I think this is certainly the root of the misunderstandings in this (and other) spaces.

At the very-local level of course there are exceptions, but generally speaking US food is terrible compared to European food. The US optimizes for volume and cost, Europe leans more towards quality.

Yes, there's a lot of cheap rubbish food in Europe, but those consuming it know it's cheap rubbish.

By contrast, and to your point, most Americans have never experienced really good food, and so it's harder to grasp that their "regular" quality is so low. We don't miss what we've never had.

My local, nothing special, supermarket stocks over 100 species of cheese. I remember going to the US and being confronted either 3 (American, whatever that is, Swiss and Cheddar. Um, which is unlike any cheddar I've ever had. Frankly the biggest difference seemed to be the color (which is artificial).

Think is, you can't describe sailing to someone who has never seen the ocean.

Increased travel, the growth of "American in Europe" YouTube videos, have slowly started permeating though and quality food is starting to appear here and there. But (naturally) its more expensive, so most Americans will be slow to adapt.

▲

com2kid 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> My local, nothing special, supermarket stocks over 100 species of cheese. I remember going to the US and being confronted either 3 (American, whatever that is, Swiss and Cheddar. Um, which is unlike any cheddar I've ever had. Frankly the biggest difference seemed to be the color (which is artificial).

When was this comparison done?

In the last decade or so American grocery stores have dramatically improved their cheese selections. I don't know if it is 100 different cheeses, but it is pretty darn close. And unusual regional cheeses come in all the time.

▲

bruce511 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

This is from more than a decade ago. Nice to here things are improving:)

	▲	3 days ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

▲

thatfrenchguy 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> In the last decade or so American grocery stores have dramatically improved their cheese selections. I don't know if it is 100 different cheeses, but it is pretty darn close. And unusual regional cheeses come in all the time.

Eh, I mean, sure, if you go to a Whole Foods or Trader Joe, you’ll find cheese that might rival a discount chain in France at premium prices. If you go to Safeway, Target or Walmart, the cheese will not be anywhere near what a French (or I assume, a Swiss) person would find acceptable.

	▲	com2kid 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		My local QFC (Kroger), for all the complaints I have about it, has a pretty darn good cheese selection. So does my local co-op that I can walk to. Or the other bougie store less than a mile away from me. Within a 1 mile radius I probably have over 200 varieties of cheese to choose from!

▲

CrimsonCape 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It is increasingly trendy for grocery stores in America to have a "fancy cheese" section because the unit cost (eg dollar-per-ounce) of cheese makes it profitable. I'm guessing Europeans are paying high unit cost too, but don't mind because it's more socially engrained to seek out "quality" foods like fancy cheese.

In the USA, cheese is either a salad topping, a sandwich/burger topping, or a pizza topping, and not much else. I once bought some pecorino romano to make cacio-e-pepe and regret doing that, it's an overhyped dish.