Bridging the Gap - The cultural exchange thread

[Kosheh]

Oh shit another new yorker ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. My fiancee's Cuban/Italian and the word "empanada" is thrown around the house quite a bit around holidays (not so many savory ones though - more like ones filled with Nutella or guava and then sprinkled with powered sugar)

(also I'm gonna slide up in your DMs Tony hope that's OK. I think you live like right next to me)


Which is also the other thing? The US is characteristically known as a "melting pot" of cultures - we don't have exclusively "American" culture here. Visit a big city, like New York City and you'll find little cultural niches for a handful of cultures. I've been to Korean, Polish, Brazilian, Greek areas of NYC (and I can go on and on) but I've been to a Korean neighborhood in Boston and Philadelphia's Chinatown. It's kinda crazy, honestly (it's probably a thing in other countries too - I'm willing to bet though that we probably celebrate it the most).

The problem with that though, is that when trying to come up with "exclusively American" foods to share in this topic, it's...hard. Because we borrow from so many other cultures lol
With that said, we've got our own cultures that we don't even understand, such as what Tony pointed out:

As for the whole Coca-Cola ordeal, I had always assumed EU and US cokes were entirely different things. It's not a brain bender for me because of your aforementioned statement about the "ours vs theirs" food regulations. My question instead would be to confirm where people use the terms "coke", "fizzy drink", "soda", "soft drink", etc. I've heard them all where I live (not surprising, I suppose XD), but I'd love to hear where you've heard these or what you've heard these drinks being called.

There's also a similar idea running along the lines of what I call a "sub" sandwich (at least in the USA). Some call it sub, like I do, but I've heard that people may say "hoagie", "hero", "grinder", and "baguette" to mean the same thing. I've used some of those terms myself, so the only ones that are a bit alien to me are "hoagie" and "grinder".  Just in case someone doesn't know what I'm referring to, here's an image of a typical sub here.

We have like 6 different names for things depending where you go in the continental US. When I'm talking to you guys, I'm giving you pretty much a northeastern US take on foods and customs and whatnot, but the South, Midwest, and the West Coast are like completely different dimensions (the South, especially). There are several names for soda - and my friends out west call it "pop" which just baffles me.

I'm going to Portland, Maine for my honeymoon though and apparently they call subs up there "Italians" which
?? ?? Why. Why do you have to just make this more complicated Maine. Why.

I'd say cornbread though is a pretty American food through-and-through, with its origins deep in Native American history. It's also really incredible but there is just not enough of it in New York and this is an absolute travesty