
~ GotMoFans
"Snoop’s mother used to call him Snoopy as a nickname which is the origin."
~ OpanaMan
"The Charles Schulz people would have had a field day."
~ GotMoFans
GiphyBooks-A-Million
"Books-A-Million to 'BAM'."
"I was in a parking lot with one and had no idea it was a bookstore, as I was a bit too far out to see more than 'BAM' from where I was parked."
~ lynnyfox
KIA
"Everytime I see the new KIA logo I assume its a NIN [Nine Inch Nails] fan."
~ vinyalwhl
"I thought it was KN for an embarrassingly long time."
~ VulfSki
"KIA changed their logo on their cars and Google showed an uptick in the searches for 'K N cars' because people liked the look of them but didn’t realise it was a KIA."
~ User_Deleted_Content
Mark Chan on Unsplash
Royal Mail
"Royal Mail deciding Consignia was the way to go forwards."
~ PonITdude
"They wanted to go international but they lost so much money that year they had to stay national and reversed the name back."
~ ShinyHead0
"Twitter to X."
~ sandiercy
"And then everyone still refers to it as Twitter."
~ Safety_Drance
"'A user on X, formerly known as Twitter, posted…'.”
~ tommyk1210
"Rather like to see 'A user on Twitter, erroneously known as X, posted...'."
~ SagittaryX
"'A user on twitter, largely unknown as X, posted...'."
~ Pinksters
"A few days ago, I saw an article that said 'Twitter, which Elon Musk incorrectly thinks is called X for some reason...'."
"That was pretty funny."
~ temalyen
GiphyCity Landmarks
"In Chicago we still call it the Sears Tower [renamed Willis Tower in 2009]."
~ baccus83
"And in Pittsburgh, it’s still Heinz Field [renamed Acrisure Stadium in 2022]."
~ NoVaBurgher
"And in Toronto, it’s still the Skydome [renamed Rogers Centre in 2005]."
~ nonanarchist
"And in New York when you take 287 across the Hudson it's still the Tappan Zee Bridge [renamed Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge in 2017]. "
~ keytarin
"A lot of LA people still call it Staples Center [renamed Crypto.com Arena in 2021]."
~ New_Simple_4531
"In Denver we will always say Mile High Stadium [renamed Empower Field at Mile High in 2019]."
~ SheBrokeHerCoccyx
Some rebrandings make perfect sense to the public.
Others are utterly baffling.
What would you add to this list?
Reddit user b-secret asked:
"What is the most embarrassing thing you have ever Googled?"
How Much?
"what's the alcohol percentage in 70% rubbing alcohol?"
~ LightsJusticeZ
"55% alcohol, 15% rubbing"
~ FishOfFishyness
Who?
"I Googled my work because I couldn’t remember my boss’ name after working there for 8 months."
"I just blanked and couldn’t think of it."
~ HCxTC
Spellcheck
"I Google how to spell restaurant all the time."
~ ParkOk6450
"I'm like that but with Febuary."
"EDIT: February"
~ NeoNero_x
"I go into incognito mode to check spellings of words I should know how to spell."
~ LordCaptain
GiphyUm, No.
"I was trying to find the name of those signs where a word is written down the side and each letter is used for a descriptive word."
"Confusing I know."
"So here’s an example: False Evidence Appearing Real"
"I know it has to have a name. So I googled 'Sign where every word starts with a letter' and Goggle responded with 'Did you mean a sentence?'.”
~ Team_Lift
Looks Like...
"Googled green beans once, was super high and forgot what they looked like."
~ testies2345
"I did the same thing with beets."
~ Jjetsk1_blows
Gaby Yerden on Unsplash
That Movie, With the Guy and the Stuff...
"I'll forget the name of a movie and just type in random sh*t I think I remember. Usually it works."
"Like 'that movie where the kid sleeps and has weird dreams and flies on a bed'."
"Works like a charm."
~ fohsupreme
Did They Have Blue Feet?
"big boobies"
"I was only 10."
"I was surprised to find some."
~ PoopPower99
"I’m 39 and I Google this every day."
~ dekkact
"They're nice birds but are they really worth Googling everyday?"
~ redwolf1219
Blue-Footed Boobies
GiphyPredictive Text
"I used to search something like 'no clothes' or 'without clothes' or something like that when I was a kid."
"Then I learnt the word NAKED because of the TV show Naked and Afraid."
"Then searched it so many times that my autocorrect started to show that word first when I wanted to type something."
~ sniper8207
NSF...S?
"My favorite band growing up was 'The Barenaked Ladies'."
"When I was at school, I once Googled them and clicked on a link that said 'free shows!'."
~ BW_Bird
Good Description
"I forgot what a 'gondola' was called so I typed in 'Thing that carries you through the mountains in a basket'."
~ TheGreatJaceyGee
"I once forgot the word for 'door' so my brain reached for adjacent concepts, smashed them together and threw them out my mouth: 'house portal'."
~ Tail_Nom
GiphyIt Just Doesn't Translate
"I have to search a random word 'auf Englisch' or a random word 'auf Deutsch'."
"Every damn day."
"It took me a minute to realize that there was no way to translate Schadenfreude into English."
~ grammar_fixer_2
Ah, Memories...
"I found out that as long as you're logged into Google, all your searches are saved to your Google account (I'm not talking about browser history)."
"So I looked back, and the 1st thing I ever googled after getting a Google account was 'Can ducks fly'."
"I've no idea why I googled this. I know ducks can fly."
~ caca__milis
GiphyYou Ate What‽‽
"Once I was with some friends and I was telling them about how when I was a kid we only got to eat nuts as a special treat around Christmas."
"Then I mentioned how much I liked squirrel nuts and no one knew what they were. So I Googled 'squirrel nuts' with image search."
"Not at all what we ate at Christmas time."
"Finally found out what my family called 'squirrel nuts' were actually called hazelnuts."
~ 123fofisix
100% NSFW
"A few years ago my coworker and I were looking at the calendar at work. It had pictures of birds and we were trying to figure out what kind of bird was pictured for that month."
"I can’t remember what she thought it was, but I darned sure it was a Great Tit."
"We have a great relationship and have been working together for a long time but we tend to argue like an old married couple. So we went to Mr Google for the answer."
"Let me tell you that Googling Great Tit at work isn’t something I will ever do again."
"For the record, I was right. The bird was a Great Tit."
~ pi11bott
Great Tit holds an insect in its beak
A Perry on Unsplash
Hope some of these folks remembered to clear their browser and search histories.
So, what's your hilarious—or embarrassing—little Google secret search?