So is this stuff really American?

40 comments

1. Well, we do eat bacon, peanut butter, and popcorn. I can’t tell you if this brand tastes authentic or not.

2. Well, that actually looks pretty close to the kinds of things that can be found here. I’ve never heard of macaroni cheese spread, and I wouldn’t eat it (sounds gross), but other than that you could probably find most of those sorts of things in your average American grocery store.

3. So this looks like it is made by a European manufacturer for what they think American food would be seen as by Europeans. Some of the stuff is probably fine and on par with what we have here as foods you would experience (such as the marshmellows, pancake mix, milkshake mix). Things seem like they would be close though.

   The Deli Pocket Hot Dog I have never seen in my life. I have seen Hot Pockets, I have seen Hot Dogs. The same with Buffalo pulled chicken. That is not a thing here.

   I would try all of them, and I have experience with European frozen food manufacturers and generally found them to be fairly high quality. I think most of these foods, while not what we actually eat would probably be up to par and something Americans might like (at least the Americans who eat the more authentic versions of these foods).

   I will say this. The prices seem very very cheap. Stuff at my local grocery store is more expensive.

4. I would say they all looked pretty on the mark, especially the pancake mix, toaster waffles, the frozen wings, and the popcorn machine.

5. Without a taste test, not sure. I’ve found that many European versions of American food are too sweet and lack seasoning with herbs or spices or even extract of vanilla.

6. I do not recognize this McEnnedy brand. Never seen it before, and frankly I’m not impressed.

   We do eat popcorn. I recommend against those air poppers, because with no oil and salt, you get flavorless popcorn. Forget the pancake pan, just…use a pan.

   I don’t know what a “turkey rasher” is. Turkey bacon?

   Speaking of bacon, I’m aware the cut of meat Americans just recognize as “bacon” is called “streaky bacon” in the UK, so, sure. That’s what I’d fry up next to my pancakes or scrambled eggs or whatever. It’s what the narwhal does at midnight.

   The hot dog hot pocket is a little bizarre.

   Gherkin slices? My understanding of a Gherkin is tiny young cucumbers pickled whole in a sweet brine, and I’ve NEVER seen them sliced on sandwiches. We pretty much universally use dill slices for that. Sweet pickles made from full-size cukes I’m used to calling “bread n’ butter” pickles.

   Those are absolutely not “steakhouse fries.” Steak fries are rectangular in cross section, about 1×3 centimeters or so, with an almost bread-like crust to them and a soft interior. I don’t know what to call what’s in that bag.

   Chicken tenders, onion rings…those look fine.

   That peanut butter is a strange color; it’s dark like it’s got molasses or something in it.

   The phrase “cynical caricature” comes to mind.

7. To give feedback on the items in general (not so much the specific brand:

   * We do have popcorn makers like that, though you can also buy plenty of pre-bagged popcorn that you can either put in the microwave.

   * We don’t have special pancake pans, we use normal nonstick or greased skillets and just eyeball the batter amount.

   * I’ve seen donut makers like that before, but only in the As-seen-on-TV products aisle in stores, and never bought it.

   * Peanut butter is very much a thing—it goes great with a jam/jelly on a sandwich. The big debate among Americans is whether crunchy (with whole peanut bits) or smooth is better.

   * The cheese spread seems similar to nacho cheese, a melted cheese dip commonly served with nachos.

   * Sliced turkey breast is popular on sandwiches.

   * Streaky bacon is the most common form of bacon in the US. Back bacon in the US is usually sold pre-cooked in little round slices and called Canadian bacon (where it was first imported from).

   * Frozen toaster waffles are fucking amazing. The real tragedy is that they don’t sell maple syrup too.

   * Hawaiian style pizza (even though it was invented in Canada), topped with diced pineapple and ham, is even more divisive than the smooth/crunchy peanut butter debate.

   * No clue what the hell “loaded cheese” means. Usually, it’s used to refer to foods with a bunch of different toppings.

   * Similarly baffled by the “deli pocket hot dog.” Seems to be a riff on a Hot Pocket (a microwavable frozen snack roughly analogous to a sausage roll).

   * The “American style” cookie dough seems to be chocolate chip—it was invented in the US, after all.

   * The “Creamy mini cakes” are a knockoff of the Hostess Twinkie. They’re just snack cakes with a very artificial tasting vanilla cream filling.

   * Their sweet popcorn seems to be how they brand kettle corn, or popcorn cooked with some sugar so it gets a sweet and crunchy coating.

   * No clue what the “peanut flips” are. A peanut flavored version of a cheese puff?

   * Duff is a fictional beer brand from *The Simpsons*. I didn’t know, but I’m not surprised, to learn that they have an actual Duff brand now.

8. Most of these foods look like something I would eat (or have eaten)… but the phrase “streaky bacon rashers” fills me with rage

9. Never heard of the brand Mcennedy’s that doesn’t exist over here lol

   It looks like things we’d have but it’s off somehow like something you would see in a tv show or movie that doesn’t want to use product placement or something.

   That processed cheese dip and pizzas and hot dog pockets look rank though! Lol

10. Lidl does these “country cuisine” weeks for different countries (though annoyingly, “Asia” gets treated as a monolith).

    Coworkers have asked me about my opinion on “America week”. To which I simply ask them about their opinion when it’s “<their country> week”.

    That usually settles it.

    Which means, we all agree that it’s directionally accurate but it’s full of stereotypes and generalizations.

11. I cannot tell you if things taste authentic but those creamy mini cakes look like they’re trying to be Hostess Twinkies.

    We do have peanut butter ice cream. We have peanut butter everything. Lol.

    I’ve never seen gherkin slices. We have gherkin, just not slices. We use dill or kosher dill for slices.

    I’ve never seen a cookie dough milk drink. Not saying its not out there but not popular where I am. We do have cookie dough ice cream.

    We have toaster waffles. They’re made my Eggo.

12. A lot of it actually looks like it would fit in on the snack isle here, so most of what I say is going to be nitpicks.

    The appliances don’t really look like what we’d have here. We have waffle makers, but they’re *ALWAYS* square/rectangular, with little square holes. Hexagonal waffles with little waffle spheres looks so weird and I don’t think any of us would recognize that as a waffle if you asked. And why combine it with a donut and omelette maker? People I’ve seen make donuts just use a pan with oil, and it seems way easier to just make an omelette in a pan instead of worrying about that machine. For the pancake maker, just use a skillet an pour batter directly on. It’s a liquid so it’ll settle and cook circular, no need for a specific pan. I actually like the idea of the snack helmet as a cool little novelty item. It reminds me of getting Dip-n-Dots in a baseball-helmet-shaped bowl as a kid at baseball games, and I imagine they had similar things at football games.

    I don’t know what “Turkey Rashers” are, but if it’s just sliced turkey, y’all don’t have that? For the milk shake, you’re probably better off just making your own using chocolate ice cream. And I’ve never seen a flavored milk drink like that, our only milk flavors are regular milk, chocolate milk, and strawberry milk (and kids are the main consumers of the latter two). I think we do probably have pancake batter like that but it usually comes in powder for us (like flour) so that you can get more pancakes per box. The pizza just has a weird look to it and looks strange, idk how to describe it. I don’t really buy pickles, but I think they usually come whole, not pre-sliced (I’m assuming what you call pickled gherkin is what we call a pickle), but I could be wrong. Not sure what pepper relish is but since it says it’s for BBQs maybe it’s a southern thing I don’t know about. But then “Giant Peanut Flips”… They look like Cheetos puffs, but peanut flavor? Something about that feels *very* wrong. And Duff beer is a fake brand from the Simpsons and I’ve no idea who makes it, but don’t judge American beer by it. It says Lagerbier Hell and the company that makes it seems to be German, so who knows.

    It’s hard to recommend any of it because Mcennedy seems like a British brand so it’s hard to know if they got the execution right.

13. None of that is American. It pretty much all looks like a half-assed European take on something American.

14. Duff beer?

    From the Simpsons?

    Hahaha that’s fucking incredible, I’d love to try it.

    Makes me think it’s only a matter of time until they have Slurm soda lol

15. It’s not an American brand, and the names are decidedly not American (is turkey rashers sliced turkey?), but the pictures look like at least the concept is mostly stuff you’d find in the US.

    We’ve definitely got pancakes, bacon, peanut butter ice cream, vanilla ice cream, fries of all varieties. Even those bull shaped potato thimgs, while not something I’ve seen in America, are something I can imagine being sold. After all, we’ve got them shaped like smilies and dinosaurs.

    I’ve never had a peanut butter ice cream I don’t like, so I’d try that one. It’s a hard thing to make badly.

    I’ve never seen sliced gherkins, those are usually sold as a slightly higher end pickle and always whole. Dill and bread and butter (it’s the name of a sweet pickle, neither bread nor butter are ingredients) are the two most common pickles, with there being several styles of dill.

16. certainly don’t recognize any of the brands. the color of that peanut butter is extremely offputting

17. While I’m unfamiliar with the brands, yes this is the kind of crap Americans buy.

18. It’s not American. It’s not how we spell flavour. We spell it FLAVOR.

19. Yeah there is definitely stuff like that in stores here, but I wouldn’t buy any of it. Looks like over-processed junk food.

20. Never seen that brand before.

21. I don’t know this brand at all. Never heard of them. It’s almost entirely junk food, which is typical for how you guys stereotype us.

    At first glance the one thing I can get behind is the popcorn maker. We had one of those old school popcorn makers when I was growing up and it was always much better than microwave popcorn. You can buy a giant jug of the kernels at wholesale stores. And unbuttered popcorn can be a healthy-ish snack.

22. Our local Winn Dixie (grocery store) ads look similar.

23. No. It’s like a weird version where everything is very subtly wrong. It’s honestly slightly creepy.

    Also, never seen that brand before. Is it an EU brand that makes American-parody food?

24. No. There’s a lot of fake-brands in Europe that use stereotypical marketing to appear authentically American.

25. No, McEnnedy makes up food that sounds vaguely American and then markets it as authentic knowing that European audiences will believe it.

26. Lmao that was sad. I’ve see those donut makers but that’s about it.

27. I can’t speak to the quality of the McEnnedy brand, but I definitely eat Monterey Jack cheese. It’s a very mild and buttery California cheese that melts well. Oft-mentioned European substitutes are havarti or a young gouda.

28. The fuck is a “mini rib”?

29. Besides the weird naming (ie deli pocket), and unfamiliar brands I wouldn’t be surprised to see any of that in the grocery store.

    I’d try all that stuff, but probably avoid the peanut butter (no sugar added is a red flag).

    My top 5 to try would be the cookie dough ice cream cookies, Hawaiian pizza, and the fried snack box, the BBQ box, and buffalo chicken box.

30. I’ve never been to Lidl, so I don’t know the brand.

31. kinda like a weird American with a poor diet..

32. No

33. It’s the “Duff Beer” for me lol. That’s literally a [fictional brand from The Simpsons](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duff_Beer) and no where to be found here. Some of the stuff you would find, like frozen waffles and frozen pizza, but a lot of that stuff looks like garbage and I’d never think to try it.

34. I think there are two questions here

    -can you find food like this in America?

    Probably, wouldn’t know without tasting it. I’m guessing the flavor profiles have been altered to accommodate regional tastes which is a near universal practice at this point

    -Is this indicative of what Americans eat on an average day?

    Not really. I’m sure you could find someone who eats like this every meal but for the most part almost all of these foods are pure junk food.

    Take pancakes for example. Sure, people like pancakes but most people aren’t eating them all that often. Many Americans don’t even eat breakfast or if they do it’s coffee and an energy bar / some fruit / a bagel etc…

    Other than pickles or Monterey jack cheese none of this is stuff I would plan to eat on a random Tuesday.

35. I would definitely eat that ice cream.

    Otherwise, it looks like they’ve tried to hit most of the stereotypes, with varying results. At least the pizzas don’t have a corn topping—we don’t do that here.

36. A lot of these resemble what would be created if you were to describe the food item to someone who has never seen it then they tried to recreate it. Almost everything is *almost* familiar.

37. I have no idea what that is.

38. It’s definitely a caricature of what’s supposed to be American. The peanut butter looks a little weird. And the hot dog pockets are weird too, but I imagine people here might try it. The bacon looks pretty legit.

    I have no idea what BBQ bulls are or peanut flips.

39. These all look like the snacks that your mom says you have at home in that meme.

    I do love that they are apparently able to sell Duff beer, though.

40. i really wish these people would take a map of the united states, throw a dart, and whatever region it lands on, do research for the cuisine there and present it in an respect manner that they would reserve for every other country. instead of, “processed food, processed food, something from the candy shelf at the check out, something we don’t even have, guys seriously we use seasoning and have produce sections, why is that radioactive”