I recently wrote a story in which I poked fun at some Irish foods. And so, to be fair, I thought we would let the Irish have their turn.
While writing the story about Irish food, I encountered an online article written by an Irishwoman called "27 foods Americans eat that we would never touch."
Admittedly, it is clickbait, and the worst kind. If you have a computer, you'll know what I mean _ you get the feeling it was written by a lazy teenager on a slow day, someone who is manifestly unfunny making a halfhearted attempt at humor.
Basically, it's 27 pictures with a couple of barely extant sentences underneath each one. You're better off just looking at the pictures.
But the pictures are actually quite telling. They show genuine American foods (for the most part) that are apparently distasteful to people overseas, or at least to one young woman who, as we have noted, is humor-challenged. Even so, we can trust her to know what people do and do not eat in Ireland.
For instance, biscuits and gravy. Apparently, the Southern staple has not made the culinary leap to the Emerald Isle. "These things are not biscuits or gravy," she writes in what is actually her funniest post by far. "That's a weird scone with some unidentified sauce that resembles gravy in no way whatsoever."
Also not popular in Ireland, apparently, is pumpkin pie. The writer notes that Americans typically use canned pumpkin to make it, and "we don't have a lot of access to canned pumpkins."
Fair enough. But also on the list is sweet potato pie, which is just pumpkin pie with sweet potatoes instead of pumpkin. "They will turn anything they get their hands on into a pie," she writes.
As an example, she cites Frito pie, which, she admits, is "not even a pie, but they insist on calling it that." Basically, it's Fritos with chili and cheese on top. While some people do eat it, I'd call it an American food that hasn't even caught on in America.
The writer, and possibly the Irish population in general, looks down on Tater Tots ("if these were anything special, we'd have them here by now") and corn dogs ("that looks extremely unappetizing"). Twinkies earn her scorn ("if you try these once, it's enough for the rest of your life. It's unlikely that you'll ever crave them again"), and so does Kool Aid ("making a drink from powder really adds an annoying extra step with very little pay off").
I can understand that those would seem unappetizing to a foreigner who has never tried them. And even some Americans who have tried them will sniff at spray cheese and what the writer calls "jars of cheese," which is to say Cheez Whiz.
But how could an entire country turn up its nose at root beer "("this tastes exactly like cough medicine. Not very refreshing at all")? Or snow cones? Or grits ("this is made of corn, but it looks like porridge. What is it supposed to be?").
And what is wrong with peanut butter and jelly _ or as the writer calls it, peanut butter and jam? Jam is better than jelly, anyway. This most glorious of all sandwiches is dismissed with "these aren't revolting by any means, but they would just never become a staple in Ireland the way that they have in the U.S."
The list pooh-poohs pastrami sandwiches, too, but only because they are made with so much meat (seemingly the only ones they know are the massively overstuffed versions sold in a few remaining New York delis). And the writer's chief objection to sloppy joes seems to be that she doesn't know what they are.
Still, the list is not entirely without merit. She says the Irish would never touch KFC's Double Down sandwich _ that's the bacon-and-cheese sandwich that uses fried chicken breasts as the bun. Likewise, she writes, they will forever remain unsullied by the brief fad of using doughnuts as hamburger buns.
Some things you just can't argue with.
