In light of the absence of news as well as my recurring insomnia, which has made me unable to brain, I’m posting a list of what I consider the three best cuisines in the world. What I mean by this is that if I were constrained to eat only one nation’s cuisine for the rest of my life, these are the three I’d choose among.
Now I have experience with all of these on their home turf (and I’m also a decent Szechuan cook), so I know I’d be happy with them. One notable omission is Italian, although it’s only because I’m not familiar with the cuisine and have been to Italy only a handful of times. I suspect if I knew it better, that would be on the list. Here we go, and in no particular order:
French (all regions)
Indian (all regions, particularly the north where wheat and meat dominate over rice and vegetables, but I would never neglect the great food of southern India as well).
Chinese (again, all regions, though Hunanese and Szechuan are my favorites)
I’ll add that I am not looking for haute cuisine, particularly in France. The dishes that regular people eat are the dishes I want.
Sadly, I see Jewish food as constituting a mediocre cuisine. Yes, some Jewish food is great—latkes, pastrami, and (if you consider it Jewish) cheesecake—but you can’t eat just that for the rest of your life.
Of course you should weigh in below. And remember, this is a purely subjective list, but it is based on considerable experience.
A specimen of French food: a cassoulet:
Indian: A biryani, Hyderabad style
And mapo dofu, one of the glories of Szechuan cuisine (I ate it at the place in Chengdu where it was said to have been created):
Szechuan, Southern Mexico, Muslim Indian
Szechuan, Italian, Korean.
AGREE 😁
In practical terms though – for homemade, IMHO the meal has to be high yield – so, leftovers should be good.
IMHO of these three, Indian meets that. After lots and lots of meager results, I can make a light curry and masala I enjoy – add cauliflower, eggplant, etc. – for the long term goal : eat like a king for the rest of my life!
[Now a French accent ]
But of course, le cassoulet, c’est magnifique!
🍽️
Good choices.
My top three, in order of preference and consisting of all regions:
Mexican
Indian
Italian
When I was a kid, I used to joke to my mom: “Why can’t we just have Mexican food every night for dinner? The Mexicans do.”
Agree with your top 3, but I would switch Indian and Mexican!
No surprise that I like Egyptian food, although they don’t have a great selection for vegetarians. I could live on Egyptian bread and baba ganough. Kunafa is yummy, but very sweet. Feteer from the stall in Khan El Khalili Bazaar are gorgeous when freshly made and they can be sweet or savoury, I like it best with bananas or honey.
I’m not a huge falafel fan as they are often dry, but the fresh ones I had from a street stall in Marsah Matruh, after bussing 200 miles across the Libyan desert, were ambrosia to me.
To drink – freshly pressed sugar cane juice when in season. It looks like diarrhoea, but tastes heavenly. 😂
It’s probably easier to say which cuisines I don’t like, and that would be be French. I wish they did better veggie meals.
HA, thought you’d vote Egyptian Joolz. I dissent – I wasn’t wildly impressed with the food there, Lebanon however.
Haven’t read all the comments yet but I hope- for the sake of my sushi dinner in the fridge, the vast array of Japanese food gets a mention.
And I’ll eat as much Indian or Thai as you can shovel at me!
best,
D.A.
NYC
D.A.
NYC
Thai, Szechuan, Mexican. Indian is a close fourth. Asian food has balance that other favorites lack.
I don’t know Indian. I’d go with Italian.
I don’t travel so have no in-country experience with any of these cuisines. But could I put in a kind word for Japanese? Although I understand our host is not fond of fish, the glories of Japanese sushi are hard to surpass.
+1 Mike. But not just the fish – there’s a lot to consider, including things like “Japanese take on Italian/French” etc as well as convenience store food, ramen and lots of local fast food styles available only there.
arigatoo!
D.A.
NYC
Vietnamese
Middle eastern
Chinese
If I was in a cold country I might choose otherwise
Japanese
Chinese
French
…
German
…
Italian
…
Somali
Not necessarily in this order:
-Indian
-Mexican
-MyWife-ian
In my experience, French is superior to all others because, unlike the others, it relies primarily on the best and freshest ingredients prepared simply rather than the ingredients being merely vehicles for spices.
And genuine Italian is not that different, with considerable overlap between the two, which is more accurately labeled Mediterranean, and would to some degree include Spanish and Greek. If I had to choose one dish, it would be genuine Spanish Paella, the epitome of Mediterranean cuisine.
French, Indian, and Italian for me. Each cuisine is enormous, varied, and with regional variations that matter. All sorts of spices, sauces. Repertoires handle nearly all vegetables and meats. No cuisine comes close to French for desserts and sauces.
Chinese is definitely in 4th place. I love it, but for me, it’s iterative. Sauces are too similar for me, without the variation of the three above. No butter or cream or stock reductions? Virtually no spices except peppercorns, anise, 5-spice powder and heat? C’mon!
I like Mexican, but it is way more iterative than Asian. 10 or 15 interchangeable ingredients. Spices? Pretty much just heat, paprika, chilis, and sometimes chocolate. Forgetaboutit!
The one cuisine that is very different, it seems to me, is Japanese. But my palate can not understand the attraction to bitter, salty, and fishy umami. My bias showing.
All of the above.
But I will single out my favorite soup, which is Indian Tom kha gai. From certain restaurants, it is so amazing that the problem with this soup is that it drives everyone into non-conversational silence as we fall deep into a feeding frenzy.
If Jewish cuisine is lacking, there’s Mormon cuisine. As explained by a story someone posted here ages ago, a group of multinational students in a lab somewhere were talking about going home (IIRC for end-of-year holidays). One couldn’t wait to get home for good Indian cooking, another for good Southern cooking, Italian cooking, etc. Then there was the last guy. What was he going home to. “Mormon cooking,” he replied, dejectedly. “What’s that?,” they wanted to know. “Anything made with Miracle Whip.
But when in Venice, seek out the little things that are not much more than dinner rolls, EXCEPT for having green olives in them. They pair excellently with the dry white wine of the region, Soave (back in Jersey, wt used to refer to it as “South Avenue”.
And when in Slovenia, seek out the mushroom soup.
When in San Francisco at a Chinese restaurant, see if they have Tea-smoked duck
When in Sweden, inquire where you might find smoked lamb leg (får fiol), smoked reindeer (rökt ren), anything made with mushrooms (svamp)…