I like food. There are very few things I have ever tried that I didn’t like, and I have tried a few. I still have a ways to go in my food journey, so I hope there are many more things that I can taste.
Recently, a press release came to me outlining the most popular cuisines from around the world. I’m not sure what they’re methodology was or how they determined things, but some of it seems pretty reasonable. Although I believe what they mostly did was look at Instagram hashtags to figure out what people were eating. So what we are actually finding out is what sort of people would rather take pictures of their food than eat it.
The dominant meal around the world seemed to be pizza, followed by barbecue and… brunch. I know the word barbecue means something pretty different in some places than it does here. Some places would assume it referred to brisket or ribs. Some of us may think of a burger or a steak. So the term is a bit confusing to me. And “brunch” is also pretty wide ranging.
Italian food seemed to rank number one overall. Although it was indicated that there are more Chinese restaurants in the world than any other sort of cuisine. But in spite of the fact that China has the world’s largest population, it was only ranked as the seventh most popular cuisine in the world. So does that mean people in China are ordering a lot of pizza? Or maybe they just consider Chinese food as “food”.
And there were some other interesting things. Like there are more Italian restaurants in Cairo, Egypt than there are in Rome, Italy. Which in some twisted way makes sense I guess. You’re probably not taking pictures of the meal you can get at home. You’re taking pictures of what you think is special and noteworthy.
So while this did raise a few questions for me, it did get me thinking about trying different foods. There’s a whole world out there and lots of tasty food to be tried. A lot of different things that are hard to pin down to a type.
I guess my favourite is probably whatever is in front of me at the moment. And by the way, I’m going to eat it. Not take pictures of it.